Mock Draft Episode! + Fantasy Freakouts - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/1

Sitting right now is my running back six. Oh, I knew. When you started talking running backs, I knew what happened in Andy's heart. He was so excited to have Devonta Adams fall all the way to him. He wanted it so badly. And he did not get it. The word Jason saw into my soul, not only was that exactly accurate. However, I also said to myself, if he goes. I'll at least take Tony Pollard to go along with Christian McCaffrey. I feel like those are, I mean, I feel like it was two. You get nothing. It was two tear breaks, in my opinion. Devante Adams, I brought it up a couple shows ago. He's being stupidly underrated right now. In this draft, he is the wide receiver, what is that, six, seven, eight, nine, ten off the board. That is going to prove really ridiculous in my opinion.

And then Tony Pollard, look, the threat of another back showing up there doesn't seem like it's coming to fruition. Why would you when you have somebody like Deuce Vaughn in the backfield to help contribute with Tony Pollard? You know, Zeke out meeting with other teams. Do you think that they look at Tony Pollard as a true workhorse because of Deuce Vaughn? Like they look and they're like, Tony Pollard is huge. He's just gigantic. You know, he looks like Derek Henry. Now, is that relative to Deuce Vaughan? If they're standing in that room, they think they have different sized players. Yeah, they're like, as long as they don't stand next to other players. Exactly. No, I don't think that's what's happening. I think Duis Vaughan is just really, really teeny. And everyone knows it. And he's going to hide behind the line and no one's going to find him. They're definitely, five, five, 172. There is an advantage. Like, it being that small, like he will disappear. I don't know if it's going to work, but could he run?

conceivably under his lineman's lakes. Oh, like freeze tag? Like go, yeah, to release it. Like tunnel tag? Yeah, just go underneath. Maybe. I mean, he would have to army crawl. I don't know if he would. Just a dive. Or just like a limbo? Just a dive. Yeah, I just think he may be able to straight run through. There are, I mean, the players have been talking about that. The players have been talking about how it is difficult to. find him to see him and there is an advantage. He's one of my favorite last round picks right now in best ball. Genuine question and probably not the kind that you say publicly. But is it offensive if I called him a hobbit? Hmm. Would that be? I don't know. It's a fantastical creature. It's like people love hobbits. I love me. I would have to see. What's the hairy feet? I'd have to see his feet. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let me know. How about this? I won't call him that, but if he emails me and asks me to I will.

Okay. That's fair. So I am at the edge here of the second round. I'll be picking quickly in the third. And to me, the running back situation right now, just to lay it out there, I love Jemir Gibbs. I love the training camp reports that he's being heavily involved in the passing game and he doesn't leave the field. When Montgomery plays running back, Gibbs is staying on the field. That's one of the things coming out of camp. ETN, tons of passing game work. I think his upside is tremendous. Naji, I have a strict don't draft policy. Ramandre, I'm still skittish. Breece, skittish. So at wide receiver, I do see the value right now in drafting Almanra St. Brown. I think that is the next tier. I'm going to take him here and see what happens in the next round. Bruce went next. Josh Allen went after that. And I'm back on the clock. Yeah. So Love Olave at wide receiver. Ramandre still on the clock. Third round.

I think that's going to end up being my pick. Mike has them the highest of our group. I'm still a little afraid of what's heading their way, but I know that this offense, the identity, Bill O'Brien coming in. I know Romandre is going to play a big role there. And I can afford a little bit of inconsistency at running back. Man, but would I take Gibbs? The last second, second guessing. I would like to know how far apart these guys are. One moment, please. In your ranks? Yeah, I mean... For me, they're actually very far apart, but that's because Remandre is very... For you, they are. Yeah, Ramandre, I have at... Yeah, they're pretty far apart. Okay, we'll go with Ramandre. It's hard when you're in this position, by the way, and knowing you have to wait a million picks before your next one. But I'm going to take Ramandre to go with Amon Rai St. Brown, who I wish was Devante Adams. All right, after Ramandre...

T. Higgins, Mark Andrews. We're going to talk about Higgins a little tomorrow. I'm just going to tease that. Mike has Cooper Cup and Tony Pollard so far. Hold on. I mean, this, I don't know that's super important. I don't have a breaking news button. Hit it for me. I got you. Breaking news. So speaking of the Cowboys and their running back situation. Cowboys running back Ronald Jones. This is a tweet coming out from Field Yates. Ronald Jones has been suspended for the first two games of the 2023 regular season. I think, I don't know if he's going to be on the team. I don't think he is going to be on the team. That's interesting. So it, so. Do we know why? We're going to look into it and confirm what it is before. Performance enhancing. Did you confirm it? Yeah. Okay. So.

And you only two games? There's two types. So I think that that means it's the obviously the lesser. Okay, I got you. Maybe he took performance reducing. Seems like it. I mean, is that a two game for the reducing kind? Oh, man. Oh, we are, we are unkind today. Yes. So that is what happened. So. Andy took Ramandre, who would have been in a strong consideration for me, then Higgins, then Mark Andrews. I was strongly considering Mark Andrews because I want to see what that build would actually look like taking Mark Andrews in the third, one of Jason's favorite third round picks. I have no disagreement. I thought about it at 302 just for the fun of it. I have no disagreements with it. Then it comes down to, you know, it's the.

The rankings, like I have my actual projections, and there's, so there's some head versus heart here, because I do have Keenan Allen ranked higher than Chris Olaabe. But when you're also, when you're going for upside, we know who Keenan Allen is at this point, which I think is great. I think Keenan Allen's going to be fantastic. But if Chris Olave makes the jump. that I am projecting. And the buzz out of New Orleans is coming hot and heavy for Mr. Olave. I'm going to take him there to pair him with Cooper Cup. Yeah, and he doesn't even need the bus. He just needed last year's tape. Yes. The deucer's back on the clock with Tyree Kill and Josh Jacobs. It's your third round pick? Yeah, we're having a tough call here. Yeah, you can't get Mark Andrews. You're thinking.

Thinking, okay, the pick is in, everybody. The pick is in. The pick is in. Okay. It's hard to find a quick consensus. I applaud you. Hopefully it's a bad pick. Team Deucers is going with Devonza Smith right here. Oh, sure. Okay. Sure. Yeah, I think that I like Devante Smith more than T. Higgins, who went a few picks ahead. Over Keenan Allen. I was shocked. Is Kyle running this team or not? Yeah, Kyle must have left. because to not draft his guy, Keenan Allen there, especially after you talk him up. You're like, I might draft him here. That's embarrassing. And I think he needs to get rid of the tattoo. Now, you've, you've seen the Quentin Johnston highlight real that is constant through Twitter right now. You still Mike Williams. Eckler, is there a chance that it's just more distributed there? Absolutely. It's a chance. We're going to talk a little bit more about Keenan Allen tomorrow. I'll just tease that right there.

Najee Harris went after Devante Smith, Travis E.T.N. and Lamar Jackson's on the clock where he will be selecting. I will be selecting a running back. I was really hoping Najee would get to me. I know Andy and I disagree on what his value is, but he's just going to touch the ball so much. Where we don't disagree is believing that Jemir Gibbs is going to be great. So I will grab him instead at the end of the third round. So Gibbs to join Chubb and Diggs, Kenneth Walker next, Keenan next, Metcalf and Debo. Jason, you are back on the clock, one wide receiver, two running backs on your roster so far. Yeah, this is where it's a little tough for me. If I was a little bit further on, I would maybe look at Fields or Herbert. Right now I feel like it's a little too early for them when there are other players that I.

really like, and so I'm going to continue drafting players, I think, are great. Okay, that's a good strategy. Yeah, I like that. And I'm going to take Terry McLaurin to the shock of no one. No, I'm actually, I am shocked. No, I am shocked. I, like, I thought your 310 was going to be Joe Mixing. And then, and then you took Jamir Gibbs over to Joe Mixing. I'm like, okay. I don't mind it. I get it. Let's go with the guy who could catch 70 plus passes. And then Joe Mixon just comes right back for him. I'm like, oh, my gosh. This Stefan Diggs and ultimate high T three running backs here of Chubb Gibbs and Nixon. Like, that's an unbelievable start. But you balked at it. And you said, no, I'm getting, I'm getting Terry McLaurian. I wanted balance. Interesting. I wanted the two running backs, two wide receivers. Like I'm Joe Mix is not, not even like anywhere close to a player who I,

love to get on my teams. That would have been an easy smash. Okay. He didn't do it. Yeah. Not with TMC sitting there on the Mount Rush more of fantasy stars. Aaron Jones went after Terry McLaren, Joe Burrow, Joe Mixin, deucer's back on the clock. Unfortunately, Keenan Allen is gone, Kyle. Tyreek Hill, Devante Smith, Josh Jacobs, and here you are. And is Kyle, I am. drafting a letter to the Kenan Allen fan club as we speak. You will get your membership revoked. Yeah. You'll have to send back all of those pins that you got. All right. I think Al and I might be bullying Kyle into this pick a little bit as well. And it's a bit of a reach. But that I don't mind. The upside is is too great. We are taking Alexander Madison here at the 4-07.

Alexander Madison 407 ahead of Mike's pick. I thought I had an easy pick. Where are you going that direction? I was going to go, Alexander Madison, let's move it along. I was going to at least bring up the discussion of J.K. Dobbins and being, it's so frustrating. Like heading into this season was really ready to have what I would have seen the J.K. Dobbins. breakout or I would project it. I thought he was going to be fantastic. He's still on the pup. We don't know what's going on fully. We are speculating that it is the contract situation. I still have him ranked pretty high. Jay, because you've been kind of with me on your infatuation for J.K. Dobbins. Where are you sitting with him?

Currently, have you moved him in your rankings? Are you adjusting? Yeah, I've cooled on him a little bit. I still believe he is exceptionally talented and I want pieces of the Ravens. I believe they're going to be a good offense that plays a little bit faster, scores more points this year and has a healthy Lamar. But there's, you know, the fact that he's still dealing with some injuries scares me. He's dealt with injuries. You know, that's the problem. It's like when he's on the field, he's great. August now. Yeah, it's time for him to be out there. He's not out there. So I've cooled. All right. Then I'll change it over to looking at the wide receiver position. You know, we got Murray Cooper, Hopkins, Drake London, who I'm actually, I am starting to rise on the prospects of Drake London. Matt Collins for life. We haven't discussed. No, we haven't. The Mac Hollins quotes. Here's the thing about Matt, Matt Collins. Is that.

legitimately in his rookie season where he was with Philadelphia. He looked like a normal-sized person to me. And then he played in Miami. And we're like, when did he get that big? Yeah. And it couldn't have been the same place Ronald Jones went. I mean, he is enormous now. Year over year, over year. He gets bigger. Like an eighth of his body gets, like he gains an eighth of a size every year. And he... I don't know how this talking got started, but Matt Collins is now a wide receiver. He's on the Atlanta Falcons. You want some quotes? Yeah. Oh, do you have them in front of you? I do. So somehow food was brought up. I don't even like people who eat with utensils. Eat with your hands. It's what they're there for. I don't like them. The best part is that's everybody. Like, so which that means he doesn't like anyone. So, um,

And then there's like a quote about soup. Yeah, he says when eating, then he was, the follow up is, hey, what about soup? What do you do? He says, you shouldn't be eating soup in the first place. He also has pet snakes. He doesn't wear shoes. Oh, yeah. His quotes about feeling the ground with his feet. I mean, that is. It's just, that's a big boy. Hashtag never soup for. For Mac Hollins. Those quotes are sensational. Yeah. So is it Mac Hollins here, Mike? It is. It is not. I mean, gosh, I really want it to be J.K. Dobbins. Why don't you show a little confidence in two legs? All right. I'm doing it. It's JK Dobbins and Madison are back to back in my rankings. I was going to let the fact that Madison is there and Dobbins is not make the decision for me, but.

I think he's such an incredibly talented player, and I believe in the Ravens offense, that if he is there, he will outperform his fourth round ADP. Well, that's great. I'm glad you took him because DJ Moore went next, who I like, Amari Cooper in the fourth round. I like him there too. But this draft fell in a way where I get to draft the player that I'm really wanting to draft right now. It's Calvin Ridley. Yeah, if Calvin Ridley was going to be the choice had I not, you know. been caped up here for jkka dubs yeah no i'm thrilled to to combine you know mcalfrey and stevenson with amon ra and calvin ridley uh that is one pick that worked out kyle pitts went next i don't know if you saw the clip of kyle pitts once again beating his man and being horribly mistargeted by uh i mean it's a we've seen it it's the past and the future uh dandre hopkins goes at five o one what do you think about that pick we saw uh training camp

video of Mr. Hopkins. Yeah, I've really had a hard time with Hopkins. I, every time that I'm in a draft and I see him and I'm near ADP, I just pinball back and I'm like, oh, he's definitely, he's going to as like the wide receiver 20. He's the wide receiver one there. He's going to be great. And then I'm like, ah, he's old. AJ Brown was great there. Yeah. I will say this. It's not so much for Hopkins value, but the Titans, I think they're going to be. Much better than people think. Yeah, I mean, not me and Mike, of course, because we picked them to win the division. But other people. The world at large. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is good because I went Ridley, hoping that Miles Sanders would come back around. Miles Sanders at the top of the fifth. Thank you very much. I'm going to select you. So Miles Sanders joining the squad. Could have gone with a quarterback there. I know we all like Justin Herbert. Could have gone with an upside of Fields or Lawrence. But right now I am stacking talent.

Mike, you're back on the clock. Hawkinson and Damien Pierce went next. You have Cooper Cup and a lobby at Whiteout, Pollard and Dobbins at running back. Yes, I am perfectly balanced. The tight-in position is of no interest to me right now. Quarterback is pretty interesting. Getting Justin Fields here at the 5.5. I think that's okay. It's still, you know, I still don't love. Getting these quarterbacks that early, I guess just maybe years and years and years of that not being an optimal strategy. But in the fifth to get Justin Fields, who, Justin Fields can be the quarterback one if the passing actually improves this year with DJ Moore. And then at the running back position, we're looking at Cam Acres, James Connor. That kind of seems to be like an off-season long decision of is it Camagers or is it James Connor? But I mentioned.

that I am rising a bit on, on Drake London, second year wide receiver from the Atlanta Falcons. We just made fun of what happened with Kyle Pitts, and I do, I understand that is a risk for the Atlanta Falcons that the quarterbacking doesn't get better. Or they just run because they can. Yeah. With Tyler Alger and. Absolutely. But it's the same as, it's the same as like DeAndre Hopkins. Like, I'm not saying Drake London is DeAndre Hopkins at this point, but he's. There will be third downs. But Drake London is an excellent wide receiver. He underperformed at the touchdown area last year. Should he have, you know, scored the expected amount of touchdowns? Like he would have had a perfectly, like a really strong rookie campaign, obviously much stronger. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to go to Drake London. I'm going to see what this team is like with two second year wide receivers. The deucers. Back on the clock after their...

Reach for Madison. By one spot, by the way. By one spot. Tyreek Hill, Josh Jacobs, Devante Smith. How dare you? Alex Madison. I glanced over this. How dare you call Alexander Madison a reach in the middle of the fourth round? That's nonsense. Who are you yelling at me? Are you yelling at me? I'm yelling at the deucers. Oh, okay. Because they said it's a little bit of a reach. It isn't by ADP, but by. Time drafts come around. You're probably right. He's going to be right around there. Or higher. Give me Miles Sanders. All right. Ducers. You're on the clock. All right. We are taking Justin Field. I'm sorry, Justin Herbert. Oh, pumping. Wrong Justin. Rope dope. So here's where we're at. Jason just cried out like a wounded, wounded animal. Justin Herbert and Justin Fields went back to back. So Herbert to the Ducers. Fields went next.

Jason and I both have Herbert one spot ahead of Fields. Mike has Fields one spot ahead of Herbert, then went back to back. Kiddle went at 508. You don't, you're like, this isn't redemption for passing on Keenan Allen by taking his quarterback over Justin Fields. Just letting you know. Kiddle, Godwin, and Jason on the clock, was your, were you crying out because you wanted a quarterback? Yes, I wanted, I wanted Herbert or Fields, but I really wanted, this is where I say when you're at the 110, where I'm drafting from, the beginning of the fourth is too early because sometimes they can make it all the way back to you in the fifth. And when I was looking at the board, I realized team eight, team nine, they already have quarterbacks.

So when you didn't select fields, I knew that I get one of those two so long as, so long as the deucers don't take a quarterback. But they did. I was upset. And now I'm looking at running back. And it's the conversation that Mike said earlier. Is it Connor? Is it Cam Acres or is it James Connor? You go back and forth. I could make narrations for each one being the better player. I want to go for upside. This is my running back three. Who do I think could really be more special? And I believe that Cam Acres being a younger player who could be on the better offense if he is given the role that we saw him have as just a complete dominant, like the backfield touches towards the end of last year were crazy, then he should be able to have a really, really solid season.

All right, Jerry Judy at 5-11. I think that's a good pick there. Went right after Cam Acres, Christian Watts, and James Connor and D'Andre Swift, rounding out the fifth round and early six round before Jason is back on the clock. I am back on the clock, and now I'm looking at a couple of wide receivers. I love Mike Williams. I love Marquise, Hollywood Brown here. And, you know, I draft Tyler Lockheed everywhere. I think there are three really, really good options. So when I'm... considering how do I tie break here, I'm looking at what do I have? I've got Diggs and I've got McLaren already on my roster. Diggs is going to be a consistent force. McLaren will probably be a little bit more hit and miss. I feel like I want more targets, more consistency, more volume. And I think Hollywood Brown will have that throughout the season. He'll be better when Kyler is back. We don't know exactly when that's going to be, whether it's week one, week four.

But he'll come back. And in the meantime, even when Kyler's not there, he's going to be getting 10 targets a game. He'll be consistent and getting a guy like that in the sixth round. I'm happy with Hollywood. Michael Pittman, Dalvin Cook, Mike Williams went next. Ducer's back on the clock with Mike right after him. All right. Ducers are going with Brandon Ayuk in the sixth round. Brandon Ayuk in the six. I always like to see where him and Dibo go. Debo was the second pick of the fourth round, Iuke the seventh pick of the sixth round. I think both those players are having huge years. Mike, you're on the clock. Tyler Locket. Tyler Locket. Well, that's unfortunate. What just happened. Lock it off the board, Christian Kirk. And then the pick I was going to make was Trevor Lawrence. For the stack. For the stack with Calvin Ridley, which is not going to happen because he went right before me. So that's cool. We have got.

I've got a couple players that I am looking at here. I'm going to take my quarterback. There are, it was Lawrence and Tua, and then I feel like a big potential tier break. So I'll take Tua here because the actual player I'm going to gamble on is a tight in named Darren Waller, who I'd like to take with my next pick. Team one has Kyle Pitts already. So I'm going to take Tua here. They also have a quarterback, so it works both ways. But I'm going to take Tua. They took Traylen Berks and they took Giovante Williams. And we're going to come back around. How much Giovante stuff have we, like, I'm losing track of the days. Did we, did we talk about that Giovante Williams was, they said he's cleared for contact, or he said he's cleared for contact? I know that we discussed on the show, the fact that he didn't go on the pup and the importance of that. Yeah. I think we did not mention the specificity of cleared for contact, which is really impressive.

All right, I'm actually not taking Darren Waller here. There are a couple of tight ends I like, five tight ends off the board, and I'm willing to figure it out later because I like the value once again in the seventh round of a player. I'm going to talk about a lot this off season. Mike Evans in the seventh round of this draft. Mike Evans is the second pick of the seventh round. Godwin was the ninth pick of the fifth round. Both guys undervalued in this draft, in my opinion. Rashad White, his teammate goes next. Dotson. Mike, were you, was that a sound? It was Rashad White. Okay, so Rashad White went off the board. You've taken Drake Lennon and Tyler Locke at the last two rounds. You are back on the clock. So the running backs are, I'm with you, Andy, that Darren Waller is rising up my projections. I'm starting to get very excited for what he could do as the true number one, the number one target.

for Daniel Jones. We're making all these, the hullabaloo of who is, well, who's the wide receiver? And they have 15 slot wide receivers. And like, I think it might just be Darren Waller. They traded for him. We saw what happened with Bellinger. I can't think of his first name. Daniel. Daniel Bellinger, who was a rookie. And not that he had a prolific year, but it was. A rookie tight end was productive. Yeah, overproductive for what he should have been. So I'm very into Darren Waller, but the running backs are starting to get to a kind of a scary point here. Montgomery is very interesting, as is my former champion who may be making, maybe he's back to my champion. And I don't think he'll make it back to me, but this is definitely an ADP stretch, but I'm going to take Antonio Gibson.

All right, Mike gets his guy, our guy, Antonio Gibson. Brooks, the deucers are back on the board. You took IUC last round. The deucers are going with David Montgomery at running back. Yeah, the, that's fair. He was one of the great running back still left on the board. Camara went next. Look, for whatever you want to say about Camara's career decline. Yeah. The late seventh round is wild. Deonti Johnson, Dallas Goddard. who is another tight end, another tight end I've ranked very highly. Jason, you're on the clock. Yeah, so when I look at quarterback, there's kind of the top seven guys and then after that I punt. So there's really only one quarterback afterwards where I'm considering that would.

was Tua, and he took him. So that's not in consideration. I've got three running backs, three wide receivers. So I'm going to go look at tight end, see is there someone that stands out there. And to me, there's, you know, Darren Waller, I know is the highest in ADP. My highest ranked would be Pat Friermuth. You know, once you're past those, you know, Mark Andrews, maybe if Pitts falls, I just would rather take Dulcich late or something like that. So now, I'm saying, okay, I'm balanced. I can go wide receiver. I can go running back. And there's a wide receiver that I have not drafted yet. I haven't drafted because early on he was being drafted too high. He was being drafted ahead of Tyler Lockett. But I really do love the talent of Jackson Smith and Jigba. He's great. He's a phenomenal wide receiver. He's been making waves at camp. They don't have any running backs anymore. Right. And a quarterback that I might grab later.