Late-Round Perspectives: Matt Waldman Returns Again

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Speaker 1: Matt Waldman is a Football Guy senior staff writer who's best known for his intensely detailed prospect work with his rookie scouting portfolio. He's been around the fantasy football industry for over two decades. He's a musician, and he's now a late round perspective staple. These are his late round perspectives. We just sent a bunch of humans the furthest spot away from Earth that any human has been right out to the moon, and yet it might still be less impressive than the rookie scouting portfolio length that you have each year.

00:00:44
Speaker 2: Well, if they just needed a ladder, they could have.

00:00:47
Speaker 3: Told me, I mean, how many pages is the portfolio this year?

00:00:53
Speaker 2: Twelve hundred and sixty seven And that's not even the longest one I've ever done.

00:00:57
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask that next. Yeah.

00:00:58
Speaker 1: Well it was really funny because this year was the first year that we built. So I hired on Brandon Goadula, who I worked with that number Fire and FanDuel, and we build out a new tight end model this year. And as a result of him helping me out now and me having more help in general, he wrote the tight end profiles for the Prospect Guide this year, and we always do, you know, whatever, whoever gets invited to combine is who we end up writing up. And of course this year more tight end invites that we've had since like two thousand and four, I think it was, so of course this is the year that we are introducing this new model and this new idea with the tight ends, and then we have, you know, twenty seven pages worth of guys that we're writing up. But I mean the Rookie Scouting Portfolio. I mean, I'm assuming you're just in a cave for like months and then you just emerge and you're now you know, you know it released yesterday, right, yeah, and now you've now officially emerged.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it kind of feels that way because March doesn't exist for me. It's it's literally and no longer is a month on my calendar. It's like February and then suddenly there's sunlight, you know, right. But honestly, I'm just something I do throughout the year. So I'm working a lot throughout the year. It just gets super focused between late December and now. So it does feel that way, other than you know, walks with the dog and occasionally making time with my wife and I, you know, and things like that. It's but it's it's gotten a little more efficient over the years. So that's been helpful too. I mean there was a time I was working two other jobs while doing this thing, and I that's why my hair is the color it is right now. And when I was thirty six, I had brown hair, you know. So the different The joke is, my wife goes, you look like Russell Crow. When I met you, you look like shipwrecked Russell Crow, or like what was it lost? Go type up Russell Crow lost at sea? And that's me on a bad day, literally is.

00:03:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, so March madness has a different, different meaning for you.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you know, I used to be a big Georgia Tech college basketball fan in the eighties with Bobby Kremin's and Mark Price and Dennis Scott and all of them. I haven't watched I haven't watched a basketball game since Dwayne Wade went to the pros. Yeah that was you know. So it's like it is a totally different meaning now. For sure, it's like should I leave the house? What happens if I leave the house? But I don't have this think, you know, should I be walking my dog in the woods down these hills like I am at fifty six and falling down these hills and laughing, or should I be considering the fact that, you know, I should probably get this book done before I start doing foolish things like that. I still do it, but it's it is. There are implications when I fall down a hill and I go, yeah, in about ten years, this might not be a good idea for me, and you know, and I'm putting my business at risk.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, true, true, very true.

00:03:57
Speaker 1: So anyone listening, we're recording this on second, This is gonna be going out a week later because I'm actually I am taking a vacation next next week. I'm I'm I'm good to do. Yeah, I got it.

00:04:09
Speaker 2: Well.

00:04:09
Speaker 1: I got an email from somebody from a listener actually last week and they're like, do you ever like take a vacation because you know, there're And the funny thing is that, like, I'm prepping for being gone next week, so I'm recording a couple of shows that there are still shows out there for people while I'm gone. I mean, I'm running a business you have to be for, you know, to think through this kind of stuff. And uh but yeah, we're going my my daughter's on spring break. We're going with a couple of families down to Florida and just having a you know, beat beach and pool vacation, just hang out for a little bit. But the nice part about the prospecting stuff is that it is in the timeframe, you know, pre draft. It is relatively timeless unless something like crazy off the field happens. So if anything like that happens over the next six days or whatever the case may be, you guys know that we're recording this now, and you know, we didn't know that that thing was going to happen, but hopefully nothing does happen. Seems like it seems like the things that are happening are more you know in the uh yeah, right, yeah, it's it's it's just more the random pro day stuff and people just talking themselves into circles on Twitter and.

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Speaker 3: All that kind of kind of stuff.

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Speaker 2: You know, that's right.

00:05:08
Speaker 1: So look, you you wrote this giant document, and I know that dumbing it down to a scale of one to ten is absolutely insane. But look, when you look at this draft class for fantasy football purposes, and you look at the positions that will be drafting, and you can look at this from a superflex or regular you know, one quarterback league.

00:05:28
Speaker 3: How would you rate this.

00:05:29
Speaker 1: Class one to ten if you were to just give it a general score of how talented and deep this thing.

00:05:35
Speaker 2: Is, I'd like to joke six point seventy five, six eight five or no, it's Leo's I'd say about six and a half, you know, mainly because I think it's better than people are saying, because people don't understand, Like you look at the running back class and I say it's trash and from what I've discovered looking at how I've graded out, like what an expectation is like starter value type of thing. The difference between a great class and a bad class, from what I've observed of how people perceive it, is plus or minus one running back. You know. So it's kind of like, you know, oh, it's a trashy running back class. Oh so if one of those guys breaks out that we didn't expect, oh it's a decent running back class. And if one more guy breaks out, oh it was a great class. Okay, so then you wide receiver class, it's not as top high at the top as it was the past two years. But I think the number of players who could actually still contribute statistically and have a fantasy factor is the same. So that's good. You have a I believe there's a starting quarterback in this class who you could put him on a bad team and like Caleb Williams can survive the bad team and actually be the as I told joke with Sigmund Bloom yesterday, he can actually be the thermostat and not the thermometer of the team and withstand all the harshness. And I thought that way of Caleb Williams from the beginning. I think that way of Fernando Mendoza now even with the Raiders, Whereas I look at like the cam Wards, c J. Strouds, Bryce Young's those guys that like, depending on the year in the first three years, it's either good or they're awful, and it's depending on what's going on around them. And I think that, you know, maybe Ty Simpson is more the thermometer, the highest end thermometer in this class, whereas where's Fernando Mendoza is actually the thermostat. So when you look at that and then tight end, as we'll probably get into, is a whole other mess right now, because if you agree with Matt Harmon's new hire Max Tuscano about the shape of where tight End is going, instead of instead of us valuing the big oversized receiver who can run receiver like routes, we might be going to valuing more of the big oversized fullbacks who can catch and run, but they don't have to do anything other than what Tucker Craft does for green Bay, which is block and drift out and go, oh where is everybody? Well, let me go ahead and run, you know, as J J wats Ty Warren, how does it feel to catch a ball and nobody's within fifteen yards of you? You know?

00:08:13
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I think that especially in retrospect and looking at last year's class, because I thought last year's class is pretty strong, you know, while we were evaluating, and obviously I think in hindsight it looks strong too. But I do think that the fantasy community in general, it does us more good than bad to not just look at the straight up production obviously that these guys are accumulating and say and instead ask the questions, well, how or why was this happening?

00:08:41
Speaker 2: You know?

00:08:41
Speaker 1: And I think the dichotomy between Colston Loveland and Tyler Warren is such a good example of that, you know, where Loveland played a much more traditional tight end role in that bears offense. And I say traditional as in the pure pass catching, slash all around type you know, down down the field and the same type of role, whereas Tyler Warren was not. I mean he was doing the things that you're saying. You know that a Kenyan Sadik or whomever might be more in that, like the lower A dot stuff the or Tucker Craft was your example, the lower A dot stuff, get them in space, let them do more after the catch, but the skill set is not the same, right like the like what they're bringing to the table. And I know we're just we're immediately going to tight end, but I think it's a really important discussion to have. Is that what you're seeing at tight end this year, especially with the dichotomy and the difference between A and Eli Stowers versus the Kenyan Sadik.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a great question, and I think that for me, what it is is, you know, there's three types of tight ends. We talked about the other two, and I would put Colston Lovelin as the unicorn because he can do it all and it probably earned me most wanted posters on Indianapolis post all offices everywhere in all the surrounding counties talking about that online. But the thing, the fact that matter is is yeah, I've actually changed. I added an algorithm to my scoring to where I usually the RSP. I used my own analytics to study film and process through that to create a score and how I rank them. It's called depth of talent. How well do they do the things that you expect the position to do. And I use the depth of talent in the past for tight end, where I emphasized receiving route running as essentially equal, and then blocking was about half that value of either one of those categories. And that's because for years it was big wide receivers, so I value that more. Now, with the prospect of what we've seen happening, I've decided that maybe the best thing to do is to have that depth of talent score, but make one where I do an inline depth of talent score with inline tight ends. I make the blocking equal in value to receiving, and the route running now is what blocking used to be for the other. For the other format so I've kept both. I've kept the original scoring, but then I have the other one too, because that helps us say, all right, so now now we've had the draft and this guy went to a team that's got runs a lot of base two tight end and three tight end sets. What could he offer as his upside? That'll be a more accurate use way of doing it because I still look at the same things. I still look at the same detail. I just value the scoring differently. That's all I have to change. And so as a result of that, with this tight end class, I feel like it just it is. It's true. It's like if you look at the traditional look at where I have, you know, Eli Stowers is my number one guy. If I look at it from the inline tight end, look Sam Roche is my number one guy from Stanford because of what he can do as a blocker. And yeah, and there's some guys that are kind of in the middle of either. But it's true. It's like where they wind up. Where they wind up is going to matter, and you can see that that may play out more, but it's gonna be maybe not just this year, but in year two and year three where we have to look back and go, oh, okay, now that's how that's unfolded.

00:12:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that last year was a pretty glaring change. I mean, we've seen the shift in the NFL. Most of these shifts are relatively gradual, you know. It's it's not like overnight a team just all of a sudden switches from a heavy eleven team to just being a twelve team. I mean we kind of saw with the Rams maybe a little bit like you can make the argument, but like league wide trends, it's usually more gradual, right because they're you know, reacting to too high or they're reacting to these speedier, you know, smaller defenses, and this is the way that now it's more run heavy, and usually that's this this more gradual, you know change. And I think that when you look at the you know, one one team to the next, when you're evaluating the NFL, you're now seeing actually and like teams operate in a pretty different, unique and distinct way versus what we might have seen ten years ago, like one team to another, like the you know, Bengals might still run a ton of eleven or like whatever the case may be. And then you go to what the Rams did last year, or you go to some of these heavier twelve teams, and that alone makes I think tight end evaluation in particular a lot more nuanced than it used to be, right like it, it's just completely completely different than and look I'm I'm admittedly like I've only probably been evaluating, like strictly evaluating tight ends for the last like three or four years maybe, and then obviously we changed up the model this year, and I really dove in more this year than I have in years past. But I just think strictly from like a personnel deployment standpoint and the way that teams are are working. Like a guy like Eli Stowers, you know, is your a val of him, like he's not the best blocker, but he's in a phenomenal receiver?

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Speaker 3: Is that like the tld R of a stours for you right now?

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Speaker 2: I would say, so that's he's He's definitely the traditional move tight end, yeah.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, and then Sadik being more I mean, but but then you also this class is interesting too. I mean you mentioned you mentioned Raush like he's massive, right, this is like Darnell Washington sized, you know, tight end and and and and comparing him to Kenyan Sadik, who's not that big, right, but he obviously has the athleticism and you know, tested through the roof at the combine. It's just so interesting to me how fit just seems so important at the position because of the different tight end sizes that we're seeing, the different tight end skill sets, the different ways that teams are deploying tight ends. I mean, do you are you going to I guess my question would be, and I'm just kind of like brain vomiting here, but my my my question would be, is this a position now that you are even more more landing spot and team specific than you otherwise would have been, uh, you know, maybe seven or eight years ago.

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Speaker 2: Honestly, I guess I've kind of always been that way because like I remember back when studying Dennis Pitta or Aaron Hernandez or players like that and going wow, you know, like get them on the right spot, or Jordan Reid thinking Okay, what ends up having to happen is I used you know, I used one formula usage. So I'd say I've already becoming more nuanced in in actual how I score it because of adding this I depth score or inline depth score that kind of makes it official. But in the past, what I would probably do is I would rank them based on receiving heavy running ability as a higher and weight, and then I would say, well, you know, in the good in a good landing spot, Jordan Reed really could be could really crush it, you know. But you know, or if you have a team that runs a lot of play action out into the zone, you know, Dennis Pitto was probably going to be a better player than you would expect, and you need to keep an eye on that, And so I would judge it independently that way. But now that I've kind of realized where we're evolving and heading that there's two distinct ways, it just kind of makes it easier because you're studying those things in depth the way that you need to. If you're studying everything that a tight end could possibly do in depth, then if you've waited two different ways of doing it, the way that the NFL realistically is deploying them, then you kind of have it covered. But at the same time, like I can put it to you this way, I mean, what changed prompt to change for me wasn't just Tucker Craft and Tyler Warren, because those guys actually could run some semblance of routes beyond what they're asked to do, even though it looks ridiculous, Like from a standpoint, you know that people when you tell people what you're saying, sometimes they misinterpret and say, Matt Wallman says that guy can't run a route to save us behind. But you know he's just getting lucky catching the ball into these open spots, which is not not what I'm trying to say. But when I saw a J. Barner, who is never going to be mistaken as a man, a man are outrunner to come in like top fifteen in Fantasy because he's so good basically posting up and he's a good blocker. And you suddenly see while that in a two tight end set, or how Harold Fannin was used, you know, and Fannin to me was a good example of that nuance because you know, there are a lot of people who ran off that bandwagon as fast as they could when the combine numbers hit. And when I looked at those combine numbers, I'm like, that's that's Sam Laporta. I mean, it's basically Sam Laporta. If he's used in an offense that has some similarity Sam Laporta. He's gonna be fine, and that's what happened last year. We'll see what happens this year with Todd Munkin in the fold, whether that's going to change. But those are I think that, yeah, you're to the long of it is is, yeah, you're the nuances of that is going to force everybody to be a little bit more attended to where landing spot matters.

00:18:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, from just an objective, you know, evaluation standpoint, I know that you know you you seemed a little bit bearish, if you will, versus let's say where NFL mock draft database dot Com or whomever has Kenyon Sadik so talk about his game a little bit and what makes you like talk about I mean talk about the pros and cons because I think that I actually have seen, especially in the fantasy space, there's been a lot of discussion of like, hey, this guy isn't nearly as good as as top ten draft capital. I think a lot of people are in agreement of sort of that, or you know, top twenty draft capital. Let's say, and that Eli Stowers because like objectively and analytically, Eli Stowers has better you know production metrics than AGU justin production and seems to be is more of the receiving type that we we gravitate towards from a fantasy perspective. But talk about Sidik and how you kind of envision him playing out in the NFL.

00:18:59
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, when he's playing to his potential, he's going to draw mismatches as a big vertical receiver, okay from h back alignments, So he's going to get those that Kenny Galladay early Chase Claypool kind of love. Is a big receiver who stretches things out and there's some really good players buffering him that draw coverage away, so he gets the mismatch. But you know, as well as he tests tests as an athlete, it doesn't always translate to the field. You know, he's not sudden as a route runner right now. You know, he doesn't really understand how to cultivate that suddenness that you need to have debate opponents. Most young receivers don't really have that unless they're one of the top, you know, three to five receivers on the board each year. He doesn't earn you know, there's plays where he just plays slow, like I've seen him on seam routes where he can't separate from linebackers. But I know how fast he is, and I'm thinking that that makes no sense. But then he'll do then he'll play. He'll run a whip route or a pivot route, know and beat the cornerback three to five steps midway through the stem. So there's some When you see that, you go, all right, is he overthinking certain things? Is that because he's overthinking what the coverage looks like and he's not familiar with what he's doing. Is it that he's just lackluster in his application and consistency of doing the work. But in addition to that, you look at like does he tip off he tips off brakes to defenders. You know, he has undisciplined moves where at the top of his stem he's not selling the thing, the route well enough. At the top of the stem, he doesn't drop his weight deep enough, you know, with certain timing routes to earn that compelling separation. You know. So you have a lot of little technical loose ends that can get magnified when you face tougher defenses in terms of the personnel, the scheme, and you have a quicker reaction time in your offense that's expected of you to perform, and when you have to start thinking, your game slows down, your error rates go up. Your technique is what goes away. Even things that you knew how to do and you could do it like easily nine times out of ten in practice, but now you're overthinking something else. Suddenly you look like the little girl trying to catch a ball for the first time, you know, I mean you see it every year, and it happens. I mean anytime you're in a performance medium like that, these types of things happen. So he has some catch flaws too like that that play out his lapses. So he's one of those guys that I expect to figure it out. But it's I don't expect him to be an instant star unless he's getting He's just put in a plush situation where where it's just like, do these two three things know and you're going to be wide open and it's good. So he's just got there's a few players in this tight end class that have high upside but a trap door, and he's one of those guys that if some team, if the GM disagrees with the coach and the GM is like, I know you're running twelve and thirteen personnel, but I like this Kenyan sediqu so much. He's such a playmaker. I'm going to draft him, and now you've got to make him work. The coach has ticked off, and I've had a scout literally laugh with me because I said this about Sam Laporta. I was like, he's got to be picked in the right spot because if the coach and the GM don't agree, there's going to be a pissing contest where the coach the GM force feeds the scout. I mean the coach, and the coach tells this guy to fatten up so that he can play on the line. So now you have an overweight dude who can't block on the line. And then he points to the GM and says, see, I told you this guy can't play. You know, he wasn't worth it. And I really had a guy who worked for multiple teams say this was so funny because I've seen this play out multiple times in the league. Yeah, sad So that's the problem with Sadik is the upsides there. But but there's a lot of little trapdoors and loose ends that he's got to tie up.

00:23:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then and then with Stours, what do you see with him?

00:23:19
Speaker 1: Because I think again the TLDR for him is great receiving profile, looks like he could play wide receiver but doesn't necessarily the blocking chops is what is what I mean analytically, Like I said, age justin production looks better than Sadik, you know, obviously tested unbelievably well. It's kind of crazy that we got Sadiq's athleticism numbers and Stours the same year because they were both like just unheard of, you know, just ninety nine percentile type stuff.

00:23:46
Speaker 3: So what are you seeing though with Stours?

00:23:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he's definitely a good pass catcher who steadily improved how he tracks the football. As a former top end quarterback who tours ACLS junior year in the high school, you know, he had offers from Georgia and ten schools. He was really good, and he ended up at New Mexico or New Mexico State, I don't remember which one. But he had a labram tear so he wanted to keep playing, so they moved him the tight end. So he understands zones probably a little better than the average tight end who's still learning them. He's very good in open space. He's a great decision maker, he is a he's physical, and he's good at tight coverage catches, which is really nice for a player who you've got to ask, if he's going to twelve and thirteen personnel, is he better than the wide receiver too on that team, because that's what he's got to be to be meaningful as a fantasy player. And you'd say, while the numbers are good in terms of his athletic ability, there's also a lot of tight coverage plays, and so that kind of tells you is he going to be able to separate in the NFL at the level that he needs to or you're going to have to have a quarterback really trust him as a that's going to be the pivotal part of his game. As you mentioned, I think he's going to have difficulty with larger defenders in the NFL, even like strong side linebackers. Definitely ends at this point. He can drive some defensive ends into traffic when he takes the correct shoulder when he's like backside, and there's certain blocks that he can do. But I would say he's someone that is at his size, he's probably maxed out, so you're looking at him as more of how Travis Kelce blocks. You know, you know more backside, you know, the type of stock blocking that you see double teams, maybe a lead blocker in some areas. I would say that guys like Stours, Michael Trigg, and Kenyon Sadik, they all have the athletic ability to become big play weapons, and I'd say Trigg and Sadik have more of it, but I'd say Stowers is the more complete route runner and pass catcher, and there's a lot fewer lapses in his game, So I think he could become a future starter, but you need him to being on eleven team. Yeah, eleven personnel team. That makes sense.

00:26:13
Speaker 1: And then I'll just throw it out there, like, is there another tight end that that you know outside of those two? Because it seems like from a consensus standpoint, people are all over the place and who they're tight end three in this class is or just like who? Like, it's just there's no consensus outside of those two. Do you have a favorite or is there anyone that's a value that you just want to toss out there so that in.

00:26:32
Speaker 3: Three years you can say I told you so.

00:26:34
Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely, And I'm laughing because you know, I've never been a PFF grade guy, no one. I think you know, there's there's I think PFF has offered a lot of has advanced the conversation of football, and a lot of respects. Yeah, you know, so all props to what they what was going on there, But rarely would I say that I aligned with a grade from a player and so certain ways. So when I watched Carson Ryan of BYU and studied him and said, pound for pound, this is the best blocker in the class I'm watching. I watched him take on Miami's defensive ends and hold up pretty darn well. He takes great angles with any kind of block. He knows how to set up larger or smaller defenders so that he can get position on them, he can punch, he has good technique. And then on top of that, I've seen this guy at UCLA, Utah and BYU, and every time I've seen somebody go downfield to him and they've and oftentimes throw him open downfield where he's covered, and then at the last moment of the catchpoint point, Ryan earns position in the way that like Lad McConkey earns position late in the catchpoint on certain plays in the red zone, you know, with Justin Herbert where you have to have trust like that, And I've thought six four to two fifties kind of a tweeter between a big guy and a little guy. Probably more of a little guy. He's not super fast, but makes every block, catches the ball really well, catches it against tight coverage extraordinarily well, runs reasonably well after the catch, and he works open you know, he's like that safety blanket who can you can work in the vertical game and get lost in the zones and he can do what Mark Andrews can kind of do. But my cop form is Jake Ferguson. There's another tight end I like to who you go, probably a career tight end two. But if he makes but if he gets on that that starting lineup, he may never give up the job. Yeah, none of that.

00:28:33
Speaker 1: He liked it reliable and then yeah, exactly, And in the right environment, those guys can be valuable, you know, and for no one looks at Ferguson is like, man, this guy's lighting the world on fire. But in the right environment, in that Dallas offense, it's like, yeah, he can. He can be a valuable fantasy piece.

00:28:47
Speaker 2: And that's what to me, Carson Ryan is and he's my he's my te five and in my and if I used my twelve personnel run heavy in depth, he'd be tight end three because of the fact that he blocks his ass off. I mean, like, even for that size, that's you know, that's not big. But man, put him on the wing and let him be the guy that works across the line, have him be a full back every once in a while, have him lead and he's killer. Yeah. So, and the fact that he can catch and he can run reasonably well too. Sure, I love it.

00:29:24
Speaker 3: I love it.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: There's the the Matt Waldman stamp of approval of the dart throw tight end.

00:29:31
Speaker 3: Let's move on to running back.

00:29:32
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned that you thought it was probably a better I also I also want to say that I think that in some the general consensus, like like because people are always asking me, like, hey, is this a good class upcoming, you know, in like March or sorry, in like November or whatever, and I'm not even doing much prospecting work, and like you know, I'm very casually watching stuff. And then in January. Once that hits, that's when I really, you know, turn things around. But you know, there's always the questions of like, hey, how good is that twenty twenty seven class?

00:30:03
Speaker 3: How good is that twenty twenty eight class?

00:30:05
Speaker 1: And you can definitely give an answer, But I also think that we just get stuff wrong a lot, and we should be open to that being the case, even for this running back class. You know, analytically I would say that it's not doesn't look great the running back class, but I don't want to close the door on there being players that end up emerging. Now, one player who almost definitely won't emerge as Jeremiah Love, just just given draft capital itself, in the investment that a team's going to make, he's more likely going to be very fantasy productive. But my question to you is, like how special is he as a prospect? You know, is he Ashton Gent slash Jamior Gibbs slash b John Robinson type level?

00:30:45
Speaker 3: Is he better than them?

00:30:45
Speaker 1: Like?

00:30:46
Speaker 3: Where are you at with with Jeremiah Love?

00:30:48
Speaker 2: I think he's in that tier of those guys. Yeah, and that's enough. Like I still have Ashton genty a little bit higher, but not by much. And if he gets a better fit. He could blow Jet Ashton Genty away to skill production early on. So he's in that tier. So if you're going to trade and you want to trade Ashton Gent to get the rights to this guy, I mean, if that's what you want to do, I don't have a major argument for you, even if I like Genty a little bit more. But Jeremiah Love, I mean he reminds me a little bit of Reggie Bush when Reggie Bush was at USC before he overthought everything in New Orleans and had to be the hero. So I would put him above Reggie Bush and just below Alvin Kamar, Like I think Alvin Kamar is a player that he could eventually become, like aspire to be. I don't know if he's ever going to get there, but it's but it's pretty darn well, you know, you know, dynamic Flashy for sure has more power than you'd think. You know, he really runs with good contact balance and ability to break ackles, and so yeah, I see a good role for him. I just think that we're looking at someone who maybe can have time where he's can be a little more, a little better with certain decisions, has some lapses with patients, but I think that it's they're just lapses, they're not habitual issues. So you know, it's gonna be one of those things in the preseason where he's feeling something out and people go, see, I told you he was a buzz because he made like one bad play, you know, the expert film watching that's out there that that happens. When that happens, but it gets like a million clicks, that'll be the type of thing that will probably happen. But he's reliable with the ball. I mean, he's only had a fumble in four hundred and ninety nine touches, so that's that's great. So I'm yeah, I would be happy with him as running back one. I'd be happy with him as one of my top three top four picks overall. And if you chose him as your number one overall based on your build strategy, all of that, yeah, I understand.

00:33:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:33:04
Speaker 1: All right, now let's get into I don't want to spend too much time on love just because we all know that he's you know, good and stuff. What I really want to do is just talk about your RB two, your current RB two, and my RB two, which is emmittt Johnson because I look like he He obviously didn't test super well, he didn't have like a crazy forty, didn't have this crazy rass, et cetera, et cetera.

00:33:28
Speaker 3: I don't care that that much about that.

00:33:31
Speaker 1: Because you know, when I'm writing my prospect, I'm watching these guys while I'm doing it so that I can at least match what my amateurizer seeing to what the data is saying, and also be able to talk about these guys confidently and not sound like a moron when I talk to someone like Matt Waldman on the show. And so with Emma Johnson, I wasn't expecting like this four four five forty when he got to the combine to begin with.

00:33:56
Speaker 3: And then the other thing that was has been interesting to me.

00:33:58
Speaker 1: I brought this up a lot, is that he was the only running back that did the three cone at the combine and people are like dinging him because it was like a twenty twenty fifth percentile type number. But to me, I'm almost thinking to myself, like teams might actually enjoy the fact that he did this because he's showing that he has you know, he's a competitor, and he went he wanted to to do everything, and he did everything. The reason that the data loves Emma Johnson and why I mean, look, to be completely fair, I fall in love with this arc type pretty pretty.

00:34:24
Speaker 3: Regularly, you know, like I.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: But analytically I see a spectrum of yes, maybe like a Michael Carter type or something like that. But also I think this is an arc type of like Aaron Jones, and I'm curious if you see that as.

00:34:39
Speaker 3: Well, given the pass catching ability.

00:34:41
Speaker 1: I mean, his pass catching numbers are like like ninety fifth percentile type stuff, Like they're very very strong when you adjust for age and program strength and such. But it does kind of like you can kind of get into that Aaron Jones arc type and career trajectory, and that's really enticing to me.

00:34:57
Speaker 2: Oh, I agree. I think there's a few players who fit that air In Jones archetype in this class. I didn't put Johnson there, but I see the lane and I can see how that could be used that way I saw I saw other players, but more because of physical ability of that I'm studying because when you talk about the combine, look, relative athletics score is a nice layer of information and it's an entertaining layer of information. But I could care less about the percentile of the guy if you tell me, oh, no, he's in the thirty second percentile at this number. But you're telling me that the minimum value, the minimum number that I need from to be a starter, is the equivalent of the eighth percentile, right right, then why do.

00:35:43
Speaker 3: I care that he's thirty three?

00:35:45
Speaker 1: It's very much a like I've been throwing this name out there and I feel like he's just catching so many strays because of me.

00:35:51
Speaker 3: But it's like, are you Elijah holy Field?

00:35:53
Speaker 1: Okay, You're you're not okay good because you know he ran like a four seven five or something like that, and you know it would just was.

00:36:00
Speaker 3: Bad like there was.

00:36:01
Speaker 1: There are guys where you're like, okay, almost definitely not going to pan out because the athleticism is so so poor. But something like rass and this is nothing like it's fine if you are into that stuff, you know whoever's listening. But you know, I've tested a lot of stuff. The only thing I kind of care about is speed score. You know, way to justin forty. But even when doing that, I think people listen to that and they take it really far. And they assume that I'm saying like, oh, Mike Washington is now good, and it's that that's not what I'm saying at all. It's more so that, like, there is a small change in the way that the model scores these guys based.

00:36:35
Speaker 3: On this thing.

00:36:36
Speaker 1: But there are other areas of a player's game that can make up for a ding with speed score or vice.

00:36:41
Speaker 2: Versa compensatory factors, right, right, It's just another.

00:36:45
Speaker 1: Piece of the puzzle with the small It's honestly, it's pretty small piece of the puzzle compared to the other stuff that I'm looking at.

00:36:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Devin, Come, I use Devin Singletary as an example. He's slow, he's small, he's not very quick. The only thing that he actually does well is see the feet old and make good decisions, and that's really a big part of being running back, you know. Now, it doesn't mean that he's a high end starter, but he certainly has some fantasy value that you have to keep him available as a potential roster at in situations. And that's way better than what the numbers would actually make you think, because he would think he wouldn't make the Canadian football team with what he's doing or you know, my backyard league, you know, and my you know. But that's the thing is that when you look at him at Johnson, the other thing is we have to we have to discuss this with the combine. Brandon, you know, Brandon Angelou was my podcast partner on Going Deep on my podcast. He is a trainer of athletes, of pro athletes, and he's former running back and track athlete at Purdue. He raced Chris Johnson in the you know at one time, like in the meat yeah, and they all laughed at him until he like basically showed made them feel his tailwind. But the Brandon was talking about the first time we had a show and we ended up doing this for a while. He said, you know, you realize that the combined measuring device for these times is like second or third tier in terms of what could be used, and that the variation of times is something like point twenty five seconds. And you're like, that's the difference between a that's between an elite guy and a free agent the way a lot of people look at stuff. So we have to understand that the NFL is using a cheaper version of the measuring that they could be using, so that's an issue. And then on top of it, the player. I compared him at Johnson too as the aspirational players Dalvin Cook. And the reason I did that isn't because of production. He's a better receiver than Cook probably showed. But I remember back in the day when I was evaluating Cook, and all of a sudden, everybody was going off the bandwagon from him because of his spark score and his vertical and his three cone driven. So I'm watching his tape and I go, when has this guy ever made a lateral cut? When does he ever actually cut? I've seen Kirby linear bend, but I've never seen a cut. And when he does move, you can go on YouTube right now and you'll see plays where his feet do this like he's a rock'm sock and robot like turning, you know, and he before he changes direction. It's the weirdest thing. But he doesn't rely on that. So why am I going to ding him on a thing designed to measure change of direction ability? With cuts? You're actually mimicking someone cutting and he doesn't cut. So I just threw that out and said, this guy's a good prospect. I'm not worried about all that, and then you look at other players who were on this list of like who had poor three cone drills in recent years. Kind of gain Well looked pretty good last year. You know, he's not great, but.

00:39:55
Speaker 1: He's Gainwell was one of the three comps for Johnson in the in the Prospect guy this year.

00:40:01
Speaker 2: See there you go. And he's a good all around player and you can see what he can do behind a decent blocking scheme, and he's been praised wherever he goes. Cook seven point two second three cone drill. What about Chris Carson seven point five to three three cone drill. You know Carson's a tackle breaker. He was a big time tackle breaker, so is Immt Johnson. Emma Johnson's Yeah, he's a very good tackle breaker with what you're looking for against linebackers and safeties. So also Johnson can cut, So I've actually seen him make plays where he cuts well. But what's important about him is that he processes the game fast. He understands. He looks at things pre snap and you can see that he's likely either counting box the box number, or he's understanding what certain keys that he's looking at. That helps him understand where the quick cutback's going to be, you know, and it's you can have you can have, is i e. You know cutback ability and quickness or who was oh Bell like Kenyan Drake Kenyan Drake's level of skill, but the way he processed the field was so slow that he would literally concuss himself ramming into the backside of a blocker because he couldn't put it all together. Emma Johnson doesn't have that problem. He he sees things fast, he has quick solutions for them. His feet and his eyes are coordinated. You see it with the movement. You see it repeatedly, with the success that he has from down to down, play to play to what you're expecting him to do within you know, a blocking scheme and when things are disrupted and how he can manage that. So you know those I love looking at the data for certain things for athletic ability, but there's a time that you have to understand when either to throw it at wanted to kind of mitigate the value of it, like you look you talked about and when to look at it and go, Okay, maybe I need to go back and watch what I'm what I what I scored here?

00:42:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, What's interesting with that too is a segue to to Mike Washington, where Washington uh tested on you know that the forty was insane.

00:42:19
Speaker 3: I mean, he was a crazy athlete.

00:42:21
Speaker 1: I think if you were to look at ras, I'm assuming he would be really really high, if not one of the best that we've seen, you know, historically within that metric or you know, the the the totaling of the metrics. The thing though, for me that I've I've had a pretty hard time with is that I would imagine Mike Washington's draft capital rose.

00:42:40
Speaker 3: You know, we don't know because we don't know where teams.

00:42:42
Speaker 1: Were before the combine, right, so you make the assumption that it rose a little bit because teams are semi irrational with some of this stuff, you know, especially a wide receiver where there's an inverse correlation among like top one hundred wide receivers with with speed and and uh you know production at the at the NFL level. But with Mike Washington, the thing that's really crazy is that, yeah, it's this big body dude who ran like a four to three three or whatever it was, but his explosive run rate is kind of bad, you know, like a lot of it. When you look at the advanced numbers, they don't match what you saw at the combine, and that gives me a lot of fear. I don't want to say anxiety because that's too strong a word. I'm not really anxious about what Mike Washington's going to do the NFL level, but you know, I do wonder what you're seeing with Washington and if you saw that, like I think his final season was definitely the best season that we saw from him, and we saw a little bit more of those big plays and such, you know, and that athleticism translating.

00:43:36
Speaker 3: But overall, it's still a questionable profile for me.

00:43:40
Speaker 2: I would agree he's he is. He has a score for me that places him in a tier where you're a rotational starter basically mean you're coming off the bench as a committee back, maybe the B back, to an A back who's the guy who's getting the most of the value. But you could probably have some fantasy value when you're closing out, or have a specialized role where maybe you can score. But I'm not sure he's going to ever reach that develop into a starter. And there's two reasons for that. First reason is that he fumbles the ball once every fifty one touches, which is awful awful. Now, when i've this isn't this is not a straight up correlation because I haven't done enough with the study, but I still think it's notable enough to just share. Is that I looked back at ten years of RSP data of fumblers of fumble rates in cottage, and looked at those backs and decided how many of them went on to deliver fantasy production top thirty six, top twenty four, top twelve, top three. And let's see what the percentages were over that ten year period. Ten percent delivered top thirty six production once once in their career, you know. And that's a low number concerning that. It was one percent for anyone who got like running back one value or you know, or like yeah, like high and running back one value. So it's very rare. Now, there's a lot that's messy data because there's a lot of other factors that could be involved with that. But what I have found is that it's hard for seat players sometimes to improve upon those things, and they and they, you know, there's got we always remember the exceptions. Tiki Barber great example of that, who fingers crossed base, right, yeah, base all tutant, we're crossing our fingers, you know, certainly Sony Michelle. But then he got banged up and really couldn't become the player that he was capable of being. But when you look at that, that's a concern, like yeah, and it's not like demand. Clayborne by em by contrast, had seven fumbles last year. But if you look at the work rates of how much touches he got over the other two three years that he's played, and his fumble rates were still were low, this was a bad You could look at this as potentially a bad year, not that he's got a real problem with it, whereas Mike Washington every year as fumble rate was bad every single year. So that's a big one. The other one is this, do you remember I say a Spiller, Yeah, of course, yeah, like Texas A and m big back. Pretty good speed product there. You know, people thought it saw his promising. Isaiah Spiller didn't make it. In my opinion, probably from one level, is that while he had the ability to become more, one of the things that he did that annoys the hell out of coaches is when it's time to drop the pads and accelerate through contact. Well, most running backs easiers don't accelerate through contact like they used to. The last really good back who did that was probably Leonard Fournett, who really did it at a high level. Rudy Johnson used to do it very well, even as a like non not a great athlete version of a running back. But if you're not doing that, you at least need to be facing the target that you're going to have a collision with, and your hips need to be downhill into the target. Your pads need to be downhill into the target. Mike Washington's like a scatback who turns his pads away from the contact as it arrives against all three levels of the defense. It's not every play you've seen exhibit some good bad level, but it is not lapse as it's more habitual than it should be. And so when you do that, well, you know your hips aren't Your hips are no longer downhill, so your power base is mitigated. Sometimes there's sideways, so now that's even worse. Your knees aren't high, your feet don't get high, so it's harder to pull through reaches and wraps. And now the ball is exposed more because you're upright while you're dealing with traffic and the defender and NFL defenders are all sharpshooters that getting the ball. So I'm with you just on those things alone. Like if he corrected his ball security, he'd be a borderline starter on my grade, but still not quite there. But with the ball lapses, that's an issue. And there are some things with you know, just decision making that can be a little bit better. But I wouldn't be making as big of a deal out of this, if you know, compared to the pad level, because pad levels hard hard to correct.

00:48:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, advanced data backs this up right.

00:48:35
Speaker 1: I mean if you look at again, I said, the explosive run rate, I'm looking over at database stuff like twenty second percentile explosive run rate. Okay, that's fine, We're not gonna it's not the hugest deal in the world because that there is some noise to that at least, but like avoided tackles per tempt twelve percentile for that side, Like you genuinely and generally don't see this arc type of player.

00:48:57
Speaker 3: Ranks so poorly within a metric like that, you know, and.

00:49:00
Speaker 1: It's it's just it's scary yards after contact for a time sixteen percentile, you know, like it's just a little scary when you when you bring the athleticism profile on the size and you're like, this looks like this guy was creating a lab to play running back.

00:49:12
Speaker 3: You know like that. But but it just hasn't translated.

00:49:14
Speaker 2: Seem Who's the guy that everybody say was a bowling ball with knives and cleavers Travis Henry way back in the day. You know, you know, it's like it's like if they hit all the utensils in the drawer and like hollowed out the bowling ball. I mean, it's just like it's it's tough. I don't you know. He has moments where he actually shows what he is. But that's the problem. Michael Bush was a player. I remember learning way by him today, former Louisville guy. I learned so much early on listening to Chris s Pielman talk. You know, great linebacker, very heady for the game. But what he taught about running back play just listening to him talking about I remember watching D'Angelo Williams and Michael Bush they were playing each other and Patrick Willis was on Old Miss as well, but like playing Memphis. No, it was Ole Miss and Louisville, That's what it was. Maybe I had that mixed up because it was Matric, but I saw it would have been Memphis and Louisville. What it was I was watching, I forgot. I was listening to something about Patrick. This is like, this is like twenty years ago. This was twenty years ago. But like, but they're a great contrast because if you go watch DeAngelo Williams, he's what two hundred and ten pounds and nine, you know, so he's basically he's basically a turkey sandwich away from Emmitt Johnson, you know, whereas like Michael Bush is pretty much close to closer to what you'd see from Oh yeah he was like to Washington. Yeah he's thirty yeah, and all the all game long. Chris Bielman was pointing out, like the Angela Williams runs the runs like the size of of Michael Bush, and Michael Bush runs like a scared version of the Angela Williams in size, and that this is and he was you could tell you was so frustrated with watching Bush because he could see what this guy could be and wasn't doing it, and it was such an it was a good lesson. But that's the example, is that he's a he's kind of a Michael Busch type of player in that respect, who's got to get better at it.

00:51:16
Speaker 1: So there are two guys that I definitely want to talk about two running backs. One of them is Jendarium Price, and analytically, it's just tough to get there because it's such a projection right, like the like we can explain away why his production looks the way that it does. Right of course, he's playing behind Jeremiah Love, but also that just forces a larger projection. And I would assume from your perspective there's still got to be a lot of projection and forecasting going on for a player like Price as opposed to someone who has eight hundred college carries, that you can at least see a larger sample of what he's doing. And not only that, but Price coming in in certain parts of the game or whatever the case may be.

00:51:54
Speaker 3: You know, it's just a different type of sample.

00:51:56
Speaker 1: So right now, he like, I mean, I've seen mocked I remember seeing a mock draft a couple of weeks ago where someone had him.

00:52:03
Speaker 3: A big name in media had him at like the end of the first round of this.

00:52:06
Speaker 1: Of this draft, and it's really been hard for me to get there for obvious reasons. But I need you to either you know, solidify that stance or say, hey, look at this, look at it this way too.

00:52:19
Speaker 2: Yeah him as running back six.

00:52:21
Speaker 3: Okay, you're not you're not. You're not pushing me. You're not pushing me off.

00:52:24
Speaker 2: I'm not pushing me. No, I'm not. I think, you know, I don't think he's you know, Felix Jones, Rashaun Johnson, Sony Michelle and how to Come may Go. It may turn out that way. He could join it, but I think he'll transcend that list. It's just that I think that running back too through running back six is in the same tier. It's just that I had so Emmitt Smith Evant Johnson is in the same tier, but he's at the high end of the tier. Vegetarian Price is in the lower end.

00:52:56
Speaker 1: I had the exact Seriously, It's like pretty similar because there's just a big group that you know, there's going to be things that happen that you dictate one way or another. I think once the draft goes down.

00:53:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he's scheme versatile, like in terms of his own versus gap and he doesn't take creative liberties, which I like. He finds cut back lands. He's creative. He's mobile with his hips to be able to adjust his feed and to be able to turn at ninety degrees efficiently. So there's a lot of things that he does well. The acceleration strong. He's got some issues with his footwork where when things go off script and he doesn't have an answer, his feet go really wide and now he can't change in direction with any explosion and he's stuck there and he's not finding solutions. So there's some things with that he probably I'd like to see him add some weight. If he can add some quick twitch muscle to his frame at ten to fifteen pounds, maybe that will help him increase his speed a little bit more. But if he doesn't, I still think he could be a productive running back too. It's just that, you know, the cutback issues. There's a little bit with some cutback issues that he has. He manages the game well, but you know, I didn't see anything that really like power was fine, but there was nothing that was super special about his power. He had some he had some decent contact balance, I would say blocking you know, overall, you know it's improvable, but he still got a little bit of work there. His fumble rate was low and was not great. I mean it was like one per sixty three, which again sixty one is the line to where you're like good for me, good or bad. So the fact that he's closer to the bad end of that is is a bit of a concern and that's probably what dropped him the most. Is is ball security?

00:55:05
Speaker 1: Did you see him as a as a decent receiver like like that? That's another thing where it just I mean, the sample for that is.

00:55:12
Speaker 3: Just so tiny.

00:55:13
Speaker 1: There's just not much work of him playing that, you know, catching the ball out of the backfield.

00:55:18
Speaker 3: Did you is that a concern for you at all?

00:55:19
Speaker 1: Because to me, if there's a concern for genarium price is a receiver, then I just don't from a fantasy perspective, right, because we know that pass catching is just important. Yeah, it's just so difficult to buy into that if we assume that he has like a decent price, right, it's just given where he might go.

00:55:37
Speaker 2: The tough part about this is that when I find how you evaluate a player and what you actually see versus how the NFL perceives the player and be different. Because I looked at Jonathan Taylor and going, I know you've had very few targets at Wisconsin, Melvin Gordon even, and both of them could catch the ball well, sure, and they got open and they made tough plays. But then it comes down to route running too, and then teams are like, can he be a second or third level route runner? And they don't use him much that way? But that's the case, or like Aaron Jones, who's a fantastic receiver, but would they please use him more often the way he could be used? But price you know, he flips his hips well for flat breaks, He's got good speed turns, He's got some footwork movement to be able to set up some routes and some hand counters, so you can see that he's developed some of those skills that might help him with some underneath routes against linebackers or safeties. So that's pretty good. He can drop his weight to accelerate fast, and he shows it on the top of stems and routes like hitches, so that's pretty good. Most running backs, so you don't see that most time, you just see him. Can they get open in space and under his zone and nowhere to settle and work with the quarterback? And he does that catching the ball, He's prone to clap attacking the ball, but that's with overhand position when it's usually away from his frame or above his frame. And even wide receivers have some of those problems. But I would say overall he's a competent pass catcher. But is that going to make him a standout to where games go we're going to lean on him and I'd say probably not.

00:57:19
Speaker 1: One player who did have a pretty decent pass catching profile and is bigger than Price, probably more athletic if he were to test. But he broke his foot, you know, at this at the Senior Bowl. Hopefully we get a little bit of something he hinted at, maybe something happening in April.

00:57:36
Speaker 3: I don't know.

00:57:37
Speaker 1: I don't think their proda has happened yet. But Nick Nick Singleton out of Penn State, I've seen so like it's funny because I probably just like you, You're probably not You're probably not listening to the noise at all while you're doing RSP right, and I'm doing no consumption of anything while I'm doing the Prospect Guide. And then once I'm done, you know, I'll look at rookie rankings, where I'll look at more at my i mean mock drafts just for the Draft Capitol input, but I'll start reading into what people are saying and stuff.

00:58:04
Speaker 3: And this is the the the look at Nick Singleton.

00:58:07
Speaker 1: Right now is that the fantasy community and the analytist community like him a lot more than the other side does, you know, the more more people who are not necessarily digging into the numbers as much.

00:58:17
Speaker 3: And you know, I.

00:58:18
Speaker 1: Will say that he is one of those players, one of those running backs analytically.

00:58:23
Speaker 3: That does look pretty good on paper.

00:58:24
Speaker 1: But then you start to look at comps and you're like, oh, these are all a bunch of guys that look good on paper who.

00:58:29
Speaker 3: Didn't pan out in the NFL, you know, like a A CJ.

00:58:32
Speaker 1: Prosise type, or you know, like these like athletic you know, Tevin Coleman even you could probably throw in there as that that kind of player. And so I'm curious, like you seem to be more bullish than what some others are seeing with Singleton and I'm curious what you're seeing because it will make me feel a little bit better about some of the comps stuff that I've been seeing, you know with him.

00:58:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got him comp to Melvin Gordon. Okay, kind of back that I see him as. And if it really doesn't work out, reason I was off my rocker than he was probably more of a Jeff Wilson type. But I think he look this and he and quin Shawn Judkins were two of the top freshman running backs that year. The production, you know, but like when you watch his game, you know, he played in a committee. They wanted to use a committee. They probably wanted to use a committee because that's how they keep their backs so that they don't go somewhere else. So there's some of that going on. His coach got fired, he got paired with the quarterback who I just didn't think performed to his potential anywhere remote lead to that. So there may be some production declines that have more to do with surrounding situation than him. He's not flashy, but he is smart, like he's patient, he's scheme versatile. He's got good connection between his feet and his eyes, which means he's processing the game at a pretty decent rate. The acceleration strong, the speed's good enough. I think he's going to beat, you know, he beats defensive backs, even some cornerbacks, and he's gonna hold people off to flip the field. If you can get thirty forty yards when you break past the linebackers, that's enough for me. I mean, that's most of them what you're gonna get. He's well built. He pulls through reaches from all three defenders. I track reaches, wraps, and hits with every carry that I watch of them, and he's pretty good at that. Whatever the angle is. He bounces off linebackers when they hit him. He's going to force gang tackles. He shines as an outlet receiver, and the rece even game was why the numbers is probably why that pans out. He's exactly you know, and so he's got a versatile game. I think he's gonna be a capable NFL starter, and he has a chance of being a better NFL starter than he did of being a college player. And I almost think that he's that player that got lost in the mix where one day we're going to go, well, yeah, he was good at Penn State. Remember that first great year yea, what you know, he just kind of disappeared and everybody forgot about him. I think he could be a candidate for that for sure. I mean, like, if he works out, I don't think he's going to get there. And I don't even know if the guy I'm going to say where he's potentially could go is going to get there. But I loved Jonathan Brooks out of Texas. Yeah right, he was fantastic. He's kind of in that Jonathan Brooks mold, just maybe not as dynamic as Brooks once was.

01:01:26
Speaker 3: I love to hear it.

01:01:27
Speaker 1: I love to hear it because I've I've I remember finishing The Guide and being like, yeah, I really like Nick Singleton and then like I'm letting things seep into my brain a little bit too much, I think when it comes to his evaluation, and especially in a running back class that just doesn't have standout, you know, like obvious, you know, guys outside of Jeremiah Love, It's like, why wouldn't we, you know, kind of kind of go the Nick Singleton route.

01:01:49
Speaker 3: Are there any any.

01:01:50
Speaker 1: Values of running back anyone that you want to just call out as a you know, I love to have you just throw out the it could I mean, it could be a guy that.

01:01:58
Speaker 3: You think is going to go day two or something. But I like the guys you dig deeper on you because you.

01:02:03
Speaker 1: Did this the one year and it was Commandie by Dell, and we saw him become a guy last year when we were both both down him.

01:02:09
Speaker 2: And last year I was on Kyle minan guy, so you know, and so kind of looked at that. You know, A higher profile name is Demon Claiborne. I know he's one hundred and eighty eight pounds, but that dude is is a very good running back who I think, if he didn't get dinged for his ball security a little bit late in his career, would have been the clear cut number two for me and maybe even threatened a little bit more towards love than people expect. He's he's got he's like Shady Light, just like you know, Shady McCoy, Shahn McCoy. I joked that he's like shady Light, may have less calories, but still has that great flavor, you know. I mean, like that's kind of that's how he plays. He makes people miss he's he's he has better contact bounce than you would expect. So there's him. But now we're going to go way off the reservations here. Yeah, Okay, there's nobody that's going to be higher than most of these guys that I'm going to mention right now. Okay, Miles Montgomery of UCF.

01:03:07
Speaker 1: I didn't even I didn't even prospect him because he didn't go to the combines.

01:03:10
Speaker 3: So I mentioned to hear about.

01:03:11
Speaker 2: Yes. I love how he processes the game, his footwork and eyes, how he reads defenses before the snap to understand where the cutback lanes are, where the bounce lanes are, how to react to things when they go off script. He can run short yardage very well. He's just got underrated agility, strong decision making both from a vision standpoint and a game management standpoint, because those are the two of the big factors. And vision, he dictates contact on every running back that I've that we look at. That's great. They are the first to make contact. Jamal Charles is a great example of a light running back who could take on a defensive tackle like at Oklahoma and win the win the collision because he wasn't literally trying to push the guy back backwards. He was just trying to make the first hit be as impactful as possible, but still in a way that he could spin off it immediately. It was kind of like shock and awe, like like a smoke screen kind of thing. And a lot of backs who are smaller are really good at doing that, because when you can dictate the chain of events at the collision point, the defenders always a step behind, and it's like you're a boxer who is dictating with the jab, you know, and then you can set up everything off of that and confuse the opponent. And Miles Montgomery does that well. He's a good pass catcher, strong acceleration, maybe not strong speed. So I have him ranked way higher than you're going to pick him, and I'll always caution people about that, but I'm like, this is a guy that you should be basically taking on expanded offseason rosters as a free agent. If he gets drafted in the sixth or seventh round and it's an ideal depth chart, maybe you take a shot out him late, you know. So that's one I love what I saw him. Montgomery all right after that. I mean, I don't think Robert Henry is that much of a sleeper. I'll be talking about him more, but I'll say he's he's kind of in that Aaron Jones, James Cook kind of mode in terms of how he plays in style. Jamal Haynes was a slot receiver at Georgia Tech for two years. Didn't even get a target. Okay, they put a bit running back and he's got a four or five one forty at least at his pro day and four two five twenty shuttle, which is if those numbers really are what they are, and from what I saw on field they are. He's quick and fast enough. He's he runs with great pad level, like you can he great enough pad level that he can win collisions with linebackers and at one ninety as a former slot receiver at Georgia Tech. Look, I don't know about their training program, you know, an hour away from where I am, you know, but I know they can build the Iron Man suit. So maybe they've spent more time building the Iron Man suit than they actually have a training facility there. And I'm a University of Georgia grad, so I'm gonna pick on them a little bit, you know. But that's the thing, like if he can gain you know, Aaron Jones was one ninety four at Utebright and he's like, what two eight to nine range. So if Jamala Haynes can do that with his pass catching ability and he runs decent routes, you know, he's not like Adam Randall, who like was a receiver but you know now why he was a running back. Jamala Haynes is kind of more like, well, maybe the route running wasn't quite as good to be a slot receiver, but he can catch. Yeah, And I think Haynes is Haines is interesting that way. If you're looking for big, bigger, slower but fast enough, maybe who can just plow through people sm used T J. Harden is on my list because man is he break a ton of tackles and he's got that movement skills that you look at him and you go, could he be in? Could he possibly have? People think? Oh? He kind of reminds me of Arian Foster. But let's not go too far here, but there's a little bit of that. Devon Booth of Mississippi State Dave Klugi joked that he was. He said he remember Khalil Herbert. This is like Khalil Herbert, And I thought, yeah, actually, you know what, I'm going to steal that. You know, that's a that's a good one because I have I actually have like Dalvin Cook and JK. Dobbins as the top of his tier, and I don't think he's going to get there, but he's he's kind of a pretty good version of that. He's like if Kyle Manang guy was fat, more explosive and not as relentless in the open field. You know, he's kind of that player, just smart runner who could probably deliver on third down? And is there anybody else that I really want to mention? And I'll say you could be you.

01:07:57
Speaker 1: Honestly, some of these guys you could be naming name and they might not even be real human beings.

01:08:02
Speaker 3: And that's right, not a long.

01:08:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll give you. I'll give you two more just for fun, because it's like, this is this is the class, this running back class I'm laughing about because I'm literally looking at him and like I just mentioned, I mentioned four guys who were in my top fifteen R like and they're not going to get drafted and I know.

01:08:20
Speaker 1: This, they're none of that like the majority that you mentioned. I mean, Henry was there, but other than him. They weren't at the Combine.

01:08:26
Speaker 2: No, they weren't invited the Combine. So I'm laughing about this, but it's like that's sometimes how it goes. These are guys that they may need, they're going to need an opportunity, and draft capital may not allow them the opportunity. But two more guys Lashawn Williams out of Kansas. He's played Iowa. He's like five nine two eighteen, ran a four four three at the Combine. When you watch him, he's he's one of those players that has He's a bowling ball, strong agility, good decision maker. He just didn't he was a high recruit on him. Iowa didn't want to collect pan out. I think he lost his love for the game. And because the Kansas trainers were like he came in out of shape. We worked with him and he was like a completely different athlete when we got through with him, and he was just unbelievably happy here. And now, you NFL players you kind of have to deal with that you're on bad teams and you have to like be a mature professional. And maybe he got that turned around here and he renewed some things, or maybe that he needed extra motivation. It might not work, but there's skills there. And then Kaylin blackout of Indiana, he's to played at Maryland.

01:09:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was surprised he didn't get an invite.

01:09:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was too. He's he's ferocious for his size, like he runs hard. He is an accelerator into contact, which I like. He's versatile, He's going to be a leak receiver. He can give you nice plays in that area of the game, and he's I think he's one of those guys that probably is more in that Chester Taylor justin for said, name your backup who can give you twelve thirteen hundred yards, but then you're never going to hear from him again. Yeah, and you know after that one year because the team doesn't want to they wouldn't pay him extra money and he doesn't have the athletic ability that they desire. But just a darn good football player at five nine two oh eight.

01:10:20
Speaker 1: Love it all right, Let's move on to wide receiver. I agreed totally what you said at the top, where wide receiver I don't think necessarily has because we've seen some like studs come out from prospecting standpoint come out the last few years this class just seems like that there are a lot of like above average, solid dudes that are going to be able to get and some of them are probably hit that we expect there that we're not expecting to hit and they end up just kind of panning out and working out. But from my perspective, a lot of there's just a lot of like above average guys that I'm not necessarily like getting like overly excited about, but I'm like, yeah, I could see this guy working out and like having a decent productive career. But at the top, you get a lot of Carnal Tate, Makay Lemon, Jordan Tyson, and you have it in that order.

01:11:06
Speaker 3: You have Tyson below you know, even below some other guys.

01:11:09
Speaker 1: But I think that all three of these guys brings something kind of different and unique to the table. And so I just want to briefly and quickly talk through where you're at with Tate, Lemon, and Tyson, who seem to be formed and I'm not saying that you or I or whoever you know individually would have it this way, but seem to be formed into a tier together. You know, Tyson falling for a lot you know, different reasons. But like in the in the rookie drafts adp and and the way that the community is kind of viewing them, they're kind of like a big three. But so I'm curious what you see with each of these guys.

01:11:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, to me, Carnel Tate is by far the best talent on the board in terms of if you're going to rate consistency and availability as a part of talent, Yeah, he's up there where he's in that tier to me of like Molik Neighbors, where you go, you're picking this guy and he's probably going to be your most productive receiver early unless somehow he gets paired with a great number one opposite him for dumb luck, you know, for you know, for that team. But he's, you know, just he's a good route runner. He really understands how to run a route and set things up, especially with timing routes in the middle of the field or breaking back to the quarterback. We know that he can. He plays well in the vertical game as a player can go up and win the football. He has He has excellent technique being able to go up and get your hands over your head or away from the ball and get your hands together so that you don't clap attack on the ball. It's very important. So and I think he's a little better after the catch than people say, mainly because the way he's targeted, and I always use he's often in traffic, and so he makes good decisions in traffic. You get him on on on one on one a little bit more, we might see a little more from him. McKay McKayle Lemon. I think he's almost in a tier by himself too, but just below the the Tate tier. He's an instant starter for me some you know, but if I had to compare the two, I think a lot of people are like thinking about what's currently what's happened in recent years, which is slot receivers are big target getters. So he's a more valuable player than the split end. That tit end is, you know tit is. But if we're switching, if we find ourselves with more twelve and thirteen personnel packages, well they may still use Lemon in the slot and put one of the tight ends outside if he ends up on a team like that, but he might also be forced to play flanker more often. And then what I rather have Tait as a split end or mkayle Lemon as a flanker. I take Tate. Yeah, you know, but to.

01:13:58
Speaker 1: That point, I just I don't mean interrupt, but like, to that point, is this the situation because I've kind of viewed this as Tate Tate will fit and from a fantasy perspective, yeah, Tate will fit anywhere. We'll be able to do it. We'll be able to play a role anywhere. Makai Lemon will be able to play anywhere. But I think that the variation in his fantasy production could differ based on what that landing spot is.

01:14:20
Speaker 2: That's exactly. It that better way of summoning up than I was gonna And that's for sure. I'm still in the I'm still in the weeds here a little bit sometimes, folks, as I get out of this, but it's true. It's that's true. And so if you're looking for the safer play but maybe not as high upside as what Lemon could do in a very specific situation, maybe you know you're looking at Tate, if you're looking at if you're if you know based on the fit that the upside is going to be fantastic. Alman Ross Saint brownish, then you're probably taking him number one overall. And that's why I do a post raft, because that gives me a chance to be able to say, hey, I think Tate's significant better overall as a football player. But but Lemon is you know, Lemon's got the best fit to express his talents. So yeah, there's those two and then go ahead before you move on.

01:15:11
Speaker 1: The Tyson part of me also has been questioning if there's a possibility that Tate ends up and this is, you know, I don't think that we should be like super like think of this in like a super intense way or extreme way, but Tate could end up being a better in real football player than fantasy football player, Like is there that po like because it's not like he you know, of course he's playing with crazy competition in Ohio state, of course. And I'm not saying this is as someone who doesn't like Carnal. I like Carneal Tage, Like I think he's a really good prospect. Sure, but you know there's you know, he had like a max twenty two percent target share in college, and you know, obviously he's winning doing a lot of stuff vertically that will help a team out tremendously. But then you wonder if you know, with like a Mackay Lemon, like we said, we've seen now the the guys who play slot and can go out. So the js ns of the world, the Amanas Saint Browns of the world, when those situations really arise and allow them to be these target hogs, they dominate fantasy football. You know, for years we've been hearing, oh, Amaras Saint Brown isn't that good. But it's like, okay, but like, this is the role he's playing in this offense, and he's you know, he's clearly a very good player. But and you could certainly argue that Saint Brown isn't quite this good of a fantasy asset in another system, in another situation. But with Cardnell Tate, Like, is it possible that this is a like he's a great, great prospect, he's a great, great football player, and he's going to really help an NFL team, But maybe we don't see the twenty seven percent type target share, you know at the NFL level.

01:16:40
Speaker 3: Do you think that's like a possibility here.

01:16:42
Speaker 2: It is, it is a possibility, I would say that, I mean, he might end up being a career wide receiver too, right, that you're like, you know, and that could there's a possibility that happens. There's also a possibility that he's like he's he's essentially another type of player in the realm of Justin Jefferson, right, And why do we overthink it? You know? But it's but we need to overthink it at this stage. It's one of those things that we don't know, so we're trying to anticipate what are the what factors might lead to one or the others. So, yeah, you're right now with you know, Jordan tight with Tyson? What is it? Tyson? Jordan Jordan Tyson. I'm getting mixed up now. I mean, yeah, but you know, he's uh, he's he has a lot of loose ends to his game in addition to the fact that he has a hamstring injury that hasn't healed yet after he had a tear with his knee, and it seems like he can't get healthy and stay healthy. That's an issue. But there's also just like there's certain route you know, there's one thing about knowing all the tools that you need to have to be a good route runner, and then there's how do you express those tools in the right setting, the right time, and the right right way, and all those things are missing with his game. He has moments where he does it well, but there's moments where it's like he makes moves that you need to see that are good technique, but he doesn't deliver it with the nuance that he should, so it doesn't even register to the defender that he was trying to trick him. You know, it's almost like it joked, I joked that it's like a subliminal message almost. You know, it's like Brad Pitten Fight Club where he's cutting the tape up and he's putting in the loot images and you can't see it. Something might have been unsettling to you. It didn't change you. It didn't make you jump out of your seat, it didn't make you do it react in any certain way other than just in a non subtly emotional way. And Jordan Tyson's movement at the top of his stems or halfway through his stems, where he should be forcing the defender off his spot, he delivers them so fast that it's like the defender doesn't even have time to react to it. So he's still moving in the correct direction. Yeah, overall, he's got to learn that he clap attacks some balls, he has some drops. He has these little loose threads where you can easily acknowledge and say he's the most talent he could be the He has as much upside as any of the receivers ahead of him, like Tate and Makayle Lemon. But he's the guy that has to prove more because he hasn't shown that he can do it at the level consistently without mistakes, getting magnified in the NFL and creating more errors and then never getting there.

01:19:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tyson's really tough for me because the model is obsessed with him, like just because he has such good age justin production like he was you know, he's younger, right, like he entered he entered college younger. He immediately leads Colorado and receiving you know, as a freshman, and you know it doesn't even play the full season.

01:19:41
Speaker 3: But then there's the medicals and there's a lot of these wasted.

01:19:43
Speaker 1: Movements that folks like yourself or Harmon are speaking about with him. That definitely, like when I ranked them, I just put them in the same tier because I think there's enough subject subjective things that I can say, yeah, the model saying this, and I do think that the upside is very certain. I do think the model lean more just just having worked with it and knowing what it's looking at.

01:20:03
Speaker 3: It leans more looking at upside.

01:20:05
Speaker 2: You know.

01:20:05
Speaker 1: It did the same thing with Luther Burden last year. You know, we were both on Burden, but like, you know, there's there's it certainly seems to lean that way. But it's really good to have the other perspective on Tyson because uh, you know, it's it's a lot of people agree with you, like a lot.

01:20:21
Speaker 2: It's the difference with Burden and Tyson for me would be that Burden's upside was there is because I saw things that made me realize that this is a nuanced rout runner, even though we didn't see it a lot, it was consistently expressed, whereas with Tyson, what you see is inconsistently expressed.

01:20:39
Speaker 3: Got it.

01:20:40
Speaker 2: So that was a difference. But I do appreciate that your model isn't like an AI model where it's like trying to just please all the time, because yeah, you know, we you know, I mean, I'm just trying to make fun and make a choke on it out of it. Your model has your sensibilities because it's you made it. Yeah, so so so so, Yeah, we got to trust that.

01:21:02
Speaker 1: Yes, Malachi Fields was one that I'll be honest, this is going back to the model model hates Malachi Fields because not like sure and so I really you know, I love when this kind of thing happens when you come on, because we need to get the pro argument, the better side of this, so that we can make better decisions. Because again, this is just one input. This is just one side of the of the coin with with with these players. And so talk to me about Fields, because you seem to be.

01:21:27
Speaker 3: Pretty high on I am.

01:21:28
Speaker 2: And it's funny because he's the guy I look at and go, yeah, if there's a guy I'm going to miss on, it might be him. But like my model and how I look at it, you know, how I how I evaluate likes them, likes them a lot, you know, as a top five player in the in the on the board, and a lot of it has to do with compensatory factors. You know, he's not unbelievably fast, but he does have that short area burst. He does have the short area quickness. You can see it expressed in his game in positive ways, not just as an athlete, but as a route runner. You see really sharp breaks and when you can when even if you're separate, even if I'm you're not getting an initial separation in your stem, but then when you break inside or outside or back to the ball and the defender just loses you, you know, pretty and it's big time separation. That's worthwhile to me. You don't have to get that separation before the ball is thrown. You got to get it late in the route. And if you're doing it, the technique is technically sound way and you have the athletic skills that mimic those those movements, and it's it's backed up by good athletic scores on top of that. That says to me, Okay, I'm not just seeing a good technique guy, I'm seeing a good athlete in these areas performing these skills. And that compensates because as a route runner, it's about early separation more often than it is about late separation because the quarterback's got to make a decision at the top of the stem. So if you're getting if you have good burst acceleration and a change of direction early and you get off the line early and you're ahead, quarterbacks gonna throw you the ball. And then with that big body and strong frame with the good hands, you know that's good. And then after the catch he makes multiple defenders miss in tight spaces. He's powerful and he's agile. So when you combine the route running, the positioning to the football, which is pretty good, could get a little better, and then you can and you talk about the after the catch skills. I like him, you know it works for me. I just you know, we'll see if we'll see how it works out. I mean, because again the four six five is a is a low thing. Even though if you know, if it was like if if they were I'd love to see when he ran in order of Cardinal Tait, because if all the scouts were joking or saying, hey, I do them at point two different than this. The airr rate for the for the machine is point too. Not that the humans were going to have less air rates than the machine. But still, you know, you look at all that and I go, it'd be kind of funny if they ran back to back in this combine and the and the machine was kind of off and he actually runs a four four, five. All I know is that, like at the Senior Bowl, Dave Coogey was talking about it. I was a Senior Bowl, and you know, one thing that we noticed very clearly was that on the field as a route runner in situations that you could accurately assess what was good route running and not just two way goes in the slot where you're it's advantageous to the receiver and you can make up any old thing in that practice and it doesn't fit what's going to translate outside of those things. They said, Malachi Fields looked like the best receiver on the field for long practices. So we'll see he.

01:24:47
Speaker 1: I will say that one of his three comps in the in the Late Round Prospect Guide is actually a favorable one, and it was Michael Pittman. And Pittman, uh was someone that you know, the model wasn't very high, I like, isn't very high on because i've i've you know, it rated it and changed it since he came out. But there's at least an outcome, you know, from analytically with this where it's just like, oh, this is just kind of a blind spot. You know, this is just a player that it just might not catch, so it's good to hear. You know, the other side of the argument with him, Casey Conceptsion is it feels like Harmon publishes his his reception perception, and it feels like everyone's been just talking about Conceptsion this week now. From my perspective, he checks a lot of boxes like looks very very good.

01:25:29
Speaker 3: I love watching him too. Where are you at with Conceptsion?

01:25:33
Speaker 2: Is he do?

01:25:33
Speaker 3: You do you see him as a super fun player as well?

01:25:36
Speaker 2: I do. He was. I liked him as a freshman at UNC State very much. I thought he was a savvy football player watching him at Texas A and M. The only you know, explosive, very quick twitch, skilled at being able to create in open space and also in traffic. He's a good route runner, he he can get separation, get open and you can work in the zones. He can win the ball in the air. The only real flaw with his game that may get magnified early on is catching the football. He's a clap attacker at times, and it's always away from his frame when he has to use overhand position, either high or wide from his frame. Those are the two types of targets where he drops them, and you know he he has he's got to address that. If he can, he could be elite and in the area that he's in it with the right offensive fit. If he can't fix that, then he's going to be kind of a Courtland Sutton type of player who's like not you know, last year was his best year, but like good enough that you're drafting him and considering him as a bargain when he can be a bargain, but you're avoiding him when the ADP is too high, right, the ceiling isn't necessarily hitting for that. Yeah, yeah, I got you.

01:26:54
Speaker 1: All right, Let's let's just kind of rapid fire some some wide receiver names and get some thoughts on them. Again, there's just a lot of dudes, right, Like, there's a lot of interesting players, and.

01:27:03
Speaker 3: There's there were there's a lot of different.

01:27:05
Speaker 1: Archetypes I think too in this class that you know are not It's just it's just like a choose your own adventure kind of situation with this with his class.

01:27:14
Speaker 3: Omar Cooper is getting first round buzz now.

01:27:16
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's it's kind of locked in from from the way that a lot of mocks are going and such like in the early twenties at this point, you know, when I launched the guy, I think he had an early second round capital.

01:27:28
Speaker 3: But what about Omar Cooper.

01:27:30
Speaker 2: In a different class that was higher at the top, He'd still be that early second round capitol guy. Yeah. I mean, there's so many comps to him being Deebo Samuel, but he's twenty pounds lighter than Deebo Samuels. So let's let's let's chill on on Deebo Samuel as the as the comp necessarily just because he's not He's not going to be that good after the catch. Maybe Roddy White could. That's a name from the past, you know, big strong receiver who could, who could? But he was a better route runner. He's a better route runner than Debo as well. So yeah, I think he's a I think he's a top ten receiver, and I think he's a He's a guy that can probably contribute early, if not start in the right situation and maybe even thrive with good receivers around him. Yeah.

01:28:14
Speaker 1: Rashi Rice was another was a was a comp analytically for him. Where again, yeah, you know, like I don't think Rice is like overly overly special.

01:28:23
Speaker 3: But you get him in the right spot, he's going to dominate fantasy football.

01:28:25
Speaker 2: You know.

01:28:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, Chris Brazzle talk to me about him.

01:28:29
Speaker 2: I like him. I know that people are like they logo scout programs.

01:28:34
Speaker 3: I mean to be. Tennessee's been frightening with some of these.

01:28:37
Speaker 2: Things they have. They have You look at you look at what is his name, Jalen What was Jalen Hyatt? Jalen Hyatt. You know, Josh Palmer was the most production.

01:28:47
Speaker 3: Hunter back in the day, but it wouldn't have been the same the same game.

01:28:50
Speaker 2: But even Josh Palmer wasn't the same regime as Hyatt. And and then the Browns guy that that was Cedric Tillman. Tillman, thank you. You know they were they were as they were. He was kind of in the middle of two different formats. The other thing, too, is that Brazzl's played for Tulane before that, so we can't just say that he was raised by the Tennessee ski exactly so that he had a better He still had good things on tape there too, So I think he's a better route runner than what he's had to show at Tennessee. And even if he isn't a bet knows the tree as well and has to learn more of the rock tree. What he does, he performs well technically, and so the results I think will follow. I like him. I think that he will eventually become starter.

01:29:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he's he's that like alien frame right in the in his and his ability, you know, is just you watch him, You're like, how is his body doing this?

01:29:49
Speaker 2: He win does the George Pickens lookalike contest? Out of the three contestants that are in this draft.

01:29:54
Speaker 3: There you go. There you go.

01:29:57
Speaker 1: Chris Bell, who's got a very thick frame, you know, more of that AJ Brown frame if you will.

01:30:03
Speaker 3: Where are you are with Chris Bell?

01:30:04
Speaker 2: Yeah? He's the high endcomp for me too. There is AJ Brown, But he's the player most likely that I'm the most scared to draft, and I'm the most scared not to draft the entire because he has lots of lapses with concentration, with technique, with concepts. But then you watch him make a play and you're like watching that speed on display with that size, watching him make catches that you say, okay, can you do that more often? You know, getting open with raps that you go, okay, you showed me that you know how to do some of this stuff, can you start doing it more often? Like you know, in situations where you clearly should have done it, you didn't. He's in that kind of tier where the injury might actually be a good thing for fantasy gms because you might be able to get him later. He didn't have to reach for him because if he was healthy and he was a first round pick, that that would be a bigger risk. But as a mid to late second round pick, maybe you know, if the if the well starts to run a little bit dry, you're you're shooting for the upside.

01:31:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally get that. Skyler Bell. You seem like you were pretty high on on Bell in the RSP. I liked him too. I thought that he had a pretty interesting profile, so talk to talk about him a little bit.

01:31:28
Speaker 2: Most clap attackers I don't like the only clap attackers I've like serial clap attackers, not just Courtland Sutton lapses clap attack You know, everyone has those types of lapses, but guys who every almost every play it seems like they're clapping it or trapping it to their their body. Most guys don't work out the four guys that I saw that that did were early du set Terry McLaurin, Golden Tate, and Marvin Harrison Senior, you know, and you know, you look at that profile and you go, what do they have in common? And I'd say most of them. What they had in common is that they could use good technique when they had to. Except for Terry, I think except for well, the half of them could early and early in a Golden Tate could. Marvin Harrison Senior rarely did. He was catching balls like he was a nineteen seventy eight wide receiver, you know, you know, like he was a modern shot or something like he valued his game after that, probably did. And then you know, and then the same thing goes, you know, looking at that Terry McLaurin, Terry McLaurin is like he's like a bumblebee. Like from a standpoint of physics, he shouldn't be able to fly, you know, but he flies very well. That's what he's like as a pass catcher, like it should not happen Skylar Bells kind of like that. Like. But the thing is is that the guys who usually stink, who like who fail in the league because they can't because of their clap attacks. Is that when they actually tried in college to use proper technique, they couldn't do it, so they reverted back to the clap attack. And you'll see them every once in a while try it and go, oh, that's too scary. I can't do that. Scylar Bell actually can use good technique, but he chooses to clap attack, and he does it at a rate that his drop rates aren't as bad as most serial clap attackers are. So I'm willing to go the extra mile and say, all right, it's a gamble, folks, but I'm going to say he's going to be the exception to the rule. Ear And when you look at what he does at the catch point with difficult throws and he wins it that way, I'm kind of like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm going to throw out the whole clap attack model with this type of thing and let him give him the chance here because he fits the model of guys who've proven it. And then on top of all that, it's like his elusiveness, his ability the open field. He makes some plays that you're like, that's that's borderline absurd.

01:34:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what about Elijah Surratt.

01:34:08
Speaker 3: He's interesting.

01:34:09
Speaker 1: You know, zero star recruit goes to Saint Francis and then kind of you know, James Madison and then does the the the Indiana thing, and he just got better every year.

01:34:18
Speaker 3: But what what kind of player do you see in him?

01:34:21
Speaker 2: If everything clicks for him, he might be able to approach what Michael Wilson did last year, but more likely he's going to be more like Josh Palmer. I think he's a well built possession receiver. He'll give you some plus the artage plays every once in a while if you if you put him in a situation where he gets play action and delivers a double move or it's some sort of misdirection play. But I think overall he's he's not as sudden of a mover. I think he's just beginning to grasp the nuances of route running that he's going to have to have at the NFL level, and he's going to continue to have to work at that. You know, he's going to be better at zone coverage, read in the field, and just finding openings and he's okay after the catch. He's decisive downfield and patient, but he's kind of a high floor, medium high ceiling guy. Yeah, so six to eight hundred yards is what you're probably looking at for him most years.

01:35:21
Speaker 1: Denzel Boston getting a lot of first round love. Do you think that he is in that that conversation or are you lower than that?

01:35:29
Speaker 2: I'm going to say yes and yes to the to both questions. Nice, I know it's the problem is this is this is where rankings suck.

01:35:40
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, we remember we had that discussion.

01:35:45
Speaker 2: He's a perfect example of ranking suck because I'm ranked fourteenth if but it's only because there are two things dragging him down. He had an injury that required enough rehab in Game Smith that I had to mark him down for injury. And he and his vision as a runner because of the routes that he gets, I didn't get to see enough of him as a runner to give him credit for being something that he might be. Yeah. If those two things were different, he'd be at least wide receiver six on my board. Yeah, so I told people on my comments, if you take him as a top five receiver, I have no argument for you. He's consistent, He's a good player at the catch point. He runs decent routes for what you're asking him to do. He's got good size, he's not mad after the catch at all. He's competent at least. I just didn't get to see enough of him in that avenue to give him the full credit. And I just don't like cheating on it, even if it's you that way, I'd rather just tell you, yeah, I've got him at wide receiver fourteen, but I can easily see how he was graded two or three points higher and he would have ended up at wide receiver five.

01:36:53
Speaker 1: His complist, the one that like aligned almost perfectly was Jayden Higgins from last year, where it just kind of like overlaid and just.

01:37:01
Speaker 3: Looked like that.

01:37:01
Speaker 1: But I I had, like, if you were to think of spectrum, it was sort of the same. I mean, Higgins, Courtland, Sutton spectrum like that that avenue. It's almost like a and and look Tedoro McMillan was on that analytically for me last year, but that but it was like a higher end version of that. You know, it's like a just a just an easier kind of buy in than than what we're getting with Boston. Sure, Okay, I'm glad glad to see that there's agreement there uh, two more and then I know this is a marathon, but I.

01:37:28
Speaker 2: Just love loving We're having fun.

01:37:30
Speaker 1: Jeremy Bernard who didn't have like a peak, didn't have a great production profile, wasn't horrible, wasn't like phenomenal. But but what do you what do you see in him?

01:37:41
Speaker 2: He's a weird player.

01:37:44
Speaker 1: I mean what's funny is what's funny is you look at his his analytical comps and you get like Paris Campbell, you know, like like that that kind of like, oh, I don't really know where this guy fits on this, you know.

01:37:56
Speaker 2: And and I'm going to give you the slower versions of of I don't know where this guy fits, and they do it differently than Paris Alan. Hearns Tyler Johnson the best. Stevie Johnson if he really knocks it out of the park, you know, Stevie Johnson's like the ugly duckling superstar as a route runner.

01:38:14
Speaker 1: You know.

01:38:15
Speaker 2: So it's I hate to compare him there, but maybe if it if it gets more smoothed out and his game really rounds out, maybe Robert Woods, Yeah, do you think that?

01:38:28
Speaker 1: Do you think that he's a hopefully lands in a spot where he can see some manufactured stuff like it's more that like because because again a lot of the stuff that I like, Mohammed Sanu was one for him that I got. That's and I remember talking to Harmon about this actually and he was like, oh, SNeW is perfect, and I'm like okay, good.

01:38:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:38:47
Speaker 1: And then then but then you also get like Lynn Bowden types, you know, like guys where you're just like, I don't know, I.

01:38:53
Speaker 3: Don't know what to do with this guy.

01:38:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he's closer to a Sanoo than he is a Boden. Yeah, that's for sure. But I think that he's you know, overall, you're probably getting a guy who get him the system where that fits well with this game and give him some time to acclimate and improve. And you're probably getting a capable starter who's a wide receiver two wide receiver three in Fantasy in his peak years. But he's got a hidden trap door in his game, and that's because he doesn't really he has difficulty with tight coverage. And I think that that's what separates wide receiver ones and high and wide receiver twos from the rest of the past. And I don't know if he's going to get better at that because there's a lot of more detail in this game that he has to learn.

01:39:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, the last wide receiver I want to throw out there, and then you can throw out some random ones as you do. Zacharya Branch is again. You know, it's funny we talked about Burden last year. I remember having the conversation with you where people are like, oh, this is a Wandell Robinson usage and blah blah blah. So zach Branch has Wandell Robinson collegiate usage, tons of screens, tons of low A dot stuff. The difference and if you look at the list of day two wide receivers who had similar screen and you know manufacturer touch profiles, there's been two. If you want to call it hits, you know, I mean, I think we're the Luther Burdon trajectory is on the right trajectory.

01:40:21
Speaker 3: That had that usage.

01:40:23
Speaker 2: Right.

01:40:23
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that that's the way they are as players.

01:40:25
Speaker 1: But the usage in college, right, and the two that were hits for Wandall Robinson and Luther Burden, but both of them had really really good age justin production, Like both of them were phenomenal producers in college. Every other one that you run into on this list is just bust after bust after bus. It's the MIKEL Hardman, Anthony Schwartz, you know, Malachi Corley, Canarius, Tony and and it just gets scary. And that's where I'm at with Branch, where like, you know, maybe this is the way I'm seeing it. So I'm throwing this out and I'm prefacing with this because I really want to see here your.

01:40:59
Speaker 3: Thoughts on it.

01:41:00
Speaker 1: But like it feels like, yeah, maybe there's a coach out there, I'm Mike McDaniel or something who could do something really fun with Branch. But anytime I get to a point, and I've learned this through the years, at least with the way I'm evaluating, anytime I get to the point where I'm trying to like make really specific excuses or say that you even just using the word fun, you know, as a for a prospect, I'm like, is the ceiling really there? Like is it like maybe if you squint you could see like the Tyreek Hil trajectory or something. But it just gets really scary to me when you start to make those edge cases for a player like this. So talk about zach Rya branch, Like, am I wrong and thinking about it this way? Or is it like can he develop into something more or is it just like this is probably a gadgety type player at the next level.

01:41:50
Speaker 2: I would say the safe bet is to consider him a gadgety type player at the next level. And but the only reason is that his route running has leaves a lot to be desired and he's got to work on that. That's the big thing is that he just has you know, they're good enough to get on the field the routes, but not good enough to remain on the field every down. So you know, there's just not refinements, there's not competent execution at every phase of the route, from the release to the stem to the break. There's some there's some issues. He's like a he if routes were like a sales strategy, he'd be like a salesman without with a product, but without a sales strategy. You know, Like that's basically like that's basically what it is. It's almost it's strange or it's like I'm charming, so you should buy something from me, you know, or I'm good looking, you should buy something from me. And it's like, yeah, it doesn't quite work that way, except maybe in the pharmaceutical field. I don't know. But anyway, sorry, I just couldn't help it. But you know, like I know, But the whole situation is is, yes, there's an upside for him if he gets his routes together that maybe he could give you some Jordan Addison DeVonta Smith type of way be around those ranges. But I'm more inclined to believe that he's probably better off as a punt return special kick return specialist and occasional gadget guy. And I don't know if the routes are going to get to where they need to be. If they do, he's a boom bust player. He's probably the biggest boom bust player in the middle rounds of the NFL draft or your fantasy draft.

01:43:37
Speaker 1: Yeah that's good because I'm seeing that too, because even like the model doesn't like despise him because some of you know, some of the productions. Okay, it's just when you really look under the hood, it's like, oh, this is how this is kind of coming together.

01:43:49
Speaker 2: He gets drafted on a Rams or the Lions or a team like that, say goodbye. He gets if he gets drafted in Cleveland and they change to a one tight end set, you might have something there. You might also have a utter disaster. You just don't know. But like say a different teams in Cleveland, but you know what I'm saying, like needs a receiver, he might be okay. Like I don't even I don't even want to mention some of the bad teams because they'll mind. I kind of vomited my mouth a little bit as I was talking.

01:44:24
Speaker 1: Sorry, you know, I'm so nervous about like some of these I mean, some of the landing spots are pretty bad for for these whiteouts this year. But that's why we're just talking about them as prospects right now. We don't have to worry about that at the moment. Right as many wide receivers you want to throw out there, just random random darts or guys, we haven't talked about that that you think should be on our radar.

01:44:43
Speaker 2: Sure, let's look at the fun list here, it's mine, I would say, all right, moving forward, who first comes to mind? You know, Antonio Williams is fun. I know that he's you know, I think he's kind of a Jaden Reid type of player.

01:44:56
Speaker 3: He got.

01:44:57
Speaker 1: He got him a Conkey comp in my in the model and I'm not saying that that's that because the model didn't know what to do with live mccauckey, totally right.

01:45:03
Speaker 2: That was like that was that was the top of my my list. He's the aspirational comp. Jayden Reen's kind of more the mid tier comp. Ye. Yeah, yeah, so I liked him too. I'm with you, Josh Cameron on a Baylor. Lots of tools, lots of tools. He's got to learn how to make them more. He can run though, he's got If there's a Mohammed Sanu guy. For me, it was kind of him, but in that sphere of a j Brown and Kwan Bolden and Mohammed Sanu, he's like he could be a higher end Mohammed Sanu. Yeah, all right, let's dig a little bit deeper here on guys.

01:45:42
Speaker 1: Actually, Josh Cameron got a one of his was was for mine was was Michael Wilson, just because Michael Wilson's so much bigger than we we think, you know, like and and that that was probably because Cameron's a big boy, like he's he's stout, like he's a very well built Uh you know, wide out an interesting so I understand the the SNeW call out there.

01:46:01
Speaker 2: Yeah he's a running he's got running back skills, right, yeah for sure, So yeah, he's certainly in that in that range. Eric McCallister could be fun because he's, you know, he's that contested catch guy. He's the he's miss congeniality and the George Pickens lookalike contest, you know, pageant. But he's got to learn more route skills to get there. But I think he's not as far away as people think.

01:46:27
Speaker 1: McAllister is an interesting call because he actually had because I breakout score in my model, which is age adjusted receiving ears between past the times.

01:46:33
Speaker 3: It's the main metric at wide receiver that I use. His was top five in the class. McAllister.

01:46:38
Speaker 1: When you get like you know, Tyson and Lemon and Tate and uh concepcion and then like, oh there's Eric McCallister, there's some off the field stuff that I you know, that that I think might bring his his draft capital down a little bit. But it's good to see when again, when you get someone who's approaching it in a completely different way that's coming up with at least a similar like, Oh, this guy's interesting conclusion.

01:47:01
Speaker 3: You know, it's always something to keep in mind.

01:47:03
Speaker 2: For sure. J Michael Sturtivant. I watched him three years ago at CAL and I was like, Oh, this guy could be pretty compelling. Then I watched him at UCLA and I'm like, it's kind of less compelling because how he's being used. And then he was at Florida's dumb down system for how they did things, and he was like reduced to like a lot less compelling of a player. But I think athletically, you know, he's also another guy that could probably turn into something more. I think there's more to his game than the other the past two teams utilized, So he's kind of intriguing. You know. We lots of people are going to talk about Bryce Lance and Ted Hurst, and I certainly think that those guys could get there. But you know, I've got a lot more to say about Bryce Lance as what he cannot do right now, and I think he could get there, but it's there's a little bit of work ahead. The other thing.

01:47:58
Speaker 1: The other thing with him too is that he's an older prospect, which makes it a little bit more difficult for that, you know, to to come to fruition.

01:48:04
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, so there's there's things to like, but it's a little mixed. If I'm going to pick a player that we we've mentioned, We've mentioned Wandale Robinson a number of times. If if this guy had Wandale Robinson draft capitol, I think he'd be better than Wandale. And that's Junior Vander Ross, the third of Toledo, tough player at the catch point, better down the field than Wandale, just didn't have the draft capital. But he's a deep sleeper. I think, you know, five nine five kind of in that Greg Dortsch Wandale Robinson keeping QT sort of thing. I think it could be. I think if he had the right draft capital, he'd have a chance to have a better start than Wandale did to his career. But yeah, he's going to need he's going to need a little luck on his side to get there. All right, I'll mention a few more just for fun, all right. So Eric Rivers at Georgia Tech. He's kind of a Josh Downs Jamison Crowder type of player. You know, good runner after the catch, he contributes well from the slot. He's kind of a situational producer that might be compelling on the right team. Chase Roberts is kind of a Tim Patrick Eric Decker mash up. You know. He's really good blocker, not very fast, but he can catch and then and the two guys I'm kind of interested in seeing, just as a an evaluator. Want to see them make noise in camp, necessarily for fantasy. If they do fantasy, that would be great. Make a Brockington of Minnesota, who's like on Daniel Feldman's Bruce Feldman's Freaks list. I think he can. I think he can squad an elephant something like that, you know, with like you know, with Mark Henry on top of the elephant. I don't know, something along those lanes, you know. But he's he's kind of a Quintes Siphis type of player, like big strong, you know, like strong for his size, good at the catch point, gets open, but not especially fast, and a good runner after the catch. So he's I think maybe he maybe he could be better than his Then it looks we'll see Jalen Walthall of Incarnate World.

01:50:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and he was he was a he was a combine invite, so I looked at his stuff too.

01:50:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, he's he's kind of in that Jerry Judy Tory Holt kind of range of player, but he's he's got more catch point skill for some reason. Every time I think of him, I think of Laurent Robinson, but I know that they don't match up well, but the way they play, he's just very good at the catch. Yeah, goes up and gets it, you know, very smooth, very quick twitch. But he's like, you know, six one one one, and I bet that he was. I bet he was had weights in his back pocket when they wait him. I don't know, you know, maybe he's adding more because it incarnate were word. He probably also didn't have I don't know what. I don't know what kind of thing they make other than you know, like Georgia Tech making the Ironman suit. But he probably didn't have the greatest training facilities and workout programs to like the muscle either a carn word. So he might be a one of those guys that is a late bloomer. And then the last one, Daniel Sopquitz out of Illinois State. I joke about this a lot. I've mentioned it on Chris Harris's podcast, but I'll mention it here. Brandon Lloyd was always a long time favorite of mine as a pass catcher, though I think he's he and Larry Fitzgerald are two of the best ever to make contested acrobatic plays.

01:51:42
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, highlight reel after highlight reel catch.

01:51:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like Brandon Lloyd was like was like Keanu Reeves and the Matrix. I mean, like literally the things he did to catch the football on were crazy. I've joked that if I if I somehow won lottery and decided that I wanted to buy an island and call it RSP Island, you know, we'd be doing it would be good because we donate to darkness to light. So if we had a name named after us, it would be the Anti Epstein Island, you know, So that would be good. But another thing that we do is we'd have the Brandon Lloyd RSP Acrobatic Catch Invitational, and we would do it like the Slam Dunk Contest, where we'd have one on ones though, you know, and we'd have a pro and a college division. And so I think that Daniel Sofkowitz could be a dark horse in this college competition because sometimes it looks like he has arms sprout out from the sides of his body to catch footballs and tight coverage that really he should not be able to do. But and he runs. He run. He has the elements of good route running. He just has to develop a little bit more nuanced with his craft and the stems. But he can break. He makes good breaks. He's got good eyes. He's like six two two oh five, and he really can catch the football other than like the one situation. He needs to get a little stronger with his hands and his wrists and forearms when people hit him on the arms when he makes the catch. But when it comes to like coming out of crazy angles and spinning and turning and like getting position and somehow like taking your hand, and you know, I wouldn't be surprised if some dude jumps higher than him and he like somehow reaches down between some dude's legs and his hand comes out from like the guy's thigh and pulls the ball through like he would be the guy I would bet to make that kind of catch in this class. So he definitely deserves some mentioning because there's some with the route running there too. He's not sup I don't know if he's super fast, but he could maybe be an Adam Feelen type of surprise one day man.

01:53:51
Speaker 1: No one in the fantasy football space does analogies like Matt Waldman.

01:53:56
Speaker 3: No one, no one and no one. No one digs deeper than Matt either. I appreciate all the time.

01:54:03
Speaker 1: You know, these marathon sessions that we do each year is always one of the highlights, if not the highlight of you know, the the prospecting season for me. So I really appreciate your time, Appreciate the insight, the information. Let everyone know where they can get the RSP and what you're working on, all that good stuff.

01:54:21
Speaker 2: Sure you can find it at Matt Waldman dot com. For some reason, you have a problem getting the access, you can go you can email me at Matt Waldman RSP at gmail dot com. I haven't had any real problems with it, but just in case. It's you know, every time it's a new process. You you know, sometimes things can be like I didn't understand how to get through here. I usually respond within twenty four hours. You know, again, twenty one years doing this. It's one of the two most purchased draft guides by from independent draft guide purveyors of you know NFL people. According to folks like Alex Brown, who's been a head recruiter and not with scouts at old Miss Rice smu Houston and he's now an Atlanta Falcon scout, so he knows, you know, he kind of knows what people buy.

01:55:07
Speaker 1: You know.

01:55:07
Speaker 2: It's like the Beast, and like if Dane Brugler's is the Beast with and he does great work and he covers all the players. I joke minds Godzilla. So we've got King cong versus Godzilla, you know, but in a friendly sort of way. But you know, so it's good there. You can find that the post draft comes with it for the same price. You're getting this in the post draft, where I re ranked players based on fit, I do a cheat sheet where I look at ADP. So when I look at somebody and I say, yeah, I was ahead on Patrick Mahomes or Nick Chubb or Lamar or whoever it was, and I can say, yeah, these were my number one players overall pre draft. And there's still I still have the number one overall. But you can draft them at twenty fifth or thirty six. Then here's the number. Here's a formula that shows you the kind of the give you have to when you need to start drafting them and when it gets more dangerous for you getting sniped. So I show you things like that. And of course I work at Footballguys Dot COWM been there since two thousand and nine, and so yeah, you know, so I author stuff pre season and in season, I do rankings and commentary and all that stuff. And I have podcasts that I do. I have a profane podcast with Bob Harris that I've convinced him to do and now I've let the genie out of the model and I don't know if we can put it back in, you know, called fee lit or We do that every Monday, and that's a favorite. And then I have a podcast with Adam Harstead during the year where we talk about Dynasty and everybody knows how smart Adam Harstead is and he comes up with some really great stuff in terms of models and looking at things and questioning stuff, so you know, Adam's great. And then of course there's there's Brandon and I doing our show Going Deep. So those are the things that you can usually get either much of the off season and definitely during the season, and you know that's the that's it in a nutshell.

01:57:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I look again, I appreciate it, and I say this every year, but I think that you know, if anyone's consuming the Lay Round Prospect Guide, it's obviously going to be analytics heavy. It's a great companion to just go look at the RSP because you're getting a completely different perspective and angle and looking at these guys.

01:57:18
Speaker 3: And I I mean, so far, this is our third year doing this, and it.

01:57:21
Speaker 1: Seems like when we have alignment on players, yes it is. It's it's a good even even when it takes a year like Camani Videll. You know, even even when it doesn't happen right away, it eventually gets there right never wrong, as you said, just just early.

01:57:35
Speaker 2: You know the joke, I mean, like I joke with that because the two guys that people were like you certainly are a staunch true believer on these two players, like three years ago, I've heard this a lot, were Michael Wilson, Enrico Dowdell and last year so like in my ad at football guys, I literally had them use Michael Wilson's first time I've used a veteran to talk about a Rookie Guide. But I had to do that because I was like, this guy's like Michael Thomas. If he can, if he gets the opportunity, he gives you Michael Thomas fives and rico' donal every year I go listen, you don't have to add them. But just know this is the fourth year in a row that the Cowboys chose to keep him. There's a reason for that, you know, if he too, Yeah, exactly exactly, so you you know this was a guy that you know. Those are the types of things that you know, the draft, the Late Round Draft Guide and the RSP give you value with is that you can look at these things later and go, all right, I've got a luxury to add on waivers or it's until the season, injuries happen, what do they have to say about this guy? Maybe I should keep this And it's a little more evergreen than I thought. And that's what people realize about these types of guys. So it's always a pleasure doing this with you. It's one of the highlights of draft season is getting a chance to chop over you because you're such a smart guy and you're engaging in what you do and you provide such good analysis, and it's fun to hear the analytical side of things in a in a nuanced way that you know, gives us methods of conversation. And I know people have really loved us getting together, so it's been it's been a joy.

01:59:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate it man.

01:59:10
Speaker 1: As always, guys, check out lateround dot com, check out the Late Round Prospect Guide. Make sure you subscribe to both the YouTube channel and anywhere you can get your podcast. Otherwise, everyone, thanks for tuning in.