Early Breakouts & Sleepers + Dalvin Cook Rumors - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/22

He is the wide receiver 13, and I have no problem with either of those rankings. So this is more like you'll pay the breakout price. Yes, I will pay market. I'm even like if people want to take him slightly above that, it honestly does not bother me. So looking back as rookies, you had Garrett Wilson, you had that breakout, the offensive player or offensive rookie of the year. You had Chris Olave. And Olave was 12 fantasy points. fewer than Garrett Wilson. That's nothing. And Oliva averaged more per game. Rookie points per game. He is right next to Amari Cooper, Amon Rae St. Brown, A.J. Brown, Tyreek Hill, Seedy Lamb. Like, that's where Chris Olave scored his rookie year. Since the year 2000, he became the 16th rookie. Garrett Wilson also jumped in there, so whatever, 15 and 16th. The 16th wide receiver.

Rookie wide receiver since 2000 to break 1,000 yards. He did it in 15 games. He was just the eighth rookie in that time period to break 1,000 yards with fewer than 75 receptions. So this is not just, just dink and dunk PPR guy. This is the guy who can get down the field and looking at speaking of targets per route run, rookie wide receiver since 2014. Only Tyreek Hill had a higher targets per route run, and yards per route run, Chris Olavi, is right there. And so then the question becomes, can Derek Carr come in. Send in the car. Yeah, there it is. Send in the car. Can he come in and get it done? Because we talk about on this show, be careful with the new quarterback coming in and be like, this is the savior of the quarterback position for this team. Because more often than not,

The answer is no. This is, this quarterback is not actually an upgrade, but looking back at what Derek Carr has done in his past four fantasy players. Of course, you have this past year, Devante Adams, wide receiver three with nearly 1,500 yards and 14 touchdowns. The year before that, Hunter Renfro, the accountant, was the wide receiver 11. With over 1,000 and nine touchdowns, the year before that, Darren Waller, nearly 1,200 yards and nine touchdowns. The year before that, Darren Waller, 1145 yards and three touchdowns. And then, of course, you can go back even further, and you had the Crabtree, you had the Crabtree, Amari Cooper years. Like, when Derek Carr has had a special talent.

That person gets featured and that person is great for fantasy football. So while I don't think Derek Carr is necessarily the solution to take the Saints over the top, he is a much better situation for any pass catcher on the New Orleans Saints. And I think that Chris Oliva is about to be a rocket ship. And he will, by next year, he will be looked at as one of the elite players for fantasy football. That's always interesting to me because, you know, like our League of Record. We have a franchise player and then three players that go into a lottery. Right. You get two and one goes back into the draft. And this past off season, I ended up ending up with OLAV and losing Garrett Wilson. Now, I look at ADP, and those players are three picks or three spots apart in terms of value. Is somebody like Chris Olave, could he be in as high of a discussion as the way you view the Jeffersons and the chases in Dynasty leagues?

And, you know, the next group up, right, is OLAVe in there with the Garrett Wilson category. He's right there with Garrett Wilson for me. I don't know if he can get to the Jamar Chase, Jefferson, because that's a tier. Jefferson and Chase are their own two-player super tier for the wide receiver position. Super tier. But I think that the next tier, Chris Olave will be viewed as that for redraft and for Dynasty. It is super rare for a player that is brand new. Like we talk about rookie wide receivers. Like Jefferson even started slow, right? Yep. Rookie wide receivers generally, they ramp up over the course of the year. And unfortunately, due to the quarterback situation and the injuries, a lot of they almost inverse that. Like he had 13 targets in week two, 13 targets in week three, 14 targets in week seven. And that's just, and he missed the game in week six. So.

Demanding that much of a target share out of the gate is a very good sign. And his fantasy finish at the end of the year probably categorizes him well below where we would be talking about him. Because he would have been fighting Garrett Wilson for offensive rookie of the year, I think without such inconsistency at both quarterback and injury. Did you say week two and three? I believe I did. That's what I thought. James, those were James Winston games. So we'll see what Derek Carr can do. to really help his wide receivers. Yeah. And defensive backs on the other team. And then Andy Dalton does what he can to help the other team. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was weird. We'll never know, I think, where James Winston's health was in that situation. But now he's back, right? With the Saints? Did he come back? I thought he was really comfortable there. I thought he did. He's a backup again there, right? Yes, he's still on the team. Yep, there we go. Yeah, one year extension. Okay.

All right. Well, it's a lot better when you go from if Derek Carr gets hurt, you get James. Then if James gets hurt, you get Andy Dalton. Andy Dalton. Sleepers. All right, we talked about it at the top of the show. But, you know, you can't hide anymore. But these are players drafted later. Players you might not know a lot about or haven't heard their names brought up often. But are primed to have an opportunity, Jason. Before you share your name, Andy, I'm curious, do you think I like your pick? No. I love your pick. Really? And I knew that would surprise you because I like his teammate a lot, but it's not mutually exclusive. This player is awesome. He's just super good at football. And your point about it not being mutually exclusive.

bore itself out in the actual back half of last year. The name I'm going to bring up as my sleeper candidate today is Jalen Warren running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And like you said, he is actually a good running back. In fact, he averaged 4.9 yards per attempt. You know, the criticism on Najee Harris thus far has been volume, not efficient, not getting, I think he's been below four. Both seasons. The offensive line struggles. Yes. And Warren, despite that line, 4.9 yards per attempt, same yards after contact per attempt numbers as Jonathan Taylor and Travis ETN. We saw a part of last year where Harris was really struggling, and it seemed like, okay, it's Jalen Warren time, and then he got hurt. And so we didn't get to see it put on display very often. He forced 29 missed tackles.

That is the eighth highest elusive rating on PFF. And then literally this past week, the athletic came out and said, look, there's no way offensive coordinator, Matt Canada, can keep Jalen Warren off the field as much as he did last season. So Naji is definitively the starter in Pittsburgh. But the one thing that made Naji kind of absolutely dominant in his first season was a massive volume of receptions. From the time, which is not a small sample, from weeks 10 through 18, Warren's reception pace was better than Najee's reception pace. He actually caught 28 passes last year, and he averaged two more yards per catch than Najee Harris did and caught a higher percentage of his targets than Najee Harris did. And so some of the talk around Pittsburgh is getting him involved on third down. Now, that would be an area we'd have to examine.

Are you worried about Najee if he continues to lose out on third down? Because his reception pace over the last, from weeks 10 to 18, Najee's reception pace was 30. What was it in rookie year? 70 plus? Yeah, he caught a ton. So I guess the question is, you know, one, if Najee struggles, Warren's going to have a bigger opportunity. Two, clear path to fantasy relevance if you're involved in the passing game, highly efficient. Not quite a full Pollard Zeke situation, but I look at it somewhat similar. This situation, like, is comp, has happened. It's identical to me. It is the Melvin Gordon-Austin-Eckler situation. Because Warren's undrafted. Warren is the undrafted free agent going into his sophomore year after you saw flashes of brilliance as a rookie. He's going to be more involved, but there is an incumbent really good running back in Melvin Gordon. That was 2018. Melvin Gordon finished that season as the running back seven. He was great.

Austin Echler was the running back 24. He was more involved and very, very good. The following season after that is where it kind of flipped. And Melvin Gordon finished 23 Echler at running back six. But it's like my comp, when I, when I watch Jalen Warren, he's been the first player I've ever seen that like he reminds me of Austin Echler. He's that, you know, he's like 5-8-2-15. Compact, but real fast. Yeah, 5-8-215 on the dot. You memorized his weight and height. But yeah, he's 24 years old. The injury derailed his opportunity last year. But, you know, we've seen DeAndre Swift be relevant with minimal touches in the past. And if this offense can't get going, look, you both have said the confidence in George Pickens. Is it really there? You know, Deonti Johnson. He's got a role, but he can't carry an entire offense. You're going to get explosive players under the field. I think Warren will have a bigger opportunity than people think.

He's free. I mean, it's a free shot. And if he is involved as a scat back, he's someone that you could throw in a flex and have B someone that you start on certain weeks and that's fine. He's not solely just an insurance option. But he is also an insurance option where if something happens to Naji, he's got a big workload on him. And the situation thrust Jalen Warren into a full starting role. This ain't no Benny Snell. Jalen Warren's good. All right. Who wants to go next? Well, you got to throw in a shot. I mean, no, I liked it. I liked it. I liked it. I liked it because we're not going to get a talk about him ever again. So you got to take your shot. Poor Benny. I'll bring up my next name. He was so enthusiastic. Do you remember how enthusiastic Benny Snell was? Oh, this is a wonderful guy. He's a great interview. Wonderful smile. He loved his. Didn't he have the mouth guard? Did he have the whistle? Yeah, it was like the kazoo mouthpiece.

I think he did. You lack in yards precarry. He should have gotten rid of that. He was always out of breath. Oh, man. But the, yeah, I think it was more whistle, but the idea of a kazoo mouthpiece is. Like every time you have the ball just running past somewhere like, that would be amazing. Yeah. But you'd probably end up running like Benny Snell with that. All right, my sleeper candidate is going. This was a surprise to me when I saw this pop in. I mean, I certainly like the pick. This is great. So we're sharing a lot of love on the show. This is a rare episode where we're agreeing a little too much. Look, I don't know why you want a backup tight end two as a sleeper, but that's fine. Oh, gosh. Yeah. It is not Adam Troutman from the Denver Broncos. It is.

Tight-in. Starting tight-in. Starting tight-end. Greg Dulcich. Yes, last year's starting tight-in. We're all in agreement. Greg D. Greg D. He is personally my favorite late-round tight-end this year. Really? I love this. Yeah, this is, you know, he was really good. I am fully always and forever will be anti-roaky tight-end until. The NFL changes a ton and a decade from now it's happened four or five times, then I'll finally adapt because it doesn't happen. So wait, you can't have Dalton Kincaid singularly change your opinion? No way. No way. Dalton Kincaid has a good season. The next season, I'm out on rookie tight ends. Dang it.

It's going to have to happen a couple of times. We're never going to get that many in a row. No, no, you're not because rookie tight ends, they have too much to learn. The position is not usually as simple and they're not as skilled as a wide receiver when it comes to like route running and those things. They're just not. So it won't happen as a rookie. But as a rookie. You can see flashes of brilliance. You know, Kyle Pitts had a disappointing rookie season, but he was awesome at the same time. You know the talent was there. Well, Greg Dulcich showed that. He missed the first five weeks with a hamstring injury, missed a lot of the offseason program. He played 10 games. And in six of those games, he was a tight end one. He finished, you know, the majority of his games with more than eight fantasy points, which is pretty darn good for a rookie. Over the last decades, decades,

singular decade. Here are the rookie tight ends to average 40 plus receiving yards per game as little baby boys before turning 23. It's Kyle Pitts did it. That's Greg Dulcich. That's it. That's the end of the list. Russell Wilson. Targets tight ends. I mean, even when he doesn't have great ones, we made Big Montana a thing. Well, Russ Wilson made Big Montana thing. Yes, he did. Oh, we got it. I mean, come on. I don't even know where the drop is anymore, guys. It's hidden. It's hidden in the archives. There it is. Big Montana. Will Disley. Who? Will Disley. That's right. Russell Wilson took Will Disley and.

and made him pretty good. We can fade this now, guys. I can't fade it over here. You got to do it. Russell Wilson, in his time in Seattle, tight ends saw 22% of the targets. From week six on the Greg Dulcich time, last year the Broncos tight ends were targeted 25% of the time. And now you have Sean Peyton coming over. I don't know if you guys saw, did you see the quotes on Sean Payton talking about Greg Dulcich? Oh, yeah. So he was specifically saying, I have a Google alert set up for Greg Dulcich. He was specifically saying how fast he is and what great ball skills he has and that he sees him as his Joker. The Joker role, he says it is not for a wide receiver. It's usually a running back or a tight end, someone that they specifically make for mismatches. He named some running backs, Reggie Bush, Alvin Camara, that were used in that Joker role in his system in his time in New Orleans.

that's what they're going to try to do with Greg Dolcich is get him on the wrong guys because his speed and ball skills, he's a special talent there. And so I think you saw enough flashes as a rookie. You've got the hope that Sean Payton fixes Russell Wilson. And even without that, with Russell Wilson having a bad year, he was okay as a rookie. So you've got athleticism. I just say, I don't want to bet on a breakout tight end that cannot make a big play. Exactly. I don't want to bet on like a short area. you know, maybe the Dennis Pitta type of style. You want to see a young tight end, even if they don't have a great rookie season, do what Dulcich did, 38-yard reception, 39-yard reception, 30-yard reception, 23-yard reception, or the way that, you know, you saw Julius Thomas years ago have a couple breakout plays in the preseason or Chig looking more athletic.

Mark Andrews was like that. Kittle was like that. So. Yeah. And the thing is, if you drafted, he's going to go undrafted in most leagues, most normal home leagues. Obviously, if you're playing on underdog or something, we'll talk about some. Or a Broncos only league, he'll go. He'll go. But if he fails and he ends up just being the same as if you drafted Evan Ingraham or if you drafted, you know, Don Quakeet, which is far worse, or Cole command or whatever. It's not going to be disappointing, but he has the ability, I think, to break out into a new tier. Plus the mustache. Oh, my gosh. I watched an interview with him from like two days ago. And first of all, he's so softly spoken. He is like, he was, he really had a nice soothing voice. But it's surprising because I swear to you, that man shaved this morning everything but the mustache. And he almost had a beard. That's a man.

I mean, straight up. That's a dude. So we got to get hair follicle growth speed into the, it does seem like the speed you can grow hair is corollary to probably your manness. Yeah, your ability to chop down trees. Yep. That's right. Use power tool. How often do you shave? How often do you? Oh, well, that's a dumb question. Al has a beard all the time. But he shaves daily. All the way. Yeah. All the way. Okay, Mike. I regret to say this. I know where you're going to say. But I like it. Yeah, baby. Oh, no. Hey. I like it. And I know it's in our UDK. What's fun about the show. So in the ultimate draft kit, we have the sleepers, breakouts, and busts. And for the most part, all three of us agree on those players. If they're going to get in to the UDK. Occasionally we'll have a player where two thirds of us just feel so strongly that we kind of.

You're like, well, bully the other one. Yeah, exactly. I'll relinquish what we can put them in there because you two feel so strong that this is going to happen. But this is a player that all three of us agree on. Even Jason with a very low ranking of this player, it's still above ADP. And it is Mr. Van Jefferson of the Los Angeles Rams wide receiver. I mean, I hate it, but I like it. You have to remember the whole story. of the Rams and Van Jefferson to understand where we're going with this. So Matthew Stafford, we'll be back. We're just one year removed from Matthew Stafford throwing 4,900 yards and 41 passing touchdown with Sean McVeigh when he came in that first season. And last year, before the biweek and all the injuries started to happen, Matthew Stafford was still on a pace to throw for over 4,400 yards. So that was there.

That season that I referred to with the 4900 and 41, Van Jefferson was in his second year as a second round rookie, and he was coming off a year of 50 receptions, 800 yards, and six touchdowns. That's a very solid season for a second year player to break out. And then last year, it was Van Jefferson was very interesting. However, he tweaked his knee on August 1st. He had to have surgery, and it was a knee that he had already had repaired. And so he ended up missing all of the preseason, missed a whole bunch of time coming into the season. He was supposed to be the wide receiver two behind Cooper Cup for the Rams. And it just never worked out. Then you had Stafford get hurt, and everything just kind of fell apart. So it was really a lost season, not just for the team, but for Van Jefferson. He is a field stretcher.

Once he was back to being a full-time player this past season from week 13 on that, you can see it in the box score. His snaps finally jump back up to the high percentile of this guy's on the field all the time. He was averaging 18 yards per catch, and that's with John Wolford and Baker Mayfield. as the quarterback. That's a dude who was absolutely getting it done. It is really rare to find an every down wide receiver this late in the draft. We're talking on Underdog, the wide receiver 65 in Sleeper, just off the charts, not being drafted. And then looking at Matthew Stafford, he has supported multiple wide receivers for fantasy before. So in 10 full seasons from Stafford, six of them have a top 36.

He has multiple top 36 wide receivers. We're not calling for Van Jefferson to be like the breakout. He's in the sleeper category. Yeah. Because I have him at 37, Andy, right now currently at 39, for a player who's just, he's being drafted in the 60s. And he already had a season of 806. Like if he is truly the number two wide receiver with Cooper Cup taking all the attention, Cooper Cup's going to get his. Someone else on this team has to do something. And I think that it can be Van Jefferson. Yeah, I think I think that your point about him not being some kind of giant breakout is important. You know, Zay Jones was startable last year. Could Van Jefferson be the spot starter to this year? It could. Van Jefferson was the wide receiver that year. So a guy who has already shown with this quarterback, with this team, he could be a top 36 wide receiver. And he's being undrafted. Yeah, he's worth a shot because if you bet on.

McVeigh and Stafford to get it done in their defense to be worse, which look, they've been in positions where they did not have to score as often as they might have to score this year. You kind of want to take some shots there. And that's also a reason why like even Tyler Higby probably needs to be thought about a little bit. We'll talk about him in a second. No, we won't. Sure, sure we will. Best Ball Breakdown, presented by Underdog Fantasy. Well, we just got back from a vacation. And so I am curious as we enter the best ball breakdown segment if Jason's best ball drafts have slowed it all. Have you kept up the same pace as you have all offseason? Well, I was smart enough to stop a few days beforehand, make sure all of my...

drafts were done. So I had. So still married. I had got it. I had none on my cruise. I am in three right now. Now that I'm back from the cruise, I'll ramping up. Work my way back up to 10 or 20 here soon. Well, every week, we touch on some topics related to best ball in the off season. And today we are going to, I don't know if I want to read that as the topic. What? Yeah. Kyle put in here, shake those tight ends. You got to shake them out. You got to read whatever is put in there. And he put a peach emoji. Yeah, well, that's just, that's too far. Oh, yeah. That's for a butt. This is a family show. I think he means that's a butt. Tight butts. Kyle, you're gross. All right. We're looking at tight ends that are going past pick 100 that we are drafting in basketball. So if you missed out.

on an elite tight-end early, which affords you maybe the ability to go too tight-end in a best ball league. You're probably going to end up with a three tight-in build. Which was successful. Three tight-end builds have had the highest playoff advance rate compared to two or four last year. There you go. So we have plenty of names, really, that you can see, look, they're not going to finish in the top five. They're not going to give you Mark Andrews season. But they could surprise and really. If you combine two or three of these guys, you're going to be in good shake. Yeah, this is my preference. Like my ideal, if I have the- To shake those tight ends, that's your preference? Shake those peaches. Shake it. My ideal roster construction is getting three late tight ends. And the reason why for me on Underdog is when you look at the ADPs above 150, you look at the guys that are going late, there are plenty.

of tight ends that will make an impact. They'll get a touchdown this week and then three weeks later and then two weeks later. They'll finish the season with seven or eight touchdowns. They'll have some big games. You get three of those and you mix them together and it automatically picks whichever one has the best week. You can do a lot with that. Whereas in that same range, you're not finding a lot of wide receivers and running backs that are going to make an impact. So I'd rather get my running backs and wide receivers early and grab three of these late guys. So we've got a handful of guys.

that we are targeting that you can target. Yeah, and the first name, Chigacanquo, we brought him up a lot, but it applies here in basketball. He's going to be available to you. He is a tight end for the Tennessee Titans, if you're unaware. Yeah. And this is a roster that while they have been rumored to be connected with the Andre Hopkins, right now has Traylon Burks in the passing game and no one else. He's, Oconquo is so wild to me. He has the tight end 12 on underdog, which is, okay, that's respectable. But it's like it's not just us. Like we're not, we are not in an island here with liking Oconquo as a late round tight end. And despite all the love for him like from like on draft Twitter and things like that, he still goes really late. He is an example of what we talked about with Dulcich earlier where.

If you watch him make a handful of plays, you're like, oh, well, he's an NFL tied in. And he's going to be here a while. But I brought his name up a lot. So I will just kind of talk about David and Joku because I think he has a huge opportunity with Deshaun Watson. It is a bet on that offense fixing itself. The majority of Watson's career, he's been a dominant fantasy force. The end of last year, the schedule, the hiatus, him not playing for a while, the pressure. I don't know what got into those handful of games that made it look as ugly as it did. I am not believing that that's the future or at a minimum the regular performance you're going to get from him. So Anjoku is so talented and so athletic. And there's so many opportunities in this passing game that, you know, to me, those two names outside the top 180P.