Fantasy Football - WR & TE Rookie Preview + Dawg Meter - Podcast for 4/3

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Thursday, April 3rd. I feel like I was just here with you, fine gentlemen recording. Yeah. Feels that way. Feels that way. This show. Welcome in one and all. Wide receiver, tight-in rookie preview show today. which means the NFL draft is right around the corner. We're excited to see where these prospects land. And I'm always, you know, every year I go into it thinking which, you know, will all of the Cardinals selections fail? Will it just be most of them? I never know. Every couple drafts they hit on one. Like Andy Isabella. That would not be, that would not qualify. Oh, man. We like them small and.

ineffective. Yeah. I was so excited for the Rondell Moore draft. You were? I was. I was not. We had that crazy breakout year as a true freshman. I was not excited about the Andy Isabella over the monster that was DK Metcalf. That's for sure. But yeah, it's draft season, which means rookie drafts, something I know nothing about because I never have rookie picks, but we're going to be talking through wide receivers and tight ends. If you missed it Tuesday, We talked through quarterbacks and running backs giving you a general overview of our rankings before the NFL draft and how we see these players panning out in terms of fantasy significance for your teams. And so today it's wide receivers and tight ends. So we'll jump into that shortly. A reminder, the Ultimate Draft Kit, pre-order discount available right now. It releases in full on June 1st, but the Dynasty Pass is already available. You can get that at Ultimate draft kit.com.

The UDK includes all of our player profile videos, our premium stat projections, our sleepers, our breakouts, our busts, our values, everything you need to dominate your drafts, set the foundation for your league. It is, you know, very much the premier product on the market for your drafts and in terms of the way our team is working towards making that the most successful thing it can be. Yeah, UltimateDraftKit.com to check that out. And then we do have an announcement. All right. Is that time? I'm going to say it one time. One time. We are seeking some new writers for the 2025 NFL season. Footclanhelp.com is where you go to apply. And for Kyle's sanity, our editor-in-chief, Kyle Borgannoni, please submit a writing sample to let us know that you can write.

for one of the rider's spots. It's an important part of the position. If we were hiring a talker, we would want a talking sample. Look, we're hiring writers. Maybe you're out there and you're hoping to write for us. You're like, I just don't have anything yet. Well, I mean, because people see, you know, you see a resume posted and you're like, I don't meet a lot of qualifications on this, but I'm going. I'm going to go for it anyways. I'm going to shoot my shot. If you shoot your shot on this one without a writing sample, it's a dude. You're shooting blinks. Yeah. So if you don't have one, right? Go knock it out right now and then submit it. Show us what you got. We mentioned this once here now on the show, which is footclanhelp.com. That's where the application is. We're not going to post about it. We want people who listen to the show who are part of this community. We have an awesome.

team of writing staff. We do this once a year. We'll get about 500 applications. And I know that yours is going to be the best. What's going on, Chuckles? I am laughing at a Kyle shared a somebody's writing sample that they submitted for a previous application was indeed a local path to a file on their computer. Which we can't have. We don't call and C drive users. We don't have access to your computer yet. If you want to mail your full computer to us and then give us the path, we could find it. If you go that route, don't forget to give us your password. Right. So we can actually boot in. Right. So, yes, Kyle was making me laugh. So there you go. Putclanhelp.com. Quick question of the day. This one comes in from the website. Davey writes in, hey, ballers, is it ever worth reaching on a player in your draft? I feel like the possibility of hitting

on a reach is much lower than just waiting it out and hoping to hit on players in later rounds. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, there are definite times where it's valuable to reach, but it's really a matter of how confident are you they won't be around in the next round. Whether this is a rookie draft or startup draft or just your normal redraft that you play in every year. there's there's definitely a point where it's foolish you know you don't want to reach multiple rounds on a guy because that's just not getting good enough value you know you're not playing the market if you look at ADP and the success of players drafted in the first versus the second versus the third all the way down through the 14th round it does a pretty good job generally speaking it's correct that the players drafted higher outperform the players drafted later now obviously that's not

a linear 100% truth. There are great picks late. But if you're reaching more than where you think you can get them comfortably with your next pick, then you are sacrificing higher-end talent. And I think that is 100, everything you said was 100% true. My propensity to reach is proportional to the rounds. Yes. So I'm not going to reach for a, you know, a guy I like that should go in the third in the first round. That's insane. but I might reach for a guy I like in the fifth round that might be projected to go in the seventh because it will make me happy. And that's part of my philosophy is there are some players I'm going to want to leave the draft with that are projected to go later, but maybe my leaguemates are going to know that I want and they're going to target them around earlier. So I got to go around ahead of that.

And it will make me happy to have them on my team. But I'm not gambling early. I will do that later in drafts. That's my general philosophy. Do you find that in a dynasty versus a redraft league that you want to reach more? Yeah. Or overpay more for the guys you just love? Yeah, because value is way more subjective in dynasty. So ADP is not, like to me, there's so much more room for error because of the amount of years of error that it would represent if it's wrong. So if you really have a conviction in Dynasty, that conviction pays off for five years or it burns you for five years. And in a rookie draft, look, don't draft day three running backs. You're like, oh, the spot. It's unbelievable. It's the best spot possible. Don't draft like a day three running back over a day two wide receiver. Like just don't.

do that because your odds of hitting on that are so, so low and let's say you don't, I don't like that player that I'm slotted for or this tier of players. Then trade back. Do something with your value other than saying I am the smartest person in the entire world and I know the one player that's going to hit over all these other guys who the NFL is telling us are good players. So be careful. in your rookie drafts when you're reaching once you're in like the middle of the second or in your third round of a rookie draft that's when it that's when it's I'm smarter than you and I know what guys to go get you grab the guy you want because they're all going to suck yeah right and you know just to bring it to the UDK and how we rank players we put them in tiers and so if you if you get to the point later on in your draft where you have not a lot of confidence in a certain tier at a position or something like that

That might be a justification to reach a little bit somewhere else. If you're like, well, you know what, I have no confidence that anybody that's projected in this round is going to be great. Maybe I'm going to just reach around for a guy that. Take the tight end there then or something. Yeah, I know. I said reach around. You're laughing back there, cackles? No, Jason's response. Jason's eyes said it all. Did you really, Jason? I mean, come on. You said it. I heard it. Come on, you children. Mike and I are out here trying to be professional. I don't even know what the joke is. I'm so locked in. Yeah, Mike and I are so locked into this studiousness. There are at least 200,000 people that eyebrows went up. Same as mine. Mine did. I know what I said. Goodness gracious.

Let's move on. Hi, rookie. Welcome to the NFL. Sometimes he's got to reach two rounds. There you go. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. All right. A reminder, like I said, on Tuesday, today we're talking wide receivers and tight ends, but the Dynasty podcast, if you want more in-depth analysis on all of these players. Fantasy Footballers Dynasty Podcast is perfect for you. The Dynasty Pass is part of the UDK at Ultimate DraftKit.com. And we have a lot of rookie profile articles on the website. So a good chance to shout out those writers that are part of our team that are producing some amazing work in terms of film evaluation, combine production or sorry, player production analysis and a lot of really good work. So you can check their work out at the Fantasy Footballers.com. Wide receivers. We've got.

Lots of teams that need them. But is this a draft class to supply a difference maker? New England, Arizona, the Chargers, lots of different teams in need, the Giants, Denver, New Orleans. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this and you've seen it on the open market for free agency. This is not a universally beloved wide receiver class. Will there be some really fantasy relevant hits? Of course. There have to be. The NFL needs them and these guys are going to have draft capital and there will be talent. But as far as the depth and brevity of like the entire wide receiver class, it doesn't stack up to other years, both in terms of depth and the elite. The elite talent at the top, you know, the last couple of years we've had the prospects of Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas. You know, all three of those guys, I think, are better.

prospects than anyone in this draft class personally. And I think that's universally believed. So some of those teams I mentioned, you know, New England, they bring in digs. Arizona draft Harrison last year still have a need. Chargers, McConkey, still have a need. Giants, neighbors still have a need. And then Denver, one piece of news we didn't talk about on Tuesday was no extension yet for Cortland Sutton. So, you know, they have some needs there. New Orleans outside of Alave. You know, Brandon Cooks is not the future. So, yeah, there's a lot of opportunity, right? And if these players are better than advertised, the opportunities might be there to produce for fantasy. And rookies can make those contributions. Jumping right in. Tetaroa McMillan, T-Mack, wide receiver out of Arizona. We all have number one on our board.

Not necessarily going to be the number one wide receiver off the board, which, you know, you look at last year when you had, things are shifting right now. Neighbors in Harrison, and you had these very prolific, you know, kind of Jamar Chase level prospects. We're not sitting there this year. No, I mean, last year it was like, how early are these wide receivers going to go? How many are going to go in the top 10, the top 15? This year, I've seen mock drafts where Tetaroa is the first wide receiver drafted, and it's in the 20s. So it kind of gives you an idea. I think Teteroa is the number one prospect in this year's class, in part because Travis Hunter, another great wide receiver, we're not sure if he's a wide receiver yet. So we'll get to him. But as far as Teteroa, he is a real alpha projecting wide receiver. And he's one of the only like alpha alphas out there where. Six five. Yeah, exactly. Big bodied.

Very good athlete, goes up in Moss's guys. To me, he's like a... Drake London. Drake London Light. That was my comp. I think Drake London was a better prospect than McMillan is, but he's got exceptional hands. I think you made a really good point a second ago that I want to circle back to. Oh, yeah. Because it's so rare. If Travis Hunter was not a cornerback and he was coming out as a wide receiver, he'd be the number one prospect for me. I think he would be the number one guy. Wouldn't the rest of these guys? kind of fall into place to make you feel different and better about the draft class? Yeah, you're saying if... If Hunter was coming out and he's number one that we're talking about. He's a star wide receiver. He's a star wide receiver. And then McMillan is your number two guy off the board who's still very talented. And some of these... I just feel like we'd feel better about the class. And it's the same humans. Same humans, but I just feel like Hunter's lack of our knowledge in terms of how often they'll use them as a whiteout. Do they use them full time? I think that makes a lot of the difference here. I will say this.

Scouting Shadour Sanders for last episodes, you know, quarterback previews. I mean, it was just like a Travis Hunter highlight. Oh, it really is. It really is. I am more and more. And we're literally stealing McMillan's time with Travis Hunter. Good, because Travis Hunter is the best wide receiver in class. I, you know, back when we recorded the wide receivers early for the Dynasty podcast. At that time, it really seemed like Travis Hunter was going to be drafted as a cornerback. Maybe, you know, be used as a wide receiver from time to time. But it's much, much, much easier to bring in packages for a wide receiver where it's like, okay, we're going to use you in these situations or these parts of the field and we've got these plays designed for you versus doing that on defense. To be an all full-time cornerback and a part-time wide receiver makes a lot more functional sense.

than the reverse, but it seems like the momentum is building for him to play often at wide receiver. And the more that I watched the film, I can't imagine having this player on my roster, this wide receiver that is on my team. Yeah, he's a difference maker at the NFL level. Yeah, and being like, yeah, I'm not going to play you at wide receivers. It'd be one thing if he didn't want to play wide receiver. If he wanted to focus on one spot only, he doesn't. No. He wants to play full-time both ways. I think he can do it. And he just stole McMillan's entire time there. But look, McMillan will go highly. Landing spot, is that going to make a humongous difference on how you view him for fantasy? I mean, some players you don't care about coming into the league. It doesn't matter where he lands for Team Mac. I think he'll be able to, you know, he's an outside guy. He's a he's a 50-50 ball like last year, you know.

1400 yards, 1,300 yards. But so last year, 25% of his targets were contested. He caught 53% of them, which those numbers are, those are fine. Those are acceptable numbers. Quarterback play was not great in Arizona either. Sure. The thing for McMillan, to me, and I don't, it, I don't even, this wasn't like breaking headline news, didn't get real hot on Twitter, but it was going around. And this matters to me, man. is there was an interview happening with Team Mac that I don't recall what show it was on, but they were asking about watching film. And he said, oh, I don't know how to do that, so I don't do it. And it's like, oh, oh, no, dude. What do you think his agent thought when he saw that video? He went immediately to damage control because, yeah. Hey, Timak, you don't have to say those things out loud.

When you're in college. Kyler kept that under wraps for years. When you're in college, you're bigger and stronger than everybody. Sure, that can work. When you're in the NFL and everyone is as big and as strong as fast as you, you have to have an edge. You have to be a student of the game. This isn't apples to apples at all. But it's like Johnny Mansell, it eventually came out that he watched zero film. Zero film. And that dude was a catastrophic flameout in the NFL. Again, not apples to apples because this is a wide receiver. But you've got to know, man. You've got to know what the DB who's going to be covering you. What are his tendencies? How does he play? How can I beat that? You cannot just be, I'm bigger than you, so I'm going to figure it out. It is a, it's not something you can't overcome. He could learn at a watch film. But to hear it at this point when you're saying this is the projected.

Number one or number two wide receiver in the NFL draft. That is troublesome. Do we want to jump ahead to Travis Hunter then? Yeah, we should probably talk about him part and parcel with McMillan because of the opportunity. And he's now the betting favorite to go number three to the Giants. Wild. So, you know, you talk about getting an athlete, getting a two-position star with the opportunity for him to make a big impact on both sides of the ball. Five-star guy broke every record. You know, this is, you know, a Heisman trophy winner. It's hard to, you know, run out of things to say positively about Hunter's performance on both sides of the ball. It's just a matter of whether or not he gets the opportunity in the NFL. And Jason, you're saying that teams need to do that. Teams do need to do this. Look, I get that people get tired and these are humans. 92 reception. And it's difficult, right? But you have the chance.

with the top five pick and the NFL draft pick to do it twice. You have the chance as a general manager to say, with the third overall pick, I am drafting a star wide receiver, and I would like another pick, I'm going to draft a star cornerback. This guy played, you know, 115 snaps per game, and he didn't play the second half against Kansas State or Arizona. So if you take those out, you average 132 snaps per game. And half of those. We're in the Colorado altitude. This guy can do it. And he is a special difference making football player. So yeah, if I'm a general manager, look, if you play them both ways, you might not get a decade out of him. That might stink. But I'm going to take five years of sensational two-way play. It's the most like safe draft pick you can make. Yeah.

Because, ooh, one of them doesn't work out. You still got the draft pick on the other side. So, yeah, if he, what is a fantasy player doing this into our decision making? Right. What is a fantasy player, let's say he goes three to the Giants. Well, we will have to wait. And then McMillan goes 20 picks later. As far as, as you decide that for fantasy. As far as talent, I think we can all universally say Travis Hunter is a very talented wide receiver. No worries about his. ability to be good in the NFL. It's just opportunity. And that we cannot project or no. We have to wait until the team that drafts them says what they're going to do with them. And they might not. They might say, we're going to figure it out. We don't know. Or we've got a plan. You'll see. But they might come out and say, we want them to play both ways full time. We're going to try that out. I mean, Travis Hunter and neighbors. Oh, that'd be awesome. It's a great duo to have as your foundation while you're trying to figure out your quarterback position long term.

Love the fact about Travis Hunter that two years ago, he was a majority of his snaps where he was a slot player. And then he went almost to a full-time exclusive outside player. That's beautiful. He knows all aspects of being a wide receiver can win, win on the outside, win on the inside. And he is, for fantasy, thinking about rookie drafts, trying to come to terms with just how does this work. Let's say he's a full-time DB. and he's a part-time wide receiver. Okay, well, if you're going down that path, then in theory, he should be on the field for all the important stuff for a wide receiver. Let's say he's not out there on first down, blocking for the first and obvious run. Don't care. He's going to be a 50% targets per route run player. Right. That's great. If he's not going to be on the field for that stuff, wearing him out, that doesn't matter because he wasn't going to have an opportunity anyways. We.

I want my player out there more often than not. Like, I mean, Jaden Reed, who's out there, you know, half the time. It's because you do the imagine what if, what would Reed be if he actually was a full, a full snap player? So we may run into those with Travis Hunter, but I'm getting more comfortable with the idea of even if they say he's a DB that they'll find a way. They'll find out. He'll be on the field for important stuff. And which would make him. I'm willing to take on the risk of drafting him higher in my rookie drafts than I was. At the beginning of this whole process, it was like, dude, you might be lighting your pick on fire. What if he comes out and he just plays DB? For fantasy. Yeah, for fantasy, that pick is absolutely toast. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think he'll be the full-time DB part-time wide receiver, but he's so good and will be used in such valuable situations that it...

that it might still be fine because he's so good. McMillan and Hunter, we talked about both of those guys at wide receiver. We'll take a break and talk about some more. All right, let's shift to Luther Burden III. Man, it's tough. Out of Mazoo, you know, Jason has him the lowest of the three of us. Mike and I both, again, the Travis Hunter situation is going to impact, you know, he's going to come above. Burden if we get some confidence around his playing time. I might move him there now, actually. But Burden, what did you like on film, Mike? Luther Burden, smaller guy. 511, 205, though. I mean, he's not McMillan, is what I'm saying. He's not a go up and get the ball guy. He's more of a give me the ball and watch me go guy. Yeah, and it's this, there is some.

There's some faith being put into his 2023 season where he was 86 for over 1,200 yards and nine touchdowns because the production halved into his next year. I mean, as his final year in college, 61 catches 676 yards. So that is, it's troubling to have such a breakout campaign and go backwards so far. And I know there's a bunch of other factors that can lead to a downturn in production. But to go that far down is like, dude, something catastrophic better have happened that we're not privy to the knowledge. But when he's at his best, he's just, he's one of those, you know, Swiss Army knife type players of who can do so many different things. You're going to, you want him to land in a spot with a smart offensive coordinator. If he lands with an OC who is really.

a Cromagny old school football guy, then Luther Burton will go down my rankings. If he goes to someone who knows how to use a player who is so shifty and can make such incredible things happen, a high level of talent, then I'll still be in on him. Creativity. He's a five-star recruit. 54 of his 147 catches over the last two years were screened. That's what I mean. And he was a prolific special teams player. It's because when the ball's in his hands, he's. He's probably the most special wide receiver in this entire class, better than Hunter or T-MAC. Like once the ball's in his hands, he is electric. He breaks tackles. Number one. He runs backwards way too much. That is not going to work in the NFL. He, you know, he's got a lot of like Debo Samuel, not not that size, but just breaks tackles, can't, you know, he is, he is really sensational.

in that area, which is why he had so many screen passes. Also, because his quarterback, who sucks. Sure. I mean, wow bad. But, you know, so it's like, just get the ball in the hands of my playmaker. And he's very, very good at that. As a wide receiver, I have worries, like the down the field routes. Now, I didn't scout 2023. Statistically, he was far better wide receiver then. I scouted the 2024 season. That's kind of my process. I always. look at what the most recent thing is. Maybe I'll go and watch a game earlier. And I made a note, I want to go and watch more of 2023. But the 2024 film left me wanting as a wide receiver, left me excited as an athlete, as a talented playmaker. 91st percentile speed. I mean, you saw it. You saw it on film. He is a better athlete than most of the guys there. I just were, you know, he'll probably be a first round pick.

Maybe he's in that bubble, but there's a lot of history of, like, first round running backs pretty much don't bust. They just don't. They're almost always great unless some injury happens or something. But you look back at first round wide receivers and you see the Kevin whites and Nelson and Agalores and Corey Coleman's and Josh Doxons and John Rosses. I mean, there's just like, it is frequent and common because wide receivers are so needed. that guys are drafted in the first. Wasn't Juan Dale? No, I think he was a second. You're thinking about, uh, uh, uh, who am I thinking of? Before him. Oh my good. He got traded to the Chiefs. Because Harry is Tony. Tony was the first rounder. Mm-hmm. McHale Harry. I mean, there's no, I mean, you could go on and on and on. And I just saw some, I wanted to see some more wide receiver skills and I didn't see it in 2024. Which is one of those things where you're going to have to trust either that the player can do that at the next level. Um,

because they're going to need to to produce. Amika Egbuka. Yeah. The safest pick in this draft. That's the safe. There's, I will be shocked if this dude busts on an NFL level. Yeah. Problem is for fantasy football, will he be a guy who could ever be 1,500 yards and 10 touchdowns? I don't really project that either. He just projects to be an incredibly good, solid wide receiver. I moved him up to my number three. just because he's good. Yeah, that's where he was for me, depending on Hunter. All time record at Ohio State for receptions. Battled through injuries in 2023. Over 1,000 yards last year, 10 touchdowns. But, you know, not a Jamar Chase type of season or player, but solid is probably a good descriptor. Yeah, and you have this. Like, is it, uh, who, um,