Free Agency Failed These Teams… And Now The Draft Must Save Them

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Footballguys Fantasy Football Show

Episode: Free Agency Failed These Teams… And Now The Draft Must Save Them
Date: March 19, 2026
Host & Guests: Dave Kluge, Jeff Bell, Eli, Mike

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Episode Overview

In this lively, analysis-heavy episode, Dave Kluge, Jeff Bell, Eli, and Mike examine NFL teams whose free agency moves left lingering holes in their rosters—ones that must now be patched via the NFL draft. With a heavy focus on wide receivers, running backs, and tight ends, the crew dissects which prospects fit where, the implications for fantasy football, and how dynasty managers should approach the upcoming rookie class. The show balances deep scouting, strategic speculation, and the friendly, bantering tone fans expect from Footballguys.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Free Agency Fallout: Teams Left Needing the Draft

• Miami Dolphins:

  • Traded away Jalen Waddle to Denver; Tyreek Hill also departed.
  • The WR room is decimated outside “Malik Washington show” and little else.
  • “They need to draft one of everything at this point.” – Eli (01:19)
  • Miami boasts significant draft capital (5 picks by end of Day 2), opening door to double-dipping at WR:
    • “They might even end up taking two wide receivers in the first two days of the draft because they have nothing there right now…” – Jeff (02:47)
  • Malik Willis signed, likely as a bridge QB in a rebuilding year.
  • Ohio State WR Carnell Tate linked to Miami due to coach Halfley’s history (03:36).
  • Capsheet disaster: “They're eating almost $200 million in dead cap, like their dead cap allowance alone is like almost the payroll of some other teams.” – Dave (02:19)

• Las Vegas Raiders:

  • Fumbled on the opportunity to secure Baltimore’s #14 pick, hurting WR pursuit.
  • Signed Jaylen Naylor (not a WR1), lost Maxx Crosby, shored up defense.
  • "They also don't have the draft capital required to get the wide receiver that they need." – Dave (05:55)
  • Expectation: offense built around tight end Michael Mayer, using Brock Bowers as a move piece (06:33).
  • Parallels to Bengals drafting Higgins/Chase post-Burrow; speculation they'll look for WR help again in 2027 free agency (09:10).

• Cleveland Browns:

  • WR depth is paper-thin after Jerry Jeudy. “Cedric Tillman, Isaiah Bond, Jamari Thrash” – none proven.
  • “The WR1 in Vegas isn't even a wide receiver… Harold Fannin is probably going to lead the team in targets.” – Dave (11:35)
  • Browns have 10 picks; likely to move around the board, possibly for WR or OL at #6.
  • Storyline: possibility of WR Jordan Tyson joining his brother, Jaylon, in the same city (12:21).

• Washington Commanders:

  • Lost Debo Samuel, have aging McLaurin. Brought in running backs (Rashad White, Jerome Ford), suggesting they don’t expect to draft Jeremiah Love.
  • “Do you think it's... within question that they could maybe use that seventh overall pick on a wide receiver?” – Dave (15:38)
  • Strong WR need, candidates could include Carnell Tate, Jordan Tyson, or Makai Lemon.

• New Orleans Saints:

  • After Chris Olave, depth is bleak; Rashid Shahid departed.
  • Similar WR search as Washington; Carnell Tate or Kenyan Sadiq (TE) could be in play at picks #8, 42, 73.
  • Heavy Buckeye-liking persists: “The Saints absolutely love their Buckeyes and so maybe this is a Carnell Tate spot as well.” – Mike (21:52)

2. Draft Class Themes & Dynasty Implications

• Wide Receiver Depth & Strategy:

  • Many teams need WRs, but with run on WRs at end of Rd1/top of Rd2, some teams might need to trade up (08:04).
  • “There's a lot of good big wide receivers that can bring that in this class.” – Mike (17:12)

• Tight End Value is Rising:

  • Kenyon Sadiq floated as a potential top-10 pick: “Last two TEs with this athleticism—Kyle Pitts, Vernon Davis—both went top 10” – Dave (20:20)
  • Eli Stowers likely to be a first-round TE: “I think Eli Stowers is going to go in the first round of the draft.” – Mike (25:23)
  • Changing role: “Move” TEs as scheme unlockers, not just auxiliary weapons (23:03).

• Running Back Market Shifts:

  • Draft position is tied to contract size, making teams wary: “...if the Titans draft Jeremiah Love at pick #4, they are committing to a four-year, $48.7 million contract.” – Dave (29:00)
  • Titans, Giants, Seahawks, Ravens discussed as RB-needy, but many likely to add veterans after the draft or via trades (e.g., Seattle possibly targeting Najee, Eckler, or Brian Robinson).

• Dynasty Advice & Rookie Guide:

  • Footballguys’ rookie guide highlighted as a must for dynasty managers (10:34).
  • Discussion of which rookie RBs might actually get "bellcow" opportunities due to landing spot uncertainty (36:57).

• Draft Strategy Reflection:

  • “Every year we are shocked with where players go. So this next month leading up to the NFL draft is a fun time of year, but it's going to be a lot of smoke and mirrors. The season of lies is upon us, as Cecil Lammy likes to, to say.” – Jeff (51:17)

3. Memorable Quotes, Banter, & Timestamps

On Miami’s Situation:

"They need to draft one of everything at this point."
— Eli (01:19)

On salary cap pain:

"They're eating almost $200 million in dead cap, like their dead cap allowance alone is like almost the payroll of some other teams."
— Dave (02:19)

On Las Vegas’s WR woes:

"They also don't have the draft capital required to get the wide receiver that they need."
— Dave (05:55)

On Teams Draft Approaches:

“We see a lot of good receivers make it to round two. And those are, those are usually your raw guys. But ...those like big body developmental guys fold around too. And I feel like that would be the type of guy that would fit here in Washington. But they don't have a second round pick.”
— Dave (17:37)

On Dynamic Tight Ends:

"Kenyon Sadiq as this generational, potentially overused word, athlete at the tight end position in a league that is moving towards finding these tight ends...he is going to go early in the draft."
— Eli (24:30)

On Rookie RB Salaries:

"...if the Titans were to go out and draft Jeremiah Love at pick number four, they are committing to a four year, $48.7 million contract... that rookie contract immediately makes Jeremiah Love one of the highest paid running backs in football."
— Dave (29:00)

Snake Oil Season:

"The season of lies is upon us, as Cecil Lammy likes to say."
— Jeff (51:17)

4. Running Back and Tight End Landing Spots & Philosophy

• Tennessee Titans:

  • Tony Pollard retained; Malik Willis at the helm. Rookie RB connection with Jeremiah Love at #4 debated due to positional pay premium (26:08–30:52).

• Seattle Seahawks:

  • Let Ken Walker walk, haven't replaced him, likely waiting for comp picks and bargain veteran FAs post-draft.
  • “Counting on a potential mid to late round Rookie to be the week one starter is a very risky proposition.” – Dave (32:08)
  • Suggesting George Holani is a deep sleeper for fantasy (38:22).

• Baltimore Ravens:

  • Derrick Henry is aging, no proven depth.
  • “If Derrick Henry goes down, this team is completely screwed.” – Dave (40:52)
  • Likely to draft mid-round RB or sign a solid veteran as insurance.

• Kansas City Chiefs:

  • Preparing for post-Kelsey era, but unlikely to take a TE early due to roster philosophy.
  • Potential interest in second–third round names (Eli Stowers, Max Claire) as successors (47:01).

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• Ohio State WR Box Checked: “Three minutes into the episode we have talked about Ohio State wide receivers.” (04:00)
• On Malik Willis choosing Miami: “I can give you 45 million guaranteed reasons that Malik Willis chose the Miami Dolphins.” – Jeff (04:09)
• Dynasty Foreshadowing: Burrow > Higgins > Chase path for Raiders: (08:46)
• Debate on high-pick RB contracts: (28:45–29:38)
• Seattle’s RB plan + deep-league Holani tip: (38:19–38:51)
• Audience engagement riff: “If you’re watching on YouTube…like, subscribe…” (04:30–05:07)
• Lava Rock Banter:
  Personal riff: Should Dave touch lava in Hawaii and lose a finger for the story? (55:17–56:57)

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Segment Timestamps (Major Content Beats)

• 00:54 – Free agency fallout, Miami Dolphins' issues
• 02:06 – Miami’s draft capital and WR needs
• 05:07 – Las Vegas Raiders’ wide receiver problem
• 08:46 – Dynasty/rookie class implications, WR parallels
• 11:11 – Cleveland Browns WR/OL needs
• 14:40 – Washington’s aging WR room, draft targets
• 21:11 – New Orleans Saints’ roster holes, Buckeye obsession
• 26:00 – RB needy teams: Tennessee, Seattle, Baltimore breakdowns
• 47:01 – Kansas City Chiefs’ eventual tight end need
• 51:11 – How to sift draft “smoke” from “fire”, season of lies
• 53:58 – Final wide receiver market dominoes (Bills, DJ Moore)
• 55:17 – Lava-lose-a-finger banter

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Final Thoughts

• The NFL’s “second wave” of free agency is likely, especially for RBs and veterans.
• Dynasty managers are urged to focus on actionable info now (deep RB stashes like George Holani; keeping flexibility for WR/TE surprises).
• The next month is about discernment: “what you hear early and late” is key, middle is “the season of lies.”
• “Every year we are shocked with where players go.” The hosts stress not to over-invest in smoke.
• Podcast maintains a playful, approachable tone—balancing deep strategic insight for fantasy players with the camaraderie, jokes, and tangents (lava rock!) that bring the community together.

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For actionable dynasty strategy, follow the Footballguys’ rookie guide, stay plugged into coaching scheme changes, and be wary of overreacting to March rumors.

Transcript

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[Dave]

Free agency is mostly done and there are still

[Jeff]

some teams with massive holes to fix. Today Jeff Bell and I, we're going to look at some of the teams

[Dave]

that still have needs that they are going to need to fill in the NFL draft. And Jeff, the first one, big news. We got Jalen Waddle traded from the

[Jeff]

Miami Dolphins to the Denver Broncos. And to me, when I look at

[Dave]

that current Dolphins wide receiver room, they

[Jeff]

almost need to draft a wide receiver in this year's draft, right?

[Eli]

Well, they need to draft one of everything at this point.

[Mike]

I think of the Dolphins.

[Eli]

I mean we're definitely very fantasy focused show and so sure we can say

[Mike]

Devon Hn, you know, we're excited there

[Eli]

and Malik Willis, we're curious to see

[Mike]

what happened other than that.

[Eli]

What do they have on their roster? They've really decimated that. Just the overall talent level on their roster.

[Mike]

I mean we're not a defensive show. Mika Fitzpatrick going out the pieces that they've moved out.

[Eli]

But obviously being a fantasy show, not

[Mike]

only Jalen Waddle, but we know Tyreek

[Eli]

Hill is gone as well now. And, and so now it's the Malik Washington show. And is it if it's a Malik Washington. Yeah, I mean if it's a Greg Dol Malik Washington passing game with Malik Willis, it is a Malik Willis and Devon Hn offense. Like and that's pretty much it.

[Jeff]

And I think that is the major takeaway here. I mean it does feel like they're kind of setting Malik Willis up to be like the, the sacrificial lamb, right? Like there's no hope that this team is going to do anything this year. They're eating almost $200 million in dead

[Dave]

cap, like their dead cap allowance Alone

[Jeff]

is like almost the payroll of some other teams. It's just one wild what they have to do this year and they are in the midst of a rebuild.

[Dave]

But one of the best ways to

[Jeff]

rebuild wide receiver is a premium position. So when you look at what they've got in the draft this year, they were able to get another first round pick. So they already hold 11. They also got pick 30 in the Jalen Waddle trade. They have a second round pick and

[Dave]

then they also have four picks in round three. So I mean that's pretty crazy to

[Jeff]

see a team with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 picks by the end of day three or I'm sorry, by the end of day two. I think they might even end up taking two wide receivers in the first two days of the draft because they have nothing there right now and they need to invest in these premium positions.

[Eli]

They do. And it's interesting, probably the reason why

[Mike]

Malik Willis went down to Miami is Jeff Halfley there as the coach. The comfort level of the former packers defensive coordinator.

[Eli]

You kind of wonder if Malik Willis didn't want to pull in Eric Dacosta a little bit and flip out and go to one of these other jobs because certainly errors.

[Mike]

Arizona seems like it'd be a little bit more appealing. I mean Pittsburgh, some of the moves they made feel like they might be a little bit more appealing.

[Eli]

But we also don't know what was

[Mike]

actually on the table for Malik Willis when that time was made.

[Eli]

We're going to talk a lot or

[Mike]

I'm going to talk a lot throughout this episode about Carnell Tate.

[Eli]

And so the thing with Carnell Tate,

[Mike]

you've got Jeff Halfley, former defense coordinator for the Ohio State Buckeyes, familiarity with that Ryan Day program there you talk about needing a wide receiver.

[Eli]

There are are going to be multiple

[Mike]

teams that we talk about throughout this that are in that draft range that certainly have an affinity for those Ohio State wide receivers. And now we've checked the box.

[Eli]

Three minutes into the episode we have

[Mike]

talked about Ohio State wide receivers.

[Jeff]

I don't have any Bears talk on the the show sheep, but we'll see if we get there today.

[Dave]

And also you said like Malik Willis,

[Jeff]

yeah, Arizona was a possibility. Minnesota, perhaps Pittsburgh. I can give you 45 million guaranteed reasons that the Malik Willis chose the Miami Dolphins. That's a lot of money and I don't blame him for taking that.

[Dave]

But anyway, before we get into the rest of the show, we're going to talk about even more team needs that

[Jeff]

are going to need to be filled. In the NFL Draft, we're going to talk about some players that we think

[Dave]

would fit those needs as well.

[Jeff]

Before we do that, if you're watching on YouTube, please do us a favor.

[Dave]

Give us a thumbs up.

[Jeff]

Give us a like on this video. If you haven't subscribed already, be sure to subscribe.

[Dave]

We are bringing you these videos non

[Jeff]

stop throughout the off season.

[Dave]

On the Fantasy show, we're doing three episodes a week. On the Dynasty show, we're doing two episodes a week.

[Jeff]

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[Dave]

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[Jeff]

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[Jeff]

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[Dave]

Let us know what you like.

[Jeff]

Let us know what you don't like. Now, Jeff, let's jump back into the show here. Las Vegas, they've got two needs technically.

[Dave]

One of them we could say is

[Jeff]

already kind of a done deal. Fernando Mendoza, he is going to be the 101.

[Dave]

But this team needs more than Fernando Mendoza. They also need a wide receiver.

[Jeff]

Jeff, I'm kind of putting on my tinfoil hat here, but I think that they were operating under the presumption that they would have Baltimore's pick at 14 and probably use that for a Carnell Tate or Jordan Tyson or Makai Lemon. But they operated through free agency, signing

[Dave]

Jaylen Naylor, who's a wide receiver too,

[Jeff]

beefing up the defense, bringing in quiddy pay to replace Max Crosby.

[Dave]

So now that the trade was pulled

[Jeff]

off the table, now they're in this weird position where they don't have a wide receiver and they also don't have

[Dave]

the draft capital required to get the wide receiver that they need.

[Jeff]

So what do the Raiders do in this situation?

[Mike]

They draft the best wide receiver that they can. When they're available to draft a wide receiver.

[Eli]

It definitely does take a lot of

[Mike]

air out of the balloon of having that Baltimore pick. And again, being in that range that we were just talking about with Miami, that that 14th pick would be an ideal spot to look at a Jordan Tyson or a Carnell Tate or Makai Lemon. We would expect that those players all to be off the board on their next pick.

[Eli]

They could still move up if they wanted to, if they really had Their

[Mike]

heart set on one of those players. They could aggressively do that.

[Eli]

I think it's going to be. It's going to be an offense built

[Mike]

around the tight end. Clint Kubiak is going to be really, really interesting coming in there, having Michael Mayer as that inline tight end and then being able to have Brock Bowers move throughout and really act as the slot receiver.

[Eli]

Naylor is. I mean, Naylor doesn't exactly. It's just an interesting move in terms of, well, he grew up in Las

[Mike]

Vegas, so he gets to go back home.

[Eli]

But then there are through lines with the Minnesota kind of the Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold was Naylor's quarterback two years ago, and then obviously Darnold was Clint Kubiak's quarterback last year in Seattle. And so I think that there's a familiarity, a comfort level with the scheme a little bit. They didn't overlap. Clint Kubiak was the offensive coordinator in Minnesota, did not overlap with Naylor, missed

[Mike]

them by a year.

[Eli]

But there is a lot of overlapping

[Mike]

through lines between those two and understanding of the offensive scheme that they're implementing, that Shanahan offshoot, McVeigh offshoot offensive scheme.

[Eli]

And so I think that makes Naylor interesting.

[Mike]

A lot of uncertainty around Jack Bash and Dante Thornton didn't really get there at all. Trey Tucker, we saw glimpses last year. It did kind of cool off as the year went on.

[Eli]

But yes, they had massive need outside

[Mike]

at wide receiver, not a lot on the board.

[Dave]

And they've got pick 36. And it feels like almost every draft, like every draft class is a little

[Jeff]

bit different, but they're picking high up in round one. They've got a high pick in round

[Dave]

two, in round three as well. And it seems like every year we see this, like, cluster of receivers kind of going at like the back end

[Jeff]

of round one, the top of round two.

[Dave]

So if they really are dead set

[Jeff]

on a guy like you said, they can throw in a day three pick and move up from 36 to. To 28 if their guy's still on the board and they don't think he's going to fall.

[Dave]

But also when you look like Casey

[Jeff]

Concepcion dealing with the knee surgery, he's a guy that could end up easily sliding to 36. Denzel Boston could be there at 36.

[Dave]

So I think that there are options

[Jeff]

where they could still get a wide receiver.

[Dave]

They do have some other needs, but

[Jeff]

I think that the investments in the

[Dave]

draft are very much so going to

[Jeff]

be in the offense after they just completely open up the checkbook for the defense during free agency.

[Eli]

Well, this is the Dynasty show, too. So I think it's worth talking about and it potential, potential parallels with the

[Mike]

really the Joe Burrow situation of Joe Burrow landing in Cincinnati, not having established receiver.

[Eli]

They grabbed T. Higgins at the beginning of the second round in that same draft. Then they go around and they get Jamar Chase being a Dynasty show.

[Mike]

We're already looking at the 2027 class. We know Jeremiah Smith is the prince that was promised. We've been waiting for three and a half years now. It feels like at this point for Jeremiah Smith to hit the NFL.

[Eli]

There are multiple other receivers.

[Mike]

Cam Coleman's pretty good. Ryan Williams fell off a little bit in Alabama.

[Eli]

But there's players in that 27 class

[Mike]

to be excited about potentially landing as the wide receiver one.

[Eli]

And I think the interesting thing with

[Mike]

Mendoza, when you look at values of where players are falling in the draft

[Eli]

potentially, you're looking at potentially his teammate

[Mike]

Omar Cooper in the second round or

[Eli]

his teammate Elijah Surratt in the third round. But and having a familiar familiarity with those players and being able to go

[Mike]

out and get them.

[Eli]

The other part of it, too, is what we see in free agency with the allure of Drake.

[Mike]

May they talk about there with Romeo Dubs choosing to go to New England as part of being interested in Drake,

[Eli]

May there if Mendoza hits quick and early in a big way, this is going to be a landing spot, too,

[Mike]

where a potential free agent might look at it in the 2027 class.

[Eli]

And you know, you all of a

[Mike]

sudden you start to, you had a free agent there. Maybe you draft a receiver high and all of a sudden you've got loaded pieces very, very quickly around Mendoza.

[Jeff]

I just want to see you talk about like the poll of Drake. May I just, you know, guys want

[Dave]

to come play in Chicago, too. Caleb Williams, you know, he's not the Drake Bay is not the only Year three quarterback with a little bit of poll.

[Jeff]

So there we are less than 10 minutes into the show. We got our Ohio State, we got our Chicago talk.

[Eli]

You did get Khalif Raymond. So I mean, you're exactly right there. The pull of Khalif Raymond coming in.

[Jeff]

The pull of Khalif Raymond.

[Dave]

Yes. But if you were listening on the Dynasty Channel, you probably know a lot

[Jeff]

of these rookies already.

[Dave]

If you're listening on the Fantasy Channel, you might not know some of these names. We're talking about Fernando Mendoza, we talked about Chris Brazil, Jacoby Lane, some of these guys that might be available with this later pick. This is the perfect time to download our rookie guide because it is 100 free footballguys.com rookieguide you will get over 150 prospects in there. Scouting reports, player comps, strengths, weaknesses, relative athletic score, combine testing, all of that good stuff. We will have another version coming out

[Jeff]

after the NFL draft, but I can't

[Dave]

promise you that it's going to be free. So get yours now while you can.

[Jeff]

Footballguys.com rookieguide100 free jeff the next one

[Dave]

we're going to talk about and we're kind of in our, our wide receiver

[Jeff]

grouping of the show right now. There are a handful of teams out there that desperately need a wide receiver. And when I look at Cleveland right now, Jerry Judy is owed $13.5 million in 2027.

[Dave]

They can save half of that money

[Jeff]

by releasing him after the 2026 season.

[Dave]

And aside from Judy, there's really nobody there.

[Jeff]

You got Cedric Tillman, Isaiah Bond, Jamari Thrash.

[Dave]

We were just talking about Las Vegas and I feel like this is very similar where like the wide receiver one

[Jeff]

in Las Vegas isn't even a wide receiver. Like we think Harold Fannin is probably going to lead the team in targets this year.

[Dave]

So when I look at this wide

[Jeff]

receiver depth though, I think they need something here. And they have 10 picks in this year's draft.

[Dave]

They've got the six overall pick.

[Jeff]

They're picking again at 24 in the first round.

[Dave]

In round two, they're picking nine, 39th

[Jeff]

in round three, they're picking 70.

[Dave]

And then they've got six picks on

[Jeff]

day three as well.

[Dave]

So we have seen them really taking that day three approach at wide receiver, just doing kind of a quantity over quality approach. Do you think this is the year,

[Jeff]

Jeff, where they might finally spend up on a wide receiver in the draft?

[Eli]

Well, do you know Jordan Tyson has a brother?

[Mike]

Did you know that?

[Eli]

And Jordan Tyson's brother is actually a professional athlete and you know who he plays for? He plays for the Cleveland. Weird enough. Weird enough. Yeah. So I mean, you know, there's some, some, maybe some natural connection there. I think at the six pick they, they do strike me as a team that I don't know if they sit at the six pick because they have all those picks that we talked about and maybe they get aggressive and move up or maybe they decide to move back if they sit at the 6 pick. It does feel like you see their

[Mike]

offensive line overhaul that they've gone throughout this offseason.

[Eli]

It was a big, big story that

[Mike]

the Browns did not have anybody under contract. Now all of a sudden they've added,

[Eli]

it was very expensive, but they added

[Mike]

four out of the five pieces for a starting offensive line.

[Eli]

It feels pretty natural to a guy

[Mike]

like Jordan Fano from Utah to plug him in there as the left tackle at the six pick and then line

[Eli]

up and see what else is on the board. But it, it does feel like a team that potentially is going to move around the board. And I mean if you're prognosticating the, the fun storyline of Jordan Tyson going

[Mike]

and playing in the same city as

[Eli]

his brother Jaylon Tyson, the NBA player, I don't know if that's particularly fun for fantasy because I don't know that

[Mike]

the quarterback play is necessarily going to be there to support the high end production from Jordan Tyson.

[Eli]

And the other part of it too is while we saw that big breakout

[Mike]

From Harold Fannin Jr. Last year, I

[Eli]

mean the coach changed and the scheme changes too. And so I think that that's does

[Jeff]

love his tight ends though. Like we remember what he did with Brock Bowers and yeah at Georgia and then what he also did in Baltimore.

[Dave]

So I, I still think, even though

[Jeff]

like it's a new coach, I still think we're going to see a pretty big emphasis on the tight ends there.

[Eli]

Yeah, I, I would agree and I

[Mike]

think the same thing.

[Eli]

But yeah, it's a lot of uncertainty

[Mike]

around some of these young receivers like Cedric Tillman and Isaiah Bond. They've certainly had their moments of, of intrigue and dynasty, but they definitely are lacking there.

[Dave]

And I think you're spot on too with them like willing to move up

[Jeff]

or down in the draft.

[Dave]

We've seen Andrew Berry is willing to

[Jeff]

be very aggressive and just, you know,

[Dave]

move those picks around all over the place. So with two first round picks, 10 total picks, we could see them moving

[Jeff]

up and down and kind of, you know, hitting those pockets in the draft to get the positions that they need. Another team that we think needs a wide receiver is Washington tier McLaurin is

[Dave]

about to turn 31 years old, so already kind of on borrowed time when

[Jeff]

we're looking at the, the shelf life

[Dave]

of NFL wide receivers. But on top of that, Debo Samuel,

[Jeff]

who led the team in targets last year is gone. Zach Ertz, coming off the ACL tear is a pending free agent. Still, he's assumed to be out of Washington as well.

[Dave]

The free agency moves tell me that they probably don't think they're getting Jeremiah

[Jeff]

Lovett 7 Jeff, because they went in, they brought in Rashad White, they brought in Jerome Ford, they brought back Jeremy McNichols.

[Dave]

That to me tells me like we don't think that we're getting Jeremiah Love here.

[Jeff]

So I wonder if they use that 7 pick on a receiver. We've talked about Carnel Tate, we've talked

[Dave]

about Mai Lemon, Jordan Tyson. Some of these guys could be in

[Jeff]

play with one of those top 10 picks. So they also need to fix the defense.

[Dave]

So there are a lot of holes right now in Washington. It's not just a receiver. So what do you think they do?

[Jeff]

Do you think it's, you know, within question that they could maybe use that

[Dave]

seventh overall pick on a wide receiver?

[Jeff]

Or do you think that they go edge there and then save one of those later picks for wide receiver?

[Mike]

I think that, that they're going to look for a target there. I'm going to say a target there because I think that while they did add Chicaconquo, I mean Kenny and Sadiq, they could look at Kenyan Sadiq there. But I think overall, looking at the realization of, of the age of Terry McLaurin and having Jaden Daniels and how high, how good they felt about Jaden Daniels at this time last year that have that injury plague, disappointing season, then we've seen quarterbacks that have a really strong rookie year and then they fail to follow it up that sophomore year. I mean, C.J. stroud's a good example of that.

[Eli]

A player that really blew a lot

[Mike]

of people away his, his rookie year, then coming back struggling that second year

[Eli]

and definitely doesn't feel on the same

[Mike]

trajectory that he did coming out of that rookie year. When you look at the, the targets, the talent overall, it really opens itself up to look for a wide receiver. And Carnell Tate would be a player that would be pretty interesting opposite Terry McLaurin, another Ohio State wide receiver. And then you got that.

[Eli]

And I know there was talk that

[Mike]

they were really, really hot on Alec Pierce, that they wanted to be, they were in the market for Alec Pierce. I think they might have even been the second place team to Alec Pierce potentially in free agency. And they, they really missed out on all the top targets there.

[Eli]

And obviously Alec Pierce going there, we

[Mike]

know the money that he went for to stay in Indianapolis that tells they're in the wide receiver market in a big way.

[Eli]

And I think just overall, when you

[Mike]

look at the class, I mean there's

[Eli]

a lot of good big wide receivers

[Mike]

that can bring that in this class.

[Eli]

There's also a lot of good edge,

[Mike]

a lot of good defensive players. There they, you know, defensive head coach, they probably want to fix that defense, but it could be a situation we go and draft Carnell Tate or we decide Jordan Tyson's our guy here at the 7 pick and then we're going to load up on the defense throughout the rest of the draft. We see that sometimes and we also

[Dave]

see that a lot of good receivers

[Jeff]

make it to round two.

[Dave]

And those are, those are usually your raw guys. But like, you know, we saw A.J.

[Jeff]

green or. I'm sorry, A.J. brown or no, not. Yeah, A.J. brown was one T. Higgins.

[Dave]

You know, we, we see a lot

[Jeff]

of these like big body developmental guys fold around too.

[Dave]

And I feel like that would be the type of guy that would fit here in Washington. But they don't have a second round pick.

[Jeff]

They also don't have a fourth round pick.

[Dave]

So they have traded away a lot of their future right now.

[Jeff]

So they've got that pick at seven, they've got around three pick and then they're not picking again until round five.

[Dave]

So we talked about it like there are multiple holes in this roster right now.

[Jeff]

This is another one that I wonder if maybe they try to trade back from 7 to get another day 2 pick something in there so they can address some of these needs.

[Dave]

I also want to shout out, I

[Jeff]

did a show with Bob Harris last week and we were talking about Chigaconquo and I think the natural is like, hey, Zach Ertz is gone. Chic conquo is there. Bob made such a poignant point that I can't stop thinking about that Chicago is actually going to be their new Debo Samuel, not their Zach Ertz. Zach Ertz is like that master just kind of finding the soft spot in zones, making like a, a big target

[Dave]

for the receiver, for the quarterback.

[Jeff]

For Debo Samuel was more that schemed up athlete. And I think a lot of those

[Dave]

touches are going Chicago's way.

[Jeff]

So this could also be a team

[Dave]

if they do end up trading back and acquire more round two picks. Maybe they do look for more of, I don't want to say a traditional tight end, but you know, you look

[Jeff]

at the, the Max Claire's and the

[Dave]

Joe Royers, there are a lot of

[Jeff]

traditional tight ends that can catch passes very similar to what Zachary does.

[Dave]

So I wonder if they might be

[Jeff]

in play for that as well.

[Dave]

You know, kind of using Chiga Conquo

[Jeff]

as that schemed up slot receiver and then looking for a tight end that they can use to replace Zach Ertz.

[Eli]

There's that they do like John Bates

[Mike]

and John Bates is a very good blocker. He's the extra offensive lineman at tight end. But it's.

[Eli]

And that's where I think Sadiq might

[Mike]

be kind of interesting. Yeah, I mean, Bob is a very, very smart person and I thought the same thing. I might not have gone there last week when I mentioned Chiga conquo but just the high low of the passing game. Yes, it, it naturally flows to Chicka conquo potentially being the underneath target with Terry McLaurin stretching the field over the top and, and working that that past game that way. And then if you' that direction, if

[Eli]

you are investing potentially as tight end in that key role, it would make

[Mike]

a whole lot of sense to just maybe we say, you know, Kenyon Siddiq is a high, high end athlete here at the seventh pick.

[Eli]

We see a lot of value in

[Mike]

this tight end role. Let's just go out and get Sadiq and then we can kind of do a lot of creative things with both Sadiq and Nakanka. We'll have Sadiq longer term becomes this key piece in the Jaden Daniels offense.

[Dave]

And I want to say I kind

[Jeff]

of pontificated about that a little bit that like maybe Kenyon City does end up a top 10 guy.

[Dave]

And Twitter was just like livid at the thought of Kenyon Sadiq going inside the top 10. Jeff, the last two tight ends that we have seen coming into the NFL with this sort of athleticism, Kyle Pitts, Vernon Davis, you remember where they were drafted, right? They both went inside the top 10. So I don't think it's like that crazy to think that maybe a team out here does really get enamored with

[Jeff]

Kenyon Sadiq and what he can do bring there. So I like that call out as well.

[Dave]

Next tip we want to talk about Jeff and we're still talking about teams that need wide receivers here.

[Jeff]

The New Orleans Saints last year, Chris

[Dave]

Alave obviously led the team in targets. Juwan Johnson was second and then Rashid Shahid, who left the team after week nine, was third in targets. They just didn't really have anybody step up there. We saw Devon Vale and Mason Tipton and Kevin Austin and Brandon Cooks. But there is just like no depth behind Chris Alave.

[Jeff]

So when I look at the Saints hold down to picks eight, which is in the same range a lot of

[Dave]

the other guys teams that we've talked about so far, they've also got picks 42 and 73, I would be shocked

[Jeff]

if they don't end up using one

[Dave]

of those Three picks that they have

[Jeff]

inside the first two days on a wide receiver.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Eli]

And this team, they really lined up potentially as a Jeremiah Love.

[Mike]

Maybe it was a Jeremiah Love dark horse. But I do think that when you look at the moves in free agency, seeing Travis ETN immediately signing there and seeing Kenneth Walker landing with the Chiefs, I think those two teams, that was a little bit of a recognition that we don't expect Jeremiah to love to be off the board. And.

[Eli]

And I think that this is a

[Mike]

spot where, you know, we talk about

[Eli]

Olave like we talk about Terry McLaurin.

[Mike]

The Saints absolutely love their Buckeyes and so maybe this is a Carnell Tate spot as well.

[Eli]

Very, very similar to Washington here where you've got the young quarterback that you're

[Mike]

feeling really, really good about coming off

[Eli]

the close to that rookie year last

[Mike]

year in Tyler Shuck.

[Eli]

You want to be able to support him and build that offense around him. And this is, you know, it's almost the same conversation as Washington. A massive need at wide receiver.

[Mike]

They could go out and add one of these wide receivers or they could

[Eli]

look at a Kenyan Sadiq and say,

[Mike]

you know, Jeremiah or Dwan Johnson, very

[Eli]

good up the seam, kind of more

[Mike]

of a vertical tight end.

[Eli]

We can use these guys in tandem,

[Mike]

have Kenny and Sadiq develop in the

[Eli]

short intermediate areas and then have a

[Mike]

lava as they the key wide receiver here.

[Eli]

I think it's interesting just the I didn't really get a chance to talk about the.

[Mike]

The bomb that used for out there about people overreacting to Kenny and Sadiq being a top 10 pick.

[Eli]

You got to recognize a couple things here. One, the way that the league is moving in the direction of these move

[Mike]

tight ends, these slot receiver hybrid tight

[Eli]

ends becoming a lot more of key focal points in offense. Not only like not figuring out how to unlock them, but more they are

[Mike]

the key that unlocks a lot of different things now. I think that that you've got to recognize that climate.

[Eli]

You've got to recognize the overall talent in the Strats. We've talked about this again and again throughout the Dynasty community on the overall

[Mike]

talent on the 2026 class.

[Eli]

When it comes to rookie picks that's across the board. There is not even you look at the number two pick. You can project seven different players potentially

[Mike]

that jets might take at the number two pick.

[Eli]

It does seem like they're pretty set on Arvell Reese at this point, but that is not the normal like Aiden Hutchinson a couple years ago, are feeling

[Mike]

great about this number Two pick or two years ago when we had all these quarterbacks at the very top of

[Eli]

the class and you're. You wouldn't move that second round pick

[Mike]

for the, for anything basically.

[Eli]

I'm sure the jets would love to

[Mike]

move out of the second round pick and have a team pay the value that's posted on all those different charts around.

[Eli]

It's just this class is a lot weaker and so you've got to recognize while we're talking about Jordan Love potentially being off the board for the seventh pick, it's also going to open up when you've got this.

[Mike]

Jeremiah.

[Jeff]

Yes.

[Eli]

No. Yeah. Disrupting the flow, Dave. I'm. I'm going on something. They were ready to clip this for social media, Dave. It was going to be great and you just got to step in there. But anyways, you look at Kenyon Sadiq as this generational, potentially overused word athlete at the tight end position in a league that is moving towards finding these tight ends in a draft class that is lower talent across the board. And at some level you've got to recognize not going to be on the

[Mike]

board at the 17th pick or into the 20s.

[Eli]

He is going to go early in the draft.

[Dave]

So Eli Stowers, do you think that,

[Jeff]

you know, we're just going off on a little mini tangent here because I

[Dave]

think the tight ends are one of

[Jeff]

the bright spots in this draft. You've got some good edge rushers that are going be going early in the

[Dave]

first and then you've got a. I

[Jeff]

don't know how many are going to

[Dave]

sneak into the first round, but there's a lot. I expect that there's going to be

[Jeff]

like seven to eight tight ends drafted by the end of day two. So do you think Stowers is one of those guys that could potentially be in play as like a middle round

[Dave]

pick as well if we do see

[Jeff]

Sadiq going off the board inside the top 10 like we're talking about here.

[Eli]

Well, Dave, not to let people into a thing that is not out in the world yet, but we're going to do a show with our buddy Mike

[Mike]

Kashuba where we do a mock draft

[Eli]

and people are going to be surprised

[Mike]

where I take Eli Sours. I have a feeling on that. I do.

[Eli]

I think Eli Stower is going to

[Mike]

be a first round pick is the way that I see Eli Stowers after that athletic performance.

[Eli]

Again, similarities in the league, what the league is looking for.

[Mike]

I think that Eli Sowers is going to go in the first round of the draft.

[Dave]

And be sure to tune in tomorrow

[Jeff]

on both YouTube and the podcast where Jeff L. And I are going to be joined with Mike Kishuba to do

[Dave]

a two round rookie mock draft. Kind of going through our top 24

[Jeff]

picks, talking about every single one of those players.

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[Dave]

We're back with Jeff Bell and we

[Jeff]

have talked about all of the wide receivers. Now it is time to talk about some running backs and tight ends that teams might need out here.

[Dave]

And Jeff, the first one I want

[Jeff]

to talk about is the Tennessee running back situation. Now we already talked about it.

[Dave]

You know, a lot of these teams that are picking at 6 and 7

[Jeff]

and 8 that we were thinking could

[Dave]

be in play for Jeremiah Love have

[Jeff]

gone out and aggressively gone after running backs on the free agency market. So when I look at Tennessee, they decided to keep Tony Pollard around with his nine plus million dollar cap hit.

[Dave]

That tells me that they don't feel

[Jeff]

great about Tajie Spears being the guy that can handle that workload.

[Dave]

But it also tells me that they probably don't have a long term option here if they don't trust Tajie Spears. Tony Pollard's about to turn 30 years old. Jeremiah Lovett, 4. Could be getting a lot of smoke here. Do you think that ends up being the pick, Jeff?

[Eli]

It could be. I mean it certainly definitely could be in play there. But at the same time, Tony Pollard,

[Mike]

he closed last year pretty strong. He was one of the best running backs in the NFL over the last month last year.

[Eli]

And so I think that that's on some level there's layers of continuity there with Tony Pollard. It's on some level too.

[Mike]

I know they've got a new coaching staff all across the board. Everything there but Tony Pollard's kind of that veteran presence with Cam Ward coming into his second season as the quarterback.

[Eli]

I'm somebody, I like to have a

[Mike]

veteran running back with a very young quarterback in the backfield to pick up some blitzes or those types of things that may get some calls that somebody that has seen a lot of reps is able to contribute there.

[Eli]

But yeah, it does feel like there is some smoke around Jeremiah Love being

[Mike]

that pick to number four to the Titans and that again, part of that is the ambiguity, the talent across the

[Eli]

board and it really, it's an interesting

[Mike]

draft again because the, there's blue chip

[Eli]

players in the draft, but they're not blue chip positions. So you run into this, yeah, you've got Sonny Styles and you've got Jeremiah Love. These are positions that have traditionally been

[Mike]

undervalued when it comes to where they're actually going to go in the draft.

[Eli]

And so you've got juxtaposition at the top there where teams in the top 10, they're loathe to not take quarterback, cornerback, wide receiver, left tackle. Edge is basically what. If you look back over the last

[Mike]

however many drafts, that's pretty much all

[Eli]

that goes in the top 10 now. You don't have the talent there. And it really starts again, we talked earlier starts at number two, but when you get down to four, it opens up the possibility that the Tennessee could

[Mike]

look in other directions.

[Eli]

It could be Love there. And it certainly feels like if he's not going to be a Titan, he's

[Mike]

definitely going to be a Giant the way that all that's coming out right now.

[Dave]

And something too that I think a

[Jeff]

lot of people don't really understand. Like why, like if, if Jeremiah Love is so good, like why would the Titans be hesitant about taking him at 4?

[Dave]

We've seen over the last few years

[Jeff]

that the NFL has started to really devalue running back contracts. And you see guys like Ken Walker,

[Dave]

like Ken Walker just signed about a $40 million contract for three years with Kansas City. If the Titans were to go out and draft Jeremiah Love at pick number four, they are committing to a four year, $48.7 million contract. So it's not just the draft capital, but it's also the draft capital. And then that rookie contract immediately makes Jeremiah Love one of the highest paid

[Jeff]

running backs in football.

[Dave]

So he, you're, you're spending a premium pick, but you're also giving up a lot of money. Like you're, you're not just taking on Jeremiah Love and like getting a free player out of this. You still have to pay these rookies and when they get drafted that high, they get paid a lot of money. So, you know, by the, by the

[Jeff]

time we get like, you know, way, way ahead of ourselves here, but if they pick up that fifth year option in year five, you know, they could be looking at $70 million invested in Jeremiah Love by the time he gets off of his rookie contract. So that is a very meaningful salary investment as well.

[Mike]

Yeah, Ashton genti has the 12th highest cap hit of any running back. And I mean, he's closer to being top five than he's closer to being outside of top 20.

[Dave]

And that scales up every year too.

[Jeff]

So like whatever his cap hit is now, it's going to be more next

[Dave]

year, more the next year and even

[Jeff]

more in year four.

[Dave]

I can't remember off the top of my head, but I want to say

[Jeff]

he's going to be getting like 15 or 16 million dollars in year four.

[Mike]

Yeah. And so it goes by the pick slot it and it goes and that's

[Eli]

where it plays into.

[Mike]

You know you can reap tremendous value. You had a quarterback in the pick that's you get the while the Bears with the first pick, Caleb. But having Drake May for the Patriots, I mean that's a great value. Having that quarterback contract on that number three pick.

[Eli]

It's a different conversation if that's a

[Mike]

safety or running back. And so that that is I think

[Eli]

it's in the calculus. At the same time, I think a smart team is not going to put too too much weight on that just because you're you want to hit these picks you and you want to hit

[Mike]

a home run and the player that's going to impact and affect just across the board. We did see Genty go high in the draft last year. We've seen Jameer Gibbs go higher than he was expected his year. We saw Bijan Robinson go top 10 and we are seeing a league that is transitioning a lot more towards these running backs that can play three downs and utilizing them as a key focal point. Whereas you look 5 to 10 years ago it was trend to everybody was

[Eli]

moving to committees and having specialist backfields and has been a significant push now towards not tipping your hand on what

[Mike]

package you're going to run because what running back you have in the game having that flexibility and Jeremiah Love profiles is one of those types of players.

[Dave]

Next team we're going to talk about

[Jeff]

here, Jeff is the Seattle Seahawks Hawks who they did make a little move in free agency and not one that I want to completely gloss over. They brought in Emmanuel Wilson and you and I are both fans of Emmanuel Wilson like think that he is a good running back. But Zach Sharpening is coming off that late ACL tear. Ken Walker was lost in free agency. To me like I don't know who their week one running back is going to be right now. They might be content to just roll out Emmanuel Wilson and George Holani.

[Dave]

I still think that it makes sense

[Jeff]

for them to go with one of these veterans. You know, counting on a potential mid to late round Rookie to be the week one starter is a very risky proposition. So I still see Naji and Eckler and Joe Mixon and Brian Robinson and

[Dave]

some of these other guys out there.

[Jeff]

I think that that would make sense for Seattle, but for the sake of this conversation, they don't have a lot of draft picks either. They've got the first, second, third and sixth, which are all late coming off of the super bowl win. So they're picking 32nd last round in the second round or last pick in the second round? Last pick in the third round.

[Dave]

Part of me thinks that, like they

[Jeff]

shouldn't be spending on a running back when they have Zach Charbonnet who will be healthy late in the year and still has a couple years left on his rookie deal.

[Dave]

But then also I haven't seen them

[Jeff]

very active in the running back free agency market, so I don't really know what's going on here. Jeff, do you think that they could

[Dave]

realistically use one of those four picks

[Jeff]

that they have on a running back this year?

[Eli]

I had the opportunity last week to

[Mike]

go on the couch with our Sigmund Bloom and I think Sigmund made a fantastic point in talking about the Seahawks. Lining it up for comp picks essentially is what they're doing with allowing Kenneth Walker to go, allowing Boya Mafe to go, allowing. They basically didn't dip into free agency because they didn't want to affect that comp pick formula.

[Eli]

Essentially.

[Dave]

Tariq Woolen, Kobe Bryant, like they let

[Jeff]

a lot of guys walk this year.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Eli]

And so they're, they're going to recoup them. They're going to end up with one of the, probably the richer teams when

[Mike]

it comes to comp picks. And so adding some of those third round picks, fourth round picks, type caliber

[Eli]

there, rebuild the war chest. And then the other part of it, these running backs that you're talking about there, you've got to understand that there's

[Mike]

two waves of free agency. Basically.

[Eli]

There's the wave that we've seen already

[Mike]

and those players get factored in the comp pick.

[Eli]

That becomes part of the calculus of signing these players. And then you essentially get all these veterans that sit on ice for two and a half months and get into the summer because once you get past the new league gear, then all of a sudden they're not counting into the

[Mike]

comp pick formula anymore. You can add those players at that point.

[Eli]

It's also after the draft.

[Mike]

So you've seen how the draft has

[Eli]

shaken out and so then you're allowed to go out and without losing something to sign those players.

[Mike]

You can see how the draft plays out, see what you've got on the

[Eli]

board and see become a very attractive

[Mike]

spot for, you know, a Najee or for a Brian Robinson to come in

[Eli]

and say well this is might be short term but this is a good opportunity for me to build some value here. And so and then it is a position too that you're comfortable plugging a

[Mike]

player in relatively quickly, quickly at that running back position.

[Eli]

So I think that there's a lot

[Mike]

of different things in play right now of why we haven't seen them be aggressive in the market.

[Eli]

The reality of it is if they're going to be aggressive in the free

[Mike]

agency market, then Kenneth Walker is going to be Seattle Seahawk is basically where that comes down to it.

[Eli]

You're not going to let Kenneth Walker walk or you're not going to not

[Mike]

tag him, something like that and then go out and sign a lesser running back. Yeah, it's, you're just going to keep

[Eli]

going Walker at, at some level.

[Mike]

And yeah, I mean you had that option, you had the availability. You could have tagged him and kept him and they made that choice there.

[Eli]

And so part of me says they don't value the running back position at

[Mike]

all by Tart not tagging and allowing Kenneth Walker to walk. And if they don't value the position at all then yeah, they're not going to draft one early. Part of me says well they don't want to commit any money at all to the position.

[Eli]

It's different to not value the position versus not valuing giving money to the position.

[Mike]

And a second round rookie running back

[Eli]

is still giving a competent player that

[Mike]

plugs in there without having that financial investment at the position.

[Dave]

And also like how often do we

[Jeff]

see second round running backs, I want to say bust but like yes, we see second round running backs bust but

[Dave]

we also see a lot of them take time to get up to speed. Like we talk about it all the time exercising patience with these rookie running backs.

[Jeff]

Like drafting a running back in round two and saying you're the week one starter. That just feels irresponsible to me because that could end up being just disastrous for them. So I nearly like broke my neck nodding along as you were talking because you were just spitting heat like just,

[Dave]

just non stop when you were talking there. But yes, we are past the 30 minute mark in the show so we could say this. Yeah, the, the title is post free

[Jeff]

agency but like this isn't post free agency.

[Dave]

There are still free agents out there.

[Jeff]

And you talk about kind of that second wave after the NFL draft. And that's why, like, I think, sure, we, we would love to see Mike Washington Jr. With the Seattle Seahawks or, you know, K. Trin Allen, the guy like with the Seattle Seahawks, or Nick Singleton, like, they're exciting prospects, they could land in a spot with a big role. But to me, when I'm looking at how they have operated over the last few years with John Schneider, the available free agents, the draft picks that they

[Dave]

have, to me, I would much more

[Jeff]

expect to see them bring in one of these veterans than using one of those few picks that they have on running backs.

[Eli]

And there's just. There's so many options that are potentially available. And you can talk about, obviously, the jets keeping Breece hall around, but maybe halfway through the year, the jets are oh, and whatever. And they say, well, we're not going to have Breeze hall long term. Like, maybe we'll trade for Breeze hall

[Mike]

or something like that.

[Eli]

Maybe Seattle can play it out a little bit and say we're pretty talented team. We did win the super bowl. So let's see if we can get through this early part of the season with some veterans at this position.

[Mike]

And then if Zach Charbonnet is not

[Eli]

coming back to the level that they were hoped or something like that, they could again.

[Mike]

We saw Christian McCaffrey traded in the middle of the season.

[Eli]

I mean, there is the potential that

[Mike]

they go out address it with a veteran in the middle of the year.

[Eli]

And so just because on March 18th

[Mike]

we don't have somebody plugged in in there doesn't mean that somebody's going to be not going to be plugged in there.

[Eli]

At some level, though, I'll push back

[Jeff]

on the middle of the year just a little bit. I think they need somebody for week one.

[Dave]

No Zach Sharpening. I mean, maybe I'm wrong.

[Jeff]

Maybe they just say, like, hey, we trust our system.

[Dave]

We've got a good offensive line, we've

[Jeff]

got good blocking, tight ends and fullbacks. And we think Emmanuel Wilson and George Holani are enough.

[Dave]

But I still think that they're looking

[Jeff]

more for a week one answer than like a midseason injection.

[Eli]

I mean, everybody in fantasy was all

[Mike]

in on Emmanuel Wilson at certain points last year. So there's that.

[Eli]

At some level, though, George Lonnie's sitting

[Mike]

there and they like George Lonnie, I think, and.

[Eli]

And George Lonnie is kind of lining up a little bit as that guy

[Mike]

that's available in every single waiver in

[Eli]

like deep leagues because nobody's thinking about it and probably maybe should be rostered in deep leagues.

[Mike]

This is a dynasty show. We should be giving actually actionable fantasy advice instead of just talking ball like,

[Eli]

like we like to do. But no, it's. I mean, you got Hawani sitting out there in deep leagues.

[Mike]

If your league has moves right now and it's available, you're. I mean, he should probably be rostered in a lot of leagues right now.

[Jeff]

Completely agree there. Now, one more running back situation we want to talk about, Jeff, and this is one where there's just no depth in Baltimore and Derek Henry is getting up there in age. This is going to be his age 32 season.

[Dave]

I'm not even going to talk about

[Jeff]

his decline until I see it because he just keeps year after year after year doing it. But like, you know, it's. I feel like we were having this conversation about Tennessee like four years ago. Like what are they going to do when Derrick Henry gets aged out?

[Dave]

And like we're still having that conversation, but the reality is like they, they

[Jeff]

just don't have any depth behind Derrick Henry either. They lost Keaton Mitchell in free agency right now. Justice hill is the RB2 here. This isn't even a like, you know, Baltimore needs a running back because Derrick Henry's fallen off the age cliff this year. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is like if Derrick Henry goes down, they've got nothing like it is Justice Hill and Rashina Ali over there. So to me, it's a little bit like insurance for this year, but also looking beyond Derrick Henry, to me, the Ravens feel like a team that just almost assuredly is going to need to draft a running back this year.

[Eli]

They this, I mean, a couple of

[Mike]

months ago at this point they were my hot take favorite landing spot for Jeremiah Love that I thought it would be, you know, we would hate it on the day of but when you start to put it together, you'd be like, oh, this is interesting. But yeah, it's, you know, you talk

[Eli]

about the depth, it's kind of the

[Mike]

same that they've had for the last two years though. Like it's. It obviously Keaton Mitchell leaving, but they haven't been able to rely on Keaton Mitchell because that injury was really a devastating injury. So I mean they've had Justice Hill as the backup running back who they like to do, you know, non exciting fantasy things and that backup running back position and then Rashino,

[Dave]

Justice Hill is that change of Pace guy, like, he is the pass catching specialist because Derek

[Jeff]

Henry doesn't play on passing down.

[Dave]

So, like, if Derrick Henry goes down, Justice Hill isn't the guy that you

[Jeff]

want taking goal line touches and taking 20 touches on early down.

[Dave]

So that's what I'm saying. Like, I look at this right now

[Jeff]

and my anxiety spikes because I just

[Dave]

think like, like if Derrick Henry goes

[Jeff]

down, this team is completely screwed.

[Mike]

I'm.

[Eli]

Yeah, I mean, they might be screwed already.

[Mike]

I don't know.

[Eli]

It's, you know, they lost a lot of free. Tyler Linderbaum is not a nothing free agent.

[Mike]

I mean, Isaiah likely didn't get to the point that we were hoping that he would, but at the same time,

[Eli]

part of the reason, yeah, you talk about backing out of the Max Crosby deal.

[Mike]

I think part of the reason is one, Eric D. Costa might not be the very best at his job, but

[Eli]

he might have looked around and said, wow, we lost a lot more players

[Mike]

in this early free agent period because

[Eli]

of this, this money committed to Crosby

[Mike]

than I thought we were going to.

[Eli]

I definitely want to hold on to

[Mike]

this pick next year that we didn't make the playoffs. So we're sitting with the 14th pick this year. And, and I think maybe at some

[Eli]

level, as much as it was. You mean we can give the same money to Trey Hendrickson and have two first round picks? We're going to go ahead and do that. I think at some level too, they, they looked at what was leaving the door and said, well, we definitely probably shouldn't put ourselves in a terrible position.

[Jeff]

I also saw the Linderbaum signing with the Raiders. I saw some people speculating that maybe

[Dave]

when the Ravens looked at that after Linderbaum signed with the Ravens, and then they said, wait, we basically just gave up two first round picks and Tyler Lindebaum to get Max Crosby. Wait, like all of a sudden this isn't fun anymore? So, I mean, we can only speculate, right?

[Jeff]

Like they're saying medical reasons, which of

[Dave]

course, like, the guy just had surgery, he's not going to pass a physical. We don't know what the real story is, but either way, yeah, I think

[Jeff]

that there was a lot of like, hey, we need these picks, we need this money.

[Dave]

Free agency hasn't worked out the way that we wanted. But again, like, you know, I think

[Jeff]

drafting a running back, that's always fun,

[Dave]

you know, youth on a, on what should be a good offense, that's what we get excited about. But like, we were just talking about Seattle. I could kind of see Baltimore also

[Jeff]

saying, like, hey, we're going to bring in Anashi Harris, an Austin Eckler, a

[Dave]

Brian Robinson, a guy that could take

[Jeff]

on that early down role if Derrick Henry falls off the age cliff, gets injured, anything like that.

[Mike]

Yeah, they just haven't valued that over the last two years. And so, like, that's where I feel like my. My thought, my hesitation is there.

[Eli]

I mean, reading between the. The smoke circles, all those things, it sounded like they were pretty confident that

[Mike]

they were going to retain Tyler Linderbaum. And I think that they. Their expectation was that they would retain

[Eli]

Tyler Leonardbaum, and then it really did.

[Mike]

And I was speculating base camp like two weeks ago, and that Crosby thing happened, that it was basically a Linder bomb and two first for Crosby trade that had gone down.

[Eli]

I think once they lost him and you see those pieces, then. Yeah, and I think that probably the

[Mike]

market for Trey Hendrickson wasn't where they had the expectation of the market being or where the. Just the general market, because that.

[Eli]

It did seem like he was going

[Mike]

to be one of those guys that

[Eli]

move very, very quickly. We're sitting in a couple days into it it, but then at some level, you lose all these pieces, you decide, you know, Crosby, we're not quite sure there, or we just want to have our two first round picks. We have nowhere else to spend this money. We'll spend it on Hendrickson because otherwise, what else do we do with it? There's a lot packed into it, but the speculation that's come out has essentially been they were really cold to Crosby when he was in the building. They showed up there the very first day.

[Mike]

There's been a lot of talk that

[Eli]

basically the deal was dead before he was even on the plane to come to Baltimore. So there, there's definitely a lot out there.

[Jeff]

I do think it's funny, the whole, like, wow, like, the Ravens and Eric Dacosta, like, they're going to be blacklisted. No team is ever going to make a deal with them anymore. No agent's going to want to work with them anymore. The very next morning, Trey Hendrickson's agent had no problem helping him sign a contract. I mean, it's just people want to overreact.

[Dave]

I. I did say, like, I was not hopeful, but, like, I like a

[Jeff]

little bit of chaos.

[Dave]

Jeff, I think you like a little bit of chaos as well. I was kind of hoping that like,

[Jeff]

like when that deal fell through that then the Raiders would say, like, okay, well, we don't want quitty pay anymore. And now we're gonna make a bigger

[Dave]

offer to Alec Pierce, and then it would just cause these, like, ripple effects through the entire NFL.

[Jeff]

Didn't really work out. You know, the. The Raiders just kind of shrugged and said, okay, cool, we get to throw

[Dave]

Max Crosby on this loaded defense now. This will be fun. So not quite as exciting as I thought it would have been, because that was all during that legal tampering period.

[Jeff]

Like, nothing was official yet, but, you know, the. The world keeps spinning in the NFL goes to the next day.

[Dave]

Any final thoughts here on Baltimore before

[Jeff]

we talk about the last landing spot that we're going to be watching?

[Mike]

Yeah, I just.

[Eli]

I. I don't get to do as

[Mike]

many shows as you do, Dave, so

[Eli]

I haven't gotten all my opinions out

[Mike]

in the world because it's the middle of tax season.

[Eli]

But I. I do. I do want to say that I know you're an NBA fan, and to

[Mike]

some level, you follow the NBA, and I follow the NBA to some level.

[Eli]

I think we see a lot more

[Mike]

in the NBA when it comes down to, like, trying to do.

[Eli]

Trying to do favors to agents, more or less to, like, be able to sit at the table when LeBron's looking for agents. And then it comes down to it.

[Mike]

It's like, well, you weren't actually in the conversation ever.

[Eli]

Like, I think that that's the.

[Mike]

The Eric DaCosta is going to be blackballed.

[Eli]

It's like, no, it's going to be

[Mike]

whoever has the money or the leverage or where players want to go. It's. It's not gonna matter. I don't think at all.

[Jeff]

We should do an entire show on agents one of these days. Just kind of talking about, like, the. The poll that they have in the NFL nowadays. I don't know if you saw today AJ Dillon in his announcement tweet that. I don't. Where did A.J.

[Dave]

dylan sign today?

[Jeff]

I. I should know this off the top of my head. He signed somewhere today. The Panthers.

[Dave]

And in the tweet from the NFL

[Jeff]

Insider, it said, A.J. dillon, M. Dash, who is in the

[Dave]

best shape of his life.

[Jeff]

M. Dash has signed with Carolina Panthers.

[Dave]

It's like, all right, like, is that. Is that what we're doing? Like, your agent tells you that, so you could be the one that gets the scoop and tweets it out like, all right, I got a scoop for you.

[Jeff]

But you.

[Dave]

You've got to say that A.J.

[Jeff]

dillon is in the best shape of his life. If you want to tweet it out, it's the world we live in a lot of, a lot of water holding.

[Dave]

But last one, we want to talk about Jeff and this is again, like I feel like I just said this about Derek Henry. Like this is one that it feels

[Jeff]

like we've been talking about for the last couple of years. Hasn't really happened yet.

[Dave]

But Kansas City, like you've got to think at some point they want to, you know, think about what they're going to do and Travis Kelsey moves on. And I think Noah Gray was kind

[Jeff]

of the, the hopeful heir parent for

[Dave]

that role but just hasn't really developed. Has just kind of been the same guy he's been since his rookie season. So when I look at this tight

[Jeff]

end class we talked about it earlier, very, very deep tight end class and Kansas City, they've got all of their picks through round five and they've got a round five comp pick on top of that.

[Dave]

So you know, we kind of hoped

[Jeff]

for it last year we were wish casting Mason Taylor going to Kansas City, Terence Ferguson going to Kansas City. It didn't happen. But when I see Max Claire and, and Justin Jolie and Joe Royer and

[Dave]

Michael Trigg, I do see some guys that might pique Kansas City's interest that

[Jeff]

they can kind of prepare to be the tight end once Travis Kelsey retires.

[Mike]

Every time I say Rashi Rice on the show, like the same person in YouTube just lights me up in the comments about like saying anything about Rishi Rice. But on some level Rashid Rice hypothetically I think is the Travis Kelsey replacement

[Eli]

within that offense, running in similar areas

[Mike]

of the field, similar type underneath role. But I mean obviously we don't know if Rishi Rice is ever going to play it down a football again. So I can't really say that it's.

[Dave]

I don't think the Chiefs, I don't

[Jeff]

know, maybe, maybe they do.

[Mike]

They're probably not counting on Rashid Rice at this point.

[Dave]

I think if Rushy Rice is around like they will be happy.

[Jeff]

But like I don't think that they're saying like, like we don't need Travis Kelsey because we're going to have Rashi Rice for the next five years. I think it's just like let's hope Rashi Rice can play.

[Eli]

Yeah, but I mean we have the,

[Mike]

the Kenny and Sadiq conversation being a top 10 pick conversation. We have, you know I on my

[Eli]

soapbox that Eli Stowers is going to

[Mike]

be a first round pick. I mean that, that ninth pick, pretty appetizing potentially use a tight end.

[Eli]

I do, I wonder because they don't expect to pick in that range again like anytime soon because like things went very, very wrong for them to have that ninth pick. If they don't put a little bit more emphasis on those traditional like the

[Mike]

edge rusher or something like that of, you know, they obviously just lost their top cornerback. Maybe they go and get a monster Delane out of LSU as potentially that replacement for losing Trent McDuffie.

[Eli]

I, I, to me, the Chiefs feel a little bit more in the traditional mold when it comes to valuing positions

[Mike]

and then also not expecting to pick ninth. And so this is our chance to get a high end edge rusher to have a cheap contract for the next however many years or this is our chance to have this replacement at cornerback, another premium position.

[Eli]

That's, that's my hesitation on them going

[Mike]

tight end on terms of fantasy is very, very intriguing, very exciting to think about Sadiq being the, the next Travis Kelsey and being able to plug him right into there. And I mean we didn't get the, everybody was wishcasting the Jeremiah Love there, but I think we're all happy with Kenneth Walker landing in that spot. If you were to double down and have Sadiq landing spot be the heir apparent to Travis Kelsey, I mean that, that would be really interesting when it comes to rookie draft time.

[Jeff]

Yeah.

[Dave]

And, and that's why I purposely, when

[Jeff]

I was naming some of the tight

[Dave]

ends, I didn't talk Sadiq because I think you're right, like the Chiefs are more of a like traditional team when

[Jeff]

it comes to roster construction and things like that. So you know, they've got Chris Jones already. But I think like if they can add an edge opposite Chris Jones, his guaranteed money runs out at the end of the 2,260s and that gives some flexibility if they hit on that.

[Dave]

So I, I'd be shocked if they

[Jeff]

took Sadiq there with that ninth overall pick.

[Dave]

But I do look at the, the

[Jeff]

second round picks, the third round picks. You know, we talked about Stowers. I don't think Stowers is going to

[Dave]

be there at the top of round

[Jeff]

two, but if he is like that would be a really, we could get really excited about Eli Stowers if he lands in Kansas City or Max Claire or Joe Roy or Justin Jolie, some of these other guys. So there's going to be a lot to watch here.

[Dave]

But again, like, you know, we, we, we, we, we talk about these like

[Jeff]

these are the teams that have needs and the players that are available. But Jeff, every year we got surprised

[Dave]

was there A person in the world

[Jeff]

that would have expected the Bears to take colson Loveland at 10 last year. No.

[Dave]

Or like, you know, even when the, the Bengals went with Jamar Chase, I

[Jeff]

remember all the talk like, they've got T. Higgins.

[Dave]

They don't need another wide receiver every year.

[Jeff]

We are shocked with where players go. So this next month leading up to the NFL draft is a fun time

[Dave]

of year, but it's going to be a lot of smoke and mirrors.

[Jeff]

Like, everybody's going to be trying to

[Dave]

get other teams off their scent.

[Jeff]

The season of lies is upon us, as Cecil Lammy likes to, to say. So what is it that you're going to be paying attention to between now and the NFL draft? Like, how do you differentiate what's real from what's smoke?

[Eli]

Tax returns is what I'm paying attention to between now and the NFL draft? No, no. I mean, I, I do, I am a big believer in what you hear early.

[Mike]

And what you hear late basically, is kind of. I, I tend to think what you hear early is really, really valuable. And I tend to think probably the meaningful talk is already out and you can kind of pick up what's already out there. And now it, like, I think Cecil is exactly right and the season applies. And now teams are just trying to convince other teams to take the player that they don't actually want. And, and getting things off the board,

[Eli]

it usually tends to be what you hear in January kind of is pretty good.

[Mike]

And then what you hear, like Wednesday

[Jeff]

night before the draft.

[Mike]

Yeah, basically, yes. Like within 24 hours of the draft. Otherwise, I mean, you got people out there saying that the Texans are going to take Will Levis at like third overall or whatever it was that, that one year. But no, I think it's what you hear early, what you hear late. And I think in the middle it's

[Eli]

okay to touch grass.

[Mike]

I just, I mean, I know like our entire job is we want you

[Eli]

plugged in at the desk and listening

[Mike]

to us pontificate about football. And we did get a lot of exciting moves with free agency. We are moving into the, the range

[Eli]

where the potential becomes, you know, it's limitless potential of what could happen with these moves. Moving to a little bit more of

[Mike]

a practical potential, of these are the pieces that are plugging in here, these are the opportunities and these are the players that really did emerge once the dust settled as the potential sleepers.

[Eli]

And so I think that probably, I don't, I mean, we're, I'd say, to say, are we getting A lot of movement because it does seem like we're getting more trades than we've ever got

[Mike]

gotten in the NFL.

[Jeff]

And you know, we are confirmed it today. More trades than ever at this point in the season.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eli]

It felt like the dust had settled a little bit.

[Mike]

And then we get Jayla Waddle traded. It felt like out of nowhere. And so I think that there's a,

[Eli]

I think there is a lot of

[Mike]

movement on the wide receiver potentially right now of, of things being locked in. And, and you know, the Bills were

[Eli]

crushed because they, they gave up a

[Mike]

second round pick for DJ Moore.

[Eli]

And don't you know, Dj Moore is not as good as DJ Moore used to to be. But I think at some level the Bill said this is a massive need. We know that this is a massive need. The league knows that this is a massive need. This is the player that's available right now. We can sit and speculate about A.J.

[Mike]

brown or somebody else becoming available.

[Eli]

This is the guy that we can get right now. We missed on trying to get Jaylen

[Mike]

Waddle at the deadline last year.

[Eli]

We can get E.J.

[Mike]

moore right now and then we don't

[Eli]

have to speculate on who else is

[Mike]

going to move in the market.

[Eli]

And I think that there was a

[Mike]

holdup with AJ Brown at the very top of the draft of what's going to happen of the just the free agent or not even free agent market, but just the wide receiver market in

[Eli]

general of seeing is he going to move and then think it kind of

[Mike]

feels right now like he maybe is not going to move or if he does move, it might be in the,

[Eli]

to the new league year.

[Mike]

But yeah, I think that that's right now. It's just seeing the trickle down now attention, especially in the wide receiver market of we see Jalen Waddle, is there going to be another piece that moves?

[Jeff]

And you know, I think any reaction to the DJ Moore trade, besides this is awesome, is just like get out of here with that.

[Dave]

Like this is awesome. Like this. This clears the way for the Chicago guys. Like now we get Robo dudes, a Luther Bird and Colson Loveland. Those are the top targets. Josh Allen gets a wide receiver who perfectly pairs up with his play style and the reality is like yeah, you can.

[Jeff]

All right, well my spreadsheet says that this was actually an overpay for DJ Moore.

[Dave]

If he goes for 1500 yards and bills win a Super bowl this year, they could have given up five first

[Jeff]

round picks and it wouldn't matter.

[Dave]

Like they are pushing the chips in. So this is a win for the Bills, it's a win for Josh Allen,

[Jeff]

it's a win for the Bears, it's

[Dave]

a win for Caleb Williams and all the young pass catchers in Chicago.

[Jeff]

Jeff, we're gonna end today's show on just complete nonsense. You talked about touching grass this time of year.

[Dave]

I'm going to Hawaii in a couple weeks, so I won't be touching grass as much as I'll be touching lava rock.

[Jeff]

But my wife and I had a. Had a debate last night, and I want you to weigh in on this. Hawaii right now. Kilauea, the big volcano on the Big island, is currently erupting. And I said, like, if I see lava, like, I feel like I'm not gonna be able to help myself but touch it.

[Dave]

Like, I feel like it'll just be like that. That you're not supposed to, but, like,

[Jeff]

I won't be able to help myself.

[Dave]

And then it turned into this debate.

[Jeff]

I said, I thought, like, if I lost a finger to touching lava, it would be really cool.

[Dave]

My wife said it would be one

[Jeff]

of the dumbest things ever. There's, like, nothing cool about losing a finger in lava. What are your thoughts, Jeff?

[Mike]

1. What finger are you gonna lose? So what finger are you?

[Jeff]

The least important.

[Mike]

Like, just dip a left hand pinky.

[Dave]

I'm a lefty, so I'd go with

[Jeff]

my right hand, but yeah, right hand, my non dominant hand.

[Dave]

Just lose that pinky in lava. I feel like that's like one of the coolest stories ever. It's like, whoa, what happened to that guy's finger? Like, he lost it in lava.

[Mike]

Lava.

[Dave]

That's awesome, right?

[Eli]

No, but why can you stick a stick in the lava instead and see what happens to it? Like, there are a lot of different things that you could stick into lava that.

[Mike]

Before I get to a finger that. That's. Yeah, everything. Literally anything laying around, I would dip

[Eli]

into the lava before I would dip my finger into the lava.

[Mike]

But that's just me.

[Jeff]

Yeah, that's what my wife said, too. I don't know, I think it would be cool to be like the. The mysterious guy missing a thing.

[Eli]

No, though. Like knights and fire.

[Mike]

Immediately you'd be like, well, I'm glad I didn't put my finger in that.

[Eli]

If it's like nothing happens, you'd be like, oh, okay, well, let's get a little bit more and let's try something else.

[Jeff]

Yeah, there's that. That. That call of the unknown, and I feel like it, like, pulls me and if I see some lava, I don't know. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep my hand out of it.

[Dave]

But on that note, want to thank

[Jeff]

you so much for tuning in. Jeff and I, we're gonna be back tomorrow with Mike Cash to do a two round rookie mock draft here on YouTube podcast, wherever you're listening to it. And then, of course, we'll be back back next week and the week after and the week after and the week after. Forever into infinity. Want to thank you so much for taking the time to hang out. We will see you soon.