QB & RB Rookie Preview + Nerd Sheets - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/2

being a prolific pocket passer, getting great wide receivers involved. And yeah, so if he goes to Minnesota and has Justin Jefferson and Addison and eventually Hawk, that's a perfect landing spot for him. And, you know, you look at Jim Harbaugh. Jim Harbaugh is just shocking. He says great things about this quarterback. Jim Harbaugh sitting at pick number five. says this is the best quarterback I've ever seen. Trade Herbert, you coward. Right. Yeah. The fact that he, I mean, he, he believes it. I think he does, but he's got his quarterback already. It behooves him so much to say that. It's like, it's like insider trading. Yeah, picking at number five. Yeah, picking at number five being like, hey, guys, guys, you got to, you got to take him at four. I mean, we can't, but you'll trade back. We'll trade back. We'll trade back. If he's there at five, you've got to come get this guy. Can't imagine.

That's fair. I want to move on to running backs. I think we've handled the foremost likely to be relevant as a rookie situations. Michael Pinnock's Jr., Bo Nix, other rumored late first, second, third type of guys. Both of them are older. You know, it's comical, right? 23 years old. You're old. 24. Bo Nix is 24. Pennix will be 24 in a minute. No, it'll be at a normal amount of time, but between birthdays. But he has played 47 years in college. Yes. This year is where you get the weird redshirt year, the COVID year. You get a few older guys. Pinnock's tested really well at his pro day. He doesn't run. He throws a rocket ball. It's so weird that he doesn't run. He ran a blazing 40 time. When you could throw like a missile.

Yeah, but because you're left-handed. And you look dumb when you throw it. So run. Jason has admitted that he has a weird bias against lefties. They never look like good quarterbacks to me. You write left-handed. I throw right-handed because I have self-respect. Okay. I am left-handed and I would never ever throw the ball left. Did you start throwing? And then you're like, this is stupid. What am I doing? Give me that ball back. He saw a video of him throwing. He was ashamed of himself. So you, I mean, you hated. What? Steve Young. Oh, the worst. Boomer Asiason. Michael Vicks. Thong. I mean, at least he ran. You know, it's like, oh, good. If you throw it left, you just run instead of throw. Yeah. But no, I want to, I want to mention Michael Pinnock Jr. for a moment. Just, you know, huge numbers for two consecutive years. 30 plus touchdowns, eight interceptions, 11 interceptions this past year. Has had impressive stretches, has a very NFL capable arm. If you ended up in the, you know, really good situation, it could work out.

But I want to talk about running backs now. How about that? All right. Let's talk about now what order. Do you guys know what order they put them in? I believe. Is this the betting order? No, this is our rankings. It's the correct order. Okay. The correct order as in we. Well, when you combine. The first one is the correct one. When you combine all of our rankings then. Yes. Our ballers consensus dynasty rookie rankings. This is the order in which we have them ranked. Not necessarily. We don't agree with each other at the table, but our consensus combined. So when you look at that, the first name that we discuss is Trey Benson, Florida State, Jr. The first two guys were discussing have dealt with catastrophic injury. Yes. Trey Benson is the first player. He had a really, really bad knee injury that they thought might have been career.

canceling in 2020 is ACL MCL, lateral meniscus, medial meniscus, and a tendon in his hamstring all at once. Goodness gracious. The fact that he came back from that and looked so great and had such speed and explosiveness, this is my favorite running back of this year's draft class. This is not a great draft class in general. There isn't a bejean. There isn't a breeze. But Trey Benson, when I watch the film, I'm like, This guy's good. He does all the things that I want to see a player do. He caught the ball well. He could get to the outside. And whenever he was in a one-on-one situation, he would always win that one-on-one. Not the best vision, but I think he's the most talented running back of the group. Well, it's debatable between him and the next guy, but the next guy's dealing with a more recent injury. Yeah, more recent. Benson, to me, I'm the lowest of the three of us on Trey Benson.

A lot of what you see on film is outstanding. He's a violent runner. He's got good size. I just think it's going to come down to what kind of draft capital. The running back crew as a whole receive, and do they land in one of those perfect destinations? Dallas is the one that sticks out as the most obvious. And so I'm going to, I think we're going to see the running back. evaluation swing the most because of how, you know, there isn't a consensus. I have seen five running backs projected as the first off the board, at least. And so there's a wide variety of opinion from Benson to Brooks to, we've seen Braylin Allen there, we've seen Jalen Wright there, we've seen Blake Corum there. And so I am going to be paying close to, like,

It feels like a cop out in the evaluation process, but I don't feel like one of these guys stood out to the degree that I'm going to ignore the destination or not make that the preeminent aspect of my, of my, you know, scouting process. Yeah, the combination of destination of draft capital will reorganize our running. The running back rankings are going to be. sadly very easy this year. You know, it's like if high draft capital is spent by the Cowboys or the Chargers and all of a sudden you end up with one of, I don't even care who it is, one of these top four or five names being the first or second running back off the board to one of those two teams, well, I'm taking them. Let me add this too. Like every single year you have rookie running backs make an impact for fantasy. So I want to say that out of the gate. Don't, to me, and correct me if you have a totally different opinion. But.

I'm going to be looking at that destination aspect a lot more than the draft capital aspect if it's a middle of the second versus a middle of the third. But that middle of the third is in a much better destination because of how they compare to one another in the film, I'm taking that middle of the third guy with the better destination. Draft capital to me when I look at running backs and we've done so much research and all the nerd spreadsheets to verify this. Nerd sheets. Nerd sheets. It's really. a day two versus a day three pick. The second and third round doesn't make that big a difference. The difference between a third round pick and a fourth round pick is monumental. I mean, it's like the fourth round hits from then on out. The draft capital, the team is not as invested. They're willing to move on. Even if you had a great rookie year a la Damien Pierce, when you spend that second day of the NFL draft, those are high-valued.

picks within the minds of the general managers and the NFL franchises. That day really, really, really matters to them and they're not going to waste this. If they're investing one of those picks, they're saying this is a cornerstone of our offense. So yeah, I would agree with you. Third round is super valuable. It's that day two. I'll just jump in real quick because I love Trey Benson. I thought he was absolutely sensational on film. I gave him glowing positive grades for basically everything that I'm looking for in a running back, he, like, even when he's getting tackled, it's still pulling the tackler forward, you know, getting an extra yard and extra two yards, which will matter in terms of getting playing time. And, I mean, he just, he looked so incredibly fast. And then at the combine, he ran a 439. Oh, yes. Yes, baby. Yeah, which at 6 foot 2.16 puts him in the, his speed score is.

a 94th, sorry, 94th percentile. So he is very capable. His weight is right in that perfect range where you can take the three-down work if you are so fortunate to get a coach who believes in that, but he's not so heavy where you're like, well, you have to be Derek Henry because you're just so heavy. He's right in that sweet spot, and I think he can do everything. And to me, just... Film grade-wise, he was by far the best of all these prospects. Two of the teams that you're looking at with the, and we have opportunity charts in the Dynasty Pass, Dallas and Las Vegas, who tried desperately to keep Josh Jacobs, they couldn't. They did sign Madison. They have Zemir White. Dallas is at 56 and 87. That's their two picks in the second and third round. Las Vegas is at 44 and 77.

So I think they're going to get the first crack unless Dallas moves up. I would love to know there because that's another destination to me where you know they want to run the ball. And if they do trade back from five, which they're at 37 in the second round, so fifth pick of the second and fifth pick of the third. So they have their normal picks. They also have the fifth pick in the fourth and they have the five picks after that in the fourth. So they have two fourths. So they have plenty of capital. I think Trey Benson goes in the second.

As of right now, I looked up the, you know, who's most likely to be the first running back taken. Right now the odds are towards Jonathan Brooks, just barely ahead of Trey Benson. All right, another break and we'll come back and talk about Jonathan Brooks from Texas. Live from Texas. Let's talk about Jonathan Brooks. Because I said from Texas. Yeah, we're going to talk about Jonathan Brooks from Texas. We don't do really any, not too many like on-site. type of situations. Can we send you as our correspondent? Yes, please. I would love to do shows in Texas. Shows in Texas from a camera crew, just holding the microphone, go out there and touch some grass. All your exes, actually. They live in Texas. Jonathan Brooks. Yeah, please. Yeah, I knew it was bad. I'm 40. Jonathan Brooks. Jason mentioned it. Recent injury, expected to be ready for the regular season, but dealing with an ACL.

I think some view that as a risky situation. I don't, really. It's a patient situation. You might have to be more patient, but patience and risk are not the same thing to me. He's only 20 years old to me. He's 20 to everyone. Wow, Jay, you are cook. Let him cook. Yeah, baby. Man, earlier he had said when he, he. said we were talking about Benson and he went Florida Jr. I almost jumped in with a Florida senior joke, but I surprised you didn't catch that one. Yeah, I should have. Well, he's picking his spots. Jonathan Brooks is 20 to everybody. Correct. He redshirted in 2021. He was behind Bijan and Texas. Yeah, he couldn't get on the field last year. What's that about? Yeah, Bejohn's all right. And I thought he was, I think he's a very smooth runner. I think he's a runner that to me has a higher ceiling, I think.

If he's given the opportunity, he can catch the football, but you just have to be more patient. And so I do think fantasy players will be staring down a more difficult decision in rookie drafts if you have like Jonathan Brooks going ahead of Benson, but then Benson's, they're both in a good situation and you don't know maybe whether Jonathan Brooks will be given a big workload early in his career. Yeah, when I first watched Jonathan Brooks, I had him ranked much lower. within my rookie rankings because my presumption was an NFL team cannot really invest high draft capital into a player that's not going to be ready at the running back position. And so I thought he would plummet down the actual draft board. And if he ends up a fourth rounder, you know, the career opportunities can change. But given the buzz and, you know, right now I just said the sports book line.

is he has the highest odds of being the number one? They're even. Oh, they're even right now. DK's got them both at plus 200. But that's still, I mean, so he's tied four first. And if he's the first or second running back off the board, I'm going to be fully in on him because every single play, every single play was positive for him. It wasn't like he had the unbelievable stuff that Bison and Brise had where it was like, wow, any play could be the end of the drive. I don't see that quite the same in him, but everything is positive. Let me give you a pretend. Yeah, he does. And let me give you a pretend situation. At 77 in the third round, first running back off the board, Trey Benson goes to the Las Vegas Raiders. At 87 off the board, the second running back, Jonathan Brooks, goes off the board of the Dallas Cowboys. How would you evaluate that for rookie drafts?

I would still have Trey Benson ahead. I think Trey Benson is a better running back than Jonathan Brooks. I like both of them, but the opportunities are both good. They're almost for sure will not be a running back in the first round. But if there's no running back draft in the second round, who I've seen piles of mock drafts with no running backs in the first and second round. Yeah, I will just be surprised if it happens on the actual draft day. Here's the problem is the teams that need the running backs the most, Dallas, Los Angeles, and. what are Vegas Vegas like are you going like Los Angeles is very high in the second round yeah they're not picking or running back until the third round there's a there's a good chance though on draft day they trade back from five and they end up with a different outering of yeah I mean those things I mean we can't predict that but I'm just saying like if the greatest opportunities are top heavy in the second round sure and nobody's off the board like why not kick that back to the third round I'll be very curious to see what happens

Braylin Allen, Blake Corum. Talk about these two guys. Corum is, let's call him the J.J. McCarthy of the running back position. He really is. You're just saying because it's so boring. Well, I know you call him Blake Borum. I've heard about this. Yeah. Blake Corum, more like Blake Borum. You're more allured by a rhyme, maybe. But here's what I mean is. The numbers weren't prolific for J.G. McCarthy in Michigan. National title. He's a very accurate, efficient passer. Blake Corum's, like measurables, are not everything that fits into the normal prototypical range. But the consensus opinion on Blake Corum is greater than the analytical opinion on Blake Corum. And the consensus opinion on J.J. McCarthy among general managers is much different than the analytical.

opinion of J.J. McCarthy. To me, both of these guys proved that they were the most technical at their position. I think Blake Corum is the most refined at his position of all the running backs. I think he does the most stuff well. But he doesn't have the highest ceiling. He doesn't have the highest top speed. He doesn't have one thing that he does better than everybody else. But I think he does everything pretty darn well. Yeah, he's your number one running back. He could very easily be the number one running back taken in the NFL draft. He obviously won a national championship. And if you look at the production profile, he's very, very good. You know, you might want to see him catch the ball a little bit more. But one of the most sticky college stats at the running back position to predict future success, because, you know, we nerd out on anything we can.

is surprisingly rushing touchdowns. That's always been something that's actually been a very sticky stat for success. He only had, he only had 27. You don't do much better than Blake Corm. 27 rushing touchdowns this last year, 18 the year before. 45 touchdowns. I mean, I watched the film and I saw absolutely nothing special. Never anything wrong. I didn't watch a go, this guy sucks. Oh, this guy's bad. I just, I just was waiting for something special. And then he scores a touchdown. It was like, okay, well, but he didn't do anything special to cause that. Let's see the next drive. And then it's like, uh, this is okay. He's okay. He's okay. He got another touchdown. He just, he gets it done. So I'm really confused with him. Um, he obviously is very, very productive. Um, I don't love him personally. There's a lot of flags. He's older. He's five. He's small. 205. Uh, since 1999, only seven running backs five eight or shorter drafted in the first.

three rounds. That's MJD. That's a smash. Hall of Famer, but he was what, like four three something speed? He was four foot three inches tall. That is correct. He had electric speed. You got Clyde Edwards Allaire. Failure. Devin Singletary. Yeah. Darry Henderson, LeMichael James, Garrett Wolf and Kevin Falk. You're talking about giant starter Devon Singletary? Man. Yeah. Yeah. He's okay. I guess that makes his team kind of like an ironic landing spot. Oh, I see. You know what I mean? I see. He's, and he's just throwing him out right now. I'm at a different level. He's still trying to recover from his ex's joke. I don't think Jason understands it still. I still know that one. He's on the Giants. He's on the Giants and he's very short. Yes, he is. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. All right. I'm there. Some would say he's not. Mike, I don't have that button on my book. No, no, no, no. That's a good joke. It's a smart person joke. That's why you didn't like it. Braylin Allen.

Three years younger, Jason. Talk about Braylon Allen. He's a baby boy compared to Blake Corum. And Mike, you as well. I'll jump in because I like Braylin Allen. He, it is a little bit nerve-wracking to have, you know, he's 6-1-235. So this is a, this is a tank of a man. This is the guy where you see photographs of him from high school. And he's the strongest man you've ever seen. And that was years and years and years ago. And his production profile is pretty awesome in 2021 as a freshman, almost 1,300 rushing yards at 6.8 to carry, 12 rushing touchdowns and some receiving work. But over the course of his career, you saw the receiving production go up. So we like that. He's not, I wouldn't call him the world's most natural pass catcher, but good enough.

that he can be utilized in that. I want to see the world's most unnatural pass catcher. That'd be wild. Jordan Howard? Yeah, we've seen a lot of those guys. I guess I was thinking they'd be doing like tricks and stuff. But go on. Oh, or like the seal clap at the ball? Yeah, just weird catches. But he just totally unnatural. His age, like currently, he's barely 20 years old, his breakout age before he was allowed to vote. So that is wild. Like the dominator rating, everything is there for him. So I think he hit the ceiling, if everything works, will be like a true difference making running back for fantasy football. But he, while I acknowledge that the ceiling is there, I acknowledge that this could be A.J. Dillon all over again. Yeah, he, I think that's a decent, a decent mid-level comp for him is A.J. Dylan.

He's got really good hands, but he just doesn't turn after he catches the ball and go fast. It's like he has to stop and start again. His production was great as a baby boy. I mean, he went into the league, like you said, couldn't even vote yet, and he put up 1,268 yards. Unless there's an injury or a specific reason to watch older tape, I always watch the most recent season. That's the one that they're coming off of after teams have figured out who's a star, who's not. He wasn't as good this last year, 984 yards in 11 games. He is one of the only guys like this, though. So I think, you know, 6-1-235. If an NFL team is saying, I want a real big, massive man, they might invest higher in Braylin Allen than maybe the sports book thing. So where he lands will be really important to me. But he's going to be the youngest. He graduated high school year early.

I believe he's like the only example we will have. You would have got my joke. Playing the entire rookie season before turning 21. That's insanely young. I, it's going to be really interesting. And just to be clear, like the, you guys both have Benson number one. Jason has Brooks number two and Alan number three. Mike has Allen number two and Brooks number three. I currently. have quorum at one, and then I have Brooks at two, Benson at three, and Allen at four. I don't think there are five spots to make a rookie impact this year in terms of NFL teams. They've invested heavily on free agent running backs this year. I think there are situations that are sneaky, Cincinnati. A rookie could arrive in Cincinnati, and you've got Zach Moss, right? And so those ones could evolve. But there aren't.

there are some like bad destinations and then there are just like not a lot of teams with a full workload so if you end up with let's say one in the second okay one in the second two and the third the rest are going on on day three or later that's where it gets a little bit hairy to me in terms of being of having any confidence because look we can sit here and say hey we're going to pay attention to the destination but if you got a fifth round brailing allen Yeah, that's going to be a tough, you know what I mean? Or a four. Or even a fourth round, Braylon L going to a team that's already got an established running game. Yeah, he'll be. Those will be. He'll be just irrelevant to me until we hit the back of the second, third round. And he probably won't be there. Those are the type of rookie draft picks, running backs that are drafted on day three.

that are overdrafted in your rookie drafts because, oh, I need a running back. I just have to have one, and I like this guy before the NFL draft, so they're going to draft them too high. Don't do that. That's a waste of pick. We have to talk about Jalen Wright out of Tennessee because he's also been projected in some mock drafts as the first running back off the board. I have him at five, Jason at five, Mike at six right now. This is a player that I, when finally putting on the film, like he was ignored for quite a while.

And then a lot of buzz began. And he was number one in yards per carry of the entire running back class. And if you watch him, this is a player with electric speed. He's a game breaker type of player. And, you know, he's sub 4-4. He was constantly, when he gets behind the defense, is like goodbye. And so there's something attractive about that I think for some of these teams with holes at the running back position to bring somebody in that can catch the football. that can break a big play, but just doesn't have the production profile of the other guys that we've already talked about. Yeah, it's honestly, it's almost a, you know, there's cheat codes for rushing quarterbacks. I feel like one of the cheat codes for projecting rookie running backs is when there is a guy that is 210 pounds or more and runs sub 44 pretty much always works. I mean, they find a landing spot and they have some success for some period of time. I mean,

Deontiformin, I think, you know, Achilles out of that. But like even, you know, Pacheco was close to that. When you're really, really fast, but also really, really heavy, it's hard to stop those guys. And NFL offensive minds, they just get those guys a crease, get them in space, and they succeed. So I'm really interested where he's going to go because as soon as he ran that speed at that size, I was like, Yeah, 4, 3, 8, 210 pounds, that just works. Yeah, and he was number two overall in terms of the combine rank at running back in athleticism. So he kind of jumped off the page and I think changed a lot of teams' minds. Mike, what did you think of Jalen Wright, could he be a surprise this season? I mean, I feel like I don't have a full read on Jalen Wright because he, it, not that the actual like professional scouts, but, you know, just.

On Twitter, essentially, draft Twitter, when we're all starting to get really excited about these guys as the NFL season has ended, now we're moving towards the draft. He was just, he was a late comer to the party where you're like, how did it go from no one is really about, not no one, of course, I get it. I have receipts. I talked about Jalen Wright. Fantastic. But like the overall crowd. Wasn't really talking about Jalen Wright. But now people are really buzzing about him. That can be a red flag. It's not a reason to write somebody off. But it's something that's interesting of he wasn't at the top of mind of people. And now he is climbing in there. You definitely climb in there when you have a combine like this. Reminds me of David Johnson when it was like, who is this guy from the small school that just destroyed?

every athletic measurable at the combine. And while it was short, there was that season for David Johnson where he was, like, he won people championships. I like the fact that at least the receiving profile has gone up, where in that final year of college, you know, he accounted for 9% of the receptions, which is, that's a little bit under the mark that you want from a true running back one. But at least it started to get up there because if you're that size and you can catch, I will be interested. I'll say this. I think Jaylen Wright will go in the third round of the NFL draft. That's a little draft prediction. I think he's going to go there. I think somebody's going to fall in love with what the combine showed and that breakaway speed. We'll see. I want one more name from the remaining crop of running backs that you're paying attention to. Will Shipley? I like Will Shipley. I do, too.