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Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things so why waste time sending important documents the old fashioned way. Mail and ship when you want how you want with stamps.com print postage on demand 247 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90% with automated rate shopping. That's why over 1 million small businesses trust stamps.com go to stamps.com and use code podcast to try stamps.com risk free for 60 days. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Launch Pad. I'm your host Dave Kluge and today I am joined by Football Guy staffer Matt Waldman, a consistent guest here on the Launch Pad. And while a lot of people are looking forward to the 2026 draft class, Matt and I are going to do a fun exercise looking back at the 2025 class. We are going to go through some of the winners and losers from that class. We are going to re rank the top 12 and then talk about some of the biggest omissions as well. As always, this show would not be possible without you taking the time to listen. So thank you so much for tuning in. Now let's dive in. Matt Waldman, how you doing today man?
- [01:40]
B
I'm doing great. Just sitting watching some tape of a Kentucky wide receiver by the name of Kendrick Law, used to play at Alabama and I'm about 50 receivers in for the rookie scouting portfolio. So yeah, you know, this is the season. Yeah, this is the season season.
- [01:53]
A
Yeah, lots of lots of rookies to watch over these coming months here before the NFL draft. But what we're going to do is is rewind rather than looking ahead at the 2026 class. Today I thought it would be fun to kind of do this exercise where we look back at the 2025 class. We've got a full regular season under the belt for most of these guys right now and I thought a fun way to do this would just be to kind of draft these guys where we can go back and forth. You give me the player, you'd want I'll pick a player and we'll just go back and forth kind of working through our top 24. So Matt, if you were redrafting this 2025 rookie class today, assuming this is super flex Full point PPR, who would be your top pick from the 2025 class?
- [02:31]
B
Well, you know, it's very close between two players and they were my 1 and 2 originally in this draft back in the spring. But I'm going to take my number two overall player and that's Luther Burden. I, you know, I thought Luther Burden was the highest graded receiver I had. He was my highest grade receiver last year. He is the number three receiver on my board of the past two years. Actually my number two receiver on the board I believe in the past two years, which is just under Malik Neighbors and I thought we saw some more evidence of that late in the season. It didn't pan out the way I thought early in the year that maybe take over in October. They had more of a luxury with him. But I mean the guy runs excellent routes, he is excellent after the catch and he's in an offense that is only going to get better. And I know a lot of people love Roma Dunes A I loved Roma Dunes. I had him as my number two receiver in 2024 coming, you know, after the draft and even pre draft below neighbors and, and above Marvin Harrison. But I thought that, I think that Odunze is going to be playing a role that's going to be a little bit more, it's going to be lower odds types of targets because he's going to be used more in the vertical game whereas with Luther Burton he can do it all. He's kind of a combo of Jameson Williams and I'm on Ross St. Brown and he will be that in this offense. So I expect Burden to be the target leader, the yardage leader and the only thing that he probably won't lead in is touchdowns, but I wouldn't be surprised at that too. And if you combine Burden with a Lama day Zacchaeus and what they did this year, because that's pretty much what you, you can look at and we're not even going to count what happens with DJ Moore, right? If you, if you combine those two things, he was a top 15, he would have been a top 15 wide receiver this year. And if you bump up the touchdowns to a reasonable amount, like four to six, he might be in the top 12. So yeah, I'll take the long term on Luther Burden just because wide receivers, you know, if we're going. We're looking at dynasty, I imagine, you know, from this perspective. So I'll take the wide receiver, you know, as the tiebreaker.
- [04:49]
A
And, you know, you see this guy, he comes into a crowded wide receiver room and. And maybe you have some insight here. Matt, do you know why he was just kind of shelved for the first, like, month and a half of the season? Is it just that it's a complex role? Took him some time to get up to speed or what happened there? Because over the second half of the season, we saw this guy playing, looking like a wide receiver one. And I know you're a film guy, but the data backs it up as well. Most yards per route run of any rookie in the modern era. I mean, like, just doing all of the things that we want to see from a young player. Why did it take until, like, week six, week seven, week eight for him to come on? Why wasn't he doing it to start the season?
- [05:21]
B
I'm glad you asked me that because really, it comes down to Ben Johnson and the. And I would say the genius of Ben Johnson, like as a. As a planner, a manager and a strategist for taking over a team because Caleb Williams was in a dumpster fire last year. You know, I mean, there was. The offensive line was awful. People are now acting like he suddenly improved his pocket play. Go watch him at USC and you'll understand that he knew how to maneuver a pocket. It's that they had a pocket. They didn't have one in Chicago. They didn't have drops matched up with routes. So he's playing a lot of playground ball and no structure, no veteran quarterback in the room. You know, it was literally coaching malpractice what they did to this kid. So Ben Johnson wanted to. Wanted this job because of Caleb Williams, but he knew that in order to get Caleb Williams up to speed, that was the most important thing he needed to do. So he. They focused on the offensive line and free agency so that he would have the time to be able to execute the structure of Ben Johnson's offense, which, by the way, takes two to three years to learn. Roma Dunes, they said it's going to take at least a couple years for all of us to get up to speed. So you have that. So in order to be. It's not about the playmaker and how talented the player is. It's about how much experience and how reliable the player is. So what Ben Johnson did that was so genius is that, well, we're going to run the ball a lot because we want to set up high leverage opportunities for Caleb so that what's ingrained in him is learning the style of reading progressions and tying his feet with the routes because none of that was done in Chicago. And so he, or very little of it. And so if you give him enough of the structure where he doesn't have to think about what his teammates are or aren't going to do, but just focus on himself and he's going to learn faster. When you're, imagine you're in a group project at a university or at work and you know that there's someone you're stuck with who's like a complete slacker who just does not do the job or there's someone who's a flake and there's another one who's a slacker. And you know that the flakes very talented but you, you know, in certain situations they're going to completely flake out on you. When you are leading in those situations, you have to think about those things and account for how are you going to compensate for what these people people do. Imagine that in an offense with no offensive line and you're trying to actually run the play as designed. When you have a receiver who won't run the route right, you have a receiver who changes the route mid, mid route. You have, you know, and then you have linemen who are letting guys through, suddenly you're thinking your bandwidth is spread out to everybody else rather than what you're supposed to be learning. So Ben Johnson said, we're going to keep Cole commit where he is. We're going to keep, you know, we're going to keep all our receivers, but we're going to add some veterans. Alamo days of chaos. Multiple offenses played out of the backfield. He was a running back at UVA. Devin DuVernay came to Texas as a running back and then played out of the backfield some and also downfield with Baltimore. Played with Jacksonville. They had two guys who weren't nearly as talented as Burton, but two guys who they knew were assignment sound experienced in the NFL. And, and then as a result of that, we can add Cole, we can add Colston Loveland with Cole Comet just as like the number two tight end. We can put in burden when we want to on high leverage situations and make sure that he is executing without mistakes so that Caleb doesn't have to worry about a bunch of rookies making mistakes. He can work on the things he needs to do and we're going to win because maybe we won't get these game changing plays every two, you know, as often early in the season. But I can make sure that these rookies work and know my program and they understand that they've got to that it's not about their draft capital, it's about what I say and it's about. And it's also most importantly about Caleb understanding, okay, Caleb's thinking about himself going where he needs to go and then when I plug the pieces in, they've worked well enough that they are not, they are now assignment sound. So I think that's what we missed or at least I know I missed when I thought about it because most of the time these days offensive coaches are like bound to. This is what we got to win now. I got to win early. I've got to make a splash with my rookies. My ownership and GM are going to be breathing down my neck about why am I not starting my first and second round picks and why are we only using them in such a way. But Ben Johnson had all the leverage because he said I don't have to take a coaching job. I'm picking where I'm going to be. And I already negotiated that I'm getting the first half of the draft and Ryan polls can go get guys later. I'm getting my guys first and that's part of the deal. And then I'm going to sit my guys because I already got free agent veterans who can do their jobs and make sure they understand what it means to actually abide by my program because we're going to win if we do that. And so to me, Ben Johnson is one of the three to four best coaches in the NFL already and might be the best one. Just on the merits of how he entered the coaching ranks as a head coach in the NFL. That right there was like total dog movement on his end to do this. And, and I think that's why, you know, we looked at Burden and the delay of his launch was actually a great thing. And you can see the same thing with Colston Loveland.
- [11:09]
A
Yeah, that's fantastic insight there. And you know, one of the other things too is that Burden, before he was ever making these big splashy plays, he was getting to go in as a blocker and that doesn't show up in the stat sheet. But early in the year he was doing what was asked of him and I think that he earned the trust from Ben Johnson a lot quicker than he expected to. And Matt, you know, you and I agree on a lot of things, but we have the occasional disagreement and one of the ones we had last offseason was me saying this Bears team is not even close to being ready to compete. Like this year is just kind of laying the ground workout. If they win four to five games, I'll be happy. And you were the one saying like, no, this is the, the hard ass coach that Caleb Williams needs. He's got the pieces like you need to have a little bit more faith. And you ended up being right there. Like I did not think that this was going to be a team that was going to find immediate success. But they did. And it's all because of, in my opinion, Ben Johnson and the way that he has coached these guys.
- [11:56]
B
Yeah, for sure. I mean I thought they'd probably win eight to nine games, somewhere between seven to nine games and flirt with the playoffs, maybe get in and be one and done. Maybe they'll end up one and done. But you know, they've exceeded expectations and the run game has clicked. And you know, when DeAndre Swift has figured out how to run inside with a little bit more better decision making, you got Kyle Menon guy pushing him. They just hit on a lot of their skill player draft picks. And Caleb, you know, people are overly concerned about the completion percentage. They don't understand it took Jared Goff three years in Detroit, not after four or five years in LA, but three years in Detroit to actually get to that 70%. Ben Johnson said it would be nice for Caleb to get 70% right. You know, the fact that he's at 57, it scares people because they, they hear this number repeated over and over again. That 60% is the, the number that's the bare minimum. And it should be 65% now because of what offenses were like five years ago against defenses that were overwhelmed. But it's changing. If you've noticed, we're not getting 4,500 yard, 5,000 yard passers as if like it's no big deal anymore because of the way coverages have changed. And Caleb at 57%. I mean completion percentage is a team, is a team data point. It is not an individual data point but it's used as such. And if you look at, you look at how much he's throwing away. Yes. How many drops the receivers had. Like there's a lot of factors. Yeah, the line was much better, but it wasn't unbelievable. I mean when you look at what Caleb has had to do to create. It's not because this line is, you know, this line is great, yet it's good, it's a good run blocking line, it's much better than what it was. But I mean, you know, we went from, people went from saying Caleb was an absolute bust and, and then like even the Ravens game, like mid season, I was writing something at football guys saying the drama on Caleb Williams is totally overrated. That was his best game and people were upset at that point in the season that was his best game and people were still upset and said that he didn't have anything happen. But you know, quarterback is a very nuanced position and in a game where the way it's broadcast and covered in the media, there is no nuance whatsoever.
- [14:25]
A
Let's keep it moving here and I'll talk about my number two guy as we've got Luther Burton off the board already. And I'm curious, I'm guessing this was probably the guy that you were torn between, but Eshin Jinzi is the next guy that I would take here.
- [14:35]
B
Oh, yes.
- [14:36]
A
Yeah. And a lot of people are. It's weird. There's this kind of narrative that he had a disappointing season. He set the Raiders rookie scrimmage yard record. He was 16th in scrimmage yards among all running backs. And we saw all of the things that made him an exciting prospect. He was generating yards after contact, he was breaking tackles. Pass catching is something that took me by surprise. We saw it a little bit at Boise State, but it was a lot in the checkdown game we saw him getting deployed late in the season as a downfield receiving threat as well. So I know you can look at the overall production. Yeah, people drafted him in round one. He didn't return value as a round one running back in fantasy football, but I saw more than enough on film to be very excited about his long term output, especially if we could just get to like a league average offensive line for him to run behind at some point.
- [15:20]
B
Absolutely. I mean he was, he hit his ADP if you ask me. I think from the summer. And you know, people talk about him. I saw a tweet from our, from our buddy Eden Hard Hits, who just does a, you know, does a fun job of. On. On X all the time. And he compared Ashton Genti's numbers to Trent Richardson's which looks very obvious. And he was having a fun clowning people. That's all he's doing. He's just clowning people. He's the fool catching the wise on that. But like I, just for fun I posted it Ladanian Tomlinson's numbers because ladanian Tomlinson had 398 touches and 1600 yards from scrimmage. He had 154 yard play and the rest of his plays weren't over 30 yards as most in that year yet eight fumbles that year. Okay. I mean like that's a God awful number as a Belcow back and their offensive line was horrible. He was met in the backfield at the time. I remember that season. I remember drafting him number one overall in, in a league in 2000. You know so. And you watch what happened with him. People forget when you watch G Chip Kelly. Chip Kelly got fired. Okay. This offensive line was totally unprepared. There were at least two errors on it seemed like every play with offensive lineman with four footwork with hand position with knowing the play with the fact that Chip Kelly wasn't sending in tags to the plays that were a little adjustments that needed to be made that ruined the play. Absolutely. And then you look back on it and I joke that it's not a. It's a small layer of information that is meaningless most of the time. But then when you look at all that you go now he's trying to mess around with Genti's stance like at the beginning of the season.
- [16:56]
A
Right.
- [16:56]
B
You know you that that's not a big deal overall but when you add everything else together you kind of look at and go go maybe Chip should Chip the Northwestern is probably a good fit right now. Maybe that's probably the deal here. And obviously there's more to it than just Chip. I think Pete Carroll, if he, if he survives will probably make offensive line a big priority.
- [17:18]
A
Oh they, they. He. He's gone. Yep. They said he's gone.
- [17:21]
B
Too bad. That's too bad. Well you know they will make offensive line a big priority regardless.
- [17:27]
A
It sounds like Brian Flores right now is the favorite to sign with the Raiders as the head coach. So a defensive minded head coach, not crazy about that for Ginty. But like we already saw this year Jinty in the worst possible case outcome like it couldn't have been worse than what he was dealing with and he was still the RB11 in fantasy football. Like and, and fantasy managers get frustrated when he gets that zero yard carry. But that's the stuff that you and I see. Like what would be a five yard loss. Just him getting back to the line of scrimmage takes this herculean effort and proves that he can be a good football player and that's something that he did repeatedly this if I was a.
- [18:00]
B
Startup Dynasty drafter I'd probably go with Luther Burden. If I was a team that was pretty good. And I just happened to be able to get the number two pick overall or the number one pick overall through trades that I had negotiated in advance. Oh, Ashton Genti would clearly be my number one overall pick.
- [18:16]
A
So we've got the number one and two, Luther Burton and Ash and Ginty. Who would be your number three right now?
- [18:20]
B
Matt? Oh boy. You know, at this point, probably looking at the, the landscape of players, you know, because again it's dynasty and it's PPR. If it was 1.5 PPR, I'd probably be looking at tight end right now and, and feeling pretty good about that. But I will probably go with a Mecca Egbuca as my number two option off the board. Mainly because I think that the beginning of the season was a little closer to what the reality will be for him than the end of the season. Baker was hurt. He was not throwing the ball particularly well. Igu has always had some catch issues in terms of attack, but they were always minor. It was not anything that was a major concern. And I think Baker will be better. I, I think Auka will be better and probably one of Mike Evans or Chris Godwin will be gone within a year or two, if not next year, you know, and he's going to have a primary role and I see him at worst as an excellent wide receiver too, but is capable of wide receiver 1 production depending on how the offense will be. And he's in a Puka Nakua like role in that. He's going to be in that type of role in the Buccaneers offense. So yeah, I think it's a safe pick.
- [19:40]
A
And this, you know we do this all the time where we overreact to these rookie seasons. But like we knew drafting a Mecha Buka, okay, this is very similar to Roma Dunes last year and this is similar to JSN two years ago. This is a guy getting drafted to a team that has two bonafide wide receiver ones ahead of him. So like any production this year is just kind of a cherry on top of his long term output. So this is kind of the inverse Luther burden. Luther Burton did nothing early in the season and then came on really strong at the end of the year. Me, you know, shined bright early in the year and kind of flamed out a little bit. But you talk about it, you know, the, the injuries to Baker Mayfield, we saw Mike Evans and Chris Godwin coming back late in the year. I, I don't have many long term concerns about the Booker and it seems like you don't either.
- [20:24]
B
No, none at all I think, I mean I like good route runners and, and that's what he is and I mean he's not, he may never be a pure wide receiver one to me but he's in that area where I could see it happening and you know, long term he, you know him and burden is to have him in burden is as like anchors on my receiving core. I'm happy for that.
- [20:49]
A
So the next guy I want to talk about, I had one spot ahead of Emeka Ibuka and that's Tetero McMillan. And I'm interested to get your insight here because I really liked what I saw from him and this is something Jeff Bell and I talk about a lot is these like the small shifty receivers, they tend to just hit the field running in the NFL and just have it figured out. They've got the speed, they can separate. A lot of times it takes some time for these big bodied receivers, especially a guy like Tetaro McMillan who really like his calling card is contested catches. Sometimes it takes them some time to get up to speed in the NFL. Tedro McMillan almost immediately entrenched himself as the wide receiver one and this was a run first team. There wasn't a lot of volume in this offense. But when you start looking at some of the target share numbers and the targets per route run, he was pulling targets at an elite clip. You know, there still are some issues. He doesn't have the high end speed that you want to see. This like I said, is a low volume passing offense. But I think there was enough shown from Teo McMillan in his rookie season that I've still got him as my wide receiver one in this class. I assume you're a little bit lower on him taking Burden and Luca ahead. So talk me off this ledge a little bit for really still holding it down with Tedro McMillan. Was there anything you saw specifically from his rookie season or maybe his college film that has you a little bit more tepid?
- [22:00]
B
Yeah, I mean I think Tedro McMillan is a very good wide receiver too and I think that's what he's going to be in the NFL and I think that's what he's going to be in fantasy. I know most people feel completely different. They feel like he's going to be the future so bright he's going to be potentially a top five wide receiver one day. I didn't see it and I think that the numbers, the data basically is inflated by the fact that it is a low volume passing offense without a primary wide receiver. And a lot of the re, the lot of the plays were schemed in his direction, and what I mean by that is that it wasn't one on one coverage. Let's beat the guy, man to man that the top five receivers in the league do, you know, they're not putting, when they put him on an island, you know, against a top corner, he failed every time. Just about every time.
- [22:52]
A
And I know completely just put him on an island.
- [22:55]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and they didn't do it a lot, but whenever they did in a key situation, he couldn't do it. When he won on an island, it was because they matched him up against a linebacker or a safety. He was mostly used in zone plays. He was mostly used to and those types of things. Now he can win in tight coverage one on one on a contested ball, and that's what he did in college. But he does not have the footwork right now and the understanding of how to use his feet and his hands to win against tight man to man coverage. Pressing him at the line. And eventually the Carolina Panthers are going to need a true number one receiver who can do that in the five to six plays a game where it's going to matter. And those five to six plays, if you get one or two of them, are generally, you're adding another 15 to 20 yards per game to your, to your statistical production each week. And that's the difference between a wide receiver one and a wide receiver two. It's a narrow margin. So I like McMillan a lot. But if, if everyone I feel I would joke, you know, I may be the insane one in two or three years and we'll find out. But if I'm looking at it, then I'm sane. Then I'm looking and saying, if we were in a sane world, people would go, yeah, you know, Matt's really bullish on tenor McMillan as a wide receiver too. But the world is in to me is insane right now thinking that he's a top five guy. And I, and I laugh because I usually don't care what other people think, but when Steve Smith basically has a, you know, has a meme of a little boy shooting himself in the crotch with a toy gun. When they drafted McMillan said they drafted the same guy they've drafted in the years, just a better version of it. And I'm thinking, I'm, I'm okay to be on that guy's side. One of the great wide receivers in the game in the past. And I just think, good player. I would love to have him as my third receiver off the board, I'd be okay with him as my second receiver off the board in terms of, like, in terms of talent. But, but, you know, no, I, I, he was not my wide receiver one. He was my wide receiver 12 last year in the spring.
- [25:05]
A
Wow.
- [25:05]
B
Yeah. And I still think they're the, the two other guys. There's three other guys that we haven't drafted yet that I would still be like. I bet they could put up good as good, if not better numbers than him, but he, he would probably vault three spaces above them as my number three guy right now, just based on the fact that the situation is in and the safety of what we've already seen from him.
- [25:34]
A
So let's keep working our way down the list here. For those listening at home, which is everybody listening to the show right now, I assume we've got Luther Burden, Ash and Jinti ameka, buka, tetaro, McMillan. Matt, who would be the fifth guy that you'd be taking with these four off the board?
- [25:47]
B
Yeah, I mean, goodness, I'm kind of, it's tough because there's plenty of running backs left, and so I feel like I could wait a little bit more. And I feel like this is a chance where maybe I take a little bit more of a chance on a, on another player. And I'm not going to let me.
- [26:06]
A
Talk about any of my Bears players. Are you're going to take them all before I can?
- [26:10]
B
No, not at all. You might, you might end up getting the, you might end up getting Loveland. We'll see. But I think, I think at this stage, knowing that I'll probably get a running back that I'll feel pretty good about at this, at this stage, I'm going to go with another receiver and go three wide receivers in a row, and I will probably. I'm going to, I'm going to regret this a little bit. Probably. I'm a little. But I'm going to go with Jaden Higgins with the Houston Texans. I think that Higgins played well this year considering that he's, you know, he's in an offense that still doesn't have a great line. But I think we're going to see that line get addressed this year. This year, because all the pieces are in place for CJ Stroud to have a renaissance and go back to what we saw the promise of it with his rookie year. I think Stroud's a good quarterback and Higgins has shown the quickness off the line to get separation. He's shown the ability to win the ball in the against contested situations as we've seen and whether it's going to be Nico Collins long term with him opposite him and playing that T. Higgins role to him, or they're interchangeable as wide receiver ones, or they get rid of Nico and decide we can't afford his contract and they bring up one of their other talented young players. I still think that this passing offense has a lot of promise and I'll roll with Jaden Higgins as my wide receiver. 3.
- [27:35]
A
Yeah, and I think if you look just at the box score, you know, it was, I don't want to say disappointing because I don't think there were sky high expectations for Jaden Higgins. But you know, he had a handful of touchdowns and he put some good stuff on film but the, the production wasn't there. But still, this is again talking about these big bodied receivers like he was out there making NFL players look like little boys at times, just like getting these contested catches running past them. It's the same skill set we saw in college and again, kind of back to the Mecca Buka of it. We knew he was coming into a tough situation with Nico Collins ahead of him. I don't think anybody expected Jaden Higgins as a rookie to immediately be the wide receiver one in Houston. But I agree with you. There was a lot of promise here and I think he's one of those guys, especially in Dynasty leagues right now, that people don't feel great about after his rookie season simply because of the production. And I am trying to buy Jaden Higgins where I can.
- [28:23]
B
Yeah, totally. I mean, he was my wide receiver, he was my player 11 this spring. And I would say, you know, based on where I drafted him, he's probably, you know, he, he would be in my top tier based on how I've drafted thus far. And part of it too is, you know, obviously we're playing a draft with two people. If it were different, I would probably be looking at one of the running backs right now rather than going with Higgins. But I know I'm going to probably get at least one, if not two running backs that I feel good about. And there's plenty of tight ends on the board and quarterback in Dynasty. Unless I think he's a fantastic prospect. I'm just, I'm picking discounts.
- [29:04]
A
Well, you're not going to get the tight end you want because that's who I'm taking next year is Colson Loveland. I mean, this is again, we talk about Ash and Jinzi, kind of like a worst case scenario. I'D say Colston Loveland this season was kind of a worst case scenario. He was recovering from shoulder surgery, he missed rookie otas, he missed the beginning of training camp. He picks up another injury in the middle of his rookie season. But still it didn't matter. Over the second half of the year, he looked like one of the best tight ends in the NFL. If you look at his per game output, the touchdown scored, he was second behind Trey McBride in almost every single category that matters from week nine onward. And this is again in a loaded offense trying to learn a very complex new offense. We talk all the time about these like the long learning curve for tight ends. This guy came in immediately and produced still just 21 years old. And again we talked about it at the top of the show. We aren't doing the 1.5 tight end premium, but I think even in just regular leagues I don't want to oversell it here and maybe I'm looking at this through blue and orange tinted glasses here, but I see a ceiling where this guy can be a George Kittle, Travis Kelce type where the offense runs through him. He can be the primary pass catcher on a good offense. Do you think I'm getting a little bit over my skis saying that Loveland has that type of ceiling, Matt?
- [30:18]
B
No, not at all. I mean, I think to me he's a better version of TJ Hawkinson, which I think is a very big compliment. And if he put, if the offense has to lean on him, which I don't think they will, but if they have to, he might be able to put up George Kittle type of numbers at some point. It's just to me that I think that they have so many weapons and the line's good and the quarterback's good that I don't see Loveland hitting those numbers. But he's capable, you know, you know what I'm saying? So that's why I'm kind of waiting because I, I thought about taking him two picks ago. I thought about taking them last pick. But then I look at the list of tight ends that are here. It's a talented group and you know, I've, I've spent enough time really being hated by the state of Indiana because I've talked about how much I, how much I love Colston. Loveland is my number one tight end overall in this group and that he was better than Tyler Warren. And you know, there was a lot of, there, there was a lot of fun in response from, from the X crowd from that, you know, this all, you know, during the middle of the season, after a couple of games of. Of Loveland and me just singing his praises. And I, you know, I like Tyler Warren, but I think Loveland is the complete player who's a matchup weapon, who you can beat. Man, he can beat people man to man, all over the field. And there isn't. There's one other tight end in this class that I think that can do that, and that's Jets Mason Taylor. And he's. But he needs a. He needs a quarterback, right?
- [31:50]
A
Absolutely. And he was another one like, dealt with injuries and again, you know, I had him a little bit lower in my rankings. We'll talk about him at some point, I'm sure, on this show. But Mason Taylor, yeah, I mean, I think he's another one of those guys that you can go out and buy right now because people get so plagued by recency bias. And he missed the end of the season with a neck injury, but he was starting to look really good before he went down and again in a terrible, terrible situation. But let's keep working our way down this list now that we have Loveland off the board. So we've got Burden, Jinty, Abuka, McMillan, Higgins and Loveland. Who would be the next guy that you're taking here, Matt?
- [32:22]
B
I think most people are going to die laughing if they know the work that I do, and I'm going to go ahead and. No, I'm not going to do that yet. I'm going to take Cam Scatterbow.
- [32:29]
A
There you go.
- [32:30]
B
I'm going to take Cam Scatterbo just mainly because I love Quinn, Sean Judkins, and he was my second running back off the board and I still like him, but I'm not sure. I just don't love the Cleveland Browns at this point. I. It's just hard to know what if they're going to make a good decision because they seem to. They seem to get rid of good players and bring in bad players and in terms of their management decisions at times, or they get rid of good personnel and bring in worse. So I love Judkins game. He's got an injury to heal from that's going to be pretty tough. So does Cam Scatterbo. But I think Scatterbo will be ready. He's a rugged player. We've seen the ability to catch out of the backfield. There seems to be good rapport between him and Jackson Dart. They're going to need to run the ball a lot to make this work. And Scatterbow pretty much Inserted himself into that lineup within the end of the month and was the guy. So I think he's like a plus version of David Montgomery. So for my first back off the board after getting three receivers, I'll live with that and know that there's probably another guy or two that I could take a chance on.
- [33:47]
A
So let's talk because you mentioned Judkins as well and Scatter Boo. And we can kind of go off the rails a little bit here. And I just want to talk about these injuries that both of them sustained. I mean gruesome injuries. Does that change your long term outlook for these guys? Or do you just think we're kind of at the point now where like modern medicine has evolved to the point that like we see guys regularly like J.K. dobbins look great this year before he got re injured. We've seen many guys suffer like what 10, 15 years ago would have been a career altering injury. Now just come back and look like their old self after a year or two. So when you see these catastrophic rookie season injuries, does that bump them down your rankings at all or do you just expect players to make a return now?
- [34:25]
B
Maybe slightly, but I do expect them to make a return for the most part. There are certain injuries where you, you kind of want to wait and see or you have to understand that you're bumping them down not because they won't return to form eventually, but it may take longer than they actually say because friend of the show, Brandon Angelo, who's a co host of mine on one of my podcasts, Going Deep Podcast, you know, my RSP site, he is a physical trainer and rehab specialist and, and works with ATH high end athletes, pro athletes in Chicago. And you know, Brandon's also a Bears fan and. But Brandon, Brandon has brought up the point over and over again that when you looked at guys like Tony Pollard as a great example when he was in Dallas and he had that subpar season when he came back from the injury that he had, that, that in the NFL, teams often say that players often come back before they're truly ready. Like they're healthy enough to run, but they're not healthy enough that their body is allowing their injured area that's been rehabbed to recover as fast as it once was and that that takes more time. So what happens is they start strong. Everybody's like, oh, he's back. And then he wilts, you know, because now he's getting banged up and hit and the body's not recovering as fast because he needed more they needed more time. But they. They come into the lineup and the coaches want them because they know their assignment sound and will execute. Kind of like Ben Johnson with a lazy case and David Devin Duvernay. You know, as guys that we like, well, we know they're going to be where they're supposed to be and do what they're supposed to do. Even if they can't make that extra play for us, I'd rather have that. And I think that that's. That's the concern with these guys. But long term, again, you know, I'm building long term. I'm looking at. I'm looking at Dave's. Dave's lineup, and he's competing for now. I'm looking at my lineup right now, and I'm thinking it's. I might compete, but I'm looking for three, four years from now.
- [36:22]
A
And, you know, you talk about that these guys just coming straight back from injury and looking amazing and then kind of wilting, and that was a phenomenon that I couldn't really wrap my head around. Like last year, we saw J.K. dobbins in Los Angeles looking like rookie season Baltimore Raven J.K. dobbins, like, ripping off big plays, doing all this. And then by week three, week four, we saw that efficiency start to dip a little bit. And I think you're onto something there that, like, they feel good when they're just practicing and rehabbing, and then once they have to deal with the wear and tear of a regular season, then that injury starts to ache on them a little bit more. So that is something that we'll be paying close attention to to see how these guys bounce back. Let me go with my next pick here. And we are so far, Burton, Ginty, Buka, McMillan, Higgins, Loveland, Scoo. And the guy that I'm going to take off the board is Omarion Hampton. And I'm wondering if you changed your tune on Omarion Hampton at all a little bit.
- [37:09]
B
I know pre draft, you were a.
- [37:11]
A
Little bit below consensus on him. I loved what I saw from him early in the year. And then unfortunately, he got injured. And while he was out, Kamani Vidal came out and he won the trust of the coaches. And when Hampton did inevitably return, he was splitting touches with Kamani Vidal. But. But what really impressed me with Hampton is that he didn't catch the ball much in college, and we saw him getting deployed as a pass catcher in the NFL and he was running behind a very banged up offensive line, but still, there was the tackle breaking, there was the big play upside There was a pass catching. The same things that I was saying about Ashton Ginty. He was checking those boxes for me. So I have a lot of faith in Hampton. You know, we know this guy has the build to be a workhorse back. He's got the size, he's got the speed, he's got the power. He, he's a guy that I expect to be a long term starter in the NFL. Kind of wondering if he has moved up, down or stayed about the same for you after his rookie season.
- [38:00]
B
He's moved up a little bit, but mostly the same. Like I had him as my, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 running back post draft and I would say he'd probably be my fourth or fifth guy on my board right now. And the main reason is this. He did look good. And the, and the fact that he's going to be behind a much better offensive line once they get healthy will be, and a good balanced offense will be a big factor. But here's the thing. Najee Harris outplayed him on zone plays and zone runs early in the season. He. And that's why they brought Najee Harris in. And while as much people were saying he's a bum, you know, because they look at the Pittsburgh line and didn't understand, you know, what was going on there. But the thing is, is that they wanted to have complimentary backs. They, you know, Omar and Hampton is a very good gap running back. Follow the leader into the hole with the lead block and he is going to, you know, bust a hole through that wall if there, if he needs to do that. But ask him to like show fancy footwork, to be able to like create solutions like Taj Brooks in college that we've talked about and be able to turn lemon, you know, turn lemons into lemonade, he's not going to do that. He might turn them into pulp for you. And if you like pulp filled lemonade, then you're okay with that. But you know, with the seeds in it and everything, I mean he'll, he'll, he'll do that, but he's not going to, it's not going to be as refined. And I think that that's why Kamani Vidal was still getting a lot of touches. And you know, when Najee Harris got hurt because they were like, no matter what, we are doing a committee and I think they're still going to do that. Hampton still is going to, he's going to have huge games and if they get ahead and they get leads on a regular basis, then he might be able to have really big opportunities. But here's the problem. They play in a division where they probably aren't going to get huge leads on a regular basis unless they're playing the Raiders, you know, four times a year as opposed to two times a year. And so I like Hampton, don't love him.
- [40:05]
A
Yeah. And I think that for the first couple of games we saw after Najee Harris went down, Hampton was kind of operating as the workhorse. But that's so against. Why am I drawing a blank?
- [40:16]
B
Greg Roman.
- [40:16]
A
Greg Roman, yeah. That is not his tendency. He always wants a split backfield. And I think that, you know, desperation oftentimes leads to innovation. And I think what happened is they got desperate when Hampton went down. They went to Kamani Vidal and they realized, wait, this guy is pretty good. And over that time that Hampton was out, he won the trust. So while there was hope that maybe like Najee Harris, you know, he'd get released after this season and that they just turned the keys over to Hampton, I think that they kind of the cat's out of the bag with Kamani Vidal now and they know that he is not only a good running back, but very complimentary to what Hampton does. And I think it's a good one, two punch. So I think hopes that Hampton would be a workhorse. I don't think that's going to happen in this offense with Greg Roman calling plays with Kamani Vidal there. But I still think that long term, he's one of those guys that could develop into that. But it would need a change of scenery, a change of coaching staff. And I think with the way things are going in Los Angeles right now, I don't expect that to change anytime soon. So again, let's keep working our way down the list here. We are now on our ninth pick. Matt, who would you be taking here?
- [41:15]
B
I'm going to take Travis Hunter.
- [41:17]
A
And next up for me.
- [41:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's. He's fallen enough and it's, you know, I, I never saw him as. I never saw him as an absolute Malik neighbors type of player at the position. I think he gets pinned to the boundary way too much, especially for a guy who plays cornerback. Like, how do you get pinned to the boundary so, so easily when you, you know how to do that to other people. But, you know, it's easy. You know, it's. It's hard playing two positions at once, but we saw the ability to go up and win the ball. We know what he can do after the catch. He's a dynamic playmaker and I think it's going to be very difficult for the Jacksonville Jaguars to use him extensively in two roles. I, I always believed that, that they were humoring Travis Hunter when he said, pre draft, I'll retire if you don't let me play both positions. I've always thought what's going to happen here is we're going to let him play two positions. We're going to explore some of that, but we're going to slow roll them and say, you know, look, you've, there's demands here. So you're, it's going to take you a while to be, you're going to be primarily used in one area and then you're going to be used a little bit in another, and defense makes more sense where you're going to be used a little bit. The problem is, is I always thought once he gets hurt, the first time he gets hurt, the coaches are going to come to him and say, see.
- [42:37]
A
This is what happened, why you can't do it.
- [42:39]
B
This is why you can't do it. It's not because, you know, we'll let you try and prove us wrong, but you're now going to kill two big spots on our team because you got hurt. And this is a league where people get hurt. And on top of that, the more prepared you are to do one position, the more likely you're going to have better chance at staying healthy and you're going to have a bigger impact for the team and you're going to have to start thinking about the team in a different way. And I think they're going to capture that because I would be surprised if Brian Thomas is gone and, yeah, he's.
- [43:12]
A
Not a good fit for this offense. And that was going to be. My next question is kind of trying to pontificate with you a little bit about what this offense could look like next year, because I think they found a guy that works in this offense, Jacoby Myers, and I think Jacoby Myers and Travis Hunter can do a lot of the same things, but we've also got speed and athleticism with Hunter that Jacoby Myers doesn't have. And I can just see these guys kind of working interchangeably doing a lot of the same things. But to me, like that, that is a very strong top two wide receiver to have it in an offense.
- [43:40]
B
Yeah. And then when you add in the fact that, you know, it's kind of funny because Liam Cohn came into the spring and you can tell that he wanted to have Tampa Part two. And he was going to have, you know, Brian Thomas be the Mike Evans type of player, and he was going to have Hunter be the Chris Godwin, maybe the speedster in that regard. And then he would have Diami Brown because he wanted more speed to stretch the field. But he discovered that maybe Trevor Lawrence isn't great at throwing downfield. And, and maybe part of the problem was Brian Thomas in terms of them having a connection, because Thomas got most of his production with Gardner Minshew last year.
- [44:20]
A
Jones.
- [44:21]
B
Mac Jones. Excuse me.
- [44:22]
A
Right.
- [44:23]
B
Yeah. Six of one, half dozen of another.
- [44:25]
A
Exactly.
- [44:26]
B
But, yeah, but thank you for correcting me.
- [44:28]
A
That's true.
- [44:28]
B
Mac Jones. But. But I would say, yeah, Mac. Mac is the. Mac is business wear. And, And Gardner Minshew's party wear. In terms of your, you know, in terms of your number two quarterback, you got the mullet on one end and then you got the guy who can. Who can be at the country club on the other end.
- [44:45]
A
Kind of saw the same thing in San Francisco this year. Like when Brock Purdy is the quarterback, they're hitting those crossing patterns across the middle of the field and they're doing all that. And when Mac Jones, he was like, I'm just going to chuck the ball downfield and hope the Kendrick Bourne can come down with it. And that's.
- [44:57]
B
That's how Mac Jones plays. Yeah, exactly. You know, he's. He is definitely an attacking, aggressive quarterback, which is fun, even though he doesn't quite have that arm. But it's like. But when you look at, you know, when you look at this team, I think they figured out pretty early. Liam cone, to his credit, figured out pretty early. This isn't working. Like, they're never on the same page with the route adjustment, with reading the defense. And that was probably on Thomas, which is in that regard. And then the accuracy wasn't quite there when they were on the same page. And then you had some of the alligator arming stuff that people were worried about and the injuries, and Thomas was always, I guess there was always, in hindsight, people were talking about that getting him to play to his potential every year was. Was kind of an issue at lsu, so you could see how he might get traded. And if that happens, you know, it's funny because com looked at that and there's this guy all through spring who's a favorite of mine that like Cohen. Every time they ask Cohen about him, Parker Washington, they're like, yeah, he's like, yeah, he's played pretty well throughout the spring. You can tell he's kind of like, yeah, I don't really want him. Yeah, I don't really want him. We're going to keep him on special teams. And then he just, Parker Washington just kind of kept pushing his way because he and Trevor have a rapport. He goes up and gets the ball, he wins tight coverage plays and he wins after the catch. And he's incredible at the catch point. A lot of times he's just not a speedster. And so they got Jacoby Myers and it was kind of like, okay, I give up. Jacoby and Parker, our two most reliable receivers. And if it's going to work, it's going to work. We're going to make our offense around that and when we get Travis back, we'll be in good shape because Travis can be, you know, Travis can win the contest, all three can win contested, all three can win after the catch. And we've got at least one guy who can blow the top off the defense and keep things honest underneath for the other two.
- [46:48]
A
Yeah, you know, not to be the dead horse on the Brian Thomas stuff, but espn, they come out with every year like the if you drafted this player, you were this likely to win your championship and all this and last place teams. Brian Thomas Jr. Was the most rostered player on last place teams this year because you look at the draft capital, you know, he was a first round pick and just not even the injuries but when he was on the field he wasn't productive. And I, you know, I used the term square peg in a round hole so many times talking about the Jaguars offense early in the year he was asking Brian Thomas to do things that Mike Evans did but they could not be more different of players. So I think you're right that he's probably out of the picture and they could build next year with Travis Hunter, Jacoby Myers and Parker Washington. So let's keep working or no, it's my pick now. Yeah, you took Travis Hunter. So next up for me, I'm kind of surprised to see this guy fallen as far as he did. And I know you are a big Ramadre Stevenson fan as you should be. He's having a great year, but still long term. You know, Treveon Henderson, this is a guy that I want on my dynasty teams just because he has all of the skills that we want to see for running backs that perform really well in fantasy football, big plays, pass catching. And we knew that about him coming into the league because that's what he did at Ohio State. But that translated into production this Year as well. Now of course Ramadre Stevenson is going to be an annoying thorn in the side of Henderson managers for years to come. He's not going anywhere. He's still under contract, but we've seen that they can coexist pretty well. You can still get RB2 production from Trebion Henderson and then as we saw, if for Madre Stevenson does have to miss anytime, then Henderson becomes a plug and play elite RB1. So I think the expectations here are dampened a little bit because Ramadre Stevenson is a great fit in this offense. And we know, just like we talked about with OMarion Hampton, Josh McDaniels, Mike Rabel, these guys are going to want to split the backfield as well. But Even on a 50 opportunity share, I still think Henderson has the profile that we want to see in fantasy football. He can be productive and still has that league winning elite contingency upside if Stevenson has to miss any time.
- [48:48]
B
Yeah, because he's a big play merchant. You know, if he hits, if there's a crease that's open, he hits it, he's gone. If you get him, you get him matched up against somebody, a mismatch in the passing game, he can go deep on you and win that way, screen passes, things like that. And he's not great as a grinder, but if you give him enough opportunity, he's going to hit one. And this line should probably only get better, this offense should only get better. So I agree with you completely. It's a good complimentary situation with Henderson. I was thinking about picking him, you know, but I have. You helped me make. You help me have a decision that I don't have to make. And that's. So it was kind of like one of those that he was in my tier of, of guys that's still in my top tier. He was my, my number seven player overall last year. And, and so, you know, you kind of made my decision a little bit easier now.
- [49:43]
A
Now the NFL is a copycat league. We talk about that all the time. Like 15 years ago, everybody had their, their Larry Johnson getting 400 touches a season. And then we saw Bill Belichick kind of do this committee approach and then everybody started having their, their early down grinder and their pass catching back and their goal line back. And now it seems like what we saw in Detroit, whether it was DeAndre Swift and Jamal Williams or David Montgomery and Jameer Gibbs, that kind of having that early down guy and then having the third down, the big play guy, we see that in New England, we See it in Chicago. We just talked about it in Los Angeles with Amari Hampton and Kamani Bedal. We see a lot of teams now kind of following a similar blueprint here. Do you think that this is just the way that more teams should look at their backfield? Like, we don't see many workhorses. You've got your Ash and Jinti and your Jonathan Taylor, SAQUON Barkley, Christian McCaffrey. But Steven, so many teams now want to have that, that Kyle manon guy and DeAndre Swift or whatever it is. Like the early down guy that can run between the tackles and finish plays and then you want that other guy that can rip off the 70 yard touchdown.
- [50:44]
B
You know, I'm split on it because my, I grew up in, I'm from a generation where I watched lots of D cow backs and I, I still long for that day and I still find myself developing arguments where I say, look at Rico Doddle when they gave him the, the, the opportunity to get touches after touches after touches because he can set up defenders as the game goes along.
- [51:09]
A
That's what find a rhythm.
- [51:10]
B
That's what the guys do. You know, when you run a play a certain way, you start to see how the linebacker safety cheats. You see how the line, what they try to do and you can work against those tendencies and you end up breaking big plays as a result of that. Also, like you said, finding the rhythm so that you are just reacting quicker to, to what's happening. So there's some value towards that. That's important. And when you're dishing out the punishment, it's not as difficult in terms of wear and tear as it is when you're taking it. So I think that there's room for both still. And I think the problem is, is that because it's a league, as Tom Brady talked about on a recent podcast with Peyton Manning, you know, he said quarterback development is tougher, is, is, is less and less as, as the years go on because these college coaches are coming into the league and now that we don't have a lot of college development because of nil and because of all the transfer portal and stuff like that, quarterbacks aren't as developed and then they got to come to the NFL and they've got to make a splash because I'm saying this, Tom isn't. But owners often say we need to make a splash and get this guy on the field because I invested all this capital in him even though he's not ready. But I want to see it my My constituents want to see it. The, the guys in my country club at the steam room want to see it. And I'm tired of getting made fun of by the car, by the overweight car dealer in a towel in the steam room. You know, that's what I hear. Jimmy Haslam. That's why I think Jimmy Haslam does, you know, it's probably like getting, getting beaten down somewhere thinking that. But he, you know, and as a result, these, you get into this bad cycle. And so then with running backs, it's like, well, let's piecemeal them in because now we, we can make it easier for the quarterback to understand what we're going to do and what we're about and everything becomes kind of cog oriented. And it's also because offenses do that, offensive coordinators do that with their system. They're like, system first, player second. Even though the good coaches, the best coaches tend to be. Let's meld the two together and we devise things in our system for specific players. And I think that with, with a lot of teams though, they go, let's just piecemeal these two backs and one's going to be this, one's going to be that. And we don't get the chance to leverage the true talents of either one to the extent that we could. But sometimes it works very well. Sometimes it's, it's the way I described it.
- [53:39]
A
So what do you think about the counter to that where you kind of have these like, you know, backfields? Like Seattle is another one that comes to mind where you got Charbonnet doing the early down stuff. Kenneth Walker is the big play guy. I don't see any other team doing what the Rams are doing right now, which is having two running backs with very similar skill sets and just alternating drives between the two. And I think that's a little bit tougher to do because you need to find two talented backs that do the same thing. I don't know if that's something that other teams can replicate, but I do like how the Rams are doing it. I think Kyron Williams is still a little bit better than Blake Corum, but you can still keep the offense on schedule. You can stay in a no huddle offense. You can't allow the defense to make substitutions when you're just one drive at a time just leaning on one running back.
- [54:18]
B
Well, some teams just don't even understand what a running back's talent is to, to what the scheme is. I mean, when the Atlanta Falcons drafted Tevin Coleman, Kyle Shanahan wanted to run outside zone with Tevin Coleman because that's what he saw at iu, but they didn't scout him well enough to understand that that dude couldn't find directions to the hole on that type of play often enough in the pro game. And just because he. Just because he ran for three times for, you know, you know, three times for 150 yards out of the 185 he did against Ohio State doesn't mean he understood outside zone. It means he. He was more athletic than everybody else. When we got to Atlanta, they tried to plug him in and. And Kyle Shanahan basically was told, put Devonta Freeman in because he's the guy who can actually understand how to run your scheme. I know you want the speed in the big play, but that ain't working, son. You know, And I think. And he tried it again early on in his career with San Francisco, you know, so after a while, you do figure that out. But I think that the Rams do understand that they have two. When they have two similar backs, that's fantastic. Or two very complimentary backs who they. They have something in. They have a common thread like Detroit, if they could. If their offensive line was healthier like they were in 2024. Montgomery and Gibbs both can run inside. They can both catch the short pass and make a lot happening after that. It's just that with Gibbs, you get the big play option and with Montgomery, you get the let's go ahead and crush this team at the end of the game type of option and punish them. So, no, I think I, I love the Henderson, Ramandre Stevenson pairing. I think it's a good one. And now that you've done that, I'm probably just going to go ahead and take Harold Fannin right now.
- [56:03]
A
That's what I was assuming. And let's each do one more and then what we'll do is we'll discuss a few of the guys that didn't make our top 12. So Harold Fanning. Yeah, I mean, and this is interesting going Harold Fanning ahead of Tyler Warren. That is how I have it ranked as well. But I think a lot of the listeners, their ears probably just perked up a little bit saying, wait, Colson Loveland was drafted, Harold Fannin was drafted, Tyler Warren was not. So let's talk through this a little bit, Matt.
- [56:28]
B
Sure, Tyler Warren is basically an aspiring Tucker Craft, which is a good thing. But also, you have to understand that that means you're a product of the offensive scheme. They're both rugged they can both run after the catch when they get a nice downhill lane to kind of be a plow, a human plow through, through defenses. And they have soft enough hands to catch the ball and they can attack the ball in contested situations. But neither of them are primary route runners who get open downfield at a high level of like, like Colston Loveland does. And when you saw Tyler Warren early in the season when everything was humming, when the offensive line was healthy, the run game was healthy, the quarterback was healthy, they could create situations where he was catching passes with nobody within 10 yards around him. When J.J. watt even says, I mean, I was saying it for weeks, but when J.J. watt asked Tyler Warren before a game during a broadcast, what does it feel like to catch a ball with nobody 10 yards in front of you? You know, I mean, he's noticing it too, you know, on, on those types of situations and that he's going to be a good player and he's going to probably be a top 7 to top 10 player with some big weeks for you. But he's not a guy who wins one on one. Harold Fannin, not only does he break a ton of tackles, not only is not only that, but he can win downfield when they have a quarterback. He is a good route runner. He's ver. He's more versatile than Warren. Just because you line up in different spots, that doesn't make you versatile. Okay? That's, that's a different type of versatility. The versatility I'm talking about is how you could win in the passing game. Versatile, okay. And Warren is a one beat wonder more often than. Or maybe two. He's got two notes to him, whereas Fannin's got. Fannin could be the primary receiver for the Cleveland Browns.
- [58:18]
A
And I remember after the Browns first preseason game, you and I did the show together talking about kind of what we saw in this first week of preseason. And we talked about Harold Fannin for like 15 minutes and he'd only run six routes in that game, but every route was so different. Where we said like, okay, here's a screen pass, here's a deep post, here is a deep out, here's a slant like he was doing. He only ran six routes, but every single one like he, the defense doesn't know how to game plan for that when he is just. He can run every route in the book. That was in his first taste of NFL action in the preseason and he has only developed into a better and more versatile player since. So I am with you. This seems like One of those things, like you saw the production at Bowling Green, like a record breaking season last year, but he has this kind of awkward gait and then he didn't test well at the combine, and then he slid a little bit in the draft and then you see him play in the NFL and, and it took like two weeks to be like, okay, everybody just overthought this. This guy is a great football player.
- [59:12]
B
Let's play a little game with this real quick.
- [59:13]
A
Yeah. Okay.
- [59:14]
B
So. So if I told you, if I told you you could have Sam LaPorta, would you be happy with Sam LaPorta as a, as a fantasy tight end this season, notwithstanding the fact that he got hurt? Yeah.
- [59:26]
A
I mean, he was a plug and play tight end. Yeah.
- [59:29]
B
Okay. Plug and play tight end. Yeah. But like after season one, you probably would have been like, Sam laporta. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with having Sam laporta right now. The problem is, is that the expectation. If I told you that if I told you that you could have Brock Bowers, you would be like all excited. Then when I say to you you're getting Sam Laporta, you're probably like, you know, I just, I thought I'd have a Michelin Star meal. And now you just handed me like, you know, insert your favorite neighborhood publishing, you know, which is good but not like fantastic. I think that's how people reacted because the, he was never going to have that kind of combine data. His combine data was very similar to San La Porta and that, you know, but people didn't think, oh, well, Sam laporte is good. Yeah, yeah, it's good enough. More than good enough, very quick, all those things. So I think the problem was, is they were, they wanted to have a they. It's the same with Tyler Warren. People want to see Tyler Warren as, as George Kittle. Colson Lovin was George Kittle. Tyler Warren is Tucker Kraft. Okay. And that can be very good. But I'll take Fanon, who to me is, you know, maybe a little bit more upside, downside, risk than Warren. I have them back to back on my board, but I would. But I, I'm expecting that with Ninjoku gone, that, that Fannin's going to be.
- [60:55]
A
The guy I am taking the cheese with. Harold Fannin. I've got him ahead of Tyler Warren. I've got him ahead of Sam laporta, ahead of Dalton Kincaid in my Dynasty rankings. Like, you just don't do this. Coming out as a 22 year old rookie and just immediately becoming the top receiver on a team. And, you know, you talked about it. He's a vertical threat, but also he's a red zone threat as well. Like he can make plays after the catch. He, to me, is a very complete and versatile tight end. So I love that pick. I'll round out our top 12 here with my last pick, which is Cam Ward. And again, you know, back to kind of what we talked about at the top of the show with Esh and Ginsey. I think the visceral reaction from so many people is that he had a disappointing season. And if you're looking at the box score and you're looking at the sack numbers, yes, it was disappointing. But he was doing things on a weekly basis that not many quarterbacks can do. And maybe some of them ill advised, you know, making these throws across his body and across the field, but still completing the pass. I mean, he has such a powerful arm, the ability to make plays outside of the structure of the offense. Now, the downside here, of course, is that it's the Tennessee Titans. They don't have many weapons there. The offensive line didn't take that step forward that we had hoped for. We don't know who the coach is going to be next year. But looking through a long term lens, yes, we do see these guys often not pan out the way that we hope they would. But I still see the same tools with Cam Ward this year that I saw when I was watching him at Miami. And I think that there's still a promising future for, for Cam Ward, even if he didn't have the production in year one.
- [62:22]
B
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think it's just a matter of whether the organization is going to have its head together to be able to get the best out of him and be able to put him in the environment that he needs. But I think all the tools are there.
- [62:33]
A
So let's talk about some of the guys who didn't make this list real quickly, and we should just talk about why. For me, Quinton Judkins, he was kind of right at the fringe. But the, the big fear I have with Quinton Judkins is that he was basically a zero in the receiving game. Which Matt, as a big Nick Chubb fan, you know that all too well he can catch the ball. But for whatever reason, it's just like this Cleveland Browns offense. They just want to pull these workhorses off the field for these guys who are the designated receiving down backs, whether it's Jerome Ford, Dylan Sampson, or somebody else down the road. And I think that's the only thing that concerns me slightly here. Quinjohn Judkins is a phenomenal talent but with the knee injury and with the lack of pass catching that's the only thing that keeps him outside of my top 12.
- [63:13]
B
Yeah, I mean I thought about taking about three different times.
- [63:16]
A
Right. Same.
- [63:17]
B
But I just felt like it was going to continue to fall so that I figured I. He probably would have been next on my board. Like if I had the next, with the next pick I would have taken him. But the thing is is that is the offensive line going to get better? They don't have a quarterback and that was the big thing is when you, when people were like oh he's running, he's going to be a running back one. After he started strong I did an analysis at football guys that said this is a running back 1 level talent with a low end running back 2 profile because of the offense that he's in. The quarterbacks are young and don't know how to call. Get the offense into plays and out of plays that are going to benefit Judkins the way Flacco was doing. Maybe Flacco wasn't hitting the passes but he was getting them in the right plays and that's things that the average fan isn't going to really see and that's why Judkins was doing well. And when you have a heavy play action component to your passing game, your, your running back, who you're. Who's going to be the most believable to bite on the fake isn't going to be the target which is why the power running game is the way it is. So Judkins was a guy that you need. The defense was good enough for Judkins to get the volume but the offense wasn't good enough for Judkins to get the volume. So he's the kind of that high low. So I feel you there. Another guy on my list that was probably pretty close that I, that I would have considered is, you know we obviously talked about Tyler Warren and so we can, we can scratch him off over that. Yeah, yeah. Mason Taylor, we can gloss over that too because he was certainly in that, that list to me as well. Kyle Menangai was pretty, he was close. Close. He was pretty close. Like I would have been like if I couldn't get Quinn. Sean, I'd probably go with Kyle Menon guy because you can see he got better and better throughout the season. You know that Swift is probably not going to be back and they're probably going to go. They may go for a big free agent but they might feel like we're comfortable enough with manang guy that we might draft another back who can be a compliment to what Manangai does because Manon guy can catch, he's run stuff, he's physical so I like him. And then I'll add one more guy that was very close on my list was Jalen Noel.
- [65:25]
A
Oh my gosh, he was, he was one of my favorite guys to scout last year. He's so much fun.
- [65:29]
B
Yes, exactly. So it's like I felt like I knew Noel was going to be like one of my mid, mid round picks mainly because when they needed him when Christian Kirk got hurt he was the show and C.J. stroud favored him and he did it all over the field in different ways and I think he's going to become a very good player. Probably a fantasy worthy starter in short within the next two to three years and a guy that I would look at and go, okay, I got Luther Burden, Travis Hunter, Amika Egbuca, Jaden Higgins and Jalen Noel. I'm pretty happy with my receiving core just from this year, especially with what I'm seeing from the receiving core later on. But those are some guys that were quick for me.
- [66:14]
A
One other guy that I want to mention that was outside of my top 20 but I feel like a lot of people listening to the show are going to say where was Matthew Golden? He's a first round pick and he's on a team. There was nothing I saw from this season that led me to I, I, I, I shouldn't say nothing there. There were a handful of plays where he was able to get open downfield but just the way Jordan Love spreads the ball around. First of all, you know, full disclosure, I wasn't the biggest believer in Matthew Goldman. We talked about this, that I don't even think he was the best wide receiver in Texas last year. I think that he was outplayed by Isaiah Bond for the majority of that season. But I know a lot of people love to hold on to that draft capital and they say, you know we're going to be patient with this guy. He's a first round pick but I have quite a few guys that I would prefer ahead of Matthew Golden.
- [66:58]
B
Yeah, I mean I like golden and I and I wouldn't be telling people to sell gold or lose complete faith in him but certainly I don't have a ton of faith in Jordan Love. To be honest, I think he's a competent quarterback but I don't think he's, he's. He's one of those guys that I don't want to be saddled with, to be honest. I don't want to be stuck with him unless I just have to be. I'm not making a priority out of him. So, yeah, you know, Golden's one of those guys that if I invested the capital, I'll stick with it just because I think that hopefully they can kind of slim down the receiving crew a little bit and then he becomes a bigger priority and gets a full off season to work with Love and we'll see how that goes. I would probably consider, you know, if I'm looking at quarterbacks later, the quarterback.
- [67:48]
A
Yeah, three quarterbacks that I think a lot of people, you know, we take those shots on quarterbacks in rookie drafts because the upside is so immense. But here we are a year later re ranking these guys. No Jackson Dart, no Tyler Schuck, no Shador Sanders, no Dylan Gabriel. And of course Gabriel and Sanders, they're not anywhere near the top 12. But I think there might be some people wondering why Shuck and Dart weren't in this conversation for us today.
- [68:12]
B
Yeah, mainly because I, when I'm drafting in Dynasty, I like to have a proven quarterback. I'm not taking too many shots on quarterbacks until I feel like I've gotten the rest of my wide receiver core, my running back room and a good tight end. And then I'll look at quarterbacks because I feel like I can win with. The margin of difference between quarterbacks, production wise is narrow enough that unless I see a guy that I go, oh, I think that's the, that's Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson, which are guys I've traded back to get because I felt like they had that high end elite upside. I don't see that with anybody except one player on this board and I know that he's going to be stuck behind Sam Darnold for a while and that's Jalen Melro. So the three guys that were on my board for quarterbacks later on that I was going to take at the end of this draft, if we had time, Jalen Milroe, Tyler Shook would have been first and I would have taken him as a mid round guy if I got, if he fell to me at the right spot, Jalen Milroe would have been second and then I would probably at the very end of the draft take Curtis Rourke, the 49ers quarterback out of Indiana who the Shanahan clan really likes. And I really Liked what I saw from him as kind of a developmental option. And the rest of them like, I mean I like Cam Jackson to me is I, I didn't see anything from Jackson Dart that changed my mind about him. From when I evaluated him, his accuracy downfield was a little bit better, but not enough for me to go, yeah, I think this guy has a bright future. He could develop into that.
- [69:55]
A
But if you only watch his highlight, really you'd think he is the next Patrick Mahomes. But when you watch the full body of work, then you realize there' there's.
- [70:02]
B
Still a lot to do. It's like, it's like that person who has like the hair extensions and then the bud extension and then they've got like all the different things and you know, and then you get to know them and they start removing all this stuff out of their body and go, who is this per. They look like a totally different person than I remember.
- [70:19]
A
What.
- [70:19]
B
You know, I don't mean to be shallow like that but you know, it's like you got, you got catfished with someone looking at you, you know, while you're actually looking at them. But that with the production like people.
- [70:29]
A
Were talking about like, you know, this guy, he's, he's producing. Yeah, he had a rushing touchdown in like each of his first seven starts. That is not sustainable for any quarterback.
- [70:37]
B
No. And let's look at Justin Fields everybody. Can we, can we understand that Justin Fields at this point has pretty much proven without a shadow of a doubt that he's not going to emerge into an NFL caliber passer at a high level. He can be a nice, he can be a nice reserve who can keep your team competitive if it's a really good team. But he's probably the guy that's going to make the mistakes at the end of the game. That's going to keep, that's going to sink your team a little bit and you're waiting for your backup to get back and I, or you're, you're starting to get back and I think dart, you know, people chasing the running, the running production. But at the end of the day it's how you win from the pocket that matters. Even if you can run, you gotta win from the pocket. That's why Lamar does it well. That's why Caleb does it well. Those guys win from the pocket. Josh Allen wins from the pocket. Even when he does all that wild Ricky Bobby stuff that I joke around about with him where he's like, you know, he looks as reckless as can be he's, and he's great at that. He can still win from the pocket.
- [71:40]
A
Well, I'm glad we got a little bit of Jalen Milroe talking here because he's the forgotten guy who didn't get many regular season snaps and I think people have just kind of moved on from him. But one of those guys that you can target in your dynasty trades kind of as a, hey, you know, why don't you throw Jalen Milroe in as well? And people probably aren't thinking about it and the guy you want to hold on to until his opportunity does come. But Matt, as always, such a pleasure getting to talk football with you. Before we sign off, let everyone know where they can find his social media, podcasts, all that good stuff, and then we can close the book on 2025 and start looking ahead at 2026.
- [72:10]
B
Sure. @ Matt Waldman, you can find me both on Blue sky and on X. You can find me at YouTube at Matt Waldman's RSP Film Room. Of course, at football guys, the gut check, the top 10. I, I do the round tape. You know, I kind of edit the round table and, and moderate that a little bit and give people a hard time and have fun with it. And of course the Rookie Scouting portfolio, 21st year of publication coming up April 1st for the pre draft and then the post draft is in late May. 150 prospects, quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end. One of the two highest selling products among NFL people for independent draft guides is mine and Dane Brugler's. The Beast is the Beast. And I, and I have all of respect in the world for Dane. But I laugh because if his is King Kong, then mine's Godzilla. You know, from that standpoint, he just had, he has more players. He has more players that he looks at. But you know, I look at 150 and, and I would say that, you know, I, I would just say that the, the comprehensive look at what goes on there. You will be pleasantly shocked at what you see and you get it. Matt.
- [73:19]
A
Waldman.Com. yeah, absolutely. I cannot vouch enough for the rookie scouting portfolio. And you know, we of course do the football guys draft guide here, but you can't even compare the two things. I mean, what you do, Matt, that is such more comprehensive and in depth than what we are doing here. So, you know, we, but it's.
- [73:35]
B
A fine product what you guys got going on there. It is, you know, and it's.
- [73:38]
A
Like it's a good crash course for somebody that's looking for you know, something eye catching that can really kind of get you up to speed on the class. But if you are looking for that like AP level analysis, that's what you're getting from the rookie scouting portfolio, I cannot vouch for it enough. If you're listening to this show, absolutely buy that this year. What does that go on sale?
- [73:57]
B
Matt? It's usually it's. Yeah, it's. It actually goes. It's. It's pub. Published in April, April 1st every year and it's already been available for pre order so you can order it now for 2195@Matt waldman.com and there will.
- [74:11]
A
Be a link in the podcast description. So if you liked this episode please get your pre order in and read that in April. As always, thank you so much Matt for taking the time. We will be talking soon and for everybody who listened today, I'll be back next week with another great guest as we continue on with our off season analysis. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you next week. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining.
- [74:46]
B
Forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave.
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A
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- [75:08]
B
Lines. Qualifying credit.