Becoming a Best Ball Bro: We're Doing This Again?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: So rich the NFL schedule release. The NFL loves to draw it out, you know, give us like a game here, a game there before the final reveal. Does that really do it for you? Did you care about that?

00:00:12
Speaker 2: Look, I'm one of those weird us. My dad and I try to get to a Jets game every year. So I'm coming through the seventeen weeks. What's a good travel spot? Maybe when is the home game we could possibly go to? So I yes, I am admittedly one of those people who is excited about all this content. What about you?

00:00:27
Speaker 1: I mean, look, now that I'm becoming a best ball bro once again, it's time to memorize that week seventeenth schedule. Maybe I'm JJ And last year I tried my hardest to become a best ball bro. I drafted over five hundred teams. I talked to some of the most successful best ball players in existence, and I admittedly had mixed results. So this year, I'm going to chase that title once again. My plan is a max Enter draftings millionaire maker, and I'm going to document all of it while talking to the brightest best ball minds in the planet. Last year I didn't quite get there, But this year. This is going to be the year where I officially become a best ball Bro. Welcome into another episode of becoming a Best ball Bro, Season two of Becoming a Best ball Bro. I'm Jaja zach Reeson, and as always, I am joined by my co host Rich Ryan Rich. What's going on, buddy?

00:01:25
Speaker 2: Everything is fantastic. We're back. The Knickerbockers are en root to the Eastern Conference Finals. As people watching this on YouTube will see if you aren't watching on YouTube, late round ff on YouTube. And even crazier than that, for the soccer folks out there, my beloved Tottenham Hotspur are in a European final in a couple of weeks. It's a great time for sports in the Ryan household.

00:01:48
Speaker 1: Did you just speak English? I don't even understand what with that?

00:01:51
Speaker 2: With that the King's English?

00:01:52
Speaker 1: The King technically you really spoke English there? Yeah, I have no idea what the second part of that was. I'm a very actual NBA viewer, but I've been watching the playoffs. I think it's fun. I also was watching the draft lottery, and as a person who resides in the city of Charlotte, I was excited when they had a top four pick, and then I was not excited when they got the fourth pick, so that wasn't cool.

00:02:18
Speaker 2: Hello, rigged shouts to shouts to Commissioner of Silver, Like sometimes you just got to get your hands in there and create narratives. And David Stern is smiling down from heaven today.

00:02:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, my gosh. I look again, I'm not as close with the NBA obviously as I am the NFL, but I feel like if stuff like that were happening in the NFL, I would be writing and doing podcasts about all of that, just because it's so interesting, it's so fun.

00:02:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd be crashing out like everybody right now.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. This is season two of becoming a Best Ball bro We're doing this again, man. You know last year we did this. We didn't quite conquer things over at Underdog, but we are shifting priorities, shifting our focus. We're gonna be looking at DraftKings this year. I'm really excited. Have you had any experience on DK in in the in the Best Ball world or are you going to be sort of learning with with me and anyone else who's listening.

00:03:13
Speaker 2: Ad Mint to Lee from a Best Ball standpoint, No, obviously from a DFS and any even a sports betting perspective. Anytime I'm in I'm back home in New Jersey, I'm firing up the DK sports betting app and and getting some some of those same game parlas and just for fun. But from a from a Bestball's perspective, yeah, this is going to be a maiden voyage for me. And once again, I love playing the role. I love playing the idiot sidekick who gets to ask all the questions that people in the audience might ask. So I'm here for Yeah.

00:03:39
Speaker 1: Well look I'm the idiot host. So I'm still you know this in the same same playing field as you are. I'm I'm really excited to be doing this on DraftKings this year. You know, just full disclosure to everyone, I have barely been in the Best Ball streets. Uh to kick off this season, I didn't do any pre draft stuff. I just was really busy with some other things, obviously the Prospect Guide and stuff. But you know, this year, as a lot of you guys know, I hired on David Kitchen, who is the COEO at Late Round Fantasy Football. I'm gonna blame Kitchen for my lack of Best Ball playing because you know, we've been playing, we playing planning. We haven't been playing. We've been planning some stuff, you know, with late round Fantasy football, and that's been taking up more of my time obviously, you know, doing a lot of content as well, but I haven't been able to dig in as much as I would want pre draft. Now now that we're in it. Now that we're doing this, I'm gonna be max entering the million maker. I'm going to be playing a lot over on draftings. There's gonna be live streams, you know, over on YouTube like I did last summer, which were a lot of fun. I mean that got to the point where like it's cool to just see like the same people hopping in every day and us having conversations and like we get into some weird stuff, you know, not just best ball stuff while I'm drafting, because you can't, you know, you can only talk so much fantasy football, you know, when you're doing these drafts. But there's a lot coming with late round Fantasy Football and the content we're doing. But one of those things obviously becoming a Bestball bro season two and we're focused on DraftKings this year. Now there is a difference between drafting on DraftKings and drafting on other platforms. You get a lineup that's one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end, one flex, and twelve bench, so basically like the typical home league kind of lineup that you'll see there. The difference though, is that you know a lot of other platforms will be playing half PPR, this is full PPR, which, honestly, this is kind of the thing that I am better at, I would say, just because a lot of my analysis focuses on full PPR because that's sort of the default on a lot of the season long platforms at this point. So I'm really excited about that. But look, you tally all that up, that's twenty roster spots rich, which means it's twenty rounds, which is on the longer side from a best ball perspective, and that definitely can change your approach. So I want to ask you, as someone who has a poker background, as someone who really likes game theory, is the twenty round found difference? You know? I guess you know, if you're looking at like eighteen versus twenty or what have you, those extra rounds, what does that do for you? Like, what are some of the things that you might change up? As being a complete novice on DraftKings and I'm best with best one. Obviously, I'll be talking to best ball bros And pros throughout the summer to get this answer and see how they approach things. But what's your initial thought on having those extra rounds?

00:06:23
Speaker 2: My knee jerk reaction as a guy who had a lot of two quarterback builds with JJ McCarthy last year, is that rich You've got no excuse to not have more three QB pilleds this season. That's my knee jerk reaction. It gives you the opportunity to cushion the quarterback room and even the tight end room. If you want to go super late tight end, you might have an additional dart throw instead of having maybe the two that you had in an underdog build. But then once you start to bring up game theory, you can pivot away from some more traditional builds that might have those deeper quarterback and deeper tight end rooms and just really blast at at running back or receiver. So, like everything, this is going to be an annoying answer. But as you posted this week on the late round feed living in the gray. A lot of it is going to be draft dependent, right the way a draft falls. If you have you know, a great quarterback room early for whatever reason, then you might just want to keep the leverage up and not go for a third quarterback. Same thing with tight end. If you find yourselves like last year where we were finding Bowers and a partner, you know, in the late single digit round, so we really like that build and didn't want to add a tight end, that might be an opportunity for you to go with a lighter tight end. So if anything, it just gives you a larger sandbox to play in and get attle more a little more unique.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I do too. And the other thing to point out with this full PPR thing, you know, I have this in last year's draft guide and I'll put it again in this year's draft guide. I'm sure I'm still working on that. I'm just getting going on it, actually. But the one thing to keep in mind with with full PPR, if you look at like the ranking of you know, wide receiver six and a running in an art and then RB twelve and wide receiver twelve and so on, you just add every six, you have six increments are increments of six if you will, wide receiver in full PPR leagues outscore running back at every single level. So what I mean is historically, this is since twenty eleven, wide receivers who have been wide receiver six and season long finish in points per game have averaged eighteen point four PPR points per game. Running Backs have averaged seventeen point nine PPR points per game. That's at running back six, running back twelve fourteen point nine, wide receiver twelve sixteen point zero. All the way down the list. Literally, wide receiver outscores running back all the way down, which means just from an being optimal standpoint and how your team might utilize that flex spot, you have to imagine wide receivers are going to be, you know, the position that you're going to target a little bit more heavily because they're going to score more points in that slot. And then the other thing I want to point out, and this is something that I don't think it's enough credit or love in the fantasy football space in general, but when you have a roster that gets more points from other positions and you're trying to optimize and score the most points you possibly can. It does. There does become a point where the wide receiver position just scoring more points is gonna have a greater power, if you will, over like a quarterback, let's say, right, because they just generally are scoring more points and they're gonna they're gonna take up a larger chunk of that overall pie. Now, obviously like value over a replacement player, that kind of thing matters a lot more. But yeah, I mean it's still a very very interesting you know, switch and change going from half BPR to full PPR depending on the platform that you're playing at.

00:09:35
Speaker 2: You think about those Spike Weeks too. Whenever I close my eyes and think about Spike Weeks, it always tends to come at the receiver position. It always sends to be Amari Cooper, you know, bazillion yards and multiple touchdowns. So I the data meets my my anecdotal analysis of of what my I see as well.

00:09:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So look, I you know, that's basically like what we're getting into with this show this season is that it's now DraftKings focused. We are going to try to conquer the platform and beat best ball, which is not a very easy thing to do, nor should anyone think that that's really that achievable. But while doing so, I'm going to be interviewing. Similar to last year, today's episode is a little bit different. It's just more of an introduction, but I'm gonna be interviewing the best best ball players on planet Earth to get their insights and how they've done well on DraftKings in the past, and hopefully I learn, rich learns, and more importantly, all of you guys learn as I go on this adventure once again becoming a best ball bro. But we're not going to end the show with just a ten minute introduction just talking about the rule differences and stuff with DraftKings versus other platforms. Look, man, I did my Redraft rankings. I haven't published them yet onto the Patreon. I will be doing that this week. But I did my Redraft rankings, my season long rankings, and I then compared those rankings. This was just a quick parison, you know, just a high level look. This is still May but I compared those rankings to what I was seeing over on DraftKings and what ADP looks like on DraftKings, and I tried to find five players in my rankings. Team higher on and lower on versus you know, the overall ADP consensus there, and we're gonna talk through them. So Rich, I'll hand it to you. You can kind of walk through this and I'll answer any questions you might have about the players, because you have the players sitting in front of you, and I'll gladly talk through the logic and the rationale behind why I think they might be targets or avoids.

00:11:35
Speaker 2: Right now, let's start with a target, a player who's current ADP on DraftKings is pick thirty eight point seven right there at the beginning of the fourth round. Receiver the Kansas City Chiefs. It's Rashie Rice fingers crossed, no suspension that we're gonna have to worry about this summer, and a team who lost DeAndre Hopkins over the offseason, and the only meaningful addition in that wide receiver room was a day through receiver in Jalen Royals, one who my fellow Jets fans were completely apoplectic over us taking Arian Smith.

00:12:10
Speaker 1: Albert, don't worry about it. You got Arian Smith. It's fine, everything will be fine.

00:12:16
Speaker 2: But let's talk about Rashie Rice, who's going in the same neighborhood as two elder statesman DeVante Adams and Mike Evans, and the guy going right behind him is rookie Travis Hunter.

00:12:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I actually really really liked Devontae Adams this year too, So I don't want to say that, you know, I would I would easily easily easily be going one direction over the other. I do think Rashid Rice over like a guy like Mike Evans makes a ton of sense right now with that at Mecha Buca addition that Tampa Bay had, but with Rashid Rice, he was giving us high end wide receiver one production last year before his injury, and even if he's not his usual start our self to start the season, I would imagine that things sort of turn around quickly and at least by you know, week four, Week five, and then towards the end of the year. You know which matters the most obviously from a tournament perspective and from a playoff perspective, you know, I think Rashie Rice can give us those wide receiver one numbers once again. There's also you know, you mentioned the possibility of that suspension stemming from that incident from last year, but Drew Davenport, who's a friend of mine. He's on the He does a lot of legal related things for the NFL for fantasy football to let us know, like if a guy's gonna get suspended if they're not. He seems to think this could be more of a twenty twenty six problem than a twenty twenty five problem. And we know last year with Rashie Rice, if you were in on him early. Now, obviously it didn't work out for Rice because he got hurt, but you know, first month of the season you were profiting hugely from Rashie Rice being you know, having that depressed ADP overall. You know, Xavier Worthy did have an uptick in production last year. But when he saw that uptick in production, a lot of it had to do with the fact that they were giving him more of those like lower aid dot. He played it. He moved around the formation a little bit more kind of looks he wasn't really being used as the deep threat that a lot lot of people assumed that he would play and that role that he would play when they drafted him. And so what I see though, is that Rashid Rice was out of the picture. We can't assume that Xavier Worthy is just going to pick up where he left off because I think that that Rashid Rice is more of that target magnet than a guy like Xavier Worthy is. So I think Rice is just a really, really good slot guy. I think they drafted Jalen Royals because they like what they have in Rashi Rice, and they wanted insurance in case the suspension happens or you know, an injury happens like we saw last year. I just think right now, you know, getting the wide receiver one on this team, you know, as late as you are, I think he's he should be ranked as a wide receiver one.

00:14:36
Speaker 2: There's folks out there listening to that saying, man, the chief stunk last year and a home stunk last year. You know. One of the reasons why they had troubles on offense is because they did never receive Rice. When Raushi Rice was a part of the Kansas City Chiefs, this team was top ten and EPA fourth in success rate in the air. Rashi Rice matters in this offense, So getting him back, getting him healthy should propel yes, even Mahome, even one of the Goats, to better play on the field. I buried the lead I'm being a terrible co host because I should have led with this guy, a guy who's been a source of consternation for you. H's giving to the next receiver. It's a guy that I've been told JJ that you hate everything about this human being. You wish all the bad things that happen to him. It's it's the sophomore in Chicago, Roma doun Za. But this is a targets list. What's going on here? You like, Roma doun Zay?

00:15:29
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean shocking right that that episode that I did on the Gray Area Fantasy Football was not about the trade. You know, I've already had a handful of people be like, oh man'rying he's just trying to rationalize a bad trade that he made. Guys, That's not what that episode was about. It was about thinking about in terms of range of outcomes. And that's exactly what this is about right here, is thinking about range of outcomes. When you're paying a wide receiver twenty price tag in Dynasty, you could go either way, but you don't have to buy into that as aggressively as I'm going to buy into it and redraft and season long where right now, he's you know where he's being drafted around that like wide receiver thirty seven range. My projections have him around that at like wide receiver thirty six. You know I mentioned that Mike Clays, who I think Mike Clay is the gold standard for projection building. His is a like wide receiver thirty nine. But my ranking for a Dunza because when I'm ranking players, I'm not just taking their projection and putting that in my rankings list. I'm looking at where a possible ceiling outcome could hit. And if I'm looking at a at a low end wide receiver three, high end wide receiver four from a price tag perspective, I don't care about the floor. Right, So my ranking is about five four or five spots ahead of where ADP has a dooonsa right now. You know, it's a situation in best ball also where I think you should give them him even more of a bump, because if everyone stays healthy in this offense, right because you have DJ Moore, Colson Lovelin, now, Luther Burden now, Cole Kommt is still there. If everyone does stay healthy, it's a situation where it's not going to be super predictable, more than likely like we saw that last year, you know, with with with Green Bay for instance, where they all kind of had lower target shares. No one really got over that twenty percent mark at least very but they would week to week right, and those week to week spiked weeks and still happen in those environments. It's just not as predictable from a season long perspective, and so it's a little bit more difficult because you have to you have to take on those valleys to get those peaks and season long. But in best ball, you can just get the peaks. And so with a Donsay, talented player, new offensive scheme, I get the upside case. You know, I've comped him to DeAndre Hopkins. I'm not going to get all into that. You guys can listen to that episode that I dropped on the on the Gray Area Fantasy Football. People are gonna like think that I'm just bringing up Roma Dounsa right now to like sort of like you know, make up for trading him away in a dynasty league. But guys, I like a Dounsay. I talked about that on the show. I think there's a bowl case for a Dounsa, and it's going to be a lot easier for me to buy into that in a season long environment, in a best ball environment, especially best ball again, because I can just take on the peaks and not really worry about the valleys as much. I think he's a smash pick right now, and I'll even say Caleb Williams too, is a smash pick. My projections have Caleb Williams comfortably in the top eight at quarterback right now, so I just think he's way, way, way underpriced at the moment. Again, Dynasty would be a different beast because you're taking on the long term viability that he might not be what we think he could be. But I'm just looking at ceiling and Kayleb Williams has some rushing upside. He gets Ben Johnson, the weapons are all there. Give me that all day long. So I love this stack of both a Dunezan with with the Duneza and Kayleb Williams.

00:18:38
Speaker 2: Kyla Williams twenty two picks after Baker Mayfield right now on DraftKings, and Baker Mayfield is a pretty strong candidate for something you've been warning about for several years now, which is the pocket passer trap. Yes, we love Baker's weapons. We love his abilities, but if he doesn't have that touchdown variants, taking him twenty picks before Caleb Williams might to be the best.

00:19:01
Speaker 1: I mean, look, Baker ran a little bit more last year, but it still wasn't to the point. You know, it's not Jayden Daniel's not going to be predicted right yet, but he also had Baker. So Baker comes out looking like one spot worse in projections. And I don't remember exactly how I had them ranked, but one spot worse in projections versus Caleb Williams. But the thing with Baker, and that might be surprising because you know, Baker gets a mecha BUCA, Chris Godwin will be back all that good stuff. Baker Mayfield's touchdown rate last year was absurd, and players with his kind of touchdown rate almost never repeat that touchdown rate year over year. So you know, I don't mind Baker. I still think he's a QB one, But I think that you could pretty not easily, but I think you can make the argument that Caleb Williams at least a better value for sure, But straight up you could argue that he's just the better player in terms of sealing projection this year.

00:19:47
Speaker 2: Right, let's go to a guy who I think was on the Mount Rushmore of best ball bro players last year, in that we started the summer a little bit skeptical of this player, but then as we gathered more in information, specifically from the team itself, who said that they wanted to get him more involved in the passing game. You came around on key, you didn't have take lock on K nine out in Seattle, and you grabbed a bunch of them at the end of the summer, and you're here again to tut mister Walker.

00:20:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. So they don't have Ryan Grubb anymore at offensive coordinator, and I'm a little concerned that they might not target their running backs at quite the same rate. I mean, last year, on a per game basis, Kenneth Walker's target share per game was fourteen point four percent, which basically like almost doubled his previous seasons that he's seen in the NFL. So it was definitely more of an outlier season for Walker as a pass catcher. But I'm pretty intrigued by Clint Kubiak being there. I just think that the ground game is going to be more of a focus. They did some things you know, to improve the offensive line. I just I like his big playability obviously from a best ball perspective, and this just came down to looking at my ranking versus where you know, DraftKings ADP has Walker right now. To me, the reason that Walker's being drafted where he's being drafted is the injury risk. And I'm okay with taking on injury risk because it's a violent game at.

00:21:06
Speaker 2: The end of the day. Speaking of injury risk, the next fella is somebody you've perpetually been high on. He's been in incredible talents and I'm looking forward to hearing the boal case for a player I think I don't even want to name him, but one of the NFL aggregator accounts put out a list earlier this week of the top wide receiver twos in the NFL, and I don't even know what it was. It was no metric, it was just vibes, just straight vibes. And this player I think was in the low teens or ten in terms of wide receiver two It's just outrageous. It's the man who does the Penguin dance down in Miami. It's Jalen Watt.

00:21:48
Speaker 1: So look, I know that I was in unwadel last year and it was a really bad call at the end of the day. But I also think that you can look at last season, and you can look at the other seasons that he's had in the NFL, and you can say last season was somewhat, if not a lot, of an outlier. So his yards perrow run by year, Okay, this is just his his four years in the league. One point seventy five as a rookie, then two point five to nine, two point six to three, one point five to three. Those are his four yards per hour runs. Okay, that's in chronological order. His points per game averages fifteen point four, fifteen point three, fourteen point two ten. Okay, what season seems the least like the others?

00:22:35
Speaker 2: It's last season, right, It's not like the other thing.

00:22:38
Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. And last season was a really weird year for this Dolphins offense. I mean, Tyreek Hill, you know, didn't have great yards per run numbers either, And maybe Tyreek Hill's dust. But if Tyreek Hill is dust, then that's opportunity for Jalen Waddle to just see even more volume in this offense. I think we can comfortably. UH project Jalen Waddle to have one hundred one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty TAR. And then, like I said last year, there's still the upside of what happens if Tyreek Hill is injured, and I think that we would all agree that Jalen Wattle would be drafted much much higher than he is now. So there's that contingent upside. So I just think last season, I'm going to buy into this because no longer do you have to buy into Waddle with a premium pick. He's now more of a wide receiver three type. And if you're buying him as a wide receiver three type, then you can look at the ceiling and you can say, similar to Romandunze, you can say, sure, maybe last year is all of a sudden the norm. But if you look at last year when he played games and wasn't banged up and stuff like that, and when Tua was active, he still was averaging like thirteen PPR points per game like he was still you know, it wasn't consistent, wasn't great. You don't have to worry about that consistency when you're playing best ball either. I think look Jalen Waddell's a really good talent. He's always been a good talent, and I'm going to buy into that again this year.

00:23:51
Speaker 2: I won't bring up he who shall not be named again, but it might sound like JJ is doing the thing where he's looking for the best aspects in what was a bad year. But we have to remember that, just like he said there at the end, the price is very depressed from where it was last year. We were paying a premium for this player. He was scrapping in that. There was that second round malaise last year where we didn't know who to put at the turn in the early second round, and he was part of that. And you're getting a pretty steep discount this year for waddle We talked about the wide receiver thirty five earlier in the Doomsday A couple of ticks down Juwan Jennings wide receiver thirty eight. We've got Deebo Samuel in the Capitol now, so there is less competition out in San Francisco, so let's talk about Jennings.

00:24:37
Speaker 1: Look, I have no problem with like Ricky Piersoll, either in season long and in redraft, but Jennings is coming off a year with a two point twenty six yards PERAH run rate. He had fourteen PPR points per game. He was the wide receiver twenty six and PPR points per game, and situationally, I think things are better for him this year. Where you know, you lose Brandon Ayuk for the first chunk of the season more than likely, or at least he's not going to be one hundred percent you lose totally Deebo Samuel. They didn't do anything of substance at wide receiver in the draft that I really am concerned about. So essentially, the other thing, too is that San Francisco's defense might not be very strong this year. They might be forced to throw the ball a lot in some negative game scripture at least neutral game scripts, And so I look at this situation as arguably a better one for Jennings year over year. Maybe we see some regression and some you know, not as strong of like a yards per run rate, but I think there's a chance that he still sees a pretty strong target year in the offense, and he showed a ceiling off last year. He had some big, big performances last season, So I'll buy into this at a wide receiver for price tag. I'll buy into that all day long.

00:25:38
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Deebo's new teammate. Then he shipped off to the Capitol and is now with Scary Terry on the Commanders and Terry McLaurin. He's actually someone you addressed with his dynasty value as well early on in the offseason, and now you're a little bearish on him heading into the best ball season as well.

00:25:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I love Terry mclall and as a player. I mean it seems like he's from all all intents and purposes, like his teammates love him, like he's a really like one of the good dudes in the NFL. So I love having on my rosters, don't get me wrong, But I just see touchdown regression coming and hitting Terry McLaurin hard potentially this year. He had thirteen touchdowns last year. His previous high in the NFL was seven. He had four or five touchdowns in his four years prior to last year, and his yards per out run wasn't special. Last year wasn't anything out of the ordinary for Terry McLaurin, which is good because he's a good player, But it wasn't like all of a sudden, he had this like three point nine yards per out run rate, and that coincided with his spike in touchdowns, and he just had this unbelievable season. And that's the way it's going to be moving forward. Now. I know a lot of people are gonna say, well, he got Jayden Daniels and that's why his touchdown numbers increase, and that's why he had the best fantasy season of his career. Well, we've only had thirty four seasons since twenty eleven where a wide receiver hit a forty percent touchdown chair. Last year, Terry McLaurin accounted for forty four percent of Washington's passing touchdowns, So McLaurin was well above that forty percent mark. Of those thirty four players, the only guys who did it more than once since twenty eleven have been Mike Evans, DJ Moore, DeVante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, Dez Bryant, and Brandon Marshall. Right, so you hear all those names, You're like, Okay, well, Terry mclaurin's a really good wide receiver. Maybe he belongs in that list. The only guy, though, on that list that's not a big body like elite touchdowns score is DJ Moore. And the only reason he was on that list in the first place is because he was playing on these Carolina teams that weren't scoring many touchdowns through the year to begin with, he was still only scoring like seven or eight touchdowns a year, right, And so if you look at like PFF's expected touchdowns formula, he should have been McLaurin should have been closer to like seven point seven touchdowns. Last year he was fifteenth among all pass catchers and expected touchdowns. So, you know, I do think Washington has a chance to get better in you know, offensively, of course, you know Jayde Daniels another year in the league, et cetera, et cetera. But they were already top ten in the NFL in overall touchdowns last year. So my question is where are these touchdowns gonna come from for Terry McLaurin to sustain where he's at. They're either gonna come from Washington improving greatly on an already good number, or they're gonna come from Terry McLaurin sustaining a relatively unsustainable rate. Now I don't want to bet on that, So I like Terry McLaurin the player. I would say I love Terry McLaurin the player, but it's a really hard player to buy into where he's being drafted right.

00:28:27
Speaker 2: The additional challenge as I look at ADB today is that McLaurin is going with the twenty seventh pick. Jayde Daniels is going with the thirty fourth pick. That's top third, bottom third, which means it's gonna be really hard for you to stack this combo as well. You're either gonna get You're either going to reach at the turn at the two to three turn and get Jadan Daniels way earlier than expected, or you're just gonna have to get lucky for McLaurin to slip to you if you're at the three four turn and stack it that way. So that's another challenge that comes with investing in Terry McLaurin is you're likely not going to be able to get him stacked with your quarterback. You'll just have to look for whatever that game stack is later on. Moving down the list is a running back who I would say you were lower than consensus on last year in your Derrick Henry renaissance when you finally came to the light side. I'm king Henry a player you thought would have a better season than Kyen Williams. You were just a hair correct about that one. I'll victory that for you. It's Karen Williams.

00:29:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I wasn't in on Kiren last year. Part of that was again because Derek Henry was typically being drafted after him, and I just like Derek Henry more than Williams. I think that might have flipped as we got closer to the season. But regardless, I'm just a little bit concerned about his drop in production that we saw last year, like efficiency, at least alongside them drafting yet another smaller, similarly sized running back in Jarquist Hunt. Blake Korm obviously already being there, but Jarquo Wes Hunter being a more explosive back. I don't think Hunter is going to step in and be the Rams RB one this year. I just think it could be a signal that the Rams are once again being open to more of a split backfield. And look, I know that the same argument was being made last year to some degree because teams usually don't draft a third round running back to not use him at all and all that, but I would also argue that down the stretch, like before Blake Koram had that season ending injury, they were starting to use Korm a little bit more. Kyen Williams, to me, is just a very fragile asset, Like I clearly see a scenario where he's like the RB seven on the season, but in a full PPR environment, I like him even less because Sean McVay teams have traditionally been bottom of the league and running back target share, And I shouldn't even say like like I say that as if like there are other teams that are close to how the Rams deploy their running backs as receivers. That's not true at all. Running back target share ranks over the last six years from Rams running backs from the whole backfield right thirty second, thirty second, thirty first, thirty second, thirtieth and thirty second, Like they don't use their running backs as pass catchers at all since they had Todd Gurley. Then you add DeVante Adams to the mix. I don't see how Kyron Williams is going to have a better target share than like, you know, eight or nine percent in his backfield, Like that might even be more of a ceiling projection. So I just think he's a really fragile asset like that. There's a lot of ways that this could go south forum and I don't see there being a ton of ways where it could be favorable unless he just, you know, lucks into a lot of touchdowns at the end of the day.

00:31:36
Speaker 2: Four receivers he's going ahead of right now on DraftKings, Tyreek Hill, Garrett Wilson, JSN, Marvin Harrison Jr. That is a tough group of receivers in a PPR format to willingly invest in a running back that the team. Despite Blake Korm's failures, the team is telling you that by drafting another one, that there is intent there to bring guys into the room, have competition and have some sort of rotation.

00:32:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, look, even if it's a twenty twenty sixth thing, you know, because Kyen Williams is a free agent next year, Even if that's the case, which I think that's probably the bulk of the case, but you have another able body in the backfield, and that's still a little bit scary. Like I think dark West Hunter is good and that's driving some of this for sure, but you have another player back there that hypothetically could steal a little bit more work.

00:32:24
Speaker 2: Go back to receiver, a guy who it was a struggle for you in the prospecting process, this Travis Hunter being such an outlier, clearly being an elite player from NFL standards. You have Jacksonville trading up a hall to go and get him. However, he did in grade as well in your model as Luther Burton and Ted McMillan. But then you've got some of the tape grinders. Perception was off the charts for Travis Hunter. So let's talk about him down in Jacksonville.

00:32:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to be fair, after he got the second overall draft company.

00:33:00
Speaker 2: Her that's a draft captain. That's right, he did.

00:33:02
Speaker 1: He did. He did jump up and he was the wide receiver one in the class. But to your point, he did have questionable advanced analytics just because you know, there's a lot that we can explain away there. You know, I I think Hunter is the wide receiver one in the class from a rookie perspective, but I can't right now today. I think it's aggressive to have him at wide receiver twenty one, which is where he's being drafted. Projections having closer to wide receiver thirty. I'll rank him a little bit higher because obviously I want upside players. But here's my argument against Hunter, and this is something I definitely want to chat with some of the some of the the pros about, is that this time of year, we're probably gonna have slightly sharper players playing, and I think that they're going to elevate rookies a little bit more than what we'll see later on in the summer whenever we get you know, more of the casual player, which I'll say this again, I say this every year, but I'm not saying being a casual player is a bad thing. That's that's a more it's a healthier way of of approaching all of this. So I'm not talking down on anyone who is more of a casual player. I'm just saying that, you know, the more experts in the in the arena, if you will, are gonna like rookies probably more than the average player will, and I think that's probably driving up the Travis Hunter costs at least a little bit. So part of it is sort of that game theory, like I'm going to get Travis Hunter and drafts this year because I want the upside. But I do wonder if wide receiver twenty one, you know, maybe he gets a little bit higher whenever Mini camp happens and like he makes a great play, or we hear more about his usage, whatever. But I think that there's a better chance that this drops than rises, you know, over the next few months. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

00:34:38
Speaker 2: There's also the drum beat volatility of one would think that Liam Cohen and an organization that invested so much to trade up and get him, that it seems obvious that he will play a more integral role on offense than he will on defense. But we know how news and coach speak can drive these markets, and there is some left tail volatile if they come out and say that he is splitting time on defense, that he is taking up a bunch of reps on defense. So I do agree. I think there's a lot more downside to his value within the market than there is upside right now, because I think today everyone anticipates to him to be an offense first player for the Jags. Yeah, let's keep it in the great Sunshine State of Florida with Chris Godwin, a player who in the absolute dredges of a garbage time game last year, suffered a brutal injury and tanked several of my teams, including my most competitive dynasty team. Not that I'm salty or anything, but with Jaylen McMillan a year older into the league, with a Mecca Agbuka coming to the folds, we're a little bearish on Chris Godwin.

00:35:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, this one's pretty simple. I didn't even bring any data for this. This is more so I'm just worried about the injury and where things could stand, you know, once a season's arts, and I'm worried about metag Buka being there. This could change as we learn more about his injury, but that's where I'm just generally at. And then obviously, you know, you have the Baker regression stuff I was talking about earlier and all that. But I just you know, the nice part is I think Godwin, you know, we're obviously going to be playing for the playoffs, the fantasy playoffs and late season stuff, and I think Godwin will look better there. So maybe, yeah, I would say he's like a loose avoid right now, not like a hardcore one. Again, I'm just looking at my rankings versus you know what what DraftKings ADP looks like. So this one's probably like the least bold of all of them. I'm just kind of waiting and seeing to hear more about what this injury looks like.

00:36:39
Speaker 2: And then the final player that you were a little bit bearish on going back to running back is Brian Robinson. Now, we didn't see much competition come in. Was a seventh round pick on cross Key Merritt. It's still Austin Eckler, but it seems like all these commanders, you're just gonna you have to play Washington tax this year because of how explosive their offense was last year.

00:36:59
Speaker 1: I mean, but what are people expecting with Brian Robinson at this point? Like that, that's my question? You know, Like I know that I've been like not anti Robinson, but I've definitely not been ever bullish on Robinson. But this is a full PPR platform. He's a top thirty running back. When he had a six percent target share per game rate last year, He's never been above an eight percent target share per game rate, and it didn't even get any higher last year. With Austin Eckler sideline for part of the season like it wasn't. It wasn't like like what did Brian Robinson do last year aside from have a decent touchdown total and such to make you believe that he's gonna have this massive, massive ceiling this year. To me, the only way that happens is if you get an unsustainable touchdown season, which is obviously possible. But there's gonna be other running backs in that range that I'm gonna want to buy in more that have, you know, more of that upside, more of that ceiling. I just I'm going to be against you know, an RB three, a mid RB three to high end RB three at times. I'm going to be against that kind of player when that player doesn't have a target share ceiling. And I don't think that ceiling is going to be there, especially with a healthy Eckler. And also don't forget Deebo Samuel being there. I think could even hurt Brian Robinson a little bit. I hate having two commanders on the avoids list, but I think both of them are at least.

00:38:11
Speaker 2: Logical or running backs going directly after Robinson right now on DraftKings, DeAndre Swift, Isaia Pacheco, Tyrone Tracy camp Scattabo. Obviously you've got the ambiguous situation in New York that I'm sure will be divisive all summer. But the two players directly after Tim Swift and Pachecko, Yeah, please give me those two players all time.

00:38:31
Speaker 1: What's the difference between right now today between Pachecko and Brian Robinson? Aside from Pachecko probably has weaker competition on his team, Pacheco probably has a higher target share upside, has probably similar touchdown upside, and has less competition in his backfield in my opinion. So, like, I'm not saying that I'm like all in on Pachecko. I'm just saying that I think there are guys that are, like you said right after him, that you know, the Giants backfield. I'm not going to say either way, but like I do think that a player like Pachecko and then Swift obviously in a better offense pass catcher, they might not add anyone, and even if they did, it's probably gonna be more the early down bruiser to replace Roshan as opposed to DeAndre Swift. Like, I think that there's more upside with those players than there is with Brian Robinson. All right, So yeah, that's those are my targets and avoids right now. Again, that's just based off of what my season long rankings are saying and then what DraftKings ADP says and just comparing the two. You know, it's not the most like detailed thing in the world that I did. I just want to compare it just to get like a little primer, like like little little glimpse into what's going on over on DraftKings right now. But Rich we're gonna, we're gonna end this thing season two, episode one. Let everyone know where they can find you, and uh, you know, so that they can follow along your journey as well.

00:39:47
Speaker 2: That rich T Ryan across all socials. If you want jets opinions, if you want inane nick support over the next couple of weeks, that's where you can find me.

00:39:56
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Lee Roun QB. Thanks for listening everyone. I'm really excited to do another season of this show. It was really cool going to like places like the Fantasy Football Expo and people like saying that the thing that they liked most the last offseason and last summer was this show. So I'm really excited to bring it back and I hope you guys enjoy it too this summer. So with that being said, thanks for tuning in.