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These 'Fluky' Finishers Are Actually 2026 Gold || Fantasy Football 2026
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- [00:01]
Joey
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Dave
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- [00:16]
Joey
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- [00:23]
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- [01:04]
Dave
Late season production in fantasy football is one of the most misunderstood signals out there. People write it off saying that it's noise, small sample size, fluky, whatever. I think that it is a signal of what is to come going into next year and Joey Wright agrees with me. So Joey, today what you and I are going to do, we're going to look at some of the hottest finishers to the 2025 season, guys that you should be targeting in 2026. And no quarterback last year had a hotter finish to the season than Trevor Lawrence. Talk to me about it.
- [01:34]
Joey
Joey yeah, I don't like the victory lap too much, but I was pretty bold in saying that I thought Trevor Lawrence was a top 10 quarterback last year and it took a little while to get going. I mean Prior to 2025 we had never seen Trevor Lawrence finish higher than a QB 14 in points per game. So it was kind of bold to say he's going to finish top 10. He got off to a really slow start. Through the first four games he was the QB25. But I truly saw something in Liam Cohen. I saw it in the last two years when he was a Tampa Bay that I saw what the progression that Baker Mayfield had with him and I'm like, you know what? All these years have been waiting for Trevor Lawrence just to take that next step. I think it can happen with Liam Cohen. And then it did happen starting in week five. From then on he was the QB2 rest of season and that does include a fantasy playoff run where he averaged 33.2 fantasy points per game. And then he was the QB one even better than your bold and wonderful Josh Allen. All you people out there, Trevor Lawrence was absolutely fantastic for not even the second half of the season. But get what is it with the 3/4 championship?
- [02:41]
Dave
What it matters Most, yeah.
- [02:42]
Joey
When it, when it does matter, he was the best. And I think the area that because he improved in a lot of areas. But the area that I kind of honed in on, where I did see when I started looking at the numbers that impressed me the most was the red zone carries. Jacksonville really started to trust him in the red zone carrying the football. He was third in the league behind Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen. So two of the guys you just assume are going to be rushing it in the red zone. That includes 33% of the time when when the Jaguars were down inside the five yard line they handed they let Trevor Lawrence run the ball in instead of throwing it out the end zone. Trevor Lawrence was rushing inside the five yard line. I absolutely love to see that. That may be one of the reasons why he had nine rushing touchdowns last year, a career high for him. And going into this year when you're drafting him, the discount already looks baked in. If he finishes like the QB5 last year, QB2 for that run that I talked about, he's going as the consensus QB10 right now. I have him as ranked as my QB7 going into this year. I'm still on board with Trevor Lawrence. You know they savage Jacoby Myers, they brought him in halfway through the season. I didn't even mention that yet. All things look good for for Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen in that Jaguars offense once again. They won 13 games last year. I'm in. Dave, where are you at?
- [03:56]
Dave
Yeah, I was pulling it up right now as you were talking. I got Trevor Lawrence as my QB8. So not quite as high as you but still ahead of consensus here and so much of it you talked about Liam Cohen. I think that's huge. You know we know that he has a good proven offensive system and that's why so many people were in on Trevor Lawrence last year with with you kind of leading the charge there Joey. So it is a very good call. But I'm glad you mentioned Jacoby Myers at the end because I think that is really the skeleton key here. We saw during the first half of the season last year that they didn't really know what their identity was. It felt like they kept trying to fit square pegs and round holes. That's what I said non stop talking about this Jaguars offense in the first half of the year they got Brian Thompson going across the middle of the field trying to catch balls through traffic. That's not who he is. Travis Hunter was kind of in this short little role where he wasn't really getting the amount of snaps that he should have on offense to start the year. As the season progressed though, and they brought Jacoby Myers in, then everything else started to fall into place. Parker Washington then breaks out. Brian Thomas Jr. Despite dealing with the injury, was able to move outside and start running deep routes again where he's best. So I think Jacoby Myers there is really the biggest thing that unlocked this offense. Will be interesting to see how Trevor Lawrence looks without Travis ETN as they have been joined at the hip from for almost a decade now. But Trevor Lawrence still a young quarterback in an ascending offense with good playmakers around him, rushing upside, everything we want to see. I think this is the exact type of guy you should be targeting. Still just what, 26 years old. So like ascending in his career unlocking that rushing upside. Yeah, Trevor Lawrence finished the season hot and I expect that he will have a hot 2025 as well. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, do us a favor, leave us a review. I say it every single show, but it truly is the best way to help this show grow. So if you've got 30 seconds, just let us know what you think about the show, good or bad. Joey, let's jump back into it. We just talked about Trevor Lawrence and the guy that I'm going to talk about as a hot finisher and maybe that's not even fair because it wasn't just the end of the year, but Chase Brown from week eight through 18 was absolutely on fire and something I talk about that kind of goes in line with the theme of this show. I talk often about early season biases that what happens early in the year people really hold on to because it's the first taste of actual football that we get and people just overanalyze everything we talk about. Isaiah likely, you know he had that big game two years ago. People are still holding on to that because it was in a week one island game. And Chase Brown through the early part of the season was terrible. Like no other way around it. He was the per game RB35 through the season's first seven games. After that he returned to the Chase Brown that we saw in 2025. He was the RB3 in scoring double digit fantasy points in every single game from week eight onward, 14.7 carries and six targets per game. That's pacing for over 100 targets over a 17 game sample. That's what we hope to see with Chase Brown. We got those reports that he was working with wide receiver coaches in the off season that he wanted to improve his pass catching. And that's exactly what we saw. There was a lot of discussion last year about how he was losing some touches to Samaj P. Ryan, but it didn't matter. He was still giving us top three running back value in return. This offense is going to be better this year. Joe Burrow is going to start the year healthy. And if for whatever reason, Burrow does get hurt, the I like that the Bengals went out and they retained Joe Flacco because we saw that with Joe Flacco, Chase Brown was still very productive. So everything to me is signaling that Chase Brown is going to have a good 2026 season. I think some of the early season struggles could kind of scare some fantasy managers away going into next year. But he's getting drafted right now as the RB14 and much like you were with Trevor Lawrence, Joey, I am just so aggressively higher on Chase Brown than the market is going off the board. As RB14, I've got him in my rankings as my RB6.
- [07:39]
Joey
Yeah. And I have. I have nothing to push back there at all. I have an irrational fear, though, and that's if somehow Jeremiah Love makes it past the Bengals and they can take him 10th in the draft. I don't think that's going to happen, but that would be the only thing that would really derail my love of Chase Brown this year. So I'm right there with you. But if Cincinnati, I mean, could you see them taking Jeremiah Love or do you feel like they have other needs that they need to hit?
- [08:03]
Dave
Man, I, I think they have so many other needs, especially on defense. You know, they lost Trey Hendrickson, they really need a cornerback as well. So I think they're probably investing in the defense and then just kind of reading the tea leaves a little bit. Looking at what Washington did, Washington's picking at seven and that's the, the kind of dream landing spot where everybody wants to see Jeremiah Love. They signed Rashad White, they brought back Jeremy McNichols, they signed Jerome Ford. That to me says that like, they aren't even confident that Jeremiah Love is going to be there at seven. If he does make it to seven, I don't see any world where Washington passes on him. But I think looking at Tennessee at 4, the Giants at 5, and then Washington at 7, I think those teams are all in play for Jeremiah Love. I'd be shocked if he falls to 10, although that would be a very fun landing spot.
- [08:47]
Joey
Yeah. Once again, irrational fear.
- [08:49]
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Dave.
- [08:50]
Dave
Right. And we're allowed to have those irrational fears. I mean, that's that's what helps keep us honest during this part of the season. I think is hoping or, or imagining, I should say the worst case scenario. But Joey, I just talked about Chase Brown. We're going to do a little running back block here. Some running backs who finished the season strong. Who's the next guy you want to talk about?
- [09:08]
Joey
Yeah, I want to talk about Ramandra Stevenson. You know, with Trayvon Henderson coming into New England, you know they spent some draft capital to get a really good running back. The people are really excited about. The question was like, well, how long is it going to be until Ramandre Stevenson takes the back seat? And listen, Trevian Henderson had a great season, but Ramon Dre Stevenson never really took a back seat to him. And there was kind of an open door for it to happen in Week 9. Ramandre missed three games with a toe injury and upon his return he jumped right back into the mix. So this was like not just a good finish which Ramandre did have, but it was kind of there the whole season. If you look at the snap counts and shout out to our snap count page at Football Guy, it's one of my favorite tools to use. Raj Stevenson in the 14 games that him and Trayveon Tenderson played together, 64 of the snaps where Travion Henderson was 38% of the snaps and you could say okay, well that's just blocking and you know he was on the field. What does it mean for touches? Well, for touches, Randre Stevenson actually had more touches than Trayvon Henderson last year 153 to 143. So Ramandre Stevenson finished last year RB28 on the season, but five straight games and double digit fantasy points to end the season. He was the RB7 in the fantasy playoffs. And I want to speak to the people out there playing their fantasy championship in week in 18 1. What are you doing? Like you need to fix that. But if you are one of those people, you probably won your fantasy championship. Because Ramandre Stevenson 153 total yards and three touchdowns in the final week of the regular season. He was a monster. Roman Stevenson's running back. You'll target if you'd like a zero RB build. We have them football guys consensus RB 26. I think that is around that's we can expect from him. I I could see him as a borderline RB too because this is a true timeshare where both running backs are very capable in New England.
- [10:59]
Dave
And I think the weirdest thing too and of course we're talking mostly regular season because that's when fantasy football is played. But if you look at the usage during the playoffs, the. That's when it really skewed heavily in Radre Stevenson's favor. We saw that AFC Championship game against Denver. Trevon Henderson in that game saw 6% of the snaps. He played four total snaps, like, didn't get anything going at all. If you look over those four games through the playoffs, Madre Stevenson had 58 carries and 15 targets. Trayon Henderson had 30 carries and six targets. So when the games mattered most late in the year and through the playoffs, that's typically when we see these rookies break out. We did see Trayvon Henderson break out when Rodri Stevenson was hurt, but they put him back on the shelf and they leaned on Radre Stevenson. Now, you know, these things can change over time, but looking at how Josh McDaniels has deployed running backs in the past, I think there's this hope that Trayvon Henderson can turn into a Jameer Gibbs type of player. And I just don't think it's ever going to happen in this offense. Radre Stevenson is going to be involved. If he's hurt, it's going to be Terrell Jennings or whoever else they can pull up off the practice squad. This is never going to be a backfield that fully falls in Trivion Henderson's lap. So I think Ramadre Stevenson has earned the trust of the staff, brings a very different skill set to the offense, and I don't think he's going anywhere. I think he's going to maintain pretty heavy usage in 2026.
- [12:17]
Joey
Absolutely. I agree with you. If you look at those three games that Ramandre missed with the toe injury, that's what it took for Trayvon Henderson to get that bell cow work, or not even bellcal, but just like 75 of the work. But I. If Ramandre Stevenson were to get injured again, I would assume New England would either go out and make a trade or in the following season, bring somebody in. I don't think they see Travion Henderson as like this, you know, bell cow back that's going to handle all the work or even the lead at that point.
- [12:43]
Dave
Yeah, which. Which is frustrating because we saw in the games without Radre Stevenson, he looked like he could, but that just isn't the Patriots way. You can take Bill Belichick out of the building, but you can't take the, I don't know, the building out of Bill. There's. There's still a lot of Bill Belichick running through Foxborough is what I'm getting.
- [12:59]
Joey
Branches of the roots that he planted are still there.
- [13:03]
Dave
Yes.
- [13:04]
Joey
Providing fruit.
- [13:05]
Dave
Absolutely. Yes.
- [13:07]
Joey
Wow. I think. I think that actually worked pretty well.
- [13:09]
Dave
I think we got there. Yeah. Let's go to the next guy. We want to talk about sticking here with running backs. I want to talk about Blake Orum, a guy who I have loved since he came into the league and he was such a good prospect. We got to remember this guy was a day two pick. He was an integral part of Michigan's national championship winning team prior to getting drafted. And. And I don't like doing the comparison thing because Kyron Williams has proven himself to be a good NFL player. But if we're looking just at the prospect profiles for these two guys, Blake Corum clears almost everywhere. He's got better draft capital. He is heavier, he is faster, better athletic, testing. He's younger. There's a lot of reason to be excited about Blake Orum. He was drafted off of a bad knee injury. Still went day two, mind you, coming off the knee injury, but started to look like his old self last year in his rookie season. There wasn't a lot to get excited about, but last year we saw an increase in yards per attempt, we saw an increase in success rate, yards after contact, broken tackle rate, breakaway runs, all the things that he was doing in Michigan. We saw start to translate to an NFL field now. And also the usage started to move in his direction. He saw at least one third of the snaps in each of the four regular season games and two playoff games. So last six games of the season, including playoffs, he was seeing at least one third of the snaps. So when I look at this, we see these guys every so often in fantasy and they are rare. I remember this being the talking point with AJ Dillon like four years ago. It was the talking point with Zach Charbonnet two years ago. But when you get these guys that can kind of work in as a desperation flex play on any given week but also have league winning contingent upside, those are guys I won on my team. They are so valuable. You get through bye weeks, you get through injuries, you can put Blake Corum in. And even if he's splitting touches with Kyron Williams, he you could still potentially get 80 yards and a touchdown. If Kyron Williams misses time, then we see exactly what we saw from Zach Charbonnet a couple years ago, where this guy can step in, get the full workload, shoulder that workload, and give you RB1 production. So Blake Corum is a guy that you've got the standalone value with. You've also got elite contingent upside. This is a guy that I'm going to be aggressively drafting in just about every single one of my, my, my fantasy drafts next year.
- [15:20]
Joey
Yeah, when you put Blake Corum, when you mentioned you want to talk about him, I was like nodding along and I wanted to kind of look at what he did last season and something that kind of stuck out for me. 16% of his runs last year went for 10 or more yards. That's just a number. Those are two numbers that was the second highest rate of the in the league with players with more than125 carries behind only Devon HN. Like when he touches the ball, he's doing things with it, he's getting valuable touches. That's what I like to see. I love Blake Corum. For the longest time I was kind of rooting for the downfall of Kyron Williams and I don't think he's going anywhere. I really don't at this point. It's kind of like the Derrick Henry. Eventually he's going to fall off, but I'm just going to stop predicting when that's going to happen. But Blake Corum, I agree with you. He's one of those running backs, gives you standalone value even if there's a guy in front of him.
- [16:07]
Dave
Yeah. And I think, you know, you don't have to root for Kyron Williams downfall or anything like that, but it's just like this is a violent game. Players get injured, players miss time. So I, I mean like there's so many outs for Blake Corum like we saw last year from weeks 13 through 18. Here's the RB16, like you were getting high end RB2 production with Kyron Williams on the field. So like that is what you should be expecting here, is that you're still getting usable flex play. But if Kyron Williams has to miss a week for personal reasons, maybe he has a devastating injury and misses the entire season. That's where Blake Corum goes then from that kind of fringe flex play into just being an elite league winning contingent option. So these guys are rare. You don't get them often. Where you get a talented player who has that standalone value and upside, that's what you're getting with Blake Orum. Still a young guy, a good prospect, showed the signs of life that we want to see late last year and somebody that I'm going to be drafting a lot of in 2026. We're going to be back in a quick minute after a quick break and then we'll talk about a few more players that we're going to be targeting in 2026.
- [17:09]
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- [18:10]
Dave
Joey, we are back and I think when we think about finishers to 2026 that finished the season hot, there's one guy that I think immediately comes to mind for everybody and sometimes we got to take the low hanging fruits. Talk to me a little bit about Michael Wilson.
- [18:26]
Joey
Yeah, I mean if you're talking Finnish, it's is Michael Wilson Top 10 wide receiver in 2025? Why is that amazing that he finishes the top in the top 10 in 2025? Because weeks one through 10 he was the wide receiver 76 along with you. I know. I like to list players Luke McCaffrey, Traylon Burks and Ryan Flournoy. Not names that you have as like a wide receiver one or even a wide receiver two on your team. Good God. Or we have wide receiver 4 territory but you know that's what I'm saying. These names are not that exciting but weeks 11 through 17 he was the wide receiver two behind only Puka Nakua tied in points with Jackson Smith, Najekba, he had a finish. So what happened? A QB change in week six? You could say, okay, that had something to do with it switching to Jacoby Brissette from Kyler Murray. But the big thing was yeah, Marvin Harrison Jr. Barely touched the field after week 11. He had like if you have a bingo card with injuries, an appendicitis, a heel injury and a concussion. If he gets the free space. He just needs one more and then he's got a bingo. And I'm not making fun of the injuries there. I'm just saying he fell into a lot of bad luck last year, but that allowed Michael Wilson to step on the field and kind of showcase a little bit. And you could say, did this all happen just because Harrison was out? Yeah, I guess you could say to some degree. But just because he was out, I don't think that doesn't mean that Arizona saw what they needed to see in a wide receiver too in 2025. It was absolute breakout for him. If you look at what Arizona did in free agency, they brought in two wide receivers and I think that's of note. Devin Duvernay. So that's basically kick returns. I would say that the kick return special they brought in and the Kendrick Bourne, who I think is really nice depth behind Wilson, Harrison and McBride, but I don't think he's going to cut into their workload very much. Everything that I saw from Michael Wilson last year, any game that he had more than seven targets in, he was scoring double digit fantasy points. I think he's going to get a little bit more work this next year. I don't think he's going to finish as the wide receiver too. I don't think he's going to finish as a top 12 wide receiver, but as a wide receiver too, a top 24 wide receiver. I think that's absolutely in the realm of possibility for him. And his finish last year absolutely shows us that.
- [20:38]
Dave
And you know, you talk about the wide receiver additions they made in free agency. They brought in two wide receivers, but they also lost Greg Dortch and Zay Jones. So to me, like Devin Duvernay is just the replacement for Greg Dorch. He's the guy who's going to be eating some of those special team reps. And then, you know, Kendrick Bourne is just like a perfect replacement for the veteran Zay Jones. So I don't really see that changing the complexity of the offense too much. I think it's still going through the same people. We know Trey McBride is going to be the tight end one, the wide receiver one, whatever you want to call them in this offense, but we've seen that Michael Wilson, I mean, this is crazy to say and I'm doing a show with Matt Waldman next week that you can check out, but Matt Waldman is of the belief that Michael Wilson is a better receiver than Marvin Harrison Jr. And based on what we saw last year, I know Marvin Harrison Jr. Has the draft capital and we want to get excited about him. But Michael Wilson at this point in his career is separating and coming down with those balls that Marvin Harrison Jr. Isn't. So I think a lot of people are still holding on to that hope that Marvin Harrison Jr. Is going to take that ascension and maybe he can. But Michael Wilson, I think a lot of people, this is the perfect guy we want to talk about for the show. Everybody's writing it off. Small sample size, fluke injuries open up the door for him, whatever it may be. But this is the type of stuff you want to chase. And if we were doing the show a couple of years ago, Amon Ross St. Brown comes to mind as a guy who had like a very strong finish to the season and I was one of his doubters because I was able to point to, well, there were injuries to DeAndre Swift, injuries to TJ Hawkinson that opened up the door for Amon Ross St. Brown. But a lot of times when these players get that opportunity and show how good they can be, that carries over into the next year. And when in regards to Mike Wilson, I, I think the cat's out of the bag. I think they saw what they have in him and I don't think they're just going to shelf him going into 2026.
- [22:18]
Joey
Yeah. Another thing I liked with Michael Wilson was he was already on the field when Marvin Harrison Jr. Was out there. Even if he wasn't getting the looks, it was 76 of the snaps when they were both on the field together. Now that went up to about a 90 being on the field rate with the snaps once Harrison was out. But that's not much of a bump up. And I do think he's the de facto wide receiver too, if you want to call him the wide receiver too at this point on the Cardinals. So he's going to be out there. And now that they've seen what he can be once he's out there, he's getting the ball in his hand.
- [22:47]
Dave
Yeah. And I'm also looking like late in the year when Marvin Harrison did come back, it didn't impact his snapshot. Like he stayed above 85% late in the season. So like I said, cats out of the bag. You can't just shelf a guy like Michael Wilson after he did what he did. Got a couple more guys that we want to talk about and again, maybe some low hanging fruit here, but I would be remiss not to talk about Colston Loveland. And this wasn't just Like a, you know, three week thing here. From weeks nine onward, basically the entire second half of the fantasy season, Colson Loveland was absolutely on Fire, averaging 11.9 fantasy points per game. He was the tight end two in scoring behind only Trey McBride over that time. And now we've got D.J. moore out of the picture. It seems to me very intentional that the Bears want to showcase these young pass catchers that they have drafted over the last couple of years. And last year we saw Colson Loveland was so efficient with his opportunities. He had the highest yards per route run, the most yards per route run of any tight end who ran over 300 routes. Last year he was the tight end two from week nine onward. Like I mentioned that big breakout game with Cincinnati and then just continued to roll it from there. He was an important part of the offense through the playoffs for the Bears as well. And now I just see this offense very simply having focused on DJ Moore for the last couple of years. Now they want to focus on Colson Loveland and I'll mention Luther Burden a little bit later in the show as well. But another guy, like I see these as the hand picked pieces from Ben Johnson that they want to build this offense around. So Colson Loveland, right now he's going after Trey McBride and Brock Bowers as he should be. But I think it would be crazy to rank anybody else as the tight end three after those two guys. Colson Loveland, you look at the draft capital, he also got drafted coming off that shoulder injury. So he didn't get a full training camp under his belt. Now he is healthy, he's going to have that full training camp. The opportunity is his. I think we're going to be looking at Coulson loveland after this 2026 season in the same tier as Trey McBride and Brock Bowers going in 2027.
- [24:45]
Joey
Yeah, I, I think what's important to note is like when you're doing a show with somebody, you know, when Dave brought this topic up, I just said I'll leave Colston leveling for you because like that's, that's just one of your guys, you know, and.
- [24:57]
Dave
Right.
- [24:57]
Joey
You know, that's part of a good working relationship there. But Dave, I want an exercise with you because I would have absolutely taken Colson leveling had, you know, you're not been a Bear. But I want to do an exercise with you. Let's. And you kind of already hinted at it, but let's tear out our tight ends for 2026 real fast. Is Colson Loveland in your first tier along with McBride and Bowers.
- [25:17]
Dave
I'm guessing I can't get him quite there in Dynasty. I do have him in that tier if we're projecting long term because he's still just 21 years old, which is unbelievable. Like he was drafted so, so young. But I have Brock Bowers and Trey McBride kind of in a tier of their own. Colson Loveland in a mini tier by himself after them, and then Harold Fannin and another tight end that I'm going to talk about a little bit later on the show.
- [25:41]
Joey
Yeah, that's exactly. I have Loveland in his own tier. Yeah.
- [25:44]
Dave
And it's one of those, like I, if I do miss out and because I'm probably not going to be paying for Trey McBride with where he's going, you know, kind of at that 1, 2 turn this year, I'll happily take Brock Bowers as a little bit cheaper of an option. But if I miss those two guys, then Loveland is the guy that I want to pay up for and then there's another guy that I'm willing to pay up for and then there's just kind of that, that tight end dead zone that I will be aggressively fading in the middle round. So I think, you know, this is another year with tight ends where you kind of want to do that. The, the, the, the great or late strategy when you're going after tight ends.
- [26:19]
Joey
Absolutely.
- [26:20]
Dave
All right, Joey, who's the next guy you want to talk about? You had another quarterback bookending the players you want to talk about? Open up with the quarterback, close into the quarterback. Let's hear it.
- [26:29]
Joey
Well, I mean, Trevor Lawrence is going to be the quarterback you're going to have to draft in probably the single to maybe the early digit double rounds. But I want to talk about a quarterback who had a really good finish the last season that you could probably take towards the end of your draft. If you're waiting on quarterback or you're streaming, that's Tyler Shock with the New Orleans Saints. Weeks 13 through 17, no games below 17 fantasy points was the QB8 to finish off the season. So really respectable numbers from Tyler Schuck. What I like most though is the Saints went five and three once they named him the starter. And the way to get fantasy points for me is to stay on the field. And if you win games, you're staying on the field. I don't like to use this as an example, but Justin Fields, you know, we saw elite fantasy production from Justin Fields, but the problem is the jets wasn't they weren't winning football games, the Bears, they were losing more of those games than they were winning. So, you know, you need to be able to win some games to stay on the field to produce these fantasy points. And Tyler Schuck seems to be doing that and the team seems already committed to him in 2026. Looking at the free agent moves, they brought in David Edwards. PFF has him ranked the 19th offensive lineman in the league right at this point. And they brought in an established running back in Travis Etn. Instead of developing Devin Neal or any of the other rookies or bringing in like a filler free agent, they brought in Travis Etn, a competent back who left Trevor Lawrence. And they're not going to just run the wheels off of Alvin Kamara. It looks like this team is trying to win. You know, the NFC south suffer grabs every year because you never know who's going to be the best team in that division. And they're in a prime position to draft one of the premier wide receivers in the draft this year to pair with Chris Olave, who was wide receiver too during Tyler Schuck's weeks 13 through 17. We could have done a whole Crystal Lave episode or not episode, but a segment on here finishing to the wide receiver too off for the season. But he's an ideal last round pick if you're waiting on quarterback, like I said. And if you're streaming even better. You could pair him up with like a veteran quarterback that's maybe had nagging back issues that looked really good last year. But yeah, if you're taking Matthew Stafford, Tyler Schuck is like who I'm gonna pair with him. Yeah.
- [28:33]
Dave
And you talk about that like the thought of them potentially adding another wide receiver right there because right now it's got a. Juwan Johnson is like the secondary option in New Orleans that if you're doing some of these early best ball drafts or looking to make some dynasty trades right now, I think if they go that route and they take one of those guys, then we're going to see just skyrocketing from there. You know, the, the hype with Tyler Schuck where I think you can still kind of get this little window between now and the NFL draft where he's not going to be extremely expensive. So I like that call out quite a bit. And like I said, he was winning games and sometimes it's that simple. Like if you're winning games and you're scoring fantasy points, you're probably going to get more opportunities to Start games and score more fantasy points. So like that call out a lot. Joey, last guy that I am going to talk about here and then we'll get to some honorable mentions. Kyle Pitts also started or finished the year strong. This is a little bit smaller of a sample. You know when I was talking about Colson Loveland, talking about the whole second half of the season, Kyle Pitts, it was just kind of weeks 13, 15 through 18 and of course we remember what he did in week 15, round one of the fantasy football championship. Caught 11 of 12 targets for 166 yards and three touchdowns. Like single handedly advanced people through the fantasy football playoffs. Best ball tournaments, whatever it was. And that ceiling is why we have chased Kyle Pitts for years. This guy was a top five pick in the NFL Draft, 6 foot 6, size and athleticism and speed off the charts. And we finally got a little taste of what that ceiling could look like. From weeks to 13 through 16, Drake London was injured and Pitts averaged 99 yards and a touchdown per game. Like you aren't getting that type of ceiling from any other tight end in football on a consistent basis. And now going into this year they lost Darnell Mooney. The only notable additions that they made as far as pass catchers, Jahan Dotson, Lama Zakias, not guys that we're getting too excited about here. Still just 25 years old. So Kyle Pitts best years are theoretically still ahead of him. I typically see tight ends at age 27, 28, 29 hit that age apex. He came into the league so young that he is still trending up and that's why the Falcons put him on this franchise tag so they could bring him in for another year because I still don't think that they fully know what they have in him. We're looking at Tua potentially being the week one starter and I know that's going to scare a lot of people off. But when you look at the history of who Kyle Pitts has had to play with over the last couple years, Tua Tucker Bailoa is arguably the best quarterback that he's had throwing him the ball since Matt Ryan his rookie season when he went for a thousand yards. So again we're talking ceiling here with these tight ends. Talked about it earlier that I've got Brock bowers and Trey McBride in a tier of their own. I've got Colson Loveland in a mini tier after that. And then in that next year it is Harold Fannin, Kyle Pitts and Tyler Warren for me. So Kyle Pitts fits right alongside with some of those other guys as kind of a cheaper option where you could potentially be getting some elite production here. So I've got him as my tight end five right now and still. Well a lot of people have started to move on in Dynasty still play that I'm going out and trying to acquire in Dynasty leagues because he hasn't hit the top of that age curve yet.
- [31:31]
Joey
Abs, I agree with you especially in Dynasty and the 2A thing doesn't scare me off very much. We've seen 2A support 2Pass catchers on an offense pretty much every year that he's been in the league. You know I can't Dave, just correct me if I'm wrong. When Johnny Smith was with the Dolphins too was part of that with the breakout for Johnny Smith, correct?
- [31:50]
Dave
Yep. And he was the tight end five over the second half of that season.
- [31:52]
Joey
So even three pass catchers. What I'm saying is Kyle pitch is the second option on this team. We've seen two will be able to support two fantasy options in the past catching. So I am completely I actually am more excited for Kyle Pitts now that it's not Kirk Cousins thrown on the ball. Yeah, Kirk cousins like 8 years ago would have been a different story but Kirk Cousins now. No, no.
- [32:11]
Dave
Yeah and I think Pennix will we'll see if he is ready for week one. You know there wasn't a lot of production to write home about regarding Kyle picks when Penix was out there. But I think Tua, you know, looking at the the two outcomes between TUA and Pennix, TUA is who I would prefer throwing the ball in this offense. Well Joey, we got through the major guys that we wanted to talk about but we did have some honorable mentions as well and one of them is a guy that we have really been beating the drum for pretty hard already this offseason. Talk to me about Christian Watson. You know we, we know this is a guy that you like and that you're targeting this year but why he should be a guy that is being targeted as well.
- [32:48]
Joey
Yeah, really quick. We covered him last week pretty extensively once he returned from the injury in week nine. He was the wide receiver three rest of the season. You know Romeo Dobbs has moved on to New England. There's a lot of good options there for Christian Watson just to succeed in the next year. But you can go back to last week's episode, get a full breakdown there. But yeah, Christian Watson fits in with a lot of these players we're talking
- [33:09]
Dave
about really well, another honorable mention for me. I kind of talked about him a little bit when I was discussing Colston Loveland, but again, I just see Luther Burden taking that huge step forward yards per route run. I talked about how Colson Loveland was the best of all of the tight ends. Luther Burden was third best among all receivers behind just Amon or I'm sorry, behind just Jackson Smith Najigba in Puka Nagua. So this is. These are both young, ascending players that were handpicked by Ben Johnson and I think with DJ Moore gone, they're just going to try to get him the ball even more. I had J.J. zachary on the show last week and we talked about about Luther Burton a little bit as a year two breakout. I've got Matt Waldman coming on the show next week and I know he is a big time Luther Burden fan. So I don't want to spend too much time talking about Luther Burton because we talked about him last week. We're going to talk about him next week. But it would be silly to talk about players who finished strong to target in this year if we didn't mention Luther Burden. That'll do it. Joey, any final thoughts on today's episode before we wrap up here?
- [34:05]
Joey
I think this is fantastic. Dave, I think you do a great job hosting the show.
- [34:10]
Dave
Thank you. And this was. This idea came from a friend of yours, I believe. Yeah, some, some real life friends during March Madness. Like, hey, what's the topic you want to hear about? Somebody came up with this idea and it's not something you see a lot of fantasy channels doing, but I really like this idea. So shout out Joey's friend for the, the good idea here.
- [34:27]
Joey
Yeah, I don't know if it was Steve or Siobhan, but I was watching, you know, I was watching March Madness and too often, you know, you see a lot of, you know, the same episodes come out. And so I literally had two guys that play fantasy football that are not in the industry. I was like, what do you guys want to know about? And I believe it was Steve's like, who finished the year really well last year that we should draft. And I was like, holy cow, that's really good. So thanks, Steve.
- [34:50]
Dave
Yep. So we hope this production, the, the strong finishes to 2025 can roll over into productive 2026 seasons. But as always, thank you so much for taking the time to hang out today. I'll be back later this week with Jeff Bell, back next week with Joey, and then again next week with Matt Waldman. We're doing two shows a week over the next two weeks and then back up to our normal three following that as we ramp up to the NFL Draft. But want to thank you all so much for taking the time to hang out. We will see you soon.
- [35:29]
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