Top 10 TE Rankings + Hit Rates, Danger Zone - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/13

Footglan, your league's drafts are coming up. And if you are the champ or if your league has a champ from last year, you need to go to fantasychamps.com, make sure you got that swag. Get those rings, get those trophies, get those championship belts. And right now, if you add a belt or a trophy to your cart, you can get one of those championship rings, a $60 value for free. Just put in the code free ring at fantasychamps.com. To the fantasy footballers podcast. With your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. The fantasy footballers. Back again. You startled me. Startled myself. Never let yourself know what your next move is. Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway. Deucers Alley, full of deusers. Al Borland in the house, Papa Josh, and the Falcon.

I got to be honest, the falcons known for something at this point in time. Yeah, he's known for taking a falcon. If you know what I mean, that's on the toilet. And we know this because we've been reviewing the listener league entries, which. Sensational. Awesome. Incredible. Thank you. Brutal to have to just choose a handful of you for the listener league. But those decisions are being made. Yeah, they will be finalized probably today, tomorrow, this week for sure. And we will, we will let you know. And so, look, we're going to get to it today. Maybe tomorrow. Look, maybe this week. I want to give myself some time, okay? You should have just started with this week. Well, the truth, here's the truth. Look, we're, minute now. The truth is, I hope to have it done today or tomorrow.

Am I nice? You know, there's a lot. There's a lot to do. There is a lot going on. I was like, okay, I'm going to do it today or tomorrow. No. You're like, that's not. Look, if you don't hear tomorrow, it doesn't mean, you know, it doesn't necessarily. It means I'm a busy man. You ever negotiated against yourself? I just did. And I got a week out of it. Yeah, you did. So thank you for those entries. It's awesome. It's awesome to see the community. and the Foot Clan is mighty. But I think your point in bringing that up was that several people have submitted about taking a falcon. Yeah, that's their words, not mine. Yeah, right. We would never. We would never sell him down the river all show long when he doesn't show up because he has to take a dump. The big news yesterday, this week, the UDK for Life giveaway. So if you pick up,

an Ultimate Draft Kit before Friday's live stream, which will be doing an exclusive Q&A live stream where we'll give away a UDK for Life and a sign Justin Jefferson, Jersey. And entertainment and information. We'll be giving away entertainment for free as well. But we'll choose them live on Friday. This is fun to do every year. And you can enter by going to Ultimate DraftKit.com. All of the giveaway details are listed on that page as well. And, uh, That'll be fun. So ultimate draft kit.com. Plus, you know what? I kind of buried the lead. You'll have the ultimate draft kit. Right. You'll also have the product that will help you win on draft day, build your cheat sheet and have the app and mark your players and take advantage of your league mates and make them feel stupid and cry and go home. They'll be just like Papa Josh. Yeah, we say a lot. You don't win the, you know, you don't win your league at the draft, but you can certainly win the draft day.

and just completely make your league mates feel so stupid. It's a good foundation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You build a foundation at the draft for your championship run, and the ultimate draft kit is the best tool to do it. All right, let's jump in. Welcome to the waiver wire, presented by NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube TV. All right, the last couple of weeks we have, we've jumped into the waiver wire specifically for Dynasty. players that were paying attention to in preseason training camp that you should pick up, that you should throw on the back of your roster. And then the next couple of weeks, we'll be looking at what we kind of call the undrafted gyms, the players that aren't being selected in the average standard 12-team, 10-team league, but that you might want to, you know.

tuck away, see what happens in week one or two. Yeah, it's basically what we'll look at, you know, in the future weeks before kickoff for the waiver wire is essentially who you should be drafting in the last round. Or if you've done your draft, because I know a lot of people have their drafts in the books already, you might want to take a look at your roster and say, yeah, I would rather have this, you know, this undrafted gym on the waiver wires. But for now, this is the final week of looking at it from a dynasty perspective. Last week we brought up such great names as Tyrone Tracy. Yeah, we can start there. I mean, Tyrone Tracy, the news this morning, injured at practice, aircasted, now being the latest. He was. Yeah, he's going to the, he is going to the hospital for special surgery in the New York area. And so this is likely immediate surgery.

likely a seasoning injury for a player that looked like a great depth pickup for the Giants backfield, which maybe at this point leads you right into Eric Gray. You would. Eric Gray would be the number one pickup now in replacement of that. That's certainly a name to pick up. This depth chart is basically just Devon Singletary. And if Devon Singletary goes down, then without Tyrone Tracy, Eric Gray is a must pick up. And then, Mike, you mentioned Jordan Whittington yesterday, sixth round draft pick from the Rams who flashed in preseason might be worth tossing on the back of the roster. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't just the play, which it was sensational, what, six for 74. But the way he's being talked about by his head coach, I also in that game, they were talking to Stafford on the sideline. And his words about Whittington were very, very kind.

No, it's not everything, but it is just, it's another piece of the puzzle. So he's, to me, is someone that needs to be picked up just in case. Well, he's a grown man. Yes. According to Sean McVeigh says he's just a mature rookie, he's a grown man, he plays like a grown man with the ball in his hands. I can't help but think that the view of Whittington is being probably appropriately. Yeah. You know, impacted by Puka's selection last year, like. You know, the Rams identifying value at wide receiver later in the draft. It is. But if you compare the collegiate production, you know, if you look at our production profiles in the UDK, you compare what Puka had in college versus what Whittington has had in college, there's, yeah. Yeah, one is absolutely excellent. Like Puka crushed versus zone, 3.81 yards per zone, which was better than Jamar Chase did.

Whittington crushed it nothing. Yeah. But he looked good on an NFL field, so it's worth a shot. A couple other six-round picks. Andre Yoshivas, wide receiver for Cincinnati, should be on rosters. Jalen Naylor, a six-round pick, who seems to have been kind of winning the wide receiver three job in Minnesota. And then another wide receiver three job that seems to be won is Jalen Tolbert in Dallas, who, you know, People talked about him when he was coming out and nothing materialized. Oh, yeah, Johnny Wilson in Philly is also a six round pick. So are we just targeting six round wide outs? Well, those are the guys that are on waivers and dynasty. But I do think Johnny Wilson has a path. He basically, even though he is six foot six, he's really more of a slot type of wide receiver. I think that's where they will use him. And he has to beat out Paris Campbell. The good news for...

Johnny Wilson, Johnny Wilson, I thought was, I liked this film in college. He was productive. He was large people. People really just said he was large people. Yeah, he was very, very large for a wide receiver. And everyone was like, oh, you're going to have to move to tight in. And the Eagles drafted him and said, no, we're not moving him to him to tight in. We think he's valuable. And they've been using him. He's been getting first team reps. And he only has to beat Paris Campbell. Paris Campbell's not good at football. So. That's the path for Johnny Wilson. Let me ask you guys because his name has been brought up on the podcast. Colby Parkinson, Los Angeles Rams, tight end because it was last year before the free agency period, Davis Allen looked like, okay, this is a good stash here because Tyler Higby, their starter, absolutely annihilated his knee in January of like, if Higby is back by the midpoint of the season, I would say that's a.

that's a huge success for him. Colby Parkinson signed a pretty lucrative deal. We didn't know exactly what to make of it, but he did not play this first preseason week. He sat with the known starters. Meanwhile, Davis Allen was out there a ton. Have you changed your view here of this? Because, look, Tyler Higby, while not a superstar, has been a good fill-in tight end. The complication of the situation Jason brought up a long time ago, which is Colby Parkinson is a He's worthy of the contract as a tight end in all the things that tight ends do. But four years to accumulate 57 catches just makes me think that that role. He can be a full-time starter and catch 25 passes. He's proven that. So that puts that hesitation in there where it's like, okay, it's probably neither. And then when Higby returns, it's definitely neither. Or definitely is that?

That sentence was weird. I liked it, though. You meant one sigby is back. What is it when there's three? You can't say. Thriver. Knife thriver. None of them. Yeah, that's it. I think that's what you'd say. Thank you for correcting me. I would still prefer Davis Allen just for the hopeful upside. I think that we know that the hopeful upside of Parkinson doesn't really exist. He could have the role and the role could be like, oh, maybe you could stream him a week or something and he catches a couple touchdowns. That's. That's the point. That's all I'm hoping for. Or they played some, you know, when you get out there in 12, Parkinson's blocking and Allen's running down the field. Yeah, I'm not hoping for that. Like I don't care if I've got, there's going to be a hundred, you know, tight ends out there that catch a couple touchdowns this year. I don't think Davis Allen gets it done, but I think that's where I would make my bet in the sense that if there is upside to be had, it's in him.

Any other waiver names you guys want to bring up before we move on? I will throw out Jared Wiley. I mentioned it on the Dynasty Pod as my nasty boy of summer. He is the rookie tight end behind Travis Kelsey. Behind Noah Gray. And No Gray, but No Gray is not under contract next year. Travis Kelsey could retire any off season. So all of a sudden there's a world where the number one tied in. And he's been working with the starters from the... the very get-go of camp. So I don't know. Jared Wiley's just a name to know. And he at least is, he's really athletic. And that is in the simplest terms when you're trying to find a tight end, athleticism is where you should start along with draft capital. All right. Thanks again to NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube TV. Watch every game every Sunday when you bundle NFL Sunday ticket and YouTube TV. Sign up today at YouTube.com slash.

Fantasy footballers, local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games, device and content restrictions apply. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. It's preseason and the alarms were going off yesterday. Yeah. Late yesterday. Jamir Gibbs. Leg injury at practice. What is the latest? The latest I heard, they're calling it a hamstring injury. I have not seen a significant update as to the grade, the severity, what happened. You know, they will probably shut him down for a little while here. You know, you probably won't see him until the beginning of the season just to be safe with the, you know, the hamstring pops up. And I will say that, you know, over the years, over the years.

hamstring injuries in camp have a nasty habit of popping up again in the season. That's not to say you can't draft Jemir Gibbs. I mean, obviously, Jemir Gibbs is awesome. It just raises his risk factor to me a little bit. You know, where he's going in drafts, I, you know, I would take him ahead of Kairn easily every time. Now it's like, now it's a little bit of a question. I have seen some. Jamir Gibbs dynasty managers sending through panic trades. Oh, don't. Don't. Don't see. Not to trade him away. Oh, it's a depth. To acquire Montgomery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From the Montgomery manager because they feel like they need to almost buy an insurance policy right now due to the injury. And I guess I'm curious how reactionary would you be in that situation? Like, would you give up a little bit of value?

in an unequal trade to just ensure your Gibbs or are you hurting yourself? No, I think I would. In a Dynasty League, this is. I think it's jumped up to a one. If I have Montgomery and the team with Gibbs comes to me for a very playable running back in David Montgomery, who if Gibbs is out, I have a locked and loaded RB1. That price starts at a 1. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I don't think I would trade David Montgomery for less than 1. Let's say that Jamir gives us fully healthy this year. David Montgomery is a full starting running back. He's going to have as good a chance of anybody in the league to score double-digit rushing touchdowns. And so, yeah, I would say it starts there. I was, yeah, my reaction was I probably would have to pay more than a 1. Yes. Yes.

But David Montgomery is the other side of this. We've been talking about it in all the mock drafts that we do, where when you take either Gibbs or Montgomery, there is a built-in thing that most other running backs at value don't have where this is a playable asset. And should the other guy go down, it becomes an incredibly important league winning upside. Have we talked about that enough with Rahimo certain the seventh round? Probably not. The fact that like, I mean, like A-chan literally. was hurt three times last year. Yeah. But we don't, I don't remember talking about that a lot on Moster's breakdown of just like, what if I told you A-Chance gone in week three? Yeah. Like most of it was RB2 last year. It'll be a crazy steal. Did you guys see coach what Jay, what's? Oh, yeah. Ronald McDonald's. Ronald McDonald's. Coach of the Miami Dolphins, coach Ronald McDonald, talking about running backs. And they, he was asked about this, like,

running backs being listed as starters and he kind of took I mean look he gives some wild answers sometimes but essentially he was like it we have we have four good running backs like I will let the running back play dictate that type of stuff is essentially what he was saying and so it's I mean it just it just juiced me up for most or even more the value is is crazy and that's not being off of Aegean That's just being excited for a value running back we're getting later. I don't think if A. Chan goes down that Rahim Mostert would do what David Montgomery or Gibbs would do in the sense that Jalen Wright, the rookie draft pick that just brought in. And Jeff Wilson is still on the team. I think that they will still use a rotation there. Whereas I think with the lions, should one of those guys go down? I mean, obviously someone will come in to spell people. But the, I mean, we saw it last year even with Gibbs when Montgomery went down. They get the.

like a workhorse role. Yeah, I can see. Any other lion's share. Nice. Swished. Yeah, this is the new thing. I mean, did you see Matt LaFleur coming out and talking about like how, how, you know, this talk of this talk of how if, you know, trying to put a wide receiver as my wide receiver one makes him want to vomit. Listen, Matt, I'll make you a deal. You give me. The top four fantasy finishers is a wide receiver and I will call all your receivers one. Yeah. Wide receiver one. Absolutely. Just give us the order. Hey, no. You finish. You have two of them finish in the top 12. I'll say you have two wide receiver ones. There you go. That's a fair point. All right. Good news on Malik Neighbors. Not only did Brian Dable say that all the tests came back positive and that he'll be okay and that it's not serious, but Malik neighbor said he feels good. He has no doubt he'll be there for week one.

And he said he thought it was no big deal when it happened but wanted to get it checked out. Yeah. And I mean, that's good news because we've all rolled our ankle before where it is actually not a big deal. You know, where it's like, oh, I'm worried. And then it's like, okay, you're okay. He was stretching today. He's on the field. You know, I think he practices this week. And I'm starting to not worry at all about it. J.J. McCarthy missed practice due to knee soreness. When I saw this come through, I thought it was an announcement that he was going to get first team reps.

And it was rather his knee. Yeah, he's on the on the outch list. Chase Claypool on IR ending his season. Good night, sweet prince. And I see this news bit in here. So maybe Mike wanted to talk about it. I didn't put it in. Albert Breer saying Bears wide receiver, Ken and Allen appears to be 230 pounds. Yeah. What do you mean appears to be? That's what he's listed at. Yeah, he was. I think the point is, whoa. He's up to 230 right now. I mean, what was he? He wasn't playing at that last year. There's no way. That's, I mean, something to watch. He was probably playing at 210. Probably. Have you had that Chicago deep dish though? Oh, I mean, that stuff is, two 10 to 2.30 overnight. And deep dish is how you pack it on with pizza. I mean, that stuff is. Dude, can you eat more than one slice of that? I'm not supposed to. But can you? Can you? I could do, I could do two slices. You can? Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know that I... There's consequences. I'm... I literally mean that word as in can I... If you put in the effort, you can do it. Yeah? You think with enough training, you can... Okay. But seriously, Keenan is going to town on that right now because that is... He's like, I'm almost retired. It's fine. So one year... I only work in the short part of the field. It comes up because there was like there was some reporting from a few days ago of a beat reporter out of San Francisco out of Chicago. And they're like they had tweeted about it. And then they pulled it down. I'm talking about Keenan Allen's weight. And they're like, I want to make sure I'm getting the information correct because, you know, we're just hearing like, just can you look a little slow to you guys? And then the actual report came out of there. So it's just Keenan Allen's an elite player. But if he's really.

A little bit overweight playing at that weight. It's going to be a problem. Our data from last year, I don't know when they weigh in, but looking says 6-2-21 was Keenan. Yeah, that's a pretty big difference. So something to pay attention to. That was today's news and notes presented, as always, by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. We're going to take a break. Jump right back into a rankings countdown. This is just thinking Keenan is now at 240. Oh, no, another slice. 245. Oh, man. So tight end is in the picture. So you're saying at the rate I'm going, I could turn in the, I can be Keenan Allen. Other than, yes, you are Keenan Allen. You are Keenan Allen. Other than Kelvin Benjamin, I can't think of a lot of the, like a weight related wide receiver story. No, that's not been very frequent.

Yeah, Kelvin Benjamin. Yeah. That's it. That's it. He didn't have a drop right. No, I'm thinking of Devin S scrumptious. I don't have it here. Tightens. All right. Top 10 tight in rankings. Wrapping up our rankings episodes. We are in half PPR. And Mike, you had some stuff to toss in about tight ends that you've been researching. We're giving, give you our hopeful potential top 10 here. but want to remind people of what actually has happened historically when we're drafting tight ends and their ability to hit a true ceiling. So over the last five years, in average draft position, the tight ends were drafted one to three. They have been hitting that top five at a 60%. Obviously, if you draft a guy at one, you don't want them top five, but it's at least, it's not a complete disaster. Yeah, it doesn't ruin the pick. Right. It's so.

The high end tight ends are hitting. That's why people are more and more jumping into that. If you go to like the middle of the draft, you know, the four to six, that has dropped down to a 37%. And here is the absolute killer. ADP over the last five years, tight ends drafted seven to 12, have finished in the top five, three percent of the time. That's not top three. That's not the number one. That's the top five. They only break in three percent of the time? Yes. Essentially what the point is of the strategy that we talk about a lot of I want an elite tight end. And then there's that middle tier of like four to six where I'm okay taking the chance on them. But after that, you pretty much punt the tight end position. But that means you're also punting upside. Right? Like based on this data, you are, I guess what I mean is you need to be realistic about the outcome of that punt. You can't just say like I'm punting it, but then I hope to get.

top five production by some miracle, your odds are almost nothing. Right, but I'm saying is half of last year's top 12 were drafted in the 10th round or later. Like it's these, it's those, it's the tight ends where you're at the point of, oh, dude, I got to get a tight end. I still got to get one. And they're running out. It's the truth of ADP has been, don't worry about those guys when it's running out. You're really talking about the first few players we're going to mention the guys that are. Near, you know, tight end, 9, 10, 11, 12, those type of guys. Historically, the hit rate of these first few guys we're going to talk about is bad. So then if you said half of last year's top 12 were round 10 plus. Yes. And 97% of the top five historically is the first six tight ends off the board. Then threading the needle and wasting a pick from the middle rounds.

towards the end is not worth it. That's what I'm saying. Exactly. Yes. Number 10. Well, what a cool introduction for David and Joku. Hey, and it's not that we're saying it's impossible for these players. These are our best shot at it. It's just know what you're getting into when you're drafting tight ends. Is there any position, though, just to kind of throw a wrinkle into the thought process and totally throw out everything you said? All right. Is there any position like tight end where you do see these runs from the position over periods of the season where the final result is very different. Could be. Like Najoku's season, he was the league winning tight-in. Yes. He was the singular league-winning tight-in, but his fantasy finish was the tight-in six. So he didn't qualify, right? Like he didn't fit into that box of finishing top five being drafted in those middle rounds. And yet, you know, the tight-in position is strange because...

You can catch lightning in a bottle, and we've seen that as seasons have ended from time to time. So, you know, you talk about Mike on tips and tricks, and we got a tips and tricks episode this week. You've talked about looking at your season in chunks. And I wonder if you don't have one of those top five guys, if you need to keep looking at your season in chunks at the tight end position. Yeah, look at that schedule because those who have a warm and fuzzy feeling about David Najoku from last year had him at the end. They didn't have him at the beginning because the first five games of the season, he put up 3.4, 4.8, 4, 7.6, okay, 3.9. Like, he was, wider, or tight end 17 was the highest finish he put up in his first five games. Which was just par for the course of a six-year career where you have been waiting for David Najoki to do what he did at the end of the year, but never got. Yeah, and all it took was,

Joe Flacco. So the question with David Nogoku is, was the late season, you know, minimalistic breakout? Whoa. Enough to, enough to like make him the clear number two target in the offense. Or was it the fact that you had predominantly a Joe Flacco led stretch of games for his best games that were. you know, look, you got a statue in the pocket that's not going to be extending plays and, you know, he's looking for that safety valve and hyper-targeting Najoku. I keep going back and forth, but I land more on the side that I don't think Najoku is going to be as good as he was the second half of last year with Deshaun Watson there. Well, the cost is an eighth round pick, so it's in that danger zone that Mike was talking about. Do you agree with the same hesitation? Is it just...

You know, everything on this offense seems to come down to whether Deshaun Watson is a real quarterback or not. And he played hurt. I mean, that was. Yes. He played hurt, but he played poorly as well. Well, good news. He's cleared for contact as of it just came through this morning. Cleared for contact. Every day he starts. It was re-cleared. Right. He was cleared for contact. He was cleared yesterday, but then they wanted to make sure. Right. Well, he got hit. And then it's like, whoa. He's not, he's unclear. Now he's back. Jerry Judy also factors into this. Like, is Jerry Judy a real wide receiver? And I'm not talking about, you know, like, is he actually play that position? I mean, they traded for him. He's not practicing either. Yeah, but over the course of the season, they mean, they made a gamble on Jerry Judy. And if, I mean, Amari Cooper is, he's their one. If Jerry Judy really can be the second target in here and David DiJoku is then the third.