NFL Training Camp Updates: Key Fantasy Football Injuries & Depth Chart Surprises!

hello and welcome in to another episode of the fantasy football forecast I'm your host Trevor Scott coming at you with another solo video and for this one we're going to get into the camp notes we've had a lot of new headlines coming out of training camp and so I think it's important at this point to go over all of these new updates that we're getting and try to make this a weekly thing where we try and go over the week's news um we're going to talk about eight new situations here a couple of them are superflex related so I think uh hopefully a lot of you will be bearing with me on that uh cuz we did get some quarterback news that I want to go over and without further Ado let's get into it so the first thing that I want to go over is the puku a KN inury um he's been labeled week to week but I'm not entirely sure that this is as serious of a KN inury as we initially thought it might be when you hear week to week it can get scary um we did get an update that it was a BAC issue and that it's nothing structural uh but I will say with a first round pick you don't necessarily want injury concerns surrounding that player right so for me I'm going to be pushing down puka quite a bit until we hear that he's back in practice or until we hear that he's going to be a full go for week one um I think that might go hand inand a little bit with the fact that Cooper cup is also lighting up camp um so again I don't know that the Cooper cup thing should necessarily uh knock down pukan AA I think that you know they could just be running through uh Cooper Cup's part of the Playbook during his time lighting up camp so I wasn't going to downgrade puka because of any of the news R cup I will though move him down because of this knee injury I think depending on how risk averse you want to be um I'm probably going to move him down to like wide receiver 13 for the time being you know right before Drake London just after Brandon iuk um and obviously we might be getting news on iuk I'm not going to cover that in this one uh we're going to wait until we hear official news on that one um but you know if you want to be even more risk averse than that I could see moving him down you know below like a DJ Moore down to like dvo Samuel somewhere in that area you know 15 16 17 any anywhere in that area I think is fine at this point for puka um if you want to be risk averse now this could be one of those things where you know he ends up being fine and he ends up performing and this was the time uh in draft season to be able to get puka at at a discount but I'm I'm going to be passing on him I already was kind of thinking he was a little high I had him ranked at wide receiver eight he was usually going ahead of that um but I am really concerned here about it affecting not only his availability but also his his Camp reps he is a second-year player you know getting into the swing of the offense again getting your footing uh you know kind of starting to put together your uh second year preparation I think is all important early in training camp and throughout training camp and he's not going to have any of that time afforded to him anymore so I do think think uh that I'm going to be hesitating quite a bit more on puka deua than I was uh before I heard this news um the second piece of news that we got uh at of camp this week was and within the last day or so is Christian mcaffry has a calf strain um they did tell us there's going to be no preseason work but I don't know if that really tells us anything I I really don't think that that's going to really impact like what we should think about maccaffrey because he's not going to play in the preseason I think it was he wasn't going to play in the preseason anyways you know I don't know that he really needs that work he's a very proven commodity he's one of the best in the league he's one of the best to ever do it um so you know maybe he was going to get a driver or two in the preseason so that part of the news story doesn't really mean anything to me um and I I think for now we're going to just leave him where he's at uh in his draft spot you know maybe he ends up falling to the third overall pick you know maybe the two receivers CD lamb and and Tyreek Hill go in front of him but I I don't imagine he's going to slip past three and my guess would still be that he goes first overall maybe you pick like Josh Allen in front of him in a superflex league A couple of the other quarterbacks in front of him in the superflex league um but overall I still expect him to be a first round pick across the board and until we hear anything more significant about this um I don't think it's going to affect his draft stock um at all until uh if and until we hear something more severe um so at this point right if you're not a super flag drafter and you have found our Channel and are watching us this is probably the section of the video where you might want to like skip a couple players because we're going to get into B Nick and into Sam darnold um and those two guys are not going to impact your draft um at all if you don't play in superflex but for our superflex audience let's get into these two quarterback situations um and so kicking it off with Bo Nicks right he got listed third on the depth chart and I don't think that this is smoke right that was my note on this I think that this is a good thing for the Broncos to have put out I think it would be good for the Broncos if he is not their starter in week one and they listed Jared stum who is the quarterback who came in and played the last two games after they benched Russell Wilson last year and so we did get a look at kind of what the offense would look like and another year if he is preparing to be the starter and he's getting all the first team reps I think that you know he can be serviceable in a way that I was very afraid Bo Nicks wasn't going to be able to I was I was concerned that Nicks just wasn't going to be an impact player at all and that he was really going to be a drag on the skill position players in the offense uh but now I genuinely feel like for courtand Sutton that's going to be a big uh not a big boost to his value but I feel much better about his ADP where he's going and I feel like I can put him back on my board um you know we're going to we're going to release our wide receiver 26 to 40 and Sutton's not anywhere close to that I don't even have him in the top in my top 50 um so now I might push him you know back into the top 50 and feel a little bit more confident about drafting him in the 11th round of drafts so um overall a little bit happier about the Broncos offense obviously javante Williams is the main other piece there Julio mcclaflin maybe to and a draft type of thing so I think javante maybe is a Little Bit Stronger of a pick than we otherwise would have thought with B Knicks and you know STM is going to be able to get him the ball in the passing game maybe a little bit more too so um I'm I'm not rooting against B Knicks again I think it's just from a fantasy and objective look at what their offense is going to be I think under stum at this point in the season where we're at right now is a much better uh situation for all of the Broncos skill position players that you would be considering drafting um and then the last one on this slide right is Sam darnold listed as uh qb1 for the Vikings I think this one is bigger news for 12 team super Flex leagues um then maybe it's going to get credit for because if he's going to win the job at a camp he's going to be super Flex relevant right there's a situation where he could get drafted as QB 27 he's performing as qb8 and he's just all automatically a starter in 12 team leagues uh faster than we would even expect so um I've been resisting darnold as the starter just all off season I thought with all of the draft rumors around JJ McCarthy right that Vikings were going to try and go up to four and then they kind of figured out through the draft process that there wasn't really a lot of other buzzz around McCarthy there weren't other teams necessarily trying to trade up for McCarthy so they end only ended up having to go up one spot to get him but the Vikings and McCarthy were tied together the entire pre-draft process I just assumed that that was going to mean that they wanted to turn the keys over to him as soon as possible and so to me I thought you know look McCarthy's going to come in he's going to be expected to be the starter and you know when we get this first depth chart information that darnold isn't going to keep him out of that spot you know darold's not a special enough player to keep him out of the spot but I have been proven wrong right so far on the draft um or I'm sorry on the initial depth chart and so I really think that darnold uh in this system right oconnell in the Vikings system is very good for quarterbacks you saw what it did for even like Nick mullen's last year right Kirk Cousins before he went down um so I I do think that there's upside here for a guy like Sam darnold who can come in and Veteran presence and has always had pretty good talent this is going to be the best situation I think that he's going to be the starter out of camp and obviously you got a couple starts with 49ers so like that's a little different but um this is something that I could see possibly working out in uh in his favor and for Fantasy managers in 12 team leagues that decide to take a chance on him in around 10 11 12 you know depending on where he settles in the quarterback rankings as we get a little a little closer to the start of the season so um I'm I play in a couple 12 team super Flex leagues I'm getting very much more excited to draft darnold and obviously he's got the weapons around him right I mean he's got Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison on the outside he's going to have hackinson back week four or six somewhere in there and they got Aaron Jones in the backfield who's an awesome pass catcher so I really think that darnold is in a good position to succeed here all right so going into our next four situations here uh the first one on this slide that we're going to go over is uh Tony Pard and Taj Spears were listed as co-running back ones on the initial depth chart um this is obviously much better for Spears than it is for paard um I was of the Mind early in the off season when Pard signed that you know he got the money he's going to come in and take the Derrik Henry rooll and that he was going to come in and kind of Take Over The Back Field and that Spears would kind of be relegated to the same level of involvement that he was last year passing Downs if they're down big you know he's going to get a lot of snaps but maybe not necessarily translate that into a ton of production but I have also again been proved wrong on this point I think now that you know the the ADP has stayed close for these guys but now I think there's a legitimate case to be made that Spears should be going ahead of Pard um you know and I don't think that's that I don't think that that's going to happen but if Pard is the one getting the early down work and is going between the tackles and is working a lot uh in between the 20s and Spears is also getting some of that work like a uh a bigger piece of the pie than he did last year with Henry and is also going to handle the passing down work I think that Spears has a uh opportunity here in an offense that could be maybe a little better than we expect um especially with the addition of Calvin Ridley and so you know these guys again they're both going outside the top 30 at running back or right around 30 at running back so you know if you start wide receiver heavy or you start quarterback heavy and you're looking for uh a possible starter a little later in your draft drafting one of these guys is great for that situation and just pray that you get the right one and that you end up getting an rb2 out of the situation so um again I I do like both players I think Spears is very talented he was a high high highly rated Prospect coming out of college last year Pard you know he used to be the guy that we looked at as the High upside you know why doesn't this guy get more touches and then he just didn't live up to it for one season and now we're kind of like throwing him aside so I do still think that you know overall that they're this is a talented backfield that you know it would be wise to try and get one of if you did wait on running back for for a long time in your draft um the next guy that we're going to talk about on here is Jonathan Brooks uh to miss the start of the Season uh I was pretty disappointed about this a lot of the draft uh you know discussions around him was hyping up that he's going to be ready for training camp he's going to be ready for the start of the year and I was always super skeptical of that because he had a November ACL tear and that's just really hard to turn around and be ready for full go in September and it doesn't look like he's going to be ready right and they're targeting week three or week four and so I'm going to continue to push Brooks down I I just I just struggle with this one I know that over the half of the Season he'll likely be the starter but how effective is he going to be you know I mean how many guys do we see it takes so long even the elite talented guys like Bree Hall last year took him so long to get going and then yeah he was great starting in like week 13 but you look the year before with like JK Dobbins and he was going in round six or seven of super Flex drafts and he just didn't get right then he needed clean up procedure and then it just was kind of a nightmare to own him so I'm a little concerned that's what it's going to be like with Jonathan Brooks um if you're in Dynasty League I think Brooks is still the top running back to take you know him or Benson uh but you know I just I just struggle with a guy that's not going to be playing here early in the season um as taking over and being a big part of your plans from a fantasy football perspective um I talked about cup at the beginning of the video right so I I wanted to make sure we hit on him here as well um and puka is currently hurt right so it's like we got this report before we even found out puka was hurt that Cooper cup is all the way back um that's a scary way to put it to me if people are there and seeing him perform at full health and looking like he's dominating um right we're probably going to be too low on him we're rank you know I'm I ranked him at 22 in our wide receiver video and a lot of I've seen a lot of ranking sets have him or a lot of people discussing him as like a top you know borderline top 20 receiver and and if he if puka is going to potentially miss any time and he looks fully healthy um we're not that far removed from seeing like one of the best 25 game 22 game stretches from a wide receiver ever you know Cooper cup two years ago and uh or three years ago and uh you know the first half of two seasons ago so you know I know I know he dealt with injuries since then pretty consistently uh but you know he was pretty good last year even when he was deal with injuries he missed the first four weeks but after that you know he's a top 20 wide receiver and so if he is healthy and he is going to be getting all the camp reps and the off maybe the Playbook uh what I said at the beginning of the video right is that he's probably looking that good because they're running through cups portion of the Playbook right and so obviously he's going to be lighting it up when they're running through all of the plays where he's the number one Reed right so when he's open he's the number one Reed Stafford and him obviously have a connection there's there's there's no doubt that they're going to look good in Camp so I think that that's uh uh something that we should expect to see but saying he's all the way back and it's like an injury thing I think is is uh very encouraging from cup and I I would be drafting with confidence at this point um and I'm probably going to look at trying to move him up you know I mean the thing is is i' I'd have to move him over like you know guys I really think are going to be good the guys that I really like you know but I could possibly move him up behind or in front of DJ Moore um you know up into that wide receiver 15 16 area and feel pretty good about that so um that's my take on cup and and what this means in terms of rankings um and then I saved my maybe most exciting piece of news for last um in this one I say most exciting because this is Major confirmation bias for me um I was saying even after the Zach Moss signing early in Camp that I I don't necessarily think that we should just be jumping on the Zach Moss bandwagon I think Chase Brown is an extremely talented player he's going into his second season he showed he was explosive and they moved off Mixon before they had moss in place um so you know to hear that he's taking the majority of the first team reps you know the offensive line uh somebody came out and said on their offensive line that if you know they if they were allowed to play Fantasy Football that they'd be taking Chase Brown as their first running back U you know obviously that's that's a little exaggerated right I mean it's it's his teammate and seeing him play well um but I think you know the the coaching staff is talking about how consistent he's been how reliable he's been in the offense um and he's an extremely explosive player he's really good pass catcher um you know obviously the the play it's probably tired at this point but the the play he had last year where he had like a 60- yard touchdown reception took a took a wheel route all to the house up the right sideline um so you know if we are expecting him to be the starter and he's going to get ranked as you know running back 35 that's just going to be way too low um we're going to release running backs 21 through 35 I have him ranked at running back 28 currently only one spot behind Moss but you know the only a couple more Camp notices uh or Camp reports of this is going to have to continue for me to move him ah head of moss um so I'm I'm definitely getting very excited about Chase Brown he is somebody that I want to draft he is somebody that is still going late so if you're drafting I cannot stress enough make sure you're drafting Chase Brown even if you have to draft him around early than you would think to make sure you get him on your team at this point you know and drafting him RB 28 I wouldn't even think is a reach at all I would definitely be taking him ahead of Jonathan Brooks at this point um I'd be taking him ahead of Pard ahead of Spears um because I really think that the talent is going to show shine through here the offense overall should be really good and so I'm I'm very excited to draft Chase Brown this season all right and with that just a quick quick catch up on the camp notes we'll start doing these every week and I look forward to talking to you in the next one