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FFT Express - Dave Richard’s 2025 All-Breakout Team REVEALED! (08/26 Fantasy Football Podcast)
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- [00:00]
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Dave Richard
Foreign now for the Dave Richard all breakout team for 2025. This is fantasy Football Today Express. Welcome to the show. I'm Jamie Eisenberg. That's Dave Richard, hall of Famer, Fantasy hall of Famer. I just love saying that.
- [02:14]
Jamie Eisenberg
Dude, you've said it twice over the last 24 hours and you have said anything like that over the previous three years?
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Dave Richard
Well, I mean when you're on the under the spotlight, it's time to, you know, highlight your career achievement.
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Jamie Eisenberg
And so hopefully I'm not the only one.
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Dave Richard
Make everybody aware of what the what information they're getting. So we have the all breakout team for you for 2025. Let's start with the quarterback. Who is the quarterback you're targeting to break out the season.
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Jamie Eisenberg
Let's give credit to the future hall of Famer on this one. You were on Drake Drake May before I was. It took me going to see the Patriots in practice to really get a grip on Drake May. I thought he looked great going up against the commander starting unit. I love the way that he threw the ball. Not just he really didn't throw to Stefan Diggs as much. It was Demario Douglas, it was the tight ends, it was Kyle Williams, it was Kon Booty, it was Travion Henderson. This is a different type of offense that he's in this year. He's got better people to throw to. He himself has a year's worth of experience and the offensive line, especially the right side of that offensive line should be better. These are all improvements for Drake May over last year who in his last 11 games averaged 18.6 fantasy points per game and 6 point. He is a top 12 fantasy quarterback and I do not mind beginning the year with him as my starter because of who they play. Week one against Las Vegas, Week two against the Dolphins.
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Dave Richard
It's great setup for him and last year his 10 healthy games he was on pace for for 630 rushing yards. Again if you don't take anybody else on pace performances. So just him versus the field. He would have been the third best running quarterback behind Lamar Jackson and Jaden Daniels. So there's a lot to like about what he could do with his legs. And Josh McDaniels did have a running quarterback once upon a time in Cam Newton for a season and was able to do a lot of great things. With Cam still running a similar style offense, I think that Drake May will run as well. All right, let's talk about the running backs. Dave so who are the two running backs that are going to be breakout candidates?
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Jamie Eisenberg
Bucky Irving had a great half year. I am going to call for him to have a great full year. Over the course of 2024 he averaged 14.4 PPR points per game, but that number looked like 18.1 in his final eight games. That includes the postseason. That includes only two games out of the eight where he played more than 60% of the snaps. I think the Bucs offense is going to be just as good even if Liam Cohen isn't there. I think Bucky Irving plays just a little bit more than he did last year. That gives me hope that he can meet or exceed the 18 PPR points per game that he had last year. I would still take Chase Brown ahead of him, but I'm going to take Buck Irving ahead of Jonathan Taylor Kyron Williams, Omarion Hampton, I think he does have a breakout second season. And Jamie, I've started to move Jordan Mason ahead of Aaron Jones in my non PPR rankings and in my half PPR rankings. They are damn close in full ppr. I think that the Vikings will will eventually skew Young at running back and Jordan Mason, who isn't a three down guy like Aaron Jones is, I just think that he'll be the one that ends up getting more of the high value touches as far as rushing goes and probably gets more carries than Aaron Jones as well. I think they want to be a stronger gap team. I think he can do that for them. And so drafting Jordan Mason, we've started to see it late Round seven, Round eight, we're seeing him go. I think he's going to be worth that adp.
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Dave Richard
So the the question because we've done a couple shows now where Bucky Irving's been a breakout candidate for you and I know I posted some of our breakout candidates on on X for a show that we did on CBS Sports Network and a lot of pushback was how can Bucky be a breakout? And you gave a good explanation why. I guess my question would be is if you're considering him to perform at that level that we saw at the end of last season, why is he not ahead of those guys and why is he not in the same range as let's say a Ashton Genti, Derrick Henry, guys that are going at the back end of round one? If you're expecting that level of production the entire season, I've got him six.
- [06:04]
Jamie Eisenberg
Spots overall behind Ashton Genti and the that ilk of running back. The only running backs I have ahead of them as of now and this is full PPR is a Chan because it's full ppr. Jacobs, Chase Brown, that's it. And if, if we learn anything about a chance calf not healing up, then that's an easy one that you can just slide right behind Bucky. Or if you're nervous about hn, take Bucky Irving ahead of HN at this point.
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Dave Richard
Okay, so good pick in round two and we'll see if he's able to perform like he did at the back half of last season. I think a lot of people excited about Bucky.
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Jamie Eisenberg
He's a good pick in round two.
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Dave Richard
But you might be able to get him in round three. Yeah, you could see him slip in some cases to round three. We did, we saw that happen in a recent draft that we did a recent mock draft that we did on CBSSports.com all right, take a quick break here on FFT Express. We come back into Dave's wide receiver breakouts and tight end breakout as well. I bet you can guess who that guy is going to be.
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Dave Richard
So we got the quarterback is Drake May. The running backs are Bucky Irving and Jordan Mason. The wide receivers are.
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Jamie Eisenberg
I'm going to skip over Keon Coleman. You can read about my thoughts on him and why I'm trying to get him in every single draft. Let's give you some names otherwise that you're probably going to take significantly ahead of Keon Coleman anyway. The first one, Marvin Harrison Jr. I think that the bulking up is something that does concern me, but if it's. If it means that he's going to run shorter routes and still see a lot of volume and Kyler Murray seems dedicated to getting him the football, then I think we'll see a good year from Marvin Harrison Jr. You might be able to get him in round four, maybe even round five in some leagues. I do think he is PPR dependent. I think Jameson Williams takes another step forward. He was really great toward the end of last season. I want to say his last eight games he averaged 15 PPR points per game. I think. I think he can be a little bit better than that over the course of the whole season. But there's room for him to hit a ceiling too because of his explosiveness. And I think the Lions offense like the Bucks, I know they change coordinators. I don't think they miss a big beat here. I think that they can still be a very, very good offense. Jameson Williams, somebody that I would take in that round four or five range and Ricky Piersol been loving his game ever since, honestly since the middle of last year when he had that one big game against Tampa. You kind of reigned me in on that and said you shouldn't buy into it because it was Tampa. But in those last three games for San Francisco, 18 PPR points as an average in those games and he's looked outstanding. We know about all the other injuries in the 49ers receiving core. I think there's a chance that this is, it's rare to see a receiver in San Francisco see eight targets plus per game. I think he can get close to that and I think a hot start is in store for Ricky Pearsall as well.
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Dave Richard
So Pearsall will be your flex because we're going with a. Yeah. Two running back, two receiver flex league. I do want to ask you about Harrison because you said something there at the end that he's PPR dependent. I mean that's interesting for a guy that scored eight touchdowns last year as a rookie. I almost think he might be better in non PPR than ppr.
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Jamie Eisenberg
I, I think he's just going to see an uptick in target volume and I think that he'll do a lot better with it and maybe that ends up, that maybe that ends up making him great in non PPR as well. So maybe I shouldn't have said that. Last year he was at 6.8 targets per game. I bet he gets to like, I don't know, half target better on a game to game basis this year. And the touchdown, potentially he should have had more than eight touchdowns last year there were a bunch of misfires from Kyler Murray on fade throws.
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Dave Richard
Yeah. Shocking that Kyler Murray couldn't get his targets into the end zone. I, I do think that the narrative of him running more could actually help Marvin Harrison a little bit because of the way that he runs his routes right now where there's not a lot of separation initially that if some of these broken plays where Kyler's scrambling and running potentially a little bit more can open up a few off schedule throws to help Marvin Harrison Jr. I like the call of Jameson Williams. I like the call of Ricky Pearsall, especially with the hot start. We'll see what happens middle of the season. But you know, beginning of the year with Ayukan IR and whatever Juwan Jennings looks like, whether he's coming back or on IR himself could be great. All right, so we have our quarterback is Drake May. Our running backs are Bucky Irving and Jordan Mason. Your wide receivers are Jameson Williams and Marvin Harrison Jr. Our flex is Ricky Pearsall and our tight end is.
- [10:45]
Jamie Eisenberg
It's not Tyler Warren because again I've talked a ton about Tyler Warren. Everybody knows that I would take him in round eight in every draft, but let's look at a tight end later. And I can only give you one. I can't give you two. I got two tight ends whose last name begin with K. I'm gonna go with hot. I'm gonna go with Tucker Craft as the one then. Because if Matthew golden could be the number one wide receiver and we talked a little bit about golden at the end of our main show, our FFT show, Kraft could be the number two target getter started mentioning this back in January that Matt LaFleur was lamenting that he didn't get him the ball more. He was unbelievably efficient last year for the packers, just didn't get a lot of targets. And so if he can kind of fill, this is the same type of offense that the 49ers run. Imagine him filling the role of George Kittle, maybe not to the same type of like hyper efficiency that George Kittle does because not a lot of people can do that. This is still a great tight end to take late. And so if you whiff on McBride and Bowers and the George Kittle early on in your fantasy drafts and you waited the position you could take Tucker Craft and I think he can help you at bare minimum get double digit PPR points week in and week out. Be a potential touchdown scorer in the red zone for Green Bay and obviously he can make some splash plays too.
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Dave Richard
I said this a lot that once you get to the late tight ends, you know, so when you get past the three that you mentioned, you get past that group of Najoku, Laporta, Hawkinson Ingram, Kelsey Andrews, who can get you to the 10 ppr point per game range and then who can get you to the 10 to 12 ppr point for games. Obviously you're looking for anything above that, but I think that's the, the sort of range you want to live in. And Craft has kind of been there each of the last two seasons right around 10 PPR points per game. I think this is the year that he takes a step forward. Especially Jaden Reed's banged up right now. You know, he could see he could be number two on the team of targets behind Matthew golden and it wouldn't be surprising based on how the packers operate where they really don't feature a single guy to an alpha level type of range of, of targets or production. True or total target. Excuse me. Like Kraft could easily be in a similar target level with golden, with Reed, with Dobbs, like it could be frustrating but from a tight end perspective it could still be pretty good So I like that call as well. All right, so to wrap up the Dave Richard all breakout team for 2025, we have Drake May at quarterback, we have Bucky Irving and Jordan Mason at running back. We have Marvin Harrison Jr. And Jameson Williams at wide receiver, we have Tucker Kraft at tight end and we have Ricky Pearsall as the flex. So hopefully a lot of those players will deliver. Should be a very, very solid fantasy roster. And listen, you don't have to reach for a lot of those players. Bucky's the only one that you're taking in the first two rounds and should have an opportunity for all these players to you can acquire this entire team if you really want to. You know, no first round picks. You get a stud. Still get Bucky Irving in round two, get Marvin Harrison in round four, get Jameson Williams in round five, Ricky Pierce all round six, Jordan Mason round seven, Tucker Craft round eight. It could work out really well.
- [13:39]
Jamie Eisenberg
Drake May round still take Tyler Warren in round eight and Tucker Craft in round nine.
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Dave Richard
Okay, there you go. So Antion.
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Jamie Eisenberg
Yeah.
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Dave Richard
Keon Coleman after guys that Dave likes a lot. But that's should be in there easy breakout team to acquire. All right, for Dave Richard. For Thomas Schaefer, I'm Jamie Eisenberg. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching.
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