Cram session: 7 biggest fantasy takeaways from preseason | Yahoo Fantasy Forecast

Intro [Music] it's Tuesday August 27th I'm Matt Haron welcome to the Yahoo fantasy forecast it is a hell of a day to talk Ball but before we do that I do just want to Matt Harmon shares a personal update address uh the last couple weeks last few weeks on the show here uh I have been missing episodes a lot of people have noticed I'm sure uh I posted about this the situation on social media but if you're not on Twitter uh if you're not on Instagram anything like that I just wanted to talk about it here on the podcast really quick uh my mother-in-law Sylvia Dua passed away um last week and you know my you know this is something we've known about for a long time my wife and I uh my mother-in-law had cancer uh she fought cancer for 20 years um the I I would be remiss in in calling her anything other than the bravest uh and toughest fighter that I know and so again I we found out that she was going to be needed to move to hospice care early in August I flew from the fantasy football Expo flew home uh and then and immediately came out to LA to to be with my family out here to to for to be with my wife who got here a couple days before me and we've just been going through that situation um you know it was a couldn't couldn't couldn't be a better end of life situation for for my mother-in-law obviously it's a horrible thing but shout out to the great folks uh at caring house in in Torrance who took such great care of her uh who took such great care of us in her final few days here um so that that's just been why I've been out and I felt it was important to to share that with the audience because you know you guys hold you guys hold space for me uh in in life in in this crazy career that I get to have and I think it's important to be honest I think it's important to kind of share what's been going on here not making anything mysterious and like I said I've been transparent and open about it on social media the support from people uh on social media and followers and listeners and fans of the show and and fans of my work has been uh nothing short of incredible so my wife and I had are just so so thankful to to people for the support both at the GoFundMe uh that that we posted for Sylvia to support her end of life care and be able to give her the best care possible after a 20-year fight with cancer um and I I couldn't be more thankful to to the people who have supported that but but any sort of level of support people have reached out and and been kind I just it's been it's been very moving I'll just put it at that and for for this show I also want to just say thank you to all of you who showed me grace and patience throughout this and and not being here during what I know is a super important time of year you guys being patient with me the listeners being patient with me has been I'm very very very thankful for it and you know family comes first I don't there was it wasn't a choice right to to take time away from the show it was this was what needed to happen it was what would have happened no matter what but still people uh being understanding it does mean a lot and I also want to thank all of my co-workers here co-hosts of the show for stepping in for me at a moment's notice um you know having that flexibility and and being you know Andy Scott Dalton Tara everybody who stepped in on the show the last weeks has been I'm very very thankful for them and I hope they know how much they that means to me I'm also thankful to the production staff here on the show colen Brennan Brett Raider stepping up to to to move things around for me to my bosses Jason kabaca the executives here at Yahoo everybody's been nothing short of incredible and supportive and I really appreciate that because my focus the last few weeks has been on my wife and on my mother-in-law and I'm very very happy that we were able to give her the end of life experience that that she deserves and that we were all able to be there and I was able to be there for for my wife um on that note we'll get into the rest of the show but just programming note I'm gonna be on this show I will miss tomorrow's show Scott and Dalton's gonna they're gonna handle that while my wife and I fly back home uh to Virginia Beach and then going forward uh Wednesday on I'll be on every show in the host chair as scheduled so just had to say that had to get that out for you guys uh but like I said it's still a hell of a day to talk ball let's get into it uh we have a great guest in Dwayne McFarland let's throw it to him joining me now is I'm gonna say my good buddy Dwayne McFarland from Fantasy Life Dwayne what's going on man what is It's Cram Week on the pod! Time to cram the preseason up Mr Harmon man anytime if I can be called a good buddy by you I will take it um you've got really good musical taste which goes a long way with me um I know I sent you a guy Taylor McCall over the offseason get to go see him uh tomorrow night so I'm super excited you seen anybody good lately uh no I haven't uh actually yeah man it's been a light summer of concerts for me honestly I think the last show I went to was at Super Bowl media week I saw Zack Bri think you texted me about this I saw Zack Bryan that the last show uh I went to which again I will say shout out to Zack Bryan I've been to many of corpo you know I'm not going to say who the the product was cuz they're not paying us to say it uh I've been to many corpo concerts and corpo events I've never seen an artist shell out you know go absolutely ham like for play play an encore and do a cover of a Toby Keith song because he had passed away that week so I mean yeah shout out to Zack Bryan but that's that's the last show I I saw and that was in February so it was a light summer of concerts for you boy that's for sure yeah well you'll you'll get back at it I got to do isbel so that was exciting but I know that's not what we're here for we're here to talk some football so we can jump in uh you know I think it would have been a more pleasant conversation had we talked about uh music for the next hour but alas yes it is down to business baby because Dwayne it is cram week on the podcast here in August this is when a lot of people a lot of the normal well adjusted truly healthy folks are you know getting back into football right they haven't been just living and dying by our content all offseason they're they're they're cramming for their most important drafts this week and that is what we're doing on the Pod this week it's all about cram week uh and today we're g to try to focus on what you guys need to know from the preseason like what happened and we're going to really try to focus on guys who have maybe changed our mind a little bit or maybe moved uh sort of our priors based on their usage performance deployment um yeah again really reexamine those original sances and I could think of nobody better to have on this podcast Dwayne than you because this is your bread and butter man like you've made your name famous and I'm going to say famous in the industry because of your utilization report which is currently every week on fantasy life and you have an article up right now your biggest takeaways from preseason utilization kind of overall but it's specifically focusing on the most important games so that's what we're going to dive into today because you know I I've not been fully dive diving into the preseason so you're going to help me a lot honestly do a little catchup here so but before we do that I do just kind of want to ask What information can you utilize from preseason action? you General philosophy question how do we approach preseason utilization you know what mistakes do we make and sort of just kind of give us the overall rundown of how we do this thing for sure number one it's just another data point in the puzzle right that we're trying to put everything together so you start off in the offseason we care a lot about you know Money Talks so how teams spend their money how they use their draft Capital that really sends us the first clear like kind of transmission of a signal right that we get then we start hearing from the coaches you start getting installed and you're like okay this is kind of nice you know but you're you're following along you're trying to see not not puff reports from beat camps but trying to really hear like what are the depth charts looking like because you there's a lot of situations where like this could be good but we're not for sure like there might be a lot of competition we're not sure how the snaps will you know all break out and then you know we get to preseason and it's really only the tip of the iceberg because some teams don't use it at all Shawn McVey could care less he did not let you know last year that puka nakua and KY Williams were going to be a thing he intentionally smokes screened that whole thing and no one knew that like the beat report knew that puka AA was looking good at camp and they were on that so you have to give them credit but also like then you know every other year there's like uh what was the year before McCutchen was the guy that's now like with the Jets or whatever he had the same publicity but it didn't work so it's nice when we can see it in the preseason but again it's only the tip of the iceberg because these coaches a lot of them with all the joint practices and everything they can simulate exactly everything they want to see from a player right they can say hey you guys give us this coverage we want to see you know can these players adapt can they run these route Concepts and they're checking all these boxes through practice now I think preseason for a lot of these coaches it still is about that the unknown can they go into a game kind of get punched in the mouth you don't know for sure what's going to happen and can like the competitive juices like come out so I think it still matters but it matters more for some coaches than others and sometimes Harmon the people that rest is it's actually more important to know who didn't play than who did and one final thing you know that I'll say with preseason utilization I actually went back and researched my takes for the last two years to say okay like where did it lead us astray where did it help us and what I want to say is for the coaches that do play their starters mostly focusing on when they were on the field with either the starting offensive line so just those series or with the quarterback is what we want to do now it's not going to tell you exactly like you probably don't need to care that the player had a 40% Target share like that's never bad but these are pretty vanilla defenses some defenses are different but main the main thing is we can start to figure out with those teams at least for week one who are pro what the what the pecking order probably looks like so that's most useful in cases where we're not quite sure or where we may have some concerns now the one caveat I'll say is these things you can get them right and if the players don't seize the moment at the beginning of the year things change like by week four it can all be different but I think the best thing we can hope for is to use this information to say okay we have an approximation or a better approximation of how we think these depth charts are going to look for week one for the coaches that still value playing their starters in the preseason but then once the season starts as you know we've got to adapt yeah so many good kind of jumping off points there I'll start with the last one because you posted a thread on Twitter maybe like at some point in the last few weeks and I've mentioned it on the Pod before looking back at preseason utilization data and some of your takes from last year and you know kind of saying like yeah you know the big takeaway is we can get the week one death charts right but this is a long season baby it doesn't feel like a long season it feels like it goes by pretty quickly but a lot can change in the next 17 weeks once the once these players get rolling here 18 weeks I mean my God week 18 how do I not know still that there is a week 18 in the NFL season next 18 weeks a lot can change so yeah like I think Ben Gretch on the PO a couple of about a month ago said you know we don't get we don't win our league by getting the week one depth charts right there's a long way to go after that but it's a really good takeaway of where these players stand I mean and and your point about who plays and who doesn't is also well taken I mean don't worry your boy has definitely been noting Rashad baitman never playing in the preseason that is a good thing for Rashad baitman but still it just depends every team is different every player is different um were there any like before we go into this preseason and some of those takeaways are there any kind of glaring examples from maybe last year that the preseason utilization data Maybe again gave us that clue of where the player stood but it didn't play out over the course of the whole season uh that you can think of from last year yeah so a great example was Travis etn the early pre preseason data told us oh my God like this guy just might have a 70% snap share he did for like six or seven weeks and then they were kind of like h m maybe maybe we should lighten the workload this isn't going as well foren now they had like seven or eight I think offensive lineman play 150ish snaps or more so they had offensive line problems too and etn efficiency came down but yeah again the players got to respond a great one on the wide receiver front Was Elijah Moore he was the top targeted player was playing all the time getting honestly schemed looks like Deo Samuel I know the quote unquote Deo Samuel role it'd be helpful if you're Deo Samuel right it helps if you're going to be in the Deo Samuel role if you're actually Deo Samuel but Elijah Moore you know he's an athlete you know and looking at those first four weeks before or can't remember how many weeks for sure but before deshun Watson got hurt he was the number one target earner on the Browns over that stretch outpacing Amari Cooper was playing all the time guess what he didn't play well so he eventually just got phased out of the offense so those are great examples but I still think it matters because at least in those cases Matt we know really early in the season okay well they had their chance and they didn't do anything with it it's better than man they didn't get their chance maybe I should hang on to them to see if they do get their chance I'd rather just know and I think that's the key you really want to Target so going back to what Ben Gretch said the best mixes are when we get a young talented player that could potentially be rising and we suddenly know they're probably going to have an opportunity to flash right out of the gate because those are the types of players that on your waiver wire they're going to cost you an arm and a leg right or if you don't have the top spot you're not getting them so I really try to focus on those type of players I still give all the context around your Tim Patricks and guys that are complete surprises like he's probably a starting wide receiver for the Broncos do we care that much for Fantasy Football like probably not like if you're in a 20-man league that starts four wide receivers like Tim Patrick Probably sounds pretty good you know in your last couple of rounds but in most leagues that people play in it's like fine we'll pick it up if he does good and he just blows us away that that Elijah Moore Point is a really good one too because that was a new player with a new team and I think they were trying to use him in a role that honestly I didn't even like when they're using him in the preseason people are like oh man he's he's getting all these schemed up touch like this is not really what you want this guy to be doing anyways like you said he's a small guy in Debo Samuel's role that that he's more of like a route Runner that didn't really make a lot of sense to me so but you see him getting that usage and and that seems to be a good signal but again the longer that they tried to do that the returns were not very good on that use of the player so they moved away from it and and that can happen a lot when it's a new player with a new team so every situation it's important to take in the whole context of what we knew before what we saw in preseason and kind of like the balance between the two especially when you're projecting going forward the last little tib that I'll give to people because like if you go over to fany life and check it out it's all free just go you guys can go read it read what you want I've got a summary of the top 10 from the last week I've got one for every week that's up but I look at the at the preseason starters throughout these articles so you'll find some stuff in last week's article we'll have to make sure we'll hit on Nico Collins before we end Haron because I know you're nio Collins guy so I got some good news for you on that one but the one thing I'll say the running backs man so what happens is their preseason utilization gets inflated and if you think about it it makes sense because a lot of times in the preseason you might see two or three series that's a lot honestly guys for the starters to play two to three drives is it and then they'll come off the field now they might do that again the next week but like this week this this this year a great example is Tennessee so the Titans if you look at it at a glance you're like oh with the starters Man Tony Pard 59% or 57% snapshare you know he got 50% of the rushing attempts he's out there 50% of the route participation so someone might think oh yeah he's the clear leader over Taj Spears well when you really go dig into it he played the first drive in in two games where they played their starters two series he got the first drive in both games games Taj Spears got the second Drive in both games guess what Tony PA's drives just happen to be longer than the ones that Taj Spears got so while you might give him a slight lean because he got the first drive and Spears got the second drive like really it's going to be a tight race between those two guys and you could see easily see it flip-flop so people can get it twisted the one other thing with running backs if you think about in the regular season what's the drive you usually see the backup come in and give a breather It's usually the third or fourth drive in the game well by the time you're getting to that drive in the game game the starters are already off the field and then you'll see the second string running back go in with the backups and everybody's like whoa this guy's going to have an 80% snapshare no he's not they just P it just looks that way because they only played the starters for such for such a little amount of time it can inflate running back utilization so that's something to be aware of well let let's Preseason takeaway: Titans RBs are true 50-50 split with upside just transition right into the Titans because that was one of the first three teams I wanted to talk about here which are weirdly all AFC South teams um I wanted to focus on this running back rotation one because I just think anecdotally Tony Pard has looked pretty good this preseason like you know obviously utilization data is one thing but I think it's just fascinating when watching some of these games he has stood out he has been a more explosive player I think in these preseason games than he was for the vast majority of last season with the Dallas Cowboys and I always come back to the conversation I had with Tony Pard in February at the Super Bowl where he said it wasn't until later in the season he said week 11 I believe against the Carolina Panthers that he felt more like his old self now it's noting that he still didn't have these it wasn't as if like oh man he was just a monster after that there were still some not great performances for Tony PD with the Dallas Cowboys but still just you think about injuries and how the body works the longer he gets away from that San Francisco 499ers playoff injury the year prior maybe he can still continue to rise and rise and rise and feel better so I I understand why that makes sense he's just been a player for me that I haven't given honestly much thought about in the in the offseason Dwayne because it's a team I'm not a 100% sure how it's going to go it's a it's a muddled running back committee Taj Spears I think he flashed last year he was generally fits like the Arc Type of back that I'd like to invest in going into his second season but then the PD wrench gets thrown in free agency so really this has been uh honestly a backfield rotation Dwayne when other people want to talk about it on the podcast in in previous episodes I'm like all right sure like you got a Titans running back take like go for it you got a strong feeling go for it but now that we have some preseason utilization data for these two and particular the fact that Pard looks good in the preseason where do we stand on these Titans running backs heading into the year yeah so I think they are very close I think if you think if you again if we want to piece together all the parts to this what do we hear throughout the offseason once they signed Tony Pard they continue to also talk up Taj Spears they also continue to talk about these players as being interchangeable that they can both play on Pass Downs they both give you that explosive upside in the Run game they're going to come out and run more 11 personnel than they ever did under Mike Rael they're Pro they're not going to be like the league leaders but it's going to be a lot more than what we've seen in the past they're going to try to spread things out they're not going to try to use all these condensed formations and that can work for some of these you know smaller backs so I think they are the fit that they're looking for I do agree par does look much better that's one thing that I'm always doing whenever I'm going through this data it's kind of easy in the preseason because the starters don't play long so I mean I watch you know most of the St not a timec consuming activity yes not as timeconsuming as it is in the season where you're like good God you know to the fourth quarter on some of these games but looking at po digree like some of that explosiveness looks back uh looks like it's back but I will say he's had much better blocking than Taj Spears if you go back and watch that week one game you see like Taj Spears like inside the 5 yard line man he makes an awesome cut back to score a touchdown and then I see everybody this weekend Tony Pard came in and stole the carry inside the Five Guys just weird stuff happens let's not overreact I think they're going to use both guys and side the five it would be nice you know if if they settled on one cuz then we could decide okay like this guy's actually more valuable in fantasy football but if you think about it Spears got that carry you know in week one when they use the starters they may have just wanted to see Tony Pard get that carry in this game so he came in and subbed for him but I think you have to be really careful like overreacting to those things but I do think a big takeaway is both players have looked good Spears doesn't look as good on paper because the blocking has not been as good for him he's had guys in the back field quite a bit PD's had a couple of nice real nice runways that he's been able to take off now to your point the good news is he had the acceleration he had that burst that he actually just blew right past the second level Defender and was immediately on the secondary right and making them have to make the tackle which is kind of what we got that's what we had been used to seeing pa to from par before the injury you know with the 49ers so I think they're both guys that you should be looking at and again chaos happens when week one gets here man we don't want anybody to get hurt but either one of these players go down you're suddenly looking at somebody that's probably you know pushing highend running back two status and if they play good enough we could suddenly think okay they're a lowend running back one I will say the final thing man I like the way they're using these guys in the past game a lot of design looks especially to Pard so far this preseason you don't have DeAndre Hopkins out there only one real Target earner in Calvin Ridley so that can change the Dynamics once you get de HW back sounds like he'll be there week one but they do seem like they're potentially going to let those running backs kind of be the quote unquote third option in the passing aim Tyler Boyd obviously in the slot chigo cono like a 70% reputation from from tight end but I think that it's probably Ridley and Hopkins and then the backs so that's an added value when you have guys splitting time especially in a PPR League well that like clicked with me immediately when they signed Pard and you know Spears is already on the roster I'm like these guys are both players you'd probably want to throw the ball to and that's just generally been my thought about this Titans coaching staff is they're going to emphasize the pass game much more than the Mike Vel contingent over the last few years you know this is a team that I think is going to want to be more pass friendly than the old Titans this has just been another layer of confirmation of that uh so it's definitely good for fantasy for these guys I think it's also going to create some layup throws for will Levis who maybe needs a little incentivization to get hey like let's get these layups involved here Will and they don't have a a a wand Robinson type of player who he played with Acky did Will Levis this kind of allows them to have that guy which I think kind of been that guy but I think these guys probably the better playmakers that you can focus on 100% And yeah I think they could be just involved in the past game more than some of the ancillary Titans receivers which is which is for the best like we know who most of these guys are I think Spears and Par there's still something to M there so like overall takeaway Pard was somebody I was kind of drafting around just never really finding my way to to taking him in drafts but the last few weeks I've maybe moved him up a little bit to like okay he's here I will take him because I think in on the theme of getting the week one depth chart right I think we could probably say Pard is the slight 1A of this backfield but it's a long season baby you know uh Spears goes down he could be a clear rb1 on this team Pard takes a step back Spears looks really good like a lot of things can happen here but I think we have a little bit more clarity on these Titans back that Titans backs than maybe we did a couple Preseason takeaway: Anthony Richardson is a work in progress of weeks ago let's stick in the AFC South Wayne and let's talk about the Indianapolis Colts uh who I was going to make the the headline here because Anthony Richardson played the first five drives in week three I would say mixed bag performance over overall some uh you know like I said I've been unplugged a little bit the last few weeks but you know checking in on Twitter every now and again the hyper analyzation of Anthony everything Anthony Richardson does um makes me think two things one my god do we need the real games to get here and two we do it's it's gonna be a long year of just a lot of Anthony Richardson talk uh so that should be interesting but just what was the what was your reaction Beyond everyone's big reaction on social media to what what we saw from Anthony Richardson and the way that Colts offense flowed my big reaction to everyone's big reaction is what the hell did everyone expect Anthony Richardson's Mo I mean we have all been watching the same player right we did all watch the same College film then we watched I know we didn't get a lot last year but I that means you should have all watched him so you know what he is again not a timec consuming activity people it was not unfortunately no it wasn't and the thing is when you look at Richardson and where he goes in drafts we've all already acknowledged this this is why he goes two to three rounds after Josh Allen and Jaylen Herz he has the same rushing upside maybe even higher than those two guys but we don't know what he's going to be as far as a passer and we're assuming it's probably not going to be good I mean I've got him projected for like 3,300 yards and playing 16 games so I mean I don't think he's going to be a great passer now could he surprise us and if he does like that would suddenly unlock you know this quarterback one overall uh you know upside but I think we just need to be realistic why are we double counting this we already knew this I was in a draft that night Haron a $300 draft me and Mr Ian hardit we were Drafting and Anthony Richardson was falling like a rock we drafted him in round eight we didn't had think we hadn't taken a quarterback we didn't go Elite quarterback in the draft we're like okay thank you fantasy guides like we all knew Anthony Richardson was not going to be an elite passer come on of course like this is gonna be a work in progress um at at the best he good throws too by the way like I mean and which was which was the case when he played last year like there were some polariz he is not a he is not a consistently accurate player will he become a consistently accurate player maybe I think generally the league and quarterback coaches have a more Progressive and open-minded view of accuracy than they did 10 years ago you know and I think a lot of that is Josh Allen I also think some of that is Pat Mahomes where he is a more accurate player Jaylen Herz all of these guys are more accurate right now than they were in college and I think and for Josh Allen like the first few years of his career the first few times we saw Jaylen Herz Mahomes is hard to compare to anybody and I shouldn't even just bring up his name but you get the point like we can evolve as as how accurate these guys are and everything but we don't know that that's going to happen we don't know that Anthony Richardson is going to do that that's why he kind of goes in this Middle Ground of the qb1 where yeah if he hits he's going to hit really big but even if he doesn't hit as a passer he's still going to give you fantasy value like that that's just the reality of who he is as a player SE now I think we've seen 21 quarterbacks since 2011 have at least 100 rushing attempts and not reach 3,500 yards passing so basically they weren't good as passers right they finished on average as the qb8 I mean if you run as much as an guys you've seen taes Hill play right some of you remember Tim TBO these guys were top 10 quarterbacks in points per game when they get on the field Anthony Richardson's a better quarterback than either one of those I'm going to tell you that right now exactly and one of the reasons that I have been again open-minded to the idea that Richardson could surprise us as a passer and again so the bar is low because it's not it's he's not been a great you know from a production standpoint from a consistent accuracy standpoint he's just not been a great passer so far but one of the reasons I've thought that he could surprise us is that I like the ecosystem that he is I like Michael Pitman I like Josh dson he's healthy I like Shane Steen I think is one of the top five play callers in the league they have an offensive line that surprised us last year and this offseason they drafted a guy named Adonai Mitchell who is I just I just thought he was the perfect player to drop into that receiver core for multiple reasons he's a guy Dwayne that you highlighted in your week three preseason recap as kind of like potentially a stock up guy you wrote that ad I Mitchell Garner 86% route participation rate 22 % Target share and 21% air air yard share with Richardson this preseason and what I think has been really interesting about him Dwayne is that he has moved into the slot a little bit with Josh DS out but in two receiver sets you noted this as well he's bumped Alec Pierce to the bench which I think was always going to happen that that part I totally get but the fact that they view Richardson the Indianapolis Colts view Richardson as a guy who's not just this George Pickins perimeter X receiver you know running goes and and curls and and Corner routes and stuff stuff that I think is really encouraging if you're looking at him as an upside flyer late in drafts absolutely like so when you look at Mitchell it's encouraging anytime a team is willing to move someone around the formation that means they're grasping the Playbook it also means that the coaches right are doing a good job of balancing things out so that the player can expand and do the things right that are going to make them successful on the field I think I think some coaches are guilty and Andy Reed can even do this like he'll go in and throw the whole Playbook at some of these guys it's like hey learn position and they're like whoa and they just drown right away you know now some of them get it and they figure it out and that's kind of Reed style we're not going to question any re a great freaking schemer right and he's got Patrick Mahomes like we just love that whole offense but I'm with you on Shane styken I really like this I think it's also nice to see like if you get Adan I Mitchell even just for some plays in the slot getting potential mismatches with linebackers and safeties having to deal with this man and his speed and his athleticism and his size it's going to be problematic for defenses so I think once you get Josh DS back though and he primarily becomes your slot guy and to your point if ad Mitchell can be more than someone just running these go routes and you can be working him in route Concepts in combination with either Pitman or Josh DS because they really don't have tight ends that they're going to prioritize you know they don't really prioritize the backs in the passing game so I think a lot of it's going to go through these three guys I think that there's a lot of upside here and I my argument is like look guys why are we taking him so much later than lad makoni okay we yes we know Justin Herbert's a better quarterback than Anthony Richardson right now we're no debating that but it is Jim Harbaugh it is a situation where we know they might run the ball as much as any team that doesn't have a scrambling quarterback scrambling quarterbacks are always going to bring those teams even further down in the in the passes because dropbacks turn into scrambles right that's going to happen with the Colts but when you look at the Chargers for not having a scramble a quarterback it won't surprise me like if they're they're in the bottom 10 and pass it to maybe it won't be as some Extreme as what some people say but the Chargers passing attempts are coming down and lad makoni hasn't been playing in two wide receiver sets this preseason now that doesn't mean that's a lock but they like bigger they like bigger wide receivers on the field to block in the Run game well what does l makoni not have size so my only point is like look I could easily see a scenario here where ad Mitchell outscores lab makoni this year and this guy's going four or five rounds later in fantasy drafts I moved him up inside my top 120 this weekend after just review everything for the preseason with Mitchell he's the kind of upside swing I want to take we don't know what's going to happen for the season but I feel really good that I get a player with upside that's going to be on the field week one two and three and I get to find out what they're worth and if I hit great if I don't I still made the right kind of Swing to try to get that upside onto my team yeah and most importantly at least in my opinion most importantly to this lad makoni ad Mitchell comparison that you're making here I had these guys graded and ranked in the same tier as prospects like like it's not as if that and I I think makoni was more discusted maybe and and probably more he's the better rout Runner of the two but yeah yeah yeah but like I think he was he was the he's the better route Runner I think he was a cleaner Prospect from a film evaluation standpoint but I really like ad Mitchell I thought he had the skills to to definitely win out as a perimeter receiver at The X the ceiling skills but also like you know when he first was starting to get slot receiver reps I had a lot of people ask me well you know does that really make sense and the whole thing it's like you definitely saw him mostly only do X receiver stuff last year at Texas which is why I think like his you know per route metrics his you know team context metrics were lower because he was playing with a volatile quarterback and he was mostly running vertical routes As an X receiver but from a movement skill standpoint I do think he can win those one-on-one slot receiver matchups in a way that like I'm not saying ad Mitchell's GNA become CD lamb but in a similar way to cidd lamb that yeah CD Lamb's A Better Man Press coverage beater than the vast majority of players that have his type of deployment and that allows him to have these you know just layup catches for Dak Prescott I mean nobody like fewer connections were more electric than Dak Prescott and cidd lamb on slant routes from the slot especially against these man coverage looks and I think that Colts can maybe see that in a similar way with ad Mitchell and all of this comes back to Anthony Richardson and like how do we make this guy more consistently accurate give him guys that can separate and get open which I do think ad Mitchell can so um he's definitely a player that I've given a bump up to uh I'm still a huge Josh DS guy another player that I graded in this same tier as Prospect I like down too yeah like it's just it's a really interesting offense which is why I think I think people sometimes get twisted though like they'll be like well how can they all succeed we're not saying they're all going to succeed might only be one of we don't have these guys all ranked as top 30 players exactly and and the point being is that sometimes we just have to have a little humility and be willing to mix up like which one we would draft like it might be Josh DS that hits it might be ad Mitchell that hits it might be those two guys that hit and Michael Pitman takes a step back we really don't know for sure how it's going to work out but what we do know is we like both Josh DS and AD Mitchell and we think they're going to get playing time early in the season and right now ad Mitchell's the healthier guy so I think he has the better shot week one to shoot out of a cannon whereas Josh DS is probably still going to be like 80 90% coming back from a high ankle sprain so when that stuff all gets mixed together I'm like okay I'm going to lean to ad0 Mitchell doesn't mean I like him more than Josh DS like long term but if I'm just trying to figure out what's going on and have one guy that might be a shooting star out of the gate I think ad Mitchell is like the chip that I placed down yeah um Preseason takeaway: Brian Thomas Jr. is ready to roll I'm a sicko and I will definitely be dialed into that Colts week one game against the Texans trying to just see what this offense with Anthony Richardson looks like um let's take another little view of the AFC South here and talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars and talk about a rookie who I think I always had I I well I know I always had ranked ahead of consensus and I think other people have kind of come up on on Brian Thomas Jr here with the Jacksonville Jaguars again from your utilization article you noted the deployment for Brian Thomas with Trevor Lawrence on the field uh Brian finish Brian Thomas finishes the preseason with an 81% route participation rate with Trevor Lawrence you also noted by the way and I I loved your blurb on this just Gabe Davis hasn't left the field with Trevor Lawrence's pre season which not surprising and also not really sure we we should care because we know who gave Davis is but Thomas is a guy that I think he just fits up he fits perfectly into sort of the upside of the unknown in this receiver room um so again I you can feel free to disagree with me on this I always had Brian Thomas ranked a little bit ahead of consensus a guy that I really liked drafting in the mid rounds preseason usage on him uh has he changed your stance on him at all kind of changed your mind or were you always kind of in on Brian Thomas I was always in but the utilization just continues to make me more bullish like I think he probably ends up around 85 90% route participation when you think about Evan Ingram and Christian Kirk and the way they get deployed like Ingram's basically running the underneath stuff so when you get all this Zone coverage he's running the drag routes and all that athletic tight end then they're working in behind him with Christian Kirk more of a vertical slot guy a lot of in-breaking routes and then when you think about what Thomas can do his biggest question mark like on film in college and like in his data was like his work in the intermediate area of the field but he's another one of those guys had plenty of short stuff and I felt like he had the body movement that you're talking about like he could still sink the hips do a lot of things he just wasn't asked to do all those things in college but when I look at it and I think about those two guys I'm like we know what Gabe Davis is he's gonna go out there and run gassers and mostly not be open but the guy that could truly uncork this offense if they truly want to give Trevor Lawrence this chance to get things finally going it is Brian Thomas Jr he is the one that could be the straw that the drink and with defenses early in the season probably focusing on those other two I think we could see a super hot start like would you be surprised if week one it's like Brian Thomas five targets four catches 80 yards and a t like that feels like an easy week one statline and then it's just like potentially up from there so yeah I absolutely love him I've been drafting him I just keep taking him sooner and sooner and sooner I feel great about him yeah I'm at a point right now where I would just straight up rather have Brian Thomas and Christian Kirk like regardless of ADP even I don't take Christian Kirk I let him go so I can just take Brian Thomas yeah I've never I don't think I've clicked Kirk once this offseason he's generally just been a guy been lower than consensus on um because a lot of it is I just think that Brian Thomas is going to bring a lot to this offense Uh current Yahoo 8p Brian Thomas's 90th overall wide receiver 40 um I'm taking him there pretty much every single time because there just not yeah there are not many better ceiling bets in that range so yeah I think we're on the same P here Dwayne we already like this player uh we like just how he fits in this offense and preseason has been a bit of a confirmation to that idea we're going to take a quick break we come back we're highlight three situations that at least for me I'm kind of definitely ready to change my mind on or at least want to question my priors right after this all right we're back something I'm definitely ready to change my mind on is the Patriots quarterback situation Dwayne and this is classic offseason so let's just let's just paint the picture all offseason at least me I'm not going to say you but at least me and I think a lot of other football people that I pay attention to listen to have just said man Jobe brette is the best Bridge quarterback you could probably think of um he's H played well in in chaotic environments he's played well in clean environments over the last couple of years Great Bridge quarterback they can just play him let him take the lumps and get Drake May some experience on the bench some growth some development they don't have to throw him out there to the Wolves early on and it just that sounds perfect like in an Ideal World right guy like Drake may people say he needs to sit you got a bridge quarterback who can allow him to sit great perfect perfect perfect Rosie offseason picture then you see these two guys on the field and like again I still like jacobe brassette but I think it's been a rocky Preseason takeaway: Drake Maye needs to start right away road this preseason and and look that it's preseason okay that's not everything like I said I still like jacobe Brett is this less about him and more about you see Drake May out there and again preseason the Nell defenses the whole thing whatever I'm not even going to say it's going to be perfect and it hasn't been perfect with Drake May out there but he just gives the offense life and you're suddenly like why don't we just throw this guy out there and see what happens so uh again that's sort of my journey with the Patriots quarterback situation and I think the preseason Dwayne has has has sort of moved my opinion on what the Patriots should do with their quarterbacks early in the season at least yeah and so like from a fantasy perspective we definitely want Drake May on the field he's the only guy that can honestly uncork anything in this offense right now no nothing meant towards jacobe brassette but it's looked terrible now the coaching staff they watch the the practice every day and they continue to say that jacobe looks like the better player the problem is your offensive line is terrible and jacobe Brett at this point in his career is a statue and what we've seen with Drake may even though he may not be able to understand what all of these exotic looks will be once the once the real season starts probably more likely just to go out there and throw a pick six right away when he gets some of this stuff mixed with pressure but he's been able to handle the pressure he's been able to use his mobility and Escape ability if you will to maneuver in the pocket by time to hit big plays down the field he had another one this weekend they got called back due to penalty so a lot of people didn't even see that play So he has shown that and he is good on the ground so if he does escape the pocket and there's not someone to get the ball to which let's be honest it's probably going to be the case a lot with this receiving core uh this season he can at least scramble and he can at least maybe pick you up a first down you know and get you know get six seven yards and get out of bounds and get you that first if you look at you know his college data he was behind only Jaden Daniel in design Rush attempts and scramble rate in college so this is a guy that you can use to also at least make the defense have to defend a potential you know option play you know where he can decide is he going to keep it or is he going to hand it off up the middle and I think that any you can do like that when you've got an offense that honestly is just so weapon starved like the Patriots I think that's what you need to do um I do understand the sentiment that well are we gonna get is he gonna get David card if some of you have don't know David car he's D car's older brother Fresno State quarterback he came to the Houston Texans when they were an expansion team was thought to be one of the best prospects you know in a while and he was the first overall pick and he got obliterated as a rookie because they were an expansion team they didn't have an offensive line you know they were literally picking over from The Leftovers of the rest of the league that people had to expose off their roster and so I maybe there's that concern but here's my challenge with that Harmon you know what's going to happen in New England come week four they're 0 and four the fans are going to be foaming at the mouth for Drake May and it doesn't matter what your plans were to start this season you're going to get forced to start him sooner rather than later anyway so unless you're really going to have the resolve right the intestinal fortitude to say we're not listening to that and we're sitting Drake may all season because we don't want him to die just start him just start him out of the gate and it's again it's I I I believe that in practices jacobe brassette looks better you know when we're not really pressuring the quarterback we're certainly not hitting the quarterback um but then you get against still vanilla but live defenses in the preseason and I always come back to the quote that Sigman bloom had with Andrew luck in his rookie season he always said he looked like a guy that was Dro Behind Enemy Lines and just like okay shoot your way out like and I do think Drake May is going to be dropped in a lot of those Behind Enemy Lin situations and having to shoot his way out the thing is though he can do it like you see him do it the preas you he he has he can at least do it it's gonna be a gonna be a tough fight there's no question about that but he can actually get it he has the tools at least to get it done and for an offense that is so weapon starved for an offense that's not going to be able to protect that's probably going to be in some not advantageous situations because of where they are as a team I think having a guy like Drake May with those tools gives them a little bit of a better shot just to create things on offense that are not going to be there from a play design standpoint number one and number two certainly not from like a player execution standpoint but before we move on from from the Patriots here I agree with you Drake May would become an interesting fantasy quarterback because of the mobility if he hits the field but is there anyone else in this receiver room that sort of stands out as like okay well if this offense GNA be more interesting under Drake May do we care about any of these receivers yeah I think the the ghost of Bill bellich is still hanging around or something because we've got KJ Osborne and tawon Thorton still getting the you know the first drive who are we kidding we know who these players are guys they're not they're are not GNA be the guys that are going to carry your offense anyway you're gonna you're gonna need to let Jaylen p and I don't know that Jaylen P's gonna be good but you need to find out you need to go ahe and put him on the field you need to let Javon Baker get out there demaro Douglas will play the slot I think he's going to get his targets right A Matter Canen he stay can he come up with many touchdowns long plays I don't know I like him fine in a PPR full PPR but I really think pul and Javon Baker one of those guys have to step up because we know what all these other dudes are they're they're not good enough to go out and earn Targets on their own they're guys you might be able to scheme up for a little bit but for the most part you're just you can't constantly be having to do that to try to get players open they've got to be able to go out and win some on their own and at least your young players give you a chance I will say on a positive note pulk rotated in on the second drive and the starters played the first six drives the offensive line is what I looked at cuz brassette got knocked out in the middle of the second drive and it was Drake May from there I mean he got obliterated like I mean it was almost that's the closest thing I could see to like a closes line like in the middle of a a WWE match I mean he was on the mat Gerard Mayo said he could have come back like dude you're an absolute Gladiator jacobe Brett if you could have come back in a game from that hit it was brutal but they got to get the young guys involved I am interested in your thoughts like on that have you seen anything with pulk or B Aker um I've heard of some of what you said but I'll just give the floor to you on those two guys and if you were to pick one to potentially emerge maybe in a few weeks once the season kind of gets rolling and they're F like whatever we're not starting KJ Osborne because that day is coming yeah it would be pulk you know I think those guys again they were in the same tier as prospects to me I say that a lot uh which is a pulk went in the right place I think in in the draft I think Baker went too late uh now I think Baker i' I've seen people say you know again just casually looking at stuff like oh well this is a bad sign for Javon Baker because he's you know taekwon Thorton's goingon to start over him if if that's still the case and by week you know 17 18 whatever maybe then we can have that conversation is that possible you can you could you could print out the the YouTube thumbnail and eat that if that's the we'll go we'll go with that uh but yeah I would be stunned and then that would maybe be a bad signal for for old Javon Baker but he's definitely someone I'm keeping kind of another football guys quote I'm keeping him on waiver wire speed dial at least uh with with with Javon Baker but he's the one that could be the straw to stir the drink totally because he stands out he can be a big play uh guy he's a one of these things doesn't look like the other even when we're talking about uh the the rest of the receiver room so that's why I've been interested in him that's why I I was interested in him both in the draft and then especially when the Patriots took him but pulk I do think is a good player and I think will have a week one role and probably a bigger and bigger role by week three week four week five Etc he's somebody I've been willing to take late in drafts I don't really take Baker at least in a typical redraft league but again waiver W speed dial for him uh let's talk about Pittsburgh Steelers uh you know Russell Wilson I think we've gotten we just very very briefly because this is a thing I think people would miss in preseason Dwayne um you know Pat fmuth goes in kind of that range of the of the drafts Preseason takeaway: This Steeler has serious red flags where it's like okay I didn't take a tight end early but fire mov pretty solid I'll go ahead and take him as backend tight end one and expect like usable production at different points in the offseason I was a guy doing that uh don't love what we've seen in the preseason where Pat fouth as you wrote in your article he posted a 50% route participation in week three he now sits at 60% for the preseason with Russell Wilson on the field and that is one thing we've definitely gotten from preseason Justin Fields is still Justin fields and Russell Wilson is at least going to start the season and probably have a I would say a decent leash in the first month of the year at least but again so that it's important that Pat Frou with Russell Wilson on the field 60% route participation for the preseason JN Washington played 100% of the snaps with Russell Wilson in week three uh that I actually kind of saw coming but I didn't know that this guy and of course bro he's a maing blocker he's a Ming block of course Arthur Smith is gonna like this guy because one he's a mauling blocker two I still like am interested in Darnell Washington if like hey you just have him run a route out out in the flat nobody's going to be covering him he's massive you throw him the ball and like he can break he can break some tackles out there so I guarantee you Arthur Smith probably walked into the interview with Mike Tomlin in the Pittsburgh Ser like man I got some plays boys I got plays I got some PL yeah fire I'll figure that out George Pickins I'll figure that out but this guy Washington I've got some plans and some plays for this guy so that wasn't surprising me but the downstream effect is that fouth is a guy that I think has become a little bit of a shakier bet at tight end yeah so I also write a summary if you guys you know Matt's talking about my total recap where I write up my notes for all the games look at the data I watch the film on the starters but I also have my abbreviated version that's up on the site too it's just the top 10 for the week and I have the top 10 for the week before you guys can check them out but the title number four is fouth and it just says gtf Pat fouth like I'm done like I'm out I mean I'm not drafting him there's just no point we're already talking about an offense that what at its best we hope throw for 225 yards per game the only way something can be good in that kind of format is if you have a complete dominating player like so George Pickins could still end up being valuable because he's fallen so much on this Brandon iuk stuff he he could still end up being a value in fantasy drafts but Pat fryou there's no way if he's going to play 60% of the snaps it's not going to work out and again the thing here is we're getting this signal in the preseason we've heard it some from training camp and it's also Arthur Smith's MO so that's when these things all stack up and you need to go ahead and put a stake in the ground and just say I'm not taking everyone say it with me I'm not drafting Pat Fruth there's no point Life's too short for this man we don't need to do this we have other things that we can be doing in our life and I don't want to deal with it I would take Tamm Hill straight up over him if he's eligible for tight end in your fantasy league so the the best thing he on Yahoo now I believe he is he is on Yahoo now so there we go I don't know why I'm fist bumping I just wish all the sites were the same so so that I I would know how to handle all these questions uh but the big thing is we have Arthur Smith he likes to make up all the me likes to mix up all these Personnel packages Matt and you've seen it we've seen it for years 12 Personnel Prat Pat F Mo not getting out there nope want the big Heavies want the big dogs out there for that 21 Personnel you want your best blocking blocking tight end on the field Pat fu is not on the field for that and then an 11 personnel kind of the obvious more obvious passing formation or or formations out of 11 Preseason takeaway: Two guys that need to be higher on your draft boards personnel that's three wide receivers Pat fou only at 53% of the snaps so if Pat farmouth was at like 80% and 11 personnel you might be like oh well game scripts will force them to throw enough maybe I could see away but with this no man I just there's no point in drafting Pat FR MTH right now um and even if this all ends up being wrong and he plays 100% of the snaps in week one How concerned are we really that Pat fouth is going to be the reason that we lost our fantasy league just there's no point there's no point yeah he he was like a potential boring floor play at tight end like I can just get some points and get through this but now yeah that floor has just been ripped out uh from under him yeah before we get to the mailbag uh portion of the podcast Dwayne uh are there any other players that we need to discuss from preseason uh that that I may have missed from your re most recent articles yeah so I would say a couple things like um Nico Collins I I was a little torn I've always loved niik Collins I love them last year but I wasn't sure like what was going to happen because they rotated their wide receivers so much last year but whenever you look at this utilization you know in with the with the preseason starters and it's in my last week's utilization report because they didn't play their starters this past weekend Nico Collins man 93% route participation this dude was barely at 80% last year and this is with the addition of Stefon Diggs who was at 86% tank Dell was at 64% so the way I look at this one now I'm I'm much more willing early in the off seat I was kind of like man I really like Nico Collins but I'm not so sure should he go two rounds ahead of the other guys cuz I don't know what I I like the talent not for sure what the coaches are going to do with this but seeing this at least I know the ceiling is there and I I feel good enough after they paid him and then seeing this that they do believe he's their number one right and I think they're going to treat him as such now it may not be that spread apart they may be closer than this but at least I know that range of outcomes is there so absolutely love Nico Collins he falls in into round three on Yahoo quite often like that's a smash Nico Collins in round three baby like give me that all day long um the other one I would say he would be going to you know the Buccaneers Bucky Irving man I moved him inside my top 150 uh he and you know tank bsby are two of my bigger movers you know this preseason at running back bigsby's not in the top 150 he's just the clear backup again right now to to Travis etn but man Bucky Irving looks good he does the things this coaching staff wants this coaching staff has been writing Rashad white about hey man be more decisive stop doing this Lev on Bell crap where you sit back there and wait around and invite a linebacker into the hole and then you bounce to the other one and not to say those things can't work but that's not what they want they want a guy that's going to get downhill quick you go watch Bucky Irving in college and then go watch him in this preseason and guys there was some good blocking against some second string defenses I'm not going to lie but the guy's reading the thing right and he's doing what he needs to do he's got a nice burst immediately people will tell you though Matt you know how it goes 192 lbs man ain't going to happen and you're like okay Jamal Charles was 192 194 when he Ed the league left it at 199 Austin Eckler was under you know 195 pounds when he entered the league he ended up being a full-time back at some point so I I think and Kiren Williams last year and no one cares about Kiren Williams being small this year aan last year you know last year so I mean the League's changing and so you need to be open to these type of players so when I look at Bucky Irving I think one something happens to Rashad white he is the clear-cut number two Chase Edmund going to IR but I think he could also be a sneaky bet to suddenly push for more work from Rashad white if he doesn't do the things the coaches want and there is a range of outcomes somewhere in there where they're like you know what Rashad like take a back seat we're just going to give this guy more work so I want to draft players that have a lot of outs like that and I really like what I've seen from Bucky Irving yeah he is definitely a player I've risen on as well in the preseason and Bucky Irving he's he's come up in my rankings he's been a player I've been trying to take late in drafts now uh and on the niik Collins thing yeah that was that was that utilization is about what I expected uh but again that confirmation has not forced me to change my rankings but just made me feel more confident in my ranking of Ni and where he goes yeah I'm I'm trying to take Nico because ni does go next to some other players we really like like Jaylen waddle so I mean you have choices there so it is nice to go ahead and get this confirmation like you know the players good but just to get a little bit more to know okay I'm not going to be stuck probably in a complete three-way committee between these receivers they're going to go ahead and feature him on a downto down basis all right let's take one final break and wrap with a couple of fantasy mailbag questions all right welcome back we know Fantasy mailbag for everyone listening to this pod that you are likely in some of your most important drafts maybe right now but certainly in the next probably few days next week we're here to help so welcome to Fantasy mail bag You've Got Mail goodbye first one comes in from Shawn who sent in this video what's up Yahoo mailbag this is sha and NorCal I've been blessed with the number one pick in our 14 team PPR points per completion QB premium scoring league if you had the number one pick who are you going with I'm thinking Mahomes cuz I think he led the most pass attempts this year thanks in advance okay Dwayne love this because they did not send this in while they were driving which I mean Andy a problem for you guys yes apparently this is an issue uh please do not record videos while you are driving don't don't do that Andy had Andy had a great thing on it a few episodes ago shout out to Andy for that so appreciate that Sean that's great uh okay so this is a interesting League format here Dwayne points per completion league but it is 14 teams full PPR they're leading Mahomes what do you think man and it's not super Flex or anything but it's just points per completion so you got to think how how many how many quarterbacks do you think are going by the time it gets back to this guy it's a great question see here's the thing people don't always adjust to these rules and sometimes you think they're going to and you make this bold pick like this and then it gets or over adjust you know and I think sometimes people that's the thing is I think sometimes people over adjust where and I this happens a lot with six point per passing touchdown leagues which this is not that but it's a still the same kind of principle here is the quarterbacks are getting a scoring boost and a lot of times I mean at least this is how I've always approached us like yeah Pat Mahomes is getting a Sixpoint passing touchdown boost but so is everybody else so like do are we then over quarter acquisition raw completions aren't really the differentiator for quarterbacks it's the yards that they get from the completions right so you could honestly argue that this scoring role actually helps some of the Lesser quarterbacks right it's all relative but sure you know I I struggle with these kind of things like I like the Bold take if you told me that like quarterback passing yards were going to be for every 10 like a running back for a receiver I would say Patrick Mahomes in a heartbeat he is the favorite to throw for 5,000 yards if you got to pick a guy CJ strad would be second on my list sure um so yeah I'm down with it but I'm kind of contrarian I would probably take something different and assume that my league mates and I could be wrong are not going to overreact to this and I'm still getting something really good uh in round two but I hate to take someone off their dream man if you just love Patrick Mahomes it this is enough of a reason to take him number one if that's what you're looking for yeah I mean here's the deal last year the top two quarterbacks in completions were Dak Prescott and Jared gof and like I guarantee I'm telling you it's not I guarantee you those two guys are not going I don't know if they're both especially because it's not a super Flex only one quarterback's going on every team I think there's a good chance one or maybe both of those guys are still available to you when it comes back on your next pick so I'm not going with Mahomes here I would just take take your reg like you like mcaffry number one you like AB Hall you like one of the receivers it's a full point PPR I'd probably just still make take mcaffry number one because that's who I'd take number one and keep it moving okay now it is 14 teams so I did note that so if they do all follow the trend you could there's a chance you're sitting there and you're like wow 20 guys are gone and I hate Matt Harmon and Dwayne McFarland oh I mean shoot then you know what Sam Hal was fourth in completions last year this is my point completions aren't the differentiator man Tua Tua is it was fifth like some body's making it back to you that's going to have a weird amount of completion so I would try to hack the scoring in that way okay let's move on to the next one uh Tom sends in this voice memo let's hear it is hero or zero RB strategy still viable wide receivers are seriously steamed up these days and RB value has plummeted both in fantasy and real life does zero RB now put you a considerable disadvantage when choosing a roster cheers thanks so much Dwayne zero RB here RB still viable or how do you approach the position in drafts yeah so um I wrote a complete strategy article on the studying all the adps from all the sites including Yahoo Yahoo got preferential treatment in that article guys that's actually I built all the examples around was for Yahoo um but hero is my favorite this year but actually in real managed drafts the players that are falling too much right now are actually the wide receivers this so I'm good with going with a hero RB build um I'm not going zero unless you play in a league that's three starting wide receivers and like two Flex full PPR and here's the key guys you know your league better than me you know how the other managers in your league behave if they love wide receivers and all these values we're seeing on all these different sites aren't going to be there then fine feel free to go zero but I have built you know I've simulated tons and tons of teams to try to come up with this strategy for this year based on where ADP is I'm going hero and I've actually recommended to people you can go with believe it or not two running backs to start your draft and here's the reason why you're getting Malik Neighbors in round four guys you're getting rasid rice if you take him two rounds early in round five rased rice is probably not serving a suspension and they've not moved enough in these ranks yeah you're telling me you play on Underdog news travels fast I get it you a zero RB build is very viable on Underdog and I've drafted a lot of those but in home leagues man my son Matt I gave him this strategy guideline we had a little pre-talk for an hour the dude came out in a full PPR and he drafted Christian mcaffry at the 101 he took Derrik Henry Marvin Harrison Jr Jaylen waddle came back to him this is a 12 team League Jaylen wad comes back to him he gets Malik neighbors those are his two wide receivers and his Flex has two running backs comes back gets David and joku and tank Dell I mean and then still stacks on Romo dun to the end of this thing like his wide receivers are loaded and he got the two running backs so what I see in most home leagues is running backs actually continue to go too early so what I would rather do is grab two or one for sure that I like because what I don't want to do is feel I've got a reach for Rashad white in round four no I can't do it I don't want to do it I like Joe Mixon I don't want to take him in round three of a fantasy draft I would rather take kyen Williams in round two then have to take Joe Mixon and round three so I've been trying to avoid at all costs being in any kind of scenario where I would have to take a running back basically in rounds four through six because I don't like them unless their name is Kenneth Walker Jr I do like him there we go uh honestly I don't really have anything to add to that because that is generally how I've been building teams uh as well man um real quick do you did Chief sign jujis mster this morning um don't care yeah only 27 man like I do you how old how like he's the new Amari Cooper he really is well except well sorry I'll be nice you know yeah I'll just leave it we'll be nice here um I'm Gonna Save this third mailback question actually for tomorrow's show uh because it's a Bree hall question and I want to hear Dalton delon's answer to it so I'm Gonna Save that one but for now that was great appreciate that a lot of good insight there from Dwayne especially about the rishy rice thing I think people could take that take that heart heading into their drafts uh just the the structure of the receiver position man is so interesting this year it's it's fascinating I agree with you that receiver value is still to be had in Nico in round three yeah like these these these Yahoo adps I definitely think you can still take a lot of advantage of falling receivers and I'm with you like if Rashad white Falls I'm willing to take him but only if he falls and that's kind of the cliff at the running back position to me where I don't want to be taking these next few guys so I we're generally building teams the same way Dwayne McFarland and I think that's good for the listeners to hear remind to all of you out there the fantasy mail bag is open for business the rest of August be sure to submit your questions via voice memo or video to Fantasy mailbag at yahoosports.com we're going to try to get to as many as possible here before week one kicks off and on that note week one as you know is less than two weeks away alarmingly it is rapidly approaching and as you also know from my many many ad reads we've got a little thing going on with NBC Sports this year if you sign up for a fantasy league on Yahoo fantasy you are going to be automatically entered to win $1 million that is a lot of money $1 million if any of the players you start score touchdown in the week one games on NBC and peacock you're going to earn bonus entries into the sweep Stakes deadline is rapidly approaching September 5th so get in a league draft some players from those games and let's just see what happens a lot of good players available in those week one games on NBC and peacock so let's get to it that's going to do it for today Dwayne McFarland appreciate you joining us uh let the people know where they can find your work as we like I said rapidly approach week one yeah man head over to Fantasy life.com you've got work from myself the great Ian hardit we've got Chris Allen we've got a great team over there if you like this utilization stuff I do that all through the season you have complete access to that article for free you can check out all the preseason stuff of course we've got rankings tiers all that stuff that draft strategy that I mentioned that's also not behind a pay wall it's completely free and I've written out strategies for every position so yeah just go check it out over at fantasy life.com love it Dwayne uh you guys do excellent work there you do excellent work so definitely endorse everybody going to check it out on Wednesday this podcast continues cram week Scott and Dalton are gonna step into the host chairs and they're gonna share one fantasy item you need to know for all 32 teams I am devastated to be missing an all 32 teams podcast but uh like I said at the top I'll be back fully in action going forward from there those guys are going to kill it appreciate all of you listening until then we're out