NFL Draft Breakdown: AFC Winners & Losers - Fantasy Football Podcast for 5/4

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Instant reaction, T. Higgins, Tyler Boyd, your futures have changed. Yeah, yeah. And it's... Really, I put the emphasis more on to Boyd. I agree with that. T. Higgins, however, the ceiling... Jason sealed in his head. It was... You think it affects Boyd more than it affects T. Higgins? Yes, because... It does. Tyler Boyd has to have volume. And if you have a very... I think Jamar Chase is elite.

In our rookie draft that we have going on, I took him at the 103. I took him over Kyle Pitts because of my belief in what Jamar Chase is going to become and will be sooner than later. And when you have, and T. Higgins is a good wide receiver. So I'm not, I'm not taking a crap on him. And Boyd is good too. But when you have two excellent options, one elite option.

you start to really siphon a volume away from your slot-wide receiver. I guess I completely understand the argument of he needs volume and volume won't be there necessarily, but his role is secure. He's not changing, you know, he's the slot guy, he's going to live there. And I don't see his. Higgins is staying the same. His role is staying the same. If you look at the volume that AJ Green targets were last year, that's the problem. The empty volume. The problem is we wanted T. Higgins' role to.

not stay what it was his rookie year, but really take that step forward. The reality is there's 104 targets left by A.J. Green, plenty to go Jamar Chase's way. This is good news for the fantasy implications of Joe Burrough. That's great. I think they should have protected him and kept him upright a little bit better. They took a tackle in the second round.

You know, but this is a team connection. You know, the giant stats that we saw last time Jamar Chase was in college putting up, you know, crazy numbers. That was that was with Joe Burrough. So my outlook on Chase is very high as well. If you can take advantage of negative reactions, there's just my personal opinion, on T. Higgins and get a bargain basement price in a dynasty league. I would do that. Yeah. T. Higgins is very young, had a great rookie season.

And they're still going, if this is a good offense, if this is a top 10 offense at some point in the next few years, Higgins is going to be, you know, you're going to be looking at a dig stealing or at least two good options on an offense situation. We are doing several dynasty drafts right now. You know, a lot of dynasty leagues are kicking off their rookie drafts. And when you get into the second round, it is such an absolute crapshoot. And I would be offering every single one of those picks to a T. Higgins manager and say, hey.

Because if T. Higgins' second-year player was in the draft, I'd be drafting them ahead of a lot of these nebulous wide receivers. So if the fantasy manager has bent out of shape and they want to go after a rookie and that's the buzz right now, then see if you can trade some of the picks for T. Higgins. Yeah, this is not a James Robinson situation for T. Higgins. No, it's not. The other, yeah, I mean, you mentioned Joe Burrow, big winner.

and hopefully they can protect him. I mean, they get back last year's first round pick. They drafted a tackle in the second round. Huge loser, obviously, Drew Sample. I mean, this is, you know, it was going to be a thing. It was going to be a huge thing. But sorry, Drew. They also did not replace the mustache Gio Bernard in this draft. Joe Mixon is going to, how are your feelings about Joe Mixon? I'll be quiet. Yeah, I'm all in. I'm so all in. I have completely over the course of this off season, I have, I have.

changed where he is now, I think he's going to dominate this year. They are committed to him. He's going to be on the field, you know, as much as, you know, you can ever want your fantasy running back on the field. So long as he stays healthy, I don't see how he possibly finishes outside the top 10. Did you not see that in the sixth round they drafted Captain America? They, oh, they got Evans? Yeah. Oh, no.

Chris Evans. Could you imagine Captain America as a running back? He'd be pretty good. Do you get to use the shield? You don't need to. Yeah, you don't need to. It's more like a Derek Henry. They just kind of ride like a backpack as you keep running. Okay. So watch out for that. Yeah. But no, I- Six rounds pretty late. Oh, that was a joke. For Captain America. Oh, yeah. Well, it's because they didn't realize that he was eligible. Because he went by his actor name? Yeah. Gotcha. No, I think Joe Burrow, if you need a,

a jolt after the injury and you're a dynasty manager that drafted him and you're like, okay, what's the future? Jason, I know you have him on your roster. It's like, okay, here we go. I can see it now. Jamar Chase is coming in and an offense with a lot of potential. The Browns, the Browns. Huge winners in real life. I am so in on the Browns. I think they had a great draft. Fantasy-wise, is there even anything to discuss? I mean, they took a burner in the third round.

Yeah, but he's not that fast on the field. I know he's like track. He was, his path was literally he was choosing between Olympics and football. Oh, Marky's Goodwin. For Anthony Schwartz is the players. But do you think that affects, oh. Do you think like, not that we had huge hope, but we're a little dynasty-centric right now. We're talking about rookies and things. Did you have any sort of hope for Donovan People's Jones, who was that?

type of a he was kind of that archetype for the team last year where didn't do a whole lot but hit on a few big plays where you thought okay maybe this player could do something no i i never was a real people's jones believer in what we saw i'm not inspired so um i think the way that i look at this team is just more of what we saw last year except hopefully odal beckham's out there and

you know, they're going to be winning a lot of games. So this is what they did for their defense, the way that some of these players fell to them in the draft is good news for Chubb. And actually, you know, it's funny because you think, oh, you're winning. And so the running game, but it was oftentimes when they were actually winning, that was at the fourth quarter, they just, when Kareem Hunt comes in and finishes the job. Baltimore Ravens selected Rashad Bateman in the first round, wide receiver of Rashad Bateman out of Minnesota.

which was a collective groan to a degree if you were a Bateman truther. Yeah. Because I'm having a hard time. Let me just confessional here. We're putting together the updated dynasty, the rookie rankings and the updated dynasty startup rankings. I am trying to see a future here for Rashad Bateman that I'm excited about. Part of that narrative, if you want to paint it, would be one where it's like, okay, Hollywood really was never built to demand.

a target chair, and he really is more of a deep threat, not a primary option. That's the storyline I'm trying to find for Rashad Bateman because the truth is you've heard us talk about it on the show a lot. Not a lot of past attempts in Baltimore. Now, drafting Rashad Bateman is a great thing for Lamar Jackson. You'd rather have him out there on the field in the pocket when he throws the football having Hollywood and Mark Andrews and Rashad Bateman out there.

being threats down the field and that efficiency increased for Lamar. But if you were a Bateman fan, the path to glory seems a ways away. Well, and honestly, it's bad for a lot of players. It's bad for Hollywood Brown. Yeah, it's bad for Mark Andrews to a degree. It's good.

for Lamar Jackson. It's good for the Ravens, but they brought in Sammy Watkins. They drafted another really good wide receiver in the fourth round as well. So they see the problem with their team. They remember last year when teams knew what the Ravens were doing. Like they were calling their plays out, and they know we've got to get more wide receivers in here that are capable, spread things out.

pass more. But at the end of the day, if you have a mobile quarterback like Lamar Jackson, you're not going to be throwing it 500 times. You're going to be throwing it 400 times. And now with more options to throw the ball to, if the ball gets spread around more, it doesn't matter if the pie gets larger. It's a situation I want to avoid. Bateman has the build and the skills to be an elite wide receiver. He's got good speed. He has great body control.

So I'm with you, though, Andy. I am so torn because I'm 100% bought into the talent of Rashad Bateman. And they don't have, Mark Andrews is the number one target on the team. So Bateman could come in and be a 30, he can become a 30% type of a target share. And that, if you have a small pie, but you're hitting the 30s, then everything is okay. And I want to be clear, he can have great seasons.

with Baltimore, even in this system. It's just from a fantasy perspective, predictability is very difficult with low passing volume. You will be happy when he scores the way you were happy when Hollywood scored. That type of situation. And as a rookie, you know, it'll be interesting to see how established he becomes. Pittsburgh drafted Najee Harris. Oh, brother. Nagy! In the first round, Pat Fryermuth tied in in the second round.

tried to patch up that line in the third and the fourth. Yeah, which needs help. Yes, it does. And we haven't talked about it here on this show, but mixed reactions for me when Najee was drafted. Number one, very few places you can go and guarantee a three-down workload. He landed in one of those spots. The things that should be out there for knowledge sake, the kinds of things that are important for, you know, a fair evaluation of what you have in a draft pick.

This was a bad, bad run-blocking O line last season, 31 out of 32. Fifth consecutive year that Pittsburgh's run-blocking score on pro football focus decreased, and they basically gave up running the football last season, which obviously is what motivated this move for them. They laid it at the feet of James Connor. That's not the only problem.

If you're going backwards for five years. And they passed through the air, or they ran through the air with these little short passing game that they don't want Big Ben to have to do again this year. Overall, Najee Harris is a talented three-down back. You can catch the football. And they lost three offensive linemen this off season. Marquis Pouncey being the big one. So give me year one for Najee. Give me the next five years for Najee. First year, Najee is going to be great. That's how I see it. The reality is,

He's in a place where he's going to touch the ball more than 300 times. And it might be inefficient. That offensive line's not that great. You know, he might struggle to really impress us and have this outlandishly great rookie season. I don't think he's going to come in and Sequin come in and, you know, Ezekiel Elliott, this thing. And just all of a sudden next year he's the top or the top three picks in the draft. I don't think that the team.

on offensive with the offensive line is good enough for that. But what I am confident in is that I don't see a path for him to finish outside the top 15 running backs because we have enough history of if you catch the ball enough and get enough carries, you can suck and still finish above that threshold. So I think he's going to be a really solid option. He'll be on several of my redraft teams. Longer term, it's funny because you don't know if it's going to get better or worse as they continue to improve the offensive line, but then lose Big Ben.

But at the same time, what big Ben are you really losing now? He sucked last year. Yeah, he still represents stability at the position because his wide receivers produced. And so you at least had Deontay Johnson relevant, juju relevant. I remember the Mason Rudolph days. And Duck Hodges. They thought it was so great. We need to get Mason Rudolph back in here. Naji Harris with Dwayne Haskins. That's what you're saying? You're ready for it? They won 12 games last year.

Yeah, they have a great defense. I mean, it's just crazy. I think we got bogged down in some of the bad play, but they, it was a tough end of the season. Yep. Their offense is loaded with top tier players. I think that Big Ben has enough to provide another year. I think they made the right choice. Going for it one more time. And I agree with Jason that now he's going to touch the ball.