Busts + Key Position Battles

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All right, let's continue down this bust train. Mike, I think you're up. Fair enough. Another wide receiver who I believe will not return value on his draft position, it's Brandon Cooks. Now, this is sketchy, sketchy banking and betting against a guy with Brandon Cook's production, and he has turned into a dog.

He is so angry with this pick, and it's simply a matter of opportunity for Brandon Cooks. Here are his targets the past three seasons. 129 targets, 117 targets, 114 targets. Sounds pretty good. So he's getting a big piece of that pie on a very high volume passing offenses. Last season, the Rams target leader was Cooper Cup with 94. 94.

Todd Gurley was second on the team with 87 targets. The offense just spreads things around far too much for Brandon Cooks to get up in that 120 target area, which she's going to need if he's going to finish as a top 18 wide receiver who you're drafting at the back of the fourth round. Yes, he's going to give you splash weeks. I won't.

argue against that. He's going to have games where he gets you a 50-yard touchdown. That's who Brandon Cooks is, but I don't think he's going to get a consistent enough opportunity to really return on that draft price. Yes, the Rams went all in on Brandon Cooks. They traded a first round pick to give him. They gave him a monster contract extension before he even played it down for the team. To me, that doesn't...

automatically equal that Brandon Cooks is a dominant fantasy force. He's going to be great for the Rams. He's great for that offense. But there's just not enough passing volume to go around with all the targets of Cooper Cup, Robert Woods, Todd Gurley. And I haven't even gotten into the tight ends who can possibly emerge on this team, like Mount Everett. So I'm worried about Brandon Cooks. I'm worried about him being able to produce what we have seen. And on top of that,

Brennan Cook's has not played a single season without a first ballot Hall of Fame quarterback. And I'm not ready to give Jared Gough the title. Come on. He's the king. You can do it. Call your side. He is the king. He is King. But as of right now, he is first ballot. He is not a first ballot hall of fame quarterback. Come on.

You know you want to. Come on. Come on. I do not. This is how I've been trying to make trades lately. When they say no, I just keep asking. Do it. Come on. That's the Peter Griffin. Come on. All right. Jason, I'm sorry. But I'm sticking to my guns here. I said this early in the off season. This player is one I'm risking being wrong on. Like there is a world where he is not a bust. He is not a disappointment. He is.

He outperforms expectations. But he's a bust to me right now, and that's Kenyon Drake. I don't think he returns the value for where you're drafting him, which is at the back of the third or top of the fourth round, is the RB 18, 19, 20. Kenyon Drake exploded last year. He is electricity. There's a great play he made in the preseason. He took the hand off. He was breaking to the left. The offensive line got blown up.

which I think you're going to see a little bit of this year. And he reversed field, got the edge, turned it into a 20-30-yard game. He is electricity. Frank Gore, he's a candle in the darkness, just... He is infinite. Ancient, lighting the room, his own special way. Oh, I see. Yeah, it took me a while, too, but I just caught up. I was like, burning on both ends. The power, the electricity is nice, but the power can go out. You can always... He can always lean on a candle.

You know, they do run out. Yeah. Like the wax. Yeah. Well, he's a very, very long candle. It's a very long candle. But here's all, here's my point. I'm not expecting Frank Gore. This is his sunset time, right? Like he's back in Miami. He's supporting of Kenyon Drake. It wasn't all roses.

for Kenyon Drake last year. If you look at the metrics, he was the second worst running back in football of 34 qualified running backs in terms of catch percentage. On 48 targets, he only caught 32 of those passes. You can blame that on whomever you want to. I don't think Ryan Tannaho is the fix for Kenyon Drake's catch percentage. You do have Frank Gore involved. It gets me uncomfortable, and you have what I would define as a bad team problem.

Only one of the top eight running backs last year came from a losing team. That was Shady McCoy. All the rest were on winning teams, and I don't project Miami to be a winning team. I'm sorry, Dolphins fans. It's just how I project it. Not everybody's a winning team every year. I don't think Miami's a winning team this year. They may surprise me. Drake may surprise me. He will. But in the end, in the end, there's an inconsistency problem with a committee to me.

I don't think that Drake is going to deliver on that value. He may, but I don't think he will. This has to be the first, and who knows, maybe the last time ever, that on back-to-back shows, we go from breakout to bust and have the same player in both. But that's...

That's one of the, I think one of the values of this show is that we're independent thinkers, you know, we're not just regurgitating our own thoughts. So now you get both sides. You get to see the pros of Kenyon Drake that I made on last episode and the cons of Kenya Drake that Andy's making here. And that's what we want to do. We want to equip you guys and gals to hear the information, discern it yourself, and make your pick, your run in the teams. And when all those hashtag foot clan titles come out,

And people say, oh, man, it was because of that ultimate draft kid. It was because of your pocket. No, it's because of you. You did it. You made those start sits. All right. I'm up. All right. Also, Kenyon Drake's great. I'm going to go with a bust who has just been the new hotness. I mean, Twitter's ablaze with love for this guy. Ah, he's a lock for 1,2,000 touchdowns. That's a lot. That's a lot. Well, his quarterback is super handsome. Also.

Uh, you know, look, you called Jimmy Garapolo a bust, and I think Marquis Goodwin is going to be a bust. And I'm actually pretty confident in this one when you look, and this is nothing against him. I like Marquis Goodwin. I'm rooting for him. Unlike some players when I just, man, I just, I'm really against him. I'm rooting for them to fail. Like Rojo? Yeah, I mean, that was who came to mind. Um, I,

But Markey's good when I'm rooting for him. I really, I think he's a talented player and I hope he performs well. But there are too many things out there that just logic, math, and obvious analysis says, whoa, hold your horses here, people. He's being drafted as a wide receiver too. Okay, he is already being drafted in the fifth round ahead of really good wide receivers. I mean, you're talking about...

You're taking him over Alan Robinson, the clear cut number one. You're taking him over Andy loves Brandon Cooks. Marvin Jones last year's number nine wide receiver. You're taking him over Alshon Jeffrey. A lot of great guys. Here's his career high in receptions. His career high in receptions, which came last year, is 56. Okay, now.

Maybe he's getting better and he's developing a new rapport with the quarterback, so I get it. Let's give him a career high. But the reality is he's still a field stretcher. That's his role. He's a Deshaun Jackson type. You know, he's not going to be an 80 reception type of wide receiver.

He's just not. He's going to be the 60, 62. You're talking about Deshaun Jackson who had 82 receptions in 2013? That was a different system of Deshaun Jackson. That was when he was, you know, a middle of the field guy. But also keep in mind, this career high that Goodwin got last year of 56, that was without Pierre Garsohn. And say whatever you want about, no, Goodwin is the wide receiver one. Great, that's fine. Let's say he is the wide receiver one this year.

It doesn't change the fact that Pierre Garsohn is still going to be getting targets, and he wasn't there last year. Now you look at, okay, it's got to be touchdowns. Touchdowns have to come because if you look at the wide receivers who finish as a wide receiver two year in and year out, they're averaging up like 75 receptions or the very, very few guys that have a low reception total. Like there's only two last year, Juju and Alshon Jeffrey. They had seven and eight touchdowns.

Each. Are the San Francisco 49ers going to be, you know, one of those powerhouse offenses like the Eagles were, like the Steelers were that can get those low reception total guys, those touchdowns? Now, look, if Goodwin were to go out there, play the whole season, get 65 receptions, and seven touchdowns for well over 1,000 yards, he will be a wide receiver too. But that's his ceiling.

You're drafting him at his ceiling, and that is to say nothing of what I think the biggest concern is. This guy has a real risk of injury, and I'm rooting for it to never, ever, ever happen. I don't want him to get injured, but I believe he's had six concussions in the last two years. And now we're wanting him to have, we're wanting him to have, what, 125 targets this season. There's worry there of,

injury. So I just, there's a lot of red flags to be drafting him ahead of all those other great players. Routing for him. You go get a Marquise Goodwin, become Marquis, great win. You're not going to do it on my roster because you're way too expensive right now. Yeah, somewhere between four or five concussions, I think. Four or five, yeah, I mean, those are known ones. I mean, it could be, yeah, since he, since 2014. I mean, that's, that's, you know, 20, since 2014, it's the sixth time he's been in the protocol.

Right. So whether or not those are all the concussions or not, it is a red flag. Last year we did see maturation in Mr. Goodwin, only 14.

percent of his routes were the go route, the burner route. Matt Harmon just added Markey's Goodwin to the reception a couple of weeks ago, and you can see the route breakdown. He's certainly not a possession receiver or hasn't been used in that way. Yeah, my argument for Markey's Goodwin was you're going back to a lot of history where a team misused not only Marquis Goodwin, Robert Woods, Chris Hogan.

The Buffalo Bills were littered with talent that they wasted, as we have seen this past season. And Jimmy Garoppolo, I don't necessarily, this is not to disagree with Andy's bus take on Jimmy Garoppolo. I don't love his draft price. But in the games he appeared as the starter for San Francisco, and we're extrapolating a very small sample, but you're talking about a 4,900-yard pace. And through the preseason, if one thing is clear from Arkees Goodwin,

he is the wide receiver won for this team. I wanted it, I should say, I projected it was going to be Pierre Garsohn, but everything that Jimmy Garapolo is throwing, all those handsome targets are telling me, it's Marquis good. All those handsome targets in two preseason games have swung a pendulum to where he's being drafted as a wide-gars. And the end of last season. But no, I don't, it's all about what you brought up, though. It's about who do you take him over? That's my case against Drake. It's not like,

I'm never drafting Kenyon Drake. It's Henry Ajay, Ingram, Lynch, Dionne Lewis. Those are all guys going at or after Kenyon Drake. I want them all over Kenyon Drake. Therefore, I don't think he returns value compared to those players. Right. Games with Jimmy Garapolo, Marquis' good one had a 99-yard game, 106-yard game, 114-yard game. How many of those games included players such as Pierre Garcin and Dante Pettis?