Mailbag! Nico Collins, Bucky Irving, Travis Etienne and More (07/11 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Summary

Fantasy Football Today: Mailbag! Nico Collins, Bucky Irving, Travis Etienne and More (07/11 Fantasy Football Podcast)
Release Date: July 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this engaging mailbag episode of Fantasy Football Today hosted by Adam Aizer, alongside analysts Dave Richard, Jamey Eisenberg, and Heath Cummings, the team dives deep into listener questions, providing expert insights on key fantasy football topics. From player injuries and draft strategies to league formats and specific player evaluations, this episode is packed with valuable information to help fantasy managers dominate their leagues.

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Listener Questions and Expert Analysis

Injury Updates: Nico Collins, Bucky Irving, and Travis Etienne

The episode kicks off with a discussion on recent injury news affecting key players.

• Najee Harris' Fireworks Accident Injury

  • Jamie Eisenberg shares the news: "Najee Harris suffered an eye injury in a fireworks accident, but it appears to be superficial and unlikely to affect his season [02:06]."
  • Heath Cummings adds concern: "Hopefully, Naji's fine and can compete with Hampton for the starting role [02:22]."

• Brandon Aiyuk’s PUP List Status

  • Jamie updates listeners: "Matt Miako expects Brandon Aiyuk to start the season on the PUP list, but week one isn't out of the question, which is good news [02:53]."

• Travis Etienne’s Recovery and Potential Role

  • The team examines Etienne’s prospects post-injury: "Heath comments, 'I believe Travis can bounce back, potentially moving to a number two running back role [68:55].'"

Draft Strategies: Salary Cap and Auction Drafts

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the advantages of salary cap (auction) drafts over traditional snake drafts.

• Jamie Eisenberg advocates for auction drafts: "Salary cap drafts are the best because they are the most fair. Everyone has an opportunity to bid on every player [18:30]."
• Heath Cummings highlights the control auction drafts offer: "It gives you an opportunity to control how you build your team, unlike the predictability of snake drafts [18:37]."

Notable Quote:

"You can bid on any player and tailor your team exactly how you want it," says Heath Cummings at [18:37].

Injury-Prone Players: Assessing Risks in Fantasy Drafts

The analysts debate whether certain players should be avoided due to their injury histories.

• Heath questions: "Do you consider Joe Burrow to be injury-prone given his history of injuries? [08:20]"
• Jamie counters: "I more or less don't care about injury history unless there are some exceptions [09:04]."

Notable Quote:

"Christian McCaffrey, for example, is one of the most injury-prone players and that’s something to consider," explains Heath Cummings [09:09].

League Formats: 10-Team vs. 14-Team Leagues

Listeners inquire about the legitimacy and strategies for different league sizes.

• Heath defends 10-team leagues: "They are legit. It’s fun, and there’s still plenty of strategy involved [22:18]."
• Jamie agrees: "A regular 10-team league is fun and perfectly fine [22:25]."

Notable Quote:

"Even in a stacked 10-team league, finding a way to differentiate yourself is key," says Heath Cummings [22:18].

Player Evaluations: Bucky Irving and Nico Collins

The episode delves into detailed analyses of Bucky Irving and Nico Collins, assessing their fantasy value and potential.

• Jamie presents data: "Bucky Irving averaged 4.5 yards per carry and had one of the best advanced metrics of any running back last year [43:56]."
• Heath compares Irving to past rookies: "Looking at comps like Thomas Rawls and Andre Ellington, some had exceptional rookie years but faltered later [43:42]."

Notable Quote:

"Bucky Irving is a fascinating player with the potential to dominate touches, but his role might fluctuate based on team dynamics," states Heath Cummings [42:01].

Super Flex and League Equity in Larger Leagues

A listener questions the viability of Super Flex in a 14-team non-PPR league.

• Heath advises: "It's tough in 14-team leagues, but you can still make it work by balancing scoring and roster spots [55:19]."
• Jamie concurs: "I would not want to play in a 14-team Super Flex league personally, but if you do, ensure scoring is balanced [55:21]."

Notable Quote:

"If you're going to implement Super Flex in a large league, make sure to devalue quarterbacks to maintain balance," suggests Jamie Eisenberg [55:20].

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Email Highlights and Player Comparisons

The hosts respond to various listener emails, offering tailored advice on draft strategies and player selections.

• Jonathan Taylor vs. T. Higgins
  Heath recommends: "Keep T. Higgins in round eight instead of Jonathan Taylor in round seven for better strategic advantage [25:50]."

• Auction Draft Nomination Strategies
  Jamie shares his strategy: "Nominate positions like DST and kickers early for minimal bids, allowing you to secure them cheaply [19:52]."

• Fantasy Team Evaluations and Keeper Decisions

  • Heath and Jamie discuss the merits of keeping specific players like Nico Collins over others, emphasizing consistency and role in the team [52:40].

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Fun Segments and Light-Hearted Moments

• Where is Dan?
  The hosts playfully speculate on the absence of their colleague Dan, suggesting amusing scenarios such as "Dan is in physical therapy for tennis elbow" [05:10].

• Birthday Wishes
  Heath wishes Ben a happy birthday, adding a personal touch to the episode [25:14].

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Conclusion and Upcoming Events

As the episode wraps up, the hosts remind listeners about the upcoming FFT Open, highlighting its significance and the ongoing efforts to raise funds for St. Jude.

Closing Remarks:

"We have 10 days until the spots are available for the FFT Open. Help us raise $66,000 for St. Jude. Thank you to everyone who produced this week," concludes Jamie Eisenberg [60:45].

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Key Takeaways

• Stay Informed on Player Injuries: Understanding the latest injury updates can significantly impact your draft and season strategy.
• Consider Auction Drafts for Greater Control: Salary cap drafts offer flexibility and fairness, allowing you to build a tailored team.
• Evaluate Player Durability Carefully: Assessing players' injury histories and their roles within teams is crucial for long-term success.
• Adapt to League Formats: Whether you're in a 10-team or 14-team league, adjusting your strategies to fit the format can enhance your competitiveness.
• Engage with the Community: Participating in mailbag segments and listener interactions provides personalized insights and strengthens your fantasy football acumen.

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Whether you're a seasoned manager or new to the fantasy football scene, this episode of Fantasy Football Today offers a wealth of knowledge to help you navigate the complexities of the season. From strategic draft advice to in-depth player analyses, tune in to stay ahead of the competition and lead your team to victory.

Transcript

[Adam Azer]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

Whoa. When did I get here?

[Adam Azer]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

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[Adam Azer]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

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[Adam Azer]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

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[Adam Azer]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

This is fantasy football today from CBS Sports. What a play.

[Heath Cummings]

Can you believe this?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

No, I can't. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races and he stays on his feet. This is going to go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath. It's mailbag time. Welcome everybody. It is Friday, July 11th. Time for a mailbag with your questions from our draft a thon page your questions via email@fantasy footballbsi.com that's the letter I Apple podcast questions. Please leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Tell people why you love our show and then you can ask a question. And of course your YouTube comments. Adam Azer and Jamie Eisenberg. No Dan today. That is sad. But he'll be back hopefully on Monday on CBS Sports Network. We'll be on CBS Sports network Monday at 1pm Eastern. So please check that out. What's up, Jamie?

[Heath Cummings]

I think we should have our audience guess where Dan is and then Monday we ask him see if we're right because I don't know.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I have no idea where he is.

[Heath Cummings]

Yeah. All right, so post your comments on our YouTube chat or wherever you want to send them and we'll. We'll see who has the funniest guess of where Dan is.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

This is a great idea. All right, so we got a couple of news items here. Najee Harris suffering an eye injury in a fireworks accident, but seems to be fine. Apparently a superficial eye injury. So I don't think this changes anything. Right. For Hampton and Harris, I did see.

[Heath Cummings]

It was either Rapaport or Scheffler. One of their reports on this suggested that he may not be ready for training camp. I think the agent may have said that so something to keep an eye on there. But it does not seem like it's anything major. But you just don't like to see stuff like this clearly from any perspective.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

And you know, hopefully, you know, I, I believe somebody lost maybe finger or a finger injury. Sounds terrible. You know, hopefully Naji's fine and, and can compete with. With Hampton for the starting role.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I was just telling, we were talking about that on July 3rd. I was hanging out with my friend and we grew up in South Florida together. And in South Florida you can just go buy really big fireworks. I mean almost professional fireworks that just go explode up in the sky. They're really cool. But you can't do that in New York. And we were just think saying like man, we were so stupid in high school. I can't believe we did that with no supervision. Some really dangerous stuff. So please take it seriously, people. It's. It injures every single year. Just too many stories like that. Like Naji's. Matt Miako of NBC Sports Bay Area expects Brandon Aiyuk to start the season on the PUP list, which is no surprise. But he did say that week one is not out of the question. So that is good news for Brandon Iuk. Expectations still would be that IUK starts on the PUP list which would be a four game absence. Okay. We got some.

[Heath Cummings]

Do you watch quarterback yet?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

No, it's a. I've heard some good things. Is it good?

[Heath Cummings]

Yeah, I just finished it last night. It's good. I mean I'm, I'm always, you know.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

The documentary especially, you know, Omaha Productions, Peyton Manning and those guys, they do such a great job and so like it, it's just, it's just great. Like the, you know, the whole Cousins Pennix thing.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

Was, was interesting how it was handled. And Joe Burrows season, you know, in the Bengals, I mean you saw a lot of it with the Hard Knocks, you know the. When they did the AFC North Hard Knocks. So you got a chance to see some of those things. But like the borough break in situation was crazy. And Jared Goff, you know, he was, it was, it was interesting to see a little bit more Jared Goff because he's very, you know.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

Very behind the scenes kind of guy.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Anything fantasy relevant.

[Heath Cummings]

Nothing huge. You know I, I think there's any. No, nothing really.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Okay. All right. Got some.

[Heath Cummings]

The Week 17 game, the T. Higgins game, you know, Burrow was like tea's hot. Is a tea game.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

That was one thing, I guess you could say. But nothing going into this year.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

All right, folks, you got your guesses on where Dan is vacationing?

[Heath Cummings]

Very good.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

We got. It's colonoscopy time for Dan. Dan is watching the Superman movie and imax. Dan is wearing a pedicure while wearing a purple robe and then going to get an Orange Julius. Is that a reference of something to drink? No, I get that, but is that. Is that, like, the Big Lebowski or something like that?

[Heath Cummings]

Oh, maybe. I don't know.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I don't know.

[Heath Cummings]

I don't know that movie that.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Well, let's see.

[Heath Cummings]

To quote it at least. Sorry.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. It's overrated. Dan is in physical therapy for tennis elbow. Oh, my gosh. I thought I had tennis elbow. I don't, thankfully, but I have a little bit of an elbow injury. I'm recovering, though. I'm almost back.

[Heath Cummings]

I think. I think I need elbow surgery.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

No.

[Heath Cummings]

This is undiagnosed, but, like, I've thrown so many pitches in the last, like, five years.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, no.

[Heath Cummings]

To my children and my children's teams. Like, it's. It. It's painful. Tommy John, maybe It's very. It hurts.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Wow. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

[Heath Cummings]

And the funny thing about it is, like, I don't know with. With Andrew, like, if he. How he takes batting practice or what, but, like, my. My kids, especially my two older ones, I can't throw without a net in front of me at this point because they'll kill me. And the net keeps getting closer and closer to home. They're like, dad, why are you so close? I can't reach anymore.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

You want to read this joke?

[Heath Cummings]

Sure.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

No, it's all right. We'll leave it up there for the YouTube audience. Okay, let's get to the show here. First of all, vote for us on podcastawards.com. go to podcastaw. Sign up. We want to get to the next round. We want to win this for a second straight year. You all helped us win it last year. Great stuff. Podcast Awards app signup. Vote for fantasy football today in the sports category, if your name is Magic Giants and you. That's probably not your real name, and you donated on our Tiltify page, and you asked us a question. We didn't get your question. So basically, what you do is you pay for the question. 50 bucks at least. You can pay more and think Magic Giants, in fact, did. And then in the comments section, you asked your question, and I'll read it on the air. Magic Giants. We did not get your question. Our helper, our employee, Claire, our Teammate working on this draft a thon project. Claire emailed you. Please email her back with your question and we'll read it next week. Here are the other nine that we're reading today. This one is from Liam. I know you've often mentioned that if a player shows you their age, you should believe them. Do you feel the same way about often injured players or is that more of a random, random slash, circumstantial feature?

[Heath Cummings]

So the, the. I'm a little confused. I guess the question would be, is if a guy's coming back from injury or has dealt with injuries, do you.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Think if a player is often injured, that means they are injury prone?

[Heath Cummings]

Basically, that kind of ties into. The question you asked about quarterback Joe Burrow was, you know, talking about him being potentially injury prone. He goes, yes, I've dealt with injuries. Do you consider Joe Burrow to be injury prone?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I don't, but it is worth mentioning. But like appendectomy, I, I don't.

[Heath Cummings]

You know, so that one, you have an appendectomy, you have a torn acl, you have a wrist injury, like, you know, calf injury. Like, he's dealt with four pretty significant injuries at times in his career. Right. And they've hindered his fantasy production. I wouldn't necessarily consider him injury prone because the ACL is, you know, not something. Oh, there we go. Hit the mic. Somebody will complain. The ACL is, you know, he was tackled in a very awkward way. The wrist injury is not something. I think that's. I hope not, at least not problematic year over year. So a player like that, for example, no. Christian McCaffrey, would you consider him injury prone?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I think so. I mean, so again, if anyone is, he's up there. He's up there.

[Heath Cummings]

I think, I think to sum it up for me, it's. Do they continue to suffer from soft tissue injuries because you, you break an ankle, you know, you, you tear acl, those type of things to me are more fluky if it's continue, you know, like Christian Watson with the hamstring injuries like that was so frustrating year over year. Like the ACL tear. Okay, that's, you know, awful. But when he was continuing with the hamstring, injuries like that, to me was more problematic than, you know, because you could, you could cut, you could, you could run away from that. If you're looking at him as a fancy option.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, I just remember one year where Dalvin Cook played all but one game, where he played every game. I think the same year Deandre Swift came in with a Lot of injury questions and he stayed healthy. I can't remember. I think McCaffrey is one of them too. There were three high profile players that were always injured and they stopped, they didn't get hurt. And I. That's basically when I just said I, I more or less don't care about injury history. There will be some exceptions, I think.

[Heath Cummings]

I think, I think for me, but.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I still, I still don't like. I acknowledge T. Higgins is probably injury prone. If there is an injury prone wide receiver being drafted early. But I don't care. I draft, I'll draft T. Higgins all day.

[Heath Cummings]

Dave says this a lot. I know the most recent one is Tyree Kill. Like you would rather not have him on the field. Hurt, playing hurt. Yeah, because like we were starting him every week, right? For the most part, yeah. His start percentage I don't think ever went below like 85. And so those are the players that really frustrate you. You know, guys that clearly are dealing with something. You understand why they're playing. They're fighting through for their team. They're trying to be good teammates. But then you have this awful scenario of they're just not producing.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

By the way, okay, remember I said in week 17, I bench Tyreek Hill for someone and I couldn't remember who it was. I'm pretty sure it was Don Tavian Wicks. He had four catches for 43 yards on five targets. Don Tavian Wicks scored 8.3 fantasy points. Tyreek Hill, because Tua wasn't playing, had nine catches for 105 yards in horrible weather at Cleveland in Week 17, scored 19.5 fantasy points. So I lost 11.2 points. I would have lost the game and I lost in the finals that week. Would have lost anyway, thankfully. But that was. That was who it was. Wicks. All right, next question from Richard. I often hear it said on the podcast that running backs have a higher injury risk than wide receivers. This may be true, but does this factor in the injury risk to a wide receivers quarterback? Every year we have elite wide receivers who end up becoming unplayable after their quarterback goes down and a terrible backup comes in to replace them. I mean, that might be a little bit of a stretch, but it's a good point. And then he says, should we therefore be factoring backup quarterbacks for our wide receivers more? For example, should the Falcons, Rams and Giants pass catchers get a small bump as they at least have serviceable backup options?

[Heath Cummings]

It's certainly something to consider. I mean, we have the Dolphins situation from a Year ago when TUA went down, the six games he didn't play. You know, you mentioned the Tyree Kill game in Week 17 was good for him, but for the most part, yeah, Tyreek's numbers suffered. I mean, clearly there's going to be some situations where, you know, the backup comes in and the, the other players still play well. Right. So look at Dallas, right. CD Lamb fell off, but didn't fall off completely when Prescott went out. Right. Cooper Rush was okay for him. He just wasn't great.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

It's okay. Man was playing hurt too.

[Heath Cummings]

Right. You had the situation in San Francisco, those couple games when there was no Brock Purdy and Jennings was peppered with targets with Josh Dobbs. I mean, it's a little rare situation because those two guys have a history together from their time in Tennessee in college. So I, I think if you first off, you shouldn't necessarily draft really ever based on what happens if the quarterback goes down. Unless maybe it's Miami just because two is another guy that you could say is, I guess in the injury prone category. So, like, I'm not, I'm not basing my chief's evaluation on backup quarterback. You know, I think it's Carson Wentzl, a backup quarterback there for Kansas City. Right. Like, you're not going to do that. You're not going to do that in, you know, oh my God, I can't draft Jamar Chase with Joe Burrow if he goes down again, like Jake Browning is going to kill those guys. Right. You know, so it's, it's not something you really want to factor. And now again, if you're nitpicking completely, the situations that what they say, the Giants.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

The Giants, the Falcons and the Rams.

[Heath Cummings]

I mean, maybe if you're, you know, close on a player, you know, so if, yeah. Rams, elite neighbors and Drake London.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I don't know, Rams and are Garoppolo. No, I think it's a good point. Right. If you're close on a player and, sorry, who's. Who the heck is Dallas's back. Joe Milton is Dallas's backup. So if you're close on like Puka versus Lamb, I mean, I do think that let's say Dak and Stafford, both of them who have injury histories, they're both out for the year. I would take Puka in a second over CD Lam. Right. So you could factor that in if you wanted to. I just want to. This, I just want to talk about this idea that running backs might be more injury prone than, than wide receivers. I meant to look this up before the show, and I ran out of time, so I only have one year of data. Okay. But I looked at just the top 12 players per game at both positions, running back and wide receiver. And wide receiver was so much worse. Right. So you're looking at the best performers at both positions per game. There were, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4 top 12 per game running backs who missed at least three games and only one who missed more than three games, and that was Ken Walk. That was Ken Walker at wide receiver. You had Rice. Rashid Rice played three games. Chris Godwin played seven. Nico played 12, Evans played 14, Adams played 14. Oh, I forgot. Puka played 11, Higgins played 12. Four of the top five wide receivers on a per game basis, Rice, Godwin, Puka, and Higgins played 12 or fewer games. So I'm not even sure it's true anymore. I know that's only one year, but I'm not even. I don't even look at running backs as more injury prone than than wide receivers at this point. All right, next up question from.

[Heath Cummings]

Oh, I wonder if you did that, though, from a draft perspective, how that would look.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I'll try. I think it's a worthy exercise. I've done it before. A few years ago, I did it and running backs did show to be a little bit more injury prone, but then I feel like that kind of flipped. I'm not really sure why. I mean, you do get older. Wide receivers being, you know, wide receivers, we like them at older ages than running backs. But I don't think that matters because I think young players get hurt too. Anyway, this next question is from Eric and he says, I love salary cap drafts. Care to explain why it is the best and where do you follow values for auction drafts? I don't know what he means by that, but thank you for the question, Eric. Sorry, the heath mode there instead of Eric. We got to take a break. When we come back, we'll answer this question about salary cap drafts. And in case you missed my stupid tweet from earlier, I'm looking forward to talking about Bucky Irving and some numbers on him in a little bit. We'll be right back.

[Adam Azer]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

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[Heath Cummings]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

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[Jamie Eisenberg]

See mint mobile.com all right, so let's talk about salary cap drafts and why they are the best. And I can't wait to get the softball team together for our draft in person. Auction draft at my house. Pizza water for me. Going to be awesome. But why do you think salary cap drafts or auction drafts are the best?

[Heath Cummings]

You're doing it at your house?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, yeah. Last year we did it at a bar and it took so long that they were just dying for us to leave. I felt so bad. So we a host this time.

[Heath Cummings]

Do you have a sponsor for your softball team? No, I mean that's the. You're missing out. What you got to do is you get the bar to sponsor your softball team and then you guys go there after every game.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, a lot of guys do. Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

So I mean, it's a perfect setup that you get them sponsor and then they'll stay open for you.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, they did stay open for us. They just, they were nice about it, but I felt really bad. Anyway.

[Heath Cummings]

Guarantee that they're. You're going to spend a significant amount of money there, which it sounds like you do anyway.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. Oh yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

And they cover your softball fee. That's the way you go.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Salary cap drafts are the best because they are the most fair. Everyone has an opportunity to bid on every player. What do you like about them?

[Heath Cummings]

I mean, you said it. You know, it gives you an opportunity to, you know, basically control however you want to control it. You know, getting. If you wanted to get both of, you know, Chase and Jefferson, Bijan and Barkley, you know, two of the top four or five overall players, you could certainly try and do that. You can, you know, not have to be at the mercy of waiting for your pick to come up in a draft. And so it takes a lot of that, you know, it's more control in your own hands depending on how you want to, you know, build your team. So in terms of values, we do our own values. So I follow my own values for the most part of how I, you know, view players. So if you look at our rankings page on CBS Sports, you can see how we have these players, you know, priced out. I was looking the other day, I think Dave is a little bit higher than me and Heath on the top end guys. So we go on a hundred dollar budget. You know, if it's 200 we just always tell you just double it. But the values would be the same players that we consider sleepers and, and, and such. So if you're, you know, looking at from that perspective, I have quarterback and running back tiers on the site already. Wide receiver tiers will be up today. Hopefully tight ends not far after that. So you can see how we tier those players. That's always a good way to go about salary cap drafts is, you know, getting the last player in a tier of. There's a group of guys that you like.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. And Jamie said we use a hundred dollar budgets on our rankings page, which you can go to CBSSports.com fantasy and just click on football. Click on rankings. He said double it if you're in a $200 league. Probably not necessarily the case for $1 players. $1 players could still be $1 players I think in, in any format. Right. It's just like it's your low bid. Jamie has a great strategy where if he wants a DST or a kicker, he nominates them super early in the, in the auction. And usually nobody wants to put $2. He nominates them for a dollar. Nobody wants to put two on it. If you're in a $200 league, maybe you spend two, nobody wants to put three on it. And then you just get your, your DST or your kicker. And if you don't, really not a big deal anyway.

[Heath Cummings]

Big strategy I would also recommend is put players up for nomination early that you don't want.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

That you don't want. Get money off the board. Yeah. And well, we, we owe more time to auction strategies. I think it's a tough topic because snake drafts are somewhat predictable. Auction drafts are just. Every single one is so, so different. So it makes it a little bit challenging. But we'll, we'll talk more about it. All right. This is from Mike in Los Angeles. My friend Nick is one of those fantasy know it all guys. He says that 10 team leagues aren't real and are too Easy. Will you please explain that 10 team leagues are legit and tell him that he's wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Heath Cummings]

They are legit. I mean, obviously a lot of people, first off, we encourage you to play as much as you can, clearly. And if you can only find nine other friends and that's the only people want to do it, why would you not participate in a 10 team league, 18 league if that's all you could find? 16 league, that's like fine. And there's different strategies to all these guys. Yes, 10 team leagues are a little bit easier because you're getting much more of a diluted or a robust talent pool of everybody having good teams. But there's still strategy to that and there's still ways. You have to sort of find a way to differentiate yourself. My oldest league is a 10 team league and it's one of the toughest leagues to play in because you have to find ways to be better than the nine other teams that are always stacked. So everybody's gonna come out of their draft with, you know, a loaded roster. So it's, it's definitely fun. But it's, you know, I think there's, there's got to be, you know, ways to sort of make it a little bit different, you know, so do you add a second quarterback? Do you add, you know, additional flex plays? You know, so there's ways to, you know, if you want to make it even more challenging. But still, you don't have to.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

You don't have to. You don't have to though. I mean, no, no, a regular 10 team league is fun. It's perfectly fine and it's fun.

[Heath Cummings]

When we get into 10 league discussions, which we don't do often, but we probably should as well, is you hear us say it's, it's okay to take a quarterback earlier, it's okay to get a significant position advantage early because there's, there's so few of those elite guys that if you have Lamar Jackson versus somebody taking Justin Fields like that could be an eight point difference and that's tremendous in those leagues.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

All right, how about who's next here? Glenn. Glenn and Elijah from two towns. One is about nine miles from Dan that starts with a P and ends with a Y. The other is around the corner from Heath, Dave and Jamie's office. I'll let you handle that one.

[Heath Cummings]

I won't touch the other one.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

The near office around the corner from your office. What town is there?

[Heath Cummings]

Pompano?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, probably. He says dear Jaden, Jameer, Terry, Malik and Saquon those are the his winning team from the FFT Open last year. Like a good neighbors, this is our Glenn and Elijah, our FFT Open defending champions. According to Glenn and Elijah. I forgot, I forgot. But congratulations. And they say as the winner of the FFT Open last year, we wanted to know if an additional stake could be added for the winner. While charity is a great thing and we happily donated, could a guest spot on the show or free merch or a trophy be added.

[Heath Cummings]

To a trophy?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

There are rules about what can and cannot be given. I'll just say that I don't really know because when you do things for charity, it, you know, it's just there are a lot of rules. So I don't really know all of the rules, I'm going to be honest. But yes, something like being on the show we can absolutely do. And I'd love to hear from Glenn and Elijah. Maybe they can share their FFT Open strategy from last year or something like that. So I will reach out to you guys or actually, why don't you send me an email, fantasy footballbsi.com just make it clear who you are and we'll chat and hopefully get you on the show because you do deserve some recognition. And yeah, I think there should be something for winning the FFT Open. But so just so you know, I've talked about prizes with people I don't, I don't really have. I don't know the answer, but there are just certain things that can and cannot be done when it comes to charity and prizes and things like that. We're not trying to hold out on you, Johnny.

[Heath Cummings]

Finally noticed that we're wearing the same.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I know. We really are wearing like the same. Same exact color. And it's, it's a little bit different, but it's not a conventional color. It's very weird. Oh, wait, we have a birthday in here. Where's birthday? I think it's Benjamin. Where's. Where are you, dude?

[Heath Cummings]

Happy birthday, Ben.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

If it was Ben. In fact. Yeah, there he is. It's my birthday, you fools. Me, me, me. You should feel that way. I feel that way on my birthday. A little bit like it is about you. Good for you, Ben. All right, next question. I don't have a name here. Is this a different question or is this from the same. Is this also from Glenn? I think it's different. Okay. Two running back, two wide receiver, two flex PPR 10 team. Should I keep Jonathan Taylor in round seven or T. Higgins in round eight?

[Heath Cummings]

So again, 10 team league. How are you going to separate yourself? The. The round differential is not so much for me.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, sorry. I had big, big fact here I have to give you. Sorry. He can keep T. Higgins in 2026, but not Jonathan Taylor then that's easy.

[Heath Cummings]

You're keeping Higgins.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. Okay. From Jack. Is it a mistake to take a tight end and a quarterback within the first four to five rounds to have advantages at those positions? Would league or roster size make any difference?

[Heath Cummings]

So go read our latest recap of our mock draft on CBSSports.com I actually did this with the 12th pick in a 12 team PPR mock draft. I started with Amara St. Brown and Ashton Genti with my first two picks and then we got to rounds three and four and I didn't love the value for the wide receivers and running backs. So I took the best available quarterback which was Lamar Jackson, first quarterback off the board and George Kittle who was the third tight end at the time. So I don't love doing that personally.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

What a non Jamie team that is. I love it very.

[Heath Cummings]

You know, and again that's the thing and I will tell this to anybody as much as possible. We are in mock draft season and you are July to August you have the opportunity to do as many mock drafts as you possibly can. CBSports.com is a great mock draft product. I'm sure there are other sites that do great mock draft products as well. Do them, pick the draft spot that you think you're going to be in, especially if you know it already, but try them all and try different strategies. So once I did and committed to that, then it came back in rounds five and six and I was okay. Now this is something totally different from what I'm used to doing or typically do. And now I got to find a different way to approach it. So that's the thing. I think you, you need to find out do you like it, do you not like it? And so I did not have a problem with it because when you take a step back, right. We always in the middle of a draft like, oh, I love my running backs, I love my receivers. A quarterback maybe a tight end maybe. But you take a step back from it, right? And you have the, the full scope of the roster. I have if they hit from what they did a year ago, number one quarterback and number one tight end in terms of points per game.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

The Jackson Kittle. Yeah. All right, so I'm going to tell you, I got, if you're watching on YouTube, I got Jamie's roster up. If not, I'll Read it to you. So he's got Lamar Jackson at quarterback, Genty and Judkins at running back. Amanra St. Brown, Travis Hunter and Darnell Mooney at wide receiver, George Kittle at tight end and Stefan Diggs at flex. But on the bench, Trevor Lawrence to back up Jackson. I love your bench. I love your bench. Except for one pick. Echler, Taj Speers, Keon Coleman and Jaden Reed. I think you. I think you did great here. I mean, on the surface, St. Brown, Travis Hunter, Darnell Mooney, Stefan Diggs in your starting lineup. I'm sure you'd like to be a little bit better than that, but you picked really good players late, like Mooney and Coleman and Jaden Reed. I don't love the Samson pick. I feel like he's useless. I feel like Jerome Ford is the guy to get if you draft Judkins. But who am I to disagree with?

[Heath Cummings]

I will say I click Trevor Lawrence. I should have taken just Raheem Mostert.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Okay. Yeah. To back up Genti. I mean, I love. I think it could work. Absolutely could work. I probably need Jackson and Kittle not necessarily to be as great as they were last year to, but to be standouts at their position. And I would say Travis Hunter is the swing pick for you, is the guy who's gonna determine. You took him 60th overall at the 56 turn. Hunter, to me, is the guy who's going to determine the fate of this team. That won't be played out.

[Heath Cummings]

So. And. And one other thing that I did do consciously was I was staring at Montgomery and Jameson Williams and I was like, I'll just differentiate. Instead of taking all Lions, I probably should have taken Montgomery instead of judging.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, that's interesting. Okay.

[Heath Cummings]

Do you realize that Montgomery has scored 25 touchdowns in 28 games with the.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Lions since they drafted Jameer Gibbs, he's been. He's been one of the best picks in fantasy. Montgomery, you know, he got hurt a couple of years ago, but he's just been a really good value. All right, I'm glad you mean.

[Heath Cummings]

Hold on. So that's 25 in the last 28 games. So they've scored 42 rushing touchdowns in the last three seasons from non Jameer Gibbs, non Deandre Swift, running backs.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Jamal Williams and. And Montgomery. Wow. All right. This is from Jake in New Jersey. This is cool. Listen to this. I've been a listener since I was in High School 10 years ago, and I listened to you guys on the daily. I can't tell you how many Times. Back in high school, my teacher would tell me to take out my headphones in class because I was too busy listening to you and not her. Lol. Now. Now that I'm in my late twenties and still listen all the time, I wanted to donate to this great cause. Thank you, Jake. Redraft. 12 teams, six point PP. Six point.

[Heath Cummings]

Before you go on. So I'm gonna do the. What do we call it last year?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, the leftover leagues.

[Heath Cummings]

The leftover leagues.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

Yeah, Jake, you're the first entry in the leftover leagues.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

That's awesome.

[Heath Cummings]

Send an email to. What? What's our email address again?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

No, I've been saying it for 16 years.

[Heath Cummings]

Fantasy Football Today at CBS.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, no. Fantasy football at. Oh, wait, what is it now? I can't think of it. Fantasy [e-mail].

[Heath Cummings]

All right, Jake, send an email to fantasy football cbsi.com and put leftover league in it. Only Jake. I'm not opening it up yet to anybody else.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Actually. No, you know what? We'll just do it through Claire. She's got Jake's email address. Claire will reach out to Jake. All right, we got you, Jake. You're in the leftover league. Yes. Good stuff. All right, Jamie did a bunch of those last year. All right, Jake's in a 12 team, six point per passing, touchdown, full PPR league with one quarterback, two flex, two wide receiver. What would your desired draft slot be and what would your strategy be with that desired draft spot? And PS, I'm 5 foot 8 and I'm looking at Dan on camera and there is no way that dude is over five, six. Yes.

[Heath Cummings]

For anybody who missed the show yesterday, the best compliment Adam's ever gotten from Alfredo Brown.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I. It's so funny. It's like Alfredo thought I was the second tallest among Dave, Heath, Jamie.

[Heath Cummings]

And like, that's not insulting to me. Like, Dave should be pissed, but it's just.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

It just makes you wonder, like, how could anybody possibly guess height just by looking at a picture where the four of us all look like we're the same height? Right. And I'm by far the shortest. All right, so this is a pretty standard league except two wide receivers, two flex. Where do you want to draft in? His 12 team format, PPR. Which pick do you want and what's your strategy?

[Heath Cummings]

I would probably look to take one of the first four picks. If you want to guarantee yourself one of Chase or Bijan, which I would love to have, I would take two. You know, so at least you're getting the. The second player there, there, there's so much variance that we're seeing in the second round at this point, you know, of players like think about what we had the conversation yesterday. The, the football guys. ADP has Christian McCaffrey in round two. We're taking him in round one. Devon HN still going around two. We just had him go third overall. Are the tight ends going to be in round two? Where are the quarterbacks going to start to come off the board? So I would just want to try and guarantee myself one of the top picks in round one. And then when you get to round two, there's going to be so many players that are in somewhat of a, somewhat of a similar tier in the, you know, 20 to 24 range. Like, why not guarantee yourself the top player or player players in, in the first three or four picks. For me, that would be Bijan and then the three receivers of Chase, Jefferson and Lamb and then you're still going to get a very good player or a couple of players in that round two, three range. So I, I would go early in the first round.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Okay. An argument against that might be taking the seventh pick or the eighth pick, something like that, and getting two of the top, let's say 18 players, which maybe ends at A.J. brown because after that you do have a really big tier of really good players, but they seem less safe and less certain. And if you have, let's say the seventh pick, if you had the seventh pick in the, in the draft that we just did, who would your third round pick have been? Probably, let's see. Oh, so I had the sixth pick. So I went McCaffrey, A.J. brown, which is exactly what I wanted. And then I took Tyree Kill.

[Heath Cummings]

It's incredible.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Well, it is. I, it is, right? McCaffrey, Tyree kill. After how many times have I talked about it? They're two of my favorite players. I'm a little nervous to have them both on one team. And the first draft we've done a long time, I took them both on one team.

[Heath Cummings]

So you can't pass up that value though.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

And I certainly, I was very happy to get A.J. brown. Now James Cook went ahead of him. Drake London, Jonathan Taylor went ahead of him. But you know, the two tight ends went after him. But if you think like A.J. brown is sort of a cut off of proven elite players, maybe you don't. Depends how you see it. I wouldn't mind getting, I wouldn't mind getting two of the top 18 players because I still think in the middle of the third round I can get a pretty damn good player, but I don't, I honestly, I don't know that there's a right answer here. Just how you see the draft and also depends on how you feel about the tight ends. You want one of those two tight ends or not?

[Heath Cummings]

You know that I think one will be. I mean again, based on ADP that we're seeing, one will probably be there at the 2, 3 turn.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

It's risky to rely on that. But based on ADP, you know the ADP we talked about yesterday with Alfredo, that is where Trey McBride is going. If you want to play a little safer, you might want to take like the fourth pick because I think then you'll get McBride or Bowers. Okay, and the last question is from Andrew. He's got the first, first pick in a 10 team 2 quarterback league right now. He is keeping Brock purdy, Brian Thomas Jr. And Bucky Irving. He also has four of the first 21 picks, first, 13th, 20th and 21st. Planning on taking a quarterback with the first pick. So what direction would you go with the next three picks? Would you grab another quarterback and get three third take the best running backs and wide receivers available. So at this point he will have Purdy, a second quarterback, whoever that might be, Brian Thomas Jr. And Bucky Irving. And he'll have three more picks in the next 20 picks from 1320 and 1319 and 20, basically after he picks or 12, 19, 20, whatever. What would you do there?

[Heath Cummings]

I'm a little confused. So everybody's keeping three players?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Looks that way. Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

And his keepers are Purdy, Tom, Brian.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Thomas Jr. And Bucky Irving. He has the first pick. It's a 10 team league. He's going to take a quarterback. So he's going to have his two quarterbacks, Brian Thomas Jr. And Bucky Irving. He then has, after that pick he. Well, he has picks 13, 20 and 21.

[Heath Cummings]

Is it smarter to take a quarterback first or to take Genti first?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, I would take Genti.

[Heath Cummings]

I would take Genti too.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Unless. Well, it's possible that there's great quarter, there's a great quarterback, but probably not so well.

[Heath Cummings]

He's saying other quarterbacks most likely being kept are Stroud, Mayfield, Love, Kyler, Stafford, Darnold and May. Right.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

But why wouldn't someone keep.

[Heath Cummings]

Maybe they're not allowed.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Josh Allen. Okay, right. If Josh Allen and Jackson and all that are available.

[Heath Cummings]

Different conversations. Okay, so if you can take pick Lamar or Allen, that's the smart way to go in round one. And since it's a 10 team league. He's picking 13. Is that what he said?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yes.

[Heath Cummings]

First, 13, 20 and 21st. So you, you, I don't think you get Genti at 13. But if these are the keepers.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, but I. Right, like if you can take a super elite quarterback at one, do it otherwise, right, Take Genti and if, if you're gonna get a Trevor Lawrence type of player or a TUA or something like that.

[Heath Cummings]

Oh, I would think, I mean if, if we're telling him, we're telling Andrew to take Genti first off. I mean McCaffrey might be available if you trust him more than Genti for a redraft. But yeah, I, I think Genti's probably the best non quarterback keeper. Hard to say unless again those quarterbacks there. But if, if there's, let's say four or five. No, I think you take the quarterback. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back on that because if, if we're talking 10, 10 team league you're, you're going to get. And all five of the top quarterbacks are available. They're all going in the first round. So 13, you're still going to get a very high end player if all.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Five of them are available. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Depends. Okay. All right, I'm sorry, it's a little confusing. Just listen to what Jamie said. We're going to take a break and come back with your Apple podcast questions, your emails, your YouTube comments, couple of Twitter polls and we'll be right back after this.

[Adam Azer]

On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit Strayer Edu Jack Welchmba to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chevin as many campuses including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

We are back on fantasy football today. Let's take a look at this Twitter poll I did this morning, the second iteration of it because in the first One, I had a stupid typo, of course. Looking forward to talking about Bucky Irving today. How do you feel about drafting irving at the 2, 3 turn? Let's say 24th overall, great, fine or nope, too soon. And honestly it's pretty close. Only 301 votes. Pretty new poll. But let me zoom in a little more. Sorry, but yeah, great. Has 34%. Fine. 39%. Nope. 26 for 27%, 28%. How do you feel about that? Bucky Irving, 24th overall. That was his ADP, I believe on.

[Heath Cummings]

Football guys, that's where I have him ranked, you know, back end around two, early part of round three. I mean I think you look at, he's in that group of running backs, we spent some time talking about this yesterday, you know, so Jonathan Taylor, Josh Jacobs, Bucky Irving, Chase Brown, Kyron Williams, you know, I think before the James Cook, Kenneth Walker, Alvin Camara range of guys. So these are going to be running backs that sort of, and going back to the, you know, where do you want to pick your draft slot? You know, so if you like these running backs and consider them to be, you know, top 10 caliber players, look the way Bucky Irving finished last year, is that a sign of things to come? Is he going to dominate touches like he did in the end of the regular season, into the playoffs or is it going to be more of the split that we saw earlier in the season? So I'm, I'm fairly confident, you know, I, you're going to hear some more Sean Tucker talk. I don't think he's someone to really worry about. It's really. Does Rashad White get back to having role? He's had 50 catches in every year of his career. Last year he matches career high with nine total touchdowns. He averaged a career best 4.3 yards per carry. Does Rashad White's role get back to being what it was or is he just completely minimized? So Irving was still very good even when White was, you know, getting those, those opportunities early in the season. So I, I, and I think if you were to say that White's role is completely minimized then Bucky Irving's probably going in the Devon Hn range like that's how good he was at the end of the season.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh man, he was top five or six running back per game from week 10 on and he didn't really start getting the feature work until week, I want to say 16. The last four games of the season, Bucky Irving, including the playoffs, the last four games of the season he had 72 carries and Rashad White had 10. But you know, I did a little bit of digging just for some comps, some comparisons, because what's the, what's the nervousness about Bucky Irving? Well, he ran a pretty slow 40 time, he doesn't have great speed, and he was a fourth round pick in the NFL Draft in 2024. We've been burned in the past by day three picks or undrafted free agents that have been really good as rookies and disappointed for the rest of their career. James Robinson. James Robinson in his second season, I think that was.

[Heath Cummings]

He was undrafted though.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

That's a. Yeah, no, he was, you know, James, he, he could have been better. They didn't use him right. I think in his second season, Alfred Morris kind of flamed out. Philip Rivers. There were a couple of guys like, none of them were nearly as good as Rivers. Philip Lindsay, none of them were as good as Bucky Irving. Bucky Irving averaged 4.5.4 yards per carry. He had arguably the best advanced metrics of any running back right up there. I mean, There are like eight categories that I look at and he was top 10 in seven of them on true media. So amazing. But I looked at the, the yards per carry leaders for running backs with a minimum of 100 carries as rookies. Number one with a bullet, 7.8 yards per carry. Who is the best rookie running back of all time? And just recent.

[Heath Cummings]

Yeah.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yes, recent. Just in terms of yards per carry.

[Heath Cummings]

7.8.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Very, very recent. You just said his name. Bucky Devon. Hn.

[Heath Cummings]

Oh, oh yeah.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Achan 1. Camara Dobbins, Maurice Jones, Drew Thomas, Rawls, Adrian Peterson, Franco Harris, Andre ellington, Clinton Portis, DeMarco Murray, Kerryon Johnson, Bucky Irving, Ontario Smith, Philip Lindsay. These guys all average 5.4 yards per carry or more with at least 100 carries as rookies. He's got a little bit in common with carry on Johnson, who was a second round pick in the NFL Draft. Bucky was fourth round pick, but carry on. Johnson's ADP in his second year was 29th. He was a huge bust. Thomas Rawls. Thomas Rawls. Undrafted free agent average 5.4 yards per carry or no. 5.6 yards per carry. One of the best marks ever for a rookie. And then he averaged 3.2 yards per carry in his second season. You know what his ADP was? His ADP was 43rd, so people bought into him enough. Andre Ellington averaged 5.5 yards per carry as a rookie, 3.3 yards per carry in his second season. His ADP, according to Fantasy Football Calculator Andre Ellington's ADP in 2016 was 24th overall. It's exactly the same as Buggy Irving. So I don't know if these comps matter to you at all, but other guys who had exceptional rookie years should be noted. They were closer to 100 carries, whereas Bucky was over 200. Thomas Rawls, 147 carries, for example. But they flamed out. That. I still have that concern in the back of my mind. And the draft you mentioned, the, the one we did a few days ago, Bucky Irving vs. Tyreek Hill in the third round. It was a tough, tough call for me. Ultimately I went Tyreek Hill. But what do you think about just these comps of these, these second year running backs who really struggled?

[Heath Cummings]

We just had a comment in the chat which I think is relevant about when does the draft capital start stop mattering for some of these guys? And I mean, we've had these discussions. It really goes a variety of different ways because, like how the NFL is valuing these, this position. Right. Kyron Williams, I know he didn't have much of a rookie season because of the foot injury, but he was a day three guy. Look at how he's, he's performed with the same system. Isaiah Pacheco, you know, prior to getting injured last year. I think everybody would have seen how he would have produced and we'll find out what they think of him this year. Bucky Irving's another guy that's now, you know, a day three guy coming off a strong rookie season. And we've obviously seen some, you know, rookie, some first round rookies not exactly perform up to their, you know, expectations. Rashad Penny, for example, you know, not performing well. I think he's sort of, you know, discovered something, talked about this maybe two years ago, that if the coaching staff is the same, there's a better chance of these guys hitting because these are the guys that invested in them, saw them, had success. Right. James Robinson, coach changed or he was.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, I think it was Irvin Meyer just kind of screwed with him and didn't use him enough, I think.

[Heath Cummings]

But they also drafted etn, you know, so there was part of that too. I, I kind of fall into that line of thinking. It makes sense, you know, that if the, if the regime is the same, you know, these are the guys that sort of discovered this player and, and like them. Damien Pierce is another one. Right. That we got excited about because of the way that he performed his rookie season and then coaching changed and all of a sudden he's not as good.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

So it's, it's hard to say that there's. Oh, okay, this happened, this happened the next year. It's going to be the same for every player. Every, every spot. I think that's the, the tricky part that we have to sort of parse through. And for Bucky Irving, yes, there's a coordinator change, the personnel is the same, but that's potentially good or potentially bad because you have some talented players on that in that running back room. I just think that Bucky's got an opportunity to build off what he did. And Todd Bowles loves this kid. Rashad White's probably not going to be resigned. He's heading into his final year of his rookie deal. Like they may use White. I'll just take it. The way that I'm viewing it is, is not the way Bucky finished last year because otherwise I would have had, I would have him ranked higher. I'm viewing it more like what we started to see as the breakout was unfolding. Like he's going to be a 60 to 70 snap guy as opposed to an 80 plus snap guy.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. Two more things on Bucky Irving and he's a fascinating player because of what he showed last year. But among running backs, he has one of the. Or he had last year one of the lowest 3rd down route participation rates. Route participation rates. Rashad White had the highest. He was tied with. Who was he tied with? Tied with Kyron Williams actually. And Rashad White had the highest route participation rate among running backs, like relevant running backs with 100 more carries on third down. So Bucky Irving is almost never on the field on third down. In fact, one game that Rashad White missed, he played five third down snaps. That was a season high for him, so. Or he ran five third down routes. Sorry, I think that that was a season high for him. That is kind of a big deal. The, the only running back that's going to be in the same range as what Bucky Irving was last year in terms of route participation on third down and be drafted early is Derrick Henry for sure and maybe James Cook.

[Heath Cummings]

So Taylor too.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Maybe Taylor, but I haven't.

[Heath Cummings]

If they like gettings to play in that role.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I didn't see him on that list in either of the last two years. So I could take another look at Taylor because I think Taylor actually plays now. Taylor plays on third down. So so far in his career, more than you would think. Bucky's almost.

[Heath Cummings]

No, I'm just Saying this year he met that may change him.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Okay, well, that would be bad. Anyway, I don't want to spend the whole show the rest.

[Heath Cummings]

Not really. I mean, he was still good with only 18 catches.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

He was, but it's. It's not super important. Like, Joe Mixon is a guy I always talk about. He wasn't the third down back for the Bengals. He wasn't the third down back for the Texans. And he still manages about 50 catches most years because they throw to him on first and second down.

[Heath Cummings]

Right, but Taylor's not going to have that scenario.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

But. Yes, but just speaking in terms of Bucky Irving while mixing wasn't the third down back. His third down route participation rate was still higher than Bucky Irving's was. So anyway, topic for another show, I guess to get into a little bit more because he's, you know, talking about getting a guy like him in the third round, but he. We've seen he can produce like a first rounder. He's a huge pick, a really interesting player. All right, second Twitter poll here. I wanted to share and I want to get your thoughts on it. What would you have done? I don't know if you voted in this one. Sorry, just killing time. Okay, ready to share my screen now. Okay. Monday, I marinated chicken strips and put them in the fridge to cook tonight, which was Wednesday. So I put this on Wednesday. I marinated chicken strips and put them in the fridge on Monday in the hopes of cooking them Wednesday. Tuesday night, I left the refrigerator open for about 60 to 90 minutes. Pathetic. Everything in the refrigerator was warm. Fast forward to Wednesday. I smell the chicken. It smells fine. Would you still cook slash eat the chicken, Jamie?

[Heath Cummings]

Yes.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Okay, that's what I did. The Twitter polls. I had almost 2,000 votes. 58% said yes, 42% said no. This was definitely the tweet that had the most comments with the word diarrhea in it that I've ever posted. None of that. I can happy to report. None of that. I ate almost all of the chicken and it was a success.

[Heath Cummings]

So I always, when I have stuff like this, questions about food, the first thing I always ask myself is, would I give it to my children?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

But I didn't give it to my children.

[Heath Cummings]

That's the thing. That's the 100 answer.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, I didn't give it to them. So, yes, that was. I did draw the line there.

[Heath Cummings]

Why did you give me McDonald's, Dad? But you're eating that.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yes. All right, Matt from a town on the Jersey shore. I don't know any towns on the. Oh, Cape May. Hey, Isaiah, Gus, Ray and Brian. Isaiah, Gus, Ray and Brian.

[Heath Cummings]

Isaiah, Gus, Ray and Brian. So.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I don't know.

[Heath Cummings]

Oh, are these.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Are these Rutgers running backs? Maybe Pacheco and Edwards. I don't know. I can keep Nico in the third. What's that?

[Heath Cummings]

How's that?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, Isaiah is spelled like Pacheco. I S I A H. Interesting. I can keep Nico in the third or T. Higgins in the fifth. Full ppr.

[Heath Cummings]

I'm keeping Nico.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, he's a little worried about Nico because the numbers dropped off after the injury. But that's exactly why I'm not worried about Nico because I feel like it was obviously because of the injury. I'm hoping. Anyway, I got my fingers crossed on that. Is that kind of how you feel?

[Heath Cummings]

Yeah. I'm not so worried about his injury as much as I am the Texans offensive line and the unknown of what the other receivers will bring because it's a completely revamped receiving core. Right. Kirk and Higgins in. There's. There's just some. Okay. How much targets does he. You know, keeps him from his high end potential. But. But it's so hard to overlook how great he's been and how much C.J. stroud relies on him.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. He still. Okay. This would be disappointing. I know. But Nico after the injury, after he missed five games with. I think it was a hamstring. He averaged 15.8 PPR fantasy points per.

[Heath Cummings]

Game, which would be cool as a disaster though. Passing.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. All right. This question is from James in Queens. I am the commissioner of a long standing 14 team non PPR league. After what seemed like years of nothing but running back and wide receiver in the first 10 rounds, we made the switch to Super Flex about five years ago. The move gets annual bellyaching from multiple league members. First question was going to super flex in a 14 team league? Dumb in the first place. Secondly, a suggestion was made this year to keep Super Flex but make it a 2 quarterback per roster maximum. Current maximum is 4. Also open to any ideas about 14 team roster equity such as half PPR, adding an additional flex spot, etc.

[Heath Cummings]

Does he have the scoring for the quarterbacks there?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

No, but it is a non PPR league which I think you should not do Super Flex and non ppr. I think you should always full PPR with Super Flex personally or half at.

[Heath Cummings]

Least to give some benefit to the positions. I think going from four to two is a mistake. I'd probably cap the quarterback roster Limits at three, you know, so at least give people the opportunity to carry a backup to the back, you know. So what we were talking about earlier, you know, if you want to carry Joe Milton or if you want to carry. If you want to carry, you know, Garoppolo or one of these guys, you know, just don't really handicap people from only carrying two quarterbacks. But I think if you're at four points for passing touchdowns and it's full ppr, then it sort of balances the, you know, the teams are going to have some crappy second quarterbacks or crappy superflex quarterbacks. So it's tough in 14 team leagues clearly. But I, I think, I think you can still get it done, but you just have to make sure the other, the other positions are balanced scoring.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah.

[Heath Cummings]

Balance scoring wise.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Right. I, I would not want to play in a 14 team Super Flex league personally. You get an injury at quarterback and you're just screwed. I wouldn't want to play in a 14 team super flex league. That capped it at two quarterbacks is then you actually have starting quarterbacks on the waiver wire, which is weird. But if you're going to go through with it. Yeah. You've got to figure out a way to devalue quarterback. You do that by ppr, adding other flexes, stuff like that. You just can't make it so that a team that has quarterback injuries is just done. This is from no name or city. Sorry about that. I've compiled a list of who is this year's version of last year's player. This year's Breece hall, a top three pick at his position that falls outside the top 12 at his position. My pick is Justin Jefferson.

[Heath Cummings]

Hate it, but okay.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I mean if you're going to pick a top three guy at the position that's we're not going to like any of them. But that would be Chase Lamb or Jefferson. And I would go with Lamb, I guess. Not Jefferson.

[Heath Cummings]

Who, I mean look, if you got to be worried about McCarthy. Right, right.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Who's more of a concern for you, Lamb or Earl Jefferson?

[Heath Cummings]

Neither. But I guess if, if I am nitpicking, I would say Jefferson because there's.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

A huge unknown, this year's Travis Etn, a top 12 pick at his position that completely falls off. My pick is Bucky Irving.

[Heath Cummings]

Again, if you think that it was Fluky and coordinator change and really like White or Sean Tucker, then okay, I don't see it. But okay.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I don't see it. I. Boy, who could it be?

[Heath Cummings]

If we're putting somebody in this category, I think it's James Cook.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I don't know if he's top 12, but he's close enough.

[Heath Cummings]

Oh, it's gotta be top 12. Sorry.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

He's 14. On football guys. ADP I would say. Oh man. Between Bucky Irving, Chase Brown and Kyron Williams, I think it would be one of them. But I. Yeah, again I'm hoping it's none. This year's Anthony richardson A top 10 quarterback that flops. My pick is Justin Timber Fields.

[Heath Cummings]

Probably injury related. Like anytime this guy's been a starter, he's been 20 plus points per game.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Who else would it be? A top 10 quarterback that flies. I don't think he's going top 10 next I got Bo Nicks would be my answer. I know there's rushing there, but he would be my answer. And I'm not a huge Mayfield guy, but I think I'm being stupid there. I think he's going to be fine. This year's Zamir White, a mid round player that is only getting drafted because of projected volume but he busts. My pick is Deandre Swift.

[Heath Cummings]

You can see it.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Any other people come to mind there? Oh, for me it's Chuba Hubbard, but he's. He's like he's going a little earlier than that.

[Heath Cummings]

I mean if you're banking on the rookies to get a lot of touches in terms of Harvey Judkins and Caleb.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Johnson and I Tony Pollard. Tony Pollard's a better pick than than Chuba Hubbard and he goes like three or four rounds later. But I don't know that the volume is even going to be there. The difference is Pollard's really good. You know, he's not Samir White. This year's Bear.

[Heath Cummings]

I mean Zamir White was so fluky.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. This year Chicago Bears a projected decent offense but becomes bottom 10 in scoring. He didn't give an answer for this. And this year's commanders are projected bad offense but becomes top 10 in scoring.

[Heath Cummings]

Bears again.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I yeah, I honestly think so that the Bears could just could have a Caleb Williams problem. I don't think that's going to happen. But that's the team that does jump out at me as could be really disappointing for fantasy.

[Heath Cummings]

And then a team that comes out of nowhere scoring wise. Yeah, I can see the Falcons.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

How about the previous one? You know, team that could be bad offensively. It really never happens in the Dak Prescott era. But do you think the Cowboys could just be bad offensively?

[Heath Cummings]

Not if Dax healthy probably not just.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Like Dax getting a little older. Offensive line isn't what it once was. I love that they brought in Pickens, but they just like they don't have a. They have two. Yeah. I mean they have talent at receiver. They don't. I don't know if they have a lot of talent at running back. And I'm just, I don't love the coaching situation there. I don't love the direction of the franchise.

[Heath Cummings]

Is the, is the running back situation that much worse than it was a year ago? No, no.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Could be, could be a lot better if Javante's sharp or the rookies.

[Heath Cummings]

I mean like we, we may, we may be spending a lot of time early in the season talking about Jaden Blue and Phil Mafas. Waiver wire guys.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, for sure. Hello. Matthew, Aaron and Stetson. No idea.

[Heath Cummings]

Stetson wasn't there. Quarterbacks.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

College football. Yes. Stetson.

[Heath Cummings]

Georgia quarterbacks.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh yeah, yeah. Matthew Stafford. Aaron. Oh gosh. Georgia quarterback. Aaron. Who the hell was it?

[Heath Cummings]

I'm blanking.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Aaron Murray.

[Heath Cummings]

No idea. I think.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, Aaron Murray. Okay. I'm an eight man. I'm in an eight man PPR league with no kicker, no DST and three flex spots. Should I keep St. Brown or London? I'm leaning London because I think he has more upside than St. Brown.

[Heath Cummings]

And Re in, in a one year keeper league I would keep St. Brown but you know, as I will always say, if you have a gut feeling on somebody, they're close enough. So keep on.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Okay. And that was from Matt Wheeler. Thank you Matt for the question. I, I wonder. He basically says St. Brown's not a league winner. He's going to be very good but not a league winner. Do you kind of feel that way about Saint Brown? I think we might be selling him short. He's capable of doing so good for.

[Heath Cummings]

Three years in a row.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, I mean I would say that like he's wide receiver. Seven per game average 18.5 PPR fantasy points. That's a league winner. Maybe he didn't average 20, but that's a terrific player.

[Heath Cummings]

So where is he for you? Like for me he's behind the top three. Pukas, four, neighbors is five, Nico six and St. Brown is seven.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I remember I did my, my rankings. I've. He's at least six. Chase, Puka, Nico Lamb, Jefferson are my top five. The only ones that I know for sure. The only one that I am set for stone, set in stone is Chase at one. After that Puka, Nico, Lamb, Jefferson could go anywhere two through five. I Think I would go neighbors. I might take Thomas ahead of St. Brown. St. Brown's gonna.

[Heath Cummings]

St. Brown, right?

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, for sure. Nico's gonna be two or three for me. St. Brown's gonna be seven or eight for me. And I'm sorry that I. I know I should have clear cut. You know, this is where they are in one through eight, but I change my mind all the time, and they all have really good cases, so it's tough. It's tough for me. I don't know if you feel the same way, but look, I might do three drafts. I might take three different wide receivers at the same spot, and I'm fine with that. Diversify. Some Apple podcast questions. This one is from Louis, from the fireworks capital of America and also the home of Warner Brothers. Is that not Los Angeles? I don't know. Warner Brothers home. I don't know. Smallville. They do that. Hey, Rob, Glenn, Danny, and Charlie. No clue. Keep one in Rob, Glenn, Danny and Charlie. Keep one in ppr. Nico, Collins in the fourth or JSN in the sixth.

[Heath Cummings]

Collins in the fourth.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah. Oh, it's always sunny in Philadelphia.

[Heath Cummings]

I was going to say that because of Charlie and Danny.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

There you go. This is from Sean in West Palm Beach. Hey, Nick, Monroe, Rosalie and Hank, Some real stumpers today. What the hell is grim? Grim is a thing, apparently.

[Heath Cummings]

The Round Reynolds movie, maybe.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Okay, this. I gotta look into this. Debo, maybe you can help. Sean says congratulations on podcast number 2000. I don't even know how he would know that, but did. I feel like we've probably blown past 2000, but I'd love to know. Yeah. How many did we do? We've been doing this for 16 years. So 2000. This is year 16, I think. Let's say. Let's say 15 years. 2000 divided by 15 is 133 a year. We definitely do that. Oh, our producer Debo is saying Apple stops at 2000. We're way past that. Okay, we're way past that. But thank you for congratulating us. Can you discuss all 32 offensive lines? So he wants us to do a segment on that. We can't do that now, obviously, but, yeah, who are some offensive lines? So the Broncos had arguably the best offensive line in football last year. Eagles. Yeah, I mean, Eagles. I feel like people know that. I didn't even realize how good the Broncos offensive line was. An offensive line that could get a lot better this year. Hoping, hopefully. Titans. They brought in two in free agency. Dan Moore and Kevin Zeitler. They are moving J.C. latham to right tackle. I don't think he was so good at left tackle. They've got so two early round picks in the last two years. Two players in free agency that the Titans could be a lot better.

[Heath Cummings]

Seattle can get better. Miami can get better.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Oh, I feel like Miami's gonna be horrible.

[Heath Cummings]

Well, they were horrible. I mean, they can get better. Obviously the Bears got better with the additions that they made.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Bears, yeah. Chiefs are hoping they have their left tackle now because they struggle.

[Heath Cummings]

True. Yep.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Well, yeah, we'll dedicate more time to it.

[Heath Cummings]

The Panthers are criminally underrated. Always.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yep. They had a solid line and believe it or not, I think the Giants, if they stay healthy, could have an above average.

[Heath Cummings]

Oh, for sure. Yeah.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

All right, let's get to our YouTube comments. Patriots line. The Patriots lines. Really interesting, Michael. Thank you for. For asking. On YouTube. I think people are projecting a big leap from them. They spent the fourth overall pick on a left tackle, Will Campbell.

[Heath Cummings]

David Andrews loss could be big.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Who'd they bring in? Morgan Moses was it. And I think they brought in a center. I'm still skeptical because you're talking about going from arguably the worst offensive line in football last year to being good. I don't really see it, especially because a lot of rookie left tackles really struggle and I think they'll. I think the Patriots offensive line is still going to be bad, but again.

[Heath Cummings]

Similar to what I said about Miami, like they were bad last year. So there's only one way to go.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, you can have a, you can have a good offense with a bad offensive line. By the way, Zedbout wants to know, do we take concussion history in account.

[Heath Cummings]

When drafting Sam's conversation today about Chris Olave and you know when to draft him because we mentioned this on the mid round receiver show. Like he's going to end up being, if he stays healthy, one of the best value picks because he can clearly be the best receiver on that team. And if the quarterback play is just even competent, where you're getting him basically round six or later is fantastic. But yes, the concussions are problematic, you know, so these concussions, soft tissue injuries like these are things that you should worry about more so than if a player is going to tear a ligament because you can't control that. But if there's a history of these type of things, like it should worry you.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

I feel like I used to have this concern about Devonte Adams. I think he had a concussion history. Yeah. 2016 and 17. I think he had three concussions. So I stopped caring about that. I think two years ago, two has stayed healthy. Obviously. Two has got this horrible concussion injury in history. And you know, if he gets another one, I mean, honestly could be the end of his career. So that'd be the one guy that I'd highlight for concussion.

[Heath Cummings]

How much time did Adam miss? Because it's, it's still one of these.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Things where back then Jamie, they, they didn't have the protocol, you know. So I, I think he caught a, I think he got a concussion. He played on a Thursday if I'm not mistaken. But I, there's been a long time. It's almost 10 years now. Any hope for Travis ETN SZN?

[Heath Cummings]

Absolutely. Especially at his cost. You know, you're talking about a player that was over 16 PPR points per game in 2023. Basically got cut in half last year. Is, is this the type of player that he is or is he still a first round talent that can have a potential big bounce back season with a new coach? So I know we're all looking at Tootin and saying, okay, this could be the, the guy for the Jaguars because of what Bucky Irving did for, you know, Liam Cohen and, and this is the guy that he drafted with, you know, his first draft class. But I wouldn't shock me at all if ETN is, is back to being a number two running back as opposed to being, you know, top 10 guy. I don't think he has that in his, in his resume with Tank Bigsby and Toot in there. But there's still amazing potential for where you're drafting.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Yeah, I do. Heath brought this up. I think Tuton could have almost no role this year. Very small. But I also think he could, I think he could earn a big role. It's possible. But I think it's also possible that he has very little role. Bigsby's gonna have a role.

[Heath Cummings]

There's. There's a few backfields right now that I'm very curious to see what happens in training camp. Giants with Scatter Boo and Tracy. Jaguars with the three guys there, the Browns. You know, you mentioned, you know, Drone Ford and what his role could be. We had the report that he could still be the starter, you know, to comparatively to the two rookies. So there's a few that you got to really see what's going to happen.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

Cowboys for me and I drafted Javante Williams over Travis etn. And when did we do that Draft? Wednesday. Wednesday's draft. It was a very tough call for me but I, I'm very interested in Javante and his ability to maybe just be the guy. All right, let me just get one or two more questions here. Do you feel more comfortable taking Bucky or Hampton in Dynasty? Hampton.

[Heath Cummings]

It's a great question.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

It is a great question. But I'm gonna go Hampton.

[Heath Cummings]

I might still go Bucky just because Rashad White's probably gone after this year and we saw what that looked like at the end of last season when he was getting phased out. It was close.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

It did look good. It still didn't change his third down role. But the third down role was Rashad White's. So what would that change if Rashad White were gone? All right, I'm looking for one more question. Not really getting a lot here. Mike is saying he likes Brenton Strange. Well, this isn't really a question. It's just about Travis ETN and Michael. This is other Michael here saying I'm going Roshan Johnson over Swift based on the cost.

[Heath Cummings]

You can, you know, if you want to get a piece of the Bears backfield, but I'd be very surprised if both are healthy and Swift is not getting more touches.

[Jamie Eisenberg]

All right, we're out of here, folks. Have a wonderful weekend. We will talk to you on Monday with a new episode of Fantasy Football Today. Get excited for the FFT Open. We've got 10 days until the spots are available for the FFT Open. Help us raise $66,000 for St. Jude. Jamie, have a great weekend. I want to thank everybody who produced this week. Devo's producing today. We had Harry. Who else did we have? We had Stryker producing. A lot of people really helping out with Thomas out for the week. Thomas will be back, I believe, on Monday and so will we. Talk to you then. See you later, everybody. Paramount Podcasts, you found your ultimate NFL draft destination. Get ready for with the first pick part of the CBS Sports Podcast Network. Join hosts Ryan Wilson and Rand Cathon twice a week for the most insightful draft analysis out there. Over the next several weeks, we're diving deep into the biggest questions facing all 32 NFL teams, scouting the top college prospects ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft and giving you front office insights you won't find anywhere else. Download and follow with the first pick on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere podcasts are found.