Year 2 Breakout Candidates | 'NFL Fantasy Live'

game in NFL history. C.J. Stroud certainly broke out as a rookie. I guess they can thank Lovie Smith for that, though. Oh my God. Well, there is a lot of things that were unfolding, but I, I also think like the Texans were in a pretty good spot. Like I understand like it looks great, but the Texans did a really nice job of roster building. Have a lot of good wide receivers and offensive weapons. So that was part of it too. Absolutely. But the C.J. Stroud ends up winning the rookie of the year, and we're going to find some guys that we think can break out in year two. And I want to start with a guy who was taken just before C.J. Stroud in the draft, and that's Bryce Young down in Carolina. Obviously, the rookie year not great. Not great for the Panthers, for Bryce Young in particular. But the Panthers really went out this season and made it a point to upgrade everything around Bryce Young. Obviously Deontay Johnson sort of the headline move for fantasy purposes at least they drafted Xavier Legette. They go get Jonathan Brooks. But they also did a job to upgrade their offensive line, adding a couple of pieces in free agency there. And then maybe the biggest move Dave Canales now comes over as the head coach. The guy who was going to run the offense. And we've seen over the last few years what Dave Canales has done, helping Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield to some of the best seasons of their careers. So there's definitely excitement that he can do the same for Bryce Young. I really believe they regret sending D.J. Moore to Chicago instead of Brian Burns. But listen as a bears fan, I'm very happy and I'm also happy to be getting shares of Anthony Richardson in drafts this season. I know I'm playing fast and loose with the term second year breakout, because a lot of people are excited about the small sample size that they saw with Anthony Richardson last season, and I think it's going to continue into this year. One of the big things that we really didn't get a real glimpse of last season was him working with Jonathan Taylor, and I truly believe that the two of them are going to end up being a great tandem. I'm really excited about Anthony Richardson, except the draft price keeps getting steeper and steeper, way steeper as we get closer to the season. Looking at the running back position, I'm excited about Chase Brown in Cincinnati. We saw a little bit of him late in the season, but obviously Joe Mixon had the position on lock, but he's a guy who is explosive. He offers more receiving upside than Zach Moss who's going to split opportunities within that backfield. You look 14 catches on 15 targets. Last year. Moss had 27 catches all of last season. That was his career high. So I think you're going to see Zach or rather Chase Brown be more of the pass catching back. And he's going to be the guy. I think that really has a good chance to break out in this Cincinnati offense. You know, I'm going to go with Tyjae Spears and anybody who follows my work on NFL.com knows that during my state of the franchise piece, during the off season, I was kind of like out on the Titans running backs and I'm still sort of out on Tony Pollard. But as we've gone through the draft year and I've seen Tyjae Spears fall down around 9 or 10 and coming off the board somewhere around running back 40, I'm like, okay, now it's getting ridiculous. This is this is too good of a price for a player behind a pretty good offensive line, a team that I expect to run a lot. You know, coming in. They've got that offense that Mike Shanahan offense coming down. So for me at the price where I was at before, I'm kind of back in on Tyjae Spears. I like Spears was just sort of disappointed when they bring in Pollard because they do so many of the same things in that offense. Speaking of guys breaking out in an offense, Jaxon Smith and it was not the rookie season we would have wanted from him. They used him as a short yardage receiver most of the time. I would say it's frustrating in fantasy when your guy catches the ball in the blue line of scrimmage, line is still on the screen. That was a lot of what happened with J'sun last year, but now Ryan Grubbs is running the offense there in Seattle, and there's talk that he could sort of play kind of that downfield role that they used at the University of Washington. I think by the end of the year, we're going to be talking about J'sun having taken over that wide receiver two spot from Tyler Lockett. Very excited. And I love the draft price on him right now. No, I love his his draft price. And I also love the fact that Josh downs is going undrafted because he's had some injury concerns. And I think for a lot of people who like Anthony Richardson, if you don't get to stack him with Michael Pittman, I truly believe you're better off just picking up Josh downs. Perhaps if there was an IR spot, depending on your league classification, having him on your roster because he feels like the guy who has the most chemistry with Anthony Richardson last year, he averaged over 12 fantasy points per game in his first eight, and now you're getting him at such a tremendous price. And I think again, with Jonathan Taylor being back, it really opens it up for the wide receivers. And the good thing about the Colts, they don't really have a tight end who's going to take some of those inside routes that we're watching right here. So I think Josh downs needs to be on your roster. If you have Anthony Richardson, I do like Josh downs. Speaking of tight ends though, I'm looking into Luke Musgrave and I know we talk about the Packers and that wide receiver room and how there are four guys there, and you got to figure in Luke Musgrave as well. But early in the season he was sort of their tight end one. Now he had a lacerated kidney that put him on IR midway through the season, and he really didn't get back into the swing of things late in the year when he returned. I know he's going to be battling there with with Tucker Craft, trying to figure out the how things work. But I like him more often than than, you know, the other guy in green Bay. Plus, Jordan Love showed that he likes working his tight ends in last year before he got hurt, Musgrave third on the team in targets. Jordan Love sixth highest percentage of targets to the tight end of sorting quarterbacks last year. Marcus, I got to apologize. I thought this was an all AFC South conversation. I'm just stacking guys right here. Josh Wylie actually is a pretty surprising option. This is one of those players that after I get the tight end that I truly want, I try to I try to add him on really deep benches, like really deep benches and for me, I think that he has a lot of chemistry with Will Levis. I know that he was probably working with him on the second team last year. They got a little bit of juice together, so when these young guys come into the league as a tandem like him and Will Levis have done, you got to take advantage of that. Yeah, I, I like Josh white I think as a deep as kind of a deep pool. That's a D. Yeah. It's a deep album cut there. Find his second year breakout at tight