Late-Round Perspectives: Field Yates

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Field Yates is a fantasy football and NFL draft analyst who's been at ESPN for over a decade. Prior to ESPN, he worked on the scouting and coaching staffs for the Chiefs. He's an East Coast dad, a New Englander, and yes, he recently had a shoulder injury. These are his late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. If you haven't played over an underdog yet, now's the perfect time. There are tons of different bestball leagues that you can join, and there's definitely a league out there that fits what you're looking for, and you can use all the things that I've talked about with guests. I'm becoming a best ball bro to crush those drafts. But like I said, now's the right time to join up because if you go and you sign up and use promo code Late Round, you not only get a nice deposit offer, but you also get a free late Round Draft guide that's a twenty five dollars guide email to your inbox after signing up for absolutely free. So head to Underdog Fantasy dot com, sign up using promo code late Round and make it a posit. I can confirm it's a really really fun platform to play on. Now back to the show.

00:01:13
Speaker 2: So I'm doing okay, man I. So the shoulder is there's kind of two ways to look at it. On the one one hand, like relative to where I was six days ago, I am like remarkably better. I've got a long journey ahead. I'm gonna have to have surgery on this thing in the next couple of weeks here, which will set back the pain relative to where it is now.

00:01:32
Speaker 3: But for the long term, it's a good thing.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: So we are focused on come back stronger than ever, hopefully within like four or five months.

00:01:39
Speaker 4: My gosh, did you ever think that you're where were you guys again?

00:01:42
Speaker 3: You guys were like the Bahamas? Yeah, and Nasa on the Bahamas.

00:01:45
Speaker 2: The Bahamar Resort like one of the most you know, luxurious places I've ever been to in my entire life. It was supposed to be for rest and relaxation, and instead I was rested, really in relaxing and relaxing in an emergency room hospital dead.

00:01:56
Speaker 1: That's unreal'd I couldn't, by the way, for that like twenty four hour period, I could not open up a social media app without seeing the video of you running into that into that tackle, like doing the tackle dummy thing, and and it wasn't like TMZ was reporting on it and stuff.

00:02:10
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it was hilarious, like you know, and on the spectrum of like ways to have yourself appear on like TMZ the New.

00:02:16
Speaker 2: York Post, I felt like it was actually a fairly good one. I also was like, man, it must be a slow news day otherwise, like if they're they're watching onto this or it makes it made me realize just how ridiculous the entire incident was and how just completely unathletic I actually am.

00:02:32
Speaker 3: But oh, you know it, it was a funny day in some ways. I guess.

00:02:36
Speaker 2: This is the proverbial like you know, make make lemonades out of lemons here, I guess because the pain was not so fun for the three hours, the three hours in which my arm was detached from my body sucked everything else though around it was a okay and truthfully, like so many people down there, that that helped make the process slightly smoother. Bail will probably be in a chief amongst that list is stefaning here for those in the community, probably already now, is like, you know, the pre eminent sports medicine person in the world of fantasy football, and she was able to put some of her pet background to work there as she was kind of keeping me at ease. Unfortunately, because of insurance issues and medical concerns, like she couldn't actually do anything to me, or else I would have surrendered whatever insurance coverage I had and the resort would no longer allow their EMT team to like take care of me. So while Stefani was unable to like just pop that shoulder back in on her own, which she probably could have done and done so masterfully, she had.

00:03:34
Speaker 3: Me at ease much more than I would have been without her.

00:03:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's great. I mean, it's nice to have that kind of resource right there when something like that happens. Does it also, I know you have a football background. Yeah, yeah, you played back in the day, but like, does it does it?

00:03:48
Speaker 4: Number one?

00:03:48
Speaker 1: Bring you back to that a little bit when that happened, and then also make you like, I remember one time I was playing like pick up football, like I was like a senior or something in high school, right and like, you know, we're just doing stupid things as you do, and you're playing you know, We're tackling each other and whatnot, and I broke my finger and it was like the top of my finger like just jammed, you know, and it like needed to get pulled back, but no one could.

00:04:10
Speaker 4: Do it there.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: And I was in unbelieva literally some of the worst pain that I've ever felt before. And then that weekend I go and I just watch the NFL, and you know, a quarterback hits his finger on a dude's helmet and just goes to the sideline and they just put it back into place and he's back out there. Like do those instances ever make you just respect the nflers even more? You know, obviously you played ball, but like, you know, that's just like next level the kinds of stuff that they go through.

00:04:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, my respect for Matthew Stafford was pretty high going into this injury, and it's like that much higher coming out of it. The clip that went around it goes around like every I don't know, six to eight months of Stafford popping his shoulder, dislocating it the same injury that I had, and just being back on the field like literally one play later. I think there was a reason.

00:04:56
Speaker 3: And he was talking about this on Part of my take recently, Apparently.

00:05:01
Speaker 2: There was a timeout. Either it was like a TV timeout, maybe it was the two minute warning, maybe the other team used a time out, but basically he was not required to miss a play, so he actually didn't.

00:05:13
Speaker 3: Miss a play.

00:05:13
Speaker 2: After dislocating his shoulder, getting it popped back in was essential, and they did that right away. I did not for three hours, so I was in a heap of pain there. But like even after that thing was popped back in, like the idea of just like getting up and like throwing a football at a high level like ridiculous to me. So I definitely have like a newfound respect for football players. And I also say, is that sometimes it's the injuries. To your point about like a broken finger, is that the injuries that sound or are the most difficult to recover from, like an ACL tear, And I had not had one of those, but I was like struck by the most recent episode of Hard Knocks when Ian Wheeler, or the Bears running back, tore his ACL. And I don't think he felt good, but he was like walking to his mother in the hallway of Aarrowhead stadium.

00:06:02
Speaker 3: To console her for her to console home.

00:06:04
Speaker 2: I guess and you're just like, sometimes it's you know, the broken finger or like some sort of bad sprain that actually hurts way more from the immediate term than the thing that like actually is going to require like a nine or twelve month recovery like an ACL does.

00:06:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like sometimes those guys just walk off the field after tearing their ACL.

00:06:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then it's, you know, it's that ten month recovery or whatever. But let's talk about your football background and such.

00:06:30
Speaker 1: I always like to start out these late Round Perspectives episodes by just getting to know the guest a little bit better. You know, a lot of times, you know, I've had many conversations with the folks that I'm having on these shows and such, but not everyone knows that background as well. So I'm curious about your journey as to becoming an analyst and where you are now, obviously being at ESPN for so long, How did you find yourself in the fantasy football space. What was that journey like for you just in general? Where did the passion for football come from?

00:06:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the passion for foot ball was pretty much like the moment I can recall, like I always knew I wanted to do something related to football. I thought it would be a player for a little bit, and then, you know, I quickly realized that when you know you're barely making the Pop Porner team, it probably is not going to be a professional football player. So I was one of the coach and scout and do something in the world of the NFL. But the passion for fantasy football started probably around when a lot of people begin their fantasy football journey. I remember playing the Sporting News way back in the day, which was amongst the earliest platforms for fantasy football that had like a real following to it.

00:07:33
Speaker 3: This was like the It was kind of like daily fantasy.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: It was salary structured, and I don't believe it was for You would not draft a team for every single week, but you would do so for the season in any event. I remember playing in leagues early early on, and then I've got leagues that go back probably my oldest league now is maybe like sixteen seventeen years, So I've got some long running leagues that I've stock around for a while. But I did not ever think it will be something that I would do professionally. But I started at ESPN in two thousand and two twelve. Excuse me, so twelve years ago, I was my first event being a part of the ESPN family.

00:08:11
Speaker 3: I grew up in Boston, and I was helping Mike Reese, who's a great, great, great guy, one.

00:08:15
Speaker 2: Of my closest friends of the world now one of the greatest people you ever meet, covering the twenty twelve NFL Draft and ESPN Boston. I don't know if you recall or listeners recalled, but there used to be sort of these subsidiaries of ESPN. They were actually technically ESPN companies, but we had ESPN Boston dot Com or ESPN Dallas dot comed, ESPN New York dot comed, ESPN Chicago dot Com, and a couple others. And so Mike was tabbed as the ESPN Boston reporter, and so I was kind of sidekicking him for a little while, and ESPN was like, we appreciate what you're doing, but just a heads up, like Mike Crease does not need help, right, Like Mike is, I would argue, the best beat reporter in the country and certainly more than capable of handling everything.

00:08:53
Speaker 3: That went into his job day to day.

00:08:55
Speaker 2: So so let's find some other ways to kind of get you involved, and I was doing so.

00:09:00
Speaker 3: I had worked in the NFL for.

00:09:02
Speaker 2: A little while, including the last stop was with the Chiefs. I take no credit for what's happened. They have seemingly got a whole lot better since I left. We can decide whether that's correlation or causation. But I was started to I was doing some like scouting reports and kind of tapping into my background there.

00:09:20
Speaker 3: And ESPN actually got a call from a guy named Seth Markman, who is our coordinating producer of like pretty much all NFL stuff and college football. Now, he's prominently involved with every NFL.

00:09:31
Speaker 2: Show, college game Day, a lot of the college stuff that you see. At the time he was working, I think exclusively on NFL, but definitely it was as involved, if not more, in the NFL back then. And he said, I have an idea for you. And he said, I know you're a football guy, and you're you know this, You've been tapping into the scouting roots, but I think you'd be surprised how much crossover there is between fantasy.

00:09:50
Speaker 3: And no football.

00:09:52
Speaker 2: You know, you'd say, hey, you know, if you're sitting there and you're scouting some tight end that you think is underutilized, but you think is a really good player. You translate that to fantasy, and you know, if he just gets more opportunities, he could become a useful fantasy player. And at the time, Tim Hasselback had made a somewhat recent transition into the world of fantasy as well. And Tim was an NFL quarterback for seven seasons, and he provided that player perspective. But by the time that Tim was done with his fantasy work at ESPN, he.

00:10:18
Speaker 3: Was not simply sitting there saying, you know, well, you know the thing about Kyler Murray is.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: He's best in his you know, his his three step drops versus his five step drops. You know, he has some accuracy issues. No, he's sitting there talking about how like, you know, if the thing on Terry McLaurin as well, he's got like a high floor, you know, I just don't know that he has like the piercing upside that some of these other guys do.

00:10:37
Speaker 3: Right, So he was speaking a language that was far beyond just you know, being a former quarterback, right, And so I got some encouragement there to kind of kind of get going.

00:10:46
Speaker 2: And Chris Harris, so I know, you know in the industry still today. Him and I did a show for a couple of seasons. It was kind of Taylor made for my new beginnings, and I also my my background because it was supposed to be fantasy football through the eyes of like film breakdown too right, Like, hey, so and so might have had fifteen carries for seventy three yards and a touchdown, and the box score tells you that was good. Did the film tell you it was also good? And so that was where it got started. And then after a couple of seasons, ESPN had some transition on Fantasy Focus. Nate Rabbits, who was the original host with Matthew and Stefana, moved into he moved away from the podcasting role and into he was already at a corporate job at ESPN, but just took on that role, took on more of a role, and took it on full time. And so there was an opening there and that was when it all got started. I think this is year ten maybe maybe God, it's all relative eight or ten for me on the Fantasy Focus podcast.

00:11:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's wild man.

00:11:49
Speaker 1: So like throughout that journey, one of the things that I've talked about on like Living the Stream with Denny Carter plenty over the years, because I mean that show's been around now for like twelve years. But we randomly you'll get brought up randomly, like you know, other analysts get brought up or whatever.

00:12:04
Speaker 4: Not in anything bad.

00:12:05
Speaker 1: It's usually because people want to say that they appreciate other people more than they appreciate us.

00:12:10
Speaker 4: Uh, And so.

00:12:11
Speaker 1: I don't know yo you'll get You'll get brought up. Maybe maybe it's the handsome factor between you and Denny and people people competing there.

00:12:20
Speaker 4: But uh, you'll get brought up.

00:12:21
Speaker 1: And the one thing that I've said multiple times on there, and I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to you right now, but you're you've always been so good in front of a camera, like just so comfortable, seemingly comfortable in front of a camera. And as someone who you know, I think that that most people you kind of just test things and see.

00:12:37
Speaker 4: What you like and what you don't like, what you're good at, what you're not good at.

00:12:41
Speaker 1: You know, I've done some TV stuff in the past, and I'm like, I hate this with a passion. I don't really want to do this at all, you know, like it's just it's just you figure out what you like and you don't like. But you've been so so good and so you know, you've been able to, you know, switch different gigs throughout ESPN and be featured on different shows and do it very seamlessly to an audience's perspective. And I'm curious though, and this is kind of a selfish question too, but I'm curious if that was something that you just felt more and more comfortable with REPS or it was something that you immediately right away when you got to ESPN and twenty twelve you're like, Yeah, I can sit in front of a camera because this is where I'm comfortable, whereas some people might be comfortable writing content, some people might be comfortable podcasting doing that kind of thing.

00:13:25
Speaker 4: Where did that all come from?

00:13:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, my zoom cut out for about sixty seconds there. Could you just repeat every single thing that you just said over the last minute? Kidding of course, No, first of all, Like, incredibly kind of you just say that. And I'm actually surprised to hear that you don't think TV is enjoyable because I could share a lot of the sentiments that you just share with me right back to you, you have an incredible ability to take fantasy information and tidy it into like a very understandable and digestible package, and do so an entertaining manner, which if we talk about the secrets auso of being a fantasy football analyst, I could certainly go down that wrap hold.

00:14:00
Speaker 3: For a little bit.

00:14:01
Speaker 2: I don't believe that like TV is the kind of thing that, like, either you're born to do it or you're not. Of course, as it developmental traits. I think that many things in life are like There are a few things that probably aren't, but I think for the you know, generally speaking, most of the skills that go into doing what we do are the kind of things that can get better over time. REPS definitely helped, but I think and I think it probably matters even more now and it is like more obvious and prevalent and pertinent to this conversation. I remember, very early on, when I was doing TV, someone reminded me, because I, of course I had some nerves thinking about the possibility of doing this more and more and potentially making a career of it, was that I was just talking about sports, right, I wasn't dealing with politics or you know, climate issues or things that so many people have such strong feelings on, and oftentimes if their feelings don't align with your feelings, it means means that you are wrong and they are right, and you can't find middle ground, right, So, and that that can be like a little bit difficult, like a difficult pill to swallow, if it's something that you're super passionate about and you just fundamentally don't believe that the other side could be right. Whereas in football, I'm just making this up here, but if I tell you like I think the Jets are the most talented team in the AFC East this year, and you're like, that's ridiculous.

00:15:26
Speaker 3: I think the Dolphins and the Bills are better. Like It's okay, we disagree, right, you know, the next eighteen weeks beginning next will decide which one of us is right or wrong. You know. It just sports.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that we don't take our job seriously. We certainly do. But the stakes I just think are fundamentally lower than if you are dealing with something that, for lack of a better term, like is more real life. I feel comfortable probably just knowing that if I screw up. If I say something you don't like, you know, you're gonna more likely hear people that don't agree or don't like you than those that do agree or do like you. And a lot of people acknowledge or align with you silently as opposed to a lot of critics letting you know, very vocally.

00:16:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like that.

00:16:16
Speaker 1: I like that mindset of just I mean, look, I've had plenty of like existential crises of like this is like like I'm I'm I literally am devoting my life in terms of my job to a game about a game.

00:16:27
Speaker 4: You know, It's it's like it's silly.

00:16:29
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, Like it's it's not important to a degree. I understand the entertainment value and the escapism and all of that and the importance of that. So you know, I've it's taken some time to like come to that realization and be like cool with it. But I do think having that mindset of just like, hey, this doesn't really matter at the end of the day. You know, if I do screw up a little bit, it's not like, you know, babies are dying or anything and anything like horrible is happening.

00:16:54
Speaker 4: So I really like that mindset overall.

00:16:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's important because you know, every year we're in it, come for more. And what I believe is with like what we do in fantasy football specifically is and you know this landscape so well, is that Like I haven't found too many people that I follow for a fantasy football perspective who are like entering this season who are like, Hey, you know what, the number one wide receiver that should be coming off draft boards is Michael Pittman Jr. Right, Like really the player, right, but like I'd probably stay on the optimistic side.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: He's like, you know, wide receiver town.

00:17:28
Speaker 2: On the pessimistic side, I've seen some like wide receiver twenties or something, right, Yeah, And I bring that up because a lot of us are saying very comparable things with some adjustments here there. Right, Like I do have some players that, like, I like the term flag planting. I think that's become quite quite common here in the world of fantasy football, where I do plant my flag. I will try to because I think it's important for us to have some thoughts that deviate from sort of consensus. But it's not like a lot of what we're saying is the same, right, You and I probably both have Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts two of the top three, if not the top two quarterbacks in fantasy football. So the job is not for me to find a different spin. It's to make my spin about Josh and Jalen entertaining. And so some people actually find some entertainment in like the big swings that result in big misses.

00:18:21
Speaker 3: But I guarantee you this is like on a personal.

00:18:24
Speaker 2: Level, and not to spoil like one of the players for the audience that I'm all in on, but like, if at the end of this season Anthony Richardson is the next megastar and fantasy football, the response is going to be incredible for me. If he sucks, it's going to be incredible as well, just incredibly bad. But I do think there's something to be said for finding things that can be entertaining both, you know, in the short and longer term.

00:18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. All right, let's get into some fantasy takes. Let's let's talk some fantasy football here.

00:18:53
Speaker 4: We're seeing a.

00:18:53
Speaker 1: More wide receiver heavy approach really on every platform. I know you guys are seeing it on ESPN, more, we're just seeing it across the board. Do you think at a high level that it's a mistake that people drafting all of these wide outs. I think Mike Clay shared some data in particular where just an obscene amount of wide receivers in the first couple of rounds are going off the board versus what we've seen historically over on ESPN. Do you think it's been a mistake or do you think that there is some validity to it now?

00:19:21
Speaker 2: I think there's some validity to it for sure. And here's what we've been talking about often on our show is that I believe in like a large league, a sixteen team league. I've made this point several times, and playing in enough of them for enough a long enough period of time, is that this the formula to win in a large league is not generic, right, It's not homogeneous. It is different every single year. It's there's a year in which the person who just happened to like strike big with two wide receivers early kind of carried their team because in a sixteen team league, depth is going to be poor pretty much across the league, so you don't need to have this early run on running backs which was sort of older conventional wisdom because a there's gonna be nobody in the league that's gonna have great running back death or like maybe one or two teams, we'll have two of the top you know, twelve to fifteen running backs, but it's probably only people picking closer to the turn. Right, If someone takes Christian McCaffrey one, that person's probably going to have a long shot to get like another top fifteen running back and pick number thirty two. But that also is just like there's a few options, right, I mean, how many good running backs are there this year? I invoked this recently in our show, and I apologize for not having the specific reference, but there was that show on Netflix about a woman who like famously like rearranges people's houses and closets.

00:20:42
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, right, but I can't I can't think of it either, but I know.

00:20:44
Speaker 2: Exactly maybe Marie Kwondo. And it was like, yeah, when she was debate, when when she would go through someone's closet and they have a sweater and she like, does this spark joy for you? I've been using that test on running backs this year, right, like does this running back spark joy? And like you get down to, like, you know, I think some people would start to get to like the DeAndre swift from Andre Stevens and James Connor David Montgomery level. Yeah, you're kind of like, I don't know, and there might be some people that find some joy in those players, but there might be some people that are, like, man, I really wish I just you know, swung earlier on Jamier Gibbs and maybe try to grab Duan Chan, who obviously has you know, a large range of outcomes, but the best version of a Chan is you know, potentially a top I don't know five running back in fantasy football with enough volumes. So I would say that in ten team leagues, speaking generally, and ESPN's data, by the way, and this is reflected in our coverage, is that like ninety one percent of ESPN's leagues or eight or ten team leagues are smaller, and most of them are actually eight team leagues. Because while I know a lot of the discourse and the people that we interact with online are harder core, and I think that that that's that's good and it's important and it's good perspective, but like so much of our consumer base at ESPN, is like my brother playing in like an.

00:22:04
Speaker 3: Eight man office league. Right.

00:22:05
Speaker 2: He's a football fan, but he's not a dieares He does it probably more than anything else because he wants to be a part of something that his colleagues are as well. So I don't like generally in a ten team league, I do like to leave with at least one running back in my first two picks. But you know, I've got a ten team league draft tonight that involves my wife. It's it's five couples, and like, I wouldn't be surprised if, like, you know, if I sit there and I land like Justin Jefferson with pick eight and AJ Brown is still there with pick thirteen, like that one, we call my name pretty easily.

00:22:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:22:38
Speaker 1: I mean the other thing too, is that the smaller the league, the more like like you're saying, the more perfect the team has to be to compete, right, And if that's the case, then that means that you need to adjust. And even I always say, like, I think people get it backwards sometimes with the onesie positions with quarterback and tight end in the larger leagues, they think, oh, I need to get that advantage of quarterback and tight end because the league is larger, but you're actually setting yourself back more at the more important positions and running back and wide receiver where you actually should probably push it a little bit more with the elite quarterbacks and tight ends, is in like an eighteen team or you know, an eight team league where you need to dominate every position because every roster in that league, you know, is going to be very, very good.

00:23:16
Speaker 4: But yeah, the running back stuff is interesting too.

00:23:18
Speaker 1: Like I think a really good example is just what happened yesterday with uh samaj p Ryan going to the Chiefs, where like think about just the fragility of that position and what can happen even with a top twelve running back from a projection standpoint in Isaiah Pacheco. Now all of a sudden, you're like, all right, is he gonna is p Ryan gonna play the McKinnon role?

00:23:39
Speaker 4: And is that?

00:23:39
Speaker 3: You know?

00:23:39
Speaker 4: How's that?

00:23:40
Speaker 2: Like?

00:23:40
Speaker 1: You will never see that happen to an elite talent at wide receiver. Like it's just never gonna happen. And so that's kind of the stuff that you know, Sean Siegel had written about with the zero RB stuff back in the day about just the general fragility of the position, and when you get you know, only three guys to to six guys that you feel supremely confident in that you know a move like that wouldn't necessarily affect you know, their cost, their average draft position. That's when it's like, Okay, well, if I can't get those guys, then I guess I'm going the other way and I'm going with some wide receivers there instead.

00:24:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes you just realize how much of a unicorn Christian McCaffrey is because the four ninders keep trying to find people to do that to his value.

00:24:18
Speaker 3: And then it's like, oh, we.

00:24:19
Speaker 2: Draft Isaacarendu in the fourth round, who became, by the way, like I think you and I both shared an infinity for him as a prospect. The guy was, I mean, this was the straight sea of a player as you could find. And then now he's hurt, right, Or it's like Elijah Mitchell who had a great season as a rookie as a six round pick, like as great as you could ask based off where you drafted him in real life, and now he's out for the year.

00:24:39
Speaker 3: But yeah, you're right, it is. It's I think Isaiah Pichecko. By the way, I.

00:24:43
Speaker 2: Believe it became a legal disclaimer that you had to say Isaiah Pacheco, who has less competition for work than any other running back in the entire NFL this summer, and all of a sudden, samajp Ryan, who by no standards is a superstar, but he is like a he's under something.

00:25:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's good enough where he has to play.

00:25:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:25:04
Speaker 2: I think it was Matt Harmon who said this, said it to the effect of, like he's good enough that he muddles up like snap counts or something, and that that's true, right, Like, you don't if the Chiefs plan to like turn around and cut someaj p Ryan from like three weeks from round I was like, yeah, we're we're gonna take a swing on this guy. No, there are higher upside players you would take a swing on than somemajp Ryan. So that's the kind of guy that you bring him in because you have a very specific role in mind.

00:25:31
Speaker 3: Part of the reason why the Broncos signed him last.

00:25:33
Speaker 2: Year, even though it was the deal that ended up lasting for just half of his totality.

00:25:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly, And that's that's the fear with all of these guys and like, like all of the news items if you really, like take a step back and like think about it and look at it. All of the news items that we see in fantasy football generally, not all, I shouldn't say all, but like the important ones that are really shifting ADP this time of year.

00:25:54
Speaker 4: It's running back related. Yeah, like the Kira and Williams stuff.

00:25:57
Speaker 1: You know, Sean McVay talking this week about him being a punt returner and whether or not, you know, any of that even remotely matters. You know, I send a tweet out that said, like, if this is the thing that's really shifting your your your stance on Kian Williams and not the fact that they drafted a Kion Williams type back and day two you know, in April, then you know, I think that's just like backwards logic. But whether or not anything comes to fruition with the punt return stuff, yeah, right, like the fact that this is shifting ADP and the way that people think about it, that kind of thing would just never exist at the wide receiver position.

00:26:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. I talk about this with Clay often.

00:26:32
Speaker 2: You and Mike are the most annoying people to have a varying opinion on because you're like the most pragmatic fantasy football analysts I've ever met in my entire life.

00:26:40
Speaker 3: You know, like, I'll come into the show one day and.

00:26:42
Speaker 2: Be like, you know something, I'm like kind of feeling a Pittman week this week, or I'll change it. I'm kind of feeling a lot of a week this week, right, Mike will be like, and then Mike will be like, oh, that's interesting. You do realize that Lugerious Need has not allowed a single wide receiver to catch more than four passes for thirty seven yards. His average set the target as defender is two point seven yards, has number one the entire I'm like, damn it might let me just have a lobbing moment here, right, So your your Kyram Williams thoughts yesterday shared on Twitter reminded me that like, you know, if I felt good about him as RB seven since the moment that I submitted my post NFL draft rankings, then they should it should be like pretty darn stagnant. Yeah, now's there's right. It's gonna be hilarious too when he has like in week one, like he does field like two punt returns, but he also has like thirty one carries for one hundred and ninty five yards in a touchdown.

00:27:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's also just like I you know, Clay is even like next level versus me with a lot of this. I mean, Clay is like beyond the saying with his projections and his knowledge. Just it's it's nuts. I always I always lean into just like the general like the volatility of the game and the volatility of our projections and understanding that we're not going to get this stuff right and under just kind of looking at the range of outcomes of this kind of stuff. But I also like I just I get ir not irritated, that's not the right word, is too strong. But you know, along those lines of just the logic that folks use, like this being the item that's gonna make you go from RB three or you know, RB four, so you're really really high on Kiren, then all of a sudden he's on punt return duty, which he might only touch the ball two or three times, you know, like throughout a game, and he might not even be tackled, you know, on those plays where that takes him from an RB four because you're really high on him to RB eighteen. You know, it's like like there's there's so many other things that are more important. Like I'm not even saying be high or low on him. I'm just saying that, like, objectively, the thing that should matter more is the fact that Blake Korum as a prospect of all the running backs in this class, if you were to pinpoint one guy in this class who looked the most like Kian Williams, just statistically analytically all of that, it's Blake Korum. And everything that they've said after that pick was you know, keeping Kyroen a little bit more fresh and like making sure they had some depth. And they're doing it with a guy that can hypothetically, hypothetically replace him when they need to replace Kyraen Williams. So like it's just about the logic stuff to me more than anything else. That kind of drives me nuts.

00:29:10
Speaker 2: And to that point, and this is Mike stance yesterday, so I am simply sharing it, not taking credit for it myself, is that, Yes, Blake Koram is going to play a role this year, a much more impactful one than Ryan Rivers or Darryl Henderson, who believe it or not, was on the Rams last season for part of the year. Did It's that's already been baked into it though, right, I mean the Kyle Homes was RB two last year in a points per game basis, Christian McCaffrey was ahead of him. So now if're gettinghim at RB seven or RB eight, like that is us acknowledging that he is going to be awesome because he's really talented in a great offense with a coach who loves to feature his strengths, but he also announce a running mate who might decrease his workload by twelve.

00:29:48
Speaker 3: To fifteen percent, maybe a little.

00:29:50
Speaker 2: More, maybe a little less on a given game, and that right there is enough to dock him from RB two to RB six, seven, eight, maybe nine, depending on how worried people are about the punt turn stuff, which is hilarious just because it's like, I don't think people take time to notice how many awesome players on offense or defense play on special teams all the time. Like Gronk famously used to be the wing protector on the punt on.

00:30:14
Speaker 3: The field goal team and he ended up getting hurt on the field goal team.

00:30:17
Speaker 2: So it became a whole thing, like, you know, how good could the Patriots have been if Gronk had been healthy?

00:30:21
Speaker 3: And it was like, oh, they.

00:30:22
Speaker 2: Won the super Bowl six weeks later, and you know they're ten times or whatever it was, but like defensive players cover kicks all the time, right.

00:30:30
Speaker 3: And that they're on the field for the very next snap.

00:30:33
Speaker 2: So it generated some heat yesterday, But I am very happy that those who decided to become more nervous about Kyraen and Williams are doing so because it just means that people like you or I might be able to get them in a bit of a discount in the drafts that we have remade.

00:30:46
Speaker 1: Right exactly, Like I've been more in the camp of like I like quorum as a value more than Kyroen, like just strictly from like a cost perspective, and I like a lot of the wide receivers that go you know, or at least I'll take a chance of some of the wide receivers going around Kiren. But it's all cost, really, like everything we do is based on cost. And if we're getting a discount now on Kyraen Williams, yeah, I'll get some Kyrien Williams or more than I had anticipated otherwise, because this news item, this standalone news item, is not what's going to do it for me, because I already had my my take in my stance and my opinion based on what they did with Blake Korum, you know, with Kyraen. But you know, I do think, like to Mike's point and what he was talking about, you know, from a like a projection standpoint, it's really true and it just kind of it speaks to the lack of depth that we have at running back this year, where a guy can have legit competition from a day two running back step in and you know still be a lower end RB one or like even a mid range RB one, because that's just kind of the landscape in the situation we find ourselves in, right.

00:31:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are very few that are immune to it. You know, Chris mcaffter be the one.

00:31:48
Speaker 2: I guess Derrick Henry probably is isn't like obviously lower down, but probably in that same category just because of the specific style I guess the specific running back archetype hits, which is that like the only.

00:32:01
Speaker 3: Way that you validate paying a eight million bucks a year.

00:32:04
Speaker 2: Is by running him into the ground for twenty five times this season. But yeah, it's a very very short list. Obviously the you know, the three at the top, and then a couple others like Derrick Henry that can also sort of stake claim to that list.

00:32:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent.

00:32:17
Speaker 1: All right, let's let's talk about tight ends because that's another position that we're seeing slightly different ADP this year than history what we've seen typically from the position.

00:32:26
Speaker 4: There is more depth.

00:32:27
Speaker 1: You know, we get Trey McBride last year, we get this rookie class last year, you know, in Dalton kincaid and Sam Laporta. Now we have Kyle Pitts in a situation where he hypothetically has a better quarterback and you know, better offensive scheme. But then at the same time, you know, last year a lot of the higher end tight ends just didn't really perform as well as what we thought was really funny though, that Travis Kelcey on a PPR points per game basis was still the tight end one last year, and you had a disappointing year, right, just because of what we've come to.

00:32:55
Speaker 3: Expect except for himself.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, But you know, now we're seeing these tight ends get drafted a little bit later, these these earlier elite tight ends, but the position does seem to have more depth than what we've seen historically. So my question to you is, how are you attacking that position this year? And do you have any favorites at the position?

00:33:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have.

00:33:16
Speaker 2: I have a lot of favorites at the vision this year because I have and this this actually feels like of all the things I was thinking about this last night because I was in a draft where I was very very patient at tight end and it worked out in what I believe will be my favor But I think I got a little bit too black and white with my stance on tight ends, which is that I believe there are ten to me, like, you cannot convince me that those guys are not solid starting options going into the season. I can probably say them because it's probably gonna come off the tongue pretty fast. It's Kelsey Laporta, Mark Andrews, Evan Ingram, Trey McBride, David and Joku Dalton, Can Gay, Jake Ferguson, George Kittle, Kyle Pitts, and the order can be shuffled.

00:33:55
Speaker 4: Look at that man that was That was impressive.

00:33:57
Speaker 2: Well, I've we've been doing this so much at the top of it and so frequently that it kind of has become burned into my brain. The next players up at that position. Just for some name perspective, it's like Dallas Goddard, I think you can make a case for brock Bauers, pet Fryarmooth, Hockinson not included in that ten, but obviously if you were healthier. When he's healthy, he certainly could be in that list. But that might be week nine, week ten, we don't know.

00:34:22
Speaker 3: So there are other names.

00:34:24
Speaker 2: As my dog walks in, get out here, buddy walks in and says hello. Those are the ten that I feel best about. And the value is that there's only two that are going like measurably ahead of the rest, and that's Tavis Kelce and San Laporta. I think as we get closer and closer to the season, and I'm not trying to be unkind to this constituency of fantasy football players, but we're going to have many more of the people that treated a bit more casually do their drafts this weekend. Travis Kelsey is going to go really right. He's most popular player in the NFL. I mean, if he's not, he's on the very very short list, probably along with this teammate Patrick Mahomes.

00:35:00
Speaker 3: He's going to go early.

00:35:00
Speaker 2: The ADP data is going to tell you that Travis kelce he's probably going to rise to tight end one by a decent margin on ESPN because of that factor in the leagues that I play in and all the mock drafts that we do at ESPN. We took on this robust mock draft project this summer that were like close to fifty mocks in like Kelsey went last night thirty eighth. But we're starting to see like a drop of Travis kelce because as you know, but people that are listening hopefully know or can be made aware of, is that it's not that Travis Kelcey can't finish his tight end one. It's that the justification of the cost for so many years was that he was tight end one. By being so far ahead of the curve. It was like starting the game up a touchdown with Travis Kelcey regardless of who your opponent's tight end was, and if that person was weak at tight end, it might have been more like ten or twelve nothing with Kelsey because he was just that dominant. So my favorites this year, it kind of starts with that, I would say, like the fourth or fifth like Tran McBride, Dalton Kincaid, David and Joko Evan Ingram one hundred and sixteen catches last year, Like I don't know that's going to happen again, but doesn't need to for him to pay off at cost right now, because the cost for those guys is like seventh eighth round on ESPN ADP data, And that kind of goes all the way down until we get to Jake Ferguson, who is at least my tenth rated tight end and also ADP suggests he is around tight end ten. There are a couple guys that make me a little bit more nervous in that group. One is George Kittle and one is Kyle Pitts. Kittle like the values fine of both of them, like missing on either of them is not going to cost you because you're paying such a moderate price. But Kittle, as we know, plays in an offense that everybody not named christianmcaffrey is vulnerable to a down week.

00:36:47
Speaker 3: He had ten.

00:36:47
Speaker 2: Games ten last year at sixteen, played with three or fewer catches now. He also led all tight ends in receiving yards and you know, is second in touchdowns only to Sam Laporta. So that's there's some really good with George Kelsey, George Kittle forty.

00:37:01
Speaker 3: And slip right there.

00:37:02
Speaker 2: His upside is about as good as there is on a weekly basis, but the downside is pretty snippingant. And then Kyle Pits and I talked about your sort of incredibly pragmatic approach that is so useful. It helps so many people win. So you probably wouldn't love this justification, but I got to tell you, if I go down to the Kyle Pitts road one more time and you burned your for a third straight year, it's going to be the shame on me situation.

00:37:24
Speaker 3: Right. That makes it trickier too.

00:37:27
Speaker 2: The draft Kyle Pits in my book, and hilariously, my first redraft draft of this year, I.

00:37:33
Speaker 3: Took Kyle Pitts as my tight end.

00:37:35
Speaker 2: So I sit there and I say that, and then the first opportunity that I had to actually start a team from scratch this season, I took him.

00:37:43
Speaker 1: It's always that's always, yeah, it's always interesting to me because, like I always, you know, all publish rankings starting in season long, redraft rankings starting more in like June and July, just to kind of get a feel for things. And then when you start doing your bigger drafts, your important drafts and whatnot, you start to understand even subconsciously who you like and don't like, and you're like, oh, maybe I like this guy a little bit more than I thought, or maybe I don't like this guy as much as I thought, And that alone can start to dictate your rankings a little bit in how you feel about guys.

00:38:11
Speaker 4: But yeah, look, Kyle Pitts at the end of the day, clearly, clearly has a wide range of outcomes.

00:38:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we've seen it, seen him have a wide range of outcomes just just naturally and in general. And I think there's even schematically question marks of what we're gonna see out of him where he's gonna line up because they don't have that much depth at wide receiver in general, Like is he is he gonna play slot a lot?

00:38:33
Speaker 4: Like it is this? Like is that how they're gonna deploy these guys?

00:38:36
Speaker 1: Or is it gonna be Ray, Ray McLeod or whoever they have, you know, as the as their three. So I think there's just a lot, a lot of question marks with Pitts. So I understand the hesitation for folks and then the kittle thing with anyone in San Francisco. It's outside of CMC, Like you said, it's just a roller coaster every week. They're just they're they're the classic better and best ball kind of picks.

00:38:55
Speaker 2: We that's probably a more appropriate term to utilize. We started this last year Mike, Daniel and I when we were doing the Three of Us shows that like and that maybe it's fine. It might have been actually might have been all of us talking about I can't recall, but I feel like Mike and I had the conversation first, and Mike is usually on in days that it's him, Daniel and I. But any event, any player that was like up and down that like you know good for like you know, Gabe Davis is like the captain of this team. Maybe Mike Williams when he's healthy, like players of that kind of caliber, it would always be like if a guy was just up and down and up and down, he's a forty nine er. We just started calling him that because again, other than Christian McCaffrey, we saw it last year, Like that's the fools gold of looking at season long rankings and point totals.

00:39:36
Speaker 3: Right, It's it's why.

00:39:39
Speaker 2: I think it's actually to me, it's the reason why Al Monroe deserves to be wide receiver three and rankings going into this season. I think Ceedee Lamb and Tyreek Hill have you know, clearcases the two top ranked wide receivers. But for me, a Monra as opposed to Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase. And like if we went to court and you told me I had to argue either of those guys, I could have you know, blasts and so right, But Amonra as we know like he is just as he reminds me of Travis Kelcey. He's a steady as they come. Now there's some upside as well. I think Amanro has a lower chance, a lower percentage chance of being wide receiver one overall than jeffersoner Chase does. But I think he has a higher chance than either of those guys to be a top.

00:40:20
Speaker 3: Three wide receiver. And so to me, there's some real value in that.

00:40:24
Speaker 2: And so like that principle I think is important to apply when on occasion not you can't have every pick be that way, but on occasion, I do think that's an important thing to keep in mind and part of how when I am ranking players. You know, when I'm thinking about drafting a fourty nine DS wide receiver, like, yeah, a Yuk might have been whatever it was, wide receiver eleven last year and it was largely good. But the bad weeks from Brandon Ayuk could be like wide receiver sixty two, whereas bad weeks from Almana Saint Brown is like and nothing that they're being drafted next year. But it's like, yeah, he was wide receiver sixteen. This week he really sucked.

00:40:59
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, I.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: Forget that, right, And like you're not gonna bench George Kittle, Like that's part of the problem too, right, is that you're drafting him as the start you're gonna play, So you gotta just take the hits in season long. Whereas you know, again, in a best ball environment, you're at least getting that second tight end or maybe even third tight end in some builds where like, all right, if he has a down week, maybe these other guys step up and they're able to fill in that slot. I always go my go to example of the of the vat the highly volatile player has always been Deverie Henderson from back in the day.

00:41:27
Speaker 4: It right, right, yeah, always.

00:41:29
Speaker 2: Always and a touchdown one week he walks over shed she heed.

00:41:34
Speaker 3: Could run into own exactly. I mean same sort of archetype.

00:41:38
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, exactly. All right, So we already talked about Kiaran Williams. He was one guy that I wanted to get to. Another one is Josh Jacobs. In the situation in Green Bay, AJ Dillon goes on season ending IR Marshall. Lloyd was reported at first that he was going to go to i R. But he has not gone to IR. You know, he's banged up though, so they have a lack of depth because of this Lloyd injury, especially behind Josh Jacobs. I was more bearish than the market on Jacobs a couple months ago, and I mean maybe even arguably today if his cost is you know rising and such, but mostly driven by you know, Matt Lafleora in his history of splitting backfields, and you know, Jacobs wasn't necessarily a special back last year, you know, coming off a year where he had so much, you know, such a big workload. But I'm curious because I bring people on because I want other perspectives out there. How have you viewed Josh Jacobs this year, Like, is this a situation now that things have really cleared for him where he could just be a full blown BELLCW in this offense and kind of say, you know, screw you, Matt Laflora in the way that you've you've run your offenses historically, the range.

00:42:46
Speaker 2: Of outcomes for Josh Jacobs has decreased about as much as any back that I can think of.

00:42:51
Speaker 3: So far this preseason.

00:42:53
Speaker 2: All the factors are working in this favor right now, but there are still some legitial limitations for Josh Jacobs. So, by the way, after three point six yards per carry last ye, now, I know that yards percy is not just a running back stat. It's also an offensive line stat. But you know, I saw Samir White like run like comparably or even more effectively behind that same offensive.

00:43:10
Speaker 3: Line down the stretch for the Raiders. I still have my questions about.

00:43:13
Speaker 2: Zamier White, just as in the side, but you know it's a note a data point there. So the depth behind Josh Jacobs extremely thin right now. Emmanuel Wilson sounds like he's the number two, but like, kudos to the you know, the seven people that know Emmanuel Wilson, not named Denny Carter of course, who's an Emmanuel Truther. But it's a there's it's a very favorable spot. It's a beefed up offensive line compared to what he was playing behind in Las Vegas. But I think the range of outcomes is fairly narrow because I don't think there is like league altering upside for Josh Jacobs because he's been an inefficient runner. I don't think the passing game utilization is going to be insane. A couple of years ago, when he was so involved in that Raiders passing game, a lot of it was the dumb Bop City, right, And that's kind of what makes me nervous about Rashaan White this year. He's been one of the guys that I've been to, I've been lower on than my ESPN colleagues and probably the industry as well. It's that like that's amazing when it hits, But like two years ago, it might have been three years ago was Josh Jacobs. Two years ago it was Remandre. I think last year it could be Rashad White where it's like it was kind of like hitting the Royal flush, right, Like, they had some real offensive line issues last year in Tampa. They had the worst depth amongst all back builds in the entire league last year.

00:44:25
Speaker 3: It was the perfect scenario for Rashad White.

00:44:28
Speaker 2: But back to Josh Jacobs here is that, like, yeah, think he's going to be a more efficient runner than what he was in Las Vegas. I think he'll be a less involved pass catcher. So I think there's like an RB eight season ceiling in there for Josh Jacobs, maybe RB six or RB five, But like, I still think for him to reach the caliber of and you're not drafting him to reach the caliber of Christian McCaffery, Breesall Bija and players of that out like outcome, it's gonna take like something unforeseen right.

00:44:54
Speaker 4: Now, Yeah, yeah, right right.

00:44:57
Speaker 1: I tend to agree, And I've gotten a little bit more him just before the inevitable like ADP spike, like in a best ball environment and stuff like that. But there's just there's there's a lot of concerns that I think people are just kind of being like, oh no, he'll be the bell cow, He'll be the bell cow. But you know the other thing too, with like target share is and this is something that I've talked about with like a DeAndre Swift, you know a little bit, and guys who are in these offenses with really good alternatives at pass catcher right where where. You know, when we project these teams, we're not projecting them just saying this guy's gonna get sixty five targets, this guy's gonna get seventy five and so on. We're saying this is a target share pie that we're divvying up right, And so every team has one hundred percent target share pie. And you have to think about it from the perspective of what's gonna be more optimal for that offense. What's gonna be more optimal for the Packers who have a very good wide receiving room or or a hopeful wide receiving room, or the Bears who have a more objectively insane wide receiver room. What's gonna be the more efficient way of throwing the ball? Like where are you gonna throw it? Well, it's to those weapons, because we already inherently that a wide receiver target is more valuable than a running back target. You know, in the real NFL. So it's it's one of those things where like, you know, we can project you know. Another example of that is I've leaned in a little bit more on Kenneth Walker than I was earlier in the off season.

00:46:14
Speaker 4: But at the same time, they have good weapons.

00:46:17
Speaker 1: Like they have good like how high is that target share ceiling for that kind of player? And that's that's my kind of fear with a guy like Jacobs too, is that, you know, can he hit a ten eleven percent target share? I think it's in his range of outcomes for sure, Like I think that's probably a closer to his projection, but like you need to get to like the fifteen sixteen percent mark in order to really have that like top three fantasy season.

00:46:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny because it would probably require like multiple players from Green Bay like going down because on top of the like do they have this ambiguity in terms of who is their wide receiver one?

00:46:46
Speaker 3: Right?

00:46:47
Speaker 2: But they also have like six credible playmakers amongst their wide receivers and tight ends, right, I mean, Christian Watson, Jaden Reid, Dontavian Wicks, Tummercraft, Luke Musgrave, Romeo Dobs, like, that's six legitimate playmakers, right, Like you know, the ceiling for each of those players is different both at real and fantasy, but that's like six guys.

00:47:09
Speaker 3: That's like probably two of those.

00:47:11
Speaker 2: Guys have to be unavailable for Jacobs to kind of creep closer to that fifteen percent target chair.

00:47:16
Speaker 3: That you're mentioning.

00:47:17
Speaker 2: I find that Kenneth Walker discourse sort of fascinating right now in this regard is that like there's been a decent amount of recent sort of pushback that like, you know, the fantasy community is not high enough on Kenneth Walker the third I'm like, I got him as RB eleven, Like I'm not, like, you know, we're not crushing Keneth Walker the third stock right now, right. It's that this is a player who, to your point, like this was the Seahawks were you know, this was the team that was the Bears and the Texans before they were what they are right now, right these three legitimate wide receiver options, and but Walker is a capable pass catcher, Like I believe he'll make his money in the NFL as a guy who's just like a ferocious tackle breaking running back who is at his best when you just like let him go to work in that regard.

00:48:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.

00:48:01
Speaker 1: I mean, he hasn't been a high volume pass catcher dating back to college, but it's because of the alternative there. The alternative is you probably if you're gonna give him touches, you're going to want to do it more on the ground because that's where you can find some efficiency from him. And you know, the hope is definitely that you know, instead of the eight percent target year that he generally gets, it's more in that like ten to eleven percent range, which I think can happen, and that can catapult a player like that because you know, it's gonna give him a little bit better of a floor for a guy who's that home run hitter, right, the guy who isn't necessarily as consistent down to down as like a Charbonay, you know, who's more of that, like James Connor Mold. So yeah, I definitely definitely agree there. One thing I want to talk about you mentioned Zamir White. I had a bold Predictions piece that that dropped this week, and one of them was that Taj Spears would outscore Zamir White. Not only outscore them, I added that he would outscore him by thirty points this year, which is definitely obviously bold.

00:48:58
Speaker 4: You know, it's part of the.

00:48:59
Speaker 3: Whole idea of the piece, right.

00:49:01
Speaker 4: That's exactly exactly.

00:49:04
Speaker 1: But a lot of that is the fact that, like I like the Tennessee backfield, it's not even necessarily like an only Tajy Spears thing.

00:49:10
Speaker 4: I like Tony Pollard too.

00:49:11
Speaker 1: I like attacking these ambiguous backfields because a player can emerge just via talent. You know, a guy can get hurt and then all of a sudden it's like, oh wow, I have like a low end RB one on my team. But also I'm worried about Zamir White, and you kind of mentioned a little bit about White.

00:49:25
Speaker 4: Where are you at with White? Is that is all of that warranted?

00:49:28
Speaker 2: I think it's all warranted, and I will concede that, like I wish.

00:49:33
Speaker 3: I had a stronger opinion on Zamir White. He like the numbers.

00:49:36
Speaker 2: You go back look at the final five games of last season, they were good, right, like legitimately solid numbers. Volume was very good. He had a game in which he had five catches as well, so he's not a total zero in.

00:49:48
Speaker 3: The passing game.

00:49:49
Speaker 2: I'm also not totally convinced that like by does I have a big passing game role, the team still has a mirror duel a Dyl Louby like in the in the Cradle here to potentially be pas catching options.

00:50:02
Speaker 3: I would just say it's hard.

00:50:03
Speaker 2: For me to be super bullish on several playmakers in an offense that just generally speaking, feels like it could be amongst the worst like eight or ten in the entire NFL.

00:50:14
Speaker 3: I think here's fine as well. Maybe this is because they're now teammates.

00:50:19
Speaker 2: The fear is that this is Alexander Madison two point zero, where it's.

00:50:22
Speaker 3: Just like it's pretty good. Right.

00:50:24
Speaker 2: If you go back and look at Alexander Madison's game logs at the beginning of last season, it wasn't that he was finishing as like RB fifty seven.

00:50:31
Speaker 3: It was that we told you.

00:50:32
Speaker 2: Like, hey, you know, like this guy's got like low end RB two value and he was having a lot of like RB twenty eight finishes, you know. Or it's like he's getting these goal one garies and doing nothing with them.

00:50:42
Speaker 3: Some of the things, like some of the boxes were being checked by Madison last year.

00:50:46
Speaker 2: Maybe the most important box was that Madison's just an okay player and was maybe overcast.

00:50:51
Speaker 3: In that starting role, and so I wonder, like that's my fear for Zamir White.

00:50:55
Speaker 2: I have a little bit of exposure to him, but and some of that's by design, Like I do have a like a rule that like players that I am more out on than in on, because I play in enough leagues, I intentionally find some exposure there to protect myself, right if I'm the I'm a big dummy from time to time. We all are in this industry, but it's good to have, you know, the insurance. So but I would say that Zamir is not amongst my favorite RB two Slash three targets, Like I'd much more lean into a Remandre at James Connor and David Montcomer, maybe Monty, but Remandre and James Connor for sure over Samir White, who at least on ESPN data are going pretty similarly in terms of round value.

00:51:34
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:51:34
Speaker 1: Look, White's never been a pass catcher throughout his I mean even dating back to Georgia, like wasn't you know, obviously competition plays a role there, but hasn't hasn't been a pass catcher, you know, he just strikes me as a player, like you said, like Madison last year, who you're drafting in that low end RB two range, who doesn't really have a ceiling that can get that much hot? Like, are we going to be shocked if he finishes? You know, let's say he's being drafted in RB twenty one. Are we gonna be shock shocked if he finishes as RB nineteen or RB twenty. Probably not, But would we be shocked if he finishes as RB ten?

00:52:02
Speaker 4: I think so? Probably?

00:52:04
Speaker 1: Right? Like, that's the thing is, like I just don't haven't been able to see where that ceiling is really going to come from with Zamir White.

00:52:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, the further we get from round one, the less prone I am to drafting a guy closer to his ceiling. Like, of course, yeah, you can't draft Christian McCaffrey too far from the ceiling because he's going first, right, But as we get further removed from round one, like, the floor of Romadunday.

00:52:26
Speaker 3: Is obviously quite low.

00:52:27
Speaker 2: He's a third receiver on his own team, but the ceiling is high enough that I keep finding myself reaching for Rome, perhaps more than my ranking suggests I should.

00:52:34
Speaker 1: Be, right, right, speaking of some rookies. Are there any later round rookies that you're eyeing this year that you've been drafting a lot?

00:52:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the running back class like is pretty much all insurance Policy've talked about Blake Caram already. You know, Trey Benson has had an interesting preseason in some people's eyes, but he's like pretty clearly entrenched.

00:52:50
Speaker 3: Is the second running back in Arizona.

00:52:53
Speaker 2: And you know, just James Connor has I know, he's famously never played every single game in a season. He hasn't been unhealthy person over the past few years. But still I remind people often, and you know this I think is often lost during preseason analysis is that there are two categories of preseason rankings. One is for players that we think have sticky value throughout the year. Right, if Justin Jefferson is being taken eighth overall, the impression you're giving is that he's an elite player every single week during the season. At some point, though, you start drafting players that are useful for pockets of games. Right, maybe a DOUNSA eventually becomes you know, a seventeen game player, could be as soon as.

00:53:32
Speaker 3: This year, probably more likely next year.

00:53:35
Speaker 2: But if Keenan Allen has a soft tissue injury that costs him weeks.

00:53:39
Speaker 3: You know, six through ten, How high is.

00:53:41
Speaker 2: Roma Dunze, assuming that Caleb Williams is what we expect in your weekly rankings, and five games of a potential top twenty ish option of wide receiver is really valuable because not every player on your roster is going to be useful every week during the season. So I think Trey Benson is kind of a pocket player, right. I don't know that he's going to I would be surprised if he has weekly utility, but if he.

00:54:02
Speaker 3: Gets four or five games really interests me.

00:54:04
Speaker 2: Wide receiver, there's so many just because as we all know, if there's great depth at wide receiver in general, I'm trying to think about the rookie class that we have talked about, you know, Lad McConkey. I you know, I don't have a great grip on just the wide receiver room in general. In Los Angeles, Roman Wilson like might be the wide receiver, and he's been banged up, like he might be Pittsburgh's second best wide receiver if this Auke deal does not yet done. And you know, I've seen the optimism surrounding Van Jefferson, and I'm like, we've been down this path before, right, Like it is what it is, so I'm not going to be deterred by that. In the pre draft process, I was a bigger than consensus fan of Jail and Polk. I don't want a ton of Patriots offense for understandable reasons, but for guys that are going is basically free, like all those are names that come to mind.

00:54:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like Polk too.

00:54:48
Speaker 1: I mean I felt like Polk was just kind of undervalued as a prospect in general throughout that whole process.

00:54:52
Speaker 4: I think a lot of times when you.

00:54:53
Speaker 1: Get those wide receiver rooms that are a little bit muddied and they have a lot of good talent, you just kind of push like, of course we're watching them more and we're seeing more of them because we're like, oh, wow, Romaduns is doing this, but look at what Jalen Polk just did.

00:55:05
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:55:06
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, it's it's like, at least like analytically, they don't look as good.

00:55:10
Speaker 4: That's why I have like a teammates score in my model and such.

00:55:13
Speaker 3: I've always either team in target between those two that who's a better bet between jale and Polk and Romadonzay to be to lead their team targets right and right not all targets created equally. But if you know, if Jalen Polk pushes for one hundred and ten.

00:55:24
Speaker 2: In New England, isn't that better than potentially, you know, seventy seven in Chicago.

00:55:29
Speaker 3: Maybe?

00:55:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's yes, one hundred percent, hundred percent.

00:55:31
Speaker 1: I think I think Polk has been uh he's someone who that that whole Washington room actually I've comped to the USC room of a handful of years ago because like Drake London's kind of a donsas. Yeah, you could, you know, I think the least uh comp comparable one is like Polk to Pittman. But then like I'm and ros Saint Brown was actually a loose comp for Jalen McMillan for me, So like it's it could end up being just that all three of those guys are very very good pros. We're already seeing a lot of hype from all of them, you know, in their respective camp. Totally, Yeah, Polk is someone who I'm I'm definitely definitely interested in. All right, before I let you go, Field give me a player, the one guy I think you might might have hinted at it earlier, who you are trying to leave every draft with.

00:56:15
Speaker 2: Well, it's hard because he plays a one player position, and I've now been talking about him so much this this preseason that I'm actually finding myself hitting less and less exposure to him.

00:56:25
Speaker 3: But I do love me so Anthony Richardson this year.

00:56:29
Speaker 2: That that's probably you know, the truth is that that's probably not the actual answer, just because again it's it's a you draft generally one quarterback and he is starting to you know, his ADP is skyrocketing right now. So I will say this even though I just made like a counterpoint against him. Romaduonze is being drafted much later than any of the other first round wide receivers other than I think Brian Thomas. Maybe maybe Xavier Worthy is kind of floating around there as well. But like Rome, you don't have to like this to me is how I think you win championships in the draft? Right, I don't think you win championships in the draft. Because he took Justin Jefferson eighth overall where he should go, right, there are no points. Well, I guess there could be, but like you know, we don't chase third round finish, third place finishes or seventh place finishes in a fourteen team league.

00:57:14
Speaker 3: We want to win the entire thing.

00:57:16
Speaker 2: And it's the player who doesn't have an obvious path but has an obvious skill set that ultimately can be the guy that wins you leagues.

00:57:24
Speaker 3: He like Devon a Chan last year is a good example of it. Right.

00:57:28
Speaker 2: The path was a little bit murky at the beginning of the season, and he was obviously unavailable for parts of the season. He was inconsistent when he didn't get a legit workload, but when he got like double digit opportunities, it was like, holy craft, this guy broke every single model available. So Rome is one that I found myself walking away with quite often as well.

00:57:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that call, and not only that, a guy like Rome has multiple outs. It's not just one out, not one wide receiver injury or one wide receiver not performing well. You got you got a couple there that can help elevate him. But field man, it was great to chop chop it up and chat. As always, I never know where they can find you and anything else you want to promote.

00:58:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are rock and rolling now with Fantasy Focus, which if you head over to the ESPN NFL YouTube page I believe it's YouTube dot com slash ESPN NFL Monday through Friday ten a m. Eastern times, so we're covering a lot of ground. But we are desperate, desperate, I tell you, for real football, which, as you and I are talking, is one week in about seven hours away.

00:58:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, crazy crazy.

00:58:23
Speaker 1: You can find all my stuff as usual over on lateround dot com, follow me on Twitter at late ROUNDQB. Otherwise, everyone enjoy your weekend and thank you for tuning in.