786: Players to Target

00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is the lad Podcast with your host JAYJ.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: Zacher rethas J. J. Zacher reson.

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Speaker 3: What's up everyone, It's JJ Zachary send in this episode seven hundred and eighty six of the Late Round Fantasy Football podcast sponsored by FanDuel.

00:00:20
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in.

00:00:22
Speaker 3: Each August, I do an episode in the players I'm targeting in fantasy drafts and then the players that I'm avoiding. I changed it up a bit last year, though, I brought on a couple of guests, and this year I'm gonna do the exact same thing. You're gonna hear from me on this episode and some players that I'm targeting this year, but you're also gonna hear from my good friend rich reebar Rich is a fantasy analyst for Sharp Football Analysis, and he's one of the best prognosticators in the game. He's the one who let everyone know about the importance of quarterback rushing back in twenty thirteen when he wrote his famous Konami Code article, and he's done a brilliant job with his worksheets for years. Rich and I came prepared with five that you should target in drafts this season, and I think that you'll enjoy the back and forth. Now, before we get into that conversation, I just want to send another reminder to check out the Late Round Draft Guide. It's pack full of strategy related information to help you crush your drafts. That strategy stuff can really help you increase your chances on hitting this year's biggest values. The guide is updated weekly, so you're getting up to date players to target avoid in my top two hundred sheet. You can check it all out on lateround dot com. Now here's our top players to target here in twenty twenty three. All right, Rich, we did a show like this last year. Similar we're just going to go back and forth. We're going to talk about the guys that we want to target this season, that we're looking to target, the guys that we think the market is sort of undervaluing. You know, I don't want to say that you target these guys.

00:01:52
Speaker 1: No matter what.

00:01:53
Speaker 3: Similar you know, the similar in a similar breath. I don't want to say the opposite either, that when you're fading a player, you fade that player no matter what. It's really big in the market. It's based on the way that your draft is going. But for today's show, Rich and I both have five players that we're looking to target generally speaking, that we've probably been drafting a lot this offseason. There's a lot of overlap here. If any of you are late round draft guide purchasers and readers, Rich definitely has, you know, similar processes I do with a lot of this stuff. So there's gonna be some natural overlap. But it's good when multiple analysts who are looking at this stuff tend to agree on a player, that means that you might want to be even more confident in that player.

00:02:29
Speaker 1: So, without further ado, Rich rebar, give me your first player.

00:02:33
Speaker 2: So i have four players that I'm legitimately just outright excited about in targeting, and I've got one guy that I'm taking based on I just think the field is too low on So I'll start with that one guy. So people can just say, all right, if that's just an ADP pick whatever, I'm gonna ignore him. But that guy is Brandon Cooks. You know, I look at Brandon Cooks's ADP. I just scratched my head, right, I'm just looking at him right now, at wide receiver forty two right now, after guys like Quinton Johnson and George Pickens, and Gabe Davis and Michael Pittman the Tampa Bay wide receivers, and I'm just like, what is happening right now? So Brandon Cooks is literally a guy that's been a wide receiver two or better in seven of his nine seasons in the NFL. Anytime he's played with functional quarterback play, he's been an absolute, really good fantasy player, which he is now going to this Dallas offense. I'm actually been I've had like the opposite take of a lot of people on the Cowboys. I actually think they're gonna throw the ball more than people think they are, just because I believe from a top downstance, they're built to throw the football, Like when you look at their roster, they're meant to play like eleven personnel and in space. Like the one drawback is if their defense is just incredible, and like they they have like a eagle situation where they're just so far ahead and second half of games, like they don't really put the ball in the air. But I mean, right now, I would rather have Brandon Cooks over literally all those guys. They just named a handful of other guys in that area too, But that's like my one just like strictly like, this guy's way too low play.

00:03:57
Speaker 3: You know, I'm gonna go with the player here who is not so much that play. You know, someone who you're just kind of seeing where his ADP is. You're saying, yeah, he's gonna outperform that ADP. This is someone who I think, uh, I'm probably gonna live and die by to some degree with some listeners this year, because a lot of people like to latch onto one take and and and and just ride or die by that one take. From an analyst, it's Rashad White. White right now, I think is just unbelievably undervalued. Uh you know, within the market, I think at a baseline, we should feel good about Rashad White, the receiver. Right he comes out of college, really good receiving profile out of school. He was someone who my model comped really really favorably to David Johnson, which ironically, Bruce Arians drafts David Johnson. Bruce Arians in this front office. Now, uh, he you know obviously had some role or maybe played some role in drafting Rashad White. You know, everyone will will point to White's mediocre rushing last year, and you know, obviously comp that those those efficient or those the lack of efficiency on the ground to you know, what Leonard Fournette did, and they were both pretty bad. But I actually see that as maybe as a team situation thing, right, you know, we knew the offensive line was bad going into the season, and it played really poorly. The line was putrid, and he was a rookie running back too. But I also don't want to be like anchored by those types of numbers because we know that they matter to some degree, but they're not nearly as predictive as just volume numbers, you know, and just and just guys. You know, if you look at the rest of the player's depth chart and looking at that and feeling good about the talent versus the other talent on that team, and right now, you know, Rashad White versus what the Buccaneers have, I think we can pretty confidently say he's the most talented running back that.

00:05:32
Speaker 1: That roster has.

00:05:34
Speaker 3: So, you know, I think that if you if you look at last season, you know, the bottom line is that in a split backfield, he still saw almost an eight percent target share in that offense. And in the lone game that Leonard Fournette ended up missing Rashad White had twenty one per point four percent target shair and almost twenty pper points per game in that single game without Leonard Fournette. So I think that that we would probably agree that Rashad White is looking like he's going to see at least a double Digital center target share this year, that he's more than likely going to see a ten percent target share.

00:06:04
Speaker 1: So now I look at the market related trends.

00:06:07
Speaker 3: Right now, you know, Rashad White sort of in that low end RB two, maybe high end RB three bucket if you look historically, I wrote about this in my draft guide. We've had seventy running backs drafted between RB eighteen and RB twenty four who ended up playing eight games since twenty eleven. Of those seventy, seventeen of them ended up hitting a ten percent target share, So fifty three of them were not pass catchers, what whereas seventeen of them were. Of those seventeen, thirteen of them ended up exceeding ADP expectations. That's literally just looking at how many points we'd expect a player to score at a certain ADP. Nine of those seventeen, so more than half of them outperformed that ADP expectation by three or more PPR points per game or what I consider a moderate breakout. So typically moderate breakouts will hit it about a twenty five percent rate.

00:06:52
Speaker 1: This is above a fit.

00:06:52
Speaker 3: This is more than double that when you're looking at this subset of low end RB twos with a ten percent target share, And that's really the only filters that you looking at here. You know, obviously there's concern that Tom Brady's gone. Totally understand that. I think that the concern with Brady being gone is not so much the offense is going to be so much worse than it was last year. Because the offense was really really bad last year. They had thirty one total touchdowns. You could easily argue that the offense this year could score more touchdowns than it did last year.

00:07:18
Speaker 1: Like it can still happen.

00:07:20
Speaker 3: Like that's not out of you know, the range of outcomes here and not a possibility. But the thing that I think people get wrong is that they assume that Tom Brady was peppering the running back position through the air at this really really high rate. Really wasn't that they ring fifteenth in the league last year and running back target share just as they threw the ball a lot, right, They just had a.

00:07:38
Speaker 1: Lot of raw volume.

00:07:40
Speaker 3: But what that did was on those thirty one overall total touchdowns, twenty six of them were passing touchdowns. Only five of them were rushing touchdowns last year. So we should see some regression there which will help a player like Rashad White. So I look at the landscape right now, Rich, I look at the running backs going around where Rashad White's going two rounds before Rashad White in a lot of cases, and I asked myself, why are those players any different than Rashad White?

00:08:03
Speaker 1: Are you going to say that it's offensive situation based?

00:08:05
Speaker 3: Okay, Miles Sanders, Cam Akers, you're really gonna make that strong of an argument that their situations are that much better than Rashad White's. Maybe James Connor, Okay, I understand that, but you know, it's basically the same situation where they're.

00:08:18
Speaker 1: Both workhorse backs or projected workhorse backs.

00:08:21
Speaker 3: And a lot of the stuff that I've studied shows that you want to embrace the uncertainty with these younger players in the middle rounds as opposed to getting the sixty year guy like a James Connor, you know who's maybe gonna exceed expectation by a little bit. Rashad White at least has that chance to really break out and become, you know, a really good player in the league.

00:08:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love Rashad White's draft position. I hopefully hopefully this show doesn't ruin that, especially people you know listening to you in your audience. We've talked about him a little bit behind the curtains, and you know, I said I outright, even if adp was equal, I would rather have Rashad White than Nagie Harris, which may be a hot take to some people, but I would bet that the Buccaneers are a great sound bet to score more touchdowns they did last year. They kind of bottomed out last year. They were eight touchdowns below expectation for me last year. Since twenty ten, there have been eighteen other teams in that same group or below the Buccaneers, and there are three other teams the Steelers of jetson Broncos that are also in that bucket coming into this year. Seventeen of those eighteen teams scored more touchdowns the following season the year prior, with an average increase of eight touchdowns. I also have a free article on the site too this week that is actually looking at kind of the stats that matter for each position, and the running back one is open to everyone this week, and it literally shows like how we want to chase volume firsthand, you know, and like the numbers are like very stark, you know, and how efficiency is not stable for running backs. Again, that plays into here. You look at the two games where Rashad White played over sixty percent of the snaps, He get over one hundred yards and scrimmage in both games last year. Yeah, you know, are they the sexiest yards? Absolutely not, But it doesn't matter, right, Like, when you're getting that much volume, it's going to play out. We want to chase that opportunity. So I mean, I'm I'm in lockstep with you on just saying like, yeah, I get it. It's kind of a top down situation where you kind of try to talk yourself out of the Buccaneers guys. But I mean, I think there's gonna be some dead cat bounce to that offense. And if we're just making valume plays, we want to bet on guys that are you know, young, year year two running backs, year three running backs, rookie contrac crnicks that can catch the football. He just checks off all those boxes.

00:10:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So all right, Rach, give me another player from your list.

00:10:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is a guy. I mean, I've found, you know, from drafting since you know February. You know, how am I going to attack the tight end position this year? It's something we workshop every year, right, like you try is it gonna be an early round tight end year? Are we going to try to just get Travis Kelcey at all costs? So we're going to try to do some things differently this year. And I have found that bar Non, all of my tight end strategies evolve around one player, and it's Pat Fryarmooth. Uh.

00:10:58
Speaker 1: You know, I think that the one.

00:10:59
Speaker 2: The wider meta this season, with the way wide receivers have pushed up, make it harder than ever to to go with Kelsey, although you know you're you're not going to bottom out with Kelsey without an injury. But also when you look at Kelsey, he historically had hit the highest positional leverage any tight end in NFL history has had, even by far the most he's had over his careers.

00:11:17
Speaker 1: The field's going to be better then.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: Some of the things we just talked about on a team level, like the Steelers are due for all this offensive regression to the mean by a lot of analysis I've done. You know, they were thirty first in scoring plays that were actual touchdowns fifty five percent of their scoring plays last year with field goals. Since since twenty ten, seventy nine percent of those teams score more fall touchdowns the following season, with an average increase of eleven point seventeen touchdowns the following year they were thirty first and converting their yards into touchdowns. They fit in that same bucket we just talked about with Rashad White. You know, historically those teams come back and they score an average of ten point two touchdowns per game the next season teams that are below the base rate. So how do you play this right? And I already don't kind of that. I don't love nase is adp. I think Deontay Johnson's fine. He's definitely going to score a touchdown this year. I think he's appropriately fine. But I think the most mispriced guy, and if we're betting on the touchdown production right now the passing game, I still see that touch the touchdowns going to a guy like Pat Fryermuth, and he plays the right position and the right cost. You look at a second season, everything spiked for him. His yards per catch, his yards per target rose in a year where Kenny Pickett, you know, we played with the rookie quarterback, and you and I have done a lot of rookie quarterback analysis, and typically you never you do not see tight ends play well with the rookie quarterbacks, despite the narrative that a rookie is going to lead on his tight end, which is it true? And then you look at that as a target earner, he established himself. He was seventh among all tight ends and target per out run. He was seventh in yards per out run. But when Friarmuth was actually on the field because he had a concussion, he had knee injury, he dealt with some ankle stuff. When he was on the field with Kenny Pickett, he had a twenty five percent team target chair, tied with Deontay Johnson. He led the team in yards per route run.

00:12:59
Speaker 1: I look at at.

00:13:00
Speaker 2: Him, I see I actually see him a pretty much in this in a similar tier as Dallas Godder and kind of George Kittle, and he's way below those guys. He's even below guys like Evan Ingram and David and Joku. So I mean, bar none, he's been my favorite tight end to draft this season.

00:13:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna actually ask you if you you know, if you're in a draft, you're in a big money draft, or you're in a really important draft of yours where you have to draft with more conviction and not necessarily just from a portfolio standpoint, are you staring at let's say George Kittle falls a little bit and Pat, you know, he's in the Pat Friarmuth range or something. Would you still draft a Friarmuth over Kittle? Or are you cool with going Kittle in that scenario.

00:13:40
Speaker 2: I don't want to use the cop out of like, well, what is like available to me? Still at the other positions of what does my team look like? Because obviously you know you've done a lot of onesie you know research too, and like if I'm still chasing wide receivers or my league format is geared towards wide receivers, especially like I said, with this current wide receiver meta this season, Uh, it still would be hot for me to say, like, wow, I can just still wait three to four more rounds and get Pat Fryermuths Like, Yeah, the thing about Friarmuth is I can I feel comfortable reaching on him at ADP and still getting a discount on him.

00:14:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I got you, I got you. Yeah.

00:14:16
Speaker 3: It's one of those scenarios where you know you don't need to necessarily force the issue because we know the tight end position is the tight end position and the value the tight end position brings. But from just a straight up value perspective, Friarmuth is that dude for you?

00:14:27
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:14:28
Speaker 2: I think especially, I think where if it's full point PPR, especially, I like kind of Friar with kind of more too, because I think he's just going to have a nice bed of receptions where Kittle's going to be like more of that Spike week player.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally all right.

00:14:43
Speaker 3: Next on my list, I kind of have a two fer, but I'm going to focus more on one of the two.

00:14:47
Speaker 1: It's the Detroit backfield. It's both David Montgomery and Engineer Gibbs.

00:14:50
Speaker 3: I actually think, you know, there are some drafts in some platforms where Gibbs is ADP is where I have it. If not, I mean I've been in drafts I was in a pros versus Joe's draft where Gibbs ended up going in the in the mid second round. Like before, a lot of the work some of the workhorse backs were drafted, and so I'm not that high on Gibbs.

00:15:10
Speaker 1: I'm certainly high on.

00:15:11
Speaker 3: Gibbs though, versus the market, versus what fantasy pros analysts and expert consensus rankings. With that's saying, you know, market trends have dictated that dead zone running backs if you want to beat the dead zone rookie running max or the way to go. If you look at history the rookie running backs in the dead zone, they typically perform more like late second round picks in redraft leagues as opposed to like the fourth fifth rounders you know they're being drafted. As so, I'm gonna say Jamiir Gibbs is a good pick this year. You should draft Jamiir Gibbs. With that being said, I want to focus on David Montgomery a little bit more here today because I think he also, interestingly enough, has a lot of favorable market related trends, you know, in his favor which we don't see very often. It's only like the third time I think since twenty eleven that we've seen a rookie in the dead zone with a veteran teammate in the middle rounds of redraft leagues by ADP. So, you know, that's kind of interesting. This is not a typical situation. You know, clearly with David Montgomery, we shouldn't be drafting him because Jamal Williams scored seventeen, you know, seventeen touchdowns last year like that. That's not the approach that you should take in drafting a guy like this. What's really interesting with Jamal Williams is everyone just assumes that he exceeded touchdown expectations last year.

00:16:19
Speaker 1: It wasn't really that he exceeded.

00:16:20
Speaker 3: Touchdowns expect touchdown expectation. It's that the Lions just put him in this situation so frequently that what's really going to regress is the fact that you know, he's not going to see thirty three goal line attempts again next You know, whoever that player would be wouldn't see thirty three goal line attempts year over year. How he converted was not that out of the ordinary or anything like that. It's just that he saw so much volume there. You know, the Lions were second in the NFL and goal line rushes last year thirty nine. Jamal Williams had thirty three of those thirty nine, which is just not a ratio or just from a volume perspective, not something that you generally see. So I'm not expecting Montgomery. You know, we shouldn't go in with a projection of like fifteen touchdowns or anything like that. But I do think that he's gonna see the goal line work in that offense, which is obviously a plus. You know, it's an offense that you know, could see a decent amount of positive game scripts this season. They have a nine and a half win total, cording to Fandals Sportsbook.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: You know, they play in a dome.

00:17:13
Speaker 3: We've seen a lot of good shootouts in this current line, with this current lines offense, you know, and obviously that's good news for anyone in that offense. But I think the positive with David Montgomery, well there's a couple, but I think one positive is that he's a much better pass catcher than Jamal Williams's. And I feel like that's sort of been pushed aside because we make this assumption that, oh, Detroit got Jamior Gibbs, they're gonna use Jamior Gibbs's receiver, which yes, they're going to, but they're gonna use Jamior Gibbs as a receiver, not just out of the backfield. They're gonna line them up across the line, They're gonna do a lot of different stuff with him, which I don't buy into generally usually that's an overblown, you know topic, especially this time of year. But with a guy like Gibbs, who I mean, he had prolific receiving production, was one of the best receiving backs that we've seen come out, you know, of the last decade, and so I think that there's a lot of to believe that they're gonna use him not just out.

00:18:03
Speaker 1: Of the backfield.

00:18:04
Speaker 3: And if you look at what Detroit did last season, they were actually thirteenth in the NFL and running back target share as a team, they were pretty average, and if you look at what happened after they traded TJ. Hockinson, that number was top five in the league. And that's where you start to see more consistency out of those running backs to the backfield as receivers. So I think they can maintain that. I think there's a very real possibility, given the way this team's built, given what's going on outside of the running back position, that we could see them be a top five, top six offense and running back target share this season. So that's fine for Gibbs, but that's also very good for David Montgomery, who you know, in three of his four seasons has been at a twelve percent plus target share per game rate. And then, of course, you know, one of the reasons that the market related trends exist for David Montgomery is because middle round running backs who have dead zone teammates, they generally hit at a really good rate, and a lot of that.

00:18:54
Speaker 1: You know, the way that I've explained.

00:18:56
Speaker 3: That is that if a running back as a teammate being drafted fourth, fifth round, and then that running back is still getting drafted in the seventh eighth round, that likely tells you that that other running back that RB two on his team is there's something going for him, there's something favorable there. And what's not being priced into Montgomery's adp in my opinion, is what happens if Jamir Gibbs gets hurt. What happens if Jamiir Gibbs is out and I think that you know, if if David Montgomery were to be entering this season without Jamir Gibbs in that backfield, he'd probably be drafted ahead of like a Naji Harris, ahead of like a traves etn like like at least in that tier in my opinion. And so you have to think of it in that way where not only does his projection say this is where David Montgomery should be drafted, and he's being drafted there, but that projection assumes that Jamir Gibbs is going to be healthy, and if Jamiir Gibbs is not healthy, that David Montgomery is a fringe RB one like he could he could at least have that potential, right, So I think there's just a lot going for him this season. He could still be a very rock solid RB two even with Gibbs, but then he has that upside if something were to happen to Gibbs.

00:19:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:19:57
Speaker 2: I think when you look at Davi Montgomery, he just fits a lot of team structure builds where he could be like a flex pinch baby as like a floor. Then the contingency value obviously is massive in this offense. I think when you look at the Lions. I mean, it's just like every offense, right, Like the the offense is always going to go through the best players given that, whether it be a week level or a season level. And we look at the way the Lions are built, like the running backs are going to be carrying a lot of this offense after I'm on Ross Saint Brown. There's a lot of questions at wide receiver. We obviously know we won't have Jameis Williams at least the opening six weeks. And you've got guys that have basically been like ancillary guys over their NFL careers, Josh Reynolds, you know where Marvin Jones is at his point of his career. Khaliff Raymond. We don't know what we're going to get out of a rookie tight end Samlaporter. I love Sam Laporta, but what are we going to get out of him? So, like, this offense is going to be very running back centric again by default because their best players at offense are running backs again, so they're going to get a huge workload. Gibbs is a guy I don't draft a ton at ADP. But there's absolute fomo for like involved like for not getting him because like his ceiling, his apex outcome is massive, like right, like, I haven't projected to have the third most receptions at running back sharing time, Like what if David what if they're the contingency goes in verse, right, like what if David Montgomery got injured and now he you know, Gibbs is getting goal line carries and he's you know, catching even more passes. But uh yeah, so I mean the Lion's offense as a whole, like is just really easy to bet on one age once again having to funnel touches through these running backs for sure?

00:21:32
Speaker 1: All right, Rachel's here your third.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: My third guy is James Cook, who's getting a little in this theme now. But uh, you know, James Cook obviously doesn't his medium projection is nowhere near like where Gibbs is is. And you know he plays a mobile quarterback but from like a player of archetype stance, Like they're very similar players. Uh you know, they're they're players that are hyper efficient in the passing game. Have questions like how much early down like ceiling are we going to get? Are they gonna get goal line carries very cheap? But they're in great offenses. Rightly, we know these officers are going to score points. So while he doesn't favor like from rejection stance as good as a guy like Gibbs, there're still is like in the highest range of outcomes, like James Cook couldn't compete with even a guy like Gibbs or even a guy like Aaron Jones, right, like those guys that are priced up there and that fit that archetype. He only had one hundred and ten touches as a rookie, but he averaged six point two yards per touch. Twenty seven percent of his carries resulted in a first down or touchdown. That was sixth among sixty six running backs that had fifty more carries. Last year, he averaged one point four to three yards per outrun that was sixteenth among all running backs. For one hundred or more routes last season, he was targeted on twenty five percent of his routes. That was tenth among the same group. And then also when you look at the types of targets he was getting, I mean, seventy eight percent of his targets were beyond the line of scrimmage, which is which is immensely high for running back it was seventh among that same group of guys we talked about. So he's not just getting like those tertiary dump offs like we saw like Ramandre Stevens last year where you have to kind of question, like, we're the targets just a byproduct of everyone being out and these aren't like really good targets to really kind of chase. Anyways, we have seen that in like the Bills offense, if they do lean on one guy that running back's really good and it should be inherently known, like you've got a really good offense. If one guy's getting off the backfield chair and a really good offense, he's gonna be good, like Devin Singletary was for certain stretches. But what if there's an outcome where like Damien Harris actually is just kind of like a hanger on right, what if they do reduce Josh Allen's rushing, Like those outcomes still exist for a guy that I think is right now where he's priced. James Cook is a very miss small hit big Like I think you're you're looking at him where like you're drafting him as like a like a like an RB three flex right now, and you have the upside to get potentially something a lot larger, even if it's say, like for a pocket of the season, right, Like what if Damian Harris misses like a four week stretch, Like, then you've got a guy that for you drafted as a flex like being like locked in RB one Like that's what Devin Singletary was, And we've got a much better player than Devin Singletary too. So he's a guy. Just think he just fits so many bills just where he's priced right now that I'm just keep climbing onto him almost every draft.

00:24:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's someone who I was like at market with and then and I even talked about it on a Mailbag episode a couple of weeks ago where I was like, yeah, I'm at market with him. I'm a little bit worried about the goal line stuff, et cetera, et cetera. And then I started thinking about it a little bit more, and I'm like, I shouldn't be making these types of like like floor excuse, it doesn't matter, you know, I should be looking more so just at what he's gonna produce. He's probably gonna be able to match ADP And you know you just mentioned a lot of the ceiling outcomes. So I've amended that take since then, where not only have I just grown to like him where he's being drafted more. But the other piece to this with with James Cook and why I think we might see him continue to rise a little bit, is there's a lot of question marks going in that area of the draft. You know, you have the Denver backfield where Javonte you know, is now looking healthier than people expected, and so you know that's sort of a tough thing to project, and so people, you know, whenever there's uncertainty.

00:24:53
Speaker 1: People just push guys down a lot.

00:24:55
Speaker 3: Isaiah Pacheco's another one where you know, you have this generic Prince narrative going on right now, and you have him being banged up, and so you know, he's being pushed down a little bit, and so that just naturally allows a player like Cook, who looks evidently great in camp and is getting a ton of you know, as you mentioned, getting a ton of steam right now.

00:25:12
Speaker 1: That just pushes a guy like that up.

00:25:14
Speaker 3: But I do think that, like you mentioned, he's someone especially like if you get an if you go like hero RB and he's he's your RB two, I think that's still fine.

00:25:23
Speaker 1: Like I still I think that's still totally okay.

00:25:25
Speaker 3: You know, you're gonna get some sort of floor each week, and then there are some outs for him to hit that ceiling. We do have some of the standard weight concerns that we have for prospects entering the league and how much volume are they really gonna see? But in an offense like this, at least you know, you know, similar to like a devon a chain, where you know, in an offense like that, you know that they could see limited touches and still pay off and still be okay enough as a fantasy asset.

00:25:47
Speaker 1: So I really like that.

00:25:48
Speaker 3: Call out of James Cook. I'm gonna pivot, I'm gonna go I'll be very quick with this one. Let's go to the quarterback position. I'm gonna go with to Sean Watson. Obviously, Watson was miserable last year as a passer, but he also hadn't played football in like two years, so I think that we can at least give him a little bit of a break there from a football perspective. The last time that we saw him play a full NFL season, the average over twenty three fantasy points per game. I mean he was the standard Deshaun Watson who crushed fantasy football. Three point nine of those points per game came via rushing, which a strong number at quarterback, but it was also because you know, obviously, and I'm talking to the Swami of Konami here in rich Reebar. You know, he is someone who literally invented the Konami code, well for fantasy football, not the actual cheat code itself, but you know, for fantasy football and letting everyone know back in twenty thirteen on number fire dot com to draft, you know, these guys like Tim Tebow, Turell Prior, et cetera, who have the upside with their legs. The thing that I love about Watson is that the thing that was the problem last year was his arm.

00:26:51
Speaker 1: It was not his legs.

00:26:52
Speaker 3: He was averaging essentially the same number of fantasy points per game on the ground as he did the last time we saw him play a full season, which tells you that at least the lettism still there, at least that upside is still there, and that's all we.

00:27:03
Speaker 1: Should be really caring about.

00:27:04
Speaker 3: You know, in that low end QB one range, which is where you know he's generally being drafted this season.

00:27:10
Speaker 1: Then you add Elijah Moore to the mix.

00:27:12
Speaker 3: Who I like a lot as a player and just you know, being a being a good Fantasy acid this year too, They're likely going to be more pass heavy this year. He's in a spot where you can still get them relatively late, and it's sort of the last player in that tier that you feel really comfortable with having a week in, week out starter who's going to have that top three upside in fantasy and then you get into more question marks, into more pocket passers, all that good stuff. So I'm really into Sean Wattson this year. It's probably gonna end up being my highest rostered quarterback, you know, across my across my leagues.

00:27:42
Speaker 2: Now when you look at Watson, like you know, and I think his ADP will relatively stay kind of where it's at, just because there's always going to be a contingency that just isn't going to draft him, probably for the rest of his career at this point, because they just don't want to go down that lane. Obviously we won't get into to that, but like talking about him as a player, you know, it's just like, you know, how much of a hall pass do you give him for everything last year. You know, you know, he comes back basically misses two years. You know, with the team for the first eleven weeks they play like two cold weather games. They have offensive line issues at that point, the receiving course not that good. Like you kind of have to go back. I brought this up a few times, is like you kind of have to go back to Dante Calpepper to find a guy that was as good as Deshaun Watson that just stopped being good again. And even Dante Calpepper had like a significant knee injury, he was older at the stage of the drop off than Watson is right now because he's only be twenty eight, and you know, Randy Moss left. But like it's just just rare to have a guy that has been that was as good as Deshaun Watson just stopped being good at quarterback. R Like, it's basically and the when you're talking about from the fantasy playing the fantasy game we've talked about for years, like the the drafters have gotten so much sharper at drafting the quarterback position than ever because they understand what subset, what arch type of quarterback is gonna smash for fantasy football, and when you're looking at guys beyond that firewall, Deshaun Watson is one of those last remaining guys of that arc type. So like, if you are going to swing and Deshaun Watson sucks, well cool, you're just doing what like a few other teams you're doing, gonna be streaming and playing guys like taking other bites at the apple.

00:29:13
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:29:13
Speaker 2: But he's definitely the type of guy when you say, like, am I gonna take Deshaun Watson or like say like Russell Wilson or Geno Smith. I like Geno Smith a lot, but like can Gino Smith like theoretically be like the QB three right? Like probably not like right like probably not. So, like when you're talking about taking swings, like where you can just set and forget a guy that has a high ceiling to compete with the Jalen Hurts is to compete with the Patrick Mahomes even where Justin Field is going right now because like you know, listen five or six years ago, there's no way Justin Fields has the ADP gas right now exactly. So he definitely fits that mold of like where if you're taking guys in that area of the draft where you got frozen out of that big pocket of guys that he fits the archetype.

00:29:51
Speaker 1: Swing all right, give me your number four player here.

00:29:56
Speaker 2: Uh mine is uh in that arc type of players that you have to pay up for and we'll see, you know, as I started to do more you know, gen pop drafts, we do these drafts you know, coming into August for our actual leagues of his ADP holds because he's gotten all the he's gotten pushed up to QB four now and it's Lamar Jackson. But I do think that we're going to see an actual I don't want to call it like a full re emergence because I don't know if we've ever seen him like actually like play like in an offense that's going to be more Lamar Jackson centric. Obviously, he had the huge twenty nineteen season, and I don't think he'll have that will probably always be his best fantasy season ever, like when we look at his career. But I do think when you look at all the changes structurally for the Ravens, and it's unfortunately they're doing this after giving him two hundred and sixty million dollars and not while he was on his rookie contract, but structurally all the changes they've made are swerving into this where the offense is going to now go not only through Lamar Jackson, but be he's an actual catalyst and not just thumbing over and glossing over like all the terrible decisions they've made on this roster that have been exposed the past two years. Because the interesting thing about Lamar Jackson is since this twenty nineteen season, he actually hasn't been a real spike week player. You know, in that twenty nineteen season he had eleven top six scoring weeks. He had nine top three scoring weeks. In the three years since, and he hasn't missed eleven games. In those three years, he has combined for just eleven top six scoring weeks in six top three scoring weeks. So he hasn't even been the kind of player like probably people perceive him as. He's been actually more of like the old school Konami player, where like you're getting like that baseline production right like he's doing the rushing, but now you factor in they add Todd Monkin, and it's not just Todd Monkin from a like an aggressive like being a pass rate over expectation guy like he has been his entire career. It's also a volume stance, like a player running stance, playing with more tempo, like that you've heard like spoken about the entire camp for the Ravens, and then it's you. You can easily still take the Ravens wide receivers from individual and say, you know what, Rashad Batemany never be healthy. Zay Flowers is a first round rookie. He played a small school. He was an old producer. We got Odell Beckham coming off in ACL He's thirty one. Who the hell is Nelson Aglore right now? But when you put all those guys together as a sum of parts as a unit, it is so much better than what the Ravens put on the field last year. They were dead last in the NFL and wide receiver targets thirty first and catches last in receiving yards twenty ninth in touchdowns the final fourteen weeks of the NFL season last year, their wide receivers had one touchdown. Crazy like an absolute just in the year twenty twenty three of NFL football. And then he still has Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likelely obviously too, like two talented tight ends. So I think when you put all of this together, like like I said, I don't necessarily want to label it as like a re emergence or like a breakout, but I do think that we're going to see an actual different version of Lamar Jackson. Then we actually have seen his entire career this year.

00:32:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:32:54
Speaker 3: Look, so you know you mentioned that he's being drafted at QB four and I have him ranked at QB four. But I think he's a player to target, And the reason for that is that, you know, I think what we're going to see. You know, we've seen it in industry drafts and in Best Ball drafts and such. There isn't that unreal of a gap, let's say, between the last of the big three quarterbacks and then where Lamar Jackson goes. But I do think to your point, when you know, more casual drafters, the average fantasy football manager starts drafting here in August, we're gonna see a bigger gap. And that's why he's someone that that just seems like an obvious go to, because there's a very very real chance that he ends up just joining that group or one of those guys gets bumped.

00:33:34
Speaker 1: Down this year, what have you?

00:33:35
Speaker 3: Because really, I mean, the stars are aligning for him, and a lot of people are worried that he's not gonna run as much because the offense itself. You know, Monkins come out and said that he doesn't necessarily want him to. But when you're throwing the ball more, when you're dropping back to pass more, that lends itself to a lot more scrambling and a lot more running that way too. So there's at least some upsides still from that perspective, I.

00:33:54
Speaker 1: Would move on. I'm gonna go with the tight end.

00:33:55
Speaker 3: I think it's the first tight end that we've talked about, maybe the only one that we're gonna talk I did the move.

00:33:58
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, friarm that's right. I forgot about friar Ruth. You're right, you're right.

00:34:01
Speaker 2: Oh man, just dunkin on my pickary. I know, I know it's Pittsburgh guy.

00:34:07
Speaker 1: Put a yinser on this guy.

00:34:08
Speaker 2: Try to play the host, and.

00:34:10
Speaker 1: All right.

00:34:11
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna go with you know, I like Friarmouth and all but I'm gonna go with my favorite late round tight end this season, and that's Greg Doulsice. My research has shown that you want to target second and third year tight ends late who had good previous season peripherals. Last season, Greg Dolcich as a rookie, he had a target shair per game rate of seventeen point seven percent. He's now a year two guy. That seventeen point seven percent target share per game rate was second best among rookie tight ends with eight or more games played since twenty eleven, behind only Evan Ingram and Kyle Pitts, obviously two strong tight ends. I mean, I'm not saying that they're you know, Travis Kelce, but within the landscape of tight ends, that's a good company to be part of.

00:34:50
Speaker 1: I have a tight end prospect model that's sort.

00:34:52
Speaker 3: Of in beta mode that I've been like teasing and throwing out there throughout the offseason. But it also has a year two model, that tight end model, and Greg Dulcich looks really good in that model. He's a ninety first percentile guy. There the players who ranked higher than the ninetieth percentile since twenty sixteen, which is where the model dates back to. There's a list of names to be prepared. Kyle Pitts, Evan Ingram, Noah Fan Dallas Goddard, George Kittle, Mark Andrews, OJ Howard, T. J. Hockinson, Alberto Hunter, Henry and David n Joku. So really, of that group, you have OJ Howard Alberta as true buss from the group, and then maybe Noah Fant too to some degree. But overall Titan is a complete dumpster fire. That's a good group within the context of the tight end position to be part of, to be associated with.

00:35:35
Speaker 1: Now you get this.

00:35:35
Speaker 3: New offense with Sean Payton, hopefully that brings more upside, more scoring. I think that he's going to see a fairly strong target share in this offense right now, especially you know you have Tim Patrick going down where maybe they don't feel as confident going heavy heavy eleven personnel just because you have Marvin Mims now is a more inexperienced guy. I'm not sold on Courtland Sutton being this stud wide receiver. I think Jerry Judy's very good. But what I'm getting to is there's a chance that Greg Dolsich is the number two option in the passing attack this year.

00:36:04
Speaker 1: And if that's the case, then seeing.

00:36:06
Speaker 3: An eighteen nineteen maybe twenty percent target chare could really, really go a long way.

00:36:10
Speaker 1: I think he's a pretty safe bet to outperform ADP.

00:36:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got great hair too, looks like Indigo Montoya for Princess Bride. That's a that's a guess where he scores on my metric, my great Hair tight End metric, He's definitely number one. But yeah, I mean in this week helped him out a lot too, right, Like, obviously it's a bummer about Tim Patrick. Obviously, you know a player that you know he has to grind his way to get like a huge NFL contract and cash in and then he's he's basically his careers over from since signing that contract. Then you have the kJ Hamler unfortunate news and just opens up like are we gonna count on you know, marvnnim as a player we probably both like, but a rookie wide receiver. And when you just talk about too, like the structure of this offense, like going from Sean Payton, like it's it's probably gonna like Dulsach is going to happen now heavily be a part of this. Uh, makes them just a lot easier by on top of all the things that you kind of highlighted just for from a player arc stance for sure, and I think that and also another player in his tier that was similar to him was a you know, chickakonquo you know, ended up taking a step back a little bit with DeAndre Hopkins coming in also helping him out.

00:37:10
Speaker 3: Yeah all right, Rich, you got one more guy, let's hear it.

00:37:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I'm going to the top again. You know, typically when we talk about like player exposures, right, like, it's you know, typically your highest guys, like roster guys are gonna be like your favorite later round guys, right because they're available more frequently that the front round. The front round guys are typically dictated by where you're drafting from, right, like when you're gonna land guys. But I mean my highest roster player by far, and I hope I don't care kebash this dude like it is Tony Pollard.

00:37:40
Speaker 1: Man.

00:37:40
Speaker 2: Uh, it's I can't think of an easier second round pick to make a click of the button than Tony Pollard because I think he should be a first round pick in fantasy football. Uh. It reminds me of the Austin Eckler situation a couple of years ago when the Chargers gave Eckler the contract, they let Melvin Gordon walk, and people were kind of just tried to talk themselves out of Austin Eckler when all they wanted for an Austin Eckler's entire career was to be like to have the opening that he was going to receive. And then ever, when he got that opening, people were just kind of like, hmmm, I don't know if he's gonna score touchdowns. I was one of those guys, you know, I was trying to talk myself, That's what.

00:38:12
Speaker 1: I was gonna say.

00:38:13
Speaker 3: I was like, I was like, I was one of those people who was questioning Eckler seeing goal mine work. I don't want to make that mistake again with Tony.

00:38:19
Speaker 2: Poll Yes, I mean, we've got just a hyper efficient electric per touch player. And this is the guy is bigger than Austin Eckler. Like this, it's not like Tony Pollard is like some hundred and hundred like he's treated like a scatback, right, but he's two hundred and ten pounds like he's he's he's got bigger size. He's more Alvin Kamara ish, And it feels like people are trying to talk themselves out of like reasons not the draft Tony Pollard. But he's had thirteen career games with fifteen or more touches in those games, and it's completely arbitrary threshold, but it's a nice round number. And you know, he's averaged nineteen point six PPR points per a game in those games, one hundred and twelve point six yards from scrimmage, thirteen touchdowns in those games. So obviously played three career games out with with Zeke laid out, he's average twenty. He's had over twenty PPR points in all of those games. I don't know if Dallas, especially with just giving Trayvon Diggson a huge contract, Like, are they really in the market for one of these running backs? You know they've been talking up ric o'dwell Malik Davis, But I mean, this is everything we asked for for Tony Pollard in a year where running back looks as scarce as ever, right, Like people are trying to talk themselves out of one of the guys that very clearly looks like he can catch passes, he can score from anywhere on the field, anytime he touches the ball. He plays an elite offense, and like we're trying to find reasons not to draft this guy. I can't think of any time I'm on the clock, and it doesn't matter what if I have two one, two, two to two eleven, wherever the hell he goes, If any time he's there in the second round, I'm immediately clicking that button on Tony Pollard. I think he competes with Austin Eckler. The great thing is that you don't have to take him like anywhere near that ADP. But man, I hope I don't. I don't ruin him because like this is by far my favorite draftic we've had in a couple of years.

00:39:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the thing with Eckler too is that Eckler has a lot of change in his offense too.

00:40:01
Speaker 1: I mean they have, you know, they have a new coordinator.

00:40:03
Speaker 3: They might not use him exactly how they've used him over the last couple of seasons. I still have Eckler ranked ahead, But I'm just saying that there's plenty of question marks. And I mean there's question marks with Christian McCaffrey and the way they use Elijah Mitchell last year. There's question marks even with b John Robinson to some degree with the way that they might want to sprinkle in Tyler Aljear or how much he's going to be utilized as a receiver, all that kind of stuff. And so I have Pollard at RB four right now, behind those three that I just mentioned, and given the fact that he goes where he goes, I'm totally totally with you. He's a very very easy draft pick to make in the second round this season. I agree that you could easily make the argument that he should be a late first you know, just just given the environment. The last guy I want to talk about, Christian Watson. You and I talk about this a lot. So for those of you who don't know, Rich and I are friends, irl. We talk about fantasy football probably every single day of our life. You know, we go back and forth just kind of kind of talking about stuff. He's sort of my soundboard, if you will, you know, which is why we definitely have agreement. We have plenty of disagreement too, But one player, or one of the things that we talk about a lot is we don't want to miss on players that can burn us.

00:41:09
Speaker 1: Right.

00:41:10
Speaker 3: There's a lot of players out there who you know, you skip over, especially in like the running back dead zone. You ask yourself, is this guy really gonna burn me if I don't take him. One player who I don't want to skip this year partially because I think he could burn me is Christian Watson. I think there's a chance that Watson could really really crush the people who are outright fading him this season. Look, there's plenty of question marks to his profile. I thought there were plenty of question marks his profile entering the NFL, where his production wasn't great, He wasn't an early declare you know.

00:41:39
Speaker 1: Smaller school guy. There was just a lot.

00:41:41
Speaker 3: Of you know, it's basically drafted where he got drafted off of athleticism. And we've seen this archetype and this kind of player after a good rookie season fizzle out. Chase Claypool is the perfect example of that happening. Right, So there's absolutely a bear case with Christian Watson, but there's also an insane bowl case with him, and he was better than what.

00:42:02
Speaker 1: Chase Claypole was when Chase Claypool was a rookie.

00:42:05
Speaker 3: Since twenty eleven, only seven rookie wide receivers have hit a two point twenty five yards per out run rate. We know yards per out run is very predictive for future success at the wide receiver position. The six other wide receivers to hit that two point twenty five Mark Obj, Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, AJ Brown, Tyreek Hill, and Chris Olave who obviously we don't have his next season data, but.

00:42:27
Speaker 1: Of the other players. So of the other five players with.

00:42:29
Speaker 3: Next season data, every single one of them hit fifteen point nine PPR points per game during that second season. You can even extend that sample to rookie wideouts to hit two in the yards per route run department, you get similar results. Doing that expands our group from seven wide receivers to twenty one wide receivers, and of those twenty one, we have seventeen who played eight or more games during year two. Those players exceeded ADP expectation on average by over one and a half PPR points per game and only twenty nine percent of them failed to give you a mid range wide receiver two season. So you're looking at a scenario where based on history, based on how Christian Watson performed, you know in year one, things look very very favorable for him. Just given those types of comps. I think that if he were not playing with Jordan Love, if Aaron Rodgers were still quarterbacking the Green Bay Packers, I mean, Christian Watson would probably be a two three turn guy at this point. He'd probably be drafted around where Chris Olave gets drafted, I would assume. And so you're really, you know, you're drafting him in an area where we know running backstone hit at a really great rate. I'm bullish on Watson and like I said, he's one of those guys that could burn you if you end up fading.

00:43:39
Speaker 2: Him this year. Yeah, And I like just the phrasing of that. And you know, I see he's a guy you see get comp like people. I want to draw the corollary, like he's this year's Gabe Davis gave. Davis never earned routes in his career on a level that Christian Watson has, and he never was as good against man coverage as a rookie. They were talking of a rookie that came out of, you know, a small school, and you know, so I don't see how you can draw that, like maybe because they just get big plays, but it's not even close in terms of you know, what measure talent and earning targets has been. And I just like how you phrased as like you know, burning you because you look at the ride receivers in the ADP range, Like I think there's a number of guys you can say like, yeah, this guy could be a successful draft pick there, but like I'm not scared to get embodied by those guys, Like I look at DeAndre Hopkins going to the Titans, right, yeah, I can see him being like successful value play Like is am I gonna get dragged to the shadow realm by DeAndre Hopkins? Probably not? You know, even Terry McLaurin, right, Drake London like guys like that, like Jerry Judy, Like those are all guys that go around the orbit of Christian Watson. And I'm not saying negative things about those picks. I think they can be successful draft picks, but are they gonna just take me into the Earth on a given week on one play? Right, Like, and that's kind of what Christian Watson has. And then the Packers I think are undervalued anyways because of the one. It's like the buccaneer situation, right, Like people are worried about like what are the Buccaneers gonna do going from Tom Brady to the group of Jimokes they have this year? But Aaron Rodgers was really bad last year. Like, so if like we're if that's the baseline, Like what if there's actually a chance that twenty twenty three Jordan Love can play on par with twenty twenty two Ar Rodgers or if not better, And the Packers have our number one easiest passing schedule at Sharp Football Analysis. So that's another reason to like kind of take another swing too for the upside. So I mean, I just like the what you phrased it, and I like the more I take Watson more because typically by the point Watson come up in drafts, he's my wide receiver three, and like, I feel really good when he's When you have a hammer like that at wide receiver three, it feels really good. I can see maybe some people saying, like I feel uneasy if he is my wide receiver two, although I would be fine if there's a wide receiver two, but when he especially in these builds where you open wide receiver wide receiver that are really good wide receivers and you tack on a guy like that where you're just like man who cares about the volatility. There's gonna be weeks or my wider receivers get me one hundred points right like good luck?

00:46:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly exactly, And there's Look, there's room for growth still with Christian Watson, Like we look at last season and he was so efficient and so unbelievably good per route, but he was still seeing like a twenty ish percent target chair in that offense, Like, could we not see a scenario where it's up to twenty five percent this year? Like, I think that's very, very very possible, all while seeing maybe a decrease in efficiency, because what he did last year was just so incredible. So even if you see that decrease in efficiency, he could still be a better fantasy asset because that volume is just gonna be there more frequently for him. But anyway, Rich, thanks as always for hopping on and chatting. I think a lot of people will take at least something away from today's show. If you're not following Rich in his work, make sure you are on Twitter, on x whatever at Lord Reeves. You can do the same for me at late round QB. Thanks for listening everyone, talk to you later in the week.