Fantasy Football - Top 10 TE Rankings + Draft Strategy - Podcast for 8/1

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. It's August. It's time. We're here. We made it. August 1st, the Fantasy Footballers podcast, thrilled to have you join us. As we count down to the beginning of the NFL season, 2025 approaches, we are five days a week. Football has already started. Yeah, what, I mean, what else is there? Yeah, what a game, too. A Hall of Fame game, I'd say. Yeah, glad everyone came out unscathed.

So, what are you doing? What are you doing? We're recording this early. I know. What are you doing? We're recording Thursday afternoon before the game. You realize who's playing tonight or yesterday. Yes, I do. And they're, you know, these are not people that you want to throw that out. Nah, we're going to be given a solid 80% a drive or two. We're safe here. Okay. Well, they've already seen what happens. Oh, yeah. Or stop talking about it. Or whoopsie doodles. But we have so much to cover. We're getting into our rankings episodes, the top 10 Titan rankings on today's show. We'll count it down. We've got NFL news to catch you up on. We've got a great quick question. We also want to remind you as the NFL season, as the fantasy season kicks off, if you have a league, which, look, we recommend that. It's the easiest way to play fantasy. You do football.

You need a trophy or you need some swag. You need some gear. Every league's got a trophy. Maybe you want a championship ring. You want a belt for the champ. Some other accessories for your league. We always start off the fantasy season reminding you about fantasychamps.com. We have a special code. It is ballers. If you go to fantasychamps.com, you can get 10% off anything over there. So get your league trophy now. Have it ready for your draft. If you're the champ, buy yourself a ring or 10 and put them on your fingers. and bring them to the draft. You can put the belt on or you can put it over your shoulder. I like over the shoulder. And if you want one of the physical draft boards that you put the names up on for a live draft draft. They got them there as well. They do have those. Yeah. So fantasychamps.com use that code. Ballers. We've got the Ultimate draft kit available to you at ultimate draft kit.com. So the value scout tool launching momentarily, which will give you the ability to compare.

what we consider a player's true value to be, which is, you know, based on their draft position. And then you can compare that with all the different platforms that your league mates play on. So they, they see average draft position lists in Sleeper and Yahoo and NFL and ESPN. And a lot of players draft kind of subconsciously, even if they say they don't. When you see that ADP list, sometimes you feel a pressure to take players in certain spots. That's why. We want to give you an advantage, a way to exploit and take advantage of that with the Value Scout tool, another part of the 2025 ultimate draft kit. Here's your quick question of the day. Let's get into it. How much do you guys consider and factor in strength of schedule in your rankings? Not much. When it comes to the actual rankings, I do factor it in from last year to this year and the gap.

kind of the delta between like, did they have a really easy schedule last year and now they're going to a really hard one or a really hard one last year and they're going to a really easy one. You know, Kyran Williams is somebody that's going for a very difficult schedule last season for running backs to an easier schedule this year. Ironically, the previous year, he went from an easy schedule to a hard one. You saw the efficiency dip. But for the most part, when I'm doing rankings, I'm looking at the season. I don't believe we know a lot about how these defenses.

are actually going to perform in 2025 because they're always so wildly different. That's the thing that people need to understand is that when you look at the strength of the schedule for what they had last year, that's all settled. Like we know how good those defenses were. That is a real number. The strength of schedule moving forward is 100% projected. Doesn't factor in the mysterious injuries that are going to take place, all the turnover on defense, the changes of coordinators. So like the lions, for example, got devastated by injuries. including an injury to, you know, their pass rush for Aidan Hutchinson. It's like that's factored into the numbers of that's who they were last year. So that's what they are in the projected strength. So they look like a better matchup than they might actually be for opponents. So the dolphins were difficult to throw on last year for wide receivers a bad matchup. They've lost like their entire second. I don't think they have a single player from last year's secondary on there. So you've got to have some projections. I will say not so much when I make rankings, but when I am drafting,

And we've got the strength of schedule tool in the ultimate draft. If you just pull that up, go to my uticay.com, and you can go to the strength of schedule tool. I like looking at the first three weeks. I know that we might be wrong about whether they are. I agree. I use that too. But I look for the extremes. And I definitely use it on my defenses. Like when I'm picking my defense, like I love Baltimore's defense. I love the bill's defense. They're great. You know who plays each other week one? Buffalo and Baltimore. Like, do you really want to start week one?

playing against either of those offenses? Not really. Right. Like you might avoid Buffalo and Baltimore in your draft just because, you know, oh, cool, I got a great defense. But then in week one, you throw them out there and you're disappointed because both offenses are going to score. I will say like just as a kind of sidebar of the same question, you really want to, and we'll tell you this throughout the season if you're with us, but you really want to start paying attention to strength of scheduled data, you know, four, five, six weeks into the season. with an eye on the playoffs, the fantasy playoffs that is, because you're going to understand which teams are actually improved on the defensive side, look like really good matchups, are weak against certain positions. Like, you know, we've had, I think famously a couple years ago, Derek Henry had this beautiful, you know, playoff schedule. Oh, yes. I think it was Tennessee versus Houston all the time and he played Houston twice in the playoffs. Yes. Something like that, but it becomes very, very important to the way we look at our week-to-week rankings as the season progresses, not a heavy emphasis on the way we look at.

projecting individual players because there is so much turnover. I have two early season takeaways, though, that I will just float to you guys see if you care. Cleveland has a tough time. Yes. Currently, going into this season, the number one easiest strength of schedule for running backs. For the how many weeks? For the first three weeks. The first three weeks is New Orleans, Carolina, and the Niners, which is the Arizona Cardinals and James Connor. So you've got old man Connor who you don't know how long before he breaks down, but you know at the very beginning of the season when he's healthy, that's like a pretty nice opening schedule. Sure. Getting off to a hot start after your draft is so important. Like when you start three and oh versus oh and three, the way you manage your team is just so different. I feel like every time I start. Controlled and not like you freaking out. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's true. And then the other one that I'm a little bit scared of on the reverse.

This is a passing offense I want. I find myself taking them. Everyone talked to Jeremy yesterday. He got this stack in the mock draft. I thought I was, when I went in with the fifth pick, my plan was C.D. Lamb at five, DAC late. But the opening schedule for Dallas's passing, listen to this. They start on the road against Philly. That's going to be not a fun time. No. Not easy at least. Then the Giants, which the Giants as a team are not good, but their defense is good. Then on the road in Chicago, very difficult. They were actually the 32nd worst matchup for quarterbacks last year. Then Green Bay, who was good, then the Jets, great defense. Yeah. I told you I don't like Dallas. I like the idea of Dallas. I like the history of Dallas.

George Pickens, C.D. Lamb, maybe Dak, they can all get it done. But that's an interesting one to figure out. Let's talk some news. News and notes from Around the League. Presented by Progressive Insurance. All right, Juan Jennings missed his third consecutive practice on Thursday due to a cap strain. That is an aggravation of the same thing that bothered him in the offseason, Kyle Shanahan said. So he did have a little troubling. So, yeah, I mean, the Joanne Jennings, like for me to be really excited about Joanne Jennings, I want like a bunch of things to be aligned. Like both calves? No. Or good? No. Well, yes, both good calves. Yes, that's one of my checkmarks. Also just like, you know, Ricky Pearsall, he's getting healthier, getting back into it. We know Brandon Aukes is probably not going to be there for a while. They just signed a pile of depth players there. That means there's one answer.

His name is Christian McCaffrey. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because a big workload. That's what he needs to stay healthy. It definitely is. It needs to stay healthy. Groin Index.com update, Joanne Jennings, who had left practice with a groin injury. Joanne Johnson. Joanne Johnson. The fact that we have a Joanne Jennings into a Joanne Johnson. Yeah, that's on our team. That's on our team. They can't trust me to get that right. That's on somebody out there. Juan Johnson. left with the groin injury but he's already back at practice so he's going to be okay that's because he's a man yeah did a man but probably not when you draft no you probably he could be he probably don't he's a nasty boy you probably don't draft yes yes let me hear the button he's not someone you draft but you i'm paying attention to joan johnson of he has a history of of a little bit of fantasy success in his past like a lot of touchdowns and they just gave him the money

And then looking at the roster of, you know, like Chris Olavay and Rashid Shaheed, just I would leave a little, little open place in your heart for Juan Johnson. Noah, you've always had a place in your heart for him. I sure have. I expected to sign a one-year deal with the Bengals. He had visited a couple other teams. I think we know what Noah Fant is at this point. It is, you know, he joins Mike Gisicki, Eric Al Jr. Tanner Hudson who gets snaps. Do you think it makes the any potential of the the Mike Gisicki auto start should meet Higgins missed time? I think it does hurt. Yes, I do. Yeah, for sure. You're not going to draft no offense. Now you're not going to draft Mike Cickey even lower. He wasn't a draft. He was just pick up and play. On the pickup and play, I won't do that. I think that they'll eat into each other. I mean, it's good for Joe Burrow. It's good for the offense. And it's great. I mean, I love the Bengals constantly giving.

more money to their offensive players and letting Trey Hendricks do not sign Trey Hendrickson please please let us have a terrible defense here's the thing you can get past the point of no return like their defense was all their defense was already the worst of the worst with him you can get to a point where it's just you circle all the way around to where it just like your offense can't do anything if they score on one plate you know how offense how tired the office is going to be but yeah maybe you're right Amir Abdullah the abdulah express himself signed by the 49ers uh he still can play football i mean he's a he's a good third down back latavius murray apparently just retired from the NFL we're announcing i guess this is in here because i think kyle remembered the famous like when you're like i love latavius murray but yeah he is officially retiring it's always interesting when the guy officially retires four years after you thought he retired that's not four he had he had four starts for the buffalo bills in twenty twenty three

Well, that blows my mind. According to pro football reference. 2023. Yeah. The year before last he was playing football? Yeah. Starts. I do remember that. 16 games and four starts. I mean, 79 for 300 on the year. I mean, I still would have retired last year, but you know, you do you. I think that's it by way of news. That was news notes sponsored by progressive insurance. Quote today at progressive.com, progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and third party insurers not available in all states or situations, coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions into our tight-in rankings. We go. Tight-ins. All right. The tight-in position always pretty interesting.

And we get to count down our top 10 rankings. This is our consensus rankings. You can see all of the tight ends, all of our tiered rankings, custom to your scoring system, printable cheat sheets, everything is in the mobile app and on the website for the Ultimate Draft Kit. But, you know, one thing that we should talk about is just philosophically, how do we look at the tight end position, the investment you make in fantasy, you know, the tight end in the quarterback. unless you're in a super flex league. Those are the onesie positions, right? So you always, if you spend a draft pick on a high draft capital tight end or quarterback, it's at the expense of a, you know, another valuable position. You have an opportunity cost. So one thing that, you know, Kyle pulled up for us data-wise was the hit rate for tight-ins since 2019. So if you draft the tight-end, you know, the one, two.

three like the top three tight ends off the board 50% of the time they've been finishing as a top five tight end on the year but if you include the first six like the first six tight ends off the board over the last five six years it's an 80% hit rate that they finish inside the top five so it is a high probability that if you do invest in one that you're going to get a decent return yes but there is a cost right yeah there is definitely a cost and then um You know, we talk about the way our draft strategy is you either invest in the position early or just bail out and just wait. You know, hopefully you find the diamond of the year. There's not a lot of them. But it's also a position that you can, realistically, you can stream it, find guys to give you just a couple games here or there. Yeah, I mean, last year we had Johnny Smith and Brock Bowers that were not.

You know, they both finished in the top five. They were not high draft picks. The year before we had Sam Laporta, so the story there, a couple of rookies in a row. Dalton Schultz was undrafted in. He ended up with the big year with Dallas. Robert Tunyon, back in 2020, wasn't undrafted. Tight in that ends up being, you know, waiver wire picked up. The Robert Tunian year of what, what do you have like 30 receptions and a ton of touchdowns per reception? So. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what your guys' approach is this year, but let's talk through these names. Tell me if these guys are, you know, because obviously we're going top 10. We're going outside that top 6. We're going top 10. And I think just notable to mention here, I guess I'm revealing some of the time, but the rookies are not in our top 10. They are just outside. As in we didn't rank them there. Right. Like in our consensus rankings, they did not make it high enough. Some of it like, like.

Jason and I are more in on Loveland. Andy right now is out. And like I'm, I've moved both of them up to talk about guys who aren't in the show. But they're they're like they're fringe. They're just outside. I think it's important before we get into the, the top 10 to say like the projections that we have. You know, those are kind of those median outcome projections. And that doesn't necessarily. That's why that's why we have the upside meter. in the UDK. So you can look and say, okay, this guy might be ranked two spots later. And you go, okay, but his upside meter is really, really high. It's just, you know, those type of players, when you're late drafting tight ends, you want to swing for the fences. You want to have Mark Andrews' breakout year because, or Brock Bowers, you know, surprise rookie season for being as good as it was versus a piddly poop.

tight-in sixth season because yeah you know we were talking about like okay that titans drafted early they finish in the top six but it's also true that usually almost every year the top two tight-ins matter sometimes three and then when you're tight-in five when you finish a tight-in five you did not move the needle you did not matter you were not consistent you scored more fantasy points than the sixth best tight-in but it didn't really make a difference. I mean, one thing we've done a lot in the past few years, you can look at Chiga Conquo last year. You look at tight-in matchups. You talk about strength of schedule. You look at what team struggled against tight ends. And if you're not holding one of those top three, four, five tight ends, you're certainly playing matchups with players that have opportunities against bad defenses because the defense is, you know, what they're doing against tight ends, it shows up.

seemingly weak in and week out. Some teams just don't concentrate on stopping that spot. They say go ahead, run your offense through the tight end. And we don't care. And we do not care. Like, yes, I think that's a great point of usually there's about two to three teams where you're like, I know that I'm going to be playing my tight end against that defense. Jason, just to highlight it a bit more. So last year, Mark Andrews, tight end five on the year. Right. Tighten five. Hopefully we do not forget, but saying. 9.5 points per game for Mark Andrews. Travis Kelsey, the next. 9.2. Laporte is at 9. Zackertz was at 8.5. These guys are all, you're talking 5 to 10. What was the gap between Ertz and Andrews? One point. Yeah. So, I mean, that tells you a lot. Like, they're all, the whole top 10, they're just, it's a cluster of guys who are really close together. That also means if you spent a top five selection, because it's not a guarantee, if you spend a super hydropic and you get those numbers, it's a bummer. That's a bummer. Super.

Number 10. Tucker Kraft comes in at number 10 on our rankings, just 24 years old. Mike and I love him. Jason and I, or Jason, not an I. Jason, he has a much lower. I think, you know, I'll speak for Mike, but I think we both like what we saw in the field in terms of just explosiveness from Tucker Kraft. This is a passing game where, look, I love Jordan Love this year, but part of the Jordan Love argument is like, hey, maybe we aren't going to be able to figure out week to week, which guy puts up the biggest numbers. But that's okay for Jordan Love. They've got a lot of talent there. He was the tight in nine last year on the back of 707. He wasn't the tight end. People were expecting to break out and have a big impact, right? Luke Musgrave was what everybody expected. He was the chosen one, yeah. Second round, tight end turned into Tucker Kraft and a lot of impressive plays.

He averaged 8.8 yards after the catch. That was two yards higher than any other tight end. So that was part of his storyline. It's one of the things I think people hope Colston Loveland can do with his kind of athletic makeup. But really, really big plays for him last year. He had 17 plays of 15 or more yards on 70 targets. That is a high proportion. Yeah. And just to flesh that out a bit, you have. You know, Travis Kelsey had, he also had 17 receptions of 15 yards. It took 133 targets to get there. Our beloved Trey McBride, he had 21, so he had more plays of 15 yards, but it took 147 targets. The thing with Tucker Kraft is, it is, it takes, it's a projection, but looking, you know, who they have. Romeo Dobbs, he is who he is. Jane Reed seems like he is who he is. Christian Watson is not a factor for this team to begin, and then you're just like, is Matthew Golden,

I know he's the first round pick. Is he ready? Like, is he ready to be one of their top options from week one? Tucker Kraft is so fascinating to me because he, because of the yards after catch, a chance of increased volume here as they're shuffling their pieces around. And he's, he is late. And then on top of that, you know, doing my ADP studies, which admittedly the sample size is not gigantic, but per ADP, Tight ends who break out in year two, drafting them in year three, they are the best statistical bet in ADP. So like when I'm punt, either I take one of the early guys or I'm going with the rookies because they could be a boat. But the rookies ADP is all over the place where we'll have some mocks where they will go extremely late. You'll have mocks or real drafts. They'll go early because people are trying to jump in on the trend. If I'm not early,

Tucker Kraft becomes a focal point. Is that you ended up with yesterday? I went, I went, I had Loveland or Tucker Kraft. And I took, I took Loveland in that one just because one of the, where I see the ceiling case for Tucker Kraft, it's like some, some really good spike weeks. But I finish at, you know, capping out at, I don't know, six or five or something where with the way the NFL has been going in the draft capital of those two rookies, it. It is no longer wild to think that those guys can finish in the top three. When Jordan Love came back from injury, because if you remember, he got hurt and missed two games. When he came back, Tucker Kraft had five weeks where he finished four of them inside the top 10, one at number two, one at number one. Again, part of this is the film. Part of this is just liking what I see from him and thinking that Jordan Love, if Jordan Love threw 35 touchdowns. And that's very possible. Because that's very possible. I mean, he was the quarterback five two years ago with 32 touchdowns. If he threw 35,

I think you're going to get a very plus season from Tucker Kraft. Agreed. I believe that the team is so committed to him, everything that I've seen, they love what he brings to the table. So I, you know, this far down, what's his ADP right now? Let me double check it. He is in the, he's the 12th, tight end off the board in the 10th round. I don't mind. So I've got him ranked as my tight end 19. I'm obviously not as hot and bothered as you guys are. When I look at the film, I don't see a bad player, but what I did see.

was a lot of incredible. I mean, the scheming was great. He had a couple, like a 66 yard wide open. He's just like anybody could have done it, but also he's in that system. And so there's a lot of things to watch for. So you can argue that both ways. Like he had a couple big, gigantic plays. He had a catch of 66 yards and a catch of 67 yards. Yeah. And that doesn't happen for tight ends very often. But those two plays, they weren't him breaking tackles and manimaling people, you know, in some kind of amazing yards after the catch. It was like,

oh the whole defense and offenses on the right and they forgot about craft musgrave remember he you know he was he was supposed to be the guy and now we're like oh musgrave stupid but musgrave got injured all last year we said he was stupid no i'm saying that's how that's how like fantasy community the depth chart has changed the fantasy community is like is acting like musgrave is irrelevant but he missed the whole season but he also did he started the year he played in the first four weeks and the and the The transformation, like week one, 25% of the snaps, week two, 44, and then 56. Meanwhile, Tucker Kraft is a full-time player. Yeah, that's, so I have like... And that hasn't changed in camp. That doesn't change with the way the team is building the offense. If you want to buy into Kraft, he's 24 years old, that's great, he's athletic, that's good, and he's on a great offense. So I don't have any problem going after him, but to me, I see...

not arrow necessarily up because you draft Matthew Golden. Last year you had Dobbs and Christian Watson, you know, missing games. You had Musgrave missed the majority of the season. So they needed Kraft a little bit more than I think they need him this year. But obviously great, great offense, young tight end, broke out last year a little bit. I'm okay with it. But there are just other guys like the two rookies. I would rather have than the it's not that drastically different to me, you know, situation of the Mark Andrews of Hayden Hurst was the first round pick of the Baltimore Ravens. Then they took Mark Andrews. And that's the say they went, uh, they went with, uh, Musgrave and then Tucker Kraft. And I think it, I think they figured out that that craft is the receiver. Yeah, but Hayden Hurst was a ginger. So that's, you know what I mean? Like that's a good player. Luke Musgrave, stupid. Haydenhurst is. Maybe leave. Go, you didn't go back to sleep and wake up again. Jason did say he was pretty tired of any world in here.

Goodness. By the way, tell me a lie. By the way, our fine redheaded friends out there. When Tucker Kraft scored a 66 yard touchdown, he straight up stiff-armed one of the opponents and ran over another one. He put two guys into the ground. He was almost a my guy. Like he was on my board as a my guy earlier this off season. So obviously we're going to be really bullish about him in this argument today. But it is a lot of good pass catchers there. They dealt with a lot of injuries last year. and there's a reason he's sitting at 10. So we'll take a break and we'll jump right back in. All right. I'm looking at the rankings on these guys, the individual rankings on our next guy. And I'm a little shocked. Number nine. Mark Andrews comes in at number nine, a long time staple on this episode, not normally even this low in the rankings. But Jason and I have them right at the out.