Sleeper Picks + Preseason Battles

in Austin Echler. Echler, rightly so. His ADP has been on an absolute rocket ship. He's up, you know, like fifth round, six round. Justin Jackson has seen a rise in his ADP, but he's still chilling at the back of the 10th round. We already know who he is when he had the opportunity, or when Melvin Gordon got hurt, and then he was getting some snaps because Echler was the guy. Echler also got hurt. They went full workhorse roll with Justin Jackson.

16 for 58 with a touchdown 3 for 27 through the air. I mean, not outrageously great numbers, but he played 75% of the snaps against Kansas City. They already trust him in that role should it arise. ESPN reporter Eric Williams is talking about in practice. It's a 50-50 timeshare. Now, it hasn't been that in the preseason. I think it'll be close to that in the regular season. I completely, I'm on board. Right. That's what Eric Williams is fully convinced.

that it will be closer to that. The preseason snaps have been heavily in Austin Eckler's favor. But what if it's closer to 50-50, and you just spent a back of the 10th, early 11th round pick on a running back for the Chargers? I mean, that's incredible value. Like those guys, and you draft Justin Jackson in the 11th, Melva Gordon signs right before week one. No harm, no foul.

move on, go grab another sleeper off the waiver wire. But what Justin Jackson could be in those first eight weeks is an incredible steal in draft. And I would say that strategy holds for Tony Pollard as well. And there's no harm, no foul. Your 10th round picks, more often than not, they're going to bust. Like, you know, Cortland Sutton.

He's in the 10th round. He could be great. He's coming into year two. He's got, but he could also just be irrelevant. Joe Flacko's number two. Everybody you're taking in those rounds has enormous risk. So the upside for the beginning of the season to have Tony Pollard or Justin Jackson. It's the running back depth argument. It's the tips and tricks show where running back depth is dumb until it's not. If you have that guy on your bench, what, 33% of the first round has been injured over the last four years, maybe more.

There are opportunities out there. Might as well pile up on your roster. Now, I'm going to close out our sleepers. I feel like I've been in the office mosquito with this guy just pestering people's ears for the last couple weeks. He's been written in here, and the news lately has been very positive. It has. But I will warn you before I get into it. The player's name is Darwin Thompson, running back Kansas City Chiefs. I'm worried about the average draft position of Darwin Thompson.

I'm worried about what you might have to pay to believe what I'm saying. But right now, ADP of 1008, I'm cool there. Darwin Thompson provides incredible upside, in my opinion, on the best offense in football. Yesterday, the news came out that he has leapfrog, Carlos Hyde in the depth chart, a sixth round rookie. People want to say, well, there's not a lot of draft pedigree. You're not wrong. But the sample size of what scouts got from Darwin Thompson?

To go on, to draft this player, it was minimal. He played one year at Division I. He averaged 6.8 a carry, but he did it in, what, the Mountain West. Right. So they've got to see him flexing on Instagram and a year in the Mountain West. And he fits this system, and he has passed every eye test that I've watched every snap of preseason of Darwin Thompson. I've watched a lot of camp film of Darwin Thompson picking up the blitz.

Here's some quotes from the team just to give you the context. You can buy into the hype or not. Andy Reid, he's able to see the Blitz, which is a big thing for young guys. Good vision in the run game. Pretty good understanding in the past game. Really focused. No nonsense. He made a play in preseason where he ran this route. I don't know if you saw the open field catch 20 yards down the field. Yes. I'm trying to think of players that I know they can do that. And it was Darren Sproles and Tariq Cohen came to mind. I mean, he's a smaller guy at 5-8, but he's 200 pounds.

He's about 12 pounds under where Damien Williams is. And this offense is so opened up. This offensive system with Pat Mahomes and how accountable you have to be on the back in the secondary affords. I think the reasons Damien Williams was great last year. All of those. Yeah, all those reasons. Sure. I mean, if Darwin Thompson gets an opportunity to be a significant piece of the offense, which I now believe is a real possibility, you get him in the 10th.

round, the 11th round in a lot of home leagues, the last round, the last pick. Nobody knows the name. Nobody knows who he is. Sixth round pick. I just really am excited about it because I think he's the most purely talented player on that team. He does not have the experience of Damian Williams. He will not supplant Damian Williams in his entirety. I don't think there's any situation where a healthy Damian Williams is cast aside for some kind of workload for a 5-8, 200-pound back. It's not going to happen.

But it's in the same category of Tony Pollard, Justin Jackson, late-round guys, attach them to an offense. Their running backs coach comes out. He says, look, he's strong. He packs the punch. He can protect. He can run routes. He can run the ball. I'm happy with what we have. And then to go and place him above a veteran like Carlos Hyde. I'm optimistic for the future of Darwin Thompson. I am. I want him in my leagues. The leap-frobing, league-frogging of Carlos Hyde.

That's the big deal to me. Because, like, Andy Reed, is this a leap throbbing situation? No, I said, how dare you? A frobbing was my flub. Okay. Andy Reed is, he is true to his depth chart. I mean, you saw this Cream Hunt's, when they drafted him in the third round, they moved up to get Cream Hunt. They were crazy excited about him.

But Kareem Hunt became the starter because Spencer Ware went out to a season-ending injury. The same thing happened last year. Once Kareem Hunt is off the team, they go to the carcass of Spencer Ware, and then he gets hurt, and that's how Damien Williams was able to come in, and he shined in that system. Carlos Hyde never made sense to me on this Kansas City team. The dude, we have just a huge sample of who Carlos Hyde is. It's a fine running back.

great earlier on in his career, but he's never been a good pass catcher. Yes, he had the year where he was with Kyle Shanahan, and he told a lot of receptions, but he was very inefficient doing it. Another running back, like if that was Darwin Thompson with those receptions, the results would have been a lot better for your NFL team. Carlos Hyde is the running back equivalent of his former teammate Michael Crabtree. He is hanging on with nails and fingertips to the remaining.

moments of his career. And the whispers that, I mean, they started a couple weeks ago that Carlos Hyde may not actually make this roster. That was, that was a bit jarring at the time because Darwin Thompson is a sixth round running back. It was a long path, it seemingly was a long path for him to have some relevance. But that path has been, he hit the shortcut. And he just, he went right around Carlos Hyde. So I'm, I am.

very on board, even though I love Damien Williams. I'm very on board with grabbing Darwin Thompson late in your drafts. There's some news this morning. The Redskins turned down a trade from the Patriots for the first round pick was offered for Trent Williams. Wow, that stinks. That breaks. My heart frogs for Trent Williams. And I want him as an Arizona Cardinals fan and somebody that wants to protect the life.

of Kyler Murray, I would love to get a left tackle in. You're just concerned with his well-being, not so much the success of your hometown team. Now, here's the thing. Would they turn down a first round pick from the Cardinals? Because the Patriots' first round pick is not quite the same as the Cardinals' first round pick. No, they wouldn't. They wouldn't turn him down. But then the Cardinals would have to go pay him, right? Sure. Big time money. He should be paid big time money. He's one of the best left tackles in the league.

Their response was that it wasn't enough. I'd be curious if the Cardinals came out and did that. That would be a welcome site for David Johnson truthers out there. Before we close out, I want to jump into a couple mailbag questions. Mailbag. All right, Mason. I went with the guns today. If you didn't see it. If you didn't see it on YouTube, which you can, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. Mike was doing the...

When did the sound effect for a gun turn into blocka blocka? Oh, I don't know, but it was a great moment in history. Those were guns, but they were like jazz guns. I mean, you brought them out like in. A little more J.B. Jack Black style. Okay. Mason and Charleston wrote in. He says, I'm completely new to fantasy this year. Welcome to the show. He wants to know. Should the bench be filled with only running backs and wide receivers at the draft?

Yep. Pretty much, yes. I mean, when you draft two quarterbacks and two tight-ins, usually you're wasting a spot, especially with tight-ins. I can't imagine a situation where I would think I really want to take two shots at, you know, two shots at crappy tight-ins. Or I've got a great tight-in, but you know what? I want another crappy one. Like, I can't imagine that situation. There are situations in certain leagues where taking a second quarterback.

Would make sense. Yeah, if you're in a 14 team, 16 team where the depth that quarterback is going to go down and you can't get that full stream of the waiver wire where there's four to five options every single week, then yeah, I'm fine having two quarterbacks and streaming between those two guys. And know your league because you could be in a 12 team league where everyone drafts two quarterbacks. Somebody takes three quarterbacks and whatever. Or if you draft Andrew Luck because he's dropping.

late and then you want to, you know, I've talked about that stacking Andrew Luck and Josh Allen together. There are reasons. But for the most part, almost every team I ever draft. One quarterback, one tight in. Dylan in Maryland, does it concern you at all that it's been pretty silent hype train wise for Josh Jacobs? Even Hard Knox has had zero screen time for him. And, you know, they normally try to exaggerate players flashing in camp. Nope. I mean, if you're HBO, would you rather spend time?

on their safety and Antonio Brown, who are absolute characters and great television, or Josh Jacobs, who, even though he's a freshman running back, maybe he's boring for the screen. I mean, they're producing an entertainment show. So, no, I, I've, Josh Jacobs is great. Tommy in Chicago, full PPR, would you be all right going Juju Conner at the turn? Yes. I would, I would be okay. It's like a nightmare for me.

Two players that I'm below ADP on, put them both on my team, on a team that I'm below that I don't believe in as much because I believe the Ravens and the Browns will be better in that division and now give them both to me. It's funny because obviously, you know, part of the narrative when we've talked about the Steelers and I've been pro Steelers, you've been the beginning of the end for the Steelers, is the clear and obvious.

reality that look you lost Antonio Brown and you lost left belt like these hurt and then I was talking to Mike the other day I was like it like watching hard knocks and see what did they really like could this be a positive situation for the Steelers to have lost those two the personalities head cases I mean obviously you lose a lot on the field but like maybe it was just a good move from a good organization to say I'm willing to move on Antonio

I just think it's going to be interesting to watch Juju develop because this is not as simple as people want to make it. He ran 59% of his snaps out of the slot last year. He's trying to move to the outside and be the guy on the outside. Generally, I mean, we saw this with Adam Thielen towards the very end of the year, lower amount of snaps from the slot over the back half, lower target share, lower opportunity in the offense. Juju's...

A super talented player. I just think he's one of the guys that fits the very, there's variables in play that aren't there for some of the upper echelung players. It doesn't mean that, I mean, if you want to choose him over OBJ, like I'm not going to, like, go ahead. OBJ's got his own variables. Juju's got him. But he's not in that category to me of, of, Devante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones. So.

It'll be interesting, but please don't put these guys on my team. But if you want to take them both, I know these two guys will be thumbs up all the way. We want to thank today's studio sponsor, Pristine Auction yesterday, and Eric Ebron signed Colts jersey went for $49. Go to pristine auction. Register a free account. Use the code ballers. Let them know we sent you. You'll get $5 towards any sports memorabilia purchase. We do live shows throughout the summer. We got one on Saturday. And we always, three or four people are always bringing some of their pristine swag.

Such incredible deals. Just register. Use the code ballers when you sign up. And a final reminder, I mean, this is go time. Saturday is the biggest draft day of the year. Our League of Record Draft is on Sunday. We will have some footage of that draft to bring you. Indeed. And this is the time to get into the ultimate draft so that you are prepared for that draft, have the app, be able to mark players off. See, every little bit counts. Pro tip.