The 2021 “My Guys” Episode! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/20

But his pace was ridiculous. He was on pace for 5,200 yards, 44 touchdowns. And when you look at the signs and signals of a player that's declining at the quarterback position, you don't generally find a player that was number three overall in 20 plus yard completions. He had 63 of them last year. Number four overall in 40 plus yard completions.

Number one in air yards per attempt in all of football. Oh, Bruce Ariens, thank you. Yeah, it really, it's nice to see that the narratives around Bruce Ariens' offense still fit with Tom Brady, where like Bruce can't handle his quarterback not chucking it. And Tom Brady's happy to do it. And then when you look at the wide receiver room and you see Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, you had Scotty Miller open down the field. And so it's just an elite.

offense, elite offensive line. You're going to get a few sneak touchdowns from Tom Brady. And I wanted to look back at Bruce Ariens year two historically as well because that was part of the narrative. It can be a bumpy road in year one. But what's happened, he's had four different teams that he's been a part of, which one of these I completely forgot. Back in 2002, he was with Cleveland. They made the playoffs in year two with Bruce Ariens with Tim Couch at quarterback. In year two in Pittsburgh, they won the Super Bowl with Big Ben.

It was a huge step forward once they got on the same page. Arizona in 2015, that's when Carson Palmer went bananas. That was the year where Mike had him is on my guy. He was first in yards per attempt. And then we've got year two for Tom Brady and Tampa Bay and everything's ahead of him. So, you know, he's obviously not going to do it forever. But I think he's going to do it for one more year. And he's the perfect combination of elite upside and elite draft value.

He's a my guy. I don't know if it's fair to say he's obviously not going to do it forever. That's assuming human law, which I don't think applies here. I mean, the reality is you might be worried about Mike Evans or Chris Godwin or Antonio Brown or Gronk or you might say, well, there's just, you know. We talked about the three wide receivers. Man, I forgot to mention Gromk. It can't work out for all of them. And so I'm going to bypass this player or that player. But.

They all go for Brady. So, yeah, I love it. I'm going to go next because we're going to go from old to young. We're going from Tom Brady to my first my guy, CD Lamb. Okay. Oh, brother, hot bothered.

I make notes at the end of every NFL season. You know, we have our 10 Things to Remember episode. And I wrote down a note in my binder this last year. And it said, quote, In your trapper keeper? And my trapper keeper is a five star. It said, quote, be all in on CD Lamb.

and T. Higgins next year. This was leaving the season. I wanted to remind myself how great they were on the field. And these two had kind of different off seasons. One team drafted a top five NFL pick at wide receiver. And the other team had Amari Cooper pretty much gone for their entire offseason program and is getting Dak Prescott back. And I think Justin Jefferson, his outstanding rookie year, really has masked.

just how great C.D. Lamb was. He already has been phenomenal. He's one of seven rookies with 70 receptions and 900 receiving yards over the last decade. That list is Keenan Allen, Odell Beckham, Amari Cooper, Michael Thomas, Justin Jefferson, and then Kelvin Benjamin's in there as well. And outside of him, Calvin Benjamin's rookie year was awesome. He was great with Cam, but this is a list of...

of true dominant wide receiver ones, guys who smoked the league, not just like, oh, these are decent wide receivers. He's in elite company, and that was with Andy Dalton and Ben Danucci for the majority of the season. Now he's getting Dak back, and if you look, obviously, his pace, those numbers are outlandish. We know that's not fair to extrapolate.

but it is worth at least noting that his rookie pace was 93 receptions, 1,385 yards, and six touchdowns. He already had a connection with DAC in year one, and DAC is a huge reason for my CD love, because every single year there are multiple teams that have multiple wide receivers in the top 12. It happens every single year. Last year, both Minnesota and Seattle had...

Two top 12 wide receivers. A year before, it was Tampa Bay. Year before that was Pittsburgh and the Rams every year. Well, this year, it's Amari Cooper and C.D. Lamb. They're both going to be top 12 guys. DAC is going to be great. But the reason I'm so bullish on C.D. Lamb is because true alpha wide receivers just demand targets and they make the most out of it. This is not an analytics-based argument. I mean, there's plenty here to...

I just published and wrote a huge article on the success rate of second year breakout players. You can look at that at Fantasy Footballer.com. All the analytics are in that for CD. But that is not my reason he is a my guy. He is a my guy this year because sometimes we just don't want to overthink it. I made this mistake with D.K. Metcalfe last year. He is.

A true alpha. I think C.D. Lam is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL already. He has no weaknesses. He's still getting better. He's a great route runner. He's a great yards after the catch guy. He's a playmaker. Big splash fantasy plays. He's a great. Great wide receivers just demand the ball and do something with it. There's a reason Hopkins gets 160 targets every year. It's not because he's the only guy. It's because he's great. There's a reason Devante Adams gets every goal line targets because he's awesome with it. And at the end of the day, I think.

CD Lamb is going to demand the ball. They're moving them around in camp. Every camp report talks about how he's the most dominant playmaker out there. And next year, he's going to be far more expensive than he is this year. I'm confident in that. So this is the only time you get a value on CD Lamb. Who's coming with me? Well, you know I'm coming with you. He was my fire guy on the fire episode. I completely agree. You want players in fantasy that can win you your league.

You don't want to be third. You want to be first. He can go out and he has, he's one of the few players that has the potential to be a top five wide receiver. That's what you're asking for. So I'm all in. I'm with you on that. I'll come along for the right. All right. Would you like, do you want me to go? Yeah, why don't you? Why don't you give us your first my guy? All right. Before we thank today's sponsors. Yes.

Let's thank my first my guy and let me paint a picture for you. Come on down. Let me paint a picture for you. Is he here? He might be. Oh, man, that would be real cool. I've sent out enough heart signals to him over the off season. But here is the picture that I want to paint. A couple years ago, we had a second round wide receiver. He was highly questioned. He's 6'4, 229 pounds.

But he had 129 speed score, which a speed score, that's not just your 40. That's your 40 adjusted for how tall and how much you weigh. Essentially saying this player is elite fast for his size. But can he play the wide receiver role? Can he run good routes? Well, what did he do as a rookie? He was a top 24 wide receiver five times, put up 58 for 900 and seven touchdowns. That player is now a consensus top 10, probably a top five.

Dynasty wide receiver. That was D.K. Metcalfe just two years ago. So let's look at last year. Same scenario. We're in the draft. A second round pick, 6-4-238 pounds, 125 speed score. What are we saying? We have an elite, gigantic athlete. But can he play wide receiver? A lot of chatter in the draft process. This guy should just switch to tight end, give it up. You're never going to be a good wide receiver. And what did we get?

We got a top 24 wide receiver six times as a rookie, 62 receptions for 873 yards and nine receiving touchdowns. And that is my guy, Chase Claypool. Their story and their production as a rookie is so crazy similar. It is ridiculous. Like I said, his rookie year. In his first 10 games, Chase Claypool was a wide receiver three or better seven times, and that includes being a top 12 wide receiver.

four times. And he wasn't even a starter until week three, much like Justin Jefferson, Chase Claypool was eased in. I get it. The production, the efficiency kind of fell apart there at the end of the season. But you know what was there? The volume. He was still seeing seven targets a game. And there is a lot of chatter. Is Big Ben done? Is he washed? People said he was washed last year. Meanwhile, he was on pace for...

over 4,300 yards and 37 touchdowns. He was willing his way to production at the quarterback position, and the team is all in on Big Ben and this offense. They're going for a Super Bowl this year. Jason, I'm glad you were talking about. They demand targets. True number one wide receivers demand targets. Chase Claypool saw a target every 4.24 routes that he ran.

That's demanding a target more often on a route than Tyree Kill than Terry McLaurin. In fact, that was best among all the rookie wide receivers, including Justin Jefferson, Ayuk, C.D. Lamb. When Chase Claypool was out there running routes, he demanded a target because he is not just a great wide receiver. He is an elite level athlete. And I think that Chase Claypool can easily take that jump, become a number one guy.

This is not an anti-Diante Johnson take, so do not hear what I am not saying. I think that Deontes is a great PPR guy. But Chase Claypool, like, Deontes is not going to take the leap to being a D.K. Metcalf style of player. Double-digit touchdown. Since the year 2000, rookie wide receivers with 10 or more total touchdowns, O'Dell Beckham Jr., Mike Williams, Mike Evans, Calvin Ridley, Tyree Kill, Chase Claypool.

What's his draft? What's his draft cost right now? Currently going in the sixth round, sometimes in the fifth round. But this is a receiver that I believe can break out, and I have him in my top 20, but the sky is the limit to me for what Chase Claypool could become, presuming that he gets on the field a little bit more. He just, he is, if you are building a wider, a breakout wide receiver, if you were building physically a wide receiver one for your team,

You would make Mapletron. You just pour them out of the bottle. And construct a breakout wide receiver in year two. All right. So first, the first three of my guys are now revealed. Let's pause for a second. Let's thank Fandle for supporting the show today. New Fandual fantasy players, your day is about to get 20% better. Start playing fantasy this football season. Get primed. Get ready. Fandul will give you a 20% bonus.

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