Late-Round Perspectives: Heath Cummings

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Speaker 1: Heath Cummings is a fantasy sports writer for CBS Sports and he's an analyst on Fantasy Football Today. He was once a writer at Football Guys Too. He's a family man, a fortunate Chiefs fan, and he's a nerd for not just dynasty fantasy football, but beer as well. These are his Late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. I know a lot of you already play over there, but if you don't, you've got to check out their Best Ball drafts. You draft a team, which is the best part of fantasy football, and then that's it. There's no management, no waiver wire, no trades, and no lineup setting. Your lineup is optimized for you each week based on player performance. I'm gonna be doing a lot more content on Best Ball this season, so make sure you're signed up for when that content drops. They are drafts going on right now, so head to Underdog Fantasy Dot or download the app and sign up. When you do, use promo code Late Round and you'll get a deposit match up to one hundred dollars. That's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show. Like I was thinking about this earlier today and I was like, like, you and I have talked and been a part of this space for like, I don't know, like it seems like over a decade at this.

00:01:23
Speaker 2: Point, more than a decade, I think. If I remember right, you were at Number Fire and I was trying to kind of break in. I'd been a game recapper for football guys, and you and I had some conversations probably thirteen fourteen years ago before I started a CBS.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy, and I don't know if we've done have we done a show together?

00:01:44
Speaker 3: I don't think so, which is kind of which is crazy really weird sor yeah, yeah, because it's like it's not like we've talked so like, like you know, throughout the years on Twitter and whether DM or whatever, like for a while now, and it's cool to finally be able to sit down and talk shop a little bit.

00:01:58
Speaker 2: Man.

00:01:58
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah.

00:01:59
Speaker 2: People probably thought we had some few were refused to talk to each other in public, But there's no feud. Are all good.

00:02:06
Speaker 1: We can we can squash any beef that people think exists. Just just know that there has not been any at all. I'm having you on at a time where things are pretty crazy in the NFL, where we have the NFL Draft coming up. We will talk about that a little bit.

00:02:21
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: Free agency is happening, and and right before you hopped on, we learned that Desmond Ritter was traded to Arizona and Rondell Moore is now on Atlanta, which means to me, you know, a guy that wasn't even involved in that deal that I'm most excited about is probably Greg Dortch, because now all of a sudden he might have like a real staple role. And we've seen him, you know, throughout his time, there have some random blow up weeks or some some random usable weeks. But I do want to talk about both those things, prospecting and free agency. Let's talk. Let's start talking about the prospecting side first. I'm curious, Heath, how you sort of approach your rookie evaluation. I know you're doing a lot of great stuff on the dynasty side now with CBS, So what sort of your approach like when it comes to evaluating.

00:03:06
Speaker 2: These rook I really try to take sort of a wisdom of the crowd approach, but not in like, here, give me the consensus rankings. I want that, but more like there's so many smart people doing so much good work. I want to hear what all of them have to say. I said before I started a football guys, So I've been a Matt Waldman fan for as long as I can remember, Like and his draft guide comes out, I get very excited when you tweet about the model says this about this guy, or like when I see one of your takes, I want to take that into account. Whentt Harmon's talking about wide receivers, I want to see what he's saying about those guys, and then, like, from that type of starting point, I probably am of the opinion that like as a fantasy industry, we've gone a little bit too far away from production. Like I do think it still matters if there's a tiebreaker, I'd like to lean towards the guy who's actually shown us the ability to produce at an elite level, at whatever level he was playing at. And then you know, I do watch some film. I definitely look at the advanced stuff and lean a lot on Jacob Gibbs who's on the FFG Dynasty quite often for that.

00:04:09
Speaker 1: But number another number fire Gap gives it.

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Speaker 2: And yes, yes, absolutely, and so yeah, it's it's I'd want all of the inputs. I'm not a film guy, I'm not a dad a guy. I'd like it all please.

00:04:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think that it's okay to see what other And I've talked about this a lot, especially with like Harmon and what he does with perception perception.

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Speaker 2: You know.

00:04:30
Speaker 1: The story I always tell is last year with Jaden Reid where my model spit out a comp of stefan digs out of nowhere and I'm like, where did that? Like I didn't know anything really about Reid at the time. This is back in like January February, And immediately I texted Harmon and I was like, hey, man, is this like a thing? Like should I be excited about this? And when Harmon then charted and saw that Jayden Reid had legit traits, of course I'm going to be a little bit even more bullish on him than I was just with my stuff, because I know that another small person, not even calling me smart, just a smart person, you know, is saying something positive about a guy that looked positive with the process that I was using. So I love that. I love that, you know, I just get a little bit tilted in a way when analysts are like afraid to you know, utilize other people's work or kind of piggyback off of that work. I do it all the time. I mean, like last year, last summer, Ben Gretch started doing a lot of look at that another XCBS.

00:05:28
Speaker 2: Gut he will be he will be on my show tomorrow talking to Gretch tomorrow.

00:05:32
Speaker 1: Yes, perfect, such a small world, all this whole community. But yeah, so like you know, last year, Gretch did some like preliminary research on RPO stuff, you know, just looking at data and stuff like that, and I'm like, wow, this is really interesting. So I just piggybacked off of it, obviously giving him massive amounts of credit for even like thinking of some of these ideas and me just kind of like digging a little bit deeper into them. But there's nothing wrong with that, you know, like we don't need to be this like siloed off people and not take things from others and just get better.

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Speaker 2: You know, it took me several years doing this to figure that out there. I will admit early in my career I was always just kind of think, like, what's the thing that I can say that other people are not saying and like being so concerned about who was I right about and who was I wrong about? And then thankfully I've gotten into a place where it's not like that anymore. This is a much more peaceful way to do this. Yeah.

00:06:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, And look, you can still have unique takes, of course, you know, like it can still come out that way. But if there's gray area with what you're doing, which I think is the case for a lot of the things that we do, it's okay to be like, oh wow, there are some really smart people that are saying that are on one side of this. Maybe I should dig into that side a little bit more, which is, you know what you're talking about here with the rookie of OL stuff. When you look at these classes, let's just specifically talk about, you know, running backs and wide receivers. Here, the running back class as a whole, i'd say, perception wise people are saying it sucks. The wide receiver class as a whole, perception wise people are saying it's really good. Would you agree with that general assessment? How are you viewing I.

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Speaker 2: Definitely agree with that assessment. If we are talking about the very top, I think that the top of the wide receiver class has the potential to be one of the strong. And it's funny to say that when you look back at the last four or five wide receiver classes and some of these guys we've brought in the league. But I still think like Harrison Adunze Neighbors, So those three guys could just blow the top three of other classes out of the water. And the running backs are week at the top. But I don't know how much of that is influenced by the fact that Jonathan Brooks towards a cl because like, the thing we're really missing in this running back class is the clear number one and the guy that you want to take as a top six rookie pick. I feel okay about running backs like three through six compared to three through six and other classes. And I think once we like, I see a lot of pre draft rankings that are just ranking as if you have to draft right now, and that's that's useful. And they don't have any running backs in the first round. And the thing I like to point out is I'm pretty certain that there's gonna be a couple of running backs that land in good spots on Day two, and they're going to be drafted in the first round of even superflex rookie drafts.

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Speaker 1: Mmmmm hmm. I do think that it's one of those things where if you're you know, there's some leagues where you are drafting, uh, you know, you're doing your rookie drafts pre NFL draft, right, in that case, I'm probably gonna play it safe and just get wide receivers because we don't know where some of these running backs are gonna land right, Like if we if you like Blake korm as your RB one, if you like Trey Benson as your RB one, there's still a chance that some of these guys don't go as high or in the right spots that we would want them to go to. And I do think that, like you know, landing spot will probably dictate running back a little bit more than it would at wide receiver. I do agree with you though, in totality that like this wide receiver class definitely had like like to me, uh with Neighbors and Marvin Harrison Junior. I see them as just as good of prospects as Jamar Chase when he was coming around, like are like, are you are you there with a Doonzay too. I know that you mentioned a Duneesa Is he would he would he be with them in that group or are you Is he in the same tier?

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Speaker 2: I would say he's not in the same tier. What I've really struggled with is whether neighbors is because I almost feel like, and I get frustrated doing tiers. Sometimes you want to put one guy in a tier, and you want to put two guys in this tier. All of a sudden, you guys have a teen tiers, and that's not really helpful. But I have struggled a little bit because sometimes I look at Neighbors and the Dunsay and I think, man, they're not that far apart. But then sometimes I look at neighbors and Harrison and think the same thing, and so I kind of fluctuate between his neighbors closer to Harrison or to a Dounsea. So I'd probably have it like as a tier and a half between those three.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, I know that my models and the stuff that I'm working with has neighbors and Marvin Harrison very close to one another, and then a Duneesay sort of in the next tier, but by himself. To your point, right, it's just like let's just create all these freaking tiers and make it even more confusing for people. Yeah, I mean the things with neighbors that I see is I do think there's a little bit of a fear with the amount of slot work he had versus Marvin Harrison. Marvin Harrison to me is so Harrison's your wide receiver?

00:09:57
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, the clear number. And I think we were talking a couple days agobout where he's going to slot into Dynasty rankings, and discussion was somewhere between wide receiver five and wide receiver eight. And I really think that it's possible were a month into the NFL season and we're talking about him with Chase Jefferson and Lamb, like he's already like where does he belong in that top four?

00:10:18
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah? And with Harrison, you know, like if you were to like really nitpick at his like analytical profile, it's probably like his yak ability and just you know what he does after the catch. But that's why I think like the top compat spit out for me was aj Green, and AJ Green kind of had those concerns about his entire career where he was just like not here. There were instances where he didn't fight for the ball the way that you wanted him to fight for the ball and do those sorts of things. But yeah, I mean, like like the fact that Harrison did what he did for multiple years under with multiple quarterbacks with different types of competition, whereas Neighbors just did it this past year for the most part. I mean, his his sophomore season was fine enough, but like this past year. You know, I would I would put Neighbors twenty twenty three season above any other season from any other wide receiver in this class, like as a from a production profile standpoint and all of that. But I do think that you have to say, okay, but that's one season, and we saw it more frequently with Marvin Harrison. So even though my model has I mean, look, the scores are ninety nine point five out of one hundred versus ninety nine point three, So we're we're you hate Neighbors, so you're saying, yeah, right, right, so you know, realistically like they're right there with one another. But I did put Harrison above Neighbors because I just the safety is just like out of control. My question for you, this wasn't even on the show sheet. But now that we're talking about just general dynasty rings and stuff, super flex drafts, super flex rookie draft. Because Harrison seems to have the profile he does, are you then taking him over Caleb Williams at the one on one.

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Speaker 2: I personally think that it is close enough, and I think like, if you have the first pick and you actually earned it, then you should probably just take Caleb Williams. But if you're a team that has traded for the first pick or in that spot with a chance to actually compete reasonably this year, I think it's close enough between those two that your rosters should determine. I don't think there's anything I gotta seen people say you can't take Harrison number one. You got to try to trade down or something. I think there's a real risk of trading down and that not working out. So if, like I think those two are close enough that you can take, you can determine those If you're in a situation where you might reasonably be competitive, take the one you need the most. Otherwise I'm taking Caleb Williams.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like the only way you do that because I'm actually in that situation. This is the most humble, braggy thing I could possibly say right now, I won a championship last year in the league, and I also have the one on one that's awesome, and so yeah, like, I mean, this is just how dynasty works sometimes, right, And I have CJ. Stroud, Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford. I think there's even one other quarterback, So like the quarterback situation isn't that bad?

00:12:47
Speaker 2: Right right?

00:12:47
Speaker 1: From like a super flex standpoint, and I could use the wide receiver. I think you know, I am contemplating one hundred percent going with Harrison in that one oh one spot, and you can't like the hypothetical of trading back is simply that, right, Like it's it's a hypothetical, it's it's is the one oh two because you basically have to trade into the one o two if you want Marvin Harrison right right? And so is the one o two going to give you a second or something to move up to that one oh one spot or do they know, oh, he's shopping this pick right now, because I know that he's going to take Marvin Harrison with his one on one. So I'm just gonna get Caleb Williams anyway with my one o two. So I I do think that it's like it's way way easier said than done, because you're just kind of showing your hand whenever you're saying, you know, I got this one on one, I'm gonna shop it, I'm gonna trade it. Why do you think you would be doing that? Because I think you know, we default in super Flex to going quarterback right because the value propositions there. We know that quarterback. I mean, look at super Flex startup right now, the first seven picks or quarterbacks right, and so we know that the value piece is there. But I was kind of going back. I was on a show with Pat Krane yesterday and we were going back and forth on this, like, I would you agree that the Marvin Harrison profile itself is more bust proof than the profile of Klee Caleb Williams and his profile to the quarterback.

00:14:02
Speaker 2: I feel more confident that Marvin Harrison is going to be a top twelve wide receiver a year from now than I do that Caleb Williams is going to be a top twelve quarterback.

00:14:10
Speaker 1: Certainly, Yeah, yeah, And I think that's the case with quarterbacks in general, because they're very hard to evaluate. But also we know that a lot of it comes down to like what's going on between the ears and stuff that we can't fully comprehend yet and right now and hopefully maybe someday we can be better at it, but you know, there's just a lot of that going on. And so where I sort of landed is sort of where I think you're at. Where it's like, like you can see the obvious value side from a ceiling standpoint, really favoring Caleb Williams, and.

00:14:39
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people, it seems like, talk about dynasty as if it's entirely value accumulation and you're not playing in a league next year and trying to win it and so, and it is that way if you're early on in a rebuild, like I'm totally on board early on a rebuild, that's the way that it should be played. And that's why if you're not actually competing this year, I think it's Caleb Williams pretty easily. But yeah, if I'm actually trying to play in a fantasy football league this year and I have the quarterbacks that you have, and I have room of wide receiver, I'm taking Harrison.

00:15:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean not only that, but right now, like early ADP over an underdog, Harrison has been consistently a second round pick. From an ADP standpoint. That's redraft focused, right, so you know, the market is telling the market is not nearly as wrong as people think the market is wrong. Obviously, we can find inefficiencies every single season. But the fact that the market is telling us that Marvin Harrison Junior, without even a t without even being in the NFL yet, is a second round redraft pick, which I believe is going to end up being like, is that that's got to be the highest rookie wide receiver wide receiver.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: For sure, he had first round running backs, but yeah, it's got to be the highest wide receiver.

00:15:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, I don't remember seeing anything.

00:15:46
Speaker 2: Jamar Chase might have been that high, but he couldn't catch in training camp, so yeah, right, right.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: He went from yeah, he went he went from like a third rounder to like a fifth and sixth rounder because everyone freaked out about what was going on. Then, uh, all right, so let's talk about these wide receivers a little bit more. Like you said, seems pretty deep. You know, there seems like there's a good number of guys who can be fantasy relevant but there also seems to be a lot of volatility. I say that from the perspective of you know, if you look at like the projected round two guys, for instance, or the projected even round three guys, or late first rounders like the Keon Coleman's of the world, I can find warts in red flags almost all of their profiles. And I know that's the case, that's how it's going to be. You know, they're not early first round picks for a reason. And wide receiver, you know, is a position that these teams are going to be going after, and so they're gonna put a premium on the guys who don't have warts, of course, But at the same time, there is some concern I think with some of these guys. Do you have any favorites of that group that's maybe going in early round two or projected girl or early round too, late round one into round three, or even the late rounds. Just who are your favorites in this class?

00:16:51
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I think one of them is a guy who has been falling because of his combine performance or showing. But Troy Franklin, like and he was a guy who I think was maybe going to be a mid first round pick and now is looking like a late first early second round pick. He was my wide receiver four in the class. If he falls into round two, he'll easily be my favorite wide receiver taken in round two. And then after that it really gets into like where are these guys. There's a couple of guys that seem like kind of wild cards. I see Roman Wilson projected anywhere from going thirty second to the Chiefs to falling all the way into round three. Or you see like Malachai Corley. Nobody knows anything about where that guy's going to be drafted. But I do love both of those guys. Corley specifically just because of his unique skill set, and I figure, like, whoever's going to draft that guy has a plan for him. I don't think they're going to take him and try to put him into just random wide receiver role R. And so like those guys, depending on if they actually get that day to draft capital or probably the guys that i'd.

00:17:50
Speaker 1: Say man Troy Franklin, because he's been a weird, Like I've gone back and forth with him, and I think that he's solid right, Like I think at the very least he has like a really good baseline where I don't feel like his profile from a bus standpoint is nearly as great as a key On Coleman type. Let's say I think Keon Coleman has like the Breshad Perriman kind of profile that's kind of scary, right, whereas you know, I understand the ceilings there. But again, going back to something I had talked about with Pack Krane on a show that I did yesterday, we often probably get the floor ceiling projections just wrong, you know, Like we we say, oh, Troy Franklin might just be like a high floor maybe not a huge ceiling guy, but at the same time we're surprised by ceiling all the time. So why not just go with the high floor player that we know is pretty solid and then hope that, you know, something bigger comes of it, right, Like, like if Troy Franklin, here's a question if Troy Franklin goes to your Chiefs, because that seems to be like a perfect fit in my opinion, Like if they if they were to get a Troy Franklin type who can really stretch the field and do things that Rashi Rice might not be able to do. Is he all of a sudden, is he like you're locked in no doubt wide receiver for in this class. Even if a guy like Brian Thomas or Xavier Worthy get you say, Brian Thomas gets like top fifteen capital, would you be okay with drafting Troy Franklin ahead of him in rookie?

00:19:09
Speaker 2: I think the way I feel about that tier, whether it's Tier two and a half or tier three of wide receiver, I'm not sure, but they're all kind of in the same tier for me is it's like landing spots going to heavily influence and if any of them go to the Chiefs, especially with that thirty second pick, they're going to be four. Like I said, I had Franklin at four, Worthy at five, and then Thomas at six, and that's probably where I'm going to stay until we get landing spots. But yeah, any of those three guys go to the Chiefs as really probably all three pretty good compliments to Rashi Rice or Rice is going to be a compliment to them, and they're going to be rye you siper for you.

00:19:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what's your what's your take on Xavier Worthy? Are you are you worried at all about the size or do you think that do you think that he's the next John Ross, or do you think that he's the next Tyreek Hill.

00:19:57
Speaker 2: I think the nice thing. We made a lot of joke on our podcast the days after the combine about how Xavier are Worthy was too fast and it's a curse to be that. You do not want to be the fastest guy at the combine never works out well. The thing is like, when you're running that fast, it's hard to keep your head still and see the football and catch it. Like he's had some drop problems, but no, I think he is a completely different animal than most of the guys that run that fast. He was productive at a very young age. I think he's a pretty decent route runner. I am fairly confident, and I've gotten to the point really with running back and wide receiver where I think we have to reevaluate the historical comps in terms of sizes and like the cutoffs of what matters. We've seen that over and over the last three years. I know Tank Dell was a huge outlier, but even before Tank Dell, like we see these really skinny wide receivers, we see the smaller running backs are having success, the game's getting quicker, and so his size does not really bother me that much. I love the speed and I think the skills there to match it.

00:20:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I used to worry about Bmi a wide receiver within my model, and I don't care at all anymore. It's not now. Every once in a while people be like, oh, but what about two two Atwell who actually had pretty good college production and then he randomly got the draft capital from the Rams, and you know he has an okay enough score within that model. But I think that it's you know, you can do the exact same thing on the other end, like you said, with like a Tank Dell, where Dell obviously now he saw his value increased dramatically and he's now, you know, a very very solid wide receiver too in dynasty.

00:21:25
Speaker 2: Right, especially if an NFL team drafts Worthy in the first round, I'm going to assume, like they didn't, they're not concerned about his size. I'm not gonna get worried about it.

00:21:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you look at some of those facts, like like the John Ross comparisons just seem a little lazy to me, uh, not a little, a lot, where like if you look at Xavier Worthy's production profile. I have a metric called breakout score in my model, and Worthies is the third best in this class, behind neighbors and and Marvin Harrison Junior. You know, John Ross was not there, like none of the none of the fast receivers who got draft capital had nearly the same kind of breakout score you know that a guy like Worthy had. If anything, if you want to talk about faster wide receivers with good breakout scores, we really should be like to me, not to say that he's the same type of player or like should be necessarily categorized the exact same way. But he's closer to a Chris Alave, Garrett Wilson type than he is to a John Ross or some of these other you know, faster wide receivers with good draft capital. He's not the same kind of wide receiver as those guys, but you know, he is that good from a production standpoint that I think that people need to recognize that.

00:22:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, I think just a completely different animal. Lazy was probably the right word to use for the Ross COUMP.

00:22:35
Speaker 1: All right, So I running back, like you said, no real RB one in this class, But I am totally with you with the Jonathan Brooks take. Like I to me, Brooks would probably be the guy that we're talking about without the ACL, the guy that we're talking about like at that like early second round, mid second round draft capital. But I think the ACL is just pushing him back. And now you got the Tray Benson types and you know Bray lean Awn whoever potentially leap frogging him. There's no bres Hall, there's no Bjehon Robinson in this class. If you were to just guess, who do you think will be the RB one post draft in this class? You can say from your perspective, but you can also say from the perspective of consensus, or you can say it's going to be all dictated by Landing spot. Yeah.

00:23:23
Speaker 2: I think, like the running joke on the podcast is it's going to be Blake Korham because he's going to be taken in the second round by the Chargers and like he goes to the But the answer might just be whoever the Chargers or Cowboys take in round two. I really lean towards the answer should probably just be Brooks. He doesn't even turn twenty one until July. Do we really care? That much that he's got an ACL that might make him worse the first month of the season or the first Now we do care obviously if he doesn't get that Round two draft capital or if there's three or four or five running backs taken in front of him, and that makes sense. But I think he's the best rusher. I think he's had the best profile to be Like, if a workhorse back comes out of this class, I would expect that it would be him. And we just saw like we did this, had this conversation with Briest Hall and Javonte Williams, who were just a couple of years older than Brooks going into last year, and Javonte never really got back to his pre ACL form in year one, which happens with a lot of those guys. And Brice Hall was one of the best running backs in fantasy football for the last twelve weeks of the season. So I do think that Brooks has the It's I know his camp's being really optimistic, and I think you have to take that with a grain of salt. Probably don't don't put too much faith in that, but there's a very real scenario that he's just himself by October first and easily the best running back in this class?

00:24:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there any fear for you that you know it's It's not the same thing that Jamison Williams dealt with because Jamison Williams his injury happened later than what Jonathan Brooks had. Jonathan Brooks was in November. Williams was later in the season, you know, in the playoffs and whatnot. But is there a fear to you from a value standpoint of like, Okay, what if Brooks steps in but never really takes over that backfield and maybe you heath from your evaluation perspective, You're sitting there saying, well, I know that Jonathan Brooks is good, so I'm just gonna hold on to him and you know, move into year two and feel confident that he could be a bell cow Or is there going to be some concern because you know, the value piece is important to Dynasty. You know, the production piece is obviously important what we just talked about, but you know the value piece is still there. Is there concern that his value overall as an asset will drop as a result.

00:25:34
Speaker 2: I think there absolutely is. Now if he's a Round two rookie pick, I'm not sure there's really that much risk. If he is being taken at the one oh eight, then I think there's significant risks. So I think it really the thing that I really struggle with the most, and we go back to this reminder that we're also going to play a fantasy league this year in Dynasty, is that like most of the teams that are picking nine through twelve, ten through twelve, like, what do they care about winning this year? If they're if they're drafting or running backs because they've maybe because they've got a need, and so they might be more likely to take a tradement. I think it's it's pretty unlikely that Brooks gets into the first round of rookie drafts unless he is that first back taken and teams just show us that they think he's fine. But I think he's going to be an early round two pick, and so I think that risk of him losing values kind of being priced in.

00:26:23
Speaker 1: I love that point. I love that point about the late first rounders being teams that are probably fairly solid in some right. Obviously you're gonna find teams that that aren't. But yeah, that's a really good point that that folks might as long as they're knowledgeable enough about what's going on right and know that Jonathan Brooks is coming off the season where he tore at ACL then then yeah, I could definitely see that happening. But that's a great point where cost has to be part of that equation and factored in when you're sort of evaluating, you know where you're gonna be with him. Any sleepers in this running back class, because you know, like you said, there's no one really at the top, but it seems like there's a little bit of depth there.

00:26:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's an interesting question because like everybody has these backs ranked in different places. If if you think that Blake Koram might be good, there's you can go find analyst that means he's a sleeper or Braylan Allen. But if I had to choose, like a true sleeper, I'd probably go with Frank core Junior. I'm a pretty big suffer sucker for the for the pedigree, and he's shown the ability to be productive and and he I can't imagine he's not going to be available in round three of rookie drafts, So I would think it's it's kind of I guess a credit to us that he's not getting pumped up more than he is just based on the name. Yeah, that's true, but but no as a as a round three pick. If he lands in the right spot, Yeah absolutely, Yeah.

00:27:37
Speaker 1: Really interesting receiving profile for him too, where obviously something that we want to look at and target is that that pass catching side. I like him too, He's someone him and him and Isaiah Davis. Isaiah Davis I could see more from South Dakota State is more of like a like a true I don't know if he has like the crazy explosiveness or anything, but just like a very very solid uh you know, he can come very closely to Tyler Algie year for me, just like a very very Let's see if he finds a good spot year one and can increase value, maybe you can flip him in year two. But I love the call out of frank Or who kind of has like a like a Kyen Williams z kind of vibe to his profile, you know, from like a size standpoint too, So yeah, like that.

00:28:16
Speaker 2: Quin And then I guess it's like if Grenda gets drafted, like we've got to give that kid get a shot, right for the best athlete to ever test it running back, get a shot.

00:28:25
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes you just need to. Sometimes it's okay to just be like, I do only care about your athletics. We'll see what happens, right, Like, like, you know, I liked Isaiah Pacheco coming out, but you know, there were definitely some red flags of his profile. But it's like, okay, but this dude is an athlete, right like he he can, he can run, he's good, and so it was easier to like latch onto that. Whenever you're spending a fourth round rookie, pick on him, right, And Grendo feels I mean, Pacheco was his top comp, and it feel for me at least, And it feels like, you know, I don't know, given the depth of this class, what are the odds that Grendo in a super flex league is getting into the third round even right, Like he's yeah, yeah, yeah, it is more than likely just gonna be a complete dart throw. So I like that call out too. All right, let's shift our focus to free agency. Sure, a lot of people are sick of rookie chat. So many things happen this week, and so many things happened, specifically at the running back position. We can't even get to all of these scenarios and situations because there have just been so many. I'd say the biggest one was probably Saquon Barkley. He goes from the Giants to Philadelphia, and Giants fans are very very mad online about this about him going to a team that you know, it's like the like, why does Saquon Barkley need to have loyalty to a team that's just been horrific since he got there? You know, it just doesn't make any sense to me. But he goes to Philadelphia. Do you think that overall this is a win for Barkley or a loss from Barley for Barkley? And I guess you could look at that from the standpoint of like where he was at in New York to where he's at now in Philly, or you know, are there better places that he could have gone? You know that that could have made him an RB three or four something in Redraft whereas now he's in Philadelphia, where you know there might be some concerns.

00:30:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there were probably better places. I think if he had gone to like we talked about the Chargers or the Cowboys and they've not added anyone else. It's such a mixed bag in Philly. I came out with him. I think RB nine for this year, which is very close to where he was last year. I'd probably call it a push. I think we're going to see him in the open field more, which is just a win for us. It's going to be more fun. There's going to be a much more efficiency. I would expect a smaller share of the workload, both in the run game because of Hurts and in the past game because of Hurts, and not as not a big downgrade, but a small one. And I think the touchdown odds are like I've seen a lot made of the Tush push. I think the touchdown odds are probably again almost a push. This team's going to score twice as many touchdowns as the Giants. Hurts is going to steal a bunch of them. Barkley probably still scores around ten. I think he's he's a low end to RB one, good landing spot. Nice contract, he gets to be a starter for two more years.

00:31:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, the thing with with and I agree, But I did my projections over the last two days. I was just in my my whole getting them, getting them done to be able to like sound competent while talking about all this stuff, because its really hard. It's nice to just have like a guide as you love it.

00:31:21
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, you know.

00:31:23
Speaker 1: And with Barkley, he came out as RB eleven and a half PPR for me, so about the same range as you. Right now, he's going at RB seven on Underdog, which is also half PPR and and I think I think that's a little bit too rich number one, but number two. I have a feeling that we might see a line drawn between Saquon and Kyron Williams this season where people are going to be really hyped about Saquon and then there's enough of you know, just like like where what Kirene did this past year? He was great, obviously, but you know where he came from, the kind of prospect he was, all that kind of stuff. Where would you land on that discussion?

00:32:01
Speaker 2: Unless something significant changes before the start of the season, I'm going to be a sucker for what happened last year. But I think kyn Williams is just set up for an enormous workload. I think that Rams offense is going to be pretty good. They went they made some really nice improvements on the offensive line already. I just I think that that's a that's a great situation, and so he's probably going to be a top five running back for me. If I draft a running back at that one two turn, he might be the guy I take.

00:32:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm totally with you. And I remember, like, you know, you go through the season and you're not like necessarily looking as in depth as you would after the season at some of this stuff, right, and so you know, I'm looking at like a lot of the metrics in season, I'm like, yeah, Kyen's having a pretty good season. And then I like, really, dug in, I was like, oh my god, like his his season was was legit last year. This wasn't like some fluky thing. And I think we got to give him props where to me, he looked like a completely different running back then. Not only did he look like you're one where he didn't get that much run, but even in college a Notre Dame, like, he just looked like a different running back, you know, in twenty twenty three. So props to him. And now we got to adjust any priors we might have had and realize that Kien Williams looks pretty legit, Like I don't think this is a profile of someone who's just automatically gonna bust, especially when you give it the context of that RAMS coaching step right, and what Sean McVay loves Kyen Williams like Like, he seems to be obsessed with Kyen Williams. So I think that we need to be obsessed to some degree. Yes, with Kien Williams. Let's move on to Baltimore. They got a guy who I faded last year, which was kind of there really wasn't really a real true win or loss. I feel like with Derrick Henry, you.

00:33:34
Speaker 2: Know, like I think it was a win fading was. I think, yeah, it's very small win, not one worth bragging about. But you did never you did never miss him?

00:33:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I've faded him for the last like five years, so finally it h it worked out in my favor. But now he's in Baltimore, where are you at with him as a raven? Do you think that you know he might be able to to dominate there?

00:33:58
Speaker 2: I received a tweet this morning as his I hate your Derrek Henry take please reevaluate, so hopefully I don't inspire that again. I am I'm not very optimistic. I don't want to bet against Derrek Henry. I've not bet against him five years in a row, but several in the last five years have been wrong more often than not. It doesn't seem like workloads matter to him, and age hasn't so far. But father Time is undefeated, and he's a thirty year old running back on a team that's not gonna He's not gonna catch that many passes anyway, but a team that has really chopped up carries, not just because Lamar Jackson takes thirty percent of the rush attempts every year, which he does, but I just would be really surprised for a team that wants to go play in the Super Bowl, they're gonna give Dereck Henry at thirty years old, twenty carries a game and he's not catching the ball, so there will be great spike weeks. I think he's probably a better best ball pick than he is in just a regular seasonal league because he's probably gonna score a bunch of touchdowns. But he's a low end RB two for me. I put up a Twitter poll and said, like, where are you drafting him? First three rounds, round four, round five or later? And it was like forty five percent Round three or earlier, which I guess I should have expected. I'm not going to draft any Derek Henry if that's the case.

00:35:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough because I think he's someone that in projections might look okay because you assume health. With projections, you assume things are going to be relatively okay. You know, I'm not as as detailed as like Mike Clay with my projections, and I'm not you know, necessarily like digging into that side of things as deeply, but you know, I understand sort of the more subjective stuff where it's like age and health and the things that could go south for him. And you look at Baltimore too. You know, last year, Baltimore scored the fourth most PPR points as a backfield in football, behind only the Dolphins, forty nine Ers, and Lions. My fear a little bit is just general regression. I don't know if Baltimore's offense is going to be as good, you know, in twenty twenty four as twenty twenty three, just simply from a regression standpoint. I mean, they could even add pieces and make them look better on paper, but just regression might say you're not gonna be as good offensively. I'm probably in the middle right now with Henry. To be honest, that might just be years of him destroying my soul and owning me in my takes and me being worried that this guy is truly built different, because I do think he is built a little bit different. You know, there might be some juice there. I don't think this situation, Like the nice part about Derek Henry in Baltimore from like a receiving perspective is that we would never project him for like a fifteen percent target chair or never anyway, you know. And then I would also say the nice part is is that not I mean, it's not nice for Keaton Mitchell's from his perspective, but you know, he's probably not gonna one hundred percent to start the season Keaton Mitchell, right, And so maybe that means that Derek Henry gets off to a hot start and you can flip them. And then later in the season during the fantasy playoffs, which is usually when we think Derek Henry would come through, you know, he's not necessarily getting the workload that we would want because they're saving him for the playoffs. And keating, Mitchell's healthy and all that good stuff. I think this can just go in a lot of different directions, but I do think that the bottom line is, you know, this is a team that has a running quarter a rushing quarterback, a mobile quarterback, and typically that means not only a lower touchdown total as long as the team touchdown total, you know isn't ballooned up, right, but then also you know, lower target shairs for these running backs too, right, Yeah, And I do think it's worth asking, Like I know Lamar it helps running back efficiency playing next to Lamar, but I also believe that some of that historically over Lamar's career was Greg.

00:37:35
Speaker 2: Roman, and so I hate to just say, yeah, he's going to be a five to five and a half yard per carry back again. Yeah, after we've kind of seen a dip here recently, and it's not just injury, like we've seen several twenty seven and twenty eight year old running backs just completely turned to dust on the field in front of our eyes. Derek Henry could be completely healthy and just not as fast anymore.

00:38:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean we've seen it with Henry, right, Like, I mean, his his advanced metrics are not nearly as good as they were two or three years ago. It's just that's just the way that it's been. Speaking of Derrick Henry and his old team Tennessee, they went out, Taj Spears had a lot of hype pre free agency. They went out and got Tony Pollard, which I think, just given where you were at pre free agency, you could view this in a lot of different ways, because you could have seen Taja Spears as someone who was never going to be a bell cow, or in that they were going to add someone and then you could say, oh, well, Tony Poller's Tony Pollard and look what he did last year. Or you could see this as a big loss for Taja Spears because he had that opportunity to really be a bell cow in that backfield. Where do you stand with where things are at now in that Tennessee back I.

00:38:42
Speaker 2: Didn't think he was going to be a bell cow, but I thought there was a hope for like one hundred and eighty carries and five targets a game or something like that. And the problem, my problem with Pollard is I think he's a much worse backfield companion for Spears than someone like Henry would be that's mostly to handle that early down stuff and the stuff that we don't really want Spears doing anyway. So I pretty much hate this for everybody involved. Still, I think Spears is still a fine kind of a dart throw as an RB three, and if something happens to Polard, he's probably going to be awesome. Pollard had such a Jecko and hide season last year, and it's easy to say, you know, he was excellent in that tij the Spears role, and then he got the full time job and he wasn't near as efficient, but as we know, a lot of that was probably impacted by his injury the year before, and at the end of the season he looked really good again. So I hate it because I think they're going to chop up the receiving work and so it's not going to be a huge win for either one of these guys. I'd view Pollard as kind of a mid range number two running back and Spears as a number three. Both of them probably need an injury to the other one to really give you a lot of profit.

00:39:52
Speaker 1: Though. Yeah, I kind of view this as you know, generally, you know, I always talk about targeting ambiguous backfields and fantasy as long as the prices sort of work out the way that they should work out. Now, if if people are really really high on Taj Spears are really really high on Tony Pollard, however ADP shakes out, then there's a chance that I wouldn't want to attack, you know that ambiguous back to right, And there are obviously some problems in Tennessee from like a line standpoint, and like is Will Levis The thing is he could obviously they get Calvin Ridley as well, and so you're hoping that the passing attack is a little bit better. But yeah, I mean, I think that this is one of those scenarios where I just want to see where cost is and where ADP ends up with these guys, because you know, there's a chance that you would want to target them, just because you know, if one of them does emerge, which is very possible, or we just get the projection wrong, then all of a sudden you do have a high end RB two or something on your fantasy roster. I think I'd probably lean like Spears is the better value right now, but I don't know exactly where that.

00:40:54
Speaker 2: ADP what that I have no idea I've had a really hard read. I know a lot of people saying that they're not discounting spears that much. So we've got to do that. Yeah, right, if he's not gonna if he's gonna be what he was when we thought there was a possibility of being the lead back that I'm ouch.

00:41:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly, Josh Jacobs, he's now in Green Bay. Aaron Jones obviously gone over to Minnesota. Do you think that Josh Jacobs is a top ten back now in fantasy football?

00:41:21
Speaker 2: I think I came out with him at like twelve or thirteen, So if he stays healthy, yes, there's eighteen of those guys. Probably. I'm really going to be interested to watch what Green Bay does the rest of the offseason because they've been a team that's pretty clearly preferred a split backfield, and Jacob has been a guy who's been awesome when he's taking all of the work, and so I think it's possible that they were kind of just trying to baby Hearon Jones the last couple of years and now they're willing to just have a lead back. And if that's the case, then yeah, I think Jacobs will be a top ten guy. I think he bounces back from some of the efficiency struggles last year. He really was terrible at the beginning of the year, and fight Out said it was because of the holdout. He just wasn't ready to start the season. So I didn't expect he comes into this year ready to go, could easily be a number one running back. But I'll be watching closely what they do and who they add to share the backfield with them.

00:42:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really key point because we've seen Matt Lafleur, not just in Green Bay, but even in like Tennessee. Like I believe he was part of the Dion Lewis. Yes, you know, Derek Derrick Henry tandem. That was the most frustrating thing on earth. That was when I actually was drafting Derrick Henry right when when he wasn't good in fantasy and then you know, the opposite starts to happen. But yeah, Like, the one thing that I noticed when doing projections for Green Bay, and this isn't like I didn't necessarily just notice it, but I just mean from like a numbers driven standpoint, is, you know, the depth that they got at wide receiver this past year is pretty impressive right where they had nothing were Like I remember going into the draft last year looking at Green Bay saying, this is a bottom three wide receiver unit right now, right like, they had nothing where Romeo Dobbs was if he Christian Watson didn't know exactly what he was about. And then they hit on Jayden Reid, They hit on a later round pick in Dontavian Wicks. They seem to hit on both of their tight ends that they drafted last year, and all of a sudden, you have four pretty capable wide receivers that are gonna steal target share, right Like, Like the way that I sort of look at like the target shair projections and such is if there's no one else on a team, I mean, this is this is very basic math and such obviously, but you only have one hundred percent of a high Like I'm not necessarily someone who's like all about like vacated targets and stuff like that, but vacated target share is absolutely a thing, right Like when when you have like if if Justin Jefferson is on a team with no one else who's good, he's gonna see a thirty five percent target chair at least on that team if if literally no one else is good on the team. We saw that with like Brandon Marshall and Chicago years and years ago, when he had a forty percent target chair because they had no one else on that team. Well, when you add pieces, if Justin Jefferson's on a team with Tyreek Hill, Jamar Chase and you just start naming all the good players in football, he can't have a thirty five percent target share because those guys are also very good, you know. And so when you have that competition, it does trickle down to the running back position to some degree. And I do think that Aaron Jones is one of the most underrated and best receiving backs in football. And my fear would be that transition of assuming, you know, because Jones's workload throughout his time in Green Bay was always like, Okay, he's gonna see like fifty percent of the team's rush attempts in some fifty to fifty five or something like that, and then you know his target share is going to be fifteen sixteen percent is gonna be awesome. I don't know if Josh Jacobs gets there on the target chair front, And that's that's my fear. I think it's possible for sure, but that would be where my fear would would sit with Jacobs. Do you agree disagreement?

00:44:47
Speaker 2: I have, I do. I think that it might be a sixty five percent rush share though, and then and then it's only a ten percent target share, which I'd still rather have the recessions. The other thing I will say is, because I go through that struggle with the packers, like you can't project any of them to be good because there's too many of them. But that's not We also know, like the history of these guys, it's really unlikely they're all going to be healthy at the same time. And so Josh Jacobs is probably not playing seventeen games with those six guys that are all eating into his target share.

00:45:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a very good point. And and we're these guys might not be as good as we think that they are, or they you know, like I love Jayden Reid, I think Dontavian Wicks is really good, but there's a very real chance, especially with like Wix, who came seemingly out of nowhere and was able to do what he did, there's absolutely a chance that he's not you know, commanding a fifteen percent target chair in that offense, and then what if Christian Watson, you know, just continues down the path that he was down last season and such. So there's at least that path too. I do think though that from like a projection standpoint, it's at least a call out with Jacobs that there is you know, some receiving competition on that team that we should just be aware absolutely. All right, So Josh Jacobs now out of Vegas. Vegas doesn't do much at the running back position, but Zamir White is there. White came on very strong towards the end of last year, is basically a Fantasy football league winner from like a you know, how he performed in the playoffs and such at least fairly strong. Do you think that people right now today should be confidently drafting Zamir White in Best ball drafts or do you think and do you think that he's a target in Dynasty or are you concerned that there's going to be some additions to that backfield. Yeah?

00:46:30
Speaker 2: I think like it seems like in Dynasty at least most of the people who have Zamir White are wondering if they're going to be able to sell before the NFL Draft, and from what I've seen, like we have had some conversations around that, and people are having a hard time even getting an early second round pick, And so I don't know that he's going to be get moved very much. If you're interested in going and getting him, I think if you maybe offer a mid second and see if you can, I don't hate that at all. That what I've heard is it doesn't sound like the Raiders are very interested in investing very much at running back, which is kind of strange based on their philosophy, which seems to be just like to build this killer defense and run the ball a bunch. But if I would in redraft be drafting Zamir White basically as a high end number three running back right now, when I do my projections, he comes out about around RB twenty, so behind where I've got him in the projections. But just like you get to the end of the guys that you feel confident are starting this year, and Zamir White should be at the very top of your list. If you just want to draft wide receivers and tight ends early, He's an excellent guy for that. As long as ADP continues to allow him to fall into that range.

00:47:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously situationally, it's not great for White. You know, the Raiders. We're we're not projecting the Raiders offense to be a top half offense in the league this year, but they weren't super strong last year and he came through, you know, down the stretch he was seeing really really good backfield share numbers and the other thing that's that makes me feel a little bit more confident, like this is one of those moves where you just got to kind of go you might need to just go against the green of what the market is just assuming. I always like to, like when it comes to the NFL Draft, I always love to do the opposite of what the market assumes. Like the market is assuming that you know, the team X is gonna like it was Atlanta a few years ago, a couple of years ago when they ended up getting Tyler Algieer in like the fifth or whatever it was, and everyone's assuming that Atlanta's gonna draft and early round running back and then everything's just gonna be so clean and nice and rookie drafts and we're gonna know exactly you know, it's gonna be put in place perfectly, and then it's always just jumbled right, like things just don't work out the way that we think it's gonna work out. I think this is one of those situations where you might actually win went out with Zamir White by holding on to him, because if they don't draft a running back on day one or two and then won on day one, but on day two, let's say, and I don't know what their draft capital situation looks like off the top of my head, but if they don't really invest in the running back position, Zamir White's price is going to go up pretty dramatically, I think, both in Yeah, both in Redraft and in Dynasty. And don't forget White was someone that a lot of people liked coming out. He went a little bit later in his draft than some folks maybe expected. Split a backfield in college, so you know, it's typical Georgia stuff. That's just what they like to do. And you know, so we didn't necessarily get the production from him per se, and so like all my models and stuff like that, just didn't like love him. But he had the size, he had the speed, and he had decent enough production to be a pretty good prospect. And so I'm intrigued. I do think this could be a situation where you just.

00:49:26
Speaker 2: Hold yeah, yeah, no, I think for sure in Dynasty that's the answer right now. And I think that like assuming that his ADP doesn't move much based on the fact that they didn't at a running back, I think in redraft, buying at current cost is the right move as well, Like you're just not It's kind of like the conversation with Brooks and losing value as an early second round pick. You're just not risking that much and there is significant upside.

00:49:49
Speaker 1: Would you buy Zamir Waite?

00:49:51
Speaker 2: I would be willing see. I think, like we talked about those running backs, and I expect most of those are probably gone by about two oh five, Those those top four or five running backs, they end up in good spots. So anything after that, I'd be looking to, yeah, two oh six or later.

00:50:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like the idea of like a late second for Zamir White or something like that, or I mean, you could start with an early third and just kind of go from there, right but like you know, late I don't think anyone would necessarily bite who has White right now, but a late second could could maybe get it done, could maybe get it done. Another situation that I think is probably like low key the most interesting of all of these, and that's in Cincinnati, where they get rid of Joe Mixon mixing goes to Houston, which isn't even We're not even going to talk about mixing on this show. The Cincinnati backfield, though, now has Zach Moss, who they signed, and then they have Chase Brown as well, who came on fairly strong. You know, towards the end of last year, he lease was digging into Joe Mixon's workload, showed some big playability. Where do you stand with this backfield? How do you think this is going to shake out?

00:50:51
Speaker 2: I would I'm leaning towards like a sixty forty fifty five forty five edge four. Zach Moss. I don't think he's going to find the same success in Cincinnati that he found in Indianapolis. I don't think this is as good of a situation for him, And I do think that Chase Brown's probably going to take care of more of the third down type work and the passing downs work. And so I'm not going to project or rank either of these guys as starting fantasy running backs. But again, I think it's another one of those ambiguous situations that you talked about, where if I'm wrong and Chase Brown ends up with fifteen touches a game, or if Zack Moss is really dominating touches, then they could absolutely grow into that type of role. But I'm looking at what I would expect to be a pretty close split with Moss not being quite as good as he was last year.

00:51:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Chase Brown I think has like pretty legit truthers out there. Yes, like people are really really into Chase Brown. I liked him as a prospect. I thought that he had an interesting profile, a little bit older, but he had like the speed you know, speed scores pretty strong, and then he showed out last year to some degree. I would say, though, when you look at his numbers, don't just look at like his explosive numbers and like his his big play you know, his twenty plus yard runs, catches and such, because if you look at what he did on a per rush basis, you know, success rate and EPA per rush and such, he was kind of worse than Joe Mixon on the ground. And a lot of people look at Mixon and they say Joe Mixon's dust right, He's not very good anymore. People will crap on Joe Mixon all the time as a running back, And so I dug into this a little bit more heath. So I have this year two model right where it tries to project how well a guy after his rookie season is going to perform in year two and year three in his NFL career. Chase Brown his scores around sixty four. Okay, that might mean nothing to people listening or people who read the guide and such. You can at least look at the little chart and you can you can see what his odds are of hitting different PPR point per game thresholds in year two and year three. But essentially, anyone under the seventy mark, we've only seen a few hits over the last decade. Price I'm talking like CJ. Anderson, Miles Gaskin, and Kyron Williams are the three that gave us an RB one ish season. And then on top of that you can add Chris Carson and Damien Harris as the guy who gave you an RB two season. And that's really that's it of that entire group. So the other thing though, that I wanted to dig into, and I sent a newsletter blast about this this week. Is if you look at running backs who are middle round selections in fantasy after their rookie season, so they are year two running backs, middle round picks. I think I looked at round six through round ten, and they had a year two score above seventy or below seventy. The guys below seventy were horrible. They consistently and they were you know, the sample wasn't massive. It was like eight or nine guys and the other group was like twenty or so. But the hit rates of the guys who had these year two scores that were above seventy, they outperformed their ADP expectation by like two and a half PPR points per game, Like on average, these other guys with a score below seventy were playing below expectation at like a one and a half point per game rate. So that is a little frightening for Chase Brown right like that alone, and I think that it could mean that of that ambiguous backfield that you would then want to target would be the Zach Moss side. But it goes against then a lot of the things that I generally preach which is we want pass catchers right right, like we want pass catchers in the middle round. And so that's why I think this backfield is just so so interesting. I'm not gonna fall like especially in like Best Ball, where it's totally rational to go after these ambiguous backfields because we know in a given week a guy can get hurt and then like Chase Brown's absolutely capable of in a three week window of giving you RB one production. Sure, like he's look at the offense he's in, look at what the role he would play if Zach Moss were hurt. Of course, like that kind of thing can happen. But I think if you're looking like across the season, I just don't have that much optimism around Chase Brown. We have to remember he's a Day three pick too, right, And I.

00:54:39
Speaker 2: Think it's it's not pooh poohing the Bengals offense to say this might not be the best situation just because like the offensive line is not that great, Joe Burrow is gonna throw at six hundred times and Chase and Higgins are gonna score fifteen to twenty touchdowns. Like it's just I's if you're also it works out just fine, if you've got to I like mix, and who's going to touch it eighteen times? And who is a good goal lineback? I Chase Brown, I know on think's going to be that. Even I don't even think his truthers think he's going to be that. Probably.

00:55:09
Speaker 1: I actually think that's a really good exercise to go through as a fantasy manager, is look at what Joe Mixon did, look at what his workload was. Do you think Chase Brown? Hypothetically, if Chase Brown saw that workload, would he be far out producing Joe Mixon in fantasy? I think the answer to that is probably not. You know, I don't know that he's good enough to really see massively better.

00:55:32
Speaker 2: I think he'd have more explosive place and he'd have more negative plays.

00:55:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly. I think it would be a moot thing. And as a result of that, you know, you you know, obviously Chase Brown. You know, Joe Mixon is usually drafted in like, like the last couple of years has been like a third round, fourth round kind of guy. Whatever. He's kind of was approaching the dead zone, but we were, you know, people were drafting him based on volume and all that kind of stuff, and so you could hypothetically say, Okay, if Chase Brown's an eighth rounder, then you're getting that value on him if you were to assume, you know, Joe Mixon workload or that kind of workload. But my response to that would be okay. But we still don't necessarily see the RB one upset, right, And I think that we always want to really chase that ceiling at least have that be in his range of outcomes. Like, I don't see this as actually the email blast the subject line was, is Chase Brown this year's Rashad White? And the answer to that is, I don't think so. Like I, it doesn't set up the same way at all as it did for like a Rashad White last year.

00:56:29
Speaker 2: I find much more much easier believing that Zamir White is this year's Rashad White.

00:56:34
Speaker 1: That's a great point, yes, Zamir, Yes, that's a much much more appropriate comp And then the other you know, to dig into that like year two thing a little bit more. I also looked at year three running backs who had bad year two scores and there was no signal to that. So Zamir White didn't do anything as rookie season right, So he was an oka enough prospect whatever, didn't do anything as rookie season, so his year two score wasn't very strong. And so then I looked at, okay, well, what a year three running backs look like when they're year two scores aren't very strong? And the answer to that is it doesn't matter. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that if you're a year three running back and you're being drafted in the middle rounds, that likely means you haven't had a good season yet, right, Like it's the like Clyde Edwards a layer his third season, you know, who had a good year to score or good enough year to score. He was a middle round pick, but we knew that things were going in the wrong direction for him. And that's kind of the cluster of running backs that you get in that range of those year three guys. So Zamir White, I don't think you need to look at the models or anything. You can say, hey, maybe Zamir White's going to be somewhat of an outlier, because it's not like we see a situation like this occur. You know all that for you, right? So all right, one more thing, well, two more things, but one more free agency related thing. Kirk Cousins he goes to Atlanta. I think that's probably the biggest Fantasy implication related move that happened over the last week. How high should we be on Bijon Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pits Now?

00:57:55
Speaker 2: I think in Dynasty, you move like they're all three hits the top five tight end. I think moved up a tight end four for me, and he'd fallen all the way to five or six from his perch at number one for the first two years of his career. B Jon is RB one and London is a top twelve Dynasty wide receiver with the potential to move even higher in redraft. I think I think Bejon's the top five pick, and I'm probably looking at London in the round three, round four and Pits in the round four, round five range. I am. I'm still a little bit skeptical that this is going to be good for all three of them, and if I was gonna bet on one of them losing, I think it probably be Pitts. It seems like this new staff is all about Drake London, and I love that. That's that's fantastic but it might it might come at the expensive pits.

00:58:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that take completely, and I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a spicy take. I think the one player who's going to contend with CMC this year is b John Robinson. I did his projections and CMCs RB one projection wise, B came out as as RB two for me, and the delta between their points per game projection wasn't as great as I would have expected it to be. I mean, he's he's in a very very advantageous spot if you make, you know, some general assumptions that they're not going to use him the way that Arthur Smith used him, you know, So I'm I'm bullish there. And then Drake London. I mean, I've just been a Drake London guy since he since he came out, and I I feel a little vindicated right now because my Dynasty shares have have have looked a lot better the last week than they did a year ago. All right, before I let you go, give me one spicy take about this year's NFL draft. Could be, you know, a team taking a position that we don't expect. Could be about a player that you really like, or don't like, just give me a take.

00:59:45
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say that there's gonna be five quarterbacks taken in the first half of round one, like we've already settled on four. But these teams, the Giants and the Broncos and the Vikings, seem so absolutely desperate to fi and somebody at that position. I think they're going to and I think it's probably going to be a mistake. I won't speculate on who the fifth guy's going to be, but they're going to talk themselves into a quarterback who has no business being drafted in round one, and they'll take that fifth quarterback in round one, and they'll be looking to draft a quarterback again next year.

01:00:15
Speaker 1: Do you think that it could? You think we might see quarterback, quarterback, quarterback, quarterback with someone trading up to Arizona.

01:00:21
Speaker 2: I would if it wasn't Arizona, I think we might see quiet. I don't think. I don't think Arizona's going to give up Marvin Harrison.

01:00:29
Speaker 1: Right right, and the fit is there and so they could just wait. Yeah, I think it's interesting because if someone does trade up hypothetically, man, how annoying and frustrating would be if Marvin Harrison then lands in like a Greg Roman offense right away, right right away.

01:00:43
Speaker 2: I'm so terrified for Justin Herbert this year.

01:00:46
Speaker 1: I mean too my projections, man, I did them, like I said, and he's not looking the best.

01:00:51
Speaker 2: Right He was not a top twelve quarterback in mine, and I just like, I'm waiting for people to yell at me about it. But I am not a huge fan of what Greg Roman does to passing games.

01:01:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should at least see him throw the ball down the field a little bit more. Hopefully something comes from that. But yeah, overall volume wise, not going to be their heath. So good to finally do the show with you. Let everyone know where they can find you.

01:01:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on Twitter at Heath Cummings Sr. You can find the podcast Fantasy Football Today Dynasty wherever you get podcasts. We're on YouTube on Tuesday and Friday at eleven am Easter.

01:01:22
Speaker 1: I'm jaj zachareson. You can find all my stuff over on lateround dot Com. Prospect Guide now available if you want to check that out otherwise, As always, thank you for tuning in.