Early 2018 Breakouts, Top Handcuffs, Juliaaaaan!!!

That's funny. I'm not surprised by this. I mean, Gassiki, the way he was used in college, was nothing like a pro. It's terrible with North, South, East West. They're lining them up in the backfield, running routes, but like from kind of, it's just, these young kids, they don't have their GPS, they don't know where they're going. It's a hard transition to the NFL. He has a, yes, I agree. It's a really hard transition, but he has a pretty decent path.

Yes. Are you guys excited about the early breakouts? So, so excited. I'm excited to talk early breakouts for 2018. Before you do that, I want to thank today's sponsor, SimplySafe. Here's why we are users of SimplySafe. We have been for years. This is why I'm a big fan of SimplySafe home security. It is ready for whatever's thrown at it. Much like the UDK makes you ready for the ultimate, you know, for your draft.

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The only compensation coming back for Gronkowski and that Titans deal were three Carmel Tartlets. Oh, that's worth it. That's a steal. Why they didn't take that deal? They're foolish. I love that you warned me there. That was great. All right. Early breakouts. Again, we have breakout candidates inside of our ultimate draft kit. These are some guys that we ourselves are falling more in love with as potential breakout candidates. How would you define a breakout, Mike?

A breakout is a player who perhaps they have performed in the past. Perhaps they have done nothing in the past. But we are projecting these players to end up in your starting lineup on a near weekly basis. That's fair enough. Jason, you want to kick us off with the first early breakout? Yes. You're smirking, so that must mean you have something special. I'm just going to get it out of the way. I know where you're going. With the best. And look, I said this last year.

And the star was born last year. Okay, a star has been born, but now it's shooting across the sky.

It's a shooting star. This is... You realize that... He's trying to double down on this breakout is what he's trying to do. Shooting stars are not actually stars. I just want to make you sure you scientifically understand that. I do not. And I do not accept your nonsense. If a star shot across our atmosphere, we would be very dead. He is worth 100 shooting stars. Here's Juju Smith-Schuster. Okay. Juju Smith-Schuster is one of my favorite breakout candidates.

Because primarily of how good he is. That's, you know, sometimes it's opportunity. It is a good reason. But that's overlooked. Most of the time when I look towards the guys I like, it's always opportunity based because I think opportunity is a greater sign than talent. But with Juju, his talent is just so palpable. You watch the games. You see him run away from guys. You see him break tackles. You see great hands. And he's just a well-rounded really.

good, dominant wide receiver for his age. You want to talk about his age? He's 21 and a half. Okay, right now he is younger than these rookies. James Washington, Michael Gallup, Christian Kirk, Anthony Miller, Treyquan Smith, Dante Pettis, Cortland Sutton, DJ, Shark. I mean, Shark. He wishes his name was DJ Shark. He sure does. That'd be amazing. Mega love receiver. To be as good as he has been.

At this young of an age, says his talent is off the charts. He's playing for a team that I think is going to have to throw the ball a lot more. We saw it the second half of last year, where Big Ben was pacing for 5,000 yards over the second half after they lost Ryan Shazir. For a second, I thought he said Antonio Brown was pacing for 5,000 yards. I was like, that'd be really good. Sounds right. So I looked at some of the breakdowns because, you know, he was a rookie last year, right? He was.

He registered as a receiver playing in week one, except he had zero targets, zero. He wasn't involved. Weeks two through 16, the rest of the whole season, if you take his pace over 16 games, he would have had over 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns. That was the pace he was on as a rookie.

Then you look at, okay, how do you do after the buy week, right? That's when Big Ben went bananas. That's when he started going bananas. And he would have paced during that time for 93 receptions and 1,200 plus yards. And then there was one other breakdown I really was curious about. Martavis Bryant, week eight went out, missed week nine. How did he do when Martavis Bryant was off the field from week eight on?

Here was his 16-game projection. 94 receptions, great, for 1,568 yards, unbelievable, and nine touchdowns. And you might say accurately, well, Big Ben, he doesn't really have a history of supporting two top-end wide receivers, which is accurate. He doesn't usually have two top 24 receivers, but today's NFL...

It's very common. In fact, over the last several years, the NFL averages four different teams that have two guys in the top 24, oftentimes top 12. I want to interrupt you, though. I want to take this swirling reality of Juju Smith-Schuster, 21-5-year-old shooting star. Obviously, you have a picture of them on your mirror. Let's translate this for our listeners. When you talk about breakouts, I feel like breakouts are the one.

category of player that you would reasonably attempt to reach for if you believed in them because you don't necessarily want to play with a guy you think is going to vastly outperform his draft position or be a breakout. You don't want to necessarily risk waiting exactly to when they're going to go. Juju Smith-Schuster is a 408 pick in PPR leagues right now. What does this breakout translate to for you in fantasy and would you take him over, for example?

Alan Robinson or Amari Cooper because those are the two guys going directly ahead of Juju Smith-Schuster. So I would take him over Alan Robinson. Amari Cooper would be kind of a team-dependent thing because Amari Cooper's volume, I think, is so secure that if this was my wide receiver two, then I would probably lean Cooper. But Juju Smith-Schuster belongs there. What about Demarius Thomas? I would definitely take Juju over Demarius Thomas right now. Look, Demarius Thomas, I think, is a quality.

Top 24 wide receiver, he's safe. But I don't believe that he can do what Juju can do this year. What's the ceiling fantasy finish wise for Juju before we grab Mike? He absolutely has a ceiling to me of a wide receiver one. That's ceiling. I mean, if you look at week eight through the rest of the year, okay, on a per game basis, the wide receiver one in fantasy football was Antonio Brown. Big shocker. The wide receiver five.

Was Juju Smith-Suster? No, but was that just a product of the situation where he said Martavis missed a couple games and then Antonio Brown missed a couple games? Right, and you know they got rid of Martavis, right? Oh, I understand that, but I'm saying he was able to get into a larger role than he will have. And that's what it takes to hit your ceiling. I'm saying his ceiling is a wider seat one. So I like him. I'm willing to take him where he's going in the fourth round, early fourth. I'm fine with that.

Okay. And look, we've been there before. We've had Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb finish inside the top 10, 12 together. We've had lots of times teams like that. Mike, give us a breakout. My number one, I should say my first breakout. It's got to be better than 100 shooting stars. Which, spoiler, there's no stars there.

Okay. Science. The player I'm going to talk about is going currently in PPR leagues at the back of the eighth. So I like this cost a tremendous amount. And that is Cooper Cup. Interesting. Los Angeles Rams slot wide receiver last year. He led the team in targets. He had to earn his way onto the field. Everything that I said led the team in targets. And over the second half of the season, his snapshot jumped 20%.

because it took him time to work into the offense. He was tied for the third most red zone targets. He in despite, and I wanted to talk about Brandon Cooks, right? Cooper Cup heavily utilized in the red zone. Okay, they're bringing him Brandon Cooks. They traded a first round pick for him. Last year, despite Tom Brady having the most red zone attempts and completions in the league, Brandon Cooks had 12.

Red Zone targets. That was tied on his own team with Danny Amandola and Chris Hogan. Brandon Cooks has never been a predominant red zone weapon. He had 11 red zone targets in 2017, 8 in 16, 8 and 15, 6 in 2014. Cooper Cup showed he can be that guy. And they don't have Watkins and the X anymore running around down there. Well, and here's the thing is Cooper Cup gets to stay where he was successful.

And he's a big slot player. He's six foot two. Yet in the charting that Matt Harmon did for reception in the ultimate draft kit, he was in the slot over 58% of the time, which is a huge amount. And Brandon Cooks allows him to continue to man that slot role. So I'm very intrigued at what Cooper Cup can do in his second year of already leading his team in targets as a rookie.

I think that there is great opportunity for Cooper Cup in that department. And I don't disagree with that. I think one of the ways you can identify breakout candidates is a lot of the times it is the situation where a player eased himself into a role of the year before. And so their end-of-season statistics don't match their end-of-season production and pace. Cooper Cup earning his way on the field, like you said, an offense that was finding its way another year in Sean McVeigh. I think it's definitely possible. I definitely, I'll give you that. I think Cooper Cup is definitely a candidate.

to be a red zone force i'm going to share a breakout with you i'm trying to decide which one to go with i'll go with the running back i know uh mike i think vehemently disagrees no no no not at all we were the what the disagreement was the the two players we were talking about in office earlier well i i think isaiah crowell is worthy of discussion again but oh the voice of public opinion you're back wasn't he supposed to be good last year sure was

Sure was. And you could make an argument that he did break out two years ago. 4.8 of Kerry, a pretty nice year in Cleveland. That being said, he's the 806 right now. And I think he's being vastly underestimated in Fantasy League. Signed a three-year deal. Two years older than Sony Michelle. He's 25 years old. And I like the schedule for the Jets. The Jets end up playing...