Keep/Trade/Cut + Broadway on Grass! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/6

Being lower on Brandon Ayuk is not indicative of the quality of the player. He is awesome. It's the situation, the system, the low passing, and the hyper efficiency he has to have to repeat. Yeah, and it's keep trade cut, so you're kind of stuck picking one. All right, let's go with this one. Three running backs on brand new teams. They are currently back to back to back on our consensus 2024 rankings. Keep trade cut. Aaron Jones. Austin Echler and the Gus bus. This is a funny three pack. I mean, this three pack was way more fun to talk about like four years ago. Yeah. Gus Edwards was about to start a season as the starting running back in Baltimore. What a great couple days that was. Look, you know my answer. You know I'm going to cut. Well, I know we're on opposite sides on Aaron Jones. We're on opposite sides on Aaron Jones. We are. And I think it makes it.

It makes you want to cut Aaron Jones. Which is why I pause. I'm trying to be unbiased and just look at the actual players here. Like Echler, it's a huge question mark there. Reunited with his offensive or with Anthony Lynn, who he was with in Los Angeles, has an opportunity in the passing game, should, but really don't know what that's going to look like with Brian Robinson, who I think was very good last year. Gus Edwards, it's all in front of him, but most of his like years are behind him. And then Aaron Jones, you know, they let him go. They moved forward with Josh Jacobs. I do think it's interesting because you've been very negative on Josh Jacobs and you don't believe in it. And this is the same team that also said we are going to get rid of Aaron Jones to bring in the guy that you don't believe in, and you still believe in Aaron Jones. It's the process that went about. They tried to resign Aaron Jones first. Before bringing in Josh Jacobs,

Aaron Jones wouldn't take the pay cut. They let him go. Then they went after another running back because they said, we lost Aaron Jones, who was really good for us. How good was he? How good was he? Well, the last six games counting the playoffs. He had 17 opportunities 24, 21, 27, 22, 24. Super important. He had five straight rushing yard games of over 100. He didn't lose anything. Close enough. But you're taking the onus off the team. You're like, oh, he didn't take the pay cuts. So they got rid of him for this guy I don't like. Like the team could have paid him and like don't take a pay cut if you think that that's what you've got. Like why not just pay the guy that's so great? Why replace him with a guy that you personally do think struggles? I have so much respect for how the Packers run their organization. I would have done the 100% same thing. This is an older back. They brought in a younger back. I mean, Josh Jacobs, when I say that he is not someone that I think like I'm not positive. He's lost anything. I just see the path.

He was very inefficient last year. He was my fantasy wildcard because he could ease, I mean, Josh Jacobs could be awesome this year, and I'll take the L on that. I lean towards him not being, but Aaron Jones just didn't look like he lost a step. You look at Aaron Jones versus Austin Neckler last year. You know, obviously Aaron Jones was injured and didn't have a great fantasy season in totality, but when he was out there, he looked great. Austin Echler. He had a bad, yeah, sometimes. You're not remembering the really bad run in the middle of the season, in between multiple injuries. But yeah, you can at least explain it away with injuries where Josh Jacobs, like I don't remember like a catastrophic ankle injury. Maybe I'm misremembering it. I will be trading Aaron Jones in this situation to Jason. I will be keeping Gus Edwards because I feel like the offense is built around it. I'm going to go for the touchdowns. And I'm going to cut Austin Eklis.

and just not have any commander stink on the roster. With the, just a follow up real quick to what the Packers are doing, they have to sign Jordan Love very soon. So they're going to be, Jordan Love's gamble, or I guess, whatever, both of their gambles. But Jordan Love, his bet on himself, it's going to turn into a gigantic contract because he is technically under contract this year, like this year. In 2025 is one of those weird void. things so did you see the numbers with the wide receiver core compared to what jefferson's deal is that they have like 12 million guaranteed to their current wide receiver room yes and jefferson what was the number of guaranteed money for jefferson oh is 110 million something like that that's wild that's amazing an amazing job by that team and then did you also see that tyree kill had to say that being greedy is not going to help your team tyree kill on his gigantic contract

That was very funny. Anyways, sidebar, back to the players. These are all philosophically different players. Gus Edwards, is he good? At this point, I don't know. But the opportunity is so incredible and the depth chart is completely beatable. Austin Echler, he should still work as a pass catcher. And then Aaron Jones to me is the one who has the most juice left. But he's got a... a young player behind him and Ty Chandler that can really earn reps. Like, Ty Chandler should be on the field a good amount for the Vikings if they're doing things right. So having to choose between them. Oh, my goodness. I guess I'm keeping Jones. I have Echler just a few spots ahead of Aaron Jones, but I guess I'm going to take Aaron Jones here and trade Gus.

The Gus situation just, it never works. It never, ever works. An old man changing teams to be the guy and for all the reasons of, there's no one else there. The volume has to be there. We all scream into the mirror of why didn't this work yet again. So that's my fear. I'm going to keep Jones. I think he's best. So you're cutting Gus bus? That's what you just said. I mean, you didn't say it. No, I think you avoided the last one. I think I'm cutting Gus. That is, that is where I am to keep Aaron Jones. Trade Austin Echler cut Gus only because Austin Echler is a few spots ahead in ADP than Gus Edwards. Who scores the most touchdowns among the three? Gus Edwards. Who has the most total yards? Aaron Jones. Who catches the most passes? Austin Echler. Yeah. Okay. So what I'm saying, this is, these three are, this is a wild three peg.

How many of these three will you have on your team? One. One to zero. Yeah, it's one. Yeah, one to zero. Old faithful or old yeller. Oh, Kyle. That's the name of this one. Oh, that's so sad. Old faithful or old yellow. These three players are going back to back in the middle of the third round. Now, we're talking about the part of old yellow where we're living a great life. No. Because we have our best friend. Not that part. No? Nope. We're talking about the bad part. The rabies part? Yeah. It was rabies, right? I just remember he dags. Was it? Well, yeah. Okay. Moving. Spoiler. Old faithful or old yeller. Travis Kelsey, Derek Henry, Mike Evans. So 34 years old for Kelsey, 30 for Derek Henry, 30 for Mike Evans. Where do you sit? Give me your keep trade cut. Man, this is, this is, I like all three of these players. I really do.

where they are going right now in the drafts, you know, back to back to back in the middle of the third round, I think is fine. I could see me taking any one of these players. I'm not anti any of them. That being said, Kelsey has other options. For the first time ever, there's like a four or five pack of potential hopeful tight-in ones. You know, and so I don't feel the need to take him in the third round over a running back or wide receiver. So I lean Derek Henry. We've talked about him recently. Andy, you brought him up on the wild. Was that the wild card episode? I was to explain yourself. I got to explain yourself because I had him in 18. Yes. And you had a lot of. And you had a lot of data about he needs to have an outlier season in order to be an older running back who's not catching passes who will succeed. I do think that. I mean, I believe that is true.

But I also believe that truth happens. This is, you know, we just talked about Gus Edwards, who vacated 13 rushing touchdowns for the same team last year. Derek Henry greater signed Gus Edwards. So they brought him in. The depth chart there is not scary for Derek Henry. I don't love older running backs changing teams. But if they are, I want them to go to the MVP of the league at quarterback for a power rushing team. I'm going to take Derek Henry over Mike Evans. So I will keep Derek Henry. I will trade Mike Evans and I will cut Travis Kelsey, final answer for me. I will go with the same thing. I will prioritize running back in this round over wide receiver, despite obviously Mike Evans. He did get his money. He delivered last year, one of the best picks in fantasy. But I can find some players I have confidence in at wide receiver beyond Mike Evans at that ADP.

or at ADP later on. So I'll go, I'll match you. I'm keeping Mike Evans. I will trade, man, I think I'm trading Derek Henry. And I agree with the thoughts on Kelsey. There's just, there's some other guys that may have a chance to knock him off being the number one. But I'm going to keep the wide receiver over as much as I believe in Derek Henry. He still is a 30-year-old running back entering year nine. All right, let's take a quick break and come back with some more. All right, we're jumping into more keep trade cut. This one is late round quarterbacks that could open the year as your starter. These are all round 10 quarterbacks. We just did a mock draft where two of these guys ended up on Jason's team. So maybe the option is you can take two. But opening schedules could be the tiebreaker between them. Jared Goff, quarterback for the Detroit Lions after the impressive season. Jaden Daniels, the rookie.

out of Washington who's going to run the football, who's got an opportunity to probably be a better fantasy player than an NFL player in year one. And then Justin Herbert, who is being just tossed aside, just relegated to late round. It brings Andy so much pain to see Justin Herbert this far back. Just me? No, not just you. It brings me pain too. Justin Herbert is an actual great NFL quarterback. And we, Jason and I were talking more about this. And, you know, I think that there's a chance that Justin Herbert is just fine. And so as part of the answer here, you could be getting a player that is a perennial, much higher pick that is getting discounted because of the situation losing Keenan Allen and Mike Williams and the offensive structure. Or he really doesn't have anybody to throw the football too. Like that is part of the real answer is that Joshua Palmer.

He profiles as a wide receiver 2, 3 in the NFL. So far, Quentin Johnston profiles as a wide receiver 7 or 8 in the NFL. Ladd McConkey is a rookie. So you want to put it on? Here's the problem for Ladd McConkey. Is that, okay, maybe he can have some success and be a PPR relevant player. Also, if he's their best player, you want a rookie getting the attention of the defense and the defense baiting tosses to butterfingers outside? I mean, if he is... Which one's Butterfingers? That's huge. Okay. Yeah, that's huge. Palmer's fine. Palmer's actually a really good wide receiver two. Palmer's just the like, he's the understudy for the wide receiver one and two. 100%. Like the performance is not going to be as good. And you wished you had gotten tickets to the other show. But he's still there. Like, you know, I go to a Broadway musical and I get that little slip. Yeah. And I'm disappointed. Yeah. I'm like, I'm like, I.

Dang it. All right, boozy boy. Not everyone knows what you're talking about. They list the understudy on that. Today's performance, the role of so-and-so will be played by understudy. And then it's like, oh, that stinks. But they're on Broadway. Yeah. That's still a talented person. And this is the NFL. Palmer is still be a really talented person. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so talented, but you're still disappointed. It's a perfect analogy. Yes, thank you. I knew you'd be in on that one. But to answer the question, I'm going to keep Jared Gough. I'm going to trade Jaden Daniels. I'm going to cut Justin Herbert. Yes. Yes. All that, all that like, oh, I'm so sad. Justin Herbert is out here. He's the clear cut here. Also, when you're in round 10, you need to look at the opening schedule and consider that.

Justin Herbert's beginning to the season scares me. And it scares me specifically because of the Vegas lines. Opens week one with the Raiders. He should be able to throw on them. The Raiders are better defense than you think. Their team wasn't that good, but their defense was great. The over under is 43.5 points. You know, you're not super excited about that. And if it's an easy team, what do you think Hard Dog's going to do? He'll run. If they got the lead, they're going to run the ball. So then the next week they got the Panthers. Sweet three to zero victory. Probably a 17 to zero victory where Herbert throws the ball four times. You know what I mean? Like the over under there is 41. And then the Steelers, 42. Like it's just not exciting. For me, I'm going to do what I did in the mock draft. I'm going to take Jaden Daniels. Swing for the fences. Hope that it's crazy rushing ceiling you saw. I believe it was the quarterback seven Kyler Murray's rookie year.

with Cliff Kingsbury. And so I'm going to try that first. So I will keep Jane Daniels, cut Jared Goff, or I'm sorry, cut Justin Herbert and trade Jared Goff. If I have, if this is like I'm picking one quarterback and I'm going to ride this out for the whole year, I would take the shot on Jane Daniels. But if this is really just, I want a guy to get me through the first quarter of the season, it's Jared Goff with the Rams, the Bucks, the Cardinals, the Seahawks. The average line over, under, it looks like it's, the average is essentially 49 or close to 50 points here. And, like, I think Jared Goff is, yeah, he has really, really bad games, but I do think he is being underrated. And I, a fun stat I had Kyle dig up this morning. Sample is unbelievably small, of course, because it's just from last year. But it's three games without David Montgomery.

Their neutral pass rate jumped from 57% to 64%. So should David Montgomery miss time, I think that this team, despite the leadership being as high T as you can possibly get, if Jamir Gibbs is your lead running back, you're going to throw the ball more. But aren't you saying that that seems like a negative? Because he had that last year baked into his numbers where David Montgomery missed time. As of now, David Montgomery is there. So they should throw the ball less. No, no, I'm saying, no, but he did what he did mostly with the full team. I'm saying where it's like when you're drafting Jamir Gibbs, you know that if David Montgomery misses time, you have now you're going to see an uptick. I'm saying for a quarterback, if this other running back misses time, your pass rate is going to grow up. I don't think the best argument is to talk about Montgomery missing time. I think the best argument is that Montgomery got reduced snaps. So when Montgomery doesn't get snaps over the back half of the year,

last year. Gibbs is on the field more. Gibbs catches more passes. They want to use them in the passing game and they depend on golf more. The Drew Breeze effect. Yeah. Where you get a ton of added passing value. Just dinking it down to Camara. All right. Let's jump into the mailbag and answer a few questions from the Footland. Mailbag. Mailbag. Ow! All right. If you have a question for us, you can go to the website. The fantasy footballers.com. Click that submit a question button. or dial our voicemail hotline, 302464 TFFB. First question, Henry, in New Jersey, says in a Dynasty League, would you trade the 102 for Puka Nakua in a half PPR? What would you do, Jason? I know, I know my answer. Which is a way of saying neighbors adunzei. Yeah. Or. Or puka. So I'm very confident in my answer. So I.

I would love to hear your guys is. His answer is Puka. I'm real confident in mine too, so I just want to check what you guys are saying. Yeah, I'm super confident if someone wants to tell me what they're doing. I mean, I'm, look, I think I think it would be stupid for anybody to answer, not Puka. Because Puka's level of excellence was so high that it feels dumb to project it for one of these other players. Now, if Malik Neighbors is equal sign Jemar Chase. Yeah. And you had, you know, you go to the future and find that out. Like right now, if you say, okay, do you want Jamar Chase or Pooka Nakua? I think everyone's answering Jemar Chase. Absolutely. So in that case, like if you, I don't think it's wrong to shoot your shot. And I don't know that Puka Nakua is going to do this every year all the time. And so I don't mind you taking neighbors. That would be the only pick I would take over Puka. The range of outcomes. I'm sorry, not a Dunezay? No. Okay.

The range of outcomes is decently wide for both players. This could have been Puka Nakua's best season the rest of his career. But even if that's true, and that was his best, and now he's just a good wide receiver. We know he's a good wide receiver. He's not going away, but maybe he's not a top five wide receiver ever again for fantasy. That still doesn't mean that you lose the trade taking Puka because Corey Coleman, Nikiel Harry, there are an endless list of first round highly touted wide receivers that just don't actually happen to work out. Quentin Johnston. Not drafted this high, though. Not drafted that high. I mean, though. Yeah, I mean, it's a very small amount that are drafted at what was neighbors, five, six, five, just, just throwing that out there. No, I agree. That's literally looked up Corey Coleman. That's when you go, Corey Davis, John Ross. Even if he's, if he's Mike Williams, that's a disappointment. Right. So, you know.

The hope is that Neighbors is much better than Pooka Nakua. He certainly was that way in college drafted to be better than Puka Nakua, but I would definitely take Puka. We know he is great for the NFL. We know he works well with Sean McVeigh. He's an integral part of a great offense. I would take Puka, but valuing Puka and Kairn at this point is incredibly difficult. Is there any chance you take Puka over Marvin Harrison? I mean, a lot of the arguments we're making. Yeah. No. Yeah. Jay, it could be a boat. What if he turns into Puka to Gula? Then he's just younger. Like I said, valuing Puka is a near impossible task. Corey Davis was five overall. Yep. Amari Cooper was four overall. If you have Amari Cooper's career, I'm not sure you're happier than Puka. Mm-hmm. That's why you draft Amari.

Oh, yeah, Marty Cooper was for Sammy Watkins was for overall. Oh, yeah, there you go. Oh, brother. And he was, that was the 2014. He was a can't miss. But he was can't miss in the 2014 class where nobody missed, where he was the only miss. Well, I guess Calvin Benjamin ate his way out of the league or something. Oh, my gosh. Boston. I, Sammy Watkins, though, just to bring it up, like, I think. The first year he played, Sammy Watkins had 128 targets. Yeah. Okay, he never touched that number again, right? And he had six touchdowns. The next year he had like nine touchdowns. But he's a tiny little bit of a cursory tale of like you do like Bolden's best year was his rookie year. Like Sammy Watkins showed great promise his rookie year. None of them were on level with breaking the records that Puganakua did, but you can go sideways. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

It could go sideways this year. It could absolutely go sideways this year. I mean, when I look at Sammy Watkins' career trajectory, you know, he was drafted so high, comes out. He's the wide receiver 27 his rookie year. His sophomore year, he's the wide receiver 17. You know where he's going, and it's to the moon. And he, I mean, he was never even a wide receiver three again. He was worthless the rest of his career. McKay Jordan says, would Jonathan Brooks be a good draft pick? That's just the whole question. Yep. I'm going to answer the question. I don't think so. I think he's a great draft pick, and you're using the wrong adjective. Okay. Jason took him in the mock draft on Tuesday. If Jason had not, I would have selected him right there. He's in the ninth round right now. That's going to go up over the process of the off season.

With the ACL that he is recovering from, I don't know that if he climbs into a range where it becomes incredibly scary to draft him. I agree. If he jumps up into like the fourth, even though a rookie in the fourth is like that's usually smashed that draft button of a rookie running back. But that would be scary if he got up that high. I don't think he climbs past the sixth. Because of the ACL, because he will get off to a slow start. I don't necessarily think week one he is, you know, the clear leader. What happens if they cut Miles Sanders? Oh, no. Now he's in the fourth round. Right. Don't do that. Don't do that. It also might mean that the start isn't as slow. Tommy Reed 711 says is a 2025 first round draft pick good value for T. Higgins and Dynasty. I'm not. I'm okay with that. I would, yeah, I would offer it.

I would trade my 2025 first for T. Higgins. You get a year of a player on your roster, period. It's a guaranteed win unless he misses the season. I'm not doing it if I think my picks are in the top six. Well, it won't be after you get Higgins. You know what I'm saying? You're telling me he might hit 1,000 yards. Is that what you're telling me? I am telling you he might play 17 games. Which is his only pathway to 1,000. Yeah, no, that makes sense. He's good, man. The right adjective for T. Higgins is good, not great. I agree with that, but not fine. The best he's ever done was 74 for 1091 and 6. That's good. That's not great. Yeah. And I don't know if I want to settle in. Like, would you trade, let me put it this way. Would you trade a 2025 first round pick for Michael Pittman? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Like just regardless of where it's landing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

The way you said okay scared me for a second. I was like, oh, no, did we just convince Andy to go do a deal? But then I remember Andy doesn't have picks. I'm not negotiating live here. Okay. But I also, I think I'm aiming higher than a wider receiver 15 to 20. When I'm using that pick, for my roster, I'm aiming higher than wide receiver 15 to 20. And that is what Higgins and Pittman are. I'm aiming hiring that with my third round picks. Doesn't mean I'm going to get it. So you want the wide receiver two in the bag versus the wide receiver one in the bush? I want the wide receiver who just got a big bag of money. That's a great way to, that's a great way to put it. And the Dynasty League, I would much rather have a wide receiver two in the bag than a wide receiver one in the bush. Yeah, the bags of money. Galaday got a bag of money. James Jones got a bag of money. It's not just the bag of money. I want to know what the potential of a player is. Because to keep players around, you got to give them a bag of money. That's just how it works.

But neither of those players were kept around. They went to different teams. To get their bag of money. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. Same team makes a big difference. All right. You answered the question. You have passed the test. All right. I think that is going to do it for today's episode of the show. A reminder of the Ultimate Draft Kit available right now at Ultimate DraftKit.com. You can go pick it up and use it right away. There's an app. There's a web interface, tons of tools and resources, constantly being updated. Made some tweaks in my rankings yesterday. Next week we got some mailbag. We got some old bland and undervalued players and a whole lot more here on the show. So join us for that. And you can watch the show on YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. That'll do it. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers.