Training Camp Storylines You Need to Watch with Dave Kluge

Training camps are opening, which means a wave of information, misinformation, and takes that don't hold up. Dave Kluge (Footballguys, SiriusXM's High Stakes Advantage) is back for his second visit to Dynasty Compass to discuss which camp reports actually move the needle lets you buy discounted value before the market catches up and avoid overpaying for hype that fades by Week 1.

Dave and Jeff break down how to read coach-speak, which beat reporters and resources are worth trusting, and the storyline archetypes — the Day 3 rookie, the injury-return prospect, the new-coaching-staff shakeup — that show up every summer. Then they go team by team through this year's biggest questions: Chicago, Philadelphia, the Rams, and backfields in Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Seattle, Arizona, and Tennessee.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Context beats headlines. Look up the question a coach was actually asked before reacting to the quote.
• Negative news is the real signal. Coaches have every incentive to praise players in July — it's when something negative leaks out that you should pay attention.
• New coaching staffs reset the depth chart. A regime with no history with a player is exactly where roles can shift fastest.
• Day 3 rookies are a low-probability, high-reward bet. Look for one transferable, specialized skill rather than "good at everything."
• Buy the injury discount. Players like Malik Nabers get priced down twice for the same known injury — that's a buying window, not new information.
• Set a price ceiling for camp hype. Decide in advance how far you'll chase a riser before you stop.

⏱️ Chapters/Timestamps 

00:00 – Welcome back, Dave Kluge
05:46 – Reading coach speak, ignoring fluff, and learning who to trust
13:29 – Dave's 2026 Footballguys training camp reports
20:46 – Dave's own camp-hype fail: the Velus Jones lesson
23:28 – Archetypal storylines: Day 3 rookies, injury-return hype, and what gets a player on the field
34:23 – Training camp injuries, new coaching staffs & the Eagles and Rams tight end rooms
48:53 – Bears storyline: Caleb Williams' completion percentage under Ben Johnson
59:33 – Backfield roulette: Jacksonville, Indianapolis, and Kansas City
1:07:19 – More backfields: Tennessee, Seattle, and Arizona
1:13:14 – Having conviction, value shifts to watch, and where to find Dave

🔗 Links Mentioned

• Footballguys https://www.footballguys.com
• Footballguys Fantasy Football Show https://youtube.com/@footballguysfantasy
• Follow Dave on Twitter/X https://x.com/DaveKluge
• Dave's Dynasty Rankings https://www.footballguys.com/rankings/ranker/dave-kluge/duration/dynasty
• Jeff's Dynasty Rankings https://www.footballguys.com/rankings/ranker/jeff-blaylock/duration/dynasty
• Follow Jeff on Twitter/X https://x.com/jeffblaylock
• The Coachspeak Index https://www.thecoachspeakindex.com 

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Transcript

It's just so hard, uh, and, and lazy... Maybe lazy is not the best term, but I can't think of a better term. But it's just hard for me to say that, like, because all of these washed-up X receivers couldn't do anything in a Ben Johnson offense, that means Rome Odunze is not gonna do anything in a Ben Johnson offense. I mean, there are levels to the talent here that we're talking, and Rome Odunze is much better than all of those guys. But there is one other quote from Ben Johnson where he says, "I don't want my quarterback throwing 50/50 balls. I trust my offense to get players open, and I would rather throw to an open receiver than asking a receiver to make a play on a ball." Rome Odunze is not an elite separator. Like, he can flash open for a quick second. He can come down with contested balls. But Ben Johnson wants to throw to open receivers. And when I go back and I watch what the Bears were doing last year, Luther Burden, Colston Loveland, those were the guys that were just open on an island.

[theme music]

Welcome to Dynasty Compass. I am Jeff Blaylock, the other Jeff B. from Footballguys, and I am joined today by my friend and colleague, also from Footballguys, Dave Kluge, and now SiriusXM. Dave, how you doing? And welcome to the show

Doing good. This is a fun, busy time of year. We were talking a little bit pre-show, but, uh, yeah, you know, I sat down over the weekend and I said, "Let me see if I can kinda get ahead of my next week or two of planning." And then before I knew it, I had planned everything out through week one. Like, it is here. People are at training camp. We got vets reporting this week. It's kinda hard to believe how quickly the season is coming up on us here

Yeah, I can't believe that we're already to, to training camps. I mean, this is, where did the summer go? Where did our off-season go? It's like we just did the draft yesterday

Seriously, yeah. And it feels like that every single year. I was just talking with somebody recently, but, you know, I, I, I think a nature of this business is kinda like to break the year up into chunks, and you're always kinda looking to that next thing. Like, okay, you got the NFL Draft, and then after the NFL Draft, it's like, okay, we got baseball season, and then we got training camps, and then we got week one, and then we have week 17, and then we have the Super Bowl. And before you know it, you blink and, like, six years have gone by, and that's kinda where I'm at right now.

Yeah. If-- Time, time is moving fast, and it's just, it's just crazy. I mean, I can't believe that it's 20... What year is this? 2026? Is that, is that the where year we're in now?

Mm-hmm

So, uh, if you're watching this in a different year, what we're talking about is gonna be radically different from what's actually going on, so hopefully you're seeing this, uh, this year. So yeah, I mean, let's just jump in, man. Uh, well, first of all, thank you for, for coming back. You were the very first guest I had on the show. You're now the very first guest to return, so thank you for that. Uh, but let's, let's roll in. We got training camps coming up, and with training camps comes lots and lots and lots of information, and lots of misinformation, and a hell of a lot of misinterpretation of what we do get out of training camps. How do you, how do you keep your sanity and separate all of these things from each other? The news, the not news, and just the wrong take?

Context, context, and more context. I think that's what gets lost all of the time. You know, it's so easy because there's so much information coming out from beat reporters and coaches and player quotes and all this sort of stuff. It's so easy to take one little piece and just focus on that and make that a larger story when really we just have to look at the whole picture here. And I think, like, one of the things specifically that kind of jumps out to me from, like, recent news, like in this recent cycle, is Aaron Wilson, a reporter for the Houston Texans, writes this big, long article about David Montgomery and how he's going to be a three-down back for the Houston Texans, and that how that's a part of what this offense needs, and how they made investments in the offensive line, and David Montgomery's history in Chicago as a three-down back, and how he can handle pass-catching duties and do all these things. And then at the very end of this article, he has one little throwaway line saying, "And Woody Marks is hoping to improve on his route running so that he can be a more featured part of the passing attack." And that's what the fantasy industry ran with, was this one little sentence at the end of this love letter to David Montgomery. So something else I go back to is Bob Harris says this all the time, but, like, look up the question that elicited a reply because sometimes that will often give you more context than the answer itself, where, you know, a reporter could ask a coach, like, "Who's a player that you're expecting to surprise you in training camp?" And then the player or the coach says a player's name. Everybody hangs onto that as like, "Oh, you know, this coach is thinking about the..." But, like, the question was about who can surprise you. So I think just trying to look at as much context as possible. You know, we love social media and quote graphics and all these sorts of things, but read the full article. Listen to the full interview. Don't just run wild with the one-sentence blurb that g- gets put into a quote graphic on social media.

Yeah, I mean, you and I just had a couple months ago on your show a discussion about something along these same lines. It was Sean McVay's reaction, uh, at the podium talking about Ty Simpson's drafting, and that everybody ran with that as, "Oh, he hates this pick." And you and I took that completely down, debunked it. But that is another example of just, just hanging onto something. I will say, at least with that David Montgomery article, if I were the author, I'd at least be happy that they read all the way to the end, because I did leave that line at the end. So that, that tells me somebody read at least the whole thing.

Or somebody just open that article and control F Woody Marks. What does he have to say about Woody Marks?

Here we go. Search result one. Oh, right here. But I mean, what do we expect the coaches to say this time of year, right? I mean, how many of them are supposed to say something negative about any player, including players they don't even know who they are, they're undrafted free agents who are on the roster for training camp. They're gonna say positive things about everybody this time of year, aren't they?

Exactly, and that's typically what we get, and I think that's something that I talk about a lot. Every single year I go on Harris Football, good friend Chris Harris, and we do a show kind of talking about, like, what we're gonna be paying attention to in training camp. And I say that. Like, it is so easy to just throw the fluff out the window because there are so many reasons for it. Are you trying to increase a player's trade value? Are you trying to get a player, like... You know, I, I, I don't wanna say, like, this is not an anti-Brian Thomas Jr. take whatsoever, but, like, the amount of positivity coming out of Jacksonville about Brian Thomas Jr., a lot of that to me is just like, is this a concerted effort from the coaching staff and the beat to try to build his confidence back up when his confidence tear- clearly took a hit last year? Because that is a thing. Like, coaches are trying to build these players up. So I try to avoid the fluff, the, the best shape of his life, you know, playing hungrier than ever, like, all that sort of stuff, because we hear that about every single sort of player. But if you hear something negative about a player, that is what you definitely wanna pay attention to this time of year. If you hear that a player is, you know, struggling to get up to speed with the new offensive playbook, or a player is taking longer to recover from an injury than expected. If negative news is coming out this time of year, that's what you really wanna pay attention to because that typically is a lot more damning than it even comes off as

Yeah, you, you mentioned, you know, best shape of his life. I mean, that to me is one of those tropes that, that I hear every year. I no longer fall for this. I haven't fallen for it since Christian McCaffrey a couple years ago when he was in the best shape of his life, and then he went overseas to have this weird procedure done on his Achilles tendon, but was somehow still in the best shape of his life. So to me, that's kind of a tell that whatever, whatever they're talking about i- is, is, it's just words. What other kinds of tells really make you skeptical about what you're hearing from a coach or from a beat writer or something like that, or from a player themselves?

I, I think when we start hearing about, like, players who are doing things that aren't supposed to be a part of their job. So, like, when we hear, like, "This running back is taking wide receiver snaps out of the slot," like, that's something that people get excited about. And to me, that says they don't trust this guy as a running back, and they're looking for other ways. Or that we hear, you know, this player's trying to, you know, get a little bit more involved in special teams. That's usually not a good sign. Like, you know, the players who are really good at doing what they do are typically doing those things. Like, you know, I remember last year with DJ Moore, like, we heard so much, like, "They're trying to get DJ Moore involved as a running back," and people were getting excited about that when the reality is, until late in the season when everybody was injured, like, DJ Moore was the third or fourth option on that offense. Or you hear about these running backs that are taking snaps out of the slot, and we say, "Oh, this is awesome. This is gonna be great for their PPR value," when really that probably means that they just aren't good enough at running back to win that running back job, and they're trying to see if there's any way to salvage some sort of role for him. So anytime I hear stuff like that, you know, um, that they've got quarterbacks working on special teams or quarterbacks lining up. You know, you heard Justin Fields was lining up as a wide receiver a couple of years ago. That, to me, is the thing that I think when I was inexperienced I used to get excited about because I'd, "Ooh, this could be the skeleton key. This guy can find new paths to fantasy production," when more likely than not, it means that they probably just aren't good at doing their job.

Yeah. Lining up your quarterback at wide receiver or special teams is a good way to get them killed. It's just really not, not good for their quarterbacking capabilities. But, you know, I, I love that you talk about, you know, we want the context. You wanna know what was the question that was asked, if it's a press conference or just a conversation between a, a reporter and, and a coach to get that sort of context. But, you know, social media doesn't really work that way. It moves really, really fast. You know, you and I are both really active on social media, uh, and we try to be very smartly selective in terms of what we share and what we repost. You know, what, what signals do you put the most stock in, either what's being said or who's saying it, that makes you comfortable with re-sharing these news items even if you haven't had the chance to run them into the ground yet?

Yeah. So, so first of all, I try as hard as I can not to share anything coming from aggregating accounts, and you probably know the ones that I'm talking about. There's a lot of accounts out there that don't do any actual reporting. They just try to find little snippets from news stories that they know are gonna get engagement, and then share that. And if your goal is to get engagement, you're not getting engagement from me. I'm going to intentionally ignore those. So first and foremost, I'm ignoring all of the aggregating social media accounts. But I think the other thing that I try to do here, and this does kind of give you a bad rep on Twitter if you wanna handle it this way, but I'm not the person who is trying to say what everybody else is saying. So like, if a glowing report comes out about a player, and I see 100 people have already quote tweeted this, I'm not gonna have anything to add saying, "Yeah, you know, this is good. Like, Amon-Ra St. Brown, yeah, like he's good every single year, and he's gonna be good this year too." Like, you don't need somebody to tell you that. Where I try to focus on the news stories is where I think the consensus has something wrong. And I think the most recent example of this that I can think of, Cam Skattebo does this backflip, right? And it was, the optics were terrible. Like

not stick that landing. Did not stick the landing at all.

For anybody who hasn't seen this, he's at Fanatics Fest, he's on a stage, he rolls his pants up, he shows all of the scarring on his legs from his recent surgeries, and he kind of does this like, "Ah, no big deal," and then he does a backflip and he falls. And everybody runs wild with this story saying, "Draft Tyrone Tracy. Cam Skattebo's off my draft board. Cam Skattebo's an idiot. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." My read on that was a little bit different. I said, "You know what? I, I think this is kind of like required to be a running back." Like, you kind of need to have a couple screws loose, and to come back from what could be a career-ending injuries for some players, like to have that mindset that you're willing to just throw a backflip out there. Like, we saw him do a backflip at a charity basket- or a baseball game a couple months ago, and then we see him do it again on the Fanatics Fest. So that's one that I am willing to share because I think the consensus has the wrong read on that, where they're saying, you know, "Don't draft this guy." I'm saying, if anything, this gives me a little bit more faith in drafting him because knowing he's got a couple screws loose might actually help him with his recovery. And sure, he might get hurt again at some point. That's a risk for every player. But that's kind of where I try to focus on news stories, is when I think the, the masses are just misreading something

Yeah, you think if he sticks that landing we get the same basic reaction out of the Twitterverse that we saw there, or is it just because he did the poor backflip?

And it was that. It was the stumbling that led to it. And I mean, like, don't hear what I'm not saying. It was a hilarious video. Like, it is absolutely absurd that Cam Skattebo is trying to do a backflip in front of a crowd months after surgery. But that to me, and, and I saw there was one person who agreed with me, Jeff Mueller, who also isn't afraid to go against the grain, and he is a, uh, a doctor of physical therapy. And he kind of had the same read as me, saying, like, the biggest thing for, uh, a lot of athletes when they're coming back from these injuries is the mental hurdle. It's good to see that Cam Skattebo has already gotten over that. And I remember, like, when I had to have my shoulder done a few years back, the mental hurdle of just, like, hanging from a bar, like a very routine movement, like, there is a mental hurdle that's really hard to come back from overcoming injury. And I see Cam Skattebo already seems to be there

Yeah, uh, it's real. Uh, as a, as a somebody who's had reconstructive knee surgery, I can tell you that first deep squat after that under weight was a terrifying experience, but I was, I was just fine. You know, my take a little different on Cam from, from you guys. Uh, I think, you know, to me it wasn't the fact that he missed the landing, it's, it's that he probably shouldn't have taken it in the first place. And while I love that devil may care attitude, uh, I, I like some discretion too. I like it out of his quarterback as well, Jaxson Dart. Yes, it's fun to just run straight through and over a guy. It's also better if you avoid him if you can. Um, but I will say this about Cam Skattebo, and, and I had s- I've said something kind of negative about him, uh, along those lines, and Twitter, I got kind of roasted for that 'cause he's like, "Well, this guy's a lot of fun." I'm like, "Well, that's not the point." Of course he's fun. I'd love to party with this guy. You know, a weekend with him would be unforgettable, and since I don't drink anymore, I would remember all of it. Um, but that doesn't necessarily mean I wanna pay full price for him as a dynasty asset at this point in his career coming off this injury and, uh, this devil may care attitude. Yeah, glad he's recovered. I think he's gonna be great as long as he's on the field. Hopefully it's a long time, but it may not be. Um, let's sort of get back. We, we kind of, kind of went down the, the Cam Skattebo, Cam Skattebo poor Olympic gymnastics debut rabbit hole there for a second. Um, let's look back to, to, to training camps, and you were, you-- Last year you did a number of training camp reports for Footballguys. Uh, you gonna do that again this year?

Yeah, not only am I doing the Bears training camp report again, this will be my fourth or fifth year doing it, but I'm actually overseeing the entire project this year. So, um, not only will I just be focusing on the Bears, but I will also be editing all 31 other teams. I've been saying this for years, and I was saying this before I led the project, so this isn't, you know, me just saying this now because it's my baby. But, you know, for years I had said that I think this is the most valuable preseason content there is out there. It is so deep. Like, we go very deep on every single team, but then we also distill it down into bullet points for every single team, and then we distill it even further into an episode that Joey Wright and I are gonna do every single week talking about, like, the one major storyline from every single team. So, um, you know, we're kind of in this lull right now in between after the draft and after OTAs and before training camp where no news is really happening. Starting next week, there is going to be so much news coming out there, and it's really tough to differentiate, you know, what you should be paying attention to and what you should be ignoring. I think we do a good job here with those Footballguys training camp reports letting you know what you should be paying attention to.

Yeah. Those are excellent. They, they've been excellent for quite some time, and I f- I find that if you're gonna read basically one thing about training camp all year, those are what you read. And, and even if you decide not to do it for the entire training camp, Dave, I know you've historically done like a wrap-up article at the end of training camp that's the here's everything you missed over the last six weeks kind of an article, uh, and you're real thorough with those. And now that you've got your eyes on all 32 teams, you'll probably be even more thorough, uh, this time around than, uh, than you have been before. But as you're, as you're doing those, I mean, you're so, you know, as a, as a respected, you know, member of this industry, respected re- as, you know, analyst, what's your process for, for building, you know, a camp report every week? 'Cause I assume you're not wherever the Bears are training and on the field with those guys on a daily basis. You're sitting at home in Colorado as I'm sitting at home in New Mexico, and we're not anywhere near the, the field. How do you, how do you report on something that you're not watching in person?

I, I, I read and listen and watch as much as I possibly can. So there's, uh, one podcast that does a really good job. It's, uh, uh, Hogan Johns. They, uh, cover the Chicago Bears, and they do a fantastic job, so I listen to everything that they do. I've got a few other podcasts that I listen to as well. I have a Twitter list of all of the reputable Chicago beat reporters. So I go through and tweet, and read through all the, the tweets and videos and everything that they're sharing. Training camp reports, I read all of those as well. I try to watch whatever I can. Of course, the preseason games, we get a lot of good information from there, whether it's snap counts, usage, efficiency, whatever that may be. So really it's just trying to take in as much information as I possibly can, and that's just part of my daily process. Like, as I'm working, I'm listening to Bears podcasts. I'm going through this Bears list and taking notes and everything, and then I sit down Sunday afternoon, and that's when I distill everything into, you know, everything that you need to learn. And, and the nice thing about this too is, like, as you are getting into these training camp reports, everything that we say in there, we cite back to a source. So it becomes this never-ending web where you're not just reading what we're sharing with you, but then you can click on a link that brings you to a page that has even more information. So just such deep knowledge depth inside these training camp reports. But my process is just to consume as much as I possibly can, take notes every time I hear something interesting, and then try to distill and condense that all down into something publishable on Sunday afternoon

Yeah, I, I think it was Bob Harris who said this, and if it's not, then I apologize to both Bob and whoever did say it. But, uh, the, the comment was something along the lines of the coaches and general managers are never more honest than they are the week before the NFL draft and in those press conferences that are right there. So now we're in training camp. We've already established that coaches need to say positive things and vague things about everybody. Uh, do you think that they are being honest really at, at all? Are they-- Are there some coaches you trust more than others when a beat reporter is saying, "This is what the guy said," or you look at the video and watch what the guy said? Uh, who, who-- Which ones are you trusting or distrusting and, and which ones are, are, you know, you're just ignoring completely?

Well, well I gotta give a huge shout-out to Greg Brainos over at Coachspeak Index. He has done a fantastic job of indexing this. And, and I was there when Greg first came onto the scene, and I remember, like, talking to him when he just had a few hundred Twitter followers, and saying, "I am so happy that you are doing this, because I cannot stand Zac Taylor. That man lies through his teeth." And he said, "That's why I started doing this, was because of Zac Taylor." And sure enough, you know, um, you might remember, there was a few years back, and I might be botching the details of this story, but Joe Mixon was listed as day-to-day for months. And it was just like we kept waiting for Joe Mixon to come back, and it was day-to-day, you know, he'll be back here any day, and we got that song and dance for, like, two months, and then he just hit season-ending IR and didn't play again. And we were all... And this was back, like, you know, before he had the foot injury with the Texans. This was back in his Bengals day. And Greg said that he got so frustrated by that experience that he decided to start indexing all of these coaches and seeing who tells the truth and who lies. And I think it's something that, uh, you know, over time you do just kinda get a feel for. And there are different types of coaches. Like, you've got your, your Dan Campbells and your Ben Johnsons and your Sean McVays. They are going to tell you exactly how they feel. They aren't gonna hide anything. They aren't gonna sugarcoat anything. Dan Campbell will come out and say, like, "We are going to run this play on fourth and two, and you guys can try to stop it," and knowing that they can't. And, like, Ben Johnson is gonna be very open with what his plans are. And then you've got some others, you know, the, the Zac Taylors, who I think kinda come from that Belichickian tree where they are just as tight-lipped as possible. They aren't going to say anything. They're gonna answer everything with one-word answers. And then you've got other ones that are just gonna, like, outright lie and deceive, and that's your, your Kyle Shanahans and your Nick Siriannis. Like, they are trying to throw game plans off by, like, planting seeds of mistrust in the media. So there's so many different types of coaches, and I feel like you pick up those traits naturally over time just by doing this. But I can't shout out Greg Brainos and what he's done with Coachspeak Index enough. Just a fantastic resource that, you know, we kinda get these ideas of what we think coaches do, but Greg sits there, and he details every single press conference and puts them on an index so there is no gray area. Like, he can tell you black and white who you should and should not trust.

Yeah. I 100% endorse that a- a- altogether. I mean, I, I, I'm on his Discord server, which is where he posts a lot of his material. Uh, and he charges almost nothing for it, so I mean, it's, it is a great use of, I think it's five or $8 a month to, to be able to tap into that. It is an incredible resource. Uh, a- and I encourage anybody who's, who's watching or listening to this who wants more, wants to get into the, the ins and outs of who to trust and who not a- and how to go about that, uh, you know, Coachspeak Index, that's Greg's site. That is, that's a place I'd, I'd turn to. So, you know, he, he was burned by, by Zac Taylor. I'm sure I have been burned by Zac Taylor. I know I was because I held onto Joe Mixon that season way, way, way longer than I needed to. Uh, and even traded for him in that season somewhere, I think, because, uh, uh, he was just day-to-day. He's gonna be back any day now. Uh, what's a, uh, you know, just to know on the lighthearted side, what's a training camp story that, you know, you thought was a good signal and it just turned out to be nothing? It burned you a bit. Maybe you forwarded it or talked about it or hyped it up a- and it was, you know, crow eating city after that.

Well, like I said, I cover the Chicago Bears. That's the team that I cover for Footballguys. And going into the 2024 season, there was so much hype about Velus Jones, and, like, it, it felt very warranted. And, you know, I talked earlier about how now I kind of see through the, "Hey, we've got this player who's this position playing this position," now I kinda see that as a negative because Velus Jones, who couldn't get it done as a receiver, they said, well, he could emerge as the lead running back, and he's been explosive on special teams, and he's out there, you know, lining up as the tight end, and he can play out wide, and he's playing out of the slot, and he's kinda doing it all. And I was really buying into this because they were talking about, you know, the year three breakout, that he was gonna be heavily involved in this new offense, that he was getting wide receiver and running back duties. And what actually happened is he had no role to start the season. He ended up having 11 offensive yards before he was cut in the middle of October, and that kinda marked the end of his NFL career. And in hindsight, it's pretty obvious the Bears were just trying to pump up his trade value, hoping that some team out there would bite. But unfortunately, what ended up happening is that fantasy managers also bought into the hype and thought that he was gonna be something that he wasn't. So that's something that I try to be a little bit more cognizant of, is, like, players who are trade candidates. If we start getting all of this, like, just gushing, positive storylines, you know, you don't wanna buy into it too much because teams are incentivized to try to raise that trade value. Because I'm sure they would've taken-- They would've loved to get a seventh-round pick for Velus Jones, but nobody gave up anything, and they were forced to cut him mid-season. So that's one that definitely... You know, I had, uh, drafted quite a bit of Velus Jones in round 20 of my best ball drafts that year and it ended up just being a complete dud.

Yeah, I had to cut him in mid-season in a couple places myself. But at least for me, he was always kind of a late-round flyer, one of those guys you put on the bench, hope something happens, if they don't, you cut them, it doesn't cost you anything. But best ball, that's a format that's not forgiving. Zeros are unforgivable in best ball, so I, I hope, hopefully the rest of your team was, uh, was able to salvage that. But, you

We'll see. I'm drafting Jalen Tolbert this year, and those could all end up being zeros down the road too.

let's, uh, let's look at, you know, I, I think from what I would call the we've seen this movie before. I mean, there's always these sort of storylines that keep emerging, you know. Like the day three rookie that's really impressing coaches, the RB2 battle, the reclamation project, the injury return hype, you know, the day-- year three breakout, the new guy on a new team, all these kinds of storylines. Um, let's walk through some of those and kind of tease out what dynasty managers ought to be paying attention to out of those stories and, and what they should be ignoring or at the very least, I won't even say a grain of salt, take it with a salt lick.

Yeah, I think the, the one that I try to ignore is the, uh, um, the day three rookies just because we get excited. Like, we put so much time in January, February, March, April into studying all of these rookies that, you know, we could have 32 NFL teams tell us six times that they aren't interested in this player and he falls to day seven, but we are still going to say, "Well, I think that I know better and this guy could break out." And I think what makes it so hard to not buy into this is that when these guys do hit, they end up being league tilting type plays like Puka Nacua, Antonio Brown, Stefon Diggs, Tyreek Hill, Kyren Williams. We can go way back to the Arian Foster days. I mean, I don't know who was playing dynasty back when they got Tom Brady in round four of their dynasty rookie draft. But like, when these guys do hit, they really do tilt a league in a pla- in, in a manager's favor. But the likelihood of them hitting is so small. So, you know, I think you have to have one or two guys that you're willing to bet on. You know, maybe it's a Kaytron Allen, maybe it's a, uh, a, a Chris Bell, like somebody out there. But the reality is more often than not, these day three guys just don't find paths to fantasy relevance. The other one that's tough for me not to buy into is the injury return hype, because it is so hard for me to penalize a talented prospect if they haven't had their opportunity to show us that they're good or bad. So a Jonathon Brooks, Trey Benson, MarShawn Lloyd, Ricky Pearsall, these were all prospects that I really liked, and I wish that I could say they aren't good at football and just give up on them. But they haven't really had a chance to prove that they aren't good at football yet. So I'm still holding onto these prospect profiles that I really liked, and it's tough for me to give up on those guys. And I think that's probably the biggest gap in my, um, analysis, if I'm being honest. But it's just so hard for me when I see a guy like Jonathon Brooks, who I loved coming into the league, has everything we wanna see in fantasy football, hasn't played any of the last two years really, but I still feel like given the age, given the upside, given the athleticism, that if he can put it together, there's still something to be had there

Yeah, I've seen you-- Uh, we're in several leagues together. I've seen you draft him in a couple of redraft leagues this year down, down in the rounds, and all I could think of when you did it every time was, "He just saved me from myself." That is a snipe I really don't mind. I mean, I, you know, I never want guys to get hurt. I want them to succeed but, you know, you rattled off several players who barely played in two-plus years. Uh, and, you know, are we gonna fall for it again? Maybe. Some of us may, may fall for it. Uh, I know in dynasty, you know, you kinda get stuck with them after a while. I mean, everyone who's got MarShawn Lloyd on their roster probably can't move him right now, and this one I wouldn't try because he either is gonna turn into something or he's not. But either way, he's gonna get you nothing in trade value, so you wait till, till that guy hits. Brooks I think's probably-- 'Cause I was really in on Brooks coming out of school as well. He, he was one of my top profile guys that year. Uh, but, ah, you know, you just watch the world around them kind of as other people come and take their spots, it's really harder to, to get back into. But let's, let's look at day three rookies for a second because I think particularly at dynasty we really get caught up in the hype of it. We forget that we also drafted these guys in round three and four and beyond. Uh, and now today, this is Tuesday, July the something or other, uh, before training camp start. Big story today talking about Eli Heidenreich maybe struggling to make the 53-man roster at Pittsburgh. And while that should be obvious because he was a seventh round pick, he's out of Navy, they've already got, you know, four running backs on the roster, you're just sort of like, "Yeah, but I, I drafted him. You know, I want him to succeed." So how, how do you, how do you pick, like, the guys that you think might have a chance and try to get off the guys that, you know, are feel-good stories but, eh, no path?

Yeah, and I think Heidenreich is a perfect example. This is, like, the third time we've talked about this on this show now. But, like, a guy who doesn't really have a clear NFL path. Like, he is a good rusher, he is a good receiver, but he's not great at any of them. And Jeff, I remember when we did a show, the, the first episode here of the Dynasty Compass, and we were talking about prospect analysis, and I said, "I don't want a guy who is good at everything. I want a guy who is a specialist at one thing because that's going to help him get out the field." And that's ... Eli Heidenreich is good at everything, and that worked in a Navy offense. And I kind of made a joke back in March. I tweeted out, I said, "Man, if Eli Heidenreich could just find an NFL team that's willing to build an entire offense around him the way that Navy did," because that's what it takes. Like, he isn't a player who can go out and just beat man coverage one-on-one as a wide receiver. He's also not a guy who can line up in the backfield and take 300 hits a year. Like, he is a guy who really needs to have an offense built around him, so I think that's what I look for, are skills that are transferable to the NFL. So, you know, we're sitting here talking about how day three running backs rarely hit, and they do rarely hit. But, like, one example of a day three running back that I do like is Kaytron Allen because he has the size. He's got the tackle-breaking ability. He's got that goal line build that maybe he isn't gonna be a guy who gets 300-plus touches, but they're already talking about him in training camp being the best in short-yardage situations, and that he can be the goal line back on this team. Now, that might not lead to a very fruitful path in fantasy, and you're waiting for this kind of touchdown or bust production, but that gets him on the field. That gets opportunities, and then if Jacory Croskey-Merritt goes down, if Rachaad White goes down, they could trust him enough to open up that playbook a little bit. But I think that at least gives him a chance to make the team and get a chance to prove himself early. So that's kind of what I'm looking for, is, like, is there something that a player does really, really well that can get him on the field and get him his opportunity early?

And, uh, Kaytron Allen's another great example of that sort of injury bug situation hurting his value because, you know, he came out of school injured, uh, a- and that hurt his draft value a little bit. So that's something else to consider. But I also, you know, I love that you talk about what's, what's the role. You, you got that the elite talent, let's get some on the field. It gets them on that rotation, allows them to crack into that to do whatever the thing is they do, do it really well. But then there's also sort of that path to opportunity, and that's why, you know, Nick Singleton is one that I'm either going to look great for p- pumping up or will look stupid for doing it, uh, because he's got a path, uh, to a, to a lot of touches. The two running backs there in Tennessee are both free agents after this year and both getting older. And so there's at least a, a pathway for him to quite a bit of volume, whether he is any good with any of it or not, or actually gets it, we won't know. But as dynasty managers, we have to sort of choose people to take those kind of chances are. Uh, I'm not necessarily asking you if you like Nick Singleton, but I mean, is there somebody kind of in that vein that you say, "Okay, they're... The, the talent may not be as good as others, but there is at least a path to a role that is meaningful enough that I'd want him on my roster"?

So, so the two things that I really look for in addition to, like, just the, the, the talent or the hyper-specialized utility like I mentioned, and this is gonna sound so crazy, but the two things that I'm looking for in day three guys are players who are injured or players who have character concerns. And I know that sounds absolutely wild, but those are the things that cause talented players to fall deep into drafts. Like, I am very much so of the belief that Nick Singleton specifically, since you brought him up, I think he would've been a day two pick if he didn't break his foot in the spring. But he broke his foot at a Senior Bowl practice, and I think that caused him to fall in the draft a little bit. So I'm willing to take a chance on him, and that's the same exact rhetoric that I was using last year for Tory Horton. I thought Tory Horton should've been a round two or round three receiver, but he had the knee issue. That caused him to fall late in the draft, and then of course his season ends early because of that knee issue. So wasn't really able to clear those injury concerns, but that is what caused him to fall in the draft. Puka Nacua came in with some injury concerns. That caused him to fall in the draft. Some of the other names that I mentioned that hit huge in the NFL draft that were day three picks, Tyreek Hill, character concerns. Stefon Diggs, character concerns. Antonio Brown, character concerns. So these guys fall often because teams don't wanna take the chance. And while that could be scary in dynasty, you're getting these players at such a discount because of the depreciated draft cost, and they still have that same upside. So sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Isaiah Bond was another player that I liked last year that I was drafting because of character concerns. And we saw little flashes here and there, but he's a player that probably, had he not had those character concerns, would've been drafted a little bit higher, but that caused him to fall in the draft. Kayshon Boutte was another guy. Injury concerns pushed him all the way into round six. This guy we were talking about prior to his final year at LSU, we had him in the same tier as Malik Nabers, talking about him as, like, one of the elite prospects out there. But then he has the ankle injury, falls in the draft a little bit. But that's a player that I'm still willing to take a risk on in dynasty, putting a little asterisk next to that draft capital

Yeah, Boutte's a great example. I mean, he's holding his own against one of the best receivers to come out of college in a long time, uh, until, you know, calamity strikes and, and now he, he kind of tumbles down the board. That's also to me, you know, I mean, this is obviously Dynasty Compass so I assume most of the people, if not all people watching, listening are dynasty players, so they understand the idea that there are deep benches and you can have the opportunity to take some of these guys cheap. But if you also play redraft, these are the exact guys you should not draft at all in redraft. Or perhaps if you have a very last pick, you take that player over a defense, for example, and wait to see what happens at training camp, and then you drop them if nothing happens and you pick up your defense. But some of the guys that the, the, that we're, we're mentioning here are specific nos, uh, in redraft formats because that's-- you need a, you need performance now, and a lot of these guys either have paths that go through other people's injuries, you know, free agency a year from now, or other kinds of situations that they're not gonna do anything for you now. And if you're taking them in the same sort of rounds you might take them in a dynasty startup, you're gonna regret that

And I can tell you right now, you talk about injuries and, you know, injuries opening up paths to players to get training camp. I promise you, Jeff, three weeks from now, there will be a bunch of people on social media saying, "I can't believe how many players are injured in training camp this year. Have there ever been this many training camp injuries before?" And every single year training camp opens, a handful of players get hurt, and then everybody says, "I can't believe how many injuries there are." So that's the other thing is like, yeah, we wanna pay attention to the risers and fallers and the good news, but it's the injuries in training camp that shake up the depth charts more than everything else. And for whatever reason, every single year when we're sitting here at the end of July, beginning of August, people forget that players get injured in training camp. That is going to happen over the next few weeks

And they, they will enter it injured and be held out, uh, right when they might have been able to play during the season because it doesn't matter in terms of preseason games or whatnot. And if you've got a guy who's recovering, you don't rush him out for training camp. But does it-- would it be helpful if he had training camp? Yes, but it'd be helpful if he were at 100%. If he's not, uh, and I think we tend to, we tend to start panicking over that sometimes. Like, I, I have a feeling Malik Nabers is not gonna play a single snap of training camp this year. Is

But people will double count that. Like, I think if you polled 95% of fantasy and dynasty managers right now, they'd say that Malik Nabers won't be ready for the start of training camp. But what's gonna happen? The Giants are gonna start training camp, and they're gonna say Malik Nabers isn't ready, and then everybody's gonna panic, and you're gonna see his value on Keep Trade Cut go vroom, and you're gonna see him fall a round in best ball drafts. Even though we know it's going to happen, people double count on this sort of stuff all the time. So, you know, once training camp opens, I don't know who it's going to be, but there are so many players entering training camp with injuries, whether it's Malik Nabers, Cam Skattebo, Tucker Kraft, um, you know, Tank Dell, all of these players that we know are dealing with injuries. Whichever ones aren't able to play at the start of training camp, those are the players that you go out and buy because managers are going to double count those injuries

we've talked kind of generically here about different storylines and, and a few specific examples, but let's just dive into, you know, some of the storylines that you're watching as training camps start to open up. You of course are very, very closely watching Chicago, um, but you've got your eyes in every other training camp as well. So what are, are some of the stories that you are really interested in following and, and interested to see how they turn out this year?

So I think, you know, we already talked about it a little bit, but the Giants' injuries. We've got Cam Skattebo coming back. We've got Malik Nabers coming back. And I think right now, you know, people are going to-- And, and this is one where you talk about like the things that I share on social media. This will be it, because one of those players I will-- am almost positive will not be ready for the start of training camp, and everybody's gonna say, "Oh, Malik Nabers is off my draft board," and I will be quote tweeting, qu- uh, quote tweeting that if we say Malik Nabers is on PUP or Malik Nabers isn't ready to start the year. That's where I will be quote tweeting that on social media saying, "Go out and buy Malik Nabers because you're getting a discounted window right now." So I think that's probably one of the most fascinating ones to start with is just the, uh, the Giants. You know, they've got multiple injuries. They've also got a whole new coaching staff coming in there, so I'm gonna be paying close attention to what the Giants are gonna be doing.

Yeah, I, I think, you know, Nabers, I-- my expectation is he is going to open the season on PUP, so that to me is already built into what, what I'm looking at a-and I'm evaluating it that way. If your expectation is he's going to be, you know, a top wide receiver on week one, I'll come take him off your hands after that week when he is on PUP. Uh, you know, I'm happy to, to do that 'cause, uh, he'll, he'll come through here eventually. Um, what about this new coaching staff i-in New York? I know it's a little bit off, off topic here, but what-- let's just sort of back up to that storyline too. We didn't, we didn't cover that in the archetype. So you've got new coaching staff coming into place, new offense being developed. We got, what, 20 new play callers in the league this year or something along those lines. What, you know, what are the signals from all of that, and what's the static from all of that when you're looking at training camp and seeing these new coaching regimes come in and install whatever they're gonna install?

Well, you know, uh, like Littlefinger from, uh, Game of Thrones says, "Chaos is a ladder," and bringing in these new coaching staffs opens up opportunities for other players to rise up that depth chart. So, um, you know, I'm, I'm speaking completely, uh, not that I expect this to happen, but like, you know, last year we saw Kaleb Johnson just for whatever reason ended up in Mike Tomlin's doghouse. Now, I'm not the biggest Kaleb Johnson fan. I thought that he was very overdrafted last year. I think that he's got some warts in his profile. But now we've got new offensive coordinator, new head coach coming into Pittsburgh. Now they are looking at this running back room with a completely clean slate. Now, of course, there's some, you know, relation with Mike McCarthy and Rico Dowdle, but when he's looking at Jaylen Warren, he doesn't see the five years that Mike Tomlin saw with Jaylen Warren, where he had earned that opportunity. He's looking at these guys with a completely blank slate, and that gives a guy like Kaleb Johnson an opportunity to make a new appearance. So that's kinda what I'm looking for here, is like these teams that have new coaching staffs, how much can things actually get shaken up here? So again, back to the Giants, you know, they've got new head coach, new offen- uh, new offensive coordinator as well. We don't know exactly what's gonna happen, but those are the teams that I'm paying extra close attention to because, like, for whatever reason, the previous coaching staff really liked Darius Slayton. I don't think Darius Slayton's a great football player. I think he's pretty one-dimensional. The fantasy production's never really been there. So if I start hearing that this coaching staff really likes Malachi Fields or they really like Darnell Mooney, that is enough for me to say, "Okay, I don't have to worry about this Darius Slayton stuff that's been bothering us for the last few years. He's now out of the picture, and there's a new guy stepping up into that spot." So I think it's really important when you have these teams with new coaching staffs to kind of pay attention to who is climbing up the r- the, the depth chart because the reality is, like, a year four or a year five player with the Rams probably isn't going to make that leap this year because Sean McVay has seen that guy for four or five years now. It's the new coaches, the new offensive coordinators. Those are when players really have an opportunity to make a difference.

Yeah. Any other, uh, new coaching staffs that you're really fascinated by this year?

Um, I think the Eagles definitely you gotta pay at- attention there. You know, the loss of Kevin Patullo. I've think I've heard every fantasy podcaster in the world talk about addition by subtraction by getting rid of Kevin Patulo, and of course I'm excited about what Sean Mannion can do there. But it's not just a new offensive coordinator, it's also a lot of new weapons with A.J. Brown out of the picture, with Makai Lemon and Eli Stowers coming in there. We've got Will Shipley now healthy as well. So I think there's kind of this idea of what the Eagles offense has been, because it's been the same offense for the last few years, but lots of moving parts with new players in there and new play caller in there as well. So it'll be kinda interesting to see how this running back room shakes out. We know Saquon Barkley's gonna be a top eight, but like, can Will Shipley win the affinity of Sean Mannion over Tank Bigsby? Can Eli Stowers be the guy who starts the season playing out of the slot over Makai Lemon? Like, these are all things that we'll find out through training camp, but I think that's definitely one of the more fascinating ones.

Stowers is, to me, is an interesting case 'cause he's, he was my TE1 coming out of, of school this year in the rookie class, and he's still sitting there in large part, uh, because Kenyon Sadiq landed in a train wreck there in, in New Jersey. But the, some of the early reports about Stowers is he was struggling to pick up blocking schemes, he's struggling to pick up the playbook, he's playing behind other people. Um, where do, what do you f- you know, where do you think of that in terms of, like, the development of somebody like a Stowers who is coming in as an heir apparent potentially to a player who the team was willing to part with in this season in Dallas Goedert? Does, does it concern you at all when you see those kinds of, you know, rookie struggling to pick up the playbook kinds of storylines?

A little bit. And Stowers specifically, he's kind of one of those tweeners that worries me a little bit because he's not good enough to be an NFL tight end, but he's also, like, not nimble enough to be an NFL wide receiver. So he does need to kind of find a coaching staff that's going to play to his skill set. I think there is kind of this idea that he's gonna step in and do the Dallas Goedert stuff, but I see he and Dallas Goedert as very different players. Like Dal- Dallas Goedert is that in-line traditional tight end. He's a fantastic blocker. He's good through traffic. I think what we're gonna see Eli Stowers do is actually a lot of the stuff that A.J. Brown is vacating. Now, I don't think that he's got the top-end speed or the ball-tracking abilities that A.J. Brown had downfield, but those short little slants and screens where you can create after the catch across the middle of the field, I think that's what Stowers does really well. So I think kind of just, like, looking at the depth chart and saying, "Well, you know, they've got an old aging tight end here, and they drafted a tight end," so many teams nowadays are running these multi tight end sets that you need to have two complementary tight ends. So to look at, like, you know, the, the Ravens, for example, I'd say Gower- Goedert is more of that Mark Andrews guy, the guy who plays in-line, the guy who blocks, the guy who's in on running downs. And then you see Stowers as more of that Isaiah Likely, the guy who can play out of the slot, the guy who might be detached from the offensive line but can run those downfield routes. So I think that Stowers specifically, like, I don't know if he's ever gonna be that every down traditional tight end. But I think that his skill set makes him alluring in fantasy because he's such a good pass catcher

And this to me also goes back to this new offensive coordinator who's, who's in town in Sean Mannion, who has said that he wants to really open up that middle of the field and attack that. And of course, it's something that Kevin Patullo routinely did not do. He liked to throw it... Well, he just basically liked his receivers to run straight lines down the field and hope the ball gets there. Uh, so you know, that is kind of this almost perfect storm of Jeff about to bite for something that may not work out very well, um, because he's got his top ranked guy in an offense that appears to be set in a way that might work for him, and now he's struggling to pick it up. But also, you know, I think too, tight ends, that's a tough position to play, whether you play it traditionally or not. I'm actually kind of not surprised. It may take somebody a little time to pick up a playbook. It used to take people three years to learn that, play that position in the NFL.

As we see, like the production, um, age curve for tight ends peaks at 28 and 29 years old. Like, it is very uncommon, of course, and that's why we are so in on Kyle Pitts after his rookie season and Brock Bowers after his rookie season, because for a tight end to come into the league and just immediately contribute at that level is nearly unheard of. Like, it is very, very common for, uh, for NFL tight ends to take three, four, five, sometimes even six, seven years to get fully up to speed. So that's why when we do see these unicorns that just come in and immediately produce, that's why everybody says, "Okay, now this is a first round of a startup type of talent," because these guys only come around once every decade or so.

Yep. Yeah, it, talking about tight ends for a second, you mentioned Sean McVay earlier. You know, I think we're remiss if we don't talk about the Rams tight end room, even if it's not a story either one of us

That was the next one I was gonna bring up, so I'm glad you

on. But, but we'll, we'll dissolve that, and I will let you, uh, introduce it, then. So we've got, we've got five tight ends at least in LA that can play.

Yeah, and I've got, uh, you know, I was just reading, this was from Sarah Barshop on ESPN the other day, and she said several people in the Rams building have pointed to Terrance Ferguson as a player that they think will take a big step forward in year two. Now, we saw a little bit from Terrance Ferguson down the stretch last year, but I am of the belief that he is far and away the best tight end there. And again, we talk about, like, the learning curve from college to the pros. That's why we saw Tyler Higbee early in the season. That's why we saw Colby Parkinson later in the year. But there are a lot of expectations for Terrance Ferguson. And this guy was my TE3 coming out of that 2025 class. I only had Tyler Warren and Colston Loveland ahead of him. He was, uh, led at the NCAA in yards after the catch per reception at Oregon, averaging over nine yards after the catch per reception. That's not yards per reception, yards after the catch per reception, right? Like, this dude is a freak with the ball in his hand, but he can also high point in the end zone, come down with contested catches. He is a very well-rounded receiver. So drafted young, you know, didn't really get fully up to speed last year. And I think when you're a team with Super Bowl aspirations and you've got Davante Adams and Puka Nacua, it's kind of hard to fit in a rookie development there. But I think Terrance Ferguson, he's one that I'm very excited about. But I think that with how deep this tight end room is and with Davante Adams on the last year of his deal getting up there at 33 years old now, I think that there is going to be opportunity for one of these young guys to come along. So I'm gonna be paying close attention to all of these Rams beat reports and seeing if this Terrance Ferguson stuff is just kind of hopeful wish casting in July or whether it actually translates to what they're doing on the practice field in August.

Yeah, and then they drafted Max Klare as well, who, you know, there is at least one vision of the world where a year or two from now it is Ferguson and Klare as the, as the two receiving tight ends for Sean McVay. And we talked about him earlier in a different context about Ty Simpson. This is a man who is planning ahead for his football team, even in a Super Bowl contending window. He's brought in a potential future quarterback or, or potential quarterback of the future. He's got his tight ends of the future, even if he's not using them quite the same way. So, uh, you know, as a dynasty manager and you're looking at this Rams tight end room, it's really just throw up your hands and say, "Eh, nah, someone else can deal with this." But, you know, I, I, I imagine you would probably put Ferguson, and I don't know if you'd put Klare up there or not. In my rankings, they are the top two in dynasty in LA's room. I've got Ferguson at 15 and Klare at 30, Parkinson's 36, Higbee 49, and Davis Allen is 79, uh, so he's probably off the radar. But I

I was gonna say, if you're going as deep as Davis Allen, your, your rankings go a lot deeper than mine. But I'm, I'm pretty close to you there. I've got Terrance Ferguson at TE15, just where you've got him. A little bit higher on Max Klare. I've got Max Klare at TE25, and then Parkinson just outside of my top 50. Higbee. I guess I've got Davis Allen at 73, so I go pretty deep with mine as well. But yeah.

See, I think you go to about 82, Dave. I've, I've seen your rankings, so, you know. Yeah, uh, incidentally, those of you who, who know that we're on Footballguys, you can see our rankings individually and collectively on there. So, uh, if you wanna poke fun at any of the way we've got things ranked, you can see exactly how Dave and I have them. This, this is not the kind of show where we sit here and debate out rankings. That's not what we do here. But, uh, but it is nice that when you and I are aligned. Actually, uh, I think it was a y- when I was first really getting into doing rankings for Footballguys, I had, uh, my computer run an analysis, and it m- it said I was closest to you than I was to anybody

Look at that.

apparently we, we see the world very similarly, so we're either both nuts or, or we're both, uh, geniuses, so probably both,

I no longer upload my rankings to Fantasy Pros, but it was always funny when I would, uh, draft a team on Fantasy Pros, and then it would say, "Dave Kluge really likes your team." And I'm like, "You don't say."

Yeah. Uh, what other, what are some of the other storylines that, that you've got your eye on here?

Um, you know, I just had one pulled up. Oh, I think, uh, Chicago Bears. You know,

Bears, uh, we gotta talk about them

And I got a quote from Ben Johnson here saying, "You get what you emphasize. Completion percentage is something that we are going to emphasize." And I wrote an article about this recently where Caleb Williams on deep balls last year was not just one of the most accurate, but also one of the most aggressive deep ball throwers. He was willing to push the ball downfield. He was very efficient on those opportunities. But it was the short and intermediate areas that he really struggled with. And I think if you polled anybody before the season started, you'd say this is where Caleb Williams is going to excel in a Ben Johnson offense, and that's really where he struggled. So we saw him, you know, one of the highest times to throw in the NFL. He is so good at extending plays with his legs. He's so good at finding those open receivers deep downfield. But I wanna see if he can get those layups because we know this is a proven system. Jared Goff didn't need to buy extra time. He didn't need to run around like a chicken with his head cut, cut off. He didn't need to rip the ball 65 yards downfield. He was just hitting those open receivers in the short and intermediate areas. So I feel like we kind of saw Caleb Williams doing the hard stuff last year, and that's really what I'm gonna be paying attention to, and that's something that all of the Chicago beat writers know. They are going to be tracking Caleb Williams' completion percentage throughout camp, and I think that's the difference, where last year we saw Caleb Williams kind of giving us middling QB1 production. He's got enough rushing up- upside, and he's got the weapons around him. If he can start hitting those easy throws, that's when we could see him ascend and be a top three fantasy player

Yeah, Dave, I think you, you said something that a lot of people are kind of missing on this completion percentage, 'cause they may be just looking at it in, in aggregate and thinking the whole thing needs to come up. Dude's great deep. It's these shallower stuff that he's having some trouble with. I don't know if it's vision or touch or timing or a combination of all those things.

Have you heard his pushback? He said his pushback is that he led the league in throwaways, and he said, "I don't like throwing interceptions, and those throwaways lead to hurting my completion percentage." So that's kind of the, the spin that, that the Chicago media is putting on it

They do. Uh, but he throws away too many of them in the middle of the field too, so Uh, but, you know, so let's, let's, let's latch onto that for a second. So if, if we're hearing from the beat writers and we're hearing from the coach that, that we wanna improve intermediate and shorter completion percentage because there really isn't room to improve his deep ball accuracy, he's already at near the top there. Who does that benefit? I mean, does that change any of the calculus on, say, Luther Burden versus Rome Odunze or Tyler, uh, Col- uh, not Tyler Colston, uh, Colston Loveland. Tyler Warren's the other dude. Colston Loveland. I mean, w- or the running backs. I mean, what does that, what does an emphasis on shorter passing completion percentage do in terms of that Bears offense from a fantasy standpoint?

So I think Odunze is more of that downfield receiver, and we have seen in this Ben Johnson offense, it's very easy, and we probably shouldn't because it's easy, but it's also lazy to just say, like, "Well, you know, there was this player in Detroit doing this role, and this player in Chicago is gonna fit right into this piece." It's not exactly like that. But if you look, the X receiver has never really been a big part of Chicago Bear- or the Ben Johnson offense, I should say. And maybe you can say that's because it was a late career Allen Robinson and Josh Reynolds and Tim Patrick and, you know, then D.J. Chark. Like, they never really had a good X receiver. But it does feel like the role of that X receiver has always been to just stretch defenses vertically so they can hit the underneath shots, and those underneath shots, of course, would go to a Luther Burden, who's gonna line up in the slot and get those immediate wins right off the line of scrimmage. Colston Loveland, who's gonna be hitting those short crossers just like Sam LaPorta did. So if they are trying to emphasize hitting more of the short to intermediate throws, I'd imagine that that would benefit Luther Burden and Colston Loveland. But I, I-- You know, again, it's just so hard, uh, and, and lazy... Maybe lazy is not the best term, but I can't think of a better term. But it's just hard for me to say that, like, because all of these washed-up X receivers couldn't do anything in a Ben Johnson offense, that means Rome Odunze is not gonna do anything in a Ben Johnson offense. I mean, there are levels to the talent here that we're talking, and Rome Odunze is much better than all of those guys. But there is one other quote from Ben Johnson where he says, "I don't want my quarterback throwing 50/50 balls. I trust my offense to get players open, and I would rather throw to an open receiver than asking a receiver to make a play on a ball." Rome Odunze is not an elite separator. Like, he can flash open for a quick second. He can come down with contested balls. But Ben Johnson wants to throw to open receivers. And when I go back and I watch what the Bears were doing last year, Luther Burden, Colston Loveland, those were the guys that were just open on an island, where Rome Odunze was kind of fighting for balls as they were coming to him

Yeah, I struggle with this wide receiver room in terms of rankings, but at-- and now this is exactly where I have them right now. I have Burden at 18 and Odunze at 19, so it tells you that I haven't made up my mind yet as to how I wanna value these guys until I start seeing a little bit more on practice and seeing more what the game plan might look like here. Uh, but I think the very idea, this concept of, of shorter, more intermediate stuff and more accuracy, I did get Burden up higher than I've had him before, uh, because I think that's, you know, that is kind of the, the role evolution as he gets into his second year. Uh, and I wouldn't call Odunze a sacrificial X, otherwise I wouldn't have him as a WR2 in fantasy either. And then, uh, I, I think, you know, the other one, if we wanna talk about a- another team, another storyline I'm paying attention to, like very similarly that we're trying to figure out what the pecking order's gonna look like in Chicago. Jacksonville, just copy and paste everything I just said. Like, w- there are a lot of talented receivers here, and we all have our idea of how we expect the offense to work out, but I think this is one that I'm gonna be paying a ton of attention to because it seems like everybody has already decided.

Like, are you Team BTJ, or are you Team Parker Washington, or are you Team Jakobi Meyers? And I am kind of throwing my hands up and saying, "I don't really know," but I'm gonna be paying close attention to what's coming out of Jacksonville and hope that I can get a little bit of clarity before week one

we do think alike. I was just about to use the exact same words, Team Brian Thomas, Team Jakobi Meyers, Team Parker Washington. It seems like the analysts and players and dynasty players, fantasy players have all kind of worked their way into one camp or another. Uh, I suppose I am in Team BTJ. I still have him fairly high at WR22, and I have McC- Meyers at 41 and Washington at 51. I'm not a big believer in Parker Washington as, as others are. But, uh, but yeah, I think that, that... how that all shakes out's gonna be kind of fascinating. You know, is Brian Thomas gonna be able to be more like that rookie season, or was that the abom- the, not the abomination. Was that the,

Well, it was an abomination. It was just a completely broken offense.

last year was an abomination. Uh, but you know what, you know, which of those are they? But I also think, you know, when you flip over a little bit, uh, and, and one of the storylines I'm interested in is the running back room in Jacksonville because you got Bhayshul Tuten. Um, you, you lost Etienne. He's now a Saint, so you got Bhayshul Tuten. I think the initial throught- thought line was, well, he's now the guy because he's there. But then Chris Rodriguez comes along, and a lot of people are missing an undercurrent to that, uh, in that the coaching staff has a prior relationship with this guy. Uh, is that something that, that sort of hidden kind of, uh, connection thing, exactly the sort of thing that dynasty managers are ignoring and probably shouldn't?

Yeah. I mean, I am an unabashed Chris Rodriguez Jr. lover, and I wrote an article about him the day that he signed with Jacksonville, like immediately just saying like, "People are gonna sleep on this, and they shouldn't." First of all, there aren't a lot of running back efficiency metrics that I care about because so many running back efficiency metrics are actually just team stats that are just kind of convoluted in a way. You know, like rushing EPA, oh my gosh, you look at that. Like Kyren Williams led the league in rushing EPA last year, and two years ago he was outside of the top 150. Rachaad White, when he was the RB4 in PPR leagues three years ago, he was 149th in EPA, and he was ninth last year. Like, that is just such a up and down, impossible to It's a very hard stat to get any sort of read on. But there are three metrics that I care about, and that's yards after contact per attempt. Like, can you get hit by a, a defender and still generate yards? Success rate. Like, how often are you doing the thing that you're asked to do? And then broken tackle rate. Are you breaking tackles when defenders try to hit you? Chris Rodriguez was top five in all of those last year. The only player with more yards after contact per attempt was De'Von Achane. Like Chris Rodriguez had a flawless analytical profile last year. And then you talk about it, he is now getting teamed up with Liam Coen, his coach from Kentucky. So you know, Liam Coen, he was a part of that Kentucky staff when they had Will Levis and Wan'Dale Robinson. Chris Rodriguez was the engine that powered that offense. And when Liam Coen had to come back two years later to coach that team without Chris Rodriguez, he talked about how hard it was gonna be not having a running back that he knew he could give the ball to and pick up four yards. Now, I've seen people use this as like a knock against Chris Rodriguez as like, you know, you ask Chris Rodriguez to get one yard, he's gonna get you three. You ask him to get you five yards, he's gonna get you three. But there is a role for that type of player in the NFL. And like the

White's had it for years.

Exactly. And you know what? You ask Bhayshul Tuten to get you three yards, he might get you negative three. Like Chris Rodriguez doesn't do that. He keeps an offense on schedule. He wears defenses down over the course of a game. And that's one of those things that fantasy managers, when they get lost in the spreadsheets, hate that type of player. But coaches love that type of player. So yeah, I think Bhayshul Tuten, he had a great combine. I don't wanna take that away from him. He ran really fast in spandex in Indianapolis a year and a half ago. But Chris Rodriguez, he was the preferred running back when healthy in Washington last year. Now the coach that coached him in college made him a priority signing in free agency, gave him pretty much the same ca- contract that Kenny Gainwell and Rico Dowdle got, players that, uh, you know, fantasy community is getting really excited about. So yeah, I, I'm with you. I love Chris Rodriguez in this offense. Of course, he's got that foot injury right now that's kind of mysterious. Some people are saying it might be a Jones fracture. Nobody really knows for sure. But I'll be paying close attention to how this is getting split up. And I think the best thing to look for when we get into training camp is who they're practicing with. Like, you know, if we get Chris Rodriguez healthy to start training camp, we're two weeks into training camp, Bhayshul Tuten's been with the ones every single day, Chris Rodriguez is with the twos every single day, it would be foolish for me to keep holding it down for Chris Rodriguez. But if we find out that they're splitting snaps or that Chris Rodriguez is getting more reps with the ones than Bhayshul Tuten is, you better believe that I will be over my skis with Bleshi- or with, uh, Chris Rodriguez love at that point

Yeah, I'll, I'll be with you. We'll crash right into the trees together, man. Uh, but you know, the, the, the murky part though is, well, if he doesn't, if he's not ready for the start of training camp, then we don't have that counterpoint of information and Tuten is running with the ones. Uh, that, you know, what does that do to us in terms of, of are we just waiting for confirmation or not confirmation? God, I know we gotta get Rodriguez on the field before we make this decision, or do we watch Tuten pull away and say, "Okay, well he's gonna be the guy"?

Well, I think he's going to pull away if his only competition is LaQuint Allen, because LaQuint Allen is a passing down specialist. So, um, I, you know, I, I hope all indications seem to be like we were getting reports in early June that Chris Rodriguez would be a full go for the start of training camp, and Liam Coen just corroborated that a couple of weeks ago. So that's my expectation. But of course, we talked about it like we get surprised by injuries every single year. Training camp opens and like, you know, training camp opens and we find out that Rome Odunze isn't practicing because that lingering foot injury from last year, like that shouldn't be surprising because these types of surprise happen every single year. So I expect Chris Rodriguez to be out there. But yeah, if he's not ready for the start of training camp, every day that he misses, you know, this is a new offense, this is a new environment, this is a new offensive line that he needs to learn the nuance and tendencies of every day that he misses training camp will just slowly just knock him down a little bit in my rankings, because that's just more ground that he has to make up

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, what else? What other stories you were looking at, uh, for training camp?

Let me take a look here. I've got a whole list of ones that are, uh, really interesting me right now. Um, here's one that really piques my interest. Colts running back coach DeAndre Smith had this to say about Jonathan Taylor. "We definitely need to find ways to take some of that workload off him. If I can find another guy or two that can take some of those carries off, he," Jonathan Taylor, "is just going to be that much better." Now, this is one that we hear this a lot, and a lot of times this is just a fluff story that I'll throw away. You've got a superstar running back, and you wanna take touches off him. It's really easy to say that in July. It's a lot harder when you're calling plays to take your best player off the field. That being said, Seth McGowan is a darn good running back, and he fell in the draft. This is another one of those, Jeff, we talk about these day three running backs, character concerns. Like, this guy, I think he had a six-year collegiate career. Like, he bounced around. He got suspended for a year. He had some legal issues where he was let go by the team that he was with. I mean, it was a very arduous, arduous path through college, and because of that, it caused him to fall to day three in the NFL draft. But, you know, if you're looking just from a talent perspective, you can make an argument that he's a top five running back in this class. He is a hard-nosed runner. He breaks tackles. He is violent. He accelerates into contact. He can break runs, uh, for, for, for long gains. Like, he kinda does everything that you wanna see from a running back, but because of the legal concerns, because of the advanced age, he fell quite a bit in drafts. Uh, well, in the NFL draft and in dynasty drafts. But he's gonna be one of those names because I don't trust DJ Giddens all that much, and I don't think the team does either. He got almost no work last year. But if we're getting into training camp and they're saying, "Seth McGowan looks really good. Seth McGowan's getting some reps with the ones. Seth McGowan can, you know, take some of the pressure off Jonathan Taylor," we saw Jonathan Taylor over the second half of the season was not the player he was in the first half of the season. Now, we can point to the Daniel Jones injury and say that that's why the whole offense cooled down. We could also say that that workload started to take its toll on Jonathan Taylor. Either way, Jonathan Taylor was a tale of two seasons last year. We've got the coaching staff saying that they wanna alleviate this workload a little bit, and I do think Seth McGowan is a guy who's talented enough to carve out 20, 30, maybe 35% of the touches, and that would be a huge ding to Jonathan Taylor's projections if he's able to do that. Can I give you one more, uh, big

Absolutely. Yeah, as many as you want. As many as you want

Patrick Mahomes, uh, he said his goal is to be ready week one, and we already saw him at OTAs, big bulky knee brace, but he was out there dropping back, throwing passes, and we know he is a competitor. Like, he has been lauded for his, uh, conditioning and mobility training and all this sort of stuff. But I think even more than just Patrick Mahomes being out there for week one is just the domino effect that this would have on so many other dynasty pieces. Like, 'cause if Patrick Mahomes isn't out there, I'm firing Justin Fields up as like a, as a spot starter. Like, why not? Like, you can get QB1 production from Justin Fields, whether it's for one week or four weeks or eight weeks. If Patrick Mahomes is to miss any time, then we are very excited about Justin Fields as a spot starter. We're also very less excited about Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce and Xavier Worthy and Tyquan Thornton and all the other pieces that are part of this Chiefs offense. We're probably less excited about Kenneth Walker as well. So I think this is one that like, not just for Patrick Mahomes, um, 'cause if he's out there, then we have faith in Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce. We're throwing those darts on Worthy and Tyquan Thornton and whoever else. We're much more excited about Kenneth Walker, but I think that if he has to miss time, one, we're looking at, at exciting short-term production from Justin Fields, but two, we have to temper expectations for every other Chiefs player

We've seen an unhealthy Patrick Mahomes try to make it work, and it hasn't, hasn't been that great with the receivers. But this is also for me a- an RB2 battle that's worth watching, even though on the depth chart it looks pretty clear who that person's going to be. If Emmett Johnson can't hold off Emari Demercado, who's really more of a gadget guy in my mind, or Brashard Smith or Jaydn Ott, then we got a real problem in terms of someone who, uh, I've thought fairly highly of, uh, coming out of college until he tumbled on draft day, although all the running backs kind of did that. Do you have any kind of sense at all about who's, who's the guy behind Kenneth Walker?

Ah, you know, I think it's Emmitt Johnson just because he has a very well-rounded skill set. But again, day three running back trap. Like, it feels like every single year there's a day three running back on the Chiefs that we fall for, whether it's Carson Steele or Darwin Thompson or Brashard Smith. Like year there's yeah, every year there's somebody. I do think Emmett Johnson is better than those guys, but, um, you know, that, that, that's just... It, it's such a tough one to get a read on. And, and my expectation would be like, we have seen that when Andy Reid has a superstar running back, when he's got a Jamaal Charles, a LeSean McCoy, a Kareem Hunt, you know, one of these guys, he will give them the full workload. And when he doesn't, he's willing to just kind of split it up among everybody. So my fear is that if Kenneth Walker were to miss any time, we'd probably see a bit of Emari Demercado and a bit of Brashard Smith and a bit of Emmett Johnson, and they'd probably call up Kareem Hunt and sign him for the 19th contract and he'd probably get an annoying amount of touches as well. So I don't know if there's a clear like one-to-one handcuff in this backfield. I think Kenneth Walker's probably gonna be-- Well, not probably. Kenneth Walker will be the lead back. He'll probably have more than enough that you can start him as a high-end RB2 on a weekly basis. And if he misses time, who's gonna catch the passes? Who's gonna score the touchdowns? We've been doing this song and dance with the Chiefs backfield for the last five years, and it's not a fun one

Yeah, we were doing it with their wide receiver core too. It's the same sort of questions that we've had there. Uh, I'm with you. I-- to me, the, the story isn't, the story isn't, uh, is does Johnson pull away in a sense? And even if he does, as you point out, it may not matter because he could still be the RB2 on the depth chart and still split those touches with somebody else, whether he's in relief of Walker or, or an injury replacement. But that, that is a-- that's an RB2 battle I'm looking at kind of backwards, which is I think I've got a front-runner. Does he, does he hold onto the position or not? And I've probably got other positions, other battles of RB2 like that around, around the league. But since we brought up Kansas City, I thought we'd, we'd jump on that for a second. Uh, anything else that you wanna cover?

Um, I think the Titans backfield, we talked briefly about Nick Singleton, but that's what I'm gonna be paying close, close attention to. I have been drafting a lot of Nick Singleton in round 20 of best ball drafts, especially in these ones where, you know, you're playing for the championships late in the season. Tyjae Spears, expiring deal. Tony Pollard, expiring deal. We talked about how new coaches can kind of shake things up a little bit. I think that Nick Singleton, you know, if he is healthy in training camp then I'm probably gonna, you know, move him from the dynasty stash and the final round best ball pick to the redraft radar if he's able to practice because I think he is just such a good talent. But I think more than anything, like, he's a player that you wanna keep stashed just because late in the year this team might be out of playoff contention knowing that Spears and Pollard are going to be walking after the off-season, that they might just say, you know, we see this often in the final few weeks, "Hey, let's see what Nick Singleton can do. Let's see what we have with this guy so we can kind of get an idea of what we need to do this off-season in free agency." So Nick Singleton, I'll be paying close attention to what he will be doing in, um, training camp because that'll move him from kind of the, uh, the dynasty stash into maybe this is a guy that I wanna start targeting in my redraft leagues.

Yeah. I mean, I see a path for Singleton to 200 touches next year, but that path requires him to do enough this year that they don't sign a RB1, uh, out of free agency to replace the guys. They may-- I doubt they would keep Pollard. They might keep Spears, but they, you know, the, the threat of bringing somebody in's pretty high unless Singleton proves that, "No, I'm actually gonna be the guy going forward." And I love that you said may be out of the playoffs by then. That's very sweet. They are going to be out of the playoffs by then. This is not

don't know, man. And the, the AFC South isn't a very good division either, so I'd, uh, I don't know. I'm, I am still a Cam Ward believer. I am a Brian Daboll and a Robert Saleh believer as well. Every year we see that team that surprises us, and I, you know, the Titans, th- th- they're a team to keep an eye on. I, I think they looked pretty good down the stretch last

They are. If Jacksonville can't put this thing away early, uh, if they can't get it together the way, if, if, if Trevor Lawrence can't ascend, the line can't hold, then yeah, okay, Tennessee might be able to hang around long enough to, to make a difference at the end. But, uh, not seeing it. They might do enough just to screw up their ability to get a really good draft pick though, and that's, uh, that's always a problem. In your dynasty leagues, that's really a problem. You don't wanna be a six-win team in dynasty. You wanna be a three-win team in dynasty. Uh, just touch real quickly on, on the situations in Seattle and, and in Arizona. I think, you know, Seattle we've got Jadarian Price who's coming in. I think a lot of us are-- we're expecting a clear path for him to be the guy. Now we hear Charbonnet is ahead of schedule, which may or may not be true, and then you still got, you know, Emmanuel Wilson and George Holani sitting around. How do you-- what are you paying attention to most out of training camp for these guys? Is it whether Charbonnet comes back or not, or is it, uh, what these other guys are doing?

So I don't think Charbonnet is going to come back in training camp. Um, all indications seem that he'll be a, a, a mid-season guy. Um, you know, one of the benefits of doing, you talked about it at the top of the show, the, the Sirius XM show, is that every single week we have different beat reporters come on, and we get to talk to different beat reporters. And, uh, we just had-- oh my gosh, I should know this name off the top. Corbin Smith with, uh, the Seattle Seahawks. He joined us a couple weeks ago and really changed how I'm looking at this backfield. Like, he said that there are not many expectations that Jadarian Price is going to be a three-down back. He said the expectation early in the year is that George Holani should start. We gotta remember George Holani last year, after Zach Charbonnet went down, was handling a third of the running back snaps throughout the playoffs. Like, you know, biggest games of the year, exactly, and they were still keeping Holani out there. So he's a guy that's won the trust of the coaching staff. And then he said that they are viewing Z- uh, Zach Charbonnet, they said an Adrian Peterson-like recovery, where he is so far ahead of schedule. Now, we gotta remember, he didn't even have his surgery until February, so you know, we're still looking at a mid-season recovery. But they said that they expect him, over the second half of the season, to go back to being that lead back, where Jadarian Price is just gonna be the guy that kinda mixes in for change-of-pace work. So this is one that I'm gonna be keeping a pretty close eye on. But right now, I think the fantasy community is just over their skis with Jadarian Price, hoping that the first-round draft capital is enough that he can run away with this backfield, where it sounds like he is going to kinda be in, like, a smaller role than what Kenneth Walker had, splitting touches with George Holani to start the year and Zach Charbonnet over the second half.

just real quick on Arizona, where you've got the highest paid running back in NFL history. He has as many NFL touches as you or I have, Dave. Uh, and then you've got this kind of mess behind him for what would be the RB2 or RB3 role on a team that isn't gonna be very good and may not really need much of one of those roles unless Love gets hurt. What are you-- Are you watching anything, first of all, out of Allgeier, Conner, Benson, and, and last year's brief waiver wire darling Bam Knight, or are you just saying, "I don't care. We'll just see what happens"?

Um, I'm waiting to see who gets traded and where they land because it would be foolish for them to go into the season with this many guys. Like, I, I got to imagine there's a team out there that is similar to me and still saying, like, what could be with Trey Benson. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But, like, yeah, I got to imagine if a team calls up and offers a sixth or seventh round pick for Trey Benson, the Cardinals are gonna take it because my guess is that they're going to have to trim down the roster and they're gonna release Bam Knight, Trey Benson, James Conner. One of these guys is getting cut. So, um, I'd, uh, think that there's got to be some sort of savvy team out there that's saying, "Hey, before we have to compete with these guys on the waiver wire, let's just throw out a round seven pick for him." Maybe that's the Packers. Um, you know, maybe it's the Steelers. I don't know exactly who is going to be interested. But, um, I, I would expect almost assuredly that one of these running backs gets moved before week one

Well, uh, Matt Waldman and I being Chris Brooks stans hope it's not gonna be Green Bay, but, uh, that would just dash our hopes for yet another season there. Uh, but whether it's Arizona's running back or another one where it's really cloudy, I mean, what should dynasty managers do? Should they be aggressive and try to pick a horse now, or do you wait till there's more of a resolution, or does it just kind of depend on the situation?

No, I think you actually, like, absolutely should have some conviction in your takes. And, you know, like right now there are guys that probably aren't like the lead guys, but like Trey Benson is a guy that is sitting out there on waivers right now in some dynasty leagues, and I will pick him up to wait to see how this shakes out, whether he gets traded or released or ends up in a different situ- situation or what happens. Same thing when we were just talking about the Seattle backfield. I think you need to have con- conviction there. Like if you think that Jadarian Price is just an awesome running back, you know, go out and acquire Jadarian Price and hope that it breaks that way. I'm more of the belief that Zach Charbonnet is really good, and that he is way ahead of schedule, so he's the guy that I'm trying to go out and buy in dynasty. And we can change these takes and rankings a little bit as we get through training camp, but I still think that you should have some conviction in your beliefs, uh, before training camp opens up

you of course do dynasty rankings as do I. Which guys do you suspect are gonna move the most between now and week one?

Ooh, I think, uh, there's two teams that I'm looking at specifically, um, that are very mercurial, and I'm gonna say because, you know, we've, we talked about the Jets. Or I'm sorry, we talked about the Jags, we talked about the, the Bears, you know. Those guys, I think they're already having some value insulation because we've seen most of, most of those guys play already. But when I look at the Jets and the Browns, two teams that spent heavily on rookies this year, I think we are gonna see a lot of value shifting right now. Like right now, it seems like everybody just kind of puts KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston right next to each other in rankings as kind of placeholders. But if we start hearing by week two, week three that KC Concepcion is just balling out and Denzel Boston's struggling to get up to speed or vice versa, then we can start to widen that gap a little bit with those two players. Similarly, we look at, you know, of course Garrett Wilson is gonna be the guy in New York, but how's Ken- uh, Kenyon Sadiq gonna come on? How is Omar Cooper gonna come on? I think right now we're just kind of placing these guys in our rankings and not really sure what to do with them. But I think that, you know, it's, it's not gonna take a lot of a positive drumbeat for a Kenyon Sadiq or an Omar Cooper or a KC Concepcion or a Denzel Boston for us to really shoot those guys up the rankings

Yeah, really shoot might be, uh, a stretch for me. I have, uh, if we look at Cleveland for a second, I got Concepcion at WR42 and Boston at WR47. But I do have the WR1 there, Jerry Jeudy at WR78. So there is definitely some there's definitely some, some room for that to move. I, I do think there's, there, there may be some movement there in that. Uh, and then the Jets, uh, you know, I had Andrew Cooper on a, a couple months ago, and, and I think he summed it up best. He said, "You know, this is arguably the worst class for skill position players in years, and the Jets and the Browns spend two first-round picks on it."

Uh-huh. Yeah

Uh, let me see. Cooper, WR52. Uh, I do have Sadiq down a bit at TE14. I'm not quite sure then what to do with Mason Taylor, who they drafted a year ago, uh, to play the tight end role for them. That's gonna be something to be watchful for a- as well for me. Um, but yeah, the Jets, uh, I think that there's too many people that operate in the middle of the field there because Garrett Wilson's also great in the middle field. Uh, a- and so, uh, I, I, I think that's just a mess. Uh, but there is-- if you are convicted, be convicted. Take, you know, if you think Omar Cooper is gonna be the guy, and he may very well be, act on that, and if he is, great. If he's not, well, it's another thing in dynasty where it didn't quite work out. Um, but if you don't wanna take chances, you're probably not gonna win at dynasty for very long or at all because you gotta, gotta have some conviction and you gotta, you gotta trust it and you gotta go out and do it

and another one I'd say that I'm guessing you probably have ranked pretty similarly would be Ja'Jobi Lane and Elijah Sarratt. You know, two guys that were drafted back to back by the Ravens and play very, very similar roles, and that to me tells me that the Ravens said, "We really need a possession receiver. Let's just draft two guys of the same architype, ar- archetype, and let them fight it out in training camp." So right now I've got these guys very, very tight in my rankings, but that'll be one that I think as we get into training camp, we'll get a clearer idea of who is pulling away with that job

I have, uh, Ja'Kobi Lane as WR80 and Elijah Sarratt as WR81.

Look at that. Yep, does not surprise me

A- and part of that for me for Baltimore is there's, there is kind of a, a fairly clear pecking order. You got Flowers, who I think is, uh, and I wrote about him in, in Footballguys very recently. I think he is a, he is a star that hasn't quite been discovered yet that we were talking earlier about YAC monsters. He is one of those guys as well. I mean, he, he was the wide receiver seven last year on an offense that barely threw the ball. Uh, a- a- and, and if there's any kind of, of

And he barely scored touchdowns

barely scored touchdowns. So to me, the, the touchdown equity, uh, he gets dinged on that too. That's just bonus points because he's already doing really, really well in the rest of it. Um, then you've got Rashod Bateman, who's kind of the perennial well maybe, but I actually do have Lane and Sarratt ranked, both of them ranked over Bateman, uh, and Devotez Walker. So I agree with you. I'm waiting to see kinda who... Does one of them emerge? I think that WR2 role is open, uh, to one or both of them, but if neither of

still betting on Bateman. I, and I know in Dynasty, you know, he's got the, the age on him a little bit, but I think if we're looking for one guy this year who probably locks himself in as a full-time role, it's probably gonna be

Yeah, I,

again, that's what I'll be paying close attention to because, you know, I think Ja'Kobi Lane is a fantastic player. It just seems like it's always kind of between the ears with him is where he struggles. But if they say that he's like, you know, hungry and playing hard and earning his role, like the talent is there, and that's a player that I'll be watching

Yeah, I was asked, uh, well before the rookie d- well before the NFL draft is where's-- what guide would I wanna come out of a dynasty draft with in the lower rounds? And Lane's the guy I came up with. I mean, that's just somebody that if you're gonna take a shot on somebody, take it upside, and this guy has it, and he's now landed in an offense where he has the opportunity. It may not be this year. I think you're right in terms of if this were-- talking redraft, it's Bateman all the way for me on that. I think he is gonna be the WR2, uh, for until further notice. Uh, but if I'm sitting on Devontez Walker as a dynasty manager, uh, you're probably gonna end up cutting him if you can't get anything for him 'cause I think he is on his way out. I don't think he's gonna survive Lane or Sarratt, but at the moment he's ahead of him on the depth chart. A- any, any other stories or, or anything you wanna, you wanna talk about here, or any other moves that you think dynasty managers ought to be making right now as training camps start and we have all of these question marks that are still out in a lot of these, a lot of these cities?

Yeah, I had talked about it earlier, but buy the injured dipped right now on players that we know are good. Like Malik Nabers, he's checked the boxes. He's, he's a superstar. If you can go out, like this is probably the only chance you'll ever get a buy window on Malik Nabers. Quinshon Judkins, another one. Cam Skattebo depending on how you feel about him, I think you can get a good discount there. Uh, Bo Nix, I think right now, very depreciated in cost. Like this guy's been a QB8 or better in both of his seasons. Now coming off the ankle injury, there's some concern there. I'm buying him. Tucker Kraft is another one. You know, coming off the ACL, there's some concern. This guy was the overall TE1 before he went down last year, and is still on the right side of the age curve. So buy those injured players. And then, uh, the other thing is just we wanna pay attention to camp hype, but don't buy too much into it. I remember last year, people were bragging about buying Jacory Croskey-Merritt for first round rookie picks. That is where we just lose the plot. Like you don't wanna get that far. Like we wanna get excited about these players that are getting a steady drumbeat, but don't let your eval take a player that was getting drafted in round four of rookie drafts, and then just because he has two good weeks of camp, that doesn't make him worthy of a first round pick. So you wanna try to maintain some sort of process. You wanna react without overreacting, and it's really tough to say that. I mean, there, there are just kinda some vibes that go into this, for lack of a better term. Like you just have to have a, a feel and an understanding for these sorts of things. But my guess, like I love Kaytron Allen, right? If Kaytron Allen is having a great camp and all we're hearing out of Washington is Kaytron Allen looks good, there is nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing in the world that is going to make me trade a first round pick for Kaytron Allen. So you gotta have that, that top dollar eventually where you can chase a price and then you know when to stop chasing it. Like Jonathon Brooks is a perfect example, and this is in Dynasty, but Jonathon Brooks, when I was doing best ball drafts three months ago, I was screaming from the mountaintops that Jonathon Brooks in round 12 was the best pick you could have made in drafts. Well, now people are taking him in round five. They're taking him in round six. I love Jonathon Brooks. I am not drafting Jonathon Brooks at that price. So I think that's something like where you like these players and you expect them to be camp risers, kinda give yourself that top dollar. Like, yeah, I will keep trying to buy Kaytron Allen for thirds and fourths, but once he creeps up into second round pick territory, then I'm out. I think you should kinda have that line with every player, knowing how high you'll chase their cost

Dave, this has been a blast. I mean, it's always a blast hanging with you, my brother. I mean, this is just anytime we can talk, whether we're, we're recording or in two dimensions or three dimensions is outstanding. But, uh, before you head off, uh, tell everybody where to find you and, uh, especially your, uh, your new venture over on SiriusXM.

Yeah, uh, footballguys.com. You can find everything I got there. Staying super busy this time of year. We start the training camp reports in just a couple of weeks, and those are gonna come out every single week. I'll be editing and leading that project, so you can find all that. Additionally, in about two weeks, I start my positional rankings series, which is one of my best performing series of the off-season. I go through every single position. I do, uh, tiers that I put every single player into. I do full write-ups on every single player as well, and those will be coming out every Wednesday starting in about two weeks. And then of course, the Footballguys Fantasy Football Show, youtube.com/@footballguysfantasy, is absolutely taking off right now. We're having our best off-season ever. It's been really, really cool to see that. Uh, we've got a nonstop rotation of, uh, different Footballguys staffers coming on there between now and week one. Uh, we're ramping up to four episodes a week this week. We're ramping up to five episodes a week starting next week with two livestreams per week on top of that. So, uh, I'm doing seven shows a week over on that YouTube channel in addition to all the writing I'm doing. And then Wednesday nights on SiriusXM with Tom Kessenich, we are doing the High Stakes Advantage, talking about high stakes stuff, bringing in beat reporters, bringing in high stakes players, fantasy analysts, talking everything fantasy football. So that is every Wednesday from noon-- or I'm sorry, from 10:00 to midnight Eastern

Dave, thanks again so much and thanks to everybody who is watching on YouTube, listening on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. Uh, please do us a favor and like and subscribe and, and maybe even more importantly right now, uh, share us, uh, on social media. Tell your friends about us. You don't have to tell your league mates about us in case you want to keep that edge for yourself, but tell everybody else. Uh, like, share, uh, subscribe, all those kind of things. Great review would be helpful. Uh, comments are great too. I respond to every one of them personally. And, uh, stay tuned because next week we will have another outstanding episode of Dynasty Compass.

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