Fantasy Football - Dream Landing Spots + Keep/Trade/Cut - Podcast for 4/10

with Cortland Sutton and Company, probably adding some pieces in the draft. Baker Mayfield with his tried and true, all pros. Godwin will be back. Mike Evans, McMillan. The thing for Baker is, I know he was still good and fine when Chris Godwin left. But Chris Godwin, before he went down, was, I think he was the wide receiver two in points per game. And in all of fantasy football, he was dominating. We won't know the health of it. But like if you could tell me right now, going into week one, Chris Godwin will be good to go and he'll be fine. Then I would go Baker. Baker is currently being drafted higher. I think I think Baker is very safe. Baker finishes the quarterback three last year. Would you rather, real quick, sidebar, would you rather have one of these three names, Mayfield, Knicks, and Murray at their ADP versus those first three names? Or do you, do you, would you rather be at the bottom?

of that last group and maybe take Burrow in the fifth, you know, fifth pick off the board at quarterback versus waiting on these three. Because these three, you know, you see upside cases, but you see downside for all three of them? Like none of them feels like they're a lock. Like Bo Nix could definitely regress, have his ups and downs, Baker Mayfield. You know, you feel okay about, but you don't really look at him as an every week auto start. And then Kyler Murray, he's had his. disappointments of late that are just burning people out. Yeah, I mean, it's really tough. You know, I put Jalen Hertz at the top of the earlier three pack. He would, I would rather have him than any of these three, including the ADPN and what you're sacrificing at the running back or wide receiver position. When I look at these three quarterbacks and I'm like, okay, I think Bo Nix is going to be good. He looked great as a rookie. Hasn't done it yet. Kyler, I know is cursed and will ruin me. He's out. He will only be good once we're all out.

So just get him out. Don't include him. But Baker is. Does that mean we can never go back in though? Because as soon as you go in, correct. You will be burned. Yes. If you want him to be good, stay out. Everyone get off the Kyler Murray train and then he'll be okay. Otherwise, if he has one believer, if Mama still believes, he's going to make sure to disappoint her. Of the three quarterbacks, Baker Mayfield is the best quarterback. For NFL purposes, I believe he is the best quarterback. That's who I want. But for fantasy purposes, it is scary. I brought up Joe Burroughs passing touchdown numbers when you aren't a prolific pass rusher, which Baker did scramble a lot this year, which is helpful.

But that's not like necessarily guaranteed that he's going to be a 400 rushing guard type of player. The previous year he was 62 for 163. Exactly. He rushed the exact same amount of times this year but for 378 yards. It's very outlier. It is. It is an outlier. But the other thing that's an outlier. So if those rushing numbers come down. The Baker, hold on to the ball. The passing touchdown rate for Baker Mayfield. If you take out his rookie season, actually we'll include his rookie season because it was great. 5.6%. even help him out here. His average before this season, his passing touchdown rate is 4.6%, which is slightly above average for the NFL. That's not a bad percentage. That's like, hey, you're a, you're a franchise quarterback. But that's not fantasy winning pocketback. No, but you don't want to know what it is? 7.2. And that's what he threw last year. So, you know, there's, there's warts on all three of these guys. I think Baker, I look at Baker at this point in two careers.

I don't, you know, it's Tampa Bay Baker and everything before. Right, but the first year Tampa Bay Baker was 4.9. Yep. So, I mean, if you meet in the middle, you're still okay. You're not QB3. So I'll keep Baker, trade Kyler, I'll cut Knicks. Man, I think at the value, like Jaden Daniels has the ability to regress going into year two, so does Bo Nix. But the value where it's later in the draft versus earlier. They both have the option to go north. I think I'm going to take Knicks. As your keep? As my keep, trade, Baker, and of course, cut Kyler. But that's, yeah, that's tough. I like Baker a lot. I don't think there's any player I prefer watching right now. I think I'm going to keep Baker. If he's the best quarterback and has the best wide receivers, which is the current situation. Definitely. And has a passing, like a running back room that can catch the football with Buck Irving.

And with Rashad White, it's easier for me to lean that way. Would you guys, did you answer the question of would you take one of these three or the first three at their 80 people? I would take Burrow overall. Yeah, I would take Hertz. Running back, keep trade cut. Chuba Hubbard. These are back to back to back again. They're all, they've been designed to be difficult. Chuba Hubbard, Alvin Camara, Kenneth Bone Walker. K. Bone. The bone man. Yeah. The bone zone. This one's not difficult to me. Chuba is RB17. He's a higher ADP right now than the other two guys. If you look at the game log, you will probably be shocked again. Just how outstanding Chuba Hubbard was. 4.8 a carry, almost 1,200 yards despite missing a game. And his opportunities didn't even shoot up until week three.

But you're talking about, I mean, he had games 31 opportunities, 34 opportunities. He was a workhorse for them. Jonathan Brooks will not be in the picture. Alvin Camara, we know what we got with him at this point in time. And then Kenneth Walker, new head coach, new offensive coordinator, new quarterback, but obviously a ton of talent. What is your instant reaction to that? My instant reaction is that. I don't think Alvin Camara should be at this place in the draft. Does it's too low? It's too low. He's old. He's 29.7. He's going to play at 30 years old this coming season. And so he's going to stay in this area of the draft. There's a player who has just never not been great. Ever pretty much the last couple years, he was on a per game basis outstanding. But at the end of both years kind of fell apart. I mean, I think his ADP, can I just defend his ADP here? Yeah.

I think his ADP here is very specific to, I think, where Underdog is on basketball type of situations. The injury risk that you talked about, the fact that his prime is behind him. Chuba Hubbard could have a better season. Chuba Hubbard could be entering that. I mean, he just got paid big money. The team made huge steps over the back half of the year, and he is the guy. So I think, you know, in Underdog, you're also looking for sealing. And I don't know if we believe that at this stage, Alvin Camara has much ceiling left. He's got a good floor. Do you disagree with that? No, no, I was looking at it. I wanted to see on Sleeper where it's not a best ball mentality. Alvin Camara is a few spots ahead of Chuba. That makes sense to me. They're basically at the four or five turn. Kenneth Walker is almost a full round ahead of Chuba. He's an early fourth versus a late fourth for Camara versus early fifth for Chuba. Yeah, that...

It's super surprising and won't be normal for redraft leagues for Chuba to be the highest drafted among these three. Right. So to me, I'm throwing the ADPs of Underdog out. I'm looking at it from a redraft league. I'm looking in August what I'm going to be doing. In that case, you know, it's easier to sell Chuba as the best value of the group. 17 fantasy points per game from weeks three through 16. RB7. It's probably time we gave him a little bit more credit. So I will do that now. I'm going to keep Chuba Hubbard at the value. I'll trade Alvin Camara and I'll cut Walker. I have no problem giving Chuba the credit. I mean, financially it's all there. But for fantasy purposes, I mean, the Carolina Panthers backfield was a situation this year. It just worked out of they thought they were going to have Chuba and Jonathan Brooks and maybe even.

and Miles Sanders. Like they thought they had enough bodies and then the bodies just depleted and it was only Chuba. The Jonathan Brooks comeback was very short and very bitter. And while, look, I'm not saying Rico Dattle was overtaking Chuba, but looking at just box score hunting, you know, after the buy week, you had four, you had a full straight month of Chuba Hubbard averaging about three and a half yards per carry. So I'm wondering, did the Carolina Panthers see a guy who was. And still was that 4.8 on the year. Yeah. Which is wild. That's what I'm saying. The season opened up gangbusters for him. But do they feel like we overworked him? And we do need someone else to come in here and take some of these carries. Because his whole opportunity. I don't think 304 was the goal, but he was at 282 the year before. So you're talking about a player that's held up to 280 plus for two straight years. So.

I think Rico is going to take more workload than the Chuba people want to believe. And then Camara, it's they have to draft somebody, right? They have to someday. I mean, they definitely need a running back, yes. Because if they don't, then Alvin Camara is going to get, he'll get all those receptions again. He'll be gross. He'll be hurt again. It grows and disgusting. That's what will happen. Man. So you're keeping Chuba, Jay? Who are you? I'm going to keep Alvin Camara. You know, the most explosive, you know, per play guy is Kenneth Walker here. But if you want to talk about getting hurt, I have more confidence in Alvin Camara playing 17 than I do Kenneth Walker. Yeah. I think this is going to be a very controversial one that we just discussed. I don't think people are going, I don't think many will agree with me about you, but I think a lot of people are bullish on Kenneth Walker and are probably sitting here going, he should 100% be the highest among this group. He is currently being drafted as the highest. The team. Yeah.

It has made an offensive coordinator change that from the outside appears to be to get towards running the ball more. And that, you know, it makes sense. And when you see Kenneth Walker on the field, he's very, very good. Yeah. You know, Mike calls him. Forced miss tackle rate among 46 running backs with 100 plus carries. Yeah. If you're not factoring in draft costs here, I think Walker is just fine to be your key. Yeah. I wouldn't argue with anyone. for keeping Walker. He could end up being a steal in this year's draft. But Ken Brittlebone Walker is tough to really anchor your ship to. I'm going to keep him though. So again, we're keeping. I can't quit. I'm keeping Chuba. I'm keeping Camara. Can't quit Ken Bone Walker? You're keeping Ken Bone Walker. It's too sensational when you want to play. Yeah, I'm just going for value. But yeah, I think pure talent and entering like Kenneth Walker and Chuba Hubbard, you put him in the exact same system and you tell them,

You give them the same opportunities and you say you're not hurt for the year. Kenneth Walker will have a bigger fantasy year than Chuba Hubbard. But I just don't think anybody really wants to build their team around Chuba Hubbard, even though they could have done it for two straight years now. For two straight years, you could have had him in as your RB2 and you'd have been living life. Whereas Walker missed time, Camara missed time. Man, it's a tough call. Imagine if Walker doesn't, though. Exactly. But the biggest problem of getting hurt a bunch is just teams decision making on how they manage the future. Like they just invested money in Camara too. Like they just re-upped Camara and it's like, well, do you want them on the field? They don't know what they're doing. They don't want them on the field 38 times like he was on the field in week nine. 38 opportunities. That's all they got. I'm sure that played a part in missing the last three weeks of the season and not being helpful.

I believe he led the team in receptions. Yeah. Because that's your case for them is they draft one of the top wide receivers and they get healthy. Maybe they go down. Yeah, I mean, hopefully Chris Oliva can stay healthy. That would be great. Derek Carr play 17 for them? I don't think so. Mike? But not because of injury. Right. That's why I'm asking. You think they take someone and he gets benched? I think towards the end of the year he gets benched whether they take someone or not. If they're not winning games. They're going to, you know, probably due to injury contract situation, just be like, let's go. Let's get our quarterback of the future next year. Let's get Jackson dart a few snaps. Oh. All right. We'll take a break. We got a couple more. And I mentioned it at the top of the top 15 running backs and wide receivers, early ranking shows coming next week, by the way. Keep trade cut. These are all hard. Garrett Wilson, T. Higgins, Terry McLaurin.

Let's change Terry to D'Andre Hopkins. Just to make it a lot easier to have an easy cut. Oh, yeah. McLaren last year was one of 10 wide receivers since 2000 with 13 plus reception touchdowns receiving TDs on fewer than 125 targets, so hyper efficient in the touchdown department. But I mean, go-to guy for Jaden Daniels. T. Higgins last year, fourth best among wide receivers of fancy points per game. If you run up the hill and get on the field, T, it's nice. They call him the kin bone walker of wide receivers. And then just got paid. I have a type. Mike has a type. He likes the guys who, if they play, they're great. They burn so bright guys. Oh, just imagine Blake Jarwin if he had been out there. Garrett Wilson, second most targets through three years in NFL history. He'll have Justin Fields.

What's actually interesting about these three names that I like is that they are all three players that have been so much hope in each name for so long. So much it wasn't their year has happened to them. And here we are with good seasons coming into 2025, being drafted back to back to back on underdog. Terry McLaurin, to me, is the easy cut. Of the three of these people. Really? Yeah. To me, he's the easy cut because, you know, Andy just read the crazy efficiency of touchdowns. We talk about it all the time. Even for prolific career-long touchdown scores, there is a lot of variance from year to year when it comes to specifically touchdowns. This is a guy.

Obviously, we've always talked about he's got a quarterback problem. Well, now he's got a quarterback solution that doesn't change the fact that he's had four touchdowns, five touchdowns, five touchdowns, four touchdowns, 13 touchdowns when you've got a great quarterback is hard to repeat. That number at that volume is. Yeah, now you add in Debo Samuel and you go, okay, I see how it goes wrong. You also look at these three guys and you go, well, who's the oldest? Terry McLaurin's going to turn 30 this year. So it's not. That Tara McLaurin is a great player. I don't think he's aged out, but he is getting older. He's got a great quarterback that could take a step forward but could also take a step back. So when I'm comparing him to T. Higgins and Garrett Wilson, I would rather have those other two guys. It's funny because, I mean, you are cutting the by far best fantasy finisher. From last year, yeah. From last year. Yeah. Mike, do you agree with the easy cut on Terry McLaurin? I don't think I do. I think my keep here, I actually think he's going to be.

T. Higgins? I thought for sure it's going to be Terry McClure. It's going to be T. Higgins, but then I'm going to trade Terry McLaur. I'm going to cut Garrett Wilson. I don't like the level of ink. Garrett Wilson may put up a fantasy finish that you're kind of okay with. I do not think it will be very consistent with Justin Fields in that division. And I think that the team needs to add more pieces. So I will, that's the way I'm going to go. So I'm doing a quick look here of the history of Washington while Terry is there. Like how many passing touchdowns per year were they having? So the rookie year, that was where it was just brutal. That was like, you know, the Alex, Alex Smith through six touchdowns. So they had 16 total passing touchdowns that season. So that one, I'm not even going to factor that into any of my thought here. In 2021, they had.

21 passing touchdowns. In 22, it was 24, 23. In 2023, it was, where did we go? 24 passing touchdowns. And this one, it was, this year was 29. 25 was Jane Daniels. So my point being, like, it's not a crazy difference. Yeah, like, they weren't substantially higher in passing touchdowns this year, but Terry McLaurin hit. And, So that makes it even scarier. That makes it far more difficult when the team is still throwing mid-20s and Terry McLaurin's catching five to six touchdowns a year. And then he has the one year where he shoots up. And of course, Jaden Daniels is the variable that we don't have enough information on yet. It's a, that's scary. Like Jason's saying, that feels like it was the magical year for Terry McLaren because the yardage was normal Terry yardage.

This was just a, he came through with a lot of receiving touchdowns. Yeah, T. Higgins would be my keep as well, Andy. T. Higgins last year was 15.5 fantasy points per game when he played. That was, that was significantly ahead of Terry McLaren's 13.3 or Garrett Wilson's 11.8. So you're talking about a player that, I mean, again, he has a health issue, but. Good news, everybody. That was also a spike for T. But the good news is his new contract incentivizes him actually playing in these games. It does. I was so thrilled. Yeah, there is such a high per game bonus check for him every single week. Yeah. If you look at Garrett Wilson, if we're talking touchdowns, he has 469 career targets. Nice. He averages a touchdown every 33.5 targets. I don't think that's going up with Justin Fields.

which is only 14 touchdowns on 469 career targets across three years. He's never had the spike year. He doesn't have the quarterback situation figured out. You know what? You were right. It is not an easy cut for Terry McLaren. It's an easy keep for T. Higgins to me. That's fine. Because if I had to bet money on which one would have double-digit touchdowns, I would bet T. Higgins despite Terry McLaren's 13. Yeah, me too. But Terry McLaren get to eight or nine with the best, you know, a much better quarterback situation than Garrett Wilson. What are the odds of Garrett Wilson putting 10 into the ends on this year? McClorin has to be higher than that. Yeah. And then quarterback wise. Like Jane Daniels had an incredible year, 25 passing touchdowns. He could go up. Yeah, he can't. But is he going to be anywhere close to Borough? No. No. No. No. So that's why I'm Higgins, McLaurin, then Wilson. Yeah. Even though he's the technical wide receiver two on his team, I'd rather.

be the wide receiver too or my quarterback can be 4,040. Garrett Wilson upsets me. He, dude, he upsets me too. He really makes me upset because, yeah, okay, Aaron Rogers didn't play the best. And he had a fine fantasy season. He had a stretch run in the middle of the season right before Devante Adams got there where it was, the breakout was happening. But I also, I don't watch Tara McLaurin or T. Higgins when they're on the field and get frustrated by them. Like, like, what, like, you know, why can't you tap your toes or why can, you know, Garrett Wilson is a talented wide receiver. He's super good. But he does some stuff out there that I feel like just mental errors over and over. And so if you're taking the volume from Aaron Rogers to Justin Fields, that's going to be frustrating. What if, what if Garrett Wilson is more driver slandry than we'd like to give him credit for? I could see that. What if he's not that?

God. What if he's not Justin Jefferson? We've been waiting for him to be Justin Jefferson. I mean, it's just not going to happen. He's caught 57% of his passes in three years. He's got no, it's bad. It's been, I mean, it's not like he's a, it's not a lack of targets. Yeah, but those targets, those first two years, the targets were so bad. He's got to be the first player to turn 95 receptions into a wide receiver 32 finish. Because look, in those first two years, he caught 56, 57% of his passes. That jumped to 66% with a bad Aaron Rogers. And yet still much better than what he had had. Yeah. Yeah. So where did you finalize? I'm keeping T. How do you rank the other two? I guess I'd trade. I mean, Garrett's going higher, but that's also best ball mentality. I think in redraft people are going to prefer Terry. So I'll trade Terry. You know what?

Oh. I'm going to make that pivot. He would be from easy cut. He would be an easy cut to me if this was keep cut cut cut. The question becomes much easier if it's keep cut cut cut. This guy can change any rule he wants. Look, you guys won me over. You swayed me. I'm going to one up you. Imagine the game is cut, cut, cut, cut. That's so easy. I'm cutting T. Higgins, Terry McLaren, and Garrett Wilson. I'm cutting Garrett Wilson, Terry McLaren. And T. Higgins. You can't get it wrong. No. This is way easier. Man. Do we want to try on this final tight end, keep trade cut? Sure. I want to try on tight end cut, cut, cut, cut. Well, you would cut, cut, cut the tight ends sometimes. Sam Leporta. Oh, this one's fun. This one is fun. There's some stank on all these guys right now. T.J. Hawkinson, you know, had the major injury. It was tough.

Mark Andrews, the slow start, you had to have some metal to keep playing him. Yeah, which the Mark Andrews was you either had the stones to keep him and he destroyed you to the point where it's like... It didn't matter what he did later. Once the comeback, it was too late. So even if you survived it, he was murdering you on a week-to-week basis. Laporta obviously did not have the replication of his rookie season, but did have a nice finish. Andrew's the nice finish. Hawkinson, you know, it's going to be a new quarterback, but we know what he's capable of. Just coming back last year, he wasn't the same guy. It was pretty clear that he was on some snap counts. Where did he get to? Did he get up to 70% of snaps? He did that twice, but, you know, he averaged four catches a game, which was not what we saw in 2023, right? I mean, he was a six catch-a-game guy in 2023.

Do you have this one worked out already? Laporta, Hawkinson, Andrews. Right now on Underdog, it's Laporta first, Hawkinson, second, Andrews third. And this is probably Andrews last year with Baltimore. It certainly could be. Hawkinson is extremely difficult because he was last year, it's hard to take stock in anything from last year because he was recovering from such a devastating injury. He didn't catch any touchdowns. 95 for 960 and 5 the year before. And now he will have essentially a rookie as his quarterback, which like that then caps your touchdown upside because if J.J. McCarthy hits mid-20s in touchdowns, he had a great year. All right. I've got my answer. PPR leagues. I'm keeping Hawkinson. Okay. And then I will trade Leporta cut Andrews.

in full PPR. If I am 100% standard league, I'm actually going to keep Mark Andrews. Okay. And I will go ahead and trade Hawkinson and cut Leporta. I think no matter the format, I'm going to keep Leporta trade Andrews. I think he's slightly more valuable than Hawkinson. I think I'm going to keep Leporta here. I really want to keep Mark Andrews because I... Neither of you considered keeping Hawkinson. I did. I considered all three. I mean, I think these are, you can make arguments for all of them. Hawkinson, when he was on, you know, he'll catch the most passes by maybe 30. He will catch the most passes. He was coming off of an injury, didn't play the whole season. His projecting, you know, if his projection for the season would have been, you know, 69 receptions, which would have been significantly more than neither of the other two guys, significantly nicer. And so, Hawkinson is definitely in the running to me. But you've got.

You know, last year was a down year for Leporta. And, you know, Mark Andrews was better than Leporta because he got a ton of touchdowns. But we know Leporta can get touchdowns. He just did it his rookie year. So the touchdowns to me aren't what I can bank on. I've got to bank on volume a little bit. So that's where Hawkinson, maybe he should be the right pick. But I also think that Loporta should be better this coming season than he was this last season. You know, kind of meet in the middle. I'm going to keep LaPorta. Reporta ended up as the tight in seven despite the rough start to the year, still scored seven times. That's not, I mean, that's okay. Yeah, I think I'm going to go LaPorta Hawke Andrews. My question on Hawkinson is if, if J.J. McCarthy throws 25, 26 passing touchdowns, which again is for a first time starter, that's a great year. How many of those, like what's Hawkinson's touchdown upside?

Yeah, I would be, that's why I said PPR because I don't, I'm not counting on more than five. Yeah. And Andrews, Andrews, he'll, he has, he has the opportunity to go double digits again. So I like him more than Hawkinson. I still think Andrews could be like when I watched Andrews, I did not see bad play. I really didn't. I saw an offense that no longer. There was one bad play. Yes, okay. The drop ski on the two point conversion was. was bad, but I think the offense has moved beyond requiring Mark Andrews. Well, this is why he'd be the biggest risk of these three by far. Like Laporta and Hawkinson are very, I think those two guys are much safer. We saw from Andrews that he can completely like, what, he shut it down for the first five weeks. At least weeks two and three. But then he was very good. It's just I don't have as much confidence in his role. Like I know Hawkinson.

With J.J. McCartney and Hawkinson, that's like BFFs. That's going to be the most important player to McCarthy outside of Jefferson because of just how many underneath safety valve plays. Whereas we've talked before, Laporta, he's going to fall behind the pecking order of Amun Ra and probably Jamo. Probably Jamo and the running backs, potentially. I mean, I would expect more receptions from Jemir Gibbs than 60. I think that it's. then it becomes philosophical of if you're going with the tight end position, do you want to go safe? I think that I... Sure. I think I just want to go upside or I'm going waiver wire. So... That's why you drafted Mark Andrews where you did. The jokes happening about cut, cut, cut are, you know, fun, but that's genuine. Like, I don't want any of the... I don't want any of these tight ends. These are the exact type of tight ends that I will not be drafting.