Early Breakouts & Sleepers, The Boyd Void - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/25

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Andy Mike and Jason, back with you. Tuesday episode of the fantasy footballers. Papa Josh has been banished from the office. We got him. And we got a lot of work done now because people aren't talking as much. See that big blank spot in the middle of Deucer's Alley? That looks good. That looks really nice. He's out of here. That was a good run for him. I mean, it's not a bad gig. He works like 20 hours a week. And, um, you know. And it's paid for 40. So right. Yeah, that's a pretty good situation. But no, we're back. Um, and yes, he will be back. Yeah. Because you know some people. Yes. I know. So look, he's on vacation. He's not fired. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, um.

Yeah, we had a week off, each of us. We got some family vacations in, and we're back. We had pre-recorded episodes last week. We got news we've got to cover, things that happened while we were away. So I'm excited to talk about that. We're talking early breakouts and sleepers. So like the Ultimate Draft Kit, it's out now, Ultimate Draft Kit.com. We have our consensus, breakout, sleepers, bus, values, all the rankings. I updated pretty significantly a couple days ago, tons of names. But today's show is about kind of calling our shot on a few individual, a breakout and a sleeper pick for us individually, not necessarily guys that everybody here agrees with and making the case. Right, right. Yeah, in the UDK, we're trying to show the ones that are kind of consensus ballers beliefs. We'll highlight if, you know, one person discrees, you know, read the blurbs. But yeah, here's just guys we really like. The draft analyzer.

which is part of the ultimate draft kit launches on July 1st, which is just a week away. And that will allow you to import teams, existing teams, new teams you draft in August or end of this month. And you can get a grade. We'll grade all of your position groups will make suggestions to you about where you're weak, where you're strong improvements you can make. And that is a really valuable tool. all the way up until the season kicks off. There's also some pretty cool, valuable age tools for that for dynasty leagues. Like when I use it, I can put in one of my dynasty teams that I already have and get a grade, but also look at kind of the overall, the overall landscape of the team as a whole. It's pretty valuable. Andy put his team in and it just, his phone turned to dust. Due to the age. Yes. Oh, speaking of which. News and notes from around the league. You gave them too nice of a segue there, Mike. Bye.

Let's go ahead and talk about this. Let me see here. Let me go through the dynasty roster McCaffrey. He's got a contract. I got him one of those. Mike Evans signed a deal, Kelsey New Extension, Mostard Extension. Who else do I need to? Okay, Patriots running back Romandre Stevenson has signed a four-year, $36 million contract extension, 26 years old, 17 million guaranteed. And yes, he's on my dynasty roster. The, like. The 36 is whatever. It's the 17. 17 million giving to a 26-year-old. It's an interesting decision to make as a football team. But for this year, I said it whenever on one of our previous shows of I've been trying to make a small case of like leaving Marjor, what if Ramandre falls out of favor with the team and Antonio Gibson is here and he comes in.

Then they gave him $17 million guaranteed, so that that's gone. And you have to, I mean, you have to have faith that Ramandre will be in a focal point of the offense. No more, not just talking about it, coach speak. They went out and they did something about it. Yeah, it's nice when both go the same direction, right? Right. Like the coaching staff has been talking about how important Ramandre Stevenson is to this offense, what a key cog it is. And then the organization said, Yeah, it's not just words. This is an important piece to our offense. So for fantasy football, for dynasty leagues, this is great. But even redraft leagues, I think this should move the needle on Ramandre a little bit. Oh, yeah. Confidence that this season, he's going to be really the centerpiece of this office because you look at the wide receiving core with either Jacoby Verset or a rookie. And you're not sure how that's going to go. So Ramandre is the only like known piece of the Patriots that I'm like, okay, I'm fine having Ramandre on my team.

He's going to be the seventh highest per year running back with this contract. Tons of question marks about how the offense will perform, but that is also an opportunity if you believe in the money spent and the fact that he produced a top 12 season before an injury plagued mess last year. It's an opportunity to buy low. When an offense is literally, Mike, you brought up the fact that Vegas and the sharps over there, they view it as the highest probability of being the worst team. It's an opportunity to buy low if you believe in Ramandre's talent. A lot's been made of the system changing to the more zone blocking scheme. It, you know, and whether he's comfortable with it. He did run that at Oklahoma. That was one of the things that he was. And if you go, you can want, Ian Hartett says a pretty good tweet showing every zone blocking play from the past year, watching Remandre in the system. And whether or not you believe he's capable of getting it done, it's a lot of money.

And, you know, I just do what I can for my guys. I get them paid. A couple more guys on my starting roster I need to take care of, just two. Amari Cooper. I had him hold out a couple days at the end of camp. I'm working on that. I assume, Jason. Yeah, that money's coming for sure. Yeah. And Alvin Camara, a little harder. I'm trying. Right now I'm having him sit out as well. And I'm trying to leverage his past for his future is what I'm trying to do. Your team is so ancient and all. of your starters got contract extensions it's really uh it's great management it's so funny it's so funny i mean i got lock it on my bench i got him a deal too i'm not even going to use him if camara actually gets oh man because he should not oh no no no no at least not new money the problem is is the momentum of my dynasty team once a few guys get deals the other guys want deals and i just have to work on a lot of jealousy out there for sure

I was so happy to see that Ramandre deal, though, because I just traded for him. And for those of you out there that had, I had seen, like, we had had had the conversation on the show before the deal happened. Yeah. So there were people that did go out there and throw deals out there to pick up Ramandre and ended up feeling a little bit better about the deal. Doesn't mean he's going to be great. Just means they're going to give him a chance to be great. Perceptually, his values up. Aiden O'Connell right now, according to Jeremy Fowler, has a slight edge on Minshu. That's going to be a quarterback battle.

I don't know what I want there. I'm going to be honest with you because Aiden O'Connell is like the devil you know in that offense. I feel like he's the one you don't know. Gardner Minchu, we've seen him start enough where you can go, okay, you know, Michael Pittman last year was okay with Gardner Minchu. Devante Adams is going to be okay. Aiden O'Connell, I think there's at least hope that he's got upside. Like from the franchise, not from me. I don't, I think he is, you know, who he is, is a third round. journeyman, hopeful journeyman NFL quarterback. But at least there's, you know, you don't know what his ceiling is yet because he, you know, he's what started 10 games. And so Gardner is like a little bit safer, but the ceiling is irrelevant. It's the devils. It's the devils you know would like to not know. Probably for Devante Adams and Jacoby Myers and I think for the team, it's probably like.

It's better to have Gardner there. But for, as in like one year, but for the franchise, you're hoping that Aidan O'Connell, like you're crossing your fingers, maybe he turns into our guy. If I had Adams, and this is going to be probably opposite of what you would want, I would want O'Connell. Because I believe that Adams is a very opinionated, loud alpha. And I think that that controls. You're saying he's going to have Aiden O'Connell under his thumb. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And the fact that he'll throw it deep and he'll chuck it. And, you know, Minsh's going to be able to manage the game better. It'll be better for the Raiders probably and better for Zemir White. That's just my early thought. But we'll see who wins it. We did get news that Trevor Lawrence signed a five-year, $275 million contract while we were away. Got paid before DAC.

I mean, got paid a lot, $200 million guaranteed. Well, yeah, he's matching Joe Burroughs League leading contract in total value and average annual salary. You're going to have to do this. You can't let Trevor Lawrence walk. He's the face of your franchise, the former number one overall pick. He is not worth this money. He is not worth this kind of dough. I mean, he's just, this is like best quarterback in the league money. Lawrence has fewer total touchdown passes. than Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers in the last three years. Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers did not play this last year. There have been flashes. This was the quarterback eight in 2022. Last year, he did deal with not just having injuries that caused him to finally miss a game, but playing through them for a stretch. He had a three-game stretch where he was number one, six, and five in three consecutive games. There is, I'm trying to, you know. There's certainly hope that he becomes the superstar.

And there have been flashes, but you don't usually pay on hook. You're backed into this because you either have to start over or you have to commit to your Jay Cutler. And right now they're committing to their Cutler. And I think I would have just forced them to play out, franchised them a couple times, seeing what I got. I would have to pay them a lot more to weigh these things. Have you seen that rumor about them having a separate? Oh, yeah. A separate quarterback salary cap. Salary cap for quarterbacks only. This is why Dallas is messing up again. is because, you know, this is the team that hasn't made it out of the divisional rounds since 1995, which is mind-blowing. And they played this that game once before and then paid them way more than they would have had to. And now they're doing it again. What are you going to do when they go out and they win 12 games this year, 13 games? They're going to, they will win at least 10. And then what are you going to do, not pay him?

It feels like they want season. It feels like they want to not pay him. By the way, that's the one that hurt the most that we forgot the other day. In the AMA that we should have brought up. What player from the past is the most haunting? I shouldn't have said Gibson. It would have been Lance. Yeah, Trey Lance, that's a rough one. The way they talk about him, sometimes I think they want him to be their starter next year. I don't know if this is just in contract negotiations with DAC, but yeah, I mean, they wait too long to pay people.

They're going to do it with CD with DAC. Yeah, CD's not been paid either. Zach Jackson writes, it's his belief the Browns will open the season with Jerry Judy in the slot. Amari Cooper and Cedric Tillman out wide. We're mentioning this with the Browns in part because Cedric Tillman has been getting a lot of buzz. He has. And the fact that he'll have a starting job, or so it seems, very interesting for deeper leagues. Pay attention to that. I think he's a good player. We all kind of felt like he didn't get an opportunity last year. They had four quarterbacks. But Jerry Judy in the slot, thank goodness. I mean, Elijah Moore. Yeah, that dude. That might be the worst player in the history. Thank you. He might be the worst. And that's putting it nicely. Why are we so angry at Elijah Moore? I'm not saying that there aren't players who are worse than him as a wide receiver. There are. They don't get on the field.

But as far as people that are on the field, getting the ball thrown their way. 104 targets. I mean, he has done the least with the most opportunity I can remember. 104 targets, okay, with 59 receptions despite a yards per catch of 10, which means you caught 57% of the balls thrown your way that were close to you. There were real easy catches. And nobody, I mean, he already got walked out of New York. Yeah, something, something weird happened. Something doesn't work, man. And so they're looking for less of him and more of Jerry Judy. All right, I think that is it by way of news, unless you guys have anything else you want to bring up. Nope. All right, you guys want to get into these breakouts? Yes, sir. Breakouts. Let's talk for a moment about how we look at this category. We define a breakout.

when we talk about them in the UDK and we list them out there as a fantasy player that's primed to become that fantasy darling that everybody falls in love with, a future fantasy superstar, game changer. Maybe they've flashed, giving you small windows of success, but not a full season. But we think maybe with another year under their belt or a changing situation, changing quarterback, whatever the case may be, this could be the year that they enter a different tier, right? We break the... the UDK up in tiers. Yeah. Yeah, this is where you're going to tier jump one or two or however many spots it takes to get up in those first two rounds the following season and or if you don't get up into those first two rounds the next season, you still made an impact that won championships this year. Like these are guys that we see a pathway towards superstardom fantasy championships. So do you guys want me to start or do you guys want to go first? I don't care.

You go ahead. No, no, it's not Will Levin's. Not exactly Will Levin's. It's dependent on Will Levis. For me, it's right now, and it could change. Last summer was the summer of Mike Evans for me, where I had the strongest conviction about Mike Evans, his price in drafts that made him a my guy that I thought was guaranteed. And right now, The closest contender to that category for me right this minute is Calvin Ridley, who's connected to Will Levis, who I think is the future James Winston of our dreams. Because James Winston has never been the world's greatest quarterback. But for fantasy, he's on the Mount Rushmore of Chuckers because Will Levis loves to throw the ball deep. Calvin Ridley, that's the kind of targets that you like. And this is the reason why. This is not a discussion. This is not a breakout to me.

if Calvin Ridley is sitting anywhere relative to the top 36 or the top 24. He's being drafted as the wide receiver 40 in the seventh round. I've taken him in every mock draft we've ever done. And I don't think Calvin Ridley because of the age, because of the Will Levis and Tennessee factor. I don't think he's moving in draft. I don't think I could have a whole show on Calvin Ridley. I don't know if he's moving. I don't know if you need preseason highlights or whatever the case may be. But I believe that Calvin Ridley with Will Levis with. what they're handing over. Offensive-wise, no Derek Henry. I think Calvin Ridley's guarantee to outperform his ADP. I really do. He was tied for the fifth most 20-plus-yard targets among all wide receivers last year. Will Levis loves to throw the deep ball. Again, zone coverage, 23% of all his attempts for 20-plus yards down the field. That was number one in the NFL. It's going to be a shotgun offense with a couple of small running backs. He's going to have it.

You know, he's going to run through the air with those little running backs. He's going to be in his hand all the time. Brian Callahan's coming over. They're going to have a high pass rate. And I think Calvin really got paid big time money. Yeah. That's the only reason he's there. And to me, you know, he went out and he made an impression specifically on Tennessee when he played against him last year because he cooked him for seven for 103 and two and then six for 106 and one. So they seemed to really, really like him. But last year, Calvin Ridley, like, what would you say the vibe was when the season ended? What was last season for Calvin Ridley? Disappointing? Yeah, super disappointing. Because of the variability. Yeah, the inconsist. Hot cold. And also because he started, you know, week one is such a dominant player that people started him for a long time. We're very disappointed. I don't know where he finished. I would imagine it's probably around Watershoe 15. He's 17. Okay. And he was drafted at 18 last year. Now he's being drafted at 40.

which I think is just wild. I mean, this offense to me, Will Levis is going to have the opportunity. So I have them the highest of the three of us. I think it's a perfect mix. A deep ball thrower with somebody that I think was really good on the field last year, but at times didn't have the rapport with Lawrence or Lawrence was missing him. We talked about all the misses in the end zone for Calvin Ridley. He had some drops, but they paid him a huge amount of money. He had the most in zone targets. He was tied for CD Lamb last year. This is going to be a go-to receiver. If you come here and you say, well, no, no, DeAndre Hopkins is sunsetting. Like, I think he's still a decent player. But Calvin Ridley is the bona fide one to me. He had six top ten performances. It just was not consistent last year. But I really believe in him. I don't know if I stand alone here in the group. I really don't. But I love him this year. I don't love him. I mean.

Being drafted right now, let's see, best ball, wide receiver 35 on sleeper, wide receiver 40. I think he outproduces that. Watching the videos of the near misses with him in Jacksonville, it's interesting of like who is actually in the wrong. Trying to figure that out, it can be very difficult. They had some of that Derek Carr, Crystal Lobby problem last year. Yeah, yeah. But the ADP is interesting to me, but I. Hopkins is also like he's going around Calvin Ridley. These are guys who are pretty much afterthoughts. And I wonder if when I'm really drafting is do I bypass Calvin Ridley because I know I can get Hopkins cheaper by at least a little bit. Kyle, do we have, can you pull up his numbers for me real quick? So that would be my only argument against Calvin Ridley is that

Maybe I can get DeAndre Hopkins, get something relatively close in terms of fantasy points output. Because, I mean, Ridley, Ridley was on the field a lot, a lot to get like all those, all the numbers when you're like, well, the end of season, he had the most this, the most that. Those are, it's correct. But he was also like on the field almost more than anybody in the NFL at the wide receiver position. So that's, that's a question. What does that look like? in Tennessee, is he running just that far ahead? They're basically back to back in ADP. Okay. Well, then if they're, if they're right back to back, then I don't know, probably I'm going to diversify a little bit. I'll take some Ridley, some Hopkins. Yeah, I was pretty strongly out on Ridley early in the offseason when he signed going to Tennessee seemingly for money, being older, having a disappointing season. But I have.

I've changed my tune quite a bit and a lot because of you, Andy, your confidence in him as the clear one here. Because when I statted these guys out originally, it was really like Hopkins is just as good. And, you know, there could be, you know, a hard path to getting a target market share from Will Levis to be a superstar. But also where they're going right now in drafts, you're not risking much. And there is the upside there. So if you're taking, you know, what did you say? He was like wide receiver 40 or something? Yeah, I'm actually curious what other names are going out around there. I'm going to look at that. Yeah, he's going at 40 right now. So let me see. I guess it kind of depends where you're at, but like Hollywood, I would rather have 40s. Ridley. Adunzei, Addison, Redley, Deontay Johnson, Xavier Worthy, Terry McCorren.

These are the names that are in that conversation. I think he's a good name to point out there. I certainly there's a reason he's going that late. The path is murky and it doesn't feel like a home run that he's going to do it. But he can do it. And for where he's going, I think the path is better for him than some of those other guys. So Ridley's my pick. We're going to take a quick break and come back with Jason's breakout selection. And I am looking forward to it because I might be with him. your pick where you were with ridley and i want to hear your argument for him and that was jason's argument for him so uh not convinced so yeah so my breakout player uh for 2024 is none other than isaiah pecheco there we go uh starting workhorse running back for the kansas city chiefs this swing is

Like that swing noise at the end is, it really is. It diminishes. Yeah. It takes away from what this man is done. It's a non-serious sound. Yeah. Like we're talking about serious. Maybe that's a touchdown. A serious running back here that sounds like a cartoon character. Yeah. But, you know, he is, I think a really good back. We liked him going into 2023. The problem was he had a seventh round NFL draft capital. Like he, this was not a team that had invested a lot in him. He wasn't super proven. And so you weren't sure what you were going to get. And he had a solid season. You know, he finished in half PPR, I think, as the running back 16 somewhere right around there. And he missed three games. So he had a solid season. But what this team has done is really show that Isaiah Pacheco is their main guy through the playoffs last year.

They relied on him in their running game with this great defense to win a Super Bowl. He had a touchdown in three of the four playoff weeks, and his involvement in the passing game has been critical. What did they do in this offseason? They did nothing to address the running back position whatsoever. I mean, you're still, they re-signed Clyde Edwards. They addressed it. You know, Kiante Ingram is maybe the backup behind there. Like, it is his team now in the running back room is Isaiah Pacheco's. And what I love is if you dive a little deeper on last year, keeping in mind when you came into the season, we weren't sure. Jerich McKinnon, Clyde Edwards, Allaire, how involved will they be? Is this just a three-way time share? And to start the season, it was. Isaiah Pacheco. McKinnon was always a problem because of his versatility in the passing game. Absolutely. And you saw that the first three weeks. McKinnon and C-E-H combined for more than 50% of the snaps. You had 46% of the snaps going to Isaiah Pacheco.

But then from week four on, they flipped it. Instead of 46%, it was 64% of the snaps for Isaiah Pacheco. And during that time, he was a rock, solid fantasy asset. How good was he? 14.7 fantasy points per game. And that's the majority of the season. That's not like this tiny little stretch. That's just getting the first three weeks out when we weren't sure how they were going to utilize them. And it seems they weren't sure how they were going to utilize them. 14.7 fantasy points per game and half PPR scoring would put him right between two players. Brees Hall last year had 14.9, and Jemir Gibbs had 14.4. You look at the touchdown variance last year for the Kansas City Chiefs. They have been scoring so many more points over the previous four seasons than they scored this last year, but the opportunities are still there for him. He gets work inside the red zone. He gets work inside the 10 zone and inside the 5 zone. And he did well with that. He got 10 carries.

inside the 10 yard line, and he converted five of those into touchdowns. So you know he's capable. And so what could a breakout look like for year three? Well, we all have him projected for more than 280 plus total touches. I've got him right at 300. You two both have them at 289 total touches. And so. Yeah, Mike and I talked. We decided 289 is the right number. Yeah, it just sounded too good. 289 is my favorite number. Here's a list of year three running backs with 280 plus touches over the last decade. You got Alfred Morris finished as a top 15 running back. Devanta Freeman, number six. Todd Gurley finished number one. Melvin Gordon finished five. Zeke finished five. Christian McCaffrey number one. Aaron Jones number two, Dalvin Cook number five. Leonard Fournette number nine. Chris Carson running back 10. Joe Mixing running back 13 and Najee was running back 21. So the majority of the time,

When you get a year three back who the team gives him a large workload, you're talking about at least a top 15, if not a high-end top 10 guys. So two questions for you. One is, you know, I think this is one of those, it happens every year. There's a handful of guys. Are you willing to trust them to take the step, right? Like that's a Pacheco situation here is it's like he's not a perennial, always been their guy. He's a taking the step guy. So it's hard to trust. But the other question I have for you was just related to your.

you ended up with Patrick Mahomes at number one overall in your ranking. So you're obviously very bullish on a bounce-back passing game there. I guess I wonder how that factors into the entire equation. Obviously all chips can rise in an offense, but is it Pacheco's involvement in the passing game that you think will be steady? Yeah. So if you look at those last 11 games that he played after the first three weeks, he was very involved in the passing game. He was on pace for 57 receptions. That is a great number to add to a guy who could be a double-digit touchdown score in one of the best offenses in the league. So when I've got Patrick Mahomes, number one, it's because I see the Kansas City Chief's offense being much better this year than it was last year in total touchdown scoring. And that's going to go, some of those will go to Pacheco. That'll be down near the red zone and he'll get more work there. But he's also involved in the past game. Jerich McKinnon is gone. Clyde Edwards Alara is dead. So it's like.