Undrafted Gems + TNF Preview, Week 1 Hype! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/8

What did I say? You said Tony Brooks again. You got a Tony Brooks problem. Who is this Tony Brooks? No, no. I keep saying Tony Brooks Jones because I swear I read that somewhere at some point in time that there's a Brooks that was part of his name at some point and then has been removed. Are you talking about it? Now, Brooks, you're an authority on this name. Do you know where this came from? There was a Tony Brooks James that was a running back in college. I don't know if somehow.

That is the, I am crossing those wires. And of course, the incredibly famous Tony Brooks race car driver for a British, who did the old Grand Prix back in the 50s. Is that who you're talking about? Let me return to the question. Would you rather, you're putting in a bid this morning. Are you signing Tyson who's going to back up Gus Edwards, undrafted free agent on a great rushing attack? Or are you signing Tony Jones?

Junior, undrafted free agent on a great rushing attack backing up Alvin Camara. I mean, obviously, Camara is the more proven starter of the two. Right. But where are you putting your... I mean, Jason is deciding right now. I can see it in his face. They are very, very similar comps. I'm going to go with the team that I think is going to run the ball more in the... Which is... Which is the Ravens. I... So...

that would be Tyson Williams. Yeah, I have Williams. I would slot him just slightly ahead of Tony Jones, but if you're putting the waiver claims in, I don't mind. Double up? Yeah, I would put a claim in for both of them. All right, moving on. Lev Bell was added to the Ravens Practice Squad. The original report, like I said, was that he's going to be brought up to the regular roster, assuming they don't sign somebody else. But Lev Bell, I don't.

Don't care. Care. Yeah, I mean, people... It hurts me that people care. This is a big name. This is a fantasy superstar of yesteryear, and people see Lev Bell signing in replacement of an important fantasy asset. This is worthless. Do not pick up Love Bell. Do not play Lev Bell. Do not make a waiver claim on Love Bell. He will let you all down.

I mean, do you remember when Devante Freeman bounced between different teams with the big name? I mean, Lev Bell's at this stage of his career where he was giving a humongous opportunity. Yes, he was. With the Kansas City Chief's offense and did nothing with it and showed nothing on the field that made you go, oh boy, I wish they gave him more opportunity. No, what happened over the course of the year was Andy Reid was like, man, Darrell Williams needs to get in there more than Lev Bell.

Yeah, and while he produced for fantasy for the Jets in 2019, that was just an overwhelming amount of volume. He wasn't good. He wasn't efficient. He just was their number one guy that they paid a whole much of money to, so they were going to force feed him the ball. Lev Bell hasn't been good for fantasy football since 2017. Yeah, so don't do anything about it. Ignore it. Take it out of the news. Cut this all out.

No, it needs to be in here so we could tell people don't prioritize adding Levy on Bell. All right. Josh Jacobs was absent from a second straight practice on Tuesday. However, however, he will return. Now, why does this report say he isn't expected to return to the field to the field on Thursday? It says it isn't expected until Thursday. Oh, until. I'm sorry. Yeah, he is supposed to be back on Thursday. I don't know what to make of this report. People close to the team.

make me believe it's not a big deal. This sounds like it's probably a personal off the field reason, especially for, oh, he's going to be gone until Thursday. And it's currently Wednesday. So an injured player, the report would be, well, let's see if he gets out there in practices. He was named a team captain last week along with Darren Waller as well. I am a little bit worried. And the only reason that I'm worried is because the Gruden Talk Fest.

um versus the transactions and what they're doing you know they they put in a claim was it royce freeman they tried to claim on waivers yes um and then they brought in carry on johnson for a workout they signed patent barber like i think the carry on johns is the backup they do have a history of this every off season i mean theoretic was the was this talking point on this show last year it it's just one of those things where when you combine it with like oh someone's missing practices

and we're working out running backs. It just, it makes the little, the spidey senses go. Is there more here? Remandre Stevenson dislocated his thumb last week in practice. Might still be available for Sunday. Might not. Could be an interesting spot start game for James White in week one if he needed it. Like if you were, let me ask you this, are you worried enough about DeAndre Swift where you would start James White in that game over Swift? No. No. Okay.

Maybe not then. Chris Godwin, Thursday night game, limited with a quad injury. There was a report about Antonio Brown missing practice, but later it came out that it was a maintenance day for his knee. I think both of these players will be fine ahead of the game, but I know the line is jumping all over the place. Yes. For Thursday night. I mean, you have the Zach Martin News with Dallas. You've got this news with Godwin.

But it's going up for Tampa. It's going up for Tampa? Yes. Okay. So we do have Thursday night preview on today's episode of the show. So we're going to talk about this game in detail. So I'll probably just leave those there unless you guys have anything to add. Nope. All right. That was today's news and notes brought to you by Sleeper. A reminder, get those breaking news alerts by downloading the Sleeper app season starting soon. So you should grab that. You would have seen Latavius Murray's.

Cut news last night. You would have been the first. And then you could have run around the neighborhood announcing it. Well, if your waivers were open, you could have grabbed Tony Jones immediately. That's true. Tony Brooks Jones. It was confirmed there's a Tony Brooks James and there's a Tony Jones Jr. And they're both running backs. Also, I don't know if you guys realize this. There is now a Tony Brooks Jones Jr. And that is him. And that is his name forever. What?

because I just declared it. Oh, this is a darn L. Anderson situation. This is a darn L. Anderson. I thought you'd Wikipedia at it or something, and his real middle name was Brooks. Still could be. Maybe it's better if we don't. Yeah, everyone's, Brooks is confused over there. Everybody's confused now. Let's get into those undrafted gyms. Well, that's a story of my life. No respect. No respect.

All right, these are players to keep an eye on, to add to your watch list. It could be somebody that Jason brought up such a good point yesterday. I love preseason trading because you can do two-for-ones right now, open up a roster spot, and then add one of these players. If you go out there and you take a couple of players with mysterious futures that you are, you're just not sure if they're going to pan out. Like one of them? Jacoby Myers.

Like maybe there's more value now for Jacoby Myers than there will be during the season. I don't know. People view certain players Will Fuller. You know, there are certain players that there's a lens that, you know, five people in your league may hate the guy. Five people might think he's promising for the upcoming year. You can go two for one, pick up a better player, and then go out one of these six players or another one of the undrafted gems out there. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we could, you know.

We're bringing up two guys each, but I feel like we could bring up six, seven, eight guys each. You know, there are so many players out there, Brian Edwards is not someone we're talking about today who is available in a lot of. Trequan Smith. These guys where it's like you're going to find out week one what their involvement is and they either hit and great, you've got someone or you cut them and have fun with week one waivers. And so my first pick here is Donald Parham Jr. Parham Jr. I always throw an in in there.

Brooks James is the end. Donald Brooks Parham Jr. He's 6-8-256. He's the tight end for the Los Angeles Chargers. He's being completely ignored in each and every draft. 6-8-256, 24 years old, 99th percentile dominator rating in college. He is an athlete, and he's stepping into a role that was very valuable last year. Jared Cook got the off-season buzz, but...

Parham looks like the value to me. He's stepping into a spot where Hunter Henry went 60 for 613 and 4 last year. You have an ascending quarterback, an improved offensive line. There's going to be touchdown opportunity for him. I think he scored three times last year just on very limited amounts of targets. So I think Parham is one of the perfect add-ons. Like if you're looking at adding him,

or kind of an old busted tight-in flyer, you get potentially higher payout with Parham Jr. And I'll kind of piggyback on this for the Chargers. And I like the Parham pick because who is the number two target? And I'm not counting Austin Echler. But it's Keenan Allen is locked in. Mike Williams is like the target percentage is just, it wasn't there with Justin Herbert. He's an excellent player.

But will he really ascend to be the number two guy where Hunter Henry was seeing, you know, like a 15% target share? So Parham is in play. And also his teammate, Josh Palmer, the third round rookie that the Chargers just picked up. We had Austin Echler on this show mention his name when we said, hey, who could be someone, excuse me, surprising on this third rounder? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Who's someone that could be interesting that people aren't talking about?

He brought up Josh Palmer. Now, Palmer is, it's very difficult because for fantasy football, you know, you want to see a good production profile. I want to see a wide receiver in college really do something because the correlation of that turning into a superstar at the NFL level, there is a...

There is a high correlation there. And these guys that really don't have a profile of any production, Josh Palmer was basically a 500 yard per game or per season player. So it's not there. But the Chargers saw enough that they took this player in the third round. And I think that he is worth a bench flyer just in case he shows up and shows out and he is the number two guy. And Mike Williams, this is his final year of the contract, right?

Correct. I believe that's true. Yeah. So you do have opportunity on the Chargers offense just because of the quarterback position. And they're both very good bestball candidates, too. If you're in a deeper basketball league, you're closing out some drafts.

There could be some, you know, they could be free final picks for you. They also had a couple deep threats that have shown well in the past that they cut and they moved on from as a team. And that says to me that there is, exactly, that there is confidence in Josh Palmer, who was a great deep threat in college. So I really like the Josh Palmer pick as someone to see if he pops. My first undrafted gem here is.

Ty Johnson. Ty Johnson running back for the New York Jets. A lot was made about Michael Carter. Oh, they drafted him. He was someone that pre-NFL draft. We were hyped for rookie running back coming in. Look, he hasn't been used. He's fourth on the depth chart. He didn't play with the first string. Like, Michael Carter's not a thing.

Not yet. Yeah, maybe he breaks in, maybe later in the season. He gets more involved. But the truth is, running backs drafted after the fourth round or in the fourth round and later historically just don't work. There's like a few examples. I mean, might as well be undrafted. The undrafted guys hit about the same rate. And, and Kevin Coleman, I mean, we talk about Lev Bell, right? Like, oh, he's washed. He hasn't looked good in years.

I don't know if Tevin Coleman has anything left to give. He might, because we haven't really seen him. He hasn't been on the field enough. He's got, you know, a lot of injury history. So this is a guy in Ty Johnson. I think he has more opportunity than what he's been drafted for. Do you believe more in stashing Ty or Coleman?

Because Coleman is widely available too. Coleman is mostly drafted. In most leagues, if you're like, you know, you draft 16 rounds. Brooks is giving us that he's available in 75% of leagues. Well, then 75% of leagues have two bench spots. They're going pretty early. Because when I was looking this up for ADP, he was, I think, in the 13th, 14th round, which is usually drafted. But I guess my point is,