Big Time Breakouts + Let's Ride, Mailbag! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/23

It is fantasy football go time and we don't want you drafting guys who are going to be drafted lower next year. We want you getting the breakout players in the middle rounds of your draft. The guys that at the end of this year you're going to say, I want a championship because of those fantasy footballers guys. You're welcome. Make sure you like this video. Subscribe. Please subscribe. Ring the bell. Leave your comments and come with us on the ride for fantasy football this season. The time is coming swiftly. The middle rounds are no place for the unskilled. Yet here you are. I'm prepared. You fools! This season you'll find all kinds of foes, eager to watch your draught to crumble with wasted picks. There can only be one ultimate draft kit. Only one they can bend them to its will. It does not share power. You must wield the UDK and send your opponents back

the shadow you shall not pass on this chance to send your readmates into the fly you fools to autumn draft kit dot com to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host Andy Holloway Jason Moore and Mike Wright welcome in Tuesday

August 23rd, Mike Ry, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway, the fantasy footballer is back with you. The Ducers are here as well. Just Ducin. The pro. They're producers. Oh, they are. Professional at Ducin. Yes, they are. Welcome to Tuesday morning. Yes. Breakout picks on today's show. We have a ton of consensus breakout picks in the Ultimate Draft Kit at Ultimate DraftKit.com, but today we're going to each bring you one more from kind of our individual list players that we're looking at as breakout candidates for the year. This lineup of shows here, breakouts today, sleepers tomorrow, busts and values the following day. It's really fun because with the draft kit, we put our heads together.

And at least two of the three of us completely agree. And we are aligned when we have those guys highlighted. And usually all three. Yeah, yeah, usually all three. And so these shows are, this is the chance for us to get that player in there who maybe there was not an agreement on it, but you still, like you have the conviction. You want to voice your opinion. See if we can sway the other people. into believing our take. I mean, I'm going to admit something. I'm open to being swayed. Okay, sure. All right. If I have a differing opinion, I'm open to being swayed. And that is, that's the fun, right? It's predicting what's going to happen. And the situation. Well, in specific on today's show, the breakouts, these are the ones that win fantasy champions. You know, championships, you get these right. And, you know, I've brought this up a few times over the course of this.

last few months, you look at last year's champion in your league. Go look at your league and who is a champion. They've got a couple players that were true breakouts. Yep. So we'll talk about those on today's show, some news to talk about, quick question about the Broncos, the let's ride edition of the quick question. Before we kick it off a couple of quick reminders, the first one, I just want to mention this to everybody listening. This show is a free podcast. We do it five days a week throughout the entire season. If you want to help the show out and do it in less than like one second. Oh, man. Sounds easy. Please follow.

or subscribe the show on whatever platform you're listening on. So it is a plus button in the upper right on Apple Podcasts. It is a follow button on Spotify. It is a subscribe button on YouTube if you watch the show. But that's a simple way you can help us and help yourself because then you'll get the newest episodes for free right in your podcast player. If you want notifications, you can click those bells in the... different places and they'll let you know when we're going live. Mike does a Sunday live stream every single week during the year. Indeed. We do some pop-ins from time to time, some live events, and then obviously the episode. So that is one quick and easy way to help the show out. Just tap subscribe. Just tap it in. And then yesterday we made the big announcement over.

5,500 in there so far in one day. Megalabol.com. I am awake. It is growing. Yes, I am. And you go to megalobol.com and you can also find it on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. But just go in there, find out the details. Join a league. Pick your draft time. It's the largest fantasy football league in the universe. And the winner? Gets into the listener league with the three of us next year. Yeah. So it's so much fun. We put all the standings up on the website. It's just a great competition of skill and might and all of those things. Yeah. You know, brick breaking. I'm just, you know, maybe I'm a little inspired by, you know, Gandalf opening the show. And the new, the new Lord of the Rings television show trailer came out. So maybe I'm.

Speaking like a dwarf a little bit. Okay. Quick question today. Which Broncos player are you most likely to draft at their current average draft position? Let me read them out to you. Giovante Williams going in the late second, 12th pick of the second round. Cortland Sutton, Mike's my guy in the fifth round. Jerry Judy also in the fifth round. Both of them like two picks apart. Russell Wilson? Russell? Unlimited. Seventh round pick. Melvin Gordon in the 9th, and then Albert Aguevenom in the 11th. I have my first and second place. Oh, man, this is tough because the answer is all of them. Like, I like even, even Albert? So Albert O, in the double digit round, I'm Albert out. I'm not, I'm not big on Albert O compared to all the other tight ends that I have on my, you know, when I get to the last couple rounds, there's about three or four.

guys that are always there that I will take over Albert O, but it's not like he costs you much in the 11th. Every other player, Melvin Gordon is a steal. Russell Wilson is the last elite quarterback that is being drafted, that you're confident as elite. Judy Sutton are great, but my pick would be Javante. Yeah, Javante is my pick. Russ, a close second. I am perfectly fine with Javante Williams draft price. I'm in a best ball. Right now, I just took him at the 2-5. So. I'm perfectly fine with that. But you know, it's my guy, Cortland Sutton, in the fifth round to get, to me, what is such a discount in my projections is a wide receiver one in the fifth round. It's outrageous value. So Cortland Sutton all day. If you drafted Giovante, are you willing to go back to the Mile High City and draft Sutton, Judy, or Gordon?

So that's why my answer was Javante because he comes up first. And I find that when I have drafted him, there's a lot of pivot options off of most of those other players. And I find myself not wanting to double up. Now, I'll grab Russell Wilson and Javante and have that kind of quarterback running back stack. But I don't tend to grab Sutton or Judy if I did the late second round investment in Javante. News and notes from around the league. All right. We'll catch you up on what's happening. Josh Palmer's in the concussion protocol has looked outstanding in the preseason. Should be all right, but we'll monitor. Isaiah Spiller, running back rookie chargers, not good vibes right now. Week to week with an ankle injury. Head coach came out and said he probably is going to miss week one. And then we've heard Joshua Kelly's kind of the locked in backup, also known as.

Echler is good to go. Back to business. Back to business. That's right. What Isaiah Spiller has done this off season because he was drafted and that kind of scared me a little bit for Austin Echler, just having another big bodied capable running back. But he has not established himself at all in this camp. He never became the clear cut backup. Now he's missing probably missing week one. I agree with you guys. It's really just pro Austin Echler. Jason, I'm going to ask your opinion here, but Juju Smith-Schuster has missed another practice on Monday with the knee injury. Well, it's not great. Is there an alert button in your future? Do you want it? There's more of a sadness button. I don't think it's a red alert situation where I'm off. It's, yeah, it's like. Oh, man. It's like, juju, man. You're so young. You're 25. I thought like.

I thought this was your chance to Cooper Cup this thing and get a quarterback upgrade. It still can be. You still can? But if he's getting his knee drained and getting shots and missing. Maybe his knee is much older. That's what it feels like. It feels like a girly knee. He's got some arthritis in the knee. Like Todd Gurley. Yeah. Be clear. Yes. The idea of having to get your knee drained. And I know it's not like an uncommon thing in the world of athletics, but it's so gross. Anybody in this room with a knee drain? Yeah, Papa Josh has had a knee drain. Not surprising. Papa Josh has sustained many injuries. Papa Josh has no ACL left. He just said, man, I don't need to fix that. But juju missing practice again, if you're drafting, does it change your view of that pick?

I have since the, since he started missing practice, missed the preseason game with the knee injury. I've been on the clock staring down him and others. And it's not that he's off my board at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. I think he's going to be one of the two starters on a great offense. But it has made me. oftentimes tiebreak a similar tiered player with someone else. It also, similar to how Isaiah Spiller affects Austin Echler, gives me a little bit more confidence in the season-long outlook of Skymore. As the, you know, MVS, been there, done that. Really? It does. The preseason, the way things that have happened in the preseason? I shooketh for Sky Moore still being down on the depth chart. I would not have expected Sky Moore to.

be in two wide receiver sets in the preseason. That wasn't really. No, but playing behind Justin Watson. Well, he's a superstar. I understand he is not a superstar. I don't know if we'll ever do it as like a quick question or like segment on an episode soon. But there are players that have narratives that were written in May and June that I am being, you know, you get moved. And MVS's situation is one that I am more moved on where. I wasn't, like Jason said, Skymore. For me, it's NBS that I get more confidence with in that situation. Mike Kevin's returned to practice from the hamstring injury. Irv Smith returned to practice on Monday. Okay. Out since the first week of August following thumb surgery. Come on, Irv. Stay healthy. And the Raiders are expected to release running back Kenyon Drake. I got a Drake, man. I got a Drake. I don't.

I mean, the question of where he could land, I don't care. Yeah. Is that a fair enough answer? I, Kenyon Drake is done. I think that his time in the NFL is coming to a close. Yeah. We've seen this before. Yeah, I pretty much don't care. There could be a situation, you know, if Dobbins has a setback or something and they, you know, Baltimore brings him in and what if he goes back to Arizona? That'll just be to hurt James Connor and me. Yeah, I doubt they re-roll, but maybe on a free contract sort of thing. Any other news that you guys have back there? A quick reminder for those of you starting leagues, getting things in order. Go to Fantasychamps.com if you need a trophy, a belt, a ring, anything of that, the awards, right? That make a league fun, the trophies that you hand out.

We obviously have them in our leagues. We have some like the rings we do for individual titles. And then we pass around a big trophy that goes to the winner. I feel like if you don't have a trophy, you don't have a champion. I mean, you're missing out. You're definitely missing out. There's a lot of fun. You know, a belt or a ring or getting to, you know, I mean, Stanley Cup it essentially. If you get the trophy. Mm-hmm. whatever whatever you say goes for the trophy like you want to bring that thing on vacation oh that was the beach that was one of my go to Disneyland Jason style yeah I brought that trophy to Disneyland took pictures with it everywhere had princesses holding it it's a good time I feel like it would be fun to like have a league that has to go to the ice rink and watch the guy that won it put on ice skates and ride around the ring with the trophy like that would be pretty fun all right let's jump into breakouts

Breakouts. This show did have some names that emerged last year that ended up actually breaking out and having some success. We did it. We had, Deante Johnson was a name brought up on last year's show, Damian Harris, Michael Pittman. All of them with pretty nice breakout seasons. But we're each going to bring forth a name. I want this to be a discussion. So if you guys have conflicting thoughts and opinions, please tell me. your fears about these players, right? Because at some point, you know, if they were locks, if they were guarantees, they wouldn't be on the show, right? Yeah, the Jonathan Taylor. Yeah. And this one's kind of in the lower hanging breakout fruit category, but I want to give you draft a confidence on this player to press the button because I know that me personally. I have not had it. You haven't pressed the button on this player? Yeah, I mean, I've, in all the drafts where like,

I'm slotted in this player's area. I don't think I have a single draft this year where he's on my team. There you go. And I'm talking about the wide receiver one for the number one scoring team in football last year. C.D. Lamb, wide receiver of the Dallas Cowboys. This is the confidence boost I want to give you and myself, I will say. I'll be speaking to myself as I have yet to press that button. Because we really haven't seen a breakout campaign from C.D. Lamb, even though he's being drafted somewhere in the wide receiver 789 range, we have yet to see that materialize in a way that has been a difference maker for fantasy football players. But let me begin with what the sports books have down for C.D. Lamb. The props right now are 90.5 receptions 1175 yards and 7.5 receiving touchdowns.

So those numbers are sitting there as kind of that baseline expectation for CD Lamb. Those numbers, if he doesn't surpass any of them, puts him at around wide receiver 11 and half point scoring last year. So the market is saying he's being viewed as an elite wide receiver with his median outcome of those numbers that I just gave you. The one thing that I think was most impactful persuading me that CDLAM is a confirmed breakout. is the fact that all three of us in the UDK, we expect him to be over 135 targets. And since 2012, so you're going 10 years back, if you were a first round wide receiver going into your third year like CD Lamb is, and you get over that 135 target mark we all have them projected to get, they basically always beat their ADP or meet it if it's super high. And you look back, Des Bryant.

Demarius Thomas, A.J. Green, DeAndre Hopkins, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham, Calvin Ridley, Hollywood Brown. They all beat their ADP. Going into year three, getting 135 targets. The only two that didn't. AJ Green was ADP of three ended at four. What a loser. And then Beckham, ADP of three ended at four. Other ones, you know, Des went from 13 to 5, 21 to 3 for Demarius Thomas. Hopkins, 13 to 4. You have this like statistical backing now with C.D. Lamb that kind of makes him very safe with upside, in my opinion. What if he gets to 10 touchdowns? What if he catches 100 passes? What if he gets to 1,400 to 1,400 yards? You do have top five potential with C.D. Lamb and you have this first round pedigree, historical data that says those are studs. He was drafted.

And hasn't shown it yet, but this is year three. Year two is kind of the rise. Year three is the ceiling generally in fantasy football when you see these wide receivers. So, you know, what if you end up with a CD Lamb that is a perennial top five type of wide receiver like Hopkins, and you're just a year ahead? Yeah, I mean, that's what we usually aren't on my guys. He was a my guy last year. So that would be, that would be fantastic. My only worry here, because I. I love CD. I'm really hopeful. I just drafted him again in a dynasty startup. I have him in, you know, I think I literally have him in every single dynasty league that I'm playing in right now. You have a lot of CD. I do. And so I have a lot of worry just because eggs are in a basket. Yeah. As they say. And my worry is that, you know, this list of players who get 135 plus targets is great, but most of them.

that threshold is crushed. You know, I think they average about 160 targets. Now, he should get 160 targets. He should. He really should. There's no one else on this team, but I just worry the system and the history of DAC, like the one player in that list that you mentioned, who's in the 130s over 135, is Des Bryant with Dak. Now, he was a top five fantasy finish. So it, that probably wasn't Dak then either. In 2012, I, There's no way. No, but Des Bryant also had 136 targets with with with deck, and that was his highest wide receiver one target. So my only word is. Yeah, to your point, AJ Green, 178 targets, Hopkins 192, Evans, 173, Beckham 169. And he can get there. Yeah, and I think part of that has to be some regression by the Dallas defense.

because they scored so many points and took the offense off the field. That's, you know, that'd be the storyline of how that happens as their defense isn't as impactful on the scoring side of things. Yeah, certainly. I think that, uh, I, I really hope he dominates targets and that it's not a system that is, you know, spreading the ball around the way that we've seen for the last like four or five years. Hyper target the man. He's talented. For me, the issue with CD. Like right now I have him at wide receiver 8, which, I mean, that's a high-end wide receiver, one that I, that I want, who has the ceiling that I do believe in? So, you know, like, I'm not projecting the full upside of C.D. Lamb in my stats. The hardest part for me, though, is the ADP. Like, where he is, where he is going in ADP, like, the sandwich that he's in. Like, he's surrounded by Aaron Jones, Debo.

Mark Andrews, if you want to go with the higher end, tight end, he's just, the players going right around him are the ones that have prevented me from going C.D. Lamb. So I just, I don't have the exposure. And it's, so that's why I find it so difficult to get him on my roster is when I love the other players around him. In auction league, of course, very different. You get whoever you want. But in our, in our snake drafts, I can't do it. No, I haven't been able to do it. It makes sense, but it is a good point in the show to remind people that even though we talk about these players with very static average draft positions while we're bringing this up, you know, there's going to be a lot of leagues where Debo and Aaron Jones go ahead of CD-LAM. Sure. And those are the leagues where you're looking at it and you're saying, instead you're looking at it and you're saying, do I go Mike Evans?

or do I go to a C.D. Lamb, a player that you know has done it or a player that you hope does it. And that's where I think we need to have a little bit of confidence in this offense and in DAC and in the target totals with the potential of getting up there. Because what if it's 150, 160? Yeah, I think that's a really good. comparison of like if you're on the clock and it's between mike evans and cd lamb do you go with old faithful or new hotness i think i lean new hotness speaking a new hotness jason let's talk about your breakup oh baby it's time it's the guy i love so much breeze hall oh go breeze lightning why'd you turn into to riley there i i just let my inner self out happen

All right, so I want to talk about two simple things with Brees Hall. Brees Hall, the prospect and Brees Hall's prospects. First, wordsmith. Yeah. Thank you. Brees Hall is an elite prospect. We haven't seen him on the field. He hasn't been, you know, playing an NFL ball yet. We saw him yesterday. But, well, we saw him with a backup offensive line yesterday. But as a college. prospect. He is elite. He is not good. He's not like, oh, this is a good running back. This is a guy who could really do something. This is an elite rare athlete. Athletically, there's only 14 guys that I can find in my data who have 215 pounds on a sub 4-4 in the history of my combined data. It is the rare of the rare athlete. And those who are drafted highly are great. Last two guys we've seen who hit those marks, Antonio Gibson and Jonathan Taylor.

Those guys have done nothing but be running back one so far in their career. In RotoViz's database, he's 95th percentile in speed, 94th in explosion, 94th in vertical, his freak score is 95th percentile. He is a different caliber of human, a la Jonathan Taylor. But not every great athlete is great at football. And that's where you look at his production. Well, how was his college production? It was off the charts of all running backs drafted in the first two rounds of the NFL draft since 2007. Hall has the highest career rushing yard market share, the highest rushing touchdown market share. And he's an early to clear, which is another huge benefit for prospects. You need to be an early to clear, much higher success rate. Over the last decade, you look at his production.

As an early declare, here are the running backs who've had 40 plus rushing touchdowns and 80 plus receptions in college as early declare. Sequin Barclay, Dalvin Cook, and Brees Hall. That's it. 50 plus rushing touchdowns and 4,500 scrimmage yards, marks that Brees Hall hit. Jonathan Taylor, J. Ajai, and Brees Hall. That's it. This is not a good prospect. This is an elite great physical athlete with elite great. college production. So now we know that. We know he is a special different caliber of human being, but what are his prospects coming into this year? Because in 2022, plays for the Jets. Here's the downside argument, right? We don't know his utilization. We don't. He might not get enough work. He might not be the third downback and might not catch balls even though he did that in college. He might be the backup to Michael Carter, who was an impressive rookie last year in his own right. All those things could be true.

But those unknowns are why Brees Hall is being drafted in the fourth round. Brees Hall will not be a fourth round draft pick again until he is at the end of his career. I'll tell you that right now. Unless he gets catastrophically injured, his draft price is going to go up and up and up over the next few years. The unknowns don't mean that they aren't going to happen. We don't know his utilization. It doesn't mean he's not going to get utilized. We don't know that he won't play behind Michael Carter. That doesn't mean he's not going to play ahead of Michael Carter. It just means we haven't seen it yet. And Michael Carter is a good back, but he is not in the same class of athlete or human that Breece Hall is. I don't want to take anything away from Michael Carter. Here's the situation that I want to point to light. I think this situation is almost identical to Jonathan Taylor. And it sounds weird now going into year three when Jonathan Taylor is the 101.

But this is a first round graded running back who fell into the second round. Their team, who had them as a first rounder, trades up in the second to go get them. But we don't draft them in fantasy in those first few rounds because we're afraid of the other average to above average running backs on the roster. And I want to remind us, here's a quote. I have a ton of them, but I don't want to take up time. So I'm going to read one quote from Jonathan Taylor's rookie year about Naim Hines. This was in May. Coach Frank Reich said,