Sleeper Picks + Hype Trains, Sony & Etienne News - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/25

100% true. Oh, that is the best line. When a rookie wide receiver goes out, it puts up 11 for 193 and one touchdown. I can't make a compelling statistical argument. So I fuel the engine with back to the future logs of hype. But you have to go. So this is a scenario. Remember who the player was that they drafted and look at the scenario, which has remained mostly unchanged.

Brian Edwards was a third round pick in that year that we just had of 2020 of insane rookie wide receivers. Had it not been so jam-packed, Brian Edwards would have been a higher pick in the draft, I believe also in the draft process, he broke his foot. And we all know that injuries in the draft process frequently lead to you falling to a value for teams. He broke out in college under the age of 18 years old.

He went in as a true freshman and was a very relevant player for South Carolina. He ended his career as the leading receiver for South Carolina. He just beat out Alshan Jeffrey, which, to be fair to that stat, Alshan played three years. Bryant Edwards played four. But he's only 22 years old right now. Darren Waller is the unquestioned number one target for this team. I'm not going to make that argument that Edwards will become that. But number two is up for grabs. The fantasy community.

was very skeptical of Henry Ruggs being that high draft, being that high in the first round. We weren't sure, like, how do you, where do you take Henry Ruggs in a rookie draft? Despite him being the number one wide receiver taken that year, Henry Ruggs fell to the back of the first round in rookie draft. And then in redraft last year, it was, well, maybe I'll take the shot on Henry Ruggs. And that's basically where we are today. Henry Ruggs very fast. I don't mind Henry Ruggs as the sleeper to,

to take the job as the number two. My point is simply, Brian Edwards also has a chance to be that guy. The Raiders, if you look at their line in sports books, they're projected for about seven wins. That's one of the worst teams in the NFL. That's a lot of potential negative game scripts coming for the Raiders. They're going to have to throw. You've seen John Gruden also fuels my hype train. He's my co-engineer here throwing hype into the...

The furnace. Derek Carr as well. I feel like John Gruden's mouth is open and you're shoveling coal out of it and into the furnace straight from his mouth to the furnace. It is a very powerful source. John Gruden's tendency when he talks. But yes, Gruden's hyping up Brian Edwards with ridiculous superlatives. I agree with that. I'm not comparing Edwards to Hall of Fame wide receivers. But Derek Carr.

multiple times has said Brian Edwards reminds him of Devante Adams at which Carr played with Adams in college. So that's why he's making that comparison. At the very end of a draft, Edwards to me has a chance to become the number two wide research, number two pass catcher for the Raiders. And I just want our listeners to close their eyes for a second and get the mental picture that I have of Mike in a meadow holding hands. Okay. On his right, John Cruden.

And on his left, Derek Cole. Knock on wood if you're with me. And they're just springing through the meadow. Yeah. That's a nice jaunt. And they all disappear. That's what I saw. That was the conclusion of my. Eventually the meadow just keeps rising and you can no longer see us. Now you're underground.

Hey, sleeper is the keyword here. We're looking for players that do not have a consensus of adoration. Here's the thing. These sleepers, because they're late, they are not going to all pan out, but I think you have the highest glory opportunity here. If one of these guys does pan out, that's your glory play. And sometimes that's what you go for late in your draft. Isn't there a little bit of a comp there to maybe Rugs being the Hollywood Brown comp and then Edwards being the Rashad Bateman comp?

in terms of like physical stature and what they might do for the offense. And the tight end is actually the number one on the team. But the passing pie for the Raiders is much larger than it will be for the Ravens. Yes, yes. Yeah, and Agalore gone. The opportunity is there. I can see how it can happen. The videos are great from camp, but it is it is tough based on saying, well, the situation is just like it was last year. Yes, and he was.

He was very hurt last year. I mean, he got hurt right away. He tried to play through it. Then they had to shut him down. And it was he so. You're a forgiving man is what we're saying. You're very kind and forgiving. Well.

You're willing to run it back with Brian Edwards. All right. My second sleeper here was going to be Van Jefferson. I want to give him a shout out because if you're in a Dynasty League, I was very upset. Mike just acquired him. I was trying to acquire him on the cheap. He is literally like a throw-in option. This is not someone you need to go pay up for. This is when you're working out a trade. You might need to even say what team he plays for. Van Jefferson, a second-year wide receiver for the Los Angeles Rams. He's an extra throw-in player.

Josh Reynolds was fantasy relevant from time to time. This is a guy that was pretty highly drafted, surprisingly so, by the McVeigh staff. And now you lose Josh Reynolds. Everett is gone. You have a quarterback upgrade. So does the drafting of Tutu Atwell, the man who is now our baseline for weight, does the drafting of him, and I think, was he a second round pick?

He was, he, Tutu was also a very high pick. Does him being drafted high lower your, uh, your, your, your faith that Van Jefferson is good even though he was drafted high? No, not, not that he's good. And the, the rapport in camp and everything has been really, really strong with Van Jefferson this year. And, and what I saw in the field was, was fine. Um, you know that they haven't, we haven't even said his name this off season. Van Jefferson? No, Deshaun Jackson. Oh, I know. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like that is another. Well, we've, we've been banned from talking about Deshaun Jackson. Is there a cease and desist in order? Yeah, the bookland demanded. He's going to play in the opener. And I just think it's funny. It's just funny. What does he do in week one? Oh, yeah. He's going to be great. He's going to play in the opener. End of season.

All right. But my sleeper that I'm really going to be talking about today is Marquez Calloway. He's been all the rage. We've made jokes about how great he is from the preseason. And this isn't to overhype him. But I believe that if you haven't paid attention to the preseason, which a lot of players don't pay attention to preseason, you might not know who Marquez Calloway is. He's a second year wide receiver.

for the New Orleans Saints. He was an undrafted guy, and this is a name you need to be familiar with, because I think at the beginning of the season, he's going to be a very fantasy relevant wide receiver. The reason he was undrafted is because a lot of teams, he's a speedster. He's got lightning speed, and the scouting reports talked about how he was a one-trick pony, and they didn't see the speed.

that he has, like they know he clocked fast, but they didn't see it in game action. And so he dropped in drafts, was undrafted, and then thankfully goes to a really good offense, a really good head coach, a really good offense of mine in Sean Payton. And now if you say, well, we don't see his speed on the NFL field, tell that to the preseason DBs that he's blowing by. They saw it. They saw it for a couple of deep touchdowns.

this last week, but also in the short routes. He's getting involved in other places on the field. And the reality is, you know, we talk a lot about at running back. Opportunity is more important than talent. At tight end, Mr. Necessary always pops up, whether it's Logan Thomas or Charles Clay or whoever when it's the OG Mr. Necessary when there's just not other options to throw the ball to. Well, this is what at the beginning of the year,

Marquez Calloway is finding himself in, a good offense that desperately needs him. Treyquan Smith, still not fully healthy. Michael Thomas, we know, is not there for the start of the season. Adam Troutman probably won't be there for the start of the season. Like, there's just not a lot of options, and you've seen that in preseason. He's been hyper-targeted, and you actually saw it in a game last year. There was a game where Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders were out.

And all of a sudden, Marquez Calloway came in, and he had 10 targets, 8 for 75 in that game. So coming in the year two, this is a guy that I just think really has this absurd opportunity. He could end up with 8, 9, 10 targets for the first 5 or 6 weeks of the season. And at the end of your draft, you're probably...

burning most of the picks. We'll look back next year and say, yeah, most of these guys didn't pan out. And if I can get value and then maybe even trade or move on high from him when he's popping, or just get the value for a couple weeks in my lineup, and then, you know, Michael Thomas comes back. I don't think he's going to be a great season-long breakout, but I certainly think he is a value right now. There are very few players at that range that can command the target market share that he should have to start the year.

Well, we certainly saw the rapport with James, if he's named the starter in that first half of that game. And there is an opportunity right in front of him. Players dropping like flies around him. And the thing I like about the sleeper call with him is the fact that, like, Trey Kwan Smith just has never delivered on the promise. Trey Kwan Smith is why I was interested in Adam Troutman, or even a big part of that. Right.

All right, final sleeper here, and I'm going with another rook, not another rookie, but another quarterback. Tua, Tung of Iloa. All right. Quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. A few reasons for this. First of all, if, you know, you play in a single quarterback league late in drafts, you get to play around with some high upside. So if you end up going, like, safe late round quarterback, I'm not opposed to you waiting, like drafting Tua with your final pick.

And then seeing what happens in this offense this year because this was a player, as Jason would say and his shirts would say, that was drafted to be great. This was the number five overall draft pick. Last year it was Rocky, but they did make the transition to him. And this year, there's a lot that's changed in this offense, including the weapons provided around Tua. Right now, if you draft him, you could pick Kirk Cousins.

Okay, you kind of know what he is. You could pick Matt Ryan. You kind of know what he is. You can pick Big Ben. You kind of know what he is. Derek Carr, we've seen the movie before. But Tua, with command of an offense, with weapons, they invested high draft capital on Jalen Waddle. They'll have Will Fuller for week two. There's a lot of excitement there. And the peripherals, the pieces around him, the way they built this team through the draft, I am very encouraged by what I've seen in the preseason from Tua. Pushing the ball downfield. He had a number of, of,

accurate deep balls last year that were just blatantly dropped because he didn't have wide receivers that were capable of making those plays. And now you have a couple of players that are going to be interesting. I think Waddle will give him a ton of what we'd call cheap yards in the fantasy space where it's an underneath route. It's a swing pass. It's a, you know, a screen. And then all of a sudden, Tua has a 44-yard reception off of it. I'm just very encouraged by what I've seen on film. And it's not very different than...

the Brian Edwards argument in the fact that I don't get to, I'm not going to look to last year's performance on the field and half a season and say, boy, that's, Tua showed me everything I wanted to see on an NFL field. What I'm saying is that he has the talent, skill, and ability, draft capital pieces around him to where the upside might be higher than a lot of those really late round options. So I do think we'll see an impressive season from him.

Yeah, when I went back and rewatched all of his film because I was down on him and I felt like that could be a mistake. I watched it and I really did not like a lot of the passes. But I remember the ball's in the air. It's going down the field and I kept thinking to myself, Will Fuller probably would have caught this ball. Like it wasn't a good enough ball, but he's throwing to nobody's last year. The weapons he has, I mean, if I threw.

a six-yard slant to Jalen Waddle, and he takes it 80 yards. I threw an 86-yard touchdown pass. Like the weapons around Tua, even if he isn't the greatest thing ever, has high potential. And you got Mike Gisicki, who's been a weapon for them as well. And the big thing comes down to how conservative they were last year with Chang Galee and how much the preseason narrative or actually the off-season narrative combined with preseason.