Sleepers + Buy or Sell, Goin’ Deep! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/26

I guess I've cooled on Michael Pittman in terms of carving him out above Paris Campbell. I think Paris Campbell's skill set might fit what Philip Rivers does, you know, pretty well. So if you made me choose between those two guys right now, it's almost a coin flip for me. And I'd probably choose Paris Campbell. So, yeah. I would still choose Michael Pittman out of those two. But the Paris Campbell hype has certainly.

brought some doubt to Michael Pittman as a rookie wide receiver breaking out this season. All right. I'm really excited about each of our individual sleeper picks on the show today. We have gone a little bit deeper with these three picks, trying to bring you some names that maybe you have literally not heard of that could have an interesting role this season. But they're pretty deep. And I wanted to bring forward a couple of our UDK sleeper picks as well.

sleepers, breakouts, bus values in the ultimate draft kit. And so these are our kind of more consensus three names. And then we'll bring our kind of individual three names. The first one we're talking about because, look, if there's one camp situation that everyone's paying attention to, it's Antonio Gibson, running back, wide receiver, hybrid weapon.

for the Washington football team. Yes. Third round draft pick, Mike is living in a sea of emotion with Antonio Gibson. Look, I've got Twitter search for Antonio Gibbs. I got this thing on refresh like every three seconds. Well, yeah, you are. I need all the Gibson news. You are hype maximum. Yes. But Antonio Gibson is one of the names that I think we all agree is a sleeper pick. Like regardless of how you see the season,

the range of outcomes, which I think are vast for Antonio Gibson. He could be a player that goes from predominantly a special team's weapon to all the way, because of the depth chart in Washington, all the way to like the most valuable fantasy asset on the team. And I do mean that. Like that is a possibility. Yes. Explosive player, multifaceted skill set, great wide receiver, but a rookie.

Yeah, I mean, it's in Mike's contract. We had to bring his name up on The Sleeper Show. It's like, okay, if you want to get into athletic profiles, everyone fell over themselves once they saw what Jonathan Taylor did at the Combine. Like I said on yesterday's show, the comp for Jonathan Taylor is the Hulk. Antonio Gibson.

was step for step with Jonathan Taylor. He is a gigantic man for a running back, 6 foot, almost 230 pounds, and ran a sub for 440. What was Darren McFadden's size? Because that's what he kind of reminds me up in terms of stature. You can, I don't know off the top of my head. He was, oh, okay, McFadden was even bigger, 6-210. But you're talking about a taller running back, yeah.

Antonio Gibson is 228 pounds. So much stouter than Darren befitting. You said six foot, right? Yeah. Okay. So here's the deal. Here's why I love Antonio Gibson. The situation in Washington in the backfield is completely unknown. The skill set for Antonio Gibson is they honestly, it wasn't known what position he was going to play in the NFL. When he was drafted, yeah, it was, okay, we're drafting him as a running back. But.

We didn't know. You had to follow the news to know, okay, what position are they actually going to put him at? And they decided to go with running back. If you go and look at his college production, it is absolutely insanity. The guy scored a touchdown, like every fifth time he touched the ball. He is running with the ones. He's doing different things with the ones. Yeah, but I'm saying he's playing with the first team. He's catching the ball. He's running. I want to check in.

With you, Andy, with the drumbeat that has happened for Antonio Gibson, I don't mind at all people taking a late round shot on Bryce Love. Have you changed your stance? Are you still more of your looking to draft Bryce Love? Here's what I believe. I believe Antonio Gibson will receive 25% of the running back snaps in Washington. Okay. And then take that for what you will, what you believe about.

his involvement role, explosive plays. I think he'll get about 25% of the snaps over the course of the year. I think Adrian Peterson will be in the 40% range. I think J.D. McKissick will be in the 20% range. And I think Bryce Love and mostly Antonio Gibson fill up the rest. What do you believe about the offense? What do you believe about predictability on that snap count? There you go. So I think that, you know, when you have Adrian Peterson in front of you, who's older, you have an opportunity.

I don't know if this team, Ron Rivera, the way he talks about Adrian Peterson, you look at the example that Adrian Peterson has been around camp. Adrian Peterson's yards per carry went up year to year in Washington the last two years. I don't think that we, you know, Rivera's not looking through our lens. He's looking through the lens of the example of Adrian Peterson and what he's done. So I don't know if the season goes really bad. Let's put it this way. Okay. If they're a terrible team through the first eight to ten weeks.

That back half of the year could be gold for Antonio Gibson. Okay. Jason, I see you kind of thinking, sitting. Shifting in your seat a little bit. Disagreing. Well, I was unsure where you were going to land here because. Sadness. Fury. I actually think you had me in a lot of what you were saying, but I think if the season goes really bad, very, very poorly, they might just run.

you know, through Adrian Peterson and keep going. I think if their offense starts clicking and things start working and they get explosive plays from Terry McLaurin, they might try to get Gibson more and more involved and open things up and not be a conservative team. If they're wanting to be conservative, that's where I think they'll run Adrian Peterson. Well, I mean, it's just my logic of they're going to start this season. Adrian Peterson is the starter. He's going to get the majority of the work.

So they're either going to succeed with that recipe or if they fail, then they shift and they look more towards the future. We talk a lot about my kind of thought that there are no teams that are actually looking to the future in the NFL. It's not like the NBA where you come out and you're like, man, we're definitely competing for the... Trust the process. Yeah, trust the process. It's mostly coaches that don't want to get fired that year. And there are a couple of teams and you brought them up, Jacksonville, Carolina, and Washington in particular, that looked like...

It is a process. It's going to be more than one year. But I just believe Ron Rivera really likes Adrian Peterson. And so that concerns me with the upside. It's tough because he loves all of them. Oh, yes. Every player on the roster is a full three down back. Ron Rivera is not helping. Do you believe he loves J.D. McKissick? I believe that he likes him. Yeah. I don't know. This is the fun part of fantasy. I mean, he's a sleeper because his upside is.

Mike dancing in the streets for 14 of the 16 weeks this year. Look, guys, I don't even know what we're going to do with you. If week one... I won't be here. I will have ascended. You will have... I will turn into light, and my physical being will no longer be a part of this planet. I just cannot imagine. I don't know what our CGI capabilities are back there, Al Borland, Judge DiMati. But if in week one, Antonio Gibson has like two long touchdown plays, I want to see if we can make Mike look like...

John Travolta from that angel movie or something. I want him glowing on the other side of this screen. No CGI necessary. Yeah, I guess that's true. We don't need to do anything. Mike will come in just an aura. Two other names from the UDK. Chris Thompson running back in Jacksonville. He reunites with Jay Gruden, who had him in Washington. Ironically,

Chris Thompson was kind of this role that we kind of see Antonio Gibson being in Washington, which is third down, explosive big chunk play guy, tons of targets for Chris Thompson throughout his career in Washington, also tons of injuries. Yeah. But we had Leonard Fournett be this first, second, third down back in Jacksonville, and here's Chris Thompson. Do you believe he takes the majority of the work on third down?

Yeah, I think he's coming in to be the third down specialist, the pass catching back. And, you know, Leonard Fortinette had 100 plus targets last year. They throw it to the running back. Minchu will dump it down. And they brought someone who's better at that skill. You know, I talked about believing in Boston Scott as that PPR third down option. Chris Thompson is better than Boston Scott. Chris Thompson, James White, Boston Scott is the order I would put them. Okay.

Would you? Personally. Chris Thompson, James White, Boston, Scott. And is that considering draft position as well? Yes. I'm saying that's the order that I would draft those people because of where they are in the draft. So you're pretty bullish on Mr. Chris Thompson, which makes sense. He's our UDK sleeper. He's a very good player. If he's healthy, he's going to be relevant for fantasy. And maybe you only get five or six weeks and then he.

pull something or break something unfortunately because that's been the history. But I'm fine. When he's out there, I think he's going to be catching the ball a lot. Here's what I like about Chris Thompson is if you look back on his past three years, he is solid for fantasy in those first games and then the injury happens. And even when he comes back, he's still not at full strength. But those first few weeks while he's healthy, like you said, last year, people may not remember.

Three of, or two of the first three weeks, he was a top 20 running back for fantasy in Washington. They were bad last year. Breaking. Perhaps you don't remember that part. Chris Thompson is the perfect player to draft late. And then if he hits on week one, maybe we even want to wait until week two, you trade him. Because somebody, maybe even the person who drafted Leonard Fournette is like, oh, crap.

I need to get this backfield completely shored up, and I got to draft for Chris Thompson. He is the perfect player that you draft him late and will be able to have trade value just a couple weeks into the season. Now, Jason, you're taking a Rule 34 approach to Chris Thompson when he's out there, when he's available. You're willing to play him? Yes. If he is healthy, he should be good. I don't expect him to.

necessarily stay healthy. But the nice thing and the reason that I put him first is not because he's not going to be better than James White on the season. I don't expect that. But Chris Thompson is absolutely free, undrafted in many leagues. He's costing you nothing. And to start the season, you'll have an asset that can be used or traded. All right. One more UDK sleeper before we bring our individual kind of deep sleeper picks here. Alan Lazard, wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers. Long live the Lozard King. Yes. Hail.

We have Lazard pretty much locked in to be the wide receiver two behind Devante Adams. If you look back at his game longs last year as he was kind of establishing himself a little bit. Yes. You know, his fantasy relevant weeks were the weeks he scored. But that is something that, you know, Aaron Rogers, if he likes you, it can end well for you. Yes, this is follow the narrative of what happened last year.

Alan Lazard was not a full-time player until about halfway into the season. All the reports were Aaron Rogers told the staff, I want Lazard out there. Now, I don't know Aaron Rogers personally, so I cannot confirm nor deny that this actually took place. But we did see that Aaron Rogers was willing to go to Alan Lizard on very tough throws. And Lazard came through with several highlight plays.

They didn't do anything in the draft to address the wide receiver two position, which we thought Green Bay may do. Should. Fair and should have done. Look, but it spoke to the confidence in Alan Lizard solidifying himself as the wide receiver two. The drumbeat for Lazard has been growing louder and louder over the course of training camp. Does Aaron Rogers in this offense have enough to sustain two fantasy wide receivers?

that remains to be seen. That's the question. That's what makes him a sleeper. He is the number two wide receiver. I think we're all assured of that. But does it matter? Does Aaron Rogers number two wide receiver? And that sounds crazy to think it doesn't matter. And, you know, last year the number two didn't matter. But it was split. You know, they tried MVS. They tried Alan Lazard. If he's got 16 games of being the number two.

hopefully Aaron Rogers has a good enough season where that matters. There is a chance where they're running the ball so much and Devante Adams is inching towards 200 targets and the wide receiver 2 doesn't matter. But in general, Alan Lazard is the wide receiver 2 for a Hall of Fame quarterback who's been good at fantasy for the majority of his career. We only saw a little peak at higher snap count Alan Lazard at the end of the year. The last three games over 70%.