The Deep Dive - August ADP Shifts with the Podfather!
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
2 hr 14 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Aug 10, 2026
Published
Mon, August 10, 2026
31
Player insights
25
Players mentioned
Topics
Trey McBrideBrock BowersCyrus AllenLuther BurdenZay FlowersAntonio WilliamsColston LovelandD.J. MooreDavid MontgomeryDJ GiddensElijah HigginsGeorge KittleIsaiah LikelyJalen McMillan
Player analysis
Player insights
Antonio Williams
PositiveBust70:47
Antonio Williams is viewed as a bust candidate compared to Cyrus Allen. He has failed to generate significant camp buzz and faces a crowded situation with a mobile quarterback who may prioritize the run, capping his target share ceiling at 20%.
Insight pageBrock Bowers
PositiveProjection24:19
Matt Kelley describes Brock Bowers as a "fantasy robot sent from heaven," placing him in a completely different tier of value compared to other tight ends, even in leagues with multiple tight end roster spots.
Insight pagePositiveProjection69:10
Matt Kelley views Brock Bowers as the only tight end with an uncapped ceiling, potentially functioning as a wide receiver due to his unprecedented talent level compared to other tight ends.
Insight pageColston Loveland
PositiveBreakout79:35
Matt Kelley is a massive fan of Colston Loveland, citing his elite blocking ability and role as a two-way tight end. Kelley believes Loveland will be a top-three tight end for the next decade and expects him to have a high snap share and touchdown upside.
Insight pageCyrus Allen
PositiveValue73:27
Matt Kelley prefers Cyrus Allen over Antonio Williams due to Allen's positive camp buzz and a clearer path to a 10-15% target share. While Williams is a third-round pick, Kelley notes that most third-round wide receivers are busts, making Allen the better value in rookie drafts.
Insight pagePositiveBreakout94:58
Matt Kelley is extremely high on Cyrus Allen, describing him as a unique talent operating in the intermediate area of the field that Kansas City previously lacked. Kelley emphasizes that the news surrounding Allen is actionable, coming from coaches and Patrick Mahomes, and he should be rostered in all leagues.
Insight pageD.J. Moore
PositiveValue89:48
DJ Moore is considered a value on FastDraft with an 85.7 ADP, significantly lower than his 40 ADP on DraftKings. Kelley has 23% exposure to him.
Insight pageDavid Montgomery
PositiveValue89:27
David Montgomery is Matt Kelley's favorite ADP value on the FastDraft platform, where he is being drafted at an 82.8 ADP. Kelley holds 28% exposure to him.
Insight pageDJ Giddens
NegativeBust71:56
DJ Giddens is described as highly underwhelming and lacking the 'dog' mentality required to be a lead back. Despite being in his second offseason, he has failed to establish himself, and the team is now looking at other options like Seth McGowan.
Insight pageElijah Higgins
PositiveUsage80:58
Matt Kelley identifies Elijah Higgins as a breakout candidate in Arizona, noting his athleticism as a converted wide receiver and move tight end. Kelley expects the Cardinals to utilize more 12-personnel sets, which will create target competition for Trey McBride.
Insight pageGeorge Kittle
PositiveValue23:44
Matt Kelley views George Kittle as a superior keeper option compared to Tony Pollard, noting that tight ends can remain productive into their late 30s. Kelley emphasizes that in tight end premium leagues, Kittle's potential to accrue value as he gets healthy makes him a more valuable asset than a running back like Pollard.
Insight pageIsaiah Likely
NegativeValue90:10
Matt Kelley views Isaiah Likely and Travis Kelce similarly in current best-ball ADP, though he notes slightly more touchdown upside for other tight ends like Dallas Goedert and Jake Ferguson.
Insight pageJalen McMillan
NegativeInjury113:36
Matt Kelley advises dropping Jalen McMillan for Cyrus Allen, citing concerns regarding McMillan's knee injury timetable.
Insight pageLuke McCaffrey
NegativeRole72:32
The signing of Stefan Diggs in Washington negatively impacts Luke McCaffrey, who previously had a clear path to the starting slot receiver role. Kelley argues that the team's decision to sign Diggs indicates they were not satisfied with McCaffrey's development.
Insight pageLuther Burden
PositiveProjection75:02
Luther Burden is highly regarded by Matt Kelley, who notes he is the most aggressively projected player for them from year one to year two. Kelley compares him to Sammy Watkins but with a higher 'dog rating,' projecting him for roughly 1,000 yards and five touchdowns.
Insight pageNegativeProjection107:25
Matt Kelley notes that PlayerProfiler is projecting Luther Burden ahead of Rome Odunze due to the departure of DJ Moore, but warns against being overly aggressive with his target share projections, noting that analysts often break the 'math' of target shares by inflating them for players they like.
Insight pageMark Andrews
PositiveProjection58:51
Matt Kelley likes Mark Andrews due to his situation and the vacated targets in the Baltimore offense, noting he is a reliable option who will benefit from touchdown opportunities, even if the offense is run-heavy.
Insight pageMichael Wilson
PositiveRole67:36
Matt Kelley highlights Michael Wilson as an ascending player in the Arizona offense, suggesting he is the preferred investment for those looking for exposure to the Cardinals' passing game.
Insight pageRashee Rice
NegativeProjection94:06
Matt Kelley is below market on Rashee Rice due to projections of lower overall passing volume for the Kansas City offense, which is expected to lean more into the running game with Kenneth Walker.
Insight pageRashid Shaheed
PositiveRole40:11
Matt Kelley argues Rashid Shaheed is a clear-cut number two receiver who is more versatile than just a field stretcher; he is being integrated into the offense with a full offseason and training camp, and his efficiency metrics (comparable to Jordan Addison) suggest he is undervalued.
Insight pageSeth McGowan
PositiveBreakout71:52
Seth McGowan is flashing physicality in camp, drawing positive attention from coaches while DJ Giddens remains underwhelming. Kelley suggests McGowan is the player to watch in that backfield.
Insight pageStefon Diggs
PositiveProjection90:33
Matt Kelley argues that Stefan Diggs is the best wide receiver on the Commanders, citing his explosive play rating and technical skill. Kelley believes Diggs will outproduce Terry McLaurin and remains a high-value asset in dynasty leagues.
Insight pageTerry McLaurin
NegativeProjection90:44
Kelley suggests Terry McLaurin is 'sneakily' nearing the end of his prime at age 30.9 and will be outproduced by Stefan Diggs in the Commanders' offense.
Insight pageTony Pollard
NegativeValue23:36
Matt Kelley advises against keeping Tony Pollard in fantasy leagues, characterizing him as a decreasing asset who is likely on a downward trajectory for the remainder of his career. Kelley suggests that Pollard's value is better served by throwing him back into the draft pool rather than retaining him over players with more upside.
Insight pageTravis Kelce
PositiveValue87:24
Matt Kelley defends Travis Kelce as a top-five tight end, arguing that the market is overreacting to his age and recent efficiency downtrend. Kelley asserts that Kelce is a lock for top-five production and is being undervalued by being drafted after tight end ten.
Insight pageTrey McBride
PositiveBust67:03
Matt Kelley is fading Trey McBride in the second/third round, citing unsustainable target share, the return of Marvin Harrison Jr., the addition of Jeremiah Love, and the fact that McBride is an undersized move tight end comparable to Zach Ertz rather than an elite talent like Brock Bowers.
Insight pageNegativeValue79:03
Matt Kelley argues Trey McBride is being drafted at his absolute ceiling in the late second round, making it impossible for him to exceed his current ADP. Kelley prefers Zay Flowers, Emeka Egbuka, Garrett Wilson, or Nico Collins over McBride, noting that McBride's 2023 target share of 27.4% is unlikely to be repeated given increased target competition from Elijah Higgins and others. Kelley also highlights that McBride's touchdown regression is a concern, as his two-year average is only 2.5 touchdowns.
Insight pageNegativeProjection80:50
Kelley questions if Trey McBride can outproduce Colston Loveland, noting that while McBride has stability, his production trajectory might be capped compared to the ascending situation in Chicago.
Insight pageXavier Worthy
NegativeInjury94:10
Matt Kelley notes that Xavier Worthy has a history of shoulder injuries, which is a significant red flag that led to his downgrade in their rankings despite the team calling the current issue minor.
Insight pageZay Flowers
PositiveValue57:23
Matt Kelley ranks Zay Flowers as the WR11, arguing his ADP should rise following his new contract; he is a target magnet in a consolidated passing game with little competition, making him a superior draft pick over T. Higgins or Nico Collins.
Insight pagePositiveProjection84:06
Matt Kelley ranks Zay Flowers ahead of Trey McBride and projects him to score 10 more fantasy points than the tight end this season, citing that Flowers is a better value at his current draft position.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Welcome to the PlayerProfiler Network. We got the man, the CEO, the Podfather on the deep end with the fantasy Picasso, Johnny Tuma.
0:08Man, we're like, we're kind of like Ricky Bobby and I can't even remember who, Cal Naughton Jr.
0:15is his name in Talladega Nights. So we're, that's kind of the dynamic duo I feel like we've got going on.
0:22But, welcome to the show. It's almost season, it's almost NFL season and we've got Hard Knocks on TV.
0:29What are you thinking of the Hard Knocks, Matt?
0:32You made that grace your bitch. So, just to take you behind the scenes a little bit, we're getting you set up.
0:40As it turns out for many, many, many shows, you were podcasting with your microphone only half plugged in.
0:46And we were troubleshooting. We were asking Gemini why is he turning up the volume and nothing's happening.
0:53So I was like, you're too quiet, Johnny. Do you really think this is acceptable mic volume?
0:59And he's like, I've never noticed. And you know, but you have an ear for this.
1:04And I'm like, you're damn right I have an ear for this.
1:09You're too quiet. And he's like, I know this mic.
1:12It's not cooperating. I'm like, I don't think it's the mic.
1:16You have a beautiful mic. It's the same mic I have.
1:20Look at this. We have the same mic. See, it's the same mic.
1:25Big reveal. No one's ever, I've never taken the sheath off my mic before.
1:30I've been unsheathed. Now you can see the, because there's a lot of girth here.
1:35You know. Should I sheath it? I don't think we have time for me to experiment sheathing it today.
1:42Only if you pop your peas. This is for popping with peas.
1:46This is a windscreen. So if they were outside, you need it.
1:50But also if you pop your peas, this protects the listener from my peas popping.
1:55And I don't think I from, I would have noticed, I would have told you certainly.
2:01Do you think if I heard a pee pop, I would have told you?
2:06Dude, you are granular with this stuff. And that's why I have a high level of respect for you, man.
2:13You would just have a voice for the radio, but it's, it's not, that's my point.
2:19People think you just wake up with a voice for the radio.
2:23No, you got to dial that gain in. There's an air setting we were talking about before the show.
2:30Yeah, there's, there's Mike said, I have never used the air setting.
2:34I'm like Eddie Van Halen. I just plug right into the mic.
2:38I don't use a lot of pedals. This is just what I sound like.
2:43The difference is though, when I first started podcasting, I was much more sing-songy.
2:48And I had a much more high pitched delivery and presentation.
2:52And over the years, hearing yourself back, if you'd be willing to listen to yourself, it's embarrassing to listen to yourself, but
3:00you have to listen to yourself and try to improve.
3:03And so for many years, I kept listening to myself back and trying to improve.
3:09It's like Howard Stern. He sounds nothing like he used to sound like he used to have a, an even more sing-songy high pitched voice than I had.
3:18But over time, you can drop, you can drop the, the, the range of your voice down a little bit.
3:26I can still hear a little bit of echo because you are a rookie in many ways.
3:32You are very much a rookie setting up your mic.
3:35You didn't even plug it in all the way.
3:38You didn't fully understand how your amp worked. And then I realized you weren't even wearing earphones and you were like listening
3:46to me through the main speakers of your computer.
3:49And it was echoing back at me during the program.
3:53And you had to turn your volume down. Now I'm hearing more echo.
3:57It's, it's very, very, I don't think you're hearing echo.
4:01I think you're hearing my, my baby daughter wailing in the background.
4:05I'm going to tell. No, no, no, no. I, I, well, I am a baby, but I, this, it was as I heard a big baby.
4:14So that was what I heard. And so we're just, it's fun to kind of sit down with you and be like, how long have you been podcasting?
4:24And okay, let's go through a checklist. This is like mission control.
4:29Econ check, like, uh, uh, uh, thrusters check boosters go, you know, we are go fly.
4:34You know, that it's just one of those Apollo 13.
4:38I mean, just an incredible, Ed Harris and Apollo 13, one of the most underrated roles.
4:43I think he had nominated for an Oscar, Ed Harris, Apollo 13, one of the most underrated performances of all time.
4:51And so we finally, I think got your mic dialed.
4:54We finally got your mic working properly, plugged in properly.
4:58It has full power. We dialed in the gain.
5:01You're a soft spoken guy. So we need to get your gain up.
5:06You'd use the equipment to get you to sound as fulsome as possible.
5:10You're not the Eddie Van Halen of podcasting yet.
5:13You can get there just like I wasn't when I first started.
5:18It just depends on how committed you want to be to it.
5:22It's like anything else. And so now I feel like we can have a good show and we're sort of now on equal footing with our audio presentation.
5:32And we're live. We're live on Facebook. We're live on YouTube X.
5:36Retweet us if you're on X. Like the show on YouTube.
5:40Like the show. Share it on Facebook. There's another rookie mistake that you made though, which was when you are streaming a show, you should have cold open.
5:50And then you run the bumper after you're cold open.
5:53So you should not set it. I'm turning this off right now.
5:58I'm removing it from your studio. You have a studio and I'm removing it.
6:03Removing your intro should not be. No one wants to get an introduction.
6:07No one wants to get a graphic to start the show.
6:11They want to kind of get an idea of what the show is about.
6:16They want to kind of get into it. They want to get engaged.
6:21They want to get hooked. Then you can hit them with like cool graphics.
6:26I'm a professional podcaster. This is a professional media that you're consuming right now.
6:31So what I like to do is like to set the show up.
6:35I like to start with just a cold open.
6:38Cold open is tough though. You got to have something like kind of loaded, right?
6:44You don't just open and then just stare at the camera.
6:48You got to be like. What? What? What? Okay.
6:51So we haven't talked about this yet. This is again, I'm just completely shredding you for your whole podcast setup, your whole podcast prep.
6:59And now just the first 10 seconds of the show I didn't love.
7:04Okay. So I wanted a cold open. I want to know what the show is about.
7:09I want to get excited about the show. And then I want to, then I want to get the chills of that, that, that, that, that bumper.
7:19Like, like when you, when you hear the, the, the, the horns, you see, if you watched hard knocks, they open with, with something happening.
7:28This time it was like an Eagle landing. And it was like, and my daughter, she's 15.
7:34She turns to me, she goes, it's a little on the nose.
7:38Don't you think? I was like, yeah, this whole show is starting off on the nose.
7:44I don't like this at all. And then the leave Schreiber script was terrible.
7:49It was just cliche and not interesting. And then all the characters on the show are not interesting.
7:55All the players, the coaches, no one is that interesting.
7:59Maybe the running backs coach was the only person that did interesting thing.
8:03He just like jiggled his, his self. He did a fun jiggle move.
8:08And that was, that was like the, the redeeming quality entire show.
8:12I posted about it at fantasy underscore mansion on Twitter.
8:16X I posted all about how much I was, I was fired up for it.
8:21Posted a picture of leave Schreiber from Wolverine. He's saber tooth.
8:25He's the original saber tooth with that. You know what?
8:28I don't know if you, I don't know how many of the Marvel universe movies he was in, but he was like the original antagonist for Wolverine.
8:38So I, I, he's just a great actor. He's a great actor.
8:42He's great in everything he's in, but he's, but as a narrator, he's even better.
8:47He's the best narrator for me. And they, they squandered him.
8:51It was just, it was, it was, it was embarrassing.
8:55And I looked at my daughter. I was like, yeah, this is on the nose.
9:00And this whole episode is embarrassing. And so what I would have liked for you to do is like, for example, if
9:08I was to do a cold open of this show, yeah.
9:12I'd be like, this is the deep end podcast.
9:15I'm here with a pod father. It's a special edition of this particular program.
9:20Because we just did a big, big rankings update on player profile.com featuring the one and only Zay flowers and many more coming at you.
9:29And then we run the bumper. Now I've got chills.
9:32Now I'm ready to get engaged instead of just hitting me in the face with the graphic before I even have an
9:40idea of what the hell I'm doing here. Dude, I just want to run the bulls intro while you're talking too.
9:48Like, I'm just really about to just tank it.
9:51You know what I mean? Yeah, I was about to do it while you were talking the whole time.
9:58I was just like, I was about to just maug you and be like, we've got the pod father.
10:04We'll see. Maybe I just click the start to that intro and it's going to slowly kick in here in the next 20 seconds.
10:13Who knows? We've got a lot of fun to talk about.
10:17We're going to get into some football today. We have the king of podcasting, the OG, the guy who came from, he
10:24was out of the fantasy Twitter streets, but he has been back in the fantasy Twitter streets.
10:30He's been out there posting gas on X, telling you who he's not drafting, telling you what to not like about the hard knocks.
10:39Are you guys ready for an awesome show? So we have the pod father.
10:44Good. Coming in hot, Johnny. Better? You're coming in hot.
10:47You sound good. I sound good. I'm pumped up.
10:51Feeling great. I worked out today. Yeah. It's fantastic.
10:54You work out today? I got out of bed before 10 this morning.
10:58Let's go. You know, the music's still playing. I know.
11:02I know. I know. It's so good, dude. I mean, whenever you do that on your shows, I get chills.
11:09And someone actually, I did it one time before.
11:12I think I did it for like Shev when he came as a guest.
11:17And people were ripping me into comments like, oh, the pod father intro is you're trying to pull that one off.
11:25You know what happened, right? Is Spotify started blocking the show because of that.
11:29Oh, yeah. Because that's technically eye in the sky.
11:33That's the Alan Parsons project. And then they have some automated bot.
11:37So I'm sure if Alan Parsons knew that there was some podcasters like to use the beginning of that song, which is
11:45just a it's almost a non sequitur element of a song.
11:49The whole most of the song eye in the sky is doesn't even sound like that is in a totally different key and everything else.
11:57It's just a it's just an interlude into the show.
12:01So I'm sure no one would care, but there's some automated program that like takes the show down if we put that.
12:09So I can't. Anyways, we did it. We're here.
12:12We're podcasting. We're podcasting on Facebook. We're podcasting on Player Profiler Now and Player Profiler Now on X.
12:18And are you OK with this? Because I've been streaming to Player Profiler Now, but you seem to have a real snobbery about streaming to Player Profiler Now.
12:28I was on I was on the phone with you and I was like, listen, man, we really should stream to Player Profiler Now.
12:37And then we can edit the video and then we can have a more polished version to upload to the main player
12:44profile or YouTube channel and other channels. And you're like, man, I don't know if people are going to like that.
12:52I think we like streaming to the main channel.
12:55And that's like a benefit that we have. You remember that?
12:59That's a great impersonation. Well, let's get some comments in the chat so they can prove me prove me wrong.
13:06Right. Like, let's get some interaction. If you guys have questions, we've got the podfather on the minor league network is what is what we call it here.
13:16All the all the contributors. So we're on the player.
13:20So I'm in the minor leagues because you step down to grace the minor leagues and we deserve some interaction.
13:27So I will I'll at least say that we actually have a comment already as I as I said that.
13:34So I'm I don't know if you're if it was a long comment to is a multi paragraph comment.
13:40So it clearly is not reacting, placating you. This was this was already in the works.
13:46So this guy traded his first, second and third last year.
13:50But he has Josh Allen, Brees Hall, A.J. Brown, Rashi Rice, Kenneth Walker, Bucky Irving and George Kittle as his keepers.
13:57And do you know Pollard or Kittle? Why did we need all that setup?
14:02Why do we is that really? I think it's it's somewhat helpful.
14:07You get an idea of the roster construction. He's got A.J.
14:10or Brees Hall, Kenneth Walker, Bucky Irving. Who the hell is keeping Pollard in that situation?
14:16Huh? Who the hell is keeping Pollard in this?
14:19That's my point. I think you keep I think you keep Kittle.
14:24What would but what is that? Actually, let's ask the commenters.
14:27What is what is the what is this? What is the the the team build that you would have to have to keep Pollard?
14:36I mean, if you I guess if you had OK, if I had Bowers McBride and Loveland, maybe OK, then Pollard.
14:43Otherwise, dude, I'm keeping Kittle because in tight end premium, you're almost always most of the tight end premium leagues that I'm in is multiple flex positions.
14:53So even let's even even if you had Loveland and Warren, let's say, let's put Bauer.
14:59I mean, Bowers is Bowers is another universe. He's a he's a fantasy robot sent from heaven.
15:05Let's just put him off to the side. Let's just say you have Loveland and Warren.
15:10I'm still doing it. So, again, the context doesn't matter.
15:14Yeah. And I think the thing is, he says he's heard 50 50 on it with tight ends.
15:20They can go into their late 30s. Right. They can continue to be productive or running back is just a decreasing asset.
15:28I just see this as like you've got a guy like Kittle who could accrue some value as he gets healthy, where
15:36Pollard, I think it's just downhill for him from here.
15:39He's got this year left, maybe. Right. But you can just throw him back into the draft pool and, you know, maybe
15:47maybe pick him up again, because I just think people are going to be jumping at the bit to get him.
15:54You know, does everyone love how good Johnny sounds now?
15:58If you've been a fan of the deep end, like the show.
16:02If you like how Johnny sounds like the show, I think he sounds fantastic.
16:07I think we're going to we're going to get a cold open next time.
16:12We're going to get where there's going to be.
16:15This is going to be a perfect show moving forward.
16:19He's learned all his lessons. He took his spanking behind the scenes before the show even started and on and during the show.
16:27Yeah. What was the spanking during the show? You spent 10 minutes just eviscerating me.
16:32What? No, no, no. We were just talking. We were just talking.
16:37We were just talking. We just I was just explaining the situation.
16:41You know why? Maybe we went live an hour after we were supposed to because we had we were we were we were we were configuring the audio.
16:51But, dude, you're so gracious with your time. And I think that's that's honestly it is.
16:56There's so much that goes in behind the scenes and you being willing to take that time.
17:02And you're the best guy to learn from. So appreciate it.
17:06You are. I mean, I hear stories about you just like and that voice for the radio and how you deliver the
17:14content is half of half of the fun. Yep.
17:17Getting some constructive podfather criticism. No, I think everybody agrees.
17:21I mean, actually, let us know if you don't agree.
17:24Yeah. If you think Johnny used to sound better when he used to sound like this, if you used to like if
17:32you like Johnny this way when he was this and if this was if you like Johnny better when he was quiet and not as fulsome.
17:41And when he was more timid because the other thing we're going to do, we're doing with Johnny.
17:48We're going to slap him in the face. You know, we're going to we're going to we're getting him hyped up.
17:55We're going to get him aggressive. We're going to get him ready to go.
18:00This is it's going to be high energy. That's what this that's what it's all.
18:05But it's it's a mentality. It's a meant. Do you see how annoying it is to listen to this?
18:12This is like listening to hard knocks and but worse.
18:16Like I would do such a better job than all of these people.
18:20I mean, did you some of I was floored the head of analytics couldn't even talk.
18:26He couldn't even formulate a thought stuttering and stammering like staring off into space.
18:31It was nothing but just a string of cliches from all like the the headline.
18:36It was coach this coach that the head coach was half the show.
18:41And you all know now why I don't worship coaches because they're fairly useless.
18:46I mean, what are you getting listening to this guy?
18:49Mike McDonald. What are you gaining? What did you glean from listening to Mike McDonald?
18:55Nothing or the quarterback. Oh, let's get Mike McDonald.
18:58It's I swear I didn't look this up. I just want to put it out of my mind because I was so
19:05upset because there's been so many hard knocks back through time that have been so good.
19:11Yeah, so good that to have this one be so poor the leave the leave is it's I think it's leave Schreiber or leave.
19:20I think it's leave Schreiber the leave. It's a very difficult name for me to say the leave Schreiber script.
19:27It's very that's a tough one. Can you say that?
19:30I don't don't worry. The leave Schreiber script was so bad.
19:34It was so vanilla and on the nose and pathetic and no one said anything interesting.
19:40The only thing that we saw that was we would classify as good content was movement movement by the running back coach.
19:48And that was it. That was it. They didn't have one undrafted rookie trying to make the roster.
19:54Those are always the best stories. Where was that guy?
19:57Where was undrafted guy X trying to make the roster against all odds?
20:02What are we doing? What is going like remember like the bills had like Joe football or whatever.
20:08There's always somebody that is it and the Bears had Wheeler the running back Wheeler who was like a wheeler student member.
20:16We had Austin Reed doing a little singing. Right.
20:19We'll get there. We'll maybe get there. All fun stuff.
20:23And then remember Austin Wheeler. He tore his ACL.
20:26Yeah. Like it like on the show. It was it's so.
20:30And then what do you think anything? I mean, does anyone in the chat think you're going to get anything interesting at all?
20:38Like a syllable of anything interesting from Sam Darnold or Mike McDonald.
20:42Spoiler alert. You're not. Yeah. Well, I told you, dude, I was at the San Francisco for the Super Bowl and I
20:50drove an hour out to go to their media day for an hour and a half.
20:56And it was like watching paint dry, talking to most of those guys.
21:00Right. And listening to the 30 minutes from the Mike McDonald presser.
21:05So you kind of knew what you were signing up for.
21:09If you've if you've kind of followed them closely.
21:12Remember, remember the Lions? Yeah, it was a really good one.
21:16Oh, the Lions was terrific. This was I again, I this is the first time I've ever had to apologize to someone I was watching a show with.
21:26I was like, I have to want to tell you, I'm sorry.
21:30We just wasted an hour of our time. You haven't watched it yet.
21:34That's the beauty of on demand is like instead of us all having collectively wasted an hour.
21:40Now I can. I can issue a PSA to the audience.
21:44Do not watch it. It's horrible. You just go to at fantasy underscore mansion and you can find the photo of.
21:52Leave Schreiber and there's a clip with the only interesting thing that happens on the show.
21:57Probably. I don't see anything. If this is the cast of characters are going to be they're going to be following and
22:05they're just going to be basically having a coach press conference.
22:09Just a coach speak cliche press conference. If that's basically going to be this.
22:14I guarantee. I haven't looked. I'm going to find out.
22:18We're going to report back. There was a change in producers.
22:21There was a there was a change at the top with that show.
22:26I think it's either a new production company, a new producer.
22:30Something happened. Something changed. A head writer, whatever it is, head show runner, something major changed.
22:36You could tell because whoever whoever took over was just like, oh, this is what a sports show should have.
22:43We need to follow the head coach. They neutered it.
22:46Yeah. But the person who was producing that show for many, many years understood what's interesting about sports.
22:53Whoever was producing that show does not know. I think that it'd be possible.
22:58You have to mine that roster for someone interesting.
23:01If you work hard enough, you can find some interesting people by by doing a lot of scouting, by doing a lot
23:09of pre interviewing to figure out who the hell we're going to invest in miking up and putting on camera.
23:16But they they they clearly don't. It's it's it was it's sad.
23:20It was sad. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking of the Browns was another good one when Corey Coleman came in to Hugh Jackson's
23:28office and is asking why he's not running with the ones.
23:32And it was like, because you're going to be out of the league in a few years, player.
23:38I mean, do you do you remember one undrafted player being on screen at all ever?
23:44Well, I just don't remember. That was why we when you were saying it, I'm like, I can't think off the top of my head.
23:52Like last year, it would have been fun kind of seeing Damien Martinez.
23:57Right. They had him seventh round guy like I don't think of a lot of offensive positions that they really invested in even late round draft capital.
24:07So I'm struggling to think even Cooper Cup, their wide receiver, too.
24:11It's like it's Rashid Shahid. Where's Rashid Shahid? Like, yeah, he's interesting.
24:15But I think what I would like to see more on is Torrey Horton to that point and kind of his shin injury.
24:23That was so that's so cryptic. What happened with him?
24:27He came back from an ACL tear and then he misses the season with a shin injury that he and I asked
24:34him about that at the Super Bowl. He said he kind of rushed back from that knee.
24:40And this was kind of a symptom of it.
24:44That's the best answer I've heard was was when I got when I asked him myself.
24:49So I would love to hear someone kind of dig into that a little more because he had a bit of a breakout last year.
24:58And I really do think he is the best second best receiver in that offense at this point, like coming out of CSU.
25:06Dude, why are you doing this? Because he's a special teams guy in a field stretcher.
25:12I think if we didn't see Clint Kubiak get a lot out of him downfield after the trade, I just don't see
25:20how the new coaching staff is going to like I just don't see it with Shahid.
25:25I don't know. He's more of like a basketball guy for me.
25:30They're moving him all around the formation. They which you wouldn't have known.
25:34Right. If you were watching this, but he's been a super efficient player.
25:39He's best comparable to Jordan Addison. And he's just a basically an older undrafted.
25:44That's a guy not only he wasn't undrafted. They got him in trade, but they traded for him.
25:50And he's going to be the number. He's going to be the clear cut number, too.
25:56Like he can play anywhere. He is not just a field stretcher.
26:00He's way more versatile than that. He's good on special teams.
26:04I mean, he had 687 yards last year. It's just a lot of them weren't with Seattle hit over a thousand area yards.
26:12Just only two touchdowns. And again, a lot of them wasn't with Seattle because he got traded midseason and he has to
26:20learn the playbook and he has to get integrated into the offense.
26:24And that's some of the stuff that I would love to learn more about.
26:29But Kubiak came from the Saints. So everything you just said kind of is a moot point because it's like they traded
26:37for this guy because he was supposed to know the playbook.
26:41He was supposed to slot into that offense and have immediate production.
26:45And what they actually got out of him was a guy who had like three special teams touchdowns, like which is awesome.
26:53He's a great punt returner and kick returner. There you go.
26:57You just got pushed. I see people commenting that not enough people stand back or like fire back at you.
27:04So there it is. That's a little clap back at the podfather.
27:08You know what he did against New England when he finally got acclimated, right?
27:13He had five targets and he had two catches, had 131 air yards, just got erased, weren't there.
27:19But he had three games with nine targets before he was traded.
27:24He is a very good player and they are going to integrate him into the offense.
27:29Finally, with a full off season and a training camp in a preseason.
27:34But you may not even see his face on HBO.
27:37And I would love to see that position battle between he and Tori Horton.
27:42But no, no, no, no. Of course, of course, they're going to focus on Sam Darnold and Cooper Cup.
27:49And it's just embarrassing. The whole thing, it's truly embarrassing.
27:53And they talk about certain players like Janarian Price, but they don't let I would like to hear from Janarian Price.
28:00But no, no, no, no, no. It's we're only hearing from the coach and Sam Darnold and Cooper Cup.
28:07OK, guys. Cool. Good show. Thanks. So let's talk about another guy that you really like that just got a big payday.
28:15Zay Flowers. You've been, you know, again, I was watching you with Cody Carpentier the other day and kind of discussing about
28:22you'd basically take him over Nico Collins, which is, you know, in that mid 20 ADP range, which is a bit higher than what he was going for.
28:32But now he's got that contract. I think that ADP is going to rise.
28:37Do you think that ADP deserves to rise? And does it feel validating to see him get that big money that Justin Jefferson kind of money?
28:46Skang in the chat says that you were actually hard to listen to before and that this is a very noticeable change.
28:54Thank you, Skang. And last show, I didn't even have my mic set up.
28:59Literally just didn't have his mic plugged in all the way.
29:03Yeah. This was, well, no, the last show, I couldn't even get into my computer like properly.
29:09So I had to use a different computer to get into the stream yard.
29:14I'm working through all sorts of tech garbage over here, but appreciate your feedback.
29:19It's just having some baseline competency. That's the thing.
29:22No one needs to know anything anymore. Like people ask me all these questions and I'm like, why are you asking me?
29:30Like, you don't have to bother me. Just ask Gemini, ask Chad GPT.
29:34All the answers are now on the web. There's nothing I can answer for you that you don't just know.
29:42What I can answer is, does this sound good or not?
29:45Like, is this good or not? That's the type of answer.
29:49So what I want to, what I want to answer is I want to be asked questions that are like from a tastemaker standpoint.
29:58That's where I can add value. I can no longer add technical value to anyone because you can just like take a
30:06picture of your amp and be like, what do you think is wrong with this?
30:11And the second reason is your, your cords not fully plugged in your XLR cables not fully plugged in.
30:18I mean, for how many shows was this going on?
30:21And you were like, I have to, I have to stream to the main channel.
30:26I I'm too good. It's just, it's, it's not good enough to stream to player profiler.
30:32Now there's not as big enough audience there. I, it's a big benefit to me to stream to the, to the main channel.
30:40It's one of the reasons I do this. And then I'm like, wait, but what about me?
30:46I stream to the player. This is where I stream player profiler.
30:51Now that's what it means. Now, now, now like live now.
30:54That's the whole point of the channel. So why reason was created thoughts in the chat.
31:00Do we need, do we need to two channels in general thoughts in the chat?
31:05Of course we do. Why? Because right now Dan Williamson is streaming to the other channel.
31:11Do we have a third channel? I think we have a player profiler dynasty channel thought thoughts in the chat.
31:18Do we need a third channel? You can't have enough channels.
31:22You cannot have enough channels. As long as the, the content is specific.
31:27There's some people that only want dynasty content. Thoughts of the chat.
31:31Does, does Matt need a guy like me in his ear every once in a while just to keep them in check a little bit.
31:40The only question it's not, do we need, should we all have one mega channel?
31:45No, we're not doing one mega channel because YouTube, by the way, even if you want it, YouTube will punish you for doing that.
31:54Okay. And so you're not, you're, that's not possible, unfortunately.
31:57So the second, I guess the question would be, should I have my own channel?
32:02That's the real question. Right. Should I, should there be, I think people want that.
32:08The pod. And I have refused to do that.
32:11I have refused to do that because I've assumed that everyone that is collaborating with me that I, you know, that I
32:19am raising up on my shoulders is plugging their goddamn mic in.
32:23Well, thank you for sticking by me, dude. Through thick and thin.
32:2730 minutes. We've done 30 minutes live and not a single question about a particular player.
32:33Just should I do trade X, which was obvious.
32:36You should get George Kittle. Or was that even a trade?
32:40What was it? Oh, keeper. Right. It was a, it was a keeper question.
32:45Yes. Kittle just make it. That's probably one of those things where I think that, you know, I, I, I'm not criticizing
32:53the commenter about that because I've been there too.
32:56Like it's obvious to me, but I just need that extra little reassurance.
33:00Yep. Like I know it's probably Kittle, but is there something I'm missing with pod?
33:06So I think that's what that was. So other than like reassuring someone who already knew the answer, that's all we've really
33:13accomplished except just criticizing you and your entire show library and this new latest episode of the HBO hard knock series, which
33:21is a complete abomination and is an embarrassment and the producer should be fired.
33:26That's all we've accomplished. We did a whole sort of graphic for the show about Zay flowers.
33:32People assume they're definitely going to talk about Zay flowers any second.
33:36Now I'm sure I'll keep listening because the pod father sounds so damn good and somehow Johnny doesn't sound bad anymore.
33:44So I'm going to keep listening, but at some point I'm hoping they talk about players.
33:50Yeah. Can we talk about football on the football show?
33:53I think when you talk about a player. So we did a massive rankings update player profile.com subscribe to the rankings.
34:01When you subscribe to the rankings or anything on player profiler, you get an ad free experience.
34:07So I don't want to get any emails or any notes about anybody complaining about the ads on player profile because you
34:14can turn them all off at any time by subscribing to anything.
34:19And they immediately like that off. You don't see another ad because you pay.
34:23You either pay one way or the other, either the advertiser pays or you pay.
34:29The beauty is when you pay, you get access to the rankings and all this premium data that the people that are
34:37letting the advertiser pay the bills are not. So it's pretty silly to not subscribe for that reason alone.
34:43Zay flowers is moving up and our goal is to always be ahead of market on Zay flowers.
34:50Zay flowers in the rankings is now adjacent with Chris Olave and he's almost in Rashid Shahid territory.
34:56Okay. He's well ahead of Rashid G. So, but yes, I, I would challenge anyone and let us know in the chat,
35:04in the comments, email me podfather at roto wonder world.com.
35:07Um, if you have seen Zay flowers higher than wide receiver 11, that's where we have him.
35:13So if there, if there is a, what do you mean?
35:17He's a top five wide receiver in the league in terms of annual salary.
35:22And there is, are very, very few receivers, if any, that have less target competition are more of the focal point of a passing game.
35:31Like since when are, is anyone really that worried about dusty Mark Andrews?
35:36I like Mark Andrews because of the situation that he's in because of the vacated target specifically from Isaiah likely I'm forced
35:43to like Mark Andrews because he is going to just have touchdown passes, hit him in the face mask.
35:50That is something that's going to happen. And so you have to draft him.
35:55If he's falling to you in that, you know, in that Dallas Goddard zone, same thing with Dallas Goddard, you've drafted him
36:03on the same spot because it's the same situation in, in they're not exciting.
36:08We just have to pick them, but it's like, who else?
36:12Who else? Right. Jacoby lane. Jacoby lane's a rookie.
36:15Okay. Jacoby lane is a rookie. He's flashing. He's moving ahead of Surratt because of that.
36:21He's a better player than Surratt had a stronger profile than Surratt.
36:25But what are we talking about? Like, this is a run first offense dominated by Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson pulling passes
36:33out of the offense and handing them off or running with it.
36:37And then when they do actually throw, there's two guys they throw to super consolidated.
36:42And the guy they're throwing to, who's the number one, is one of the best separators, is awesome after the catch, is
36:50a total target magnet, is a complete dog, and is amazing.
36:54And so this idea that wide receiver 11 is aggressive, I think is just silly.
36:59It's just people that aren't doing the math. Over under 135 targets for Zay.
37:04Over. Yeah, I think I'm with you there. Over 200 targets.
37:08Over 200. Yeah. Yeah, 250. I think 250. Wait, no, maybe a little more.
37:13257. Over under 257. I think 257 is the number.
37:16257. I hate these questions. Exact number of targets?
37:20I think over 135. If you go to our player rankings, there's a download button, and every projection for every stat is there.
37:28From games to targets, receptions, yards. But, you know, obviously it's like fractional.
37:32Like what we have projected for whatever it is.
37:36We have Zay projected for like 2,217.58 yards. Right?
37:39And whatever, I think it was something like 27.6 touchdowns.
37:42Something like that, I'm sure. Or you can just download and get the real information.
37:48And so, but yeah, wall bang. I mean, that's a pretty good estimate right there.
37:53And he's great after the catch. Like, it's just, he's great everywhere.
37:57He's all they have. It's so, it's just, it's, wow.
38:01It's not even hard to figure out. Fantasy football doesn't have to be hard sometimes.
38:06Were you going to draft T. Higgins at number two over that?
38:10Like, why? Why am I drafting T. Higgins? Why am I drafting Nico Collins over that?
38:16Where Nico Collins has like a doppelganger across the field from him.
38:20It looks exactly like him. Why would I do that?
38:24If there was another Zay Flowers, why would I draft Zay Flowers?
38:28If there was, he was competing with another Zay Flowers.
38:31But he doesn't have that problem. It's Rashad Bateman.
38:35And then it's going to be Jacoby Lane. Right?
38:38And I know it's fun to talk about rookies and how, oh, Jacoby Lane, he's going to move up.
38:45Yeah, it's a big win. This is the thing.
38:48It's a big win if Jacoby Lane is the wide receiver three.
38:52That's a big win for him as a non-first-round wide receiver rookie.
38:56That's uncommon to get to that level. The guy that probably has the best chance to get to that level is someone like Caleb Douglas.
39:05Because there's just no one in front of him.
39:08I mean, what does he have to do? He has to outplay who?
39:13Right? To get to the wide receiver three. Not even Malik Washington.
39:17Not even the ghost of Tutu Atwell. He has to outplay Tutu Atwell.
39:22He has to outplay Kevin Coleman Jr. Right? That's nothing.
39:25Right? So, yeah, there's some guys it's a little bit easier than others.
39:30But he still has to outplay Surratt. He still has to outplay Tez Walker.
39:35So, there's still some players that have NFL careers.
39:38Five-year NFL careers in the range of outcomes that he has to outplay.
39:43But he is. I mean, it's right there on playerprofile.com slash news.
39:47I mean, he's just destroying in camp. And it's exciting to see him do that.
39:52I liked his profile. I hated the landing spot.
39:55And all he can do, right? All he can do is just be the best Jacoby Lane that he can be.
40:03I want to shift gears. I want to talk about this tight end landscape a little bit.
40:09Because one of the things you've been very vocal about.
40:12I want to get into those later round veterans.
40:15Because to your point, there's some value there. But one of the guys you're very outward about fading is Trey McBride.
40:23Where does all the hate stem from, dude? The math.
40:26I mean, not all of those guys can eat in that offense.
40:31If that offense is going to win two games, how are they going to eat?
40:36How are they all going to eat? Because I've also been told that I'm way too hard on Marvin Harrison Jr.
40:43That drops are not predictive of future performance. But it's not just the drops.
40:48It's just the overall body of work for Marvin Harrison Jr.
40:52That's what I don't like. And Michael Wilson is ascending.
40:56And they just drafted Jeremiah Love telling you that they want to run the ball more.
41:01And they're going to throw the ball to the running back more.
41:06Because Jeremiah Love is an elite receiver out of the backfield.
41:10And that is going to be a damper on the target share of Trey McBride.
41:15Trey McBride, it's not sustainable. Unless you are an upper, upper, upper percentile elite athlete, maybe.
41:21We just have never seen it. Like 30% target share for an extended period of time.
41:26When we run our projections, if he just takes a hit of like 1.5%, if his target share just comes down 1.5%,
41:34then you should not be drafting him in the second round.
41:38Right? So he's actually very fragile in that he's a tight end.
41:42And tight ends historically have had limited ceilings. There's only one guy that I think is uncapped at the tight end position.
41:50And that's Brock Bowers. Trey McBride is best comparable to Zach Ertz.
41:54And that makes sense. Zach Ertz was a volume producer.
41:58He is an undersized move tight end, just like Zach Ertz was.
42:02And had 169 targets last year. I think that's highly unrealistic.
42:06And so that's it. I'm with you there. I think it's pretty simple.
42:10I mean, he did a lot. He had more receiving yards than he had air yards.
42:16Yards per reception was under 10. So he did a lot of damage with Yak, which is also less predictive, less sticky
42:24from the previous year than air yards is. So for a lot of reasons, I just think it's highly unlikely.
42:31It's impossible. He's not going to be number one in target share in the league this year.
42:37I don't even think he's going to be number one where he was in target rate.
42:43Targets per route run. His target per route run was 24.7 last year.
42:47I keep hearing about Colston Loveland. And I'm like, okay.
42:51And then I know Tyler Warren is in a better situation.
42:55And Tyler Warren's just a little bit. He's like his profile.
42:59He profiles is a little bit of an upgrade overall.
43:02You know, in terms of size, speed, just overall ability over Trey McBride.
43:07And so, yeah, he was number one in red zone targets and first read targets and air yard share and all these things.
43:15Because half the year, the only other guy that he was competing for targets with was Michael Wilson.
43:21Now, it's not just Marvin Harrison Jr.'s back. It's also Jeremiah Love.
43:25And not only is he a tight end, but he's not a Bowers-level talent.
43:30So for those reasons, and he's on a two-win team.
43:34So what are you trying to accomplish? Like, I just don't understand.
43:38Like, you had your win. You got Trey McBride last year at value.
43:43He had 11 touchdowns the year before that, by the way.
43:47Two. He only had two touchdowns. So talk about touchdown regression.
43:51I mean, this guy had six touchdowns in three years.
43:54Then he had 11 touchdowns. And you're going to be bullish on that guy?
43:59That guy is always a fade. When a guy puts up a completely and utterly unsustainable touchdown rate from one year to the next, he's always a fade.
44:09That's the easiest. That's like fantasy football for dummies.
44:12Like, is like, go look at the guy with the craziest touchdown rate and fade him the next year.
44:19Like, that would be the first thing you would do in a series of 7,000 steps to dominate fantasy football.
44:26So yeah, that's an easy one. I like him.
44:29He's a good player. But in the second round, in the early third round, when I can get stud running backs and stud receivers, are you kidding me?
44:39Are you kidding me? There's people that draft him over Jeremiah Love.
44:43It's like, what? No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no.
44:47Yeah, because this is not a too many mouths to feed.
44:51No, there's actually the right number of mouths to feed.
44:55And he's actually not special enough. He's not. Mostly because he's a tight end.
45:00And tight ends in general don't have the dynamism that wide receivers do.
45:04Brock Bowers is a possible exception. I'm very open to Brock Bowers being essentially a wide receiver this year.
45:11Like in all elements of play. Maybe for the first time ever.
45:15That we being an unprecedented mega talent at the at the tight end position.
45:20That's not Trey McBride. Trey McBride is Zach Ertz.
45:23And Zach Ertz had a monster year with Philadelphia once upon a time.
45:28And it was a moment in time. It wasn't like Zach Ertz is an instant Hall of Famer.
45:34And he's like the Calvin Johnson of tight ends.
45:37No. So yeah, it's a very. I mean, it's an easy fade.
45:42I think it's almost too obvious. It's one of those things where.
45:46I can't believe he is being drafted where he's being drafted.
45:50And that he's so off limits. Like when you say I'm fading Trey McBride.
45:55Oh, really? Oh, why would you do that? He's so consistently amazing every year.
46:00And it's like. Have you seen. The projected win totals.
46:03Have you seen the quarterback situation? And also. Michael Wilson keeps getting better and better and better.
46:09If you're going to pick a passing game to invest in.
46:13Are you going to pick. The two in teams.
46:16Most expensive option. Very rarely, right? Very rarely. It's the same reason I'm not going with Tett McMillan.
46:23And there's a lot of guys that are like.
46:26Yeah, interesting. Tett McMillan is not this super dynamic talent.
46:29Right. And I can get a much better value.
46:33If I'm going to be investing on that team.
46:36Which I don't want to do anyway. If you're going to make me.
46:40I'm going to twist my arm. Make me draft a Panthers receiver.
46:45I'm just going to go Jalen Coker. Why would.
46:48What? Like if you're going to make me draft a pass catcher in Arizona.
46:53I'm just going to go Michael Wilson and move on.
46:56And then whatever happens with that offense. I'm not so invested.
47:00It's scary, man. It's scary. I mean. But I think.
47:04See, that's the weird thing. I think Trey McBride's scary.
47:07Most people think that he's very safe. And that's very strange to me.
47:12I think he could regress 20%. And you'd still get a.
47:16I think you can't even argue this. 100 catches.
47:191000 yards. Six touchdowns. No, he could regress way worse than that.
47:23He could be an 800 yard guy. I don't know, man.
47:27That just seems. Because then I start thinking about 2024.
47:31To your point. Like. I think what we saw in 2024.
47:35Is more in line with what to expect. Than what to expect.
47:39What about 2023? He played 17 games. He had over 100 targets.
47:43He came on halfway through the year. That was when Ertz got injured.
47:48And again. When you look at that finish. To 2023.
47:51And you kind of. It replicated what 2024 looked like.
47:55Through the entire season. That's what you're getting. You're getting a thousand yards.
47:59A hundred receptions. Six touchdowns. That's a little under.
48:02What everyone else is projecting. Like I think even.
48:06Our. Player rankings. Our draft guide. Has the projections.
48:09Slightly higher than that. So that's where I kind of.
48:12I converge. Where I'm like. I get it. 20, 25.
48:16We're not expecting it. And it's almost baked into the current ADP.
48:20You ever. But at the same time. The fade's getting a little too far.
48:25When we start saying 800 yards. Man. This guy's.
48:28No. You said the downside. His floor is absolutely.
48:31Absolutely. It's 800 yards. Are you kidding me? Also.
48:35Have you noticed. In some of these highlights. Have you noticed.
48:39When they're. If you've noticed. Mike. Michael Wilson highlights.
48:42If you've known. If you've seen some of these drops.
48:45Do you know who's. Running down the seam. Who's the deepest player on the field.
48:51In the passing game. In some of these. In some of these.
48:55In some of these plays. In Arizona. Have you noticed.
48:58Who is it. Trey McBride. No. Elijah Higgins. Elijah Higgins.
49:02Is going to get used. Elijah Higgins. Is very athletic.
49:05And he's a move tight end. He's a converted wide receiver.
49:09He is going to be a problem as well.
49:13He's. And. He is very good. And so they're going to be using a lot more 12 person.
49:19And it's going to be very frustrating. I can't wait.
49:22I'm so excited for all these. He did it for two straight seasons.
49:27So it's definitely going to happen again. Maybe. Or.
49:30Like. The moon and the stars aligned. And. Now.
49:33So we. Now we're going to get to see.
49:37When you actually have. Any competition at the tight end position.
49:40For targets whatsoever. Any competition at all. From the wide receiver two spot.
49:45Any competition for targets. From the running back position.
49:48Reception. And then we're going to see. We're going to see.
49:52Can he get to a thousand yards? Oh. It's not.
49:56It's. It's absolutely not written. In ink. But wait.
49:59So are you going to get to it under officially.
50:02On that stat line. Under a hundred. Receptions. Under a thousand yards.
50:07Under six touchdowns. Whatever his projection is. Whatever his like baseline projection is.
50:11I'm going to take the under. Because a lot more can go wrong for that team.
50:17And him specifically. Than can go right. Wait. He's being drafted at his best case scenario.
50:23It's not possible for him to exceed his ADP.
50:26It's just not. You know he's getting drafted at the end of the second round.
50:31Yeah. No. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm hearing you. Do you know who gets drafted in that round?
50:37I mean. Are you serious? Like this is what I don't understand.
50:41Like. It's just mind boggling. Do you know who gets drafted in these?
50:46You're. You're. Obviously. Zay Flowers. Zay Flowers is going to outproduce him.
50:50Duh. Duh. But. I love it. That's hot. Dude.
50:53That's a hot take. That's actually. Zay Flowers outproducing Trey McBride?
50:57I mean. It's a hot take. Undeniably. You're. Undeniably.
51:00Talking about a guy going two rounds. The guy that had six touchdowns in three seasons.
51:06Hmm. Okay. Right. All right. So. Talking about tight ends.
51:10And people. You're talking about a guy who's overvalued.
51:13One of the biggest values I see on the entire board.
51:17By the way. We. We are. We have that officially.
51:20On playerprofiler.com. Okay. Officially. We have Zay Flowers ranked ahead of Trey McBride.
51:25And we have Zay Flowers projected to score 10 more fantasy points this year than Trey McBride.
51:31So this isn't me hot taking. This isn't me just being edgy.
51:35But when you go to the rankings and you're in your draft.
51:39And you're. You're. You're. You're on the draft kit.
51:42It's telling you to draft Trey McBride. No. No.
51:46No. I'm telling you not to draft Trey McBride.
51:49Don't draft Trey McBride over Emeka Egbuka. Or Garrett Wilson.
51:52Or. Or Zay Flowers. Or even Nico Collins. No.
51:56Absolutely not. Not. The upside is not there. And there's also plenty of tight ends available later.
52:02It's a one-off position. It's tons of guys you can get later that aren't going to be exactly like him.
52:09But there is. You can get a guy that's exactly like him.
52:13You can get a carbon copy. Situation. Ability. Maybe even a little bit better situation.
52:18Maybe a little bit more ability. Maybe a little bit less target competition.
52:23In Tyler Warren. So. If you just want to set up the ADP arbitrage.
52:28Why the hell am I paying. The. The. Chris Olave.
52:31Jeremiah Love prices. For tight end. When I can get the same guy.
52:36And be paying. Trey Beyond Henderson. Jada. Brian Thomas Jr.
52:39Prices. Well. I'll go. I'll go a step further than that man.
52:44There is a tight end on the board. Where nine out of his past ten seasons is a top three tight end.
52:51Top six tight end in ten straight seasons. Travis Kelsey.
52:55Now all of a sudden we just are writing him off as dust.
53:00And drafting him after tight end ten. He could outproduce Trey McBride.
53:04I think he's etched in stone to me as a top five tight end.
53:09Is my point. And. Again. It's just like we all.
53:12Have just written it off that. He's just going to fall off a cliff.
53:17And be you know. Drafting around guys like Isaiah likely.
53:21Like this is where I start to have trouble.
53:24A guy who's never produced. Sniffed. The level that.
53:27Kelsey sniffed in his late thirties. Right. So. Do you see eye to eye with me on that?
53:34Not really. I'm not that interested in Kelsey this year.
53:37I only think that he could outproduce. Trey McBride.
53:40Because Trey McBride has the. The. Well. The expected touchdown regression.
53:44And if you just average his touchdowns from. 2024 and 2023.
53:48That's 2.5 touchdowns. On a team that's not going to score.
53:52So. I mean. He could easily. Post. You know.
53:55Several hundred. Less yards. And still with touchdowns. Equal.
53:58Trey McBride's fantasy output. Because he could get. You could have a.
54:03He could have a big touchdown season. You could get like nine touchdowns.
54:07So would you take Isaiah likely over Travis Kelsey?
54:10I. I think they're pretty. We have them pretty similarly ranked.
54:14I think in the ADPs. In best ball. At NFFC.
54:18Places like that. They're similar. I don't see. I see a little more.
54:22Up. With him. You're looking at touchdown upside. And I.
54:26I see a little more touchdown upside from Goddard.
54:29And. Guys like. Jake Ferguson. So. I'd rather just.
54:32I'd rather just hit the offense. It's. Kansas City.
54:35Shaking out well for him though. Like he is moving up.
54:39He definitely moved up in this last rankings update.
54:43He's going to keep moving up. As long as.
54:46Guys get. Keep getting hurt. Like Xavier. Worthy moved down.
54:49Those targets have to go somewhere. Right. So. Travis.
54:52Kelsey. If he finishes below tight end five. I will eat this hat.
54:57You're going to eat the hat. He's probably not going to be.
55:01Out of ten seasons he's done it. And the one season he didn't.
55:06He was hurt. But that. Okay. That. I just don't understand why we're just.
55:11Now all of a sudden. Now's the year where he's not a top five tight end anymore.
55:17Because there's a downtrend in his career. There's been a downtrend in his efficiency.
55:22There's been a downtrend overall. And so he went from like.
55:26Historic. All time seasons. To now just like. Tight end three.
55:30You know what I mean? His. If. Mahomes was not coming back from an ACL tear.
55:35We had a little more confidence. Everyone would be a little bit higher.
55:40Rashi. Rice would go a little bit earlier. This Cyrus Allen man.
55:44This Cyrus Allen. Is the real deal. They also really want to be more of a running team.
55:50With Kenneth Walker. I like to listen to teams.
55:54When they tell you what they are. So I think there's going to be fewer pass attempts.
56:00Especially with Mahomes coming back from the ACL. There's going to be a lot of catering the offense.
56:06To Kenneth Walker. He was a Super Bowl MVP after all.
56:10So. That's another issue. I think. I think. I looked at.
56:14His target share. And I was very pleased. Where we had projected his target share.
56:19And then I was curious. Why he wasn't scoring more fantasy points.
56:23But that was just because. We have. Kansas City projected for just less.
56:28Volume this year in the passing game. More in the running game.
56:32Because again. They had Kareem Hunt. They had nothing.
56:35They were getting no. Added value from the running back.
56:39Last year. And so. Everything's a little bit skewed.
56:42That's another reason why we're a little bit lower on Rashi Rice.
56:46We're below market on Rashi Rice for that reason.
56:50This shoulder injury. Where you know that Xavier Worthy has a history of shoulder injuries.
56:55Even though they say it's minor. We moved him down.
56:58Like that is a big red flag. And it's all systems go.
57:03For Cyrus Allen. Thank God. He had this massive collision.
57:06He gets carted off the field. Turns out it's just a bone bruise on his shin.
57:12Thank God. But he is a unique talent. He is operating in that intermediate area of the field.
57:18That's also where Kelsey operates. He had that area to himself.
57:22Rashi Rice has like a negative yak. No. Sorry.
57:25Rashi. Excuse me. Adot. Yes. Rashi Rice has a negative a dot.
57:30And he's all yak. And the opposite. They have two guys that are the polar opposite players where.
57:36Okay. Xavier Worthy is. Is is all air yards.
57:39And basically Cyrus Allen is going to be what they wanted.
57:43Sky more and Jalen Royals to be that intermediate.
57:46Separator chain mover. Wolf. Give them another. Another option other than Travis Kelsey.
57:51Why do you got to look at selling Cyrus Allen when you say it like that?
57:56Dude, it's just we've been burned so many times with these training camp.
58:01You know, Justin Ross looking amazing. Sky Moore is the next guy.
58:05You know, Kadarius Tony can fill Tyreek Hill's role, right?
58:09Like year after year after year, we get way ahead of our skis on someone.
58:14And just to be clear, I know that you were on a show recently with the coach where he shouted me out as the OG Cyrus Allen head.
58:24I have him in like every single league and I'm in a creators league with all the, you know, the big fantasy heads.
58:32First guy to scoop them off waivers. Your boy.
58:35Right. So I've got him everywhere. But I think at this point, if you've got him everywhere and you know who this
58:43guy is, you've got to start floating out offers for second round picks.
58:48Get some lock in some actual real equity. Well, you wouldn't trade a second for a guy that you pick up off waivers before the season even starts.
58:58He's a fifth round pick who, you know, didn't have a puka-esque college profile.
59:03Like there's not, there's not a ton under the hood there to just be like, oh, this guy's clearly the next, you know, big star.
59:11Like, I think you've got to, you've got to capitalize on hype sometimes.
59:16What leagues are you getting a 20, 27 second?
59:19Do you realize how hard it is to get a 20, 27 second?
59:24That's why I'm saying in any serious league, you're not going to get a 20, 27 second for Cyrus Allen who's just scooped off on waiver.
59:33No one is ever going to do that. I don't know what league, have you done that transaction before?
59:40Please flash it. Show us the receipt. I think you were on trade gods looking at trades where you were almost like somewhat insinuating that that's the value.
59:50Right. And point is, it's, it's not, I saw it once.
59:54I mean, it's not far off. Like if someone offers you a guy they picked up in the third round, I'm just
60:01thinking, you know, maybe even not, not Antonio Williams after the dig signing, but someone like that who was like a guy
60:09where there's just no immediate path, almost like a Jacoby lane.
60:13And you're hearing all this buzz coming out about Cyrus Allen.
60:17And you're like, man, there could be an immediate path and a good offense with Patrick Mahomes.
60:23Like, and we're getting news from player profiler that he's exactly what, what Kansas city needs.
60:29You're not letting go of for him for a third at this point.
60:33I don't think, I don't think I would receive her 75.
60:37It's way too early to let him go. You're not going to get a second rounder.
60:43I know one person did once upon a time in one league and we found it in the trade finder because our
60:50trade finder searches all these leagues everywhere and finds one league that had happened.
60:55That's not normal. That's not, that's not possible. I'm sure.
60:59Let us know in the chat. Have you ever seen or heard of a Cyrus in real life, in the wild Cyrus Allen commanding a 20, 27 second?
61:09It's impossible. You're not, that's not going to happen.
61:12I mean, it's not even worth your time. I wouldn't even offer it because it's not going to happen.
61:19You need, I've been trying to layer them in for guys like say flowers is my point.
61:25Maybe you add a first and Cyrus Allen. And all of a sudden that a deal is actually somewhat enticing to someone, right?
61:33It's too early. We do hit preseason. I haven't even started yet.
61:37He, there's more room to go. This is a classic stock market fallacy where as soon as there's one thrust up, there's
61:45a, there's a philosophy that's like, okay, flip it like grip, flip it.
61:50Just flip, flip, flip, fifth round pick, flip, fifth round pick, sell, sell the hype, sell the hype, sell the hype.
61:57You don't, yes, sell the hype, but you need to wait.
62:01There's the, the, let the bubble grow. And all these guys were thinking that the stock market was going to crash in
62:0920, uh, 2006, like the real estate bubble, 2007, you know, it, some of them went bankrupt trying to short the market
62:16because the bubble just kept growing and growing. And they, they, they, they had a very difficult, couldn't even understand how illogical the euphoria was, right?
62:26The irrational exuberance couldn't, couldn't even get their head around it.
62:30I'm telling you there's a lot more room to grow and room to run with Cyrus Allen.
62:36He is way past Jalen Royals. Now way past Sky more.
62:39He's what he is good. It is a, it is a, you have to understand he is officially good and giving him up for say a third rounder.
62:49Can you really think you can get a player better than him in the third round next year?
62:56I mean, maybe, maybe not. I, I would depends on the, if I think it was early third rounder, I'd be very
63:03tempted, but I haven't received those yet. I'm just, I keep scrolling through all these news stories.
63:10I mean, Cyrus Allen is the most blurbed about player on player profile.
63:14And we have very high standards. You go to another news service.
63:18You're going to see a lot of news that is just nonsense hype from coaches.
63:24It's just coaches saying we expect big things. And then that somehow shows up on sleeper, right?
63:30I mean, all these news blurbs like roto baller, this person is an intriguing buy.
63:35He's an intriguing buy. He's an intriguing stash. All this AI slop news.
63:40You don't get that on player profiler. Okay. What you get on player profiler is real actionable news on players that matter.
63:47Okay. And there's no, no player that's getting more news written about them than Cyrus Allen.
63:53It comes from beat reporters. It comes from the coaches.
63:57It comes from the teammates. It comes from Patrick Mahomes.
64:00And it's not like, oh, we're expecting big things.
64:03It's no, this guy took the first rep of practice.
64:07No, this guy was my first read. That's different.
64:10That's absolutely actionable. So every time I'm like, really?
64:13We're going to do another Cyrus Allen? Really? Another one?
64:17And then I read it and I'm like, yeah.
64:20Yeah. That's actionable. Sometimes these guys are just actionable.
64:23Jacoby Myers was actionable. He was out playing Nikhil Harry in camp.
64:27And there was something very similar happening. And it just, it wasn't just a drumbeat.
64:33It was the specifics around the things Brady was saying, the things the coaches were saying, the things that the teammates were saying.
64:41And so I'm getting a lot of that now with Cyrus Allen.
64:45On the flip side, you take a guy like Luther Burden, Luther Burden, you're just seeing the same one play where he
64:53dominated a corner on a play over and over and over again.
64:57And if enough people retweet it, then it's like you've seen it five times.
65:02And it's like it happened five times. No, it only happened once.
65:06He had one great play. And I'm sure there was a great play that Roma Dunze made at some point that didn't
65:14get made into a clip for social media. So that's where the hype can, like a guy like Luther Burden, who hasn't
65:22actually produced at all in the NFL, his, you know, that's the thing.
65:26It's like, how can you love Luther Burden and Trey McBride?
65:30Like you can't have it both ways. You can't be someone who's like, well, target share is very sticky year to year and it doesn't change.
65:40So Trey McBride is a for sure thing, right?
65:43So if I scroll down and Trey McBride, his target share last year was what?
65:4827.4. And it's probably going to be 27.4 this year.
65:52Oh, okay. Even though there's more target competition. Got it.
65:55What about Luther Burden? Oh, no, no. Luther Burden's different.
65:59No, no. Luther Burden. Yeah. His target share was only 12.8% last year, but oh, he was probably playing hurt and he was a rookie.
66:07He was getting acclimated and there's no DJ more anymore.
66:11So now your removal is DJ more targets. Well, he's going to get all those and he's way better now because he's
66:19worked out so hard in the offseason. That 12.8% target share is going to be 24 now.
66:25You can't have it both ways. If you're going to go ahead and project out Luther Burden, which we're doing, by the way, we are projecting Luther Burden.
66:35We have him ahead of Roma Dunze. Because there's no more DJ more for a lot of those reasons.
66:41Do we have him up where some of the most bullish analysts have him?
66:46Of course not. We're not losing our minds about Luther Burden, but we're being pragmatic about this.
66:52But by the same token, you can't just post up everybody with a big target share last year and then also increase
67:00the target shares of the guys that you like.
67:03Then all of a sudden, the NFL is going to have like 120% target share.
67:09You can't do that. So we are malleable. We're very open to moving Trey McBride's target share down if the conditions on the ground dictate it.
67:18And we're open to moving Luther Burden's target share up, but not so aggressively.
67:23It's just like there's no one moving Trey McBride's target share down aggressively.
67:27You don't ever see that. That'll never happen. That'll never happen.
67:31But there's the bias. There's the bias. We've just isolated the bias.
67:36That's actually pretty. That's a good breakdown. I'll give you that.
67:39No, we have isolated. That is the bias right there.
67:43There's plenty of analysts that will flag wave and run laps around certain players and spike the football, literally doubling their target share.
67:51But they would never cut a player's target share in half when doing serious projections.
67:56And again, if you do it that way, if that's how you're going to run your projection shop, then you have to
68:04understand that you're breaking the rules of math and that you're basically going to be counting 120% of targets.
68:11Yeah. No, great point. I am curious to get your thoughts on this.
68:16Someone said drop Torrey Horton, Jalen McMillan for Cyrus.
68:19I don't know anything about the guy. I believe in the two I have rostered.
68:24We know Jalen McMillan news on the street easily.
68:27Knee injury timetable without. You need to get Cyrus Allen.
68:31He's he has room to run. He needs to be rostered in every league.
68:36Yes. Is it a bubble? Yes. But guess what?
68:39There's a lot of companies. There's a lot of companies that have come out of bubbles.
68:45Bigger than they were before the bubble. So that's what's going to happen.
68:49Is it a bubble? Yes. Will they where there will there be a point when you can sell high?
68:56Yes. I will tell you when that is. It is too soon now.
69:00But he is going higher. Everything. Which one of those?
69:04You're not even letting him play in preseason like he is a rookie.
69:09He is going to get a ton of run in preseason.
69:12Do you realize what's going to happen when he has one one impressive catch from Patrick Mahomes in preseason and you're selling him now for a third rounder?
69:22No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
69:29In fact, if I were to sell him for a third rounder, I want to make sure I'm getting a running back back that I want.
69:39So I would I would have to get at least a running back with upside at Keaton Mitchell, a Kamani Vidal.
69:46Like I'm thinking of Chargers because that's the team that I, you know, it's just a Sean Tucker.
69:52I would have to get a running back with some serious upside in addition to him.
69:58I mean, have you seen where Cyrus Allen is now in our dynasty rankings?
70:03Did you do your research before the show, Johnny?
70:06No. I love calling you Johnny because it's over my mic.
70:10I used to work for a guy. He was the head equipment manager at Northwestern and I was a little slappy.
70:18Right. So I was a slappy and he used to call everybody Johnny.
70:22Have you ever heard that? Have you ever heard people that call everybody Johnny?
70:27Johnny? No, but I like it. He called me Johnny, called Greg Johnny.
70:32He called everybody Johnny. And so I love, hey, Johnny.
70:35You know, but you're actually Johnny. It's great. So let's just let's just plug this in here.
70:41I'm going to pull this up. Dude, you have we have Cyrus Allen ahead of Antonio Williams.
70:47That was my exact point. Oh, yeah. Sure. Why not?
70:51I'm not even arguing. It's just crazy, though. Like we're talking about.
70:55It's just two rounds difference. One's a third round or one's a fifth rounder.
71:00What's the big difference? Just a few. You have them.
71:04One guy's not a big time. Either one of these guys are big time producers in college.
71:10I mean, what's the big one? Antonio Williams, best comparable to the aforementioned Jalen McMillan.
71:15You should be dropping for Cyrus Allen. Like just does does Antonio Williams have a thousand yard season on his resume?
71:22No. What is the problem? These guys are both guys that max out like a 20 percent college target share.
71:29They're very similar. It's just that one guy is getting just an effusive praise throughout camp from everyone from the head coach
71:37to the best quarterback in the world. And Antonio Williams, have you heard his name mentioned ever?
71:43I mean, maybe once or twice that he's having a strong camp.
71:47He's made some plays here and there. But so has Seth McGowan.
71:52Right. Seth McGowan flashing physicality. That's that's on our news feed.
71:56Wolf. Well, that matters, though, because DJ Giddens is just a guy.
72:00DJ Giddens is highly underwhelming. Probably doesn't have enough dog to be the RV to there because he's an athlete.
72:07And so he's not translating that into what coaches want.
72:10Clearly, he's had more than a season. You know, this is he's on a second offseason with the Colts and he would have established himself by now.
72:20And so now the door is open. And if you're getting coaches coming in and saying, hey, by the way, the guy
72:28we were really impressed with is Seth McGowan and crickets about DJ Giddens.
72:32It's the one player that I felt really bad for with the dig signing going to Washington was McCaffrey.
72:39Because Luke McCaffrey had a path to be the starting slot receiver in those days are over.
72:45Like it's it's more a shot at McCaffrey. If McCaffrey was playing really well and flashing, there would have been less incentive to sign Stefan Diggs.
72:54But I think that they basically felt like we have two receivers we can even care about.
73:00And that's not enough. So we got to bring in Stefan Diggs.
73:05So now Antonio Williams is parked for a season where you have a mobile quarterback who's going to be pulling dropbacks and
73:12displacing them from the passing game to the running game.
73:16That's what players like Josh Allen and Jaden Daniels and Lamar Jackson do.
73:20Patrick Mahomes is going to do less of that than he's ever done before.
73:25And they've talked about that. That's the plan for Patrick Mahomes this year.
73:30So now we've got a tight end that's about to retire.
73:34We have a wide receiver who has what would we say a negative a dot?
73:39A field stretcher with glass shoulders. Cyrus Allen is in a great position to command at least a 10 percent, if not
73:4715 percent target share this year, where Antonio Williams, that's like his ceiling.
73:52So now I'm just drafting him over Cyrus Allen because he's a little bit faster and was drafted earlier, but not like
73:59with top 50 draft capital, like third rounder. Right.
74:03Most third round wide receivers are busts. Spoiler alert.
74:06So what's the big deal? Like that's one of those things where I'm like.
74:11In the years past, I was probably thinking we're too early or too late.
74:16I will say this year. I've been very pleased with the pacing of the momentum of players on specifically our dynasty rankings,
74:23but also best ball and in the draft kit and in the seasonal ranks.
74:28I think our pacing of players with momentum has been as good as it gets.
74:34And that's so many years of experience to get to that point where yet right now, given what we've seen from Cyrus
74:41Allen and the signing of Stefan Diggs and we haven't seen from Antonio Williams.
74:46If I'm in a startup or if I'm in a rookie draft, I'm in a rookie draft right now and I will
74:54tell you, I'm not going to do this, but I will tell you again, I, I, I, I'm a professional hype fader.
75:02Right. I like Luther burden, everybody on Twitter, every fantasy analyst, especially anyone with like a, like a hipster avatar.
75:09Uh, they're all pro bird. No one's anti burden, right?
75:13It's a, it's the everybody and burden's very good.
75:16Like burden also has the high dog rating from Cody, which that's a big reason why I'm comfortable with him being probably
75:24the most aggressively projected player for us in terms of from year one to year two.
75:29So I'm, I'm there, I'm there, but I'm not there there with, and I, you know, a lot of times I'm like,
75:37eh, guys, this is a little, this is a little aggressive, not so much with, with Cyrus Allen.
75:43And I'm in a draft, I have the two Oh two in a rookie draft.
75:49And I'm not saying I put him in the queue, but I can say, because the two Oh two this year is
75:56not the two Oh two next year. Right. Of course I would trade the two Oh two for a 20, 27 second instantly.
76:05I would run and do it. I would trade all my picks, all my remaining picks for a 20, 27 second in
76:12this dog shit of a draft class. 20, 26 draft.
76:16It's a joke. Look who I'm looking at. Chris bell.
76:19Will he even play this year? Nick Singleton. Will he play this year?
76:24Touch squeezed. Jonah Coleman comes into the league with a touch squeeze.
76:28Ty Simpson. He'll, he'll, he'll be starting in 2029.
76:31Why do I care? Chris Brazzles next up. He's out for the year.
76:36Sarat's getting his job taken by Jacoby lane. I'm just looking at the ADP.
76:41This is, he's in our rankings. Yeah. No, I'll go.
76:45Maybe I'll go. Maybe I'll go Emmett Johnson after they just signed the Superbowl MVP to play his position.
76:51Like what are what? I think. So yeah, Emmett Johnson's like RB four to you got the Mercado ahead of him.
76:59People have just written off Brashard Smith. So I think there's a little, they're getting live that ADP has always been a little rich for me.
77:08I'm happy to write off Brashard Smith, but no, Demarcado is a number two there.
77:13Period. That is what it is. That will be the case in week one.
77:18So suddenly Cyrus Allen becomes an interesting play in the second round.
77:22We are over an hour in. We have talked about Cyrus Allen.
77:27We've talked about tight end market. We've talked about Zay Flowers.
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78:40In the chat, they're asking for Luther Burden's best comp.
78:43And it's very close. It's very obvious. It's very clear.
78:47It's Sammy Watkins. He looks like Sammy Watkins out there.
78:50Just his gait, his stature, even this, even the big plays he's making.
78:55Those are exactly the type of big plays that Sammy Watkins would make.
78:59It says that Sammy Watkins had a low dog rating.
79:03He's basically Sammy Watkins with a higher dog rating, which means that he'll have more thousand yard seasons.
79:09Sammy Watkins capped out at 1,047 yards. And that's about what Burden's going to do.
79:15A thousand yard receiver. Thousand yards and five touchdowns.
79:18He's going to be solid. He's going to be solid.
79:21But no, he does not have the ceiling of Roma Dunze.
79:25And the more I think about it, the more I just consider builds and draft strategy.
79:31I want to be open to soaking up Colston Loveland when he slips.
79:35Yes. And then if I don't get, see, because I really just in terms of like, what are you doing in real
79:43life when the bullets are flying in a real draft?
79:47I'm going to, I'm happy to, to, to, to push that button on Colston Loveland.
79:52And then if I don't get Colston Loveland, but I get kind of hyped up to get an elite tight end, I
80:00can just get Tyler Warren like a round later.
80:03So I find that to be the case from a, like a, just a psychology standpoint.
80:09When I think I might get Loveland, but then he goes like a pick before me, I'm more likely to draft Warren
80:16because I'm like, Ooh, that felt good. It felt good to kind of slip into that warm tight end world, that warm elite tight end world.
80:26I kind of like how my, my, my feet felt comfy in those slippers.
80:31And then I don't have to think about, Oh, rotting the touchdown variance wave on like Goddard or Ferguson.
80:37And I can just, I can just know that it's going to be awesome.
80:42And probably those guys will outproduce Trey McBride. I don't know about outproduce Trey McBride, but I will say I am the
80:50biggest Loveland fan in the entire world. Like through all my shitty podcast.
80:55If you're the biggest Loveland fan, then you would absolutely say he's going to outproduce Trey McBride.
81:01Maybe, maybe it's not again, I mean, think about the, think about, think about their situation, right?
81:07Okay. So they've got an ascending mega prolific quarterback, a quarterback that many believe, including Cody can be the passing yards leader in the NFL.
81:16I don't know about that. I don't know if he goes over 4,000 man.
81:21Caleb Williams. Yeah. You don't think he's going to go over 4,000 yards?
81:25Hasn't done it yet, but he's on a trajectory.
81:28You can see that, but that's what I'm saying.
81:31There's a trajectory there. Trey McBride can only go down from here.
81:36But in his third year in the league with stability, I love the stability.
81:41I love the same offensive coordinator. I don't put a lot of stock in offensive coordinators or systems, as you know, but I do put stock in continuity.
81:51Continuity with the offensive line. Oh, they just signed Darnell Wright to a long-term extension at left tackle.
81:57I love that. Oh, baby, do I love that.
82:00Right? I love that they have, in terms of Loveland is the best blocking move tight end in the league.
82:07And then you have Kemet in 12 personnel. You can't get to Caleb Williams in that case.
82:13And then they only have the two wide receivers.
82:16And those two wide receivers are locked in. You know who they're going to be.
82:22You always know who's going to be out there in 12 personnel.
82:26You always know who's going to be out there in 11 personnel.
82:30Khalif Raymond. Yeah, there's no rotation. Like, it's just, you know, it's very solid.
82:35No, you know they're not coming off the field.
82:38The Dunes and Burden are not coming off the field, and neither is Loveland.
82:43And look, because Loveland's a proper two-way tight end.
82:46He's a great blocker, right? Because we have Dan Fornick.
82:50He does our tight end rankings. And, you know, he's like, hey, like, Colson Loveland is an incredible blocker.
82:57Even at this young age, which is really impressive.
83:00And it just increases his ceiling, which means he's going to have a higher snap share and more opportunities to catch touchdowns.
83:08And so you go, okay, so this is actually a pretty consolidated target share.
83:13When you actually think about it, you've got a Dunes playing the Harrison role.
83:18You've got Burden playing the Michael Wilson role. And you've got no third receiver of consequence.
83:23Same in Arizona. Same in Chicago. Right? You've got a proper X and a proper Z.
83:29And then you've got a proper two-way tight end.
83:32So the whole offense is set up the same, except Arizona has a better pass catcher out of the backfield, which will compete with tight end targets.
83:42Command some tight end targets. Jeremiah Love. And it's a better offense with the Bears.
83:47I get you. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
83:50Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. So I'm setting it all up.
83:54Okay? So even if these were equivalent offenses, the situation is a little bit better for Loveland.
84:00And they doesn't have to compete with Jeremiah Love.
84:04Now, make the quarterback Caleb Williams and make the other quarterback Jacoby Brissett.
84:08Dude, Brissett can sling it, dude. He is fantasy gold.
84:12He's 2026's Jameis Winston. Yeah, Winston. There you go.
84:15He's 2026 Jameis Winston. Doesn't mean you're going to win the game.
84:19It means they're going to throw it 40 times because they're losing.
84:23And you absolutely need to go to Vegas and bet the over on the Cardinals.
84:29No, I do not. No, I do not. You should.
84:32No, I do not. From everything I'm hearing, you have a completely different view of the Cardinals than I do.
84:39Well, maybe. You know, because these LaFleur bros, like, they know a thing or two about how to get something out of the offense.
84:48I think it'll be a better offense than it was last year.
84:52I think they'll still be losing a lot of games, playing from behind, throwing the ball a ton.
84:58Brissett has just changed. He was a guy who couldn't throw the ball five yards down the field a few years ago.
85:06Now he just throws it without care. Like I said, like a Jameis Winston does.
85:12So I think it's more to me that even if I go just down 20% of what Trey McBride did last year,
85:19and then you almost double what Loveland did, they're similar, right?
85:23Now, the case for Loveland is that the way he finished and the way they used him in the playoffs is the
85:31way that they're going to use him all of 2026.
85:35If that's the case, we're talking about a guy who should be in the same conversation as Brock Bowers.
85:41And that's who I had kind of as his comp coming out is a guy who is just does it all almost
85:49more of a receiver than a tight end, truly.
85:52But to your point, Loveland can block. I was the first guy on player profiler during the draft last year.
85:59I said he will be the first tight end taken.
86:03And there was seven to one odds at that point because everyone etched it in stone.
86:08It was going to be Tyler Warren, right? But when you get a guy like Ben Johnson who goes and picks him
86:16ahead of Tyler Warren, I never had a doubt in my mind that Colson Loveland is going to be a top two
86:24or three tight end in this league for the next 10 or 15 years, man.
86:29So your mic was working when you made that prediction?
86:33I actually put it in writing and we made a graphic out of it and we posted it before the draft.
86:40So I'm not just making this crap up. And yeah, all my shitty mic shows before you go back a year when
86:48I'm talking about this rookie class, not a single show.
86:52Did I not get on a freaking podium and talk about Colson Loveland for five to 10 minutes?
86:58And even when he was, he had a slow start to his rookie year.
87:03You know what I was doing? I was buying him everywhere, right?
87:07I traded him. This one actually kind of came out as a wash a little bit, but it was a full point tight end premium league.
87:16I traded him straight up for Chris Olave. Now, Chris Olave had a great end of the season, all that.
87:23But I mean, in a full point tight end premium league, I'm still taking Loveland.
87:29So I think I actually got a little on top too.
87:33We have an awesome article up on the site from Dylan Fitzgerald about prediction markets and how to leverage prediction markets.
87:40So check it out. And there's links to sign up on CalShib, also Polymarket, also Novig, and get some deposit bonuses and all that good stuff.
87:49Also, FastDraft. We just launched a reload bonus. So when you go to FastDraft, the rabbit is rocking now.
87:56August, the switch flipped and these drafts are happening fast and furious.
88:00So go to FastDraft and you can play in a 15-round best ball.
88:05It's just much more straightforward format. Faster, easier, and there's a lot of exploitable ADPs.
88:10You're probably going to talk about a couple of exploitable ADPs there on FastDraft.
88:15In the rabbit specifically, maybe you're drafting Cyrus Allen around 15.
88:19Yeah, he's not being drafted very much in the rabbit, if at all.
88:24Not at all. I don't think that's probably a little bit aggressive for him.
88:29But there's a lot of great choices in the final couple rounds where it's like things have moved based on the news that you can take advantage.
88:38And again, the code for anyone that wants to redeposit.
88:42If you've already deposited, great. Deposit again with code reload and you get at least a $10 match.
88:48You get $10 if you do that. That's courtesy of me.
88:52You're welcome. And then we also have the prediction markets promo up on Player Profiler.
88:57If there is a prediction market, if anyone can find the prediction, I will take it.
89:03Because it's a long shot prediction. But that the top four tight ends finish Bowers, Warren, Loveland, McBride.
89:09I'm not predicting that to be what happens. But I think that the odds of that happening are higher than I believe
89:17the market would have them set at. You make some serious money.
89:21A couple quick ones on the rabbit. You've got Janarian Price at a 90.2 ADP.
89:27Absolutely deep. You've got Bishaw Tootin at a 74.9.
89:30David Montgomery at 82.8 ADP. That's my favorite one.
89:33The Montgomery ADP is my favorite. Some of these are absolutely insane.
89:37If I could draft, I'd be getting Montgomery in every league.
89:41I have in the rabbit, I've got 28% Montgomery exposure.
89:45One I missed. DJ Moore, 85.7 ADP on the rabbit.
89:48He's going in 40 on DraftKings. 23% exposure there.
89:51Again, I'm way, way overweight on Janarian Price. I think I've got like 30 or 40% of him.
89:58Just because when every other app you're drafting on has these guys going in the fourth and fifth round.
90:04That's just, that's plus EV, right? For you guys to take advantage of.
90:09So one of my, it's absolutely my favorite format to draft in right now because it feels like in every, Ricky Pearsall's going in every draft still, right?
90:19You know, so take advantage of some of those moves and some of those ADPs.
90:24I'm not giving any more away because I got some money to win myself.
90:29But I want to talk about one guy, one thought I have.
90:33It's, I think it's, it's as hot as some of the takes you've offered.
90:38I think that Stefan Diggs is the best wide receiver on the commanders right now.
90:44I think Terry McLaurin is sneakily almost 31 years old.
90:47So there's, there's not this big, oh, one guy.
90:50What does that mean? What does that mean? What do you mean?
90:55What do you mean sneakily? What does that mean?
90:58Like, I think people still think he's like in the prime of his life is kind of what it means.
91:05I just, you think me off guard a little bit.
91:08Who have you talked to that thinks he's in this prime?
91:1230.9. I don't know, man. It just caught me off guard a little bit.
91:17I don't know. This is just a Johnny narrative.
91:20This is a Johnny narrative. You pulled this out of the sky.
91:25This is based on nothing. Just want to make sure people know that.
91:29Well, I'm just saying he's not even that much younger than like Devontae Adams, right?
91:35Like, are there a couple of these guys he's a few years younger than?
91:40Well, the difference between like a 29, 30-year-old wide receiver and 32, 33 is huge.
91:45You're talking about the last great season a guy can put together, like an Andre Johnson, where when he's 33, he's on
91:53the Titans and he's giving you 400 yards. So it can be a huge difference for a wide receiver, but not typically a guy like Stefan Diggs.
92:02A guy like Stefan Diggs who wins with finesse and technical skills, they have a longer career.
92:08So, yeah, he's 32, but Stefan Diggs, I mean, we instantly, you know, put him way up, even in Dynasty.
92:15I was, I was, yeah, after I plugged in the projections, I was excited to see what the lifetime value engine, where it would peg Stefan Diggs.
92:25And it actually, it had him ahead of Cyrus Allen.
92:28Shocking. Just barely. Just barely. No, no, no. It had him, it instantly had him ahead of Cyrus Allen, ahead of Tank
92:36Dell, Travis Hunter, Debo, Antonio Williams, Jeremy Bernard, Romeo Dobbs, all those guys, like shot him right ahead of all those guys.
92:44And he's 32. I mean, this is Dynasty, right?
92:47I mean, he's right there with Khalil Shakir. And it makes sense.
92:51He and Khalil Shakir will probably have similar seasons this year.
92:55He'll probably outproduce Khalil Shakir. He'll outproduce Khalil Shakir.
92:58He's quite a bit younger. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I, he could outproduce Quinton Johnston.
93:04Why wouldn't he outproduce Quinton Johnston? He could have a season like Rashid Shahid.
93:09I think those are, those are all very, very much in, in his range of outcomes.
93:15Look at the advanced stats on, on Stefan Diggs last year.
93:19Do you see this? If you go to player profiler, he was number five in explosive play rating.
93:25Number five in explosive play rating. Look at that.
93:29We love it. That's my point, man. I think he's, he's got the most juice.
93:34He's going to be an underneath target. He's the player to own.
93:38I think he'll outproduce Terry McLaurin is my point.
93:41Well, that's not going to happen. Terry McLaurin has been in camp.
93:46Terry McLaurin has been the established alpha there. Terry McLaurin is in the final year.
93:51I would say of his prime. Terry McLaurin has been a sports car with no injuries.
93:57That's why sometimes when people say something like this guy is, is, is sneaky old, right?
94:02Or he's sneaky dusty, right? Typically that's because there's been a lot of lower body injuries.
94:08And even though the guy's 29, he really plays like a 31 year old.
94:13That's the one concern you have with a guy like AJ Brown.
94:17Like he's 28 going on 32. Yeah. With like two bad knees.
94:21That is, that is the concern, but you don't have that concern with Terry McLaurin.
94:27Terry McLaurin has been tip top. He's been playing 17 games every year.
94:31No health issues came in this, came into the NFL a little bit later than, than most wide receivers.
94:38Third round pick wasn't an early declare wasn't shoot up in college even, right?
94:43He was lately used in college. So to me, he's not a guy that is going to age poorly.
94:50I think he and digs will both age well, which is part of the problem.
94:55Certainly Antonio Williams is going to need an injury to do anything this year.
95:00And then even next year, he's going to be looking at a Terry McLaurin who is in great shape and is going
95:08to be producing at a high level even next year.
95:11So then when, when are we really going to get, especially with a mobile quarterback?
95:16What do you, what is the, what is the, it's like with Jacoby Lane and Antonio Williams to me have very similar problems.
95:25And that they're years away from potentially ever being the number one.
95:29Jacoby Lane will never be. Antonio Williams could theoretically be that guy in like three or four years, but at that point we'll even be in Washington.
95:38It's like, well, what are we even doing here?
95:42Why do we even care? Right. Right. These are mobile quarterbacks who are going to lock in on their number one wide
95:49receiver, their tight end, and they might check it down to a running back.
95:54Maybe, probably not. Wide receiver twos tethered to mobile quarterbacks are dead.
95:59I mean, it is a death sentence. Are you saying that for digs?
96:03That's what I'm hearing. Why? Because he'd be the wide receiver too.
96:07No, for Antonio Williams. Okay. Because digs is the one, is the one B.
96:12Right. That's kind of my point. Right. There's the one B.
96:16There's always two guys that can get fed in those offenses.
96:20The, the big question is going to be who does Jaden Daniels prefer?
96:25Is it Chig as, as the number two option or digs?
96:29I think we know the answer. And obviously, obviously it's digs.
96:33So who was the most impacted by this signing?
96:36It was not actually Antonio Williams. What I'm telling you is it was, it was Chig.
96:41Yeah. And positive for Jaden Daniels sneaky as well.
96:45I think that, yeah, I think that. I was, I was a little bit floored.
96:50There was a, when we, when we updated projections based on everything that's happened in the last couple of days, that was
96:58the one guy where I was a little bit floored with how far he fell.
97:03Yeah. Was Chigakonkwo. Cause I love Chigakonkwo. And there's certainly some elements of his profile that can, that can prop him up
97:11in dynasty, but there's no propping him up in seasonal leagues.
97:15Even in tight end premium. Like he's pretty dead now.
97:18He's pretty dead, but you can't say that a Jacoby lane or an Elijah Surratt is going to supplant.
97:25Mark Andrews and the target pecking order. No one's saying that.
97:29Just like no one was saying Antonio Williams is going to supplant Akankwo.
97:33Everyone was like pretty locked. We were all in lockstep.
97:37Hey man, Akankwo is the second best wide receiver in this team.
97:41Really? And now the digs is there that whoever, whoever is the third option.
97:46Usually I say wide receiver too, because typically there's either a target magnet running back or a tight end.
97:53That commands a bunch of targets. And so if you're the second receiver, you have to be quite good in order to produce with a mobile quarterback.
98:02Diggs is good enough to be the one B.
98:06No way. Jacoby lane is that no way. Antonio Williams is that there's just no way.
98:11So, I mean, they're, they're pretty, I mean, Antonio Williams is a cell low much in the way that Jacoby lane is a cell high.
98:20They're convert. They're on like a collision course. In fact, if we go to the dynasty rankings, I bet they're very close.
98:28Absolute nuts landing spot for Stefan Diggs. Couldn't have been a better spot.
98:32I think it was talked about all off season.
98:36Um, and this guy has so much dog in him, like getting to see him at the Superbowl and interview him.
98:43He kind of puts you on edge a little bit because he's just so intense.
98:48And he talked for five or 10 minutes about what his legacy means to him wanting to be a hall of famer.
98:56That's the kind of guy I want to hitch my wagon to who I think can have a couple, one or two more really strong years.
99:05So I'm in on Diggs this year, man. I'm excited about it.
99:10I think it's a great spot. I think he's that hall of fame type player to that point.
99:16McDaniels offense, uh, one of the comments we got picking it up in year one last year, being a leader on that Patriots team.
99:24Um, I think he's got a bit of a negative persona about him, but he is just all ball and he really wants to leave a legacy.
99:34That was the biggest thing I picked up from listening to him.
99:38So, uh, I like that kind of guy. I'm happy to hitch my wagon to that.
99:44I want to close it out with you and talk through one potential, just like we knew, we knew that Stefan Diggs was going to be a commander.
99:54It was only a matter of time. I am telling you now, we know Keenan Allen is going to be an Indianapolis Colt.
100:02It's only a matter of time. In that scenario, you are the king of the Josh Downs fan club.
100:09Keenan Allen is going to take valuable targets out of that slot.
100:13He's going to maybe even eat into Tyler Warren, who you're high on.
100:18I think this could be a major thorn in your side for those Colts projections for those two players.
100:24What do you think about that? Keenan Allen's dust.
100:27I'm not worried about Keenan Allen. I knew you were going to say something like that.
100:33I'm not worried about Keenan Allen. I'm not worried about Najee Harris.
100:37Get out of here. It's over. Like, it's very much over.
100:41Keenan Allen's another guy that like, he's sneaky old.
100:44It's not sneaky. It's not. That one's not sneaky.
100:48That's my point. Right. He's not. He has been largely healthy, but he's had a lot of lower body injuries.
100:55That's what I'm saying. No, I'm not talking about how he looks.
100:59Yes. He looks like he's 70. Yes. Yes. He looks.
101:02He looks like in the Odyssey before he pulls the bow back.
101:07Spoiler alert. Matt Damon is dressed as a beggar.
101:10And yeah. So yes, he could be that character in the Odyssey for sure.
101:15That would be Keenan Allen would play that character.
101:18He'd be great. He'd be great as the lead in the Odyssey for sure.
101:23Keenan Allen. I'm a fan of that. But he's not.
101:26He's. I mean, I know he's capable of having a game here and there, but no.
101:32Like if he signed with the Bears, would you be worried for Luther Burden?
101:37You don't want to hear my answer. I heard someone talking about what Khalif Raymond could mean for the Bears.
101:44So. Okay. Josh Downs is awesome. Josh Downs is the.
101:48You know, intermediate. Separator that Keenan Allen was in his prime.
101:52Like that. That I think that Josh Downs and Luther Burden could have similar seasons or the Josh Downs.
101:58Because I, this was a posted on Twitter that I said this, I was quoted saying Josh, Josh Downs could easily outproduce Luther Burden.
102:07And I'm like. Duh. Like. Like. It would be one thing.
102:11Maybe if a Dunes, they was missing all of camp with an ankle injury and was going to go on pop.
102:18Then. Okay. No way. But. That's not. One guy has Burden.
102:22Burden has. Has Loveland. Downs has Warren. Okay. That cancels.
102:26And then. Downs has Duhlin. And Burden has a Dunes.
102:29Like. Okay. Where do you think all the targets are going?
102:33And who actually is a better skill match? What is Caleb Williams like to do?
102:38Does Caleb Williams like to stay in the middle of the field?
102:43Or does he like to go aggressive to the perimeter?
102:46Well, he's not very good at it. He's. Has one of the largest.
102:51Inaccurate throw to sound field rates in the NFL.
102:54Right. But does he push the ball? Does he throw there?
102:58Is there a. Does he. He. He is of the.
103:01He is of the school of you miss all the shots you don't take.
103:06Right. Yeah. But Ben Johnson's not. Oh, my God.
103:09Enough. I really. Honestly. I want to have like a dog collar for all these podcast hosts.
103:15Let us know in the chat. Should all podcast hosts on player profiler.
103:20When they say some baseless coach nonsense. Like. Baseless.
103:23Like. You know. No. Do you think Ben Johnson.
103:26You know, they turn the headset off. Did you know this?
103:30Maybe you don't know this. As in a former equipment manager.
103:34I'll tell you how this works. They turn the headset off.
103:38So Ben Johnson is not like playing a video game.
103:42Telling him what to do during the play. He does whatever the fuck he wants.
103:47You don't. You know that. Right. Do you know that?
103:50You know. I love how. How people that have never played professional sports.
103:55Think that the coach has all this power to affect what happens on any given play.
104:01And they don't. Like. It's so silly. It's like.
104:04It's actually. If you even. Think it through. It's so silly to think that.
104:09He's going to influence. What Caleb Williams is going to do.
104:13Right. From. From the sideline. He's not. If Caleb Williams turns around.
104:17And sees Roma Dunze. Has a crevice. Has a crease of light.
104:21Between him. Just any daylight. Whatsoever. Just a little blue sky.
104:25Between him. And the defender. You think he's not.
104:28Going to turn it loose. Because. Something that. Some coach.
104:32That he probably only. Barely respects. Said in a meeting once.
104:36Do you really think that? Or do you think he's wired a certain way.
104:41And he's going to play the way he plays.
104:44Like. It's just like. It's just so silly. To think that.
104:48No. Coach. Coach told me not to make this throw.
104:51That's who he is. Everyone knows. That's who he is.
104:55That's who they drafted. They drafted that guy. That's what he's always been.
104:59Like. It's like. No. Ben Johnson finally got through to him.
105:03This year. In the off season. Maybe not last year.
105:07But this year. I know. They had that one.
105:10Whiteboard session. I'm sure. He reprogrammed the guy. No.
105:13That's not how sports works. It's just so. Weird.
105:16To keep attributing everything to Ben Johnson. It's like.
105:20Enough. It's just. It's not helpful. It's not. It's not predictive of anything.
105:24So. The bottom line is. When. Caleb Williams drops back.
105:28His first priority. Is pushing the ball down the field.
105:31And then. He will relent. He will compromise. And dump it off.
105:36If he has to. Daniel Jones. Has the opposite mentality.
105:39Daniel Jones. Is ready to dump it off. At any time.
105:43And if. It just so happens. That the moon and the stars align.
105:48He will launch it downfield. Do you agree with that?
105:51Or disagree with that? Assessment of those two quarterbacks.
105:54Alex. I think you're underplaying the fact that. Yeah.
105:57He can do what he wants on any given play.
106:01But he's going to get reamed. And he's going to get told.
106:05Oh, he's going to get reamed. Then what? They're going to go to Badgen?
106:10They're going to take his money away. What are you even saying?
106:14What you're saying. This coach worshiper is like. It's almost like.
106:18You tell your kid to go off. And you have no control.
106:23He's going to get reamed. You said that? You said reamed?
106:26Here's my point. He's going to get reamed if he throws it deep.
106:31You've raised a beautiful daughter. Right? Hear me out.
106:34You've raised a beautiful daughter. She's smart. She's independent.
106:37She thinks for herself. That's what you've told me.
106:41Thank you with the telepathy. Technic has telepathy. Yes.
106:44But that's the point. That's the point I'm making.
106:47When your daughter goes over to a sleepover. He's being sarcastic.
106:51She doesn't just start acting like an idiot. She learned what you told her.
106:56And how to act. And how to be a good person.
107:00He is getting. Fathered. First of all. That actually is.
107:03To be honest. For someone who thinks that Ben Johnson.
107:07Is this godlike figure. Who has telepathy. He's the leader of the X-Men.
107:11It's just so silly. It's really stupid. It is the thing.
107:15That it maddens me. To such a degree. It's infuriating.
107:19And like. Pete makes fun of me. Because I make fun of him for it.
107:24He thinks it's a bit. And it is a bit to a degree.
107:29Just like. This is a bit to a degree.
107:32But it is just so tiring. To like hear that.
107:35Because it's not helpful in any way. But it's also just not correct.
107:40Because. They're going to go ahead and fire him in a couple years.
107:45If. If anything goes wrong. And. It's not about him at all.
107:49Actually. It's just about the players. And you just need to get over it.
107:54Like. There is some minor things these guys can do.
107:57With. The pace of play. And with certain personnel packages.
108:01Like with McVay. Certainly. The play calling. Like. What about when you draw up a play.
108:07And you're like. This is your first read. This is your second read.
108:11Let me make this. It's. It's like. You like.
108:14You're like. All three coaches don't do that. You're almost arguing that.
108:19Didn't elevate Trevor Lawrence. And that was just all Trevor Lawrence.
108:23No. Correct. He made the offense easier for him.
108:26He made it. Where this guy was able to put together a career year.
108:31Wait. Do you have a diagram. Of what the complicated offense.
108:35Before Liam Cohen looked like. And then the new clean.
108:38It's not even that it was complicated. Sometimes it's simplified.
108:42And the play calls are just that much better.
108:45I want to see the evidence of this. Where is the evidence of this?
108:50Or is this just narrative? Points per game. You watch.
108:53That's not evidence. You watch. That's correlation. That's not evidence.
108:57It's like. That's. No. The correlation. It's. Every time I hear about a good coach.
109:02It's the good. All I ever see is good players on the team.
109:07I don't know man. Bucky Irving. He's all right.
109:10You know what I mean? But the way they drew up.
109:14Drew up that run scheme. The way they drew up some of those plays.
109:19To get him in space. I want to see the bad scheme.
109:23I've never seen this. If someone can show me.
109:26What a good play looks like. That a good coach draws up.
109:30And then the bad play. You know how they have like that diagram of a horse.
109:36Where it looks like a beautiful horse. And then.
109:39And then the other half is not. It looks like it was in crayon.
109:44Yeah. I want to see that diagram. But the play.
109:48I want to see the incompetent coach that stinks.
109:51Who was the reason the offense sucked. New York Jets.
109:54Right. But I want to see the play. What was the play that was called that sucked?
110:01And then I want to see the clean. Great.
110:04Easy to. Easy to execute. Dude. I have one for you.
110:08I have a perfect example. There was one with the Bears.
110:11Before Ben Johnson came in. It was Eberflus. Or it might have even been the interim coach.
110:17They drew up two screen plays. In a row.
110:21To Swift. And there's just. There are moments. Where.
110:24There is just clearly bad play calling. That happens.
110:27And. You're just playing the result there. Because I've seen this happen before.
110:32Where. They actually go back to the same play.
110:35And because the defense didn't think they would call the same play again.
110:39The second one worked. And then the offensive coordinator is a genius.
110:44Yeah. This was not that. That's my point. You're just playing the result.
110:48Five yards. You're not telling me that. Oh no.
110:51This particular. Screen play. Has the guard going left.
110:55But actually. That offensive coordinator is an idiot. The guard should be going right.
111:00See. That's because the offensive coordinator is a dummy.
111:03But the good offensive coordinator knows the guard should go left here.
111:07And if you see this diagram. We can see.
111:10This has the players going in the right direction.
111:13Because good offensive coordinator. This one has players going in this direction.
111:18Bad offensive coordinator. That doesn't exist. Like that's not a diagram.
111:22There's never any evidence. It's always playing the result.
111:25It's always correlation traps. That are basically. Assigning credit to the coach.
111:29That should rightfully go to the player. It happens all the time.
111:33It's usually. I give. I usually give like a Stephen A.
111:37Smith. Someone who's like a multi-sport. Blowhard. Benefit of the doubt.
111:41Because they don't even know the players are talking about.
111:45They just know the coach's name. So they attribute the coach.
111:48To the credit. And also. It's the whole. It's the whole.
111:52Waterfall. Of credit. That. The top equity holder. Gets to hold the trophy first.
111:57I think that's an embarrassment. Right. I think. The team captain should hold the trophy first.
112:03I think the team equity holder should hold it last.
112:06He did the least. Except just to have money.
112:10So that to me is an embarrassment. Where they always give it to craft.
112:15And they always give it to some schmuck. That was.
112:18That had a bunch of real estate. Who fucking cares?
112:22Give it to the captain. And then they give it to their sub captains.
112:27And then finally. Finally. After it's all. Then the coach.
112:30Then. The last guy. To hold it. Maybe the equipment manager.
112:34And the last guy would be the equity holder.
112:37They do it in reverse. Where it's actually the guy that does the dirty work on special teams.
112:44Gets to hold it last. And I think that is just.
112:47It's. That's all sports though. That's just. That's not just the NFL.
112:52That's all sports. It's completely backwards. If it is truly a meritocracy.
112:56It's not. And. Who pays the bills? Who signs the media rights away?
113:01All these things. And what. So why do you think.
113:04That when we. Have. Are. Tuning in. To hard knocks.
113:08We have to listen to. Mike McDonald. For half the show.
113:12Say nothing. Why we have to be exposed to that.
113:15When the guy with the cool truck. The middle linebacker.
113:19We don't get to hear anything he has to say.
113:22Except that he got into a fight. We know he fought.
113:26And we saw the fight. We didn't get to hear anything he had to say.
113:31He looked like a really interesting guy. Look at his truck.
113:35How is a guy with that truck. A truck that's 30 feet high.
113:40How is he not interesting to talk to? How do we not hear him?
113:45Why are we only hearing the coach? It's. It's.
113:48It's just bad content. Like I know it's like embarrassing.
113:52And it's not a meritocracy. So philosophically. I disagree with it.
113:55But also at a deeper level. Or a simpler level.
113:59It's just bad content. It's just bad content. Just like you talking about the coach.
114:04And attributing Ben Johnson as the reason. Is. Bad content.
114:08Because you can't tell me. A coach quality score.
114:11Where Shane Steichen is here. And Ben Johnson is here.
114:15Because they're good. They're objectively good play callers. They're not objectively good.
114:19Matt Patricia. Objectively a bad offensive play caller. I love that one in the chat.
114:24Shane Waldron. Like we got to get that guy.
114:27Matt Patricia is a defensive coordinator. He was calling offensive plays at one point I think.
114:33Okay. So. And it didn't go very well. A defensive coordinator is not good at calling offensive plays.
114:39Okay. But the point stands. But what I haven't.
114:42Your argument is invalid at that point. Because there is.
114:46The offensive play caller had an impact on the quality of the offense.
114:51I didn't say incompetent coordinators can exist. The offensive line coach of the Raiders was a nepotism hire.
114:57It was the son of Pete Carroll. No. It was the son of Pete Carroll.
115:02Okay. Was hired. And then the offensive lineman or one of the assistant coaches had to intervene.
115:08And they had to bring in like a supplemental coach.
115:12So they had one meeting. And then when Pete Carroll's son would leave.
115:16They would bring in another coach. And then they would have the real meeting.
115:21Because he was incompetent. That exists. Certainly these exceptions that prove the rule exists like Matt Patricia.
115:27Sure. There's incompetence in every line of work. But the I'm going to attribute 60% of the performance to the coach.
115:35The coach is going to be first to eat at the trough.
115:39Is just wrong. It's not right. It's bad content.
115:42I'm telling you it's bad content. It's not helpful.
115:45And everyone that's ever attributed all this stuff to the coach has always been proven wrong.
115:51Every time. Every time you wait a couple years.
115:54I'm just like oh wait. Oh this is the coach of today.
115:59Just wait. Just wait two minutes. And then that guy will be like.
116:03He'll be a punchline. I have heard the same person.
116:07Say the exact opposite about a coach two years later.
116:10Because why? He started coaching a bad team. And he was coaching a good team before.
116:16And that's almost always what it is. And look at the players that are on this Bears team.
116:22Okay. And look at the players that he had.
116:25Also not just the players. But it overall top down organizational willingness like with Dan Campbell.
116:31To play fast. That also helps the offensive court.
116:34It makes them look a lot better. So I would attribute more to the head coach.
116:40The head coach actually has more impact. Because the head coach can dictate.
116:45Push down the organization. How we're going to play.
116:48What our culture is going to be. And in particular.
116:51The thing that actually impacts fantasy. Which then does ultimately get minorly affected by the offensive coordinator.
116:57Is the pace of play. And the pass to run ratio.
117:01And that's philosophical. And that's tactical. Right? And so that's where I'm like.
117:06Hey. You keep telling me Mike McDaniel's a genius.
117:09But he plays slow. So is he a genius?
117:12He was. He was really bad. And was fired.
117:15And then. But because he has glasses. And he says the right things.
117:20And he's clever. Or whatever it is. And he's been in the league already.
117:25And he's an established guy. Then he is first in line for the next job.
117:30Because it's much less risky. Than taking a new guy.
117:34And then where does he land? He lands on a team with the two best tackles.
117:39The best tackle play in the league. One of the best quarterbacks.
117:44Good receivers. And a great backfield. With a first round pick.
117:47Running back. And three. Athletic tight ends. And you think that offense.
117:52Isn't going to be successful. And do you think that.
117:55Mike McDaniel. Is going to get the credit. Or do you think it's all going to go to the players.
118:02Or do you think a lot of it's going to go to Mike McDaniel this year.
118:08When anyone could coach that team. I could coach that team.
118:12And they would put up very similar numbers. But he didn't get the credit.
118:17That's actually a good example. Of course that's a good example.
118:21That was every example. It's every fucking time Johnny.
118:24Because he's not blamed for what happened in Miami.
118:27The offense wasn't his fault. Because there was injuries.
118:30And Tyreek Hill got hurt. And the front office betrayed him.
118:34And he landed on his feet. That always happens.
118:37They never get blamed for what happened in Miami.
118:41Even though he did play slow. Last time I checked.
118:44And that's my one concern with them. I'm hoping they play faster.
118:48But that's going to be mostly. Justin Herbert getting in and out of the huddle.
118:54And playing fast. That's the thing. It doesn't fucking matter John.
118:58It doesn't matter what Mike McDaniel says. In a meeting room.
119:01Or even in his headset. Seconds earlier. If he wants to get to the huddle.
119:07You give up the play. You know what I mean?
119:10You give the play. No. What matters. They are.
119:13You know what I mean? If you give me a shit play.
119:18And I'm forced to run it. You're going to get a shit result.
119:22That's not. Wow. The NFL works. Do you not know how.
119:26Have you watched games? You know that. Never. As soon as you're in the league for a couple of years.
119:33And you establish trust. Especially you establish like a $300 million contract.
119:37You get to call your own plays. You get to option out of plays.
119:42It's called an audible. The good QBs. Right? The Brady's.
119:46The Manning's. Of course. But I think a lot of these QBs are neutered nowadays.
119:51Where they are just. That's not true. Doing what the coach calls.
119:56They maybe have one. What? They have one audible.
119:59No. They have run pass options. Diagnosing the actual defense.
120:02They go into a huddle. With an option. And then they go up to the line of scrimmage.
120:09With an option to get out of it. Of course.
120:12Right? This is most quarterbacks. You think that most quarterbacks don't have the ability to audible?
120:18Is that what you're saying? I think that some just either.
120:22A. Aren't that good at reading the defenses. And moving to the audible.
120:26B. Again. When you're a more developed quarterback. That.
120:29You'd move from having one option. To like three to five.
120:33Or you just call whatever play you want at the line of scrimmage.
120:38Right? And that's something that Brady did amazing. Okay.
120:41Manning did amazing. I can't name more than one or two quarterbacks.
120:45Who I think can do that in 2026. I think all these young guys.
120:50Like Herbert. Lawrence. They're great. But they're getting a play call.
120:54They've got an option they can audible to. Yeah.
120:57And that's really the extent of. You know. The impact that they have on the pre-call.
121:03That's. That's. That's my understanding. That's all they all.
121:06They'll. They have two plays. They. They option out of a play to another play.
121:12They go from blue to green. That's how it works.
121:15Or whatever it is. That's how it works. That's what an audible is.
121:20They don't have their. They don't. They don't call the whole play at the huddle.
121:25That's not how it works. They don't have. They'll call the whole play at the line of scrimmage.
121:31They option in and out of things. You don't think that Justin.
121:36So you agree. Justin Herbert's going to have the ability to audible.
121:40You agree. He will. Yes. All of them do.
121:43Do some. Are some better at moving into those than others?
121:47Yeah. And I think that's the sign of a good quarter.
121:51Who's the best audible. In the NFL today. Rank all the audible.
121:55You can't. I mean, I think Stafford's up there.
121:58Of course. He's. I would say golf has some.
122:01Golf actually has some of that cerebralness. In terms of.
122:05Most of them do. Most of them do. It's just the young guys.
122:10Are. I'm not throwing Caleb Williams out there. To make any crazy audibles.
122:14At this point. Is my point. I think Ben Johnson's like.
122:18You're calling what I'm telling you to run. Where did you get that?
122:23You don't think he's going to be audible. You think.
122:26I think. That's another reason. He's audibly. To another play that Ben Johnson gave him.
122:32And it's less about. Hey. So good. You think Ben Johnson's so good.
122:36That he doesn't need to audible. That no matter what look the defense gives him.
122:41The play he gave Caleb Williams. Is uncheck outable.
122:45Because his play is so genius. I think it.
122:48It would be checking out to another play. I called.
122:51Yeah. That he called. But that's what audibles are.
122:55Right. But it's not that. That Williams. Didn't really have a lot of say in it.
123:00Is my point. Where do they don't find this out?
123:04Where did you read this? How do you know this?
123:07You don't know. You don't know. You just think Ben Johnson's.
123:11God. For no reason. And you don't want to give Caleb Williams.
123:15Any credit for being cerebral. No. He's a backyard player.
123:19Like there's. He's a backyard player. He's not cerebral.
123:22This is just such an insult to Caleb Williams.
123:25No. Caleb Williams. Is going into his third year.
123:29And when you're going into your third year. What you've done is you've built the trust.
123:34Of the coaching staff and your teammates. That you can now audible at a higher rate.
123:40Because you're more confident in what you see. So I absolutely expect Caleb Williams to audible more this year.
123:47Than he did last year. When he audibled more last year.
123:50Than he did the previous year. And then at some point.
123:54By year four or five. Most of these guys.
123:58If they're still in the league. And they're still starting quarterbacks.
124:01And they've commanded a second contract. They're going to be audibling.
124:05At a league average rate. And it's going to.
124:08In a lot of times. It's a. It's a.
124:12It's a pretty high rate. Because. You could. You check.
124:15In at the line of scrimmage. You see what the.
124:19The defense is. Is presenting to you. And you want to put your team.
124:24In the best possible position. To be a matchup nightmare.
124:27For whatever defense. You're looking at. That's how it works.
124:31None of that. Is. The. The. You have to understand.
124:34At that point. It's all about the quarterback. The quarterback.
124:38Is getting paid. 300 million dollars. The offensive coordinator.
124:41Is getting paid. Two million dollars. That's how economics works.
124:45The thing. That matters. Is the thing. That's getting all the money.
124:49The driver. Of the production. The reason. Why they're winning.
124:52Is the quarterback. Number one. And a lot of their supporting cast.
124:57The guy. Talking to him. Or relaying something. In a helmet.
125:00A couple options. That he could use. It. That is shut off.
125:0525 seconds. It's shut off. He goes to the line of scrimmage.
125:09He's on his own. There's no one in his helmet.
125:13Telling him. Oh. They're showing this look. You need to check out of this.
125:17And go to this. Right. Did the. You have to.
125:21Do you know that. Did you know that the radio was turned off.
125:26In the helmet. Yeah. Of course. And you didn't know that's my point.
125:30For these newer rookies. They're like. Don't go rogue on me.
125:34And walk up to that line. And think you know what you're doing.
125:39You're calling A or B. That I give you in the.
125:43In the headset. And if you move off of that.
125:46We're. Like. Again. That's your point. They're not going to bench him for Bayesian.
125:51But it's just not. That's not. You don't do.
125:54Not do what you're told. When you're a professional.
125:57You know. Consistently. Like yeah. Maybe you do it one play.
126:01I think of like Bo Nix. Audibleing out of something.
126:05That Peyton didn't. And Sean Payton didn't like. They got in a.
126:09Screaming match. On the sideline. That was actually a really cool moment.
126:13Right. Where you're like. Okay. Bo Nix. Is willing to stand up.
126:18And say. Hey. I saw this. I'm calling this.
126:21This is why I did it. Now did you think that that was.
126:25Good by Bo Nix. That was a good leadership.
126:29Because he's a young quarterback. Second year quarterback. Doing that.
126:32I think it was. Exactly why. Russell Wilson. And Sean Payton.
126:36Didn't get along. Because Russell's kind of a cuck.
126:39Right. And you do need. A quarterback. Who. It's just like.
126:43In any job. You have in your life. I don't understand.
126:47Nobody wants a boss. But if you're. If you're Mr.
126:50Offensive Coordinator. And offensive coordinator. Is the reason. Then.
126:54They should never do that. Right. And that's. They're checking out.
126:58They're checking out. They're so freaking pissed. But then.
127:01They're checking out of the Bible. They were given.
127:04The. They were. These were. These are. The. The.
127:07The slabs of rock. Stone. From the mountain. From the offensive coordinator.
127:11You can't. No. These are suggestions. These. They're. Merely.
127:15Suggestions. And when. Caleb Williams. Gets up to the line of scrimmage.
127:19He's going to check in and out of what he wants.
127:23And that's the way it's going to be. And that's the way you want it.
127:28Because. He's the one that actually sees the whole thing.
127:32You don't see what. You don't see the whole thing from where Ben Johnson's standing.
127:37And he's also played the game at the quarterback position.
127:40In a way none of these coaches have. So they can give suggestions.
127:45They can say this sounds like a good play.
127:48But ultimately. They're going to live and die with the quarterback and the decisions they make.
127:54In the huddle. At the line of scrimmage. And then all the plays these guys make.
127:59The. These coordinators are just giving them suggestions. That's all they're doing.
128:04Okay. And. Certainly if you're an above average coordinator.
128:07You want to give them some innovative suggestions. Like McVeigh giving Stafford suggestions.
128:12About 13 personnel inside the five. Smart. Very good.
128:15One of those. One of those things. That. That is hard evidence.
128:19This is what I'm asking for Johnny. And you won't give it to me.
128:24Because you don't have it. On Ben Johnson. You got nothing.
128:28Okay. There is hard. No you don't. You have nothing.
128:31You have nothing. You have narrative only. And it's very frustrating.
128:35You. There is actual hard evidence. That Sean McVeigh.
128:38Suggested. 13 personnel inside the five yard line. As an advantage.
128:42And they talked about it. A lot. In meeting rooms.
128:46And. They called those plays. And they had an incredibly high touchdown rate.
128:50With those 13 personnel plays. That is the evidence.
128:54I have seen so little of that. That. That.
128:57Is all I needed. Like I'm. I'm an easy date.
129:00Right. I'm easy dude. Dude. Give me something. Give me anything I can hold on to.
129:06That's tangible. And I have that with Sean McVeigh.
129:09I've got that with like one or two coaches ever.
129:13Have I gotten that? You've given me nothing. Okay.
129:16You've given me. Uh. Rookies are able to call audibles at a lower frequency.
129:21Facts. No kidding. But you didn't give me. What was the play that Sean McVeigh.
129:26Which play was better? The one that Bo Nix wanted to run.
129:30Or the one that Sean Mc. That Sean Payton wanted to run.
129:35And why? No one can answer that question. Because the evidence doesn't exist.
129:39But there is actual hard evidence. There's only one.
129:42I mean the one coach that had the most hard evidence.
129:46Who is merely above average. Is Sean McVeigh. Because of that one case study.
129:51You don't have any case studies at all. And no one can tell me.
129:56The percentage. That Sean McVeigh is superior to the next coach.
130:00No one has that measurement system. I know you certainly don't.
130:04By this. Because we've been talking about this. For 30 minutes.
130:08And I've got nothing. This is basically. The second half of this show.
130:12Is like the first episode. Of this season of Hard Knocks.
130:16We came in with high expectations. But the audience had been left with nothing.
130:21Absolutely nothing. Where is this evidence? That Ben Johnson is a genius.
130:26And he's going to be the reason that Chicago.
130:29Unlocks all this fantasy potential. Nothing. Right? We got nothing.
130:32I was hoping for some content that would engage me.
130:36That I would feel some connection with the people.
130:39In the Seattle Seahawks organization. HBO gave me nothing.
130:42To be ashamed of themselves. You should be ashamed of yourself too.
130:46I'm not ashamed of myself. We gave. We gave the viewers.
130:50We poured our soul out. Dude. For over two hours.
130:54We hope you guys enjoyed the show. Did you know we actually gained viewers during the stream?
131:00What does that mean? Somehow. Good. See here we go.
131:03Oh wait. Donnie Sylvester. This is perfect. Donnie Sylvester says McDaniel's offense got figured out by the end of the year.
131:11In Miami. No it didn't. It's just they had no players.
131:15They had two under center and they had no receivers.
131:18Left. But anyway. Go ahead and think it got figured out.
131:22Okay. I'm not even an apologist of Mike McDaniel.
131:25It's just that. They're just so whimsical about who's an idiot and who's super smart.
131:31And it's mostly they're all pretty average and they don't matter.
131:35Adaptability is what separates good coaches. Oh his adaptability.
131:38I want to go to the. Is that. I want someone to put coach.com and I can go see the adaptability metric.
131:46Because I'm sure Donnie Sylvester is quoting some adaptability metric and there's a ranking system of all the adaptability.
131:52And. Or that's just a feeling that he has.
131:55That's just something about Mike McDaniel is not that not that adaptable.
132:00If I were Mike McDaniel and I had the offense that I had, I would have.
132:05I would have tried to play fast. But the problem is if your quarterbacks Quinn Ewers.
132:11He's not fast at processing information. He actually needs to spend more time in the huddle communicating the play.
132:18He needs to spend more time at the line of scrimmage, figuring out what the defense wants to do to him.
132:25And how he's going to try to run away.
132:28So. How can you play fast in that situation?
132:32And yet there are some people that are fading Mike McDaniel this year because they're afraid he doesn't play fast enough.
132:39When it all roads lead back to the personnel.
132:42There you go. Well, thank you guys for watching.
132:45Oh, but. But make no mistake. Donnie is going to be wrong.
132:50Because. Five weeks into the season, Mike McDaniel is already going to be fielding head coaching offers.
132:56He is going to be comeback coach of the year if that's even a thing.
133:01But he is going to be the reason for their unlocking.
133:05And the thing that gets me is the gaslighting that happens where even even Justin Herbert is going to say it.
133:12And that's the thing that you're going to hold on to.
133:16You're going to be like, well, Justin Herbert even admitted.
133:20All right. When any coach. They would have. Because they're.
133:23Why? Their tackles were healthy. That was the real reason.
133:27But that's not that interesting. And it's hard to get.
133:30It's hard to identify with those tackles. They don't look like us.
133:34They're 300 pounds and they're super athletic. But I look a lot more like Mike McDaniel than I do Rashawn Slater.
133:42So I'd much rather hear about Mike McDaniel. Give us your Super Bowl prediction.
133:47Chargers 54. Rams 3. Ha! Ha!
