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Jeff
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Dave
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Jeff
I mean, I do think that there's somebody that belongs in this conversation, but we probably need to see it over a full year before we're going to go there. You're right though. And we saw Brock Bowers have that great rookie season, record breaking season. Then we saw Trey McBride turn around and have a record break season last year. We've seen these tight ends do things we just have not seen any tight ends do in the history of football. So yeah, we're kind of at that
Dave
place and you know, I have them in the same tier and I have Brock Bowers ahead of Trey McBride in the tier. I don't want to get too spicy with it, but like I almost feel like Brock Bowers deserves to be in a tier of his own. And I know that's crazy to say coming off this 2025 season where Brock Bowers was injured for almost all season, Trey McBride had his big breakout. But Brock Bowers is still three years younger. He is heading into an improved situation. And Trey McBride, like what he did last year, wasn't all that different from what he had done in years past. Aside from the touchdowns, he scored more touchdowns, which had been the big hurdle he had struggled to get over. I still see Brock Bowers as being the center point of this Clint Kubiak offense. Still just 22 years old. I think that when the 2026 season comes to an end, we're going to be looking at Brock Bowers just far and away ahead of every other tight end in Dynasty rankings.
Jeff
A lot of what's happening right now with Bowers, when we know his ceiling, we know that the way that he can be moved around formation freed up. But we're seeing him landing with Clint Kubiak. We're seeing what Clint Kubiak did with Jackson, Smith and Jigba right now, and we're translating that over to Brock Bowers doing that as a tight end. And certainly it could happen. There's a lot of ifs that are involved in doing that. And so that kind of probably where is where it lands. And I'll say on the other end of it, we talk about McBride and I think a lot of McBride's production, when I look at these two players, Brock Bower's versatile chess piece that can be lined up in the backfield, can be split out wide, can be moved everywhere throughout the formation. I think McBride has some of that, but at the same time it is a little bit more of the traditional tight end package and a little bit of the, I mean, a lot of the production has come in garbage time, to be blunt. And you've got two receivers that he's played with that, that take the top off the defenses and he kind of just ends up the garbage time dunk, dump down option and volumed his way to some pretty impressive numbers, some impressive numbers that has never been done before. But I think that that is the difference between these two players at the top. That at one level is Brock Bowers. How can we get this guy, how can we move him around and get the ball here? Whereas McBride does feel a little bit more situational. Yeah.
Dave
And you know, there are so many I've, I've heard and you know, I've even been somebody who has supported this a little bit, talking about like that primary pass catcher in a Clint Kubiak offense and making the allusions to Jackson, Smith, Jigba and Brandon Ayuk and Rashid Shahid and Chris Olave and Justin Jefferson. But there have also been secondary receivers who were tight ends in those offense. We saw George Kittle's best year. We saw a random Tyler Conklin breakout season under Kevin o'. Connell. We saw Juwan Johnson have a breakout season under. I'm sorry, not Kevin o', Connell, Clint Kubiak. We saw Juwan Johnson and then last year we saw A.J. barner, a guy who wasn't on anybody's radar going into the season, get some creative usage where he was able to catch the ball downfield, create after the catch as well. So even if Brock Bowers isn't getting X receiver treatment on every single snap, I think Clint Kubiak does have a little bit more in his bag than like just getting the X receiver open. We've seen tight ends, we've seen slot receivers, we've seen other players find success. I'm just a believer in Clint Kubiak as a whole, and I don't think that he's going to look at the offense that they have and say, you know, what we need to do is get Brock Bowers out there blocking to open up opportunities for Trey Tucker and and Jalen Naylor. That's not going to happen. I think that Brock Bowers is probably going to walk into a minimum 160 targets and upwards of 180, 190 this year.
Jeff
Absolutely agree.
Dave
Year two budding superstars. Jeff, this is another one doing these tight end rankings. It kind of just like naturally worked. Like this is, I think the first time that we've gotten through like five players that are actually in list of how I have them ranked in Dynasty right now. And this one we've got Colson Loveland, Tyler Warren and Harold Fannin. Three guys coming off of a great rookie season here. And there was a lot of talk going into the 2025 draft about how many good tight ends there were in this class. And we saw three emerge as immediate elite producers. Colson Loveland got off to a slow start, you know, had that shoulder injury to come back from. Tyler Warren was kind of the inverse. Started really hot, cooled off a little bit after the Daniel Jones injury. And then Harold Fannin, he was the steadiest of the group throughout the entire season, but he's the one that still has some question marks about his size and his draft capital. And now a new offense with new pass catchers there. But either way, like this deserves to be the 3, 4 and 5, I think in most dynasty rankings.
Jeff
I would agree with you there, given, yeah, given the relative where they're kind of landing. I mean I certainly think that there are players in the next tier. I would not be shocked if any of the guys in the next tier were to pass over especially one of these players. But some of these players but Loveland I kind of let it off. He said there's not another player that belongs in the top tier. Loveland's fascinating. Loveland we know Ben Johnson went out took course Colson leveland over despite what consensus where consensus was took Colson Loveland over Tyler Warren and then they turn around and he takes Sam Roush in this draft they know that there's Cole Comet is there you look at I mean you're the resident Bears fan but you look at the Bears and Who's the wide receiver 3 on the Bears Dave because I don't know that you feel overly comfortable with that relative to having Raymond. He knows exactly where to be in Ben Johnson's offense.
Dave
So he's got that clearing routes out for other people.
Jeff
Yeah and I think that a lot of and it's natural. I understand but I think a lot of what we're seeing across the kind of the consensus take seems to be it's very easy to see Luther Burden potentially as that Amon Ross St. Brown role. But the way that they're building this team, it seems to me that maybe Colston Loveland is might be that Amon Ra St. Brown role. If we've got Roma Dunes and Luther Burden as the wide receivers and they're playing 12 personnel, you're gonna have Luther Burton outside. You're going to have him doing things that we haven't seen Almond Ross St. Brown do really in his career if he's and I think that Luther Burton has a more I want to say this very, very carefully. I think that Luther Burton has a more well rounded game arguably than I'm on wrestling. That doesn't mean that in more impactful Obviously we've seen Amen Rod St. Brown be very, very impactful and I think
Dave
that's you know talking about we love to make these comps like well this is what they did in Detroit so this is exactly what they're going to do in Chicago. But like Luther Burden can do a lot of the Jameson Williams stuff too. He could also do a lot of the Amon Ross St. Brown stuff. But I mean this guy is a fan flyer and we saw early in the year that's what he was doing like you know, padding the yards per route run just catching these deep bombs and like yeah flea flickers, all sorts of Wild stuff. You're not going to see Amon Ross St. Brown catching a flea flicker 65 yards downfield. That's just not in his wheelhouse. We already saw that kind of upside with Burden. So, yeah, I think these are very versatile pieces. They can move all over the place. But for Colson Loveland to come in, like get drafted just a couple of months after shoulder surgery, miss all of rookie OTAs, miss all of minicamp, miss the start of training camp, still not be 100% to start the year, miss some time early in the season and then still flip that switch at the midway point of the year and be the number two in tight end scoring from the second half of the season through the end of the year. I mean, that's just unbelievable to do as a rookie. So, yeah, the sky or the ceiling for Colson Loveland is sky high. But yeah, you talk about this next one. This is one where like, this is still like working right down my rankings. These are just these nice, neat little tiers, but these guys are a couple years older than all the guys that we just talked about these year two stars. But Jeff, I was shocked to see that Kyle Pitts, Tucker Kraft and Sam Laporta, their birthdays are within three months of each other. And Kyle Pitts was drafted two years before these other guys, but he came into the league so young that we were looking at three guys at the same exact age here. And injuries have been a common theme in this tier as well. We saw Kyle Pitts deal with that MCL injury a few years ago. Took him a couple years to kind of shake the rust off from that Tucker Kraft last year leaves with the season ending acl. We'll see how he can bounce back. And then Sam laporta, his season ends with a back injury. So all these guys, very much so on the right side of the age curve. But at the same time, like, you know, we see these tight ends when they get injured, they don't always bounce back immediately. Sometimes these recoveries for tight ends can take two, three years until they're fully back up to speed. So Kyle Pitts now, you know, we saw the big, strong finish to the end of the season. We saw the franchise tag, we see that he's going back to Atlanta. I feel pretty good about him. Do you have any concerns about Tucker Kraft coming back from the ACL or Sam LaPorta coming back from the back injury?
Jeff
Well, I want to say real quick on Tyler Warren, I think it's early last year he was kind of the TO Use Dave's word, the tertiary option. And he was kind of the guy that surprised. You've got Jonathan Taylor in the backfield. You've got Michael Pittman Jr. Started out very strong. You got kind of Josh Downs clearing out underneath. Tyler Warren was able to smash up the seam and then I think defense has adjusted a little bit, fell off a little bit. I think Harold Warren Worry, Harold Fannin Jr. Worries me because that was a broken offense and we tend to scribe these things with John Smith to break out a couple years ago, Kenneth Gainwell, the breakout last year, that's not exactly how you want to design the offense. So that other tier. But okay, let's talk about the things that Dave asked me about here. The one thing, if you're gonna, if
Dave
you're gonna make the. The downside case for Harold Fannin, I do have to say the upside case is just what we have seen Todd Mungen do with tight ends going all the way back to his time at Georgia. I mean he does like to feature tight ends. So yeah, I think there's a downside. What I'll say about Harold Fannin and Tyler Warren, I think because of their age, because of their rookie season production, we do need to move them up. But Jeff, like we have seen a lot of tight ends come in, look really good as rookies and then kind of fall off in year two, fall off in year three. And I think that we so often just assume, assume that because these guys were good as rookies that they are just the top guys. I mean it was just a couple years ago that we were talking about this same tier had Dalton Kincaid in it, Sam Laporto was atop it. Like these guys are probably a little bit more volatile than I think a lot of dynasty managers realize. And I think that's the point you were trying to make.
Jeff
It is. And, and I think so. Look at it, think about it as the year three wide receiver breakout where year one the wide receiver is just kind of learning how to be on the field, learning how to be a supporting option. There's so many things involved. And then year two they start to be able do one or two things really, really well. And then year three they have built everything on top. It goes from being there on the field to their getting involved and getting the ball, to their getting schemed the ball. I think tight ends, when you look at what you've seen with some of the breakouts for some of the young tight ends, is kind of almost the inverse path where you've got this tight end and you're like, well, he's not quite there as an inline player yet. We want him to do all these things to become well rounded, but at the same time we want him to be on the field.
Dave
So when he's on the field with 60 bubble screens.
Jeff
Exactly, we're going to do the things that he's good at.
Dave
We're going, he's big and athletic, let's get the ball to him.
Jeff
Bingo. And, and we're not going to ask him to do all the things that are involved in being a tight end and then they have a breakout because of that. And then now, now you're starting to say, okay, well now he's a key piece of the offense. He needs to actually play the position. And so he's got to learn how to be in line, got to learn how to do these different things that can really be the difference maker that we need for this T position to be. And so then, then the head starts swimming. It goes from being, well, I was only told to do this one thing. Now you want me to do all the things. And so then putting it together. And then unfortunately some of these players you talked about here with, with all three of these players that injuries happen and, and then they're kind of trying to bounce back from that. I, I think that I'm. Craft is fascinating to me because it seems like for some reason he always gets left wide open on a 60 yard touchdown like five times per year. And there's an awful lot of production that comes from that and that goes to Matt LaFleur's scheming and the ability to do that. But he does seem to be the one really good guy that just gets left wide open for 60 yards in the entire league.
Dave
I've got some insight there, Jeff, because last year, you know, this is something. And I know like there are very smart film guys that have been out on Tucker Craft for that reason because like he isn't somebody who lines up in the slot. He doesn't beat man coverage. It's just like how is this guy open all the time? So I did like an in depth film study and I decided to watch every single one of his snaps for the first four weeks of the season, even the routes or the plays that he wasn't running routes on. And I think what it is is that he is just a master off of play action because he is such a good blocker when he's out there on Running Blaze, he's essentially a six lineman. Like he is just maul defensive ends Just moving them at will. And then on play action you see it so often, like even the best tight ends out there, you know, they just kind of throw an elbow and then go run their route. Tucker Kraft does this thing on play action where he gets under his guy's pads and he completely sells the run. He will like pancake a defender and then go run his route. So like it does truly take people by surprise where like a lot of times these defensive players, they can sniff out the play action. Tucker Craft sells it so well and if you look, all of those big plays are on play action plays where he sells it, everybody bites on him being a blocker and then he's able to just leak out wide open. So I think it's a Testament to Matt LaFleur and the plays that he designs, but it's also a testament to Tucker Craft just being a sound, fundamental tight end from top to bottom.
Jeff
Well, he's making guys make business decisions is where it comes down to it. You've got these defensive backs that Tucker Kraft has blown you up seven times already on this play. I don't know if I want to get blown up again relative to having like Ronda Gadsden Jr. Or Ronda Gadsden the second is like a wide in tight ends body. He's not deleting players in the same way that that Tucker Craft is. And so yeah, the defensive back makes a business decision on that play, decides I'm not going to get blown up here. Then Tucker Craft slides off on him and it's a a play action pass and he's just down out the back door basically. And, and so that's where that. But yeah, in this they'll use him on those screens. But again it plays into this is just a different dude than some of these other guys that it's a completely different conversation as a Harold Fanon relative to what Tucker Kraft is doing to guys in the open field. And so that's where it plays in on the intention isn't so much there on Kraft of scheming it in because we're not really seeing any players in the packers offense that are schemed to the Domino St. Brown level. You've just got guys that are tired of getting deleted by Tucker Kraft saying not this time. And that is the time that he gets gets the 60 yard touchdown. But I think Pitts is is interesting because you can make the injury case, you can make the Arthur Smith case, you can make the Desmond Ritter case, obviously put it together last year. But at the same time There's a lot of overlap there with Drake London and his big breakout game. Drake London was out of that game. Drake London dealt with some injuries and so that worries me because we haven't seen the Kyle Pitts. When you're thinking about these tight ends, like think about them getting the ball in really kind of two primary ways. Often is busting up the seam. Like Tyler Warren is really good at that. Just kind of working the seam and have being a big body that's going up against defenders. And then you need. One of the struggles with Kyle Pitts with Kirk Cousins in the game was Kirk Cousins couldn't hit him on that seam route because the arm strength wasn't, wasn't there. So that's the one area and the other area is after the catch in we're seeing some bubble screens going to these players but that's where the volume comes in. A Harold Fanon volume comes in on it.
Dave
Yeah. And I'm just going to keep betting on Kyle Pitts. You know, 25 years old, looked a little bit better last year and you do talk about it like the a lot of that production directly correlated with Drake London's absence. But you know, I think he has an opportunity this year where he can go out, put another good year on film, make some generational money to get a long term contract somewhere else. This is just one where I want to continue betting on, betting on the talent, you know, 6 foot 6, 4th overall pick, size adjusted, speed off the charts, thousand yards in his rookie season. We know why we are invested in Kyle Pitts and I'm just going to continue doing that. But Jeff, before we get to the next tier that we talked about here, we've made a fatal mistake on this YouTube show. Every guru out there will tell you that you need to get your call to action in within that first few minutes to ask for a like and a subscribe and a reply. Well, we're waiting until the 17 minute mark of the show to do that. So let us know that you're one of our loyal listeners by giving us that like comment. And if you have not subscribed already, please do that as well. And then of course, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, love reviews, can't get enough of them. So leave a review, Let us know what you think about the show. Whether you're listening on the Fantasy show feed or the Dynasty show feed, we appreciate you being here. Let us know what you think about the show. Now Jeff, let's get into it here. We are almost 20 minutes into the show and we haven't talked about a single rookie yet. I lumped two rookies together here and I think that you could probably make an argument that one of these rookies deserves to be in a tier of his own. But I lumped Kenyon Sadiq and Eli Stowers in as the top tier rookies. Kenyon Siddiq obviously going 16th pick overall first half of round one. Eli Stowers goes in round two. But when you start looking at the situations here, Eli Stowers probably has a path to production within the next year or two. Kenyon Siddiq probably doesn't when you look at this jets roster. But man, I'm just a believer in talent and following the investments that teams made in these players and I have heard so much like Kenyon Siddiq isn't going to be able to do anything this year. They got Garrett Wilson, they got Omar Cooper, they got Breece hall, he's going to be fourth in the pecking order. Those are all the same excuses that we heard last year about why Harold Fanning couldn't break out that he was in a crowded Browns offense that wasn't going to be good. Sometimes these players just end up pulling targets and producing regardless of their surroundings. So yes, there are a lot of logical reasons to knock Kenyon Sadiq, but I see a guy with off the charts athleticism going early in round one. That's just a guy that I'm going to blindly bet on in Dynasty.
Jeff
You know, you talk about Harold fan, people were saying the same about Tyler Warren last year.
Dave
Right.
Jeff
And Tyler Warren saying crowded receiver room, Daniel Jones. There's no way Tyler Warren can be immediate producer and just going to run
Dave
the ball 28 times a game with Jonathan Taylor.
Jeff
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's one you said, you know, we're going to blow through this show. And I said internally like I'm a football nerd to the core and tight ends I think are by far the most fascinating position on offense. I think Titans just dictate. So we're not going to blow through this show, Dave, because we're going to nerd the heck out on tight ends because I absolutely have tight ends because because of just the just different multifaceted approach of what they are able to offer. And we're seeing a lot of that
Dave
in the league right now.
Jeff
We're seeing a lot of two tight end sets. We're seeing a lot of three tight end sets out of the Rams. And so that's basically the whole conversation but then, and at the same time, I get tripped up because if the we see all these tight ends go in this 2026 draft so that teams can play these different formations, but then Sadiq and Stowers both went later than I would have expected them to go. And to me, if you're thinking about playing A and living in a two tight end, three tight end type set, these are the type of players that you need, need to be able to do. You can't run out Dalton Schultz and Foster Moreau and Marlon Klein and run true goal line formation on second and nine. You need these difference makers. And so while I understand the conversation around multiple tight ends coming into this, the fact that these players weren't valued higher surprised me. And it, it makes me really question what's really happening with these multiple tight end sets, because to me there's, they seem like skeleton keys.
Dave
So here's what I think, Jeff. We saw this last year with running backs, right? Like it was such a deep running back class that nobody wanted to take running backs on day two. Everyone was kind of like waiting till day three. And then we saw that one running back. Like, I forget who it was first, it was either Base Altude or Cam Scatterboo. Kind of like triggered the waterfall and then everybody went out and got their running backs. And you see that in fantasy drafts, right? Like, we just did a draft on NFFC where I said, I don't want to take a defense now because I've got six defenses in a tier. We'll let somebody else take them and then we'll just take whichever one falls back to us. Do you think a lot of NFL teams went into this draft with a similar mindset? Because this was a very deep, what did we see, like 11 or 12 tight ends getting drafted by the end of round three? Maybe even more than that. I mean, it was something absolutely outrageous. So I wonder if a lot of teams said, like, I'm not going to pay up for Kenyon Sadiq because I know that we can still get an athletic move tight end in round two or round three. And I wonder if the depth of this class just kind of pushed all of the tight ends down in draft capital.
Jeff
So I, what I think happened, I, I, I'm on the opposite end. I, I think that we know how weak relative across the board this 2026 class was. We know that there were not, you know, there, there weren't any running backs that outside of Jeremiah Love, Jerry Price goes off the board in the first round. There's really no running backs that anybody cared about. We know the quarterback situation. Fernando Mendoz is off the board, obviously saw Simpson go but other than that there's not. The tackles flew off but then they were gone once the tackles were gone and that was all the conversation on it. And so I think what you saw a lot of on day two was there just wasn't the, the premier blue chip project players because usually what you see in round one is those premier blue chip position players that are clean that, that you're not concerned about them being a project that and then day two ends up being those positions that, that there's, it's lumps of clay. We're trying to figure stuff out. It still waited on the positional value of that. I think that the normal depth of that wasn't in this class. And so it was the opposite overall on the class of basically teams got into day two and saying man, we'd love to have a project tackle to take here because we know the value on those guys. They're not on the board. There's nowhere to go here. So we're just going to keep taking tight ends in hopes that we're just going to just basically building guys that are going to make the roster, guys that we, we're looking for tight ends. We're hoping that something hits here. We're going to. I know you're a basketball fan and I know you followed the NBA and what you see a lot in the NBA is a lot of like once you get around pick 10 or so, it's just these project players that if things work out right. And so I think that there were a lot of tight ends that got pushed up the board like and, and, but that's where I struggled to settle in my mind of the value on Sadik and Stowers because to me I think that they're apart from the other. I mean maybe Johnny Jolly's there but I, I don't know that he's, he's not the athlete that these two guys are. He doesn't bring the same things. After the catch I don't think that there was.
Dave
Claire is another one. Oscar Delp, like there's other rookies we'll talk about later but these guys, the reason I broke them off from the rest was because we're looking at two guys with like 99th percentile athleticism.
Jeff
Yeah. And so I, I do think that, I think Stowers, when it came down to Stowers, I think teams just viewed him as a wide receiver. I think that there were some teams in the league that viewed him as a wide receiver and some teams that viewed him as a tight end. Because I think that there are legitimate concerns about him being able to play in line. And ultimately at the end of the day, much like we saw at the top of the board with Harvl Reese and David Bailey, that conversation Arvel Reese is a lump of clay that if it works in the right way, it is a massive hit. But there's a lot of uncertainty involved in that and it's going to say who drafted Eli Stowers, Howie Roseman, somebody that's going to be more on the cutting edge, willing to take chances, willing to lean into it. I think at the as much as we want to talk about positionless football, as much as we want to talk about the different directions you can go, you end up up with decision makers that they ultimately got to that position because they made safe decisions in their life and they don't want to make risky decisions. It's a lot easier to think David Bailey might be limited relative to Arvl Reese, but I know exactly what David Bailey can do and I think Stowers fell into it and maybe Sidi did as well. Of that ambiguity of the like the John Smith taking 10 years to figure out what to do with John Smith and really being a broken offense when you finally figured out what to do with John S.M. i think these two players ran into that. And so that's where just the ambiguity on versus feeling like it was a clean projection into a position.
Dave
Let me ask you one last question Jeff and then we'll move on to the next tier here because it has
Jeff
been a I could talk all day long.
Dave
Well, I'm going to keep this one simple. This is going to be a black or white answer here. Kenyon Siddiq or Eli Stowers? Because we have heard it going. You know a lot of people I know are Sigmund Bloom prefers Eli Stowers. I had Jeff Blalock on the show last week. He prefers Eli Stowers. Are you in that camp?
Jeff
Well, I'm I'm in the I'm still taking Sadiq and I when I look at source yeah I think when you fall into concerns me a little bit that Makai Lemon and Stowers landed in the same place because I think that ideally you're probably operating in the same area of the field between those two players and I mean Lemon we would think has the IR upside when earlier in the draft and so I think you're going to have to see it work probably for Stowers. You're going to have to see the Eagles be creative in a way that I mean, obviously you know, Kevin Tulu is gone, but frankly the Eagles struggled to be creative last year offensively. So I think to make Stowers work, you need to see some creativity and work there. Whereas Sadiq I think is a cleaner projection into being that player like we talked about at the top, like Colson level and type player where, where you can, you're working him even. I mean the high end projection for Sadiq is more of that Brock Bowers where you can line him up in the backfield, you can line him up, you can get him involved in the screen game. I think Towers can do some of that as well. But I think that it's a cleaner projection for Sadiq and I think that it really comes down to probably some of that preference has to deal with. You'd rather bet on the Eagle than you'd rather bet on the Jet. I think is probably some plays into
Dave
it and I think that's where a lot of the conversation about this one goes. But I try my best not to let situation dictate my, my takes too much in Dynasty because things change quickly. And like what happens if the jets get a quarterback next year? Like whether they bring in a capable veteran? Like, I don't know man, crazy stuff happens. I'm not saying this is going to happen but like what if the Rams say like, hey, like we want to move forward with Ty Simpson, we saw enough and Matthew Stafford goes, okay, well I guess I'm a New York Jet now. Then all of this reason to fade Sadiq and fade Umar Omar Cooper looks really silly. So yeah, just bet on talented players. Also, I'm not predicting that Matthew Stafford will be a jet in 2027. I'm just saying wild stuff happens and you just want to bet on talent and hope that the cream rises to the top. But Jeff, anything else on this?
Jeff
What if we see. Yeah, what if we see Geno Smith play like he did two or three years ago? What if we see that a lot? Yeah. Yeah. And I do think that at some level the Jets, I think the jets looked at it and they saw all these quarterbacks go back to school when they were holding the number two pick and they said, you know, quarterbacks can do that. Now we need to make sure that we are somewhere that players are comfortable coming to because our history is not great in the position. So we're going to have some Players that can be supporting pieces and they.
Dave
I don't know if you've heard this 27 draft class is supposed to be pretty good and the jets have three first round picks in it.
Jeff
It.
Dave
The jets hold. So yeah, I mean they, they are setting themselves up. You know, they, they went, I think Sigmund Bloom said it perfectly like they went grocery shopping when they were hungry at the draft this year, I don't know if they have much of a identity. They just drafted a bunch of good players at premium positions and then next year they've got more picks that they can use to address needs. So I, you know, kind of like what the jets are doing. We'll see how it plays out a couple of years from now. But I don't think we should just be off a player because he's.
Jeff
So where did the brain trust for the coaching brain trust for the jets come from?
Dave
A little bit of Detroit and a little bit of Kansas City.
Jeff
Detroit. So they. Aaron Glenn and then offense coordinators from Detroit and what Remember back.
Dave
Nevermind. Yeah. Not Kansas City.
Jeff
No. The GM is from Denver. But remember back in the draft when the Lions took Jameer Gibbs, when the Lions took, took Campbell and, and they basically they were a laughingstock because people said what are they doing? Why are you taking these? This doesn't make this not how you build a team. What are you doing? And so they have the coaching staff that, the offensive coaching staff, but Garen Glenn as well that built the team that, that went outside the box, that didn't follow the things that you're supposed to do. And again now what are people saying about the Jets? What are you doing taking these players?
Dave
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Dave
Let's move on to our next tier here. Jeff. This is the approaching their primes tier. Now these are three players that have been productive in stretches. None of them have really put together like a full season that we can get super, super excited about. But Dalton Kincaid and Buffalo Isaiah Likely now in New York Giant and then Jake Ferguson with the Dallas Cowboys. All these players have done it in spurts. Like we'll see like you know, for the first half of the season, Jake Ferguson was the tight end too in scoring and then just completely fell off over the second half of the season. Isaiah Likely. We saw week one a couple of years ago as one of the best games that a tight end has ever had in NFL history and then was a back end tight end three for the remainder of the season. You know, we've seen Dalton Kincaid win healthy, looks great, but this guy can never stay healthy. So what do you do with players like this where like the talent is there? These are all players that are on what we expect to be above average offenses but you know, have been in the league for a while now and we just haven't seen any sort of continuity.
Jeff
Yeah, I mean you, you're really looking for the value probably on what you can get these players and you know some the room can vary on the value and I think there's, there's people that are very bought in on Isaiah Likely and especially landing in, in New York. But I do think that Theo Johnson's being forgotten about way too easily with the Giants. And you know, we, we didn't see if you were to project this tight end room similar to what the dot the Ravens had. Where were the. That's the Mark Andrews role that Theo Johnson I think is being way, way, way, way slept on in this room. But he does fit the Mark Andrews profile. Whereas Likely he was kind of the secondary supporting player there. I mean we know the money and all that, but I think Kincaid, I mean obviously everybody knows I'm a Bills fan, but Kincaid, he doesn't bring it after the catch. I think is where the struggle is and he's kind of. It just doesn't really fit I think is often what comes down to it with Kincaid. There's again like you're all over it talking about the lack of consistency and kind of bouncing back and forth. Obviously the injuries being a key Part of that. And then I mean Ferguson, your article, reading your article here as we're doing the show, but you're right on it. Talking about CE lam being out when Ferguson exploded and then CD Lamb coming back and him not being a top two option in an offense that was supporting two options. Basically there's some touchdown regression involved in that, but there's volume regression involved in that.
Dave
And we'll talk about Theo Johnson a little bit. But you know, you and I are just mind melding here on Theo Johnson. I don't really understand that. Like we see Theo Johnson was like a go to weapon for Jackson Dart as a Rookie. He got five touchdowns last year. This guy's 6 foot 6 with 98th percentile size adjusted speed. And everybody has just like I tweeted something about Theo Johnson pretty recently and there were multiple replies that just said Theo Johnson sucks. And I'm like we haven't seen enough to declare that he's good or bad. But like there was enough promise that you should be buying in. But you know how it gets man. Like there is these, these consensus opinions that form and somebody out here with a big following must have said that Theo Johnson sucks because that's what everybody is parroting out here. So we'll talk about Theo Johnson later in the show, but go buy some Theo Johnson. Let's talk about the next tier here, Jeff. And this one, I mean we got some superstars in this tier. TJ Hawkinson, Mark Andrews, George Kittle, Dallas Goddard, if you like count combined the number of tight end 1 seasons from this tier here, right here, we're probably looking at what, 15, 20, top 12 seasons. But all of these guys are getting up there in age. We got TJ Hawkinson is the young guy of the group and you know, dude, these guys age quickly, man. It feels like just a couple years ago you and I were doing shows talking about TJ Hawkinson, this young budding superstar. Now he's 29 years old, hasn't ever really recovered from that ACL injury a few years back and it looks like he is kind of falling down the backside of the age curve. Same could be said for Mark Andrews, George Kittle coming back from the Achilles, Dallas Goddard, probably his final year in Philadelphia here. So this is the first tier. You know, I think all the guys that we've talked about so far, you can fit on contenders or rebuilders. This tier right here is the one that like you're only targeting these guys if you're a contender and you need immediate production and even if you need immediate production, there's no guarantee that you're getting it from any of these guys.
Jeff
I think that Goddard is the most fascinating piece of this. I think Goddard is really, really slept on his value right now because, I mean, we're operating under the assumption we're. We are 1112 days away from June 1st. I mean, it feels imminent that A.J. brown, I mean, did you see he wasn't at the wedding and. Or Jalen Hurts wasn't at his wedding.
Dave
So we know Devonta Smith, I think it was. But yes, I saw that somebody got snubbed from a wedding, whatever. You know, it's a TMZ of the NFL.
Jeff
Yeah. So, I mean, there was a wedding that happened, but we. When A.J. brown or when Devonta Smith had been out of the lineup, we have seen Goddard be consistent top five fantasy option at the tight end position. And yeah, and we already talked about Eli Stowers. We know that Makai Lemon lands there. If you were to bet Dave A.J. brown less Eagles offense, who is going to be number two in targets on that team? I mean, I could see Lemon getting there maybe throughout the course, but especially early in the season, who do you think the number two target on that team's going to be?
Dave
I mean, it's going to be Dallas Goddard. And they. We saw last year, like they kind of started to shy away from the Tushbush and they started doing a lot of the, the Kansas City type stuff near the goal line where it was like shovel passes to Dallas Goddard or little creative ways to get him the ball. And that's why we saw Dallas Goddard career high in touchdowns last year. It wasn't because like Variant's broken his direction. It's because they were strategically drawing up touchdowns for him at the goal line.
Jeff
Exactly. And we know Jason Kelsey retired and so that changed in the middle of the line a little bit there. But the effectiveness, I think defense has finally had enough of seeing the Tush push to figure out some way to attack it. And you're naturally going to play off of that and you know, if everybody's stacked in the middle, then give it to the tight end that's running this loop and there's nobody out there. And so that's opens up wide for Goddard. But again, we've seen that production. We know playing for a contract that wasn't able to work out a contract, whatever you want to assign to that, you want to sign anything to that, there's definitely some incentive that Goddard will be coming into this. Familiarity with Jalen Hurts and so I think that that's really going to be big. Sorry, let's go ahead and talk about. We can't just talk about.
Dave
Let's go to the next one here and we already talked about the top guys, right? Colson Loveland, Tyler Warren, Harold Fannin, these really good players that we feel good about off of their rookie seasons. But there are more players coming off of strong rookie seasons that we want to invest in. Terence Ferguson, Arande Gadson, Mason Taylor, Elijah Arroyo, Gunner Helm. These are all varying degrees of buying into. You know, this isn't a flat list. This is the part we start getting more into the bucket than the flat list of rankings here. Obviously we're looking at Terence Ferguson and Aronde Gads and pretty far ahead of Gunner Helm. But these are all guys, Jeff, when I see that are young, talented players, most of them have the draft capital that we want to see. All of them showed some flashes as rookies and these are all guys that I expect by the midway point of the season are going to be valued higher than they are in dynasty today.
Jeff
Dave, I'm going to, you know, know, I know Terrence Ferguson was your guy last year. I'm there all the way. I, I think it's fascinating. He's been mentioned as one of the biggest losers out of the draft and I could not be at a more different place. We saw Max Claire get drafted there. To me, that is clear signal that 12 personnel is they're going to be living in 12 personnel and it's clear signal that they want that. Terrence Ferguson is the wide receiver 3 the so he's the slot receiver in this offense. Offense. They went out, they drafted Max Claire because they needed a backup option to be able to plan that into the offense. And without that they didn't. Between Parkinson and Higby, they didn't have that backup option with Claire. But also they need kind of the, you know, Ferguson last year was learning how to do the position, do the things that they needed to do. Now Claire gets to kind of be that backfill on that. Ferguson, I think is a smash and I think that Ferguson is by far the most interesting player of this team.
Dave
Yeah, and I'd say that I'm going out and buying him, but I drafted him in basically every single rookie draft last year. So my bags are packed. I am sinking or swimming with Terrance Ferguson. Just a reminder, this guy led college football in yards after the catch per reception his final year at Oregon. Just a really, really fun player and could come on a Little bit stronger this year. Gunner Helm, Jeff is the one other one that I want to talk from in this tier specifically just because, you know, I, I do see the path for upside here. You know, we're excited about a Cam Ward offense and Chigaconquo is out of the picture, but it does seem like, I don't know, maybe we're a little over our skis right now. I see Gunner Helm getting drafted ahead of a lot of very good tight ends that we have strong projections for in these best ball drafts. And like I get it, like he was a part of a good offense in college, but I don't know if I saw enough in year one that I'm to ready to fully buy in like other people are.
Jeff
Jared Canuck. Name Jared Canuck. Just saying.
Dave
What is that you talking about Their. Their other tight end?
Jeff
Yeah, they drafted this kid out of Oklahoma. So Jared can is like his third year playing tight end. He was a linebacker. He's twitched up and he is definitely. So Helm is kind of more the traditional. I mean the high end think about the Gronkowski Canac is more of the Aaron Hernandez mold. And so that, that is one I think to keep an eye on.
Dave
Like I. Gunner Helm I have always seen is like more of a traditional tight end. Like he can run routes occasionally, but you know, like the, the big problem we had with George Kittle early in his career is that he was like blocking so much but he was able to make up for it with blistering efficiency. I don't see that path for Gunner Helm. I see a guy who's going to block a lot and then he'll get the occasional target but won't be super efficient with them. So I think that's probably what, two minutes on Gunner Helm is probably a minute 90 seconds or a minute and 30 seconds too long on Gunner Helm. But let's move to this next one. Jeff here, young tight end, twos with upside. And you know, I have to throw some opinions in these tiers that I do. And this to me is the group that I am trying to aggressively buy wherever I can. These are all guys that are 26 or younger. They were all top 24 in fantasy per game production last year. We got Brenton Strange, AJ Barner and the aforementioned Theo Johnson. So these guys all on the right side of the age curve, all coming off of somewhat productive seasons. And I think all these guys are in positions where their roles can grow and their value in dynasty can grow.
Jeff
I think Barner and Elijah Royo are Really interesting. And that's going to be a lot on that new offense coordinator there in Seattle to involve them. Are we sure Bretton Strange is the coordinator?
Dave
He was the tight end coach in San Francisco, I just want to say. So where we've seen George Kittle, of course, but also Rust Welly, Jake Tong, just like we've seen a lot of good production from tight ends out of San Francisco and that's who Seattle has now. Are we sure Brenton Strange is good? I don't know. He's a, he's a second round pick who has been productive when called upon. I know he was, was expected to be more of a blocker when he was drafted, but we have seen him step up. You know, kind of what we were saying about Tucker Kraft. I think that's where Strange's value comes is that he is a very good blocker and teams are forced to respect his blocking abilities and then because of that deep wide receiver room, he's just able to get loose every now and then.
Jeff
Yeah, and that's the big, that deep wide receiver room. I mean they have four wide receivers that we want to see get targets. And I, I do think that I'm, I'm not all the way there on every offense is trying to copy the Rams. I am all the way there that James Gladstone saw what the Rams did with tight ends and said give me some tight ends so we can figure this out. Because they went out, they drafted Nate Bulwarker, they drafted Tanner Cozio, so they, they drafted a bunch of tight ends. I feel like I'm just, I think Brenton Strange is probably a little bit, bit spicy for my blood fair.
Dave
Let's move on to this next one. Useful veterans. And this is, you know, very much so. These are four year contenders only, but we talk often about the age curve for tight ends. You know, these guys can be productive into their mid-30s. Like we saw Tony Gonzalez still putting up tight end one seasons at like age 38. We saw it from Gronk, we're seeing it from Travis Kelsey now. And I don't think that these guys are hall of Fame level talents, but they are all guys who are, are beyond the age curve and still producing for us. Juwan Johnson, David dejoku, Pat Friarmuth, Hunter Henry, Dalton Schultz. Now Friarmouth is a little bit younger than the other guys here, but I don't know why. Like there's something about Friarmouth that just feels older. Maybe it's the Steelers jersey, maybe it's that he was drafted young like he's been in the league for a while. He's not technically over the age curve, but, you know, hasn't really realized the ceiling and the upside that we had hoped for. So I'll lump him in with these other veterans.
Jeff
But.
Dave
But I think Friarmouth is the one that if you're rebuilding, you could still potentially go out and target. We're going to see a new offense this year. Maybe they won't be spreading the ball so thinly around the tight ends, but the rest of these guys, Jeff, all of these guys I think in this tier could realistically have top 10 upside this season.
Jeff
It's in play for all of them. I completely agree. I think Johnson is really going to get knocked down with Jordan Tyson arriving potentially because we've. He was kind of the default number two target, especially after your Rasheed Shahid was gone. I mean, we've seen the Kellen Moore, the Eagles offense. It really was two players. And you know, Dallas Goddard, I think is a better football player than Juwan Johnson. He wasn't able to get anything going when those two wide receivers, A.J. brown, DeVonta Smith were healthy. I think when Olave and Jordan Tyson are available, I think Johnson falls off a little bit. I think you're right there on Friarmouth. I think Friarmouth is the intriguing piece on this. Obviously that offense is changing. Mike McCarthy coming in. Darnell Washington is. I mean he. Darnold Washington has deceptively soft hands, but he's not making a single sole miss. But he's. There's some, there's some Tucker crack.
Dave
You don't need to make a miss when you can just hammer him into the turf. I mean, that's what he does. Like he is a hammer out there. Like he had that one play last year where he broke three tackles in like three seconds. And just. I want like, like the NFL Films crew just to follow Darnell Washington around and just make like I could watch like an hour long slow mo documentary of Darnell Washington just destroying guys out there.
Jeff
So this is all about tight ends and just talking about how unfair is it for Georgia having Darnell Washington and Brock Bowers going up against guys that are selling insurance. Like that. That is.
Dave
And Oscar do.
Jeff
Yeah. As soon as they. Well, as soon as they were gone, they stopped winning all the national championships. But when they had Darnell Washington and Brock Bowers, they're building a dynasty. But it really was kind of those guys.
Dave
Yeah, let's talk about some other rookies here. We talked about the two big names up top Kenny Sadiq and Eli Stowers. But there are more rookies to watch here. Max Claire, Oscar Del, Sam Roush, Justin Jolie, Eli Reardon, Joe Royer, and Tanner Kozil. This is a deep one, Jeff. And I feel like this is so much the things that we were saying about the tight ends last year, we're going to say about the tight end tight ends this year. It is like a kind of pick your flavor type of draft here. Like, we saw so many guys getting drafted on day two. Everybody's going to plant their flags on the guy that they like, you know, of course, I think we all kind of like Max Claire landing in Los Angeles as the early round two pick. That's a fun landing spot. Oscar Delp just has that skill set that is just made for catching passes. Like, he's not going to be an inline guy. I think the hope with him is that he can be like a better version of Micah Sicki. Sam Roush, of course, could be the heir apparent for Cole comet in this 12 personnel Ben Johnson offense. Justin Jolie. We know what Sean Payton wants to do. Like, I can go on and on. There's an upside case for all of these guys, but there have been a lot of day two tight ends that we've gotten excited about historically that have ended up being nothing in the NFL.
Jeff
Yeah, I mean, that's. That's the thing. And it's. It's. So I do. I do believe that the lack of other options, and yes, it is part of it, of wanting to play more two tight end sets, but also the lack of other options, I think kind of pushed some of these guys up the board.
Dave
And I think as we get into training camp, these are going to be the names you want to know. And if we start getting a strong drumbeat about Justin Jolly. Yeah, like, don't ignore that because then that means that that could be something. But, like, also, you know, like, I feel like I made this mistake. Like, Lou Musgrave was a prospect I liked. Right, Right. And we didn't hear a lick about Luke Musgrave during any camp. Like, it was just tuck draft this, tuck draft that. And I'm saying, no, I liked Luke Musgrave and the packers liked him because they drafted him before Tuck draft. And I kept going into these best ball drafts and dynasty rookie drafts, taking Luke Musgrave, ignoring everything I heard coming out of there. So I think my take now when it comes to these day two tight ends is to be more fluid. Like, I don't want to anchor down and say like, I really like Joe Royer. So, so, you know, by hook or by crook, I'm just going to keep pounding the table for Joe Royer. Like if they say that Joe Royer is nothing, I'm just going to adjust to that and move on and stop drafting Joe Royer. So I think that's the thing here is like we want to be as fluid with these day two, day three guys as possible next year. We want to talk about though, Jeff, and here's the Darnell Washington tier. This is a weird one. I just had like a bet on athleticism. These are all guys that have been in the league for a handful of years. We've seen flashes from all of them. But, but kind of like the tier we were talking about earlier with Dalton Kincaid and those other guys, we haven't seen any sort of consistency. So in this tier I've got Chiga, Conquo Darnell Washington, Jatavian Sanders, Greg Dulcich. These are all guys with pass catching profiles and good athleticism. They should be on the dynasty radar. But these guys, you know, we, we hope that they can break out. But also these guys might all be on the waiver wire of your dynasty league by the midway point of the season.
Jeff
Yeah, to me, chicka conquest the most interesting one. And we're going to wait and see with Washington whether they add Braden Aiuk or we've seen Stefan Diggs floated there. We know Deebo Samuel was there last year. He's still available. So I think that if they do not add another player there, Chicago ends up pretty interesting in Washington. Explain Greg Dulcich to me, Dave. Why is everybody buying Craig Dulcich?
Dave
Because Malik Washington and Jalen Tolbert are the top receivers in Miami. And like we saw little flashes from Greg Dulcich and that's all it takes with these tight ends, right? Like see little flashes as a rookie in Denver and we kind of get excited about that and then you see a couple little flashes last year and we kind of get excited about that. I mean again, like I said, these guys could all be on the waiver wire by the midway point of the season. But know 330, 335 yards last year and what was basically half a season of actual play. Like he stepped in late in the year after Darren Waller got hurt. I'm not going to sit here and pound the table for Greg Dulcich. Like I, I, I understand that he could be something, but I think we've probably seen enough at this point in the career that we, we shouldn't expect too much.
Jeff
I don't think it's a fantasy play but I think Will Kazmark is being slept on in Miami. He was a day two pick. He former Ohio Bobcat in state Buckeye. He's excellent blocker. He is going. I think that we're going to see a very different offense. And so to me I think a lot of the Dolcich is like the John who Smith proxy with the Tua offense and Mike McDaniel trying to get out of the season. It's gone. Now you have the Malik Willis offense. They're going to want to run the ball. They've said they want to run the ball. That's where I think Kazmark is going to be on the field. And I don't know that it's a fantasy play. I, I just, just am not buying
Dave
the Dolce next tier that I have here. Jeff is called the anything left question mark. Evan Ingram, Travis Colson, Travis Kelsey and Johnny Smith. This is kind of similar to the one that I talked about earlier. Like the teetering atop the age curve. These guys are mostly past the age curve though with Travis Kelsey, you know, it seems like he's already on borrowed time. I don't think he's coming back for 2027. Evan Ingram, like it's weird with Evan Ingram because technically still 31 years old. Like you'd think there might still be something in the tank but back to back terrible years in Denver now, like it feels like that tight end. One season in Jacksonville we are so far removed from. And then Johnny Smith. You talked about it like we saw the breakout. We saw a top 10 season in a broken offense. But when you look over the course of his entire career, that is really just a blip there. So these are all guys that, you know, I just don't know if there's anything left here. If I get like a third or fourth round rookie pick, I'm willing to move off of these guys wherever I get.
Jeff
Yeah, I mean the one you're going to bet on is Travis Kelsey potentially still obviously being the Kelsey being the Mahomes. I think the other two are. You know, you had a fantastic sell window for Johnny Smith and Evan Ingram. So yeah.
Dave
And you, you missed out on that unfortunately. The next one I want to talk about, Jeff, the contingent streamers, these are guys that should be rostered in your deep leagues. But Michael Mayer, Kate Otten, Cole Comet, Colby Parkinson, Jake Tongass and Dawson Knox, guys that have almost no projectable volume. But if the guy in front of them goes down. You might be able to talk yourself into streaming them.
Jeff
I mean Parkinson had the Mark Andrews of it all of just finding his way into the end zone week after week. But there is, there's things to like about him and I think he is going to be out there on the field killed quite a bit for the Rams. But I mean Tanj is like he's certainly at a height right now with George Kittle's injury. The other pieces, I mean Otten always finds a way to be a top 15 tight end. Other than that, we did kind of have the opportunity for Michael Mayer to realize that contingent upside it didn't happen. Maybe it was this environment, maybe he with Clint Kubiak, maybe he kind of becomes the A.J. barner there supporting. But yeah, I think the other guys we've kind of seen blimps but they are what they are.
Dave
Well Jeff, I think that'll do it for tight ends. I go a little bit deeper in my article if you want to check that out. We'll have that linked in the YouTube and podcast description below where we've got some other fun tiers like the losing Patience tiers and the names that will remember the deep league stashes and your Dynasty Taxi candidates. So be sure to check that article out. Jeff and I, we're going to be back next week talking about quarterbacks as always here on the Football Guys Fantasy Football show Football Guys Dynasty show. Whatever feed you're listening to, we are bringing you these episodes every single week with Jeff Bell and I. If you haven't left a review already, please do that. The best way to help this podcast grow Jeff, any overarching themes or things that you'd like to talk about about tight ends before we sign off here?
Jeff
Dave, you know that there are a lot of things that I would like to talk about tight ends, but it really is going to be the the thing to watch this year whether we're going to get a lot of 13 personnel if defenses. I mean Arthur Smith tried to play a lot of 13 personnel and did not work quite as well as when the rams were playing 13 personnel and and Puka Nakua and Matthew Stafford are on a heater. So we're kind of in this window now where this is the talk of everything. But we've been talking about this for a couple years really since I think that Dalton Kincaid draft pick kind of triggered a lot of this and that kind of has been the attempt to be the answer for the too high shell and and this Last year was nothing new. This window that people are talking about this off season of these tight ends, this is nothing new. We saw an extreme example with the Rams that actually worked, which is why it's getting talked about again. We've seen other examples that didn't work so, so well.
Dave
Yeah. And we are on almost hour three of recording now. Jeff, we just did an NFFC live draft, so if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to check that out. We recorded last night. By the time this video will go up, it'll have been last night, but a really fun draft where we drafted a $350 entry team for a chance to win $300,000 in the football guys online championship. If you're wondering why I'm playing with my AirPods, it's because they are dying. So I'm putting one in the charging case case and swapping them out one at a time. Just getting, you know, whatever a couple minutes of juice I can here and there as we wrap up this show. But as always, I want to thank you, the listener, so much for taking the time to hang out with us today. Jeff and I will be back next week. We'll be back the week after that. We've got our divisional breakdowns coming up so soon here. Just one more positional series on quarterbacks and then we get into our team by team breakdown. So thank you so much for hanging out. We will see you soon.
Jeff
I'm Kiana and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business business. But Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like, I can't stop. I'm addicted. Start your free trial@shopify.com early birds always rise to the occasion for summer vacation planning because early gets you closer to the action. So don't be late.
Dave
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Jeff
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Footballguys Fantasy Football Show
Host: Dave Kluge (with co-host Jeff Bell)
Episode: Every Tight End That Will Matter For Fantasy Football In 2026
Date: May 20, 2026
In this in-depth episode, Dave Kluge and Jeff Bell break down the ever-shifting tight end landscape for fantasy football with a forward-thinking focus on 2026. They analyze the transition between established stars and new wave dynamos, highlight key rookie and sophomore breakouts, debate dynasty rankings, and flag sleeper options, tier by tier. With a candid, high-energy tone and deep football nerdery, the pair provide actionable advice and honest evaluations for dynasty managers and redraft enthusiasts alike.
Dave on breakout talent:
“Just bet on talented players. Also, I'm not predicting that Matthew Stafford will be a jet in 2027. I'm just saying wild stuff happens and you just want to bet on talent and hope that the cream rises to the top.” (28:55)
Jeff on the funky NFL draft trends:
“We're not going to blow through this show, Dave, because we're going to nerd the heck out on tight ends because I absolutely have tight ends because...the just different multifaceted approach of what they are able to offer.” (20:42)
Dave on Theo Johnson sleeper status:
“...there were multiple replies that just said Theo Johnson sucks. And I'm like we haven't seen enough to declare that he's good or bad. But like there was enough promise that you should be buying in.” (35:13)
Jeff on buying youth but caution:
“I think tight ends…the path is almost the inverse [of wide receivers]…then unfortunately some of these players, injuries happen and, and then they're kind of trying to bounce back from that.” (13:18)
Next Week: Quarterback analysis and more dynasty strategy!