Wildcard Players + Diamonds in the Rough - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/8

in that range. And then he, but then he got exposed and defenses figured out this is how we stopped the Miami Dolphins offense because we're going to make Tua do certain things that he can't actually do. That's, that's all up in the air. It's all part of the wild card equation for two is you didn't have a long enough stretch, a healthy enough stretch to conclusively come in here and plant your flag and say, oh, he's going to be better than Lamar. Like, I mean, there. There was a world where you could have said that. The stretch runs longer. He doesn't get hurt. Yeah, for sure. And it's a little bit narrative based with the concussion stuff. So I don't like, you know, I don't like batting on this thought process. I don't include it in like my probabilities. But just when I watched the beginning of the year, this was a sharp quarterback. And when he came back after some of those injuries, it didn't look to me on film like. That's a good word for it. It didn't look to me as if.

NFL defense has figured him out, he looked off. He missed some passes that he was not, you know, just accuracy-wise, right? He was in the 50s or something. Yeah, in that stretch period, once he came back and things weren't fantastic, he's still putting up yardage. He still has an okay touchdown rate, but he was completing, I'm not even going to hit the button because it was, it's not great, but he was completing 55% of your passes and completing 55% of your passes as a professional quarterback, is not a route to success. Certainly when you have Jaylen Waddle and Tyree Kill as options in the passing game, you should be completing a lot more than that. So that's my first wild card. Who do you got, Jay? I'm going to go with a running back here, a running back out of Los Angeles named Cameron Acres. Cam Acres, huge wild card. In fact, if you look at last year, he was a huge wild card because there was a point in time where it was like he's never going to play another snap of football for the Rams.

They were on the outs. We don't know the details of what happened, but it was like him and McVe may, I don't know. Did they start fighting? Did he, you know, do something bad to him? And then it was just like, well, you're out. You're off the team. He called him a duty head. Yeah, something like that had to have happened. Or maybe. Sean McVeigh. called him Cameron Acres, which is not his birthday. Oh. So I need to step in there. Interesting. So it's just straight Cam. Just Cam. Really? Yeah, just Cam. Okay. Sorry. Go on. Feel like. You know, could have been better. You know, if you name him Cameron, you can still call him Cam, but regardless. You're really limiting your option. Because you could shorten, but you can't add on to it. I was just told I'm not allowed to call him Cameron.

Because that's not his name. Like I can't, I can't go, hey, uh, Jasonathieu. Like I can't do that. No, but if I was named to Jasanathu, I could call you Jason. Absolutely. What a short, cute nickname for me, Mike. A biblical name like Jasonathie. Um, so Cam Acres is someone obviously right now, he's being drafted 23rd running back off the, off the board, not someone that people are expecting huge things from. There is a lot of risk here. The Rams offense was putrid and kind of fell apart. But I think his range of outcomes, if you want to talk about a guy who is, you know, obviously not in the top 20 running backs being drafted who has a chance to be really good, like league winning good, to me that's Cam Acres. And you saw it last year for a six-game stretch at the end of the year. During that six-game stretch,

He played 70 plus percent of Los Angeles, of their Rams offensive snaps. That is an absurd number. Only four running backs hit that mark last season. Dalvin Cook, Saquan Barkley, CMC, and Josh Jacobs. I mean, over the last five years, you look at running backs with 70 plus percent of their snaps, and all of them are top 20 backs, and 90 percent of them are running back ones. And then you go, well, yeah, but they just had to rely on him because there was injuries, blah, blah, blah. Look at the depth chart. It's Cameron Acres. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, new nickname. That's not okay. We're breaking all sorts of laws of the universe. Cam.

Quote Cameron Acres. No. Yeah. The first elongated nickname on record. So anyways, Cam Cameron Acres. Cam Cam Cam Cam. Cam. Cam. At the end of last year, he was extremely good. You're talking points per game. This might surprise you. But points per game during that stretch of the final six weeks, he was ahead of Derek Henry. He was ahead of Sequin Barkley. He was ahead of Tony Pollard. He was ahead of Josh Jacobs. And those guys weren't bad during the final six games at all. He was just awesome. He was the running back four over that time period. So we know that he's got the talent, the opportunity, the depth chart to receive that. And then you think, well, what if this offense is better? It's still Sean McVeigh. Matthew Stafford being back and healthy isn't going to hurt Cam Acres. So to me, he's worth the gamble at where he's going because I, you know, and on the flip side.

him and Sean McVeigh could be on the outs again and he could get dog housed away and, you know, Kairn Williams becomes something. Well, yeah, anytime you have a previous season that included actively being tried, like they tried to get rid of him. That makes him a wild card because do you trust, like Sean McVeigh came out, I mentioned earlier this off season. He said, we're expecting Cam Acres to build on how he finished the season. Beautiful. But I would argue they were expecting Cam Acres to do something different than he did to start the season last year. So I think the range of outcomes makes him very scary. But when you look at ADP, like we talked about earlier, and you look at Cam Acres, and I'm looking at my rankings, and I'm saying, well, I'm going to have to choose between Cam Acres or Antonio Gibson. I'm going to choose Cam Acres or Rashad White. It's like really hard not to go for the guy that could be the workhorse.

Like Gibson won't be that. Like there's no universe where outside of catastrophic injury that Gibson gets that chance again. And if you had to bet. If you had to bet like between the Buccaneers offense recovering from last year or the Rams offense recovering. Yeah, you have an inverse situation. You got Matthew Stafford returning and Brady leaving. So yeah, I mean, definition of a wild card and the kind like you said that can actually, you know, running backs are hard to come by. If you find one late, you've stolen, right? And so I believe the number one running back to help people win championships last year was Josh Jacobs. And he was basically this slot. He was going around the same spot because when you can find a guy in those middle rounds that goes nuclear and is a top five back, you win championships. Mike, give us a wild card. Cut those brakes. All right. I want to talk about.

Drake London, wide receiver of the Atlanta Falcons. I'm going to save my other wild card for it to close it down because I think that he is like the biggest wild card yet that we haven't talked about over this off season. But Drake London, last year was incredible, you know, amazing draft capital, comes out as a rookie and puts up truly high-level elite numbers. 27% of his routes, he earned a target. And so his targets per route run number, 27%. That's outrageously high. His yards per route run over two. That's outrageously high. And his target share by the end of the year, 29%. That's like Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, AJ Brown. That's that level of a target share in the Atlanta passing offense. But we know that Atlanta likes to run. They just invested.

a very high first round pick into Bijon Robinson telling us with their actions that they want to establish the run. And yet you have Drake London, who looks like he can be a true elite wide receiver in the NFL. But will he get enough volume? So we looked back on offenses that had low volume. So the best wide receivers on teams that had a... Bottom five pass rate over expectation since 2019. Those wide receivers averaged 95 targets. None of them went over 120. And aside from, you have guys like AJ Brown who broke the mold when he was in Tennessee, low pass volume, high efficiency comes out for, it's good for fantasy football. But the average finish for these guys, wide receiver 35. Now, we all have Drake London ranked higher than that. Do I?

Yeah, you have them 30 currently. Yeah. So you do have them higher than that, but you have him ranked much lower than ADP. Myself and Jason have him ranked right around his ADP. And it's so hard because when I'm playing fantasy football, talent wins. Talent wins in the NFL. But what does it look like this year? And you had the Kyle Pitts injury as well. But up until the Kyle Pitts injury, Drake London was still seeing 27% of the targets. So he was still really, really involved. But again, that the targets share when they're poor targets, which we don't know if the Desmond Ritter targets are going to be any better than the Marcus Marriota targets, there's a chance that it's a lateral move. And we see exactly the same thing from a completion percentage for the Atlanta Falcons. But Drake Leonard is just so, so good. He's so big. I think he proved all doubters wrong of, like, watch him run routes.

The guy gets open. This isn't just a big-bodied wide receiver who wins at contested catches. No, he can do that. And he can get open on out routes and deep routes. He's so good. It's so frustrating. Well, and it is a, I think it's a point against Drake London that the thing we have to point at is. these targets per out run yards per route target share because you can't look at production like he put these numbers up which were historic and yet you had what like four good games on the season so so it shows you that you can put historically jimar chase jefferson a j brown numbers together in the target department and it can still equate to horrible disappointment and fantasy that's a possible wild card outcome there yeah i mean it was just like mike said he had a 27% target share

through those first 11 weeks when Kyle Pitts was there, that's a great number. But his 17-game pace, just so you know, like, in the actual counting stats that help you in fantasy football, that was only a 97 target pace. And Bejohn is going to get about, I don't know, 75 to 100. He'll get a bunch of targets. It's so tough. And so the behind-the-scenes metrics are fantastic. The production is not great, but 73 for 800. nearly 870 yards and five touchdowns in 16 games played for a rookie wide receiver, those are good numbers. Those are numbers that someone should build upon and go into next year and have a fantastic season. But we just, we can't trust what Arthur's plan is going to turn into a huge season for Drake London. Andy, do you think, do you think Drake London is a great wide receiver? I haven't heard.

Your genuine thought of him as a... I think he's capable of holding down the number one job on a team. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if that's... Does that answer the question? Yeah, it says you think he's okay. To me. That's how I take that. Yeah, I mean, I think we had so little opportunity to see... I mean, you had no consistency. It's very tough. I mean, I think he's a good wide receiver, yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, I don't think he's Darnel Mooney when he was about to inherit a number one role. I think he's better than that. I think he's capable in the right offense. If we were talking about Aaron Rogers arriving and them changing to a passing offense, we'd be talking about Drake Glenn in the same way we're talking about Gary Wilson. So I think he's that, I think he's almost to that level. Yeah, okay. All right, we're going to do a rapid round for a second set of wild card names before we do basketball breakdown. Dalton Kincaid is is a wild card to me. Dalton Kincaid.

rookie tight end slash slot receiver. Is that chuckle from you, Jason, say he's not a wild card for you? He's so into him, he wouldn't even put him as a wild card. Jason just wants him. No, closer to the opposite, but it's just he makes me chuckle because of what the fantasy community is going to do over however it goes. Like whatever happens on his wild card season, you're going to have some victory laps. It is. It's not as intense. Obviously, because Kyle Pitts was a top, whatever, top five pick in the NFL draft. But it has, there are some resemblances of the pre-Kyle Pitts era that are going on with Dalton Kincaid of people freaking out about every mention of him. Anytime Buffalo mentions his name, you're like, huh, how are they going to use him? What, slot? Okay. Look, Joker? Okay.

It's an exciting proposition because of what it's attached to. Dalton Kincaid arriving in Atlanta is not the same conversation. He's not a top five pick. Him arriving to a team that had an abject void beyond Stefan Diggs is what makes him a wildcard. You have their general manager, Brandon Bean, coming out and talking about putting him out into the slot, something that they wouldn't do as much with Dawson Knox. He led the entire... NCAA and slot wide receiver tight end hybrid snaps. This is a capable athlete. And I know we have a history of rookie tight ends. But I do struggle with that kind of sample because we don't have a 20 year sample of players being added to a top five offense playing slot. We don't have, you know, that type of tight end arriving to the NFL level very often. So do I think he can be like what's his range of outcomes?

Like he's a top seven tight end if things go right. That doesn't mean, look, Kyle Pitts, it was like he's going to break the game. He's going to be a top two tight end. He's at a thousand yards. Yeah, he did. He scored once, right? I don't remember. Was it once or twice? It was brutal. Once, yeah. So the potential is what makes him a wild card because you're going to, like I've met 13. Somehow Mike has him lower than Jason, unless that's misprint. That's probably a misprint. It might be. I don't know. Jason's probably, it says 17, that might be 77. That might be 27. So here's the question. 17 seems right. Here's the question for Dalton Kincaid. At tight end 11, that can't be that bad. I mean, if you're drafting the 11th tight end off the board, you are not investing very much into him. That's the underdog. I wonder what is, yeah, that underdog ADP is going to be higher than his redraft ADP. For sure. On sleeper right now, he's 15. Yeah, so to me. That's like, why not?

Yeah, and that's what makes him so kind of exciting, I think, is if you did draft, the slot, if you drafted the number two target, if in Buffalo you stole. Sure. And that's it. That's the only walk, I mean, right now in redraft, he's in the 13th round. So, you know, he doesn't, he's not costing you anything for the chance for the shot to take. In Underdog, I get the maybe rebellion from the hype. because it's probably overextended. You said 13th round in redraft. He's probably a top 12 tied in an underdog. Yeah, he's the tied end 11 right now in underdog. Do you think that's stupid? Yeah, I think that's very stupid. You don't think the underdog gamble? I mean, we're going to talk about best ball in a minute, but like when you look at players that I think you're probably taking them over in Joku, you're probably taking them over Everett. You're probably taking them over.

Yeah, I mean, he's going ahead of some of those players. He's definitely going ahead of Everett. But, you know, it's Doss and Knox is someone you can grab at the very end of a draft who might end up with just more touchdowns this season on the same team. Yeah, that's fair. All right. Give me your second one. All right. I'll give you my second blitzed wild card. It was a wild card selection on this show last year. I was you say, this feels like permanent wild card. He is the permanent wild card, but it's no longer New York Giants wide receiver Cadarius Tony. It is Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Cadarius Tony. The guy has been awesome when he has been running routes on the field. The guy has not been.

running routes on the field very much. You know, is one of those things when he was in New York. It was mostly injury. Then he goes to the chiefs still dealt with more injuries, but it seemed like he got healthy and still didn't play that much. When he was there, though, He was another one of those, you know, you're talking percentage things. He was targeted so far in his career, 25.8% of his routes. That's very good. That's very, for context, here are the only players last year. Can I get an order of routes, please? Yes. Can you give me a double-sized order of routes? Give me more routes. Here are the players who hit that mark in 2022. Stefan Diggs, Justin Jefferson.

Hopkins, Lamb, Olave, Devante Adams, Drake, Lundon, Cooper Cup, Amonrault, St. Brown, and Tyreek Hill. It's like, it's nonstop studs, and then there's Cadarius Tony, who just hasn't been able to be on the field. So if you're telling me that he ends up winning the more permanent job, you know, we don't know. Is it Sky Moore? Is it Rishi Rice? Does Hopkins show up? You know, 25 Chiefs targets in eight games. Yeah, I mean, even in the Super Bowl, in the Super Bowl, he was barely used. So, uh, 25 targets. So 100, 100 rounds. So, uh, I mean, 11 total snaps in the Super Bowl. Yeah. And yet he caught a touchdown and at a 65 yard punt return made a huge impact on that game. Sky Moore got a touchdown. That almost feels more corollary to that stat. Because when he's there and he's out, it's like a design play for Cadarious Tony right now in Kansas City. Sure. It might, it might be. Like Andy reads like.

You're playing 11 snaps, so when you're there, it's probably drawn up for you. So it's one of those things where is he going to inherit the McCull Hardman role and he's just a gadget guy? That's in his range of outcomes. Does he inherit the snaps and routes of juju? Because if he does, and he gets those targets, he's one of the rare athletes that could do special things with Mahomes. Agreed. All right, Mike, close us down with the wild cards before we get into best ball breakdown. I am very excited to talk about Brandon Cooks, who is now on the Dallas Cowboys. He will be turning 30. He's been in the NFL for quite some time played back in 2014. But he's kind of been, you know, a little bit buried on the Houston Texans the last three seasons. Last year was, in particularly bad, finishing as the wide receiver 49 in 13 games. Things were...

bad, you know, there was like some bad blood going on in social media with Brandon Cooks and the team. Things just were clearly not great. But you look back and so you had last year, that was terrible. That's it. That's like that's basically the only time that Brandon Cooks has been bad. In 2019, he had a year that was shortened with the Rams. He only showed up in 14 games and had a not so great year then. But other than that, He's a top 20 wide receiver. And the question is like, is Brandon Cook's still good? And the Dallas Cowboys think that he is. They brought him in. And, okay, so the question of, is he good? Is he okay? But either way, he's going to be the number two option for the Dallas Cowboys. You have CD Lamb who's locked in. Great wide receiver. But beyond that, what do you have?

Looking at the Dallas Cowboys play last year, you saw you like, man, this team really, really, really needs Michael Gallup. They need another wide receiver who can do things for this offense. I think that a lot of these struggles that DAC had, especially with turnover and things had to do with the rest of his wide receiver core, could not get it done behind C.D. Lamb. and Dalton Schultz, the doctor, who's kind of a reliable guy, he's now gone. Are they going to find that with Jake Ferguson or the schoon man coming in as a second round pick? That's TBD. But Brandon Cooks, I think he's still good. We just had, you know, speaking of hype. There was a little bit today. We had more hype.

today from saying that Brandon Cook's just torched double coverage. I believe the quote said wildcard Brandon Cook, just torched coverage. Sure. Torch double coverage for a perfect 60-yard strike from Dak Prescott, who, Dak Prescott historically, been a very accurate quarterback. So, like, if Brandon Cooks really has anything left, I think that he is a screaming value right now in fantasy football. Rankings-wise, you were on Cook's Island. Yes, I am. And I didn't realize it. I didn't either. I do think that part of the wild card built in is, I mean, there's been plenty of hype about Michael Gallup being back in form after the injury. It takes the year to get back. What is the form, though? The form is, do you see the check they gave him? Yeah, I was going to say the form is what they paid him to come back to be. They said, by Amari Cooper, we're going to pay Michael Gallup instead. Sure. Yeah, I mean, Cowboys handing out really good checks.

I mean, like, they paid Zeke a lot of money, and then they were like, eh, you're going to need to get out of here. Five year, 57 million dollar contract. They gave after the ACL. How much was guaranteed? Uh, it was 57 million guarantee. 27 versus 57 very different. But like they gave them, they gave them Ari Cooper $100 million or whatever was. And they're like, eh, you're going to have to get out of here. I'm not saying you're wrong. But I'm just saying that that's one of the, I'm trying to find the way that it goes wrong. Right. And you guys have Brandon Cooks ranked more like his ADP is. It just, it kind of dawned on me the other day and I was talking in the office to Jason. I'm like, is Brandon Cooks still good? Right. Because if the answer to that is, yeah, he's still, it doesn't even have to be, oh yeah, he's still Brandon Cooks. It can be, yes, Brandon Cooks is still pretty good. Wide receiver 14, 9, 12, 13, 15, and 20. Those are six seasons in which he was the top.

20 wide receiver. And I know there's a lot to be said about what is the identity of the Dallas Cowboys offense. Mike McCarthy and his 1960s version of the NFL that might be coming in. But they were playing with the lead last year and still throwing the ball. And so after DAC returned from injury, they were third and total yards, 10th and passing yards per game, fifth and expected points per pass attempt. They were tremendous. And they were cooking. And so I think it's wild here of we have the wide receiver two. who has historically been great for fantasy football, has top-notch speed, doesn't have to be the number one. Like, that's another great thing for me in Brandon Cook's Corner is C.D. Lamb gets to be the number one guy, and Brandon Cooks gets to be the alternate. Like, that's incredible for a guy who's going to turn 30. Yeah, and the cost is nothing. Yeah. All right, let's move on. Bestball Breakdown, presented by Underdog Fantasy.

Well, every week we have a best ball breakdown here, presented by Underdog, a new segment leading up into the season. Go ahead and hit the button. They say it's short and sweet today. We are talking about some nasty boys, your favorite last round pick in best ball. These are important for a number of reasons. One, if you hit them, they obviously set you apart. And two, this is where you can differentiate lineups. Not everybody is draft. You know, when you look at guys with ADPs, you know, over 200, they're not drafted in as many leagues. You know, for example, last year, Gino Smith was only drafted in 2.6% of rosters. And he ended up being drafted. Yeah, just being drafted. And he ended up being a top 10 overall player.

in advance rate. Success. Yeah. Diamonds in the rough. Give them to me. I'm going to give you my three favorites. These are just the guys I have personally been drafting the most with my last round pick. The first? A former first round running back playing on the highest powered offense in the league. We have to laugh so we don't cry. Clyde Edwards-Alaire. Last year, my number one drafted guy was Derek McKinnon in the last round. And it was like, well, look, there's an opportunity he gets on the field more than you think on a great offense. I'm just going to take the shot. Take the shot. Clyde Edwards-A-Layer. I think there's... So what? Who cares? Who cares? You take a shot with your last pick. My second one. Former first round NFL draft pick who has been...

pretty good in his career, just not great. Top 10 if I'm not. I think it was like top five or something. He was the number five. Number five. Oh my gosh. Corey Davis. Corey Davis of the New York Jets. Do you actually vomit a little when you make your last picks? No, I like these guys. No, you don't. I do too. I'm like, I'm happy when I could grab these three players. These three players, I think in the last round are going to actually score fantasy points. Most of the guys that you're drafting in the last round, they're not going to. Your third name is my favorite one. My third name is not a first round pick.