Ultimate Draft Tips + Stunning Stats

Right? It's just one of those things where... Well, there's turnover on defense. Exactly. I mean, look at the Falcons. The Falcons entered last year with a good defense. And then week two came and you knew, well, they had so many injuries, they're no longer a good defense. So on the season, it's really hard for me to say, I love this strength of schedule at the running back position. But there is a place that I personally, in my drafts, always look at it.

I prefer looking, and we break it down. We break it down for the whole season. We give you that data. The playoff weeks, which again, those. A little early, but it's a little early to know how those teams are going to fare. But I love the early season schedule. The weeks one through four. And where I factor this in the most is defense, like defense special teams. You've still got a draft one. We don't talk about it a ton on the show. You know, there's not as much research in.

fun things to look at when it comes to which defense do I pick. So, okay, who are the good defenses? Chicago, Minnesota, you know, I'm going to grab the big great defenses at the top of my draft. Jacksonville. And then, but the reality is, and we say this every year, like it is, it is better to stream your defense off the waiver wire and play the matchup much more so than trying to get a great defense and playing them week in and week out. Because.

Good defenses, when they go up against a great offense, usually the great offense wins from a fantasy perspective. And that's not always the case, but I would rather play a bad defense against a really bad offense than... Yeah, or a mediocre defense. Or one that's set up to succeed because they're at home two of the first three weeks of the year against mediocre offenses versus saying, hey, I'm just locked and loaded.

I'm just going with Chicago no matter what happens, even if they start the year against three great offenses. So when I was looking at the early season schedule and how those rankings ended, look, the Vikings are one of my favorite defenses in the NFL, but I noticed that they get off, they have a really poor strength of schedule to open the first four weeks. So I took a look and saw, okay, if you draft the Vikings in your draft this year, you're going to get week one against the Falcons.

an offense that I think we all would not want to play our fantasy defense against. Not excited. And week two against the Packers and Aaron Rogers and the new, you know, offense there. So I feel like I'm going to bypass Minnesota in my drafts because I would, I don't want either of those first two weeks. I'm not going to hold them for.

Week 3 and beyond. They're not in a category of like hold all year. Exactly. So, I mean, I don't, I don't know if anybody is necessarily, usually one team is worth holding all year, maybe two, but it's not always the team you think of is. Chicago is probably the one to think about. Right. But that's it. And then on the flip side, you know, what, what team that maybe is mediocre but has a really good early strength of schedule, look, the Dallas Cowboys, their defense isn't.

World class, but they're pretty good. They're middle of the road. But you want to know what I love playing against bad quarterbacks. That's pretty much what I look. What about rookies? Oh, I love playing against rookie quarterbacks. So the Cowboys open the season against the Giants and Eli Manning without Odell Beckham. And they follow that up with the Redskins, which.

I don't care which quarterback they choose. I like either options against my fantasy defense. So those are some examples of like how you can utilize a strength of schedule tool for actual, you know, pragmatic way to use it in your draft. Yeah. No, it makes a lot of sense. And even when you're looking at the end of the season, even if you don't know what the turnover is going to be like for those defenses,

You can get an idea and say, oh, wow, they're on the road three times or, you know, some different indications of what may be a tiebreaker between a couple different defenses. Mike, what do you got for us? Ultimate draft tip, Mike. This can't just be a regular draft tip. I just want to be clear. Must be ultimate. Yeah. Pull out your glove. Snap your finger. What do you got? Well, all I do is bring things that are more ultimatter. Well, including grammar, spelling.

So I want to talk about reception perception perception. We are absolutely delighted to be the exclusive home of Matt Harmon's reception. Matt Harmon, one of the bright stars in the fantasy industry currently working over at Yahoo Sports. And if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, what he has done is developed a methodology that he can take a look at wide receivers and...

See if they're actually a skilled wide receiver at creating separation independent of their quarterback because sometimes, you know, you get caught up in a wide receiver who has an awesome year. And it turns out, well, he's not actually that good. The ball just happened to bounce the right way for him with opportunity and certain production. So he's looking at wide receivers. How good are they?

actually. And there's a ton of interesting information and a couple pieces I wanted to highlight. We all love Juju Smith, Schuster. In fact, he's up on our wall right now. There's a signed jersey of him. And we're all ready for Juju to take the next step. And right now- Which is supernova. The star's been born. Right. Now it's supernova time.

Well, Jason, I don't know if you know about science. You don't want that to happen. I want the supernova. I just don't want the post-supernova. Okay. You want the burst. I want the explosion. You don't want the dead core. Right now, I'm on board. I love juju. He's my top five. I'm projecting huge things for him. And for me, it's not so much the increase of targets. It's not the volume because he was a humongous part of that passing him already.

But the touchdowns, that was the number where it's easy to see him moving up. And what's interesting about him is Juju, he's actually very bad against press coverage. He has been both years that he has been in the league. He crushes on the slant route, the dig route, and the flat route. Those are very short routes. He all in the middle of the field. But on deeper routes and intermediate routes, his ability to create separation has not been that great.

I mean, he's spectacular at what he is good with. And that has led to last year, 71% of his touchdowns came inside the red zone. Okay, let's look at the guy who's gone. Antonio Brown, he wins everywhere. There's absolutely no holes in Antonio Brown's game. He's great at deep routes. And Antonio, who was a touchdown master, only 46% of his touchdowns came in the red zone. That means Antonio Brown was scoring rapidly.

from outside of the 20 huge plays. Can Juju actually fill that gap in the offense and take his touchdown level from seven to what we're hoping where you're talking 11, 12 touchdowns if he's actually not that great at yet? And I'm just talking to his career right now because he can certainly work his way up to being a sensational downfield guy. That's what Antonio Brown did. But I'm just saying that is super interesting and I hate you.

I didn't like it. I don't like it. I didn't like it either. But it's very interesting. And we always say stay water. Make sure you're always taking in more information. It's very good information. So it was one of those things where it's like I haven't, I have not adjusted juju yet, but this is this is the first time that I've had a beam of light hit me in the eye going, oh, maybe I need to pause just a little pump the brakes twice. One of full stop. It's interesting too, just hearing it for the first time from you.

It's interesting when you add a piece like Dante Moncrief, who is known for scoring on big-time plays. And we've seen this with the history of Ben Rothesberger. They try to equip him with downfield threats, whether it was trying to do with Martavis or Sammy Coates or even a guy like James Washington. You know, it's an interesting thing to say, hey, is Juju really going to fill that role? Right. And one of the things that we bring up in the juju...

player profile video on Ultimate DraftCat. And when we've talked about it is the fact that his numbers were at the top end of what you can even achieve from a yardage perspective. Right. That's just the touchdowns. Yeah. And it seemed like that should be an easy thing for him to go up. Maybe it won't be as easy as we were initially projecting. The other pair of wide receivers I wanted to highlight, Curtis Samuel versus DJ Moore, DJ Moore of the Carolina Panthers.

What are we thinking about the U.S. A wedding D.J. I know. I'm thinking about the stop sign. Oh, right. So DJ Moore is kind of the easy pick, the hot pick for the breakout wide receiver from the Carolina Panthers, a first round pick this past year. But people forget about Curtis Samuel, who was a second round pick just a couple years ago. Basically missed a whole year. So he was practically on the same rookie level. And so we all forget.

how much we loved Curtis Samuel coming into the league. And then you break down his reception and Curtis Samuel has already taken the step to being a top-notch route runner, making tons of separation, which is probably pretty good for his quarterback. Cam Neaton needs his...

Cam Newton needs his guys to be open. And that's what Curtis Samuel is doing so much so that Matt Harmon referred to him as an early career, Stefan Diggs. That's what he was seeing. That's how hyped he was for seeing Curtis Samuel. Meanwhile, DJ Moore, who is, Harmon points out he is excellent in the yards after catch. He had the best percentage of...

of broken tackles when he's in open space. So he's still a sensational player, but he's still a young player. And he was not creating separation down the field. Meanwhile, Curtis Samuel was. So this is just one of those things. Let's take pause. It's easy to want to call DJ more of the breakout, but do not forget there is another high draft capital player on that team who already has a little bit more experience. He,

Curtis Samuel could easily be the breakout player for that team. I actually like both players, which is part of the reason I think Cam, if, I mean, while Cam's healthy, he's going to be a good value this year. Well, and someone like Curtis Samuel then, though, looks like a strategic dynasty acquisition. Right. Because it's going to cost you a lot. And I know this from our leagues to go after a DJ Moore because people see the ceiling of a DJ Moore first-run draft capital. You know, he's an explosive player.

You're not going to pay what you have to pay for DJ Moore when you go after Curtis Samuel. Yeah, and my point is simply maybe we're a year away from DJ Moore. Maybe more will be that third year, like most wide receivers. And the last one I wanted to point out, it's pretty quick, it's Robbie Anderson, because it's great when you can put, like the eye test of watching a player, it's good.

I rely on looking at talent, believing I can analyze and know if a player is actually talented. But sometimes it's great to have actual substance to that. And that's what reception is doing. And Robbie Anderson dominates. He is already, he's one of the best deep threats in the league. And it's like, yeah, I know. But it's great to have actual concrete numbers knowing.

that he is creating separation at an elite level. If Sam Darnold really does take that step like I'm projecting him to with Adam Gase, who somehow carries the quarterback whispered moniker still to this day. He whispered Peyton Manning to greatness. Yeah. He's really lucky that he turned the career of that Peyton Manning bum around. The nice thing is, is most people give him credit for using players the right way, even if he's not perfect.

And why we like Robbie, or at least why I love Robbie Anderson. Well, that's, we'll get to find out this year. Was Adam Gates right? Why I love Robbie Anderson is I'm calling for that next step for Sam Darnold, looking for him to push the ball down field. And Robbie Anderson has those elite separation skills down the field. That's why I'm, that's why I have confidence in Robbie. So it's nice to see those things in actual data form instead of just.

My anecdotal, observational. My opinion of watching him play. Look how fast he is. Yeah. Well, because we see isolated place. You know, that's what happens with your eyes. Maybe you guys out there are watching every single route that Robbie Anderson runs. And that's what Harmon does. Obviously, that's what Harmon does. So it's like we see the highlights. And we say, oh, man, that guy looks like he's great. But it is neat to see that statistical evidence. I'm jumping into the Red Zone report with my next insight.