The Fantasy MVP Episode! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/4

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Yeah, I heard it. And then, you know, then you thought about it. And you were like, that's it. Oh, yeah, that's me. Reminders. So Fantasy MVP, we reached out to our friends around the industry. And we said basically like, you know, this is up to you. Is it your favorite value pick of the draft? Is it just your favorite pick? Is it your calling your shot on a breakout? So we kind of leave it open to the...

the fantasy expert and their just their insight how they want to handle it so we're going to start off here great friend of the show rich rebar at lord rebe's from over at sharp football analysis absolutely legendary mind in the space let's hear what he has to say

All right, footballers, this year my fantasy MVP is Colston Loveland. He ended the season with at least 15% of the team's targets in each of the final nine games was targeted on 24.7% of his routes for just under 2 yards per route run over that span. And over the final five games, he played on 81% of the team dropbacks, receiving a target on 31% of his routes with 2.34 yards per out run. Even in a split season of work as a rookie, he showcased his weekly upside. He had four top three scoring weeks at the position.

Only Trey McBride matched that and had more. And as Loveland came on to close the season, we saw Ben Johnson adopt more of that 12, 13 personnel. They were sixth in 12 personnel. Second and 13 personnel over that span. Chicago is elevating Luther Burden into DJ Moore's role. This allows Loveland to remain a featured target in the offense and Col Commets presence lets Lovelin move around the formation and arguably the de facto slot receiver. But as a rookie, he played everywhere. 57% snaps in line, 22% from the slot, 17% out.

and he can win everywhere. Ben Johnson wants to score the most points in NFL history, and Colson Loveland's going to score the most points for any tight end this season. Oh. That ended with a fire take. I love it. Lord Reeves, Lord of the nerds. Reeves and his dad, I mean, he always brings incredible information. Obviously, you agree with this, Mike, since that is. Yeah, no notes. That's one of your my guys. So there is a lot of unanimous opinion on Loveland.

here we are kind of all in on loveland yeah that one i have uh i have no notes all right ian hartitz of rhodo wire absolute domination on twitter at i heartitz you can find him and he i mean he's always cracking me up over there giving you good insights and good jokes let's see who his fantasy MVP is what's up fancy footballers ian hartitz here from team rhodo wire with my 2026 fantasy football MVP

Give me Dolphins wide receiver Chris Bell. Whoa. Yeah, yeah. Get your laughing out. No, no, no. Parker, Washington or a Chase Brown like these other alleged fantasy football experts. Amanda People's guy, give the people a true sleeper they can get in the last round of your home league draft. And that is Mr. Chris Bell. I dare you.

Watch that game against Miami last season and tell me this dude doesn't look like the second coming of Mr. A.J. Brown. Without the knee injury, we were looking at a legit round one talent who's now recovered. We got out there in the preseason. We're off the popliss. We are ready to go for week one in an offense with nobody else to throw the football too. Look at this death chart. Malik Washington, Caleb Douglas, Dejohn Love, Jalen Tolbert. You told me Chris Bell is not going to rise to top of that immediately. I know Ian, it's the dolphins. He's not going to run the ball.

Are they going to run the ball? That's a great thing to say in August, not when you're down 28 at halftime in every single game like we're expecting. What about Malik Willis? Could he be good or okay? You look at him over the last two years, small sample will be damned. He ranks first in Olam everything we can possibly measure about a quarterback. Chris Bell is a young baller with a path to breeze past triple digit targets with the quarterback who might not suck. That's my pitch.

Love you guys. He snuck Dajon Love under the gun charge. He's a joker. Andy is applauding. Andy loves this. You, Andy is like all. Do you have any bets on dolphins to win the Super Bowl? Not yet. Because you're going to get some great numbers on that. This would have been a perfect time to go to Deucer's Alley for a dolphin, but the dolphin's not there still want to go. Papa Josh, your best dolphin? No, you bet your best dolphin. No.

That's not bad for a guy who literally used to be a dolphin trainer. That's a dolphin being killed. Yeah. I think someone with a machine gun. We had a deucer who was like, oh, Monday's Labor Day. I know. He's, what do you call it? I called it vacation maxing. Yeah, he knows he's got Monday off for Labor Day. So he's wrapping up. Yeah. It's not a busy time of year. I think it's just the biggest draft weekend. I think the calendar is going to include some extras, extra no-no days. Oh my gosh.

You ruined it for everyone, Matt. Hope you're happy. One half decent dolphin impersonation and you can get out of town. Chucks up the deuses. I'm out of here. So Chris Bell, we know Andy's in on it. I'm concerned about the early season here of missing so much training camp and really being able to go. Is my voice good enough to make a small compelling argument? Yeah, sure. You're going to have to do it for your MVP anyways.

I know. So let's hear you want to save it or you want to just ruin it on Chris Bell? The point. The funny thing is to me, and I'm just, I'm going to try not to be like dogmatic about this because it's certainly not a guarantee the dolphins are any good whatsoever. The thing that I think is so funny is it's like they were a terrible football team with Mike McDaniel and Tuotunga Milo. Okay? I know you can go back two years and say,

Their offense was humming and functioning. They were not last year. And Mike... Well, I would just remind it. They were 7 and 10 last year. So they, like, to call, to say their awful team is... Let me put it in the category of whatever gets you fired. Yes. Okay? That's fine. Sub 500 and the offense struggled. Mike McDaniel is fired. We bring in not Mike McDaniel, and we bring in not to a Tonga Vailoa, and the default place for all fantasy analysts is worse and worse.

I just want the, I want the possibility here when you have a head coaching change, when you have a regime change, when you have a quarterback change, it can get worse, it can get better. Some teams we have high expectations for, and they don't show up, and they're not the guy that we think they're going to be. It's like the chargers every year. Or sometimes we're surprised and maybe bringing in a bunch of new coaches and a bunch of new training staff and a bunch of new...

systems and the numbers that Hartett said about Malik Willis. Maybe maybe Malik Willis isn't the best at every single thing because of the small sample size. But what if he's pretty darn good because he was drafted with draft capital that was, I mean, we've done this now 10 times with the Sam Darnolds, right? With the Gino Smith's, Baker Mayfields. Development is underappreciated at the level and we discount and throw players away.

Malik Willis was not a good quarterback in Tennessee. That was a long time ago. I love Matt LaFle and Green Bay in their system. I just want to leave the door cracked open for a middle tier offense. And that will change the landscape for Bell, for Willis, for A-chan, and the team. I think it's in reverse. I think it's they need.

They need Bell or Douglas, their two rookies, to step up to become a middle tier offense. So it's one and the same. If they are a middle tier, then one of those two guys really, really hit. For me and the draft day this weekend, I'm taking my shot on Caleb Douglas, the rookie they drafted ahead of him, who's been great at camp because my assumption is week one, week two, the first month of the season. I think Caleb Douglas is going to be playing more than 75% of snaps.

And I think Chris Bell is going to be worked in slowly. So the first opportunity to hit, if I'm, I don't want to hold on to Chris Bell for a month if he's playing 50% snaps while he's still working back from the injury. I would be shocked if week one he's out there for 75 plus percent of the snaps after missing all of training camp. I know he got into a preseason game. I think you're right about the snaps, but I think that there's a chance that after week one, you have a couple of massive plays. It's not all going to be snap count. It's going to be who makes the plays. And I think Chris Bell,

could surprise people but i mean i'm obviously with hard it's on this yeah i like to pick because it is this is a sleeper that that even in really intense leagues you can get chris bell late and he was projected to be a first round pick before the injury and funny enough jason your your case that you laid out that's why i prefer malik washington like i want the vet who uh will be a starter and like while the other guy while the rookies are working their way in

I think that Malik could be a serviceable PPR guy catching, you know, five or six passes. You know what this sounds like? It sounds like three different names that you guys that were going with. Yeah. Malik gets to throw to all of these superstars. All of these superstars. That's what I heard. Take your shots. All right. Next on the list. He's here every single year because he is truly one of our favorite people, one of our just a good man, good human. And.

A spectacular fantasy analyst. What? This isn't. I thought this is JJ. Wait, who is this? Me. I'm talking about me. Oh, yeah, you are a great man of a spectacular analyst. No, it's JJ. But you said nice things. I know. What's that all about? Guys, I'm throwing off here. I'm hosting a three-person show. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my hands. I mean, I don't think. You just love to talk. Look, JJ's a good guy. Sure. And a good analyst. Okay.

I've seen his pick, but his hair. Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you can really listen to a guy like that. We'll leave that up to the YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. All right, JJ, take it away. When I think about a fantasy football MVP, I think about outliers. I think about a player who just ends up being special and doing something special. And sometimes you have to take a chance on those players. And one guy I'm willing to take a chance on this year is Luther Burden.

There's a real chance that Roomedunze is just a better traditional wide receiver than Burden. But I'm a believer that Burden fits exactly what Ben Johnson wants to do. Scheme his guys open, give them a lot of space to work with, and let them do their thing with the ball in their hands. Burden excels at that. Back in college among all wide receivers and my wide receiver Zapp model, Burden had a 98th percentile avoided tackles per reception rate and an 84th percentile yak per reception. And when he got his opportunity last year, he thrived.

He finished with the third best rookie season yards per route run of any wide out since 2011 with 100 or more routes. And he ran a route on more than half of Chicago's dropbacks in each game from week 11 through the end of the fantasy season last year. In those contests, he was 10th in targets per route run, second in yards per out run, and fifth in PPR points per route run. I actually think Burden's floor is actually okay given the environment in Chicago. But the ceiling case is definitely there. That's why I'm making him...

my fantasy MVP this year. And by the way, even though I know you guys are going to use that picture of me with a bowl cut in your video for this, I still love you. We changed the picture. Yeah, we didn't use the picture. We didn't use the picture. The boy grew up to be a man. Yeah. That was the haircut he had as a boy placed on him as a man. I assume that's what he still has. We might have given him some work work on the teeth. No notes. I love Luther Burton. The.

Man, what if the Bears disappoint? So you know how I do on the bold prediction show? I always pick some hot, new hot offense that I think is going to disappoint. They were like on the short list. I couldn't do it. Of course you can't. I couldn't do it because I literally think Ben Johnson's going to get it done. But everyone is in, you know, obviously we got a Caleb. My guy. We've got a Loveland, my guy. We have a Bears big bold prediction. Now we've got a Burden and Loveland MVP.

Come on, don't let us down, Caleb. Historically bears bets or bad bets. Yes. This is really genuinely, what's funny is like we're betting on all these people. We're betting on the talent. We're betting on Ben Johnson and Burden and Loveland. None of it comes true if Caleb doesn't level up. Good thing. He's in my guy. Yeah, no, I know. Come on, Caleb. The thing, so Luther Burton, if you hadn't heard, he is back at practice. The groin injury is kind of.