March 28, 2025 • 45 mins
Thor Nystrom guides us through the Day 1 and 2 rookie wideouts, including Arizona's Tet McMillan--widely considered the top receiver in the draft.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly
source for the nation's best fantasy football advice, speculation, and
whatever stupid stuff they decide to drop into the show.
Now here's your host, Paul Charchion.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly. I'm Paul Charchion, my guest,
as he has been for many of the last shows,
and we'll be for a few more thor nice strow,
Hey buddy, Hey, how you doing it? Is certainly your
time of year, isn't it? Ah? The best, the best?
And I know you're super busy. We love you find
time to get us up to speed on the rookies
every year, this time of year and this is this
(00:45):
is high demand thor season right here. I mean, this
is like you know, for me, when I'm in like
late August early September and everybody's getting ready for their
guillotine drafts, that's my busy, busiest time of the year.
This is this month is just nuts for you or
are you all prepped up to the point that now
it's just easy? I mean, nothing's your evaluation of players
(01:05):
doesn't change much at this point. Right as we get
into April.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I would love to say the latter, but you know
you're going deeper into the position. You know, when you
do a five hundred player big board like I do
with the five hundred comps, like I mean, it becomes
a real discussion down the board draftable grades and then
down the board and then you know who's who's gonna
be on there, who's gonna miss it? But yeah, like
there's there's a lot of guys to watch and to
dig into to get to a five hundred player bard.
(01:31):
So now we will we will be going right up
to the draft.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I love it. Okay, So we've got what rookie wide
receivers today, then next week tight ends week after that
quarterbacks and and it's quarterback has seen Well, we'll talk
more about it when we get to that episode. Feels
like it's been fairly stable other than cam Ward now
moving to the presumed one to one from where this
was a while ago. But let's let's talk wide receivers.
(01:56):
Just overall, we had had over the past four or
five years, we had had just these really deep classes
of rookie wide receivers that were good at the top,
middle end of the draft. This one, to me doesn't
feel like as strong a class. So just talk to
me before we get into specific guys, talk to me
about this rookie class of wide receivers.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, it's like we talked about with the running back
class from the other direction. These things are cyclical, and
after we had a couple bad running back classes in
a row, now we have one of the best that
we've seen in the last fifteen twenty years. Whereas with
wide receivers, like you mentioned, we had some stacked wide
receiver classes here in the recent past, and that everything
is cyclical. You can't have an awesome position class every year. Yeah,
(02:42):
you know you're going to get it on the other
side of the variants at some point, and that's what
we have that with this receiver class. This receiver class
is way way down from what we have seen in
the past couple of years. There are interesting prospects though,
there's a couple in here that absolutely should go in
the first round, and there's some interesting sleepers, but overall,
as far as class quality, this receiver class does not
(03:03):
stack up well against the last couple.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
All right, let's talk about Travis Hunter as his own
unique situation here, I think the fantasy utility on Travis
Hunter will be capped by just the snap count. But
talk to me about him. Where would if Travis Hunter
were only playing wide receiver and he, you know, was
going to be on the field as a full time
wide receiver. Where would Travis Hunter fit into this? And
(03:26):
do you just disagree with my understanding that he's just
not going to be on the field enough for him
to be somebody you can reliably count on from a
fantasy standpoint to the first.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Question, he would be wide receiver one, yeah, bullet and
he and of course he'd be one with the bullet
as well, So you're talking about a unicorn prospect there
that I do have a slightly different take as far
as the fantasy utility with Okay, I think this kid
starts out as a rookiet. Of course you're going to
be playing all the snaps on defense, but I think
it's going to be My ballpark is roughly forty percent
(03:59):
and could be up to fifty percent of the snaps
on offense. Whatever team takes him, you cannot afford not
to have him taking offensive snaps. In addition, for you
to the cornerback that you know that he's going to
be playing right away. You just have to get him
out there, and Travis Hunter, that's what he wants to do.
Travis Hunter wants to be the sho Heyo Tani of
the NFL. He's going to get that opportunity. That's something
(04:21):
that he's put out there. He does not want to
be a one way player. He wants to play both ways.
You can't put him out there one hundred percent of
the snaps on both right away, because you know we
are starting to walk at that point, you're in unprecedented
territory and your medical staff is going to tell you
that you are elevating his injury risk above where they
are comfortable. I think there's going to be discussions about
(04:42):
that between the medical staff, between your analytics department, and
then of course the coaching staff in the front off
is going to get involved with this as well. They're
going to come up with some sort of snapshare for
offense in his rookie season that people are comfortable with
starting and then you just see from there. But those
snaps when he is on the field, you are going
to be getting the ball to Travis Hunter. I think
the team and it has him, you will have one
non Travis Hunter playbook. You will have one Travis Hunter
(05:04):
Playboff he's on the field, they will be looking to
get him the ball. He's not gonna be out there
many running plays. They're not gonna ask him to block, right.
I mean that you're trying to keep him out of
the collisions as much as you can when you don't
when that ball is not in his hands. But I
do think he's gonna get enough snaps to be Fantasy
relevant as a rookie, especially because he's this classic best receiver.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And I think the catch with Travis Hunter is you
have to be playing in a format where it's okay
if he I think he's gonna have some two catch
twenty yard games because he's just not on the field
as much as every down players. And then there's gonna
be other games where he's gonna have five catches and
he's gonna do something special on three of them, and
he's gonna have explosive games. And so to me, you know,
(05:45):
when I when I look at him as a potentially
part time player, I think you just have to bake
in the understanding that Travis Hunter is gonna have some
games where the volume just isn't there is that fair?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
That is fair? And I think we're getting deeper into
the weeds or more inside baseball here, because when I
say forty percent, I'm talking about over the ocean of
snaps in a season, assuming his health. And I'm gonna
knock on when I say that. Yeah, But the way
that you get there in games where the game script
gets away one way or the other, I think that's
(06:19):
where you save the snaps, right, I mean, because you
only want him out there when he is juicing your
opportunity to win the football game. If we're down by
two touchdowns, all right, Travis, you know what, You're finishing
out the game on defense. But we can probably save
some hits for you here. Whereas games where they're closer throughout,
I think you will see him out there on the
field more than that forty percent, and they will probably
(06:40):
trying to look to get him the ball even more
because he can swing games.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
You've got Travis Hunter. I'm looking at your most current
mock draft at fantasylife dot com. You've got Travis Hunter
going third to the Giants. Yeah, that's a you know,
it's Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston throwing him the ball, which, honestly,
from a fantasy standpoint, I take Winston because we don't
care as much about the interceptions as we do the
long arm the you know, so he'll have funk quasi
(07:08):
functional quarterbacking. I don't you know, I don't love the
quarterbacking spot there for Travis Hunter, but that's okay, and
that I think that would make sense for him to
drop to the Giants. He's arguably the best player in
this class, right so him going third overall wouldn't be
a stretch.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
At all, one thousand percent, and he would be a
perfect fit for the Giants as far as the dude
takes over CB one right away and then that you know,
we'll say the forty percent of snaps as a rookie
on offense. Can you think of a more awesome second
banana for Elik Neighbors? Right, Like Elik Neighbors, He's gonna
be doing his thing on one side of the field
and then Hunter on the other side. And neither of
(07:45):
those guys, of course, has Tetoa McMillan size or you know,
somebody like that, but both of them not only can
slice and dice you a short and intermediate by manufacturing
stuff you hit him on the hands in space. They
also can both win downfield, right and and Travis Hunter
is incredible downfield because his best thing as both a
(08:05):
defender and a receiver is his ball skills. And you
don't have to take my word for it, ask any
of the coaches that have ever worked with Tim. It's like,
I've never seen a guy with these kind of ball
scales and down the field. Obviously he has all the
athleticism that he needs to get there, and he he
has like this gumbyl like contortionism to him as well.
So he's going to get the best of it with
(08:25):
this with his body control when the balls on the doorstep.
But the other thing that's kind of unique about him
beyond that is, uh, you know, and beyond you know,
just the sort of the rope ball skills is physically
he has longer arms than he should with his frame.
In fact, his arms are I believe just one inch shell.
(08:46):
I'm looking it up to to make sure I don't
yeah one inch shell or actually yeah, almost exactly one
inch sheth of teterol McMillan's wow the arm arm mu Yeah, yeah,
so you're you're you're talking about to do with with
super long arms and that manifest down the field there.
You know, as far as extending that catch radius, he
(09:07):
has more athleticism than you, so you know, again he's
usually getting the step and then he can obviously get
off the carpet and get in the air. And with
those long arms, he has the ability to get higher
than most of the guys that are defending him, certainly
in college, but that's going to be the case in
the NFL as well. He doesn't drop anything, So I
mean that's you're getting a home run hitter there. It's
(09:29):
also a guy of course, you know you hit him
on the hands in intermediate in space like I mentioned,
but talking about it, awesome second banana next to Moleague neighbors. Yeah,
the Giants you obviously would have you for the first
time since Eli Manning retired, you would have an interesting
passing offense.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
There's that's Trevis Hunter and I do want to we
will dive into the next set of of wide receivers
and especially when I want to hit you with like
Day one and two receivers, guys that could go in
the first three rounds. When I look at teams that
could for make a wide receiver in the first two
days of the draft. I think Buffalo's in or really
(10:05):
just Khalil Shakir. New England is always in play at receiver.
They never do much about it and they haven't really
been able to start a gold there, but they certainly
need one. The Jets fall off a cliff after Garrett Wilson. Yes,
Tennessee has Van Jefferson as a starter right now, so
you know that is a team that needs wide receiver help.
Las Vegas. We love Jacobe Myers on this show, but
(10:28):
they need a number one wide receiver. Washington, they just
landed de Ball on that one year deal, but it's
only a one year deal, and Luke McCaffrey barely even
got on the field last year. You and I differed
on him a little bit at this time last season,
and maybe his best days are still ahead of him.
But I feel like that's a team that, looking ahead,
could use the receiver. Green Bay's got all those, you know,
(10:48):
that gaggle of good receivers, but not that great receiver
that they've been searching for, and nobody's really emerged from
that group yet. Carolina spent that late first rounder on
Xavier lyget Lie last year, but they and so they
probably don't spend high equity on receiver again, but still
pretty telling that Adam Thielen was their best receiver last
year at age thirty four. And I'll hit you with
(11:11):
two more teams that I think are in play. New Orleans.
They've got Chris Olave but like the rest of the
receiver room is coming off ACL surgery. And then the Rams, right,
so they added Devonte Adams obviously at his age, that's
a stopgap measure and they ultimately need somebody opposite pokin Akua.
They could be an interesting team later in the draft.
And then Seattle, who signed Cooper Cup to a three
(11:34):
year deal, which I do not understand at his age
and given the metric drop offs that we've seen, but
he's not a long term solution. And they lost DK Metcalf,
So I think Seattle is in play as well.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I would the ones I would add, did you say
Jaguars and Cowboys.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I did not say Jaguars or Cowboys. Tell me why
you think they're they're in play here at receiver.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Well, with the Jaguars, you have Brian Thomas and you
like you, like Brian Thomas a lot outside. They need
guys that can advance the ball for them, and I
think they're a sneaky you know, everyone now is putting
Mason Graham to the Jay and I have plenty, but
I think they're If there's going to be a surprise
(12:13):
in the top five, I think it's Lee and Coleen
to commandeering that war room and saying I need I
need a dude who can advance the ball for me. Now,
this probably is more for our tight end conversation because
I think Tyler Warren could end up being that guy. Yes,
teterol McMillan, that might be. I like Tet, but might
be just slight slightly over where you should be. But
(12:35):
like Tyler Warren, it would be hard to argue against
him there, right, Like, that's a guy who is one
of the better way we'll talk about this in the
tight end prospect, but that's one of the best prospects
to come out at that position, particularly just with the
idea of moving that football forward.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, that makes sense, That makes sense. Yeah, I think
I think the Jaguars like Brent Strange, and I think
they're you know, I think that's part of why they
let Ingram go. So you know, I don't know if
they love Strange enough right now that they would pass
on potentially a different game changing tight end. Let's dive
into your wide receivers. You're number one ranked wide receiver
(13:11):
and again not counting Travis Hunters will put an asterisk
on that. That's Ted McMillan. You've already referred to your
comp on him as T Higgins, and the ball skills
on Ted McMillan are just sick.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
That's the thing. And like T Higgins, I think Ted's
destiny if he's defined the right situation, it would be
as an awesome wide receiver too. He kep you know,
in the same way that Drake London's a wide receiver.
Ted's also very similar to Drake London. But I you know,
if you're talking like a very dangerous offense and a
(13:47):
dangerous sort of contender, that's the role that I would
prefer Ted end. His tench ball scials are insane because
he has one of the biggest catch ratierses you'll see.
You know, obviously he's stretched out at a little over
sixty four and then he's got to long arms as well,
and his insure hands as well, Like he has some
(14:07):
highlight reels out there on YouTube, and you know, like
in the facility where he's you know, jumping up, catching
the ball between his legs and then putting the ball
through his legs before he lands, like all this sort
of he can do all sorts of ridiculous things, but
he's awesome in contested situations. Nineteen for thirty one last season,
he was number two and contested catches in this class
the year before that. This is also the thing people
(14:30):
nitpick him for, though, is his work against man coverage,
where it's it's not that he couldn't create separations that
sometimes it doesn't appear that he's even trying. It's it's
he is one of those guys with man coverage he
wants to It's sort of like a child who's afraid
in the dark and they're with their parent and they
want to sort of feel that their parent is next
(14:52):
to them. That's sort of what he's like with his
man defender. He wants to know where that do it
because his ball skills are so good and he positions
his body so so it's like when when he going
down on you know, along that stem, he sort of
wants to know, get his bearings with where is that guy?
And then it's the equation when the ball's on the doorstep,
what he's going to do with his body in his hands.
But his his separation rate against man coverage was very,
(15:15):
very low. Interestingly though, he was at the top of
the class in separation rate quote unquote against zone coverage.
And he has a very good zone coverage barometer or
calculator in his head. Like right after the snap, those
couple beats you see the movement of the defenders. Tet's
one of those guys that immediately knows where they are headed,
which means that he knows where the open spot of
grass is before it appears right And those are the
(15:37):
guys where it's like they're always available to the quarterback
and the balls right there. You would see Noah Fafida,
the underside scrambling quarterback for Arizona, when he saw the
drop zone his eye. You'd see it every time on film.
He's going right to tat because you know tech going
to be open right like and you know and and
and then he can even throw an Aaron ball and
it is going to be speared by those long arms.
(15:57):
But Te's a very good receiver. It's not I would say,
an Alfa Alpha wide receiver one in the NFL, but
it certainly an acceptable Drake London like wide receiver one
if that's what he ends up going to an offense
like that. But like I said, his destiny, I would
prefer that he get in a situation. Not everyone can
play across from a Jamar Chase or a Justin Jefferson
(16:17):
or someone like that. But if he could get into
that situation, you could just allow him to do tet
things while the other guy is rampaging on the other
side of the field.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
You've got tet right now. Going to Dallas, had picked
number twelve, he's Is he the best contested catch receiver
in this in this draft class?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah? Probably yes, Yeah, in terms of contested catches for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, it feels that way, and that you know, Ceedee,
Lamb's already awesome at that. But that is a team
where the drop off after Lamb it goes to what
Tolbert and then it's I don't know, are they going
to actually play Jonathan Mingo in one of the worst
trades that nobody talks about, that fourth rounder that they
gave up for Alison Mingo.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Let's just say they they need to draft a receiver
real quick because right now on their projected depth chart,
Mingo is the wide receiver three and they need to
knock him down. Maybe even wide receiver four is a
little bit above Jonathan Mingo's import as to what he
actually is. So they need some help.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
All right, Let's go on our next receiver. Matthew Golden.
This is the speedster from Texas. You've comped him to
Chris Olave and you've got him going in the first round.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah. The thing that evokes Olave is Olave. So I
always think of it as like a jet ski, you know,
just because I'm from northern Minnesota with you know, but
like the throttle ford, throttle back, throttle forward, throttle back,
the speed change temple guys. And that's like Matthew Goh,
you just think of him out there on the jet
ski throttles forward but then throttle back, throttle forward. He
(17:50):
changes his speed so well that that's how he ends
up creating separation because he keeps guys off of him. Right. So,
so along the stem you're able to keep the defense
off you, and once you get to the route break,
you got a little more room to maneuver, and he
certainly has the footwork and agility through there. He's a
good route runner. And then I think that's a part
of the reason why no one was seeing that four
(18:12):
two nine come in, because he does not play full
throttle all the time, certainly along the routestem by design, right,
I mean, that's what leads to the separation rate that
he has, very very good with that. This is also
a guy even though he is quote unquote undersize at
that combine five ten, one nine one, I know that
he can play on the boundary. He can absolutely be
drafted by a team that's like you are one of
(18:33):
our starting bowery wide receivers going forward. Because gold improved
the concept of that in college. Yeah, first two years
was at Houston, and then last year at Texas he
did it, you know. I mean he was the dude
down the stretch there when they were making a run
trying to get to the national championship. And in part
because Matthew Golden got injured right before Treveon Henderson did
his seventy five yard touch and run delayed screen right
(18:54):
before halftime. Those two things in conjunction took all the
wind owt of the Longhorns' sales, and the rest was
history as far as Ohio State goes. But Golden can
interchangeably play between the slot or the boundary, so creative
offensive staffs you can move him around to try to
get matchup advantages for you. This is a guy and
probably the only other dude in the class besides Tep
(19:16):
McMillan that you know, if we're not counting Hunter, you know,
the wide receivers only that proved that he could win
at all three levels consistently at the field during his career.
I'm a big fan of his game, and he absolutely
should go in the first round.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
All right, Matthew Golden, And I'm pulling up your mock
draft right now. You've got him going to Seattle, which
makes which makes a ton of sense at pick number eighteen.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, Seattle. The best case scenario for Seattle would be
if Teed McMillan had the free fall. And you know
there are scenarios, right this is that would be more
of the Lloyd Christmas. You're saying there's a chance point zero.
But if Ted got there, you know, because like you
were talking about, you know, with Cooper Cup and then
it's JSN. It's two guys that probably should be playing
(20:01):
mostly in the slot. Obviously it's JSN going to be
playing the boundary this year a lot more. But that's
why they can't take a book. I'd be fun to
to reunite Buka with js N, you know, but you
can't do that. You have too many guys with similar
skill sets. You're trying to build a basketball team with
your pass catching group, and you would have a bunch
of small forwards at that time, or point guards or
(20:22):
however you want to you know, look at that or whatever.
But Matthew Golden, like I said, a guy that you
can project to take over a boundary spot on day
one and he can win downfield. And of course that
team has experience with the undersized U boundary receivers. They've
they've done that for for a little bit now, right
locket and yeah, Golden Tape back in the day played
(20:43):
some out there. So yeah, I think I think Golden
would be a good fit.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
When you're on a jet ski, it's awesome. Jet skis
are a blast. You know, you're powering through the water,
You're you know, you're doing big cuts of waves, you know,
and you open it up, you throttle open, You're going
Thi down the lake. Everybody hates you. Everybody on that
lake freaking hates you. It's so loud and noisy, you know,
(21:09):
you know, like it's a pristine day. The water's calm.
You can hear loon in the background. And then.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
And then Thor comes out of nowhere dressed like Kenny Powers.
Remember in Kenny Park, you ever watch He's bonding down
and Kenny Powers out there on the jet ski. He's
like dressed, you know, it's like dressed like a suit
and he's got a beer and every day like, yeah,
that's that. That's me coming out. Someone's dropping their morning
coffee on their.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Decks exactly exactly. It's like it's it's it's awesome for
you and it's bad for everybody around you. That is
that's the jet ski. Let's go to your number three
ranked receiver and if I I'm gonna you and I
are terrible with names, let's hope we get this right.
A mecha Eggbuka. Yeah, perfect, thank you. I've been I've
(21:55):
been working on that. Thank you very much. Your comp
here is the aforementioned Jackson Smith and Jigba. He is
a true slot receiver and you know whatever team, whatever
team takes him, is going to is going to need
to use him that way.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
That's right. Yeah, I mean he is your slot dude,
but what and he's not going to give you the
explosive plays he will give you. He will improve your
offensive your offensive efficiency right away. I mean, he's the
paper cut guy. He's going to pay per cut your
paper cut, your paper cut you. And the more space
that he has the work with, the more he's going
to abuse this single coverage. They're very, very good route runner.
(22:30):
He just understands what he's doing. And it's not like
this guy's a bumba an athlete. He was a former
five star recruit who was at the top of his
receiver class when he was coming out. Yeah, he went
into a receiver room that I believe had four other
first round wide receivers. Every time he got there, it
was a Lave Wilson, Marvin Harrison Junior, and JSN and
then him. He's going to be the fifth one from
(22:51):
the receiving Yeah, absolutely ridiculous. But the other you know,
I was talking about this with Ted Buka is even
better with his own coverage thing. It is just a
media He only needs like a half step from the
defense and he's like, okay, this is where they're going, right,
Like he just sees the whole chess board and he's
always available to his quarterback. You know, on those zone concepts,
(23:11):
he doesn't drop the ball five point five percent career
drop rate on two hundred five career receptions. And then
this is also a guy who is very good in
contested situations for a slot guy. And what that is
is on money downs when it was third and four,
third and six, whatever, they love to just try to
fit balls into windows too, Igbuga because they know he's
(23:33):
going to catch it his career. In his career, he
was twenty five of forty six in contested situations. And
it wasn't because he could not create separation. He absolutely can.
His separation rate was one of the highest in the
nation these past couple of years. It's because he is
so reliable. The quarterback will try to fit it into
a window when you just need those five yards and
he is going to convert for you. So he's going
(23:55):
to make an offense really happy.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
All right, that's how much do you think he was
just aiighted by the rest of Ohio State's receiver room, right,
you know, over the here he is running from the slot.
They've got these amazing boundary receivers who demand their own coverage.
And so I've had some people at least ask openly,
was Agbuka a product of Ohio State's amazing roster and
(24:20):
how much of that would it? You know, would that
same level of productivity automatically transfer to the NFL? Do
you think that's a fair concern.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I think it helped him in the same way that
it helped JSN because those two guys, the better the
boundary receivers are around them, the more space you get,
and they're going to destroy you in space. But it
didn't make either of them right, Like Egbuka was the
number one receiver in his class, and then we haven't
gotten the testing metrics on him. I don't really care
about that, though. There are numerous reports that he was
(24:50):
running in the four fourds in high school. And by
the way, real Analytics that does the in game data
on the chips, I've been looking at those a lot
more in my value, because the NFL has begun to
look at them a lot more in their evaluations, Eggbuka
had a ninety six point zero in game athleticism score.
So that's a combination of your your max speed, your
(25:10):
max acceleration, your max deceleration, your agility, you know, all
these sort of different things. Ninety six point zero means
he's a ninety six percentile athlete for that position. So
this is a guy who is a really good athlete
for the role that he plays in as all the
athleticism he needs, the apolish that he has as a receiver,
it speaks for hisself and so does the pedigree.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
All right, when we when we come back from a breakthrough,
let's hit him four or five more wide receivers that
you think are going to be taken day one, day
two in that kind of range, including the next guy
we're going to talk about, a polarizing player, Luther Burden,
when we come back. Welcome back Fantasy Football Weekly. Paul
(25:57):
charchiin Thorn Eistrom with you. Thanks for hanging out over
the break Luther Burden from Missouri. You've comped him to
Percy Harvin, but you know, I've seen a lot. I've
seen a lot of different opinions on him. People who
love the athleticism, the strength, and other people who see
some who see maybe at best a Deebo Samuel, an
(26:17):
inconsistent player who's got to get the ball behind the
line of scrimmage. You hope he breaks the tackle. What
do you think about Luther Burden and where do you
think he's going to go in this draft?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Church? Is it the rorshack test when they say your
response it says more about you than it does. Yeah,
that's that's Luther Burden, Because I feel like Luther Burden
has one of the more straightforward evaluations of any guy oka,
especially in this receiverse. He just is what he is.
He's the manufactured touch slot who is an absolute Ferrari
(26:47):
with the ball in his hands. But the limitation, of
course is, for whatever reason, that level of movement it
is not apparent with his route running, and so you
don't want him running down the field that there's not
a lot of the way I put it as salesman ship,
like he just doesn't have a good idea of putting
himself in the driver's seat of the other car and
thinking through like, oh, you know, if I was to
(27:07):
try to fool that guy, how would I do it?
Like there's just not a lot of that with his game.
He's not very sudden with that. But with the ball
in his hands, it's a different thing. And that's where
you know the Percy Harvin thing. It's the same sort
of a deal that propulsion going forward. You have the
noss button where you hit it and then all of
a sudden you're at top speed immediately, and just like
Percy Harvin, you get an element of power there right
(27:30):
where it becomes the acceleration times the forest time, you
know whatever that equation is from Einstein where he all
of a sudden he equals him squared right here. That's
that is exactly right. Yeah, it's it's it's the thing
of you know, he's only two hundred and six pounds,
but the speed. You know, usually we talk about speed
to power conversion from edge defenders. The same principle applies
(27:52):
here and you get the contact balance with some tackle
breaking power from Luther Burden because of that. But it
was really fun watching his tape because you got to see,
you know, both how good of an athlete he is,
but then also how creative Missouri's staff was, where all
these kinds of different concepts designed to get him the
ball in space like one of them. They'd have the
four receivers, and then they would have Burden lineup in
(28:14):
the backfield as the running back, so they technically have
five receivers on the field. They have three receivers on
one side. They would spray down the field just clear
out routes, and then they would leak Burden out of
the backfield exactly. Yeah, and you put him into basically
the whole playbook for Missouri the last couple of years.
The whole idea of it was get Luther the ball
in a situation where he just has to break one
(28:37):
tackle and we get an explosive play. So basically their
whole playbook was designed like that. The manufacturer touched off
the other thing. Every time you saw the defense going
to a drop zone, you were about to see a
four to five yard hitch route run from Luther Burden
and the ball coming right then. And for people out there,
hitch routes just a mini hook. You know, a hook
(28:57):
is like at ten eleven yards depth hitches four to five,
and you almost always see it with drop zones because
the wide receiver one on that team has been told, yeah,
just you see them all drop back, it's four or
five yards, turn around, the balls come in, and that's
what it was for Luther Burden. You get a free
catch and run opportunity. But yeah, I mean eighty four
of his career catches Luther Burden out of one hundred
(29:18):
and ninety two came behind the line of scrimmage, speaking
to how many of these touches were manufactured. And I
think charge with the debate of Luther Burden, you have
people that are in on Luther Burden, people out on
Luther Burden, even though again it's a straightforward evaluation. So
it's like, where are these these disagreements and these discrepancies
coming from. I think this has more to do with
the one is sort of the pratfalls of having a
(29:41):
job like mine that people don't understand, which is you
rank out a board as a media member. You don't
have an offensive scheme, you don't have an offensive coordinator
that's saying, hey, this is the scheme, this is the
position I need, this is the sort of player type
that I need for that position, right or advice of
on defense. And so because of that, you're just trying
(30:03):
to rank everyone in a vacuum, and the people that
don't like Luthor Burden. They're the ones saying, well, this
guy's not a wide receiver one in the NFL. He's
a manufactured touch guy. And how am I going to
put that value with you know, a guy that like
Tad or you know, one of these different Matthew gold
and whatever. But like, whereas the people that love him
are like, this guy's clearly the best with the ball
(30:24):
in his hands. He is going to manufacture yards and
if he finds the right situation, he's going to put
up Ludacris numbers. And both sides are right, you know
what I mean, It's just we don't know what situation
he's going into. This is a situation specific player right
where he needs to get into that thing in the
best one for him would be the team that has
(30:45):
the best boundary receiver. That's right, Yes, that's what it is,
because you will naturally create that space. I was talking
about that with like Buka, he wins before the catch.
Luther Burden is winning after the catch, and the more
space that is provided for him, now it can be
a thing where you're in you just have that one
tackle to break and then you get the explosive play
but that's Luther Burden.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Let me give you the ideal landing spot for Luther Burden. Yeah, Bengals.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Bengals would be good. Bengals would be really good. That
is Larry David. That would be pretty pretty good.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
It would be. My worry on Luther Burden is just this.
It's all these short catches. You noted forty four percent
of his catches were behind the line of scrimmage. We've
seen this with Deebo Samuel where he'll have a four
catch game and you know, most of those catches are
added near the line of scrimmage, and if he doesn't
break a tackle, he gets tackled near the line of
(31:40):
scrimmage and you've got a you know, this is just
a fantasy standpoint. You've got a four catch, thirty yard
game on your hands, and that's that. You know, that's
not saying, but we all know that Deebo Samuel can
also be incredibly special and when he you know, when
he does break a tackle, cyon are a highlight time
and we remember those things. I think there's going to
be just good and bad games for Luther Burden, depending
(32:01):
a lot, of course on landing spot. Do you uh
do you see, like Percy Harvin went in the he
fell to the middle of the second round when he
was drafted in part because of personality concerns and character
concerns and stuff like that, much of which ended up
being actually pretty valid. Where do you have Luther Burden
going not in the first round. I don't believe.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Well, Percy actually was twenty second overall.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Oh was he okay? Thanks Zicher, I had misremembered.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yeah. I think Luther he's right, you know, right on
that line. Whether it is at the very end of
Thursday night or whether it is right away on Friday night,
I think it's gonna be one of the two. I
think Luther Burden is a top forty pick, but I'm
not definitely not saying Locke for the first round. But
but if he gets out of it, like I said,
I think you're gonna see teams trying to move up
(32:46):
for him, because you're gonna have the teams where like
you saw last year at Missouri, the reason his stats
were down is because the offense wasn't his gut. It
didn't have anything to do with Luther Burden. It had
to do with the fact that defenses could collapse on
him because Missouri didn't have a running game anymore, and
they the other receivers weren't great, and the quarterback play
was atrocia. So he got ganged up on and he
(33:07):
got frustrated by that, et cetera. But it shows again
you need to get this guy into a situation where
he's an awesome for instant third banana, which is what
it would be with the Bengals. Yeah, that's how his
game plays up. He is not a Michael Jordan. He's uh,
you know my basketball metaphor sting Scottie Piper a little
or or you know, a Dennis Rodman.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I guess if I were to put Burden on the
team based in if he is going to go early
second round, it's not very exciting, but I could see
Tennessee going cam Ward and then second round Luther Bird.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Kim Ward loves thrown into the slot, just as every
strippo about that.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
All right, well there you go. That's so I'll go
to war with that prediction. Uh, your fifth rank running back, Sorry,
wide receiver Jaden Higgins from Iowa State. This is not
Iowa State had two really good wide receivers. It turns
out yeah, highly productive. Your comp here is Kenny Galladay,
which makes people go, oh, but how about this rass
(34:05):
nine point nine to two holy cow?
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah yeah, and incredible at that size. The six' four
and change two fourteen runs the four four seven has
the thirty nine inch Vertical and this, guy this guy
has the wingspan of an offensive. Tackle we're at the
eighty with. Him so he's got the super duper long
arms and he's a he's a smooth operator out. There
the movement is really really smooth with. Him the thing
(34:30):
he doesn't Have it wasn't a surprise to see him
duck the three cone and the shuttle the side decide
agility isn't, great but the north south stuff. Is and
you can build a route tree around him where you
can leverage his. Strengths just have him going north south,
right like you don't the rout breaks with, You like
you don't want him running the whip route for. You
you have another guy doing. That but this is a
(34:52):
guy that can win. Downtown he can also win short and.
INTERMEDIATE i mean that's more stuff like the slants and the. Drags,
yeah but he doesn't he doesn't drop in, thing and
he's got the catch, radius LIKE i, said is absolutely.
Enormous but his career drop rate over four seasons and
three hundred and fifty targets three point zero.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Perds that's.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
It that is. Absurd that's a drop a year thor
it's absolutely. Insane and then three consecutive seasons with two
point two percent drop rate or. Less it's only at
three percent because he dropped a couple more his true
freshman season when he was in THE. Fcs so he
does not drop. Balls and that includes in contested situations
deep forty five of eighty one career contested catch situations
(35:35):
For higgins in this bad receiver, CLASS i just really
like what he brings to the. Table this is the
guy who's going to be a really good wide receiver
two boundary guy in THE nfl for a long long.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Time so, okay if he's gonna be vertical downfield is
where he's gonna be really. Helpful how about that we
talked about The. Cowboys how about this is Your cowboys landing.
Spot it picked forty four where you, KNOW cd can
do a lot of, things all the amazing separation and,
everything but, see he's not a deep downfield. Burner this would.
Give this would feel like a natural compliment To Ceedee
(36:08):
lamb for me If Jayden higgins found his way To.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Dallas, Yes, Jayden, YEAH i mean he's actually the guy
that they want a mingo to, be AND i guess
The panthers want a mingo to be. Before but this
is actually that that guy that is gonna win for
you on the boundary.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Consistently all, right let's go to your number six rank wide,
Receiver Elick iomanor DID I i THINK i got that?
Right is it IOMANOR iomannera? Nice i'm two for two
on tricky. Names it's like it's.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Like lord of the manor But? Iomanner?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
OH i like? It all, right your comp Here's Brailan.
Edwards When Braylon edwards came, OUT i thought he was
gonna be, great AND i really ended up being a very,
middling underproductive career and that was kind of a. Bummer
he hid national prominence a couple of years ago when
he Roasted Travis. Hunter, right had almost three hundred yards
in that, game and all of a, sudden people are
(36:55):
taking are Following Elick.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Iomanor, YEAH i mean this is a big boundary receiver
six two two oh, six and he has the downtown
wheels and he knows what he's doing down the, field
the ball skills and then pinning people behind that big
muscular frame of. His but this is a former track.
STAR i don't think people realize how athletic he, was
but at that size he ran a four four four
(37:18):
and thirty eight and a half vertical is spectacular at that.
Size you see that propulsion off the, snap but it's
it's a there's rawness to his. Game this is a
kid who came From canada and so he picked up
the sport late and then when he went to, college
it was At stanford and they have an abysmal passing,
attack so they they sort of used them and in
(37:38):
sort of this sort of limited way where it was
it was leveraging the downfield. Stuff but he is really
really good down the. Field As Travis hunter learned first
hand in that game in twenty twenty, three you don't
get a, lot you, know of the yak with With
iomanner because a lot of those those plays where you're
getting value from, him it is further down the, field
(37:59):
so so that that's where you see that the speed,
leverage but it needs a little bit of. Work it's
not a finished package right. Now you're gonna have to
work on the routes a little, bit especially if you
want to try to get him winning in the intermediate section.
More and then the release package is a little bit
raw as. Well but they're the physical package. Here and
the ceiling is one of the highest in the. Class
(38:21):
so when you just look at it like, That so
who is gonna take a swing On Io manners upside
walk to see on that there is a lower floor
than some of these other, guys but one of the
higher ceilings in the receiver.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Class i've Got iomanner going sixty two To. Buffalo buffalo
needs the receiver. HELP i feel like end of second
round does end the second round feel about right for?
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Him, YEAH i mean it's gonna. Be it's gonna be
somewhere there in the second, round and we'll have to
see where the other wide receivers end up. Going but,
YEAH i would probably IF i had to, say, RIGHT
i probably put it middle. Second but would it be
a surprise felt in the Second, no it wouldn't at,
All like because again there is the rawness to his,
game And i'm curious the sort of situational assumptions that
(39:03):
teams are, making you, know that are shopping for receivers
there on day two of like this isn't a great receiver,
class and then should we buy the Floor we're about
to talk about more of a floor prospect or should
we get a ceiling on a guy Like Io. Manner
it's going to be really interesting to see that as.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Well, yeah and Maybe Kean coleman ends up being great
in his second season and The bills don't go this,
direction BUT i think they could Use they could use
some depth of the. POSITION i want to hit two
more guys and let's do. Them we'll have to do
them a little bit more. Quickly Trey harris from Ole.
Miss your comp here Is Alan. Robbinson he was highly,
productive went healthy at Ole, miss but some worry that
(39:42):
that production was a byproduct of a first repassing scheme
From Jackson. DART i Like Trey.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Harris he's been producing for a long. Time he got
on the field early when he went To louisiana tack
and then he transferred up a course into The Lane
kiffin offense and he was the wide receiver. One and
the biggest criticis About jackson darts evaluation as he locked
into the first rue through the first read all the,
time that was Tray. Harris, yeah, right SO i mean
this guy's. Good he is. Reliable but, yeah and just
(40:10):
speaking to that last, year five point one five yards
per route. Run, NO i did not. Speak that is. Gigantic,
holy that is like It it's like you're two and
a half is really?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Good right, right you're.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Double it is absolutely. Absurd and those games where he was,
healthy he averaged almost one hundred and thirty yards per game,
Receiving so, LIKE i, mean that is legit doing that
in THE. Sec but you, know to the point of
sort of the empty calorie. Stats he had seventy nine
targets last. Year forty of them came on either hitch
routes we talked about hitch routs before or wide receiver.
(40:45):
Screens that's as empty calory as it. Gets and then
With harris that the other stuff he would. Do you
have the downtown, stuff and he is a good down
the field, receiver but you'd have, that and then you'd
have the slants right, there there Wasn't this isn't a,
guy it's another. Guy he ain't gonna do any whip
routes for, you you, know the agility, thing and now
we snap off the clean break and it's our kami
(41:07):
and now we're going To he's not going to do
that stuff for, you but if you can par that
route treat down for. Him the hands are. Reliable he
has that big. Frame he's athletic in that big. Frame
so that's what you're gonna get from. Him but, yeah
just keep in mind with those, stats how much of
it was empty?
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Calorie all, Right last, GUY i want to hit, On Jaalen,
noel who is somebody That i've seen a lot of
people falling in love, with and there's a lot of
people that like. Him you comped him to one of
my favorite, Guys Khalil, shakier so you, Know i'm automatically
super interested. Here and this is Another iowa state guy
who This Jaylen noel playing in the Slot Jaden higgins
on the.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Outside, Yeah Jalen noel is just so. Reliable this is
you talk about high. Floors this is one of the
higher floor receivers in this entire. Class this, ceiling, though of,
course is cap by the frame and then the fact
that he is only going to be playing in the,
slot but he's going to be starting from day one
for whoever, pay and he is your long term starting slot.
(42:02):
GUY i mean that that's just what it's going to.
Be he's also you, know what's interesting about him is
he can win down the. Field he you, know he's
smaller and he has a small. Wingspan, yeah so it's
not a big catch, radius but he knows what he's
doing running routes and that includes getting being able to
stack guys when he's going down the. Field so for
a slot, guy you get some more of.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
That.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Uh this is the guy where earlier in his career
he had some issues with concentration. Drops he seems to
have solved that last year four zero point eight percent
drop rate on a bunch of different. Targets take. That
heel not bad at. All and this is the guy
thirty nine career contested, opportunities he converted fifty one percent of.
Them so it's like it's not, again it's a guy
who can get down the. Field it's also a guy
(42:43):
in congested quarters who can make the catch as. Well
and he proved this pre draft. Process first of, all
nobody could cover him in the one on ones in
mobile and then he tested absolutely incredibly of the four
to three nine he had a six eight two three
cone way above, average four to one seven shut away,
average forty one and a half inch vertical absolutely. Elite
(43:04):
as broad jump was over eleven. Feet that was a
lead to nine seven to three ras and he did
all the. Tests So Jalen noah is a guy that
fantasy owners need to keep a close eye.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
On he ran a four to three and he's gonna
be a slot. Receiver i'm trying to think of how
many other four to three guys are running from the
slot in THE.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Nfl and a guy who gets the top speed real.
QUICK i mean you saw his tenure split a one
five to. One was was you, know amongst the top
ten of the receiver. Class it's it's a guy with
and you KNOW i Mentioned. Shakir that's what he reminded
me of down there in the one on. Ones that
the frame is fairly. Similar of, course the way they'll
be deployed as. Similar It's noel is a bit better
(43:45):
of an. Athlete so that's the, one like you, know
you sort of, say LIKE i don't want to say
Rich man's that's probably taking a little bit, far but
like you're getting a little bit more athletic juice out
of a guy who the rest of his skill set
it's rock, solid Like, Shakir are.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
We talking third For?
Speaker 3 (44:00):
NOEL i Think noel goes in the second especially in
this receiver class that. Stinks, Yeah LIKE I i think
he deserves to go in round. Two well we'll end
up seeing but if THE nfl agrees with, me BUT
i think he should be around to pick in this,
class all, Right.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Well we'll see how that plays itself. Out we've got,
uh that's. UH i think we managed to hit on
if you Include Travis. HUNTER i think we hit on
nine or ten, guys which is not too. Bad we
got to your top eight Plus Travis. Hunter we encourage
people to check out all your work at fantasylife dot.
Com you've got a lot more detail on a lot
more receivers than the guys that we've covered. Here but
great to get prepped up and ready to go at
(44:37):
the receiver. Position and next week we get to break
down tight ends at a Much is this one of
the deepest classes of tight end in? Years it feels that.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Way this is this is a good tight end. Class
this is a really good tight, End it really.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
IS i, mean Brock bauer is obviously amazing last, year
but we've got really highly productive college tight ends that
are going to hit the. Here and it's you, know
it's reasonable to talk about a bunch of, them whereas
you know most of yours, past we're, like, well there's like,
two maybe three guys that are gonna have a fantasy.
Impact we GOTTA i think we've got the potential of
(45:13):
like five or, six don't you think for tight ends
that could be meaningful?
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Here, yes, yes and that's the. Number. YEAH i, LIKE
i think we have five or six guys that are
going to be contributing fairly early TO nfl passing.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Offenses love. It we'll break down tight ends next. Week
thanks for, listening, Everybody Fantasy Football. Weekly Fantasy Football weekly
is a production Of. iHeartRadio for more podcasts From, iHeartRadio
visit The iHeartRadio, App Apple, podcasts or wherever you listen
to your favorite. Shows
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly
source for the nation's best fantasy football advice, speculation, and
whatever stupid stuff they decide to drop into the show.
Now here's your host, Paul Charchion.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly. I'm Paul Charchion, my guest,
as he has been for many of the last shows,
and we'll be for a few more thor nice strow,
Hey buddy, Hey, how you doing it? Is certainly your
time of year, isn't it? Ah? The best, the best?
And I know you're super busy. We love you find
time to get us up to speed on the rookies
every year, this time of year and this is this
(00:45):
is high demand thor season right here. I mean, this
is like you know, for me, when I'm in like
late August early September and everybody's getting ready for their
guillotine drafts, that's my busy, busiest time of the year.
This is this month is just nuts for you or
are you all prepped up to the point that now
it's just easy? I mean, nothing's your evaluation of players
(01:05):
doesn't change much at this point. Right as we get
into April.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I would love to say the latter, but you know
you're going deeper into the position. You know, when you
do a five hundred player big board like I do
with the five hundred comps, like I mean, it becomes
a real discussion down the board draftable grades and then
down the board and then you know who's who's gonna
be on there, who's gonna miss it? But yeah, like
there's there's a lot of guys to watch and to
dig into to get to a five hundred player bard.
(01:31):
So now we will we will be going right up
to the draft.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I love it. Okay, So we've got what rookie wide
receivers today, then next week tight ends week after that
quarterbacks and and it's quarterback has seen Well, we'll talk
more about it when we get to that episode. Feels
like it's been fairly stable other than cam Ward now
moving to the presumed one to one from where this
was a while ago. But let's let's talk wide receivers.
(01:56):
Just overall, we had had over the past four or
five years, we had had just these really deep classes
of rookie wide receivers that were good at the top,
middle end of the draft. This one, to me doesn't
feel like as strong a class. So just talk to
me before we get into specific guys, talk to me
about this rookie class of wide receivers.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, it's like we talked about with the running back
class from the other direction. These things are cyclical, and
after we had a couple bad running back classes in
a row, now we have one of the best that
we've seen in the last fifteen twenty years. Whereas with
wide receivers, like you mentioned, we had some stacked wide
receiver classes here in the recent past, and that everything
is cyclical. You can't have an awesome position class every year. Yeah,
(02:42):
you know you're going to get it on the other
side of the variants at some point, and that's what
we have that with this receiver class. This receiver class
is way way down from what we have seen in
the past couple of years. There are interesting prospects though,
there's a couple in here that absolutely should go in
the first round, and there's some interesting sleepers, but overall,
as far as class quality, this receiver class does not
(03:03):
stack up well against the last couple.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
All right, let's talk about Travis Hunter as his own
unique situation here, I think the fantasy utility on Travis
Hunter will be capped by just the snap count. But
talk to me about him. Where would if Travis Hunter
were only playing wide receiver and he, you know, was
going to be on the field as a full time
wide receiver. Where would Travis Hunter fit into this? And
(03:26):
do you just disagree with my understanding that he's just
not going to be on the field enough for him
to be somebody you can reliably count on from a
fantasy standpoint to the first.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Question, he would be wide receiver one, yeah, bullet and
he and of course he'd be one with the bullet
as well, So you're talking about a unicorn prospect there
that I do have a slightly different take as far
as the fantasy utility with Okay, I think this kid
starts out as a rookiet. Of course you're going to
be playing all the snaps on defense, but I think
it's going to be My ballpark is roughly forty percent
(03:59):
and could be up to fifty percent of the snaps
on offense. Whatever team takes him, you cannot afford not
to have him taking offensive snaps. In addition, for you
to the cornerback that you know that he's going to
be playing right away. You just have to get him
out there, and Travis Hunter, that's what he wants to do.
Travis Hunter wants to be the sho Heyo Tani of
the NFL. He's going to get that opportunity. That's something
(04:21):
that he's put out there. He does not want to
be a one way player. He wants to play both ways.
You can't put him out there one hundred percent of
the snaps on both right away, because you know we
are starting to walk at that point, you're in unprecedented
territory and your medical staff is going to tell you
that you are elevating his injury risk above where they
are comfortable. I think there's going to be discussions about
(04:42):
that between the medical staff, between your analytics department, and
then of course the coaching staff in the front off
is going to get involved with this as well. They're
going to come up with some sort of snapshare for
offense in his rookie season that people are comfortable with
starting and then you just see from there. But those
snaps when he is on the field, you are going
to be getting the ball to Travis Hunter. I think
the team and it has him, you will have one
non Travis Hunter playbook. You will have one Travis Hunter
(05:04):
Playboff he's on the field, they will be looking to
get him the ball. He's not gonna be out there
many running plays. They're not gonna ask him to block, right.
I mean that you're trying to keep him out of
the collisions as much as you can when you don't
when that ball is not in his hands. But I
do think he's gonna get enough snaps to be Fantasy
relevant as a rookie, especially because he's this classic best receiver.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And I think the catch with Travis Hunter is you
have to be playing in a format where it's okay
if he I think he's gonna have some two catch
twenty yard games because he's just not on the field
as much as every down players. And then there's gonna
be other games where he's gonna have five catches and
he's gonna do something special on three of them, and
he's gonna have explosive games. And so to me, you know,
(05:45):
when I when I look at him as a potentially
part time player, I think you just have to bake
in the understanding that Travis Hunter is gonna have some
games where the volume just isn't there is that fair?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
That is fair? And I think we're getting deeper into
the weeds or more inside baseball here, because when I
say forty percent, I'm talking about over the ocean of
snaps in a season, assuming his health. And I'm gonna
knock on when I say that. Yeah, But the way
that you get there in games where the game script
gets away one way or the other, I think that's
(06:19):
where you save the snaps, right, I mean, because you
only want him out there when he is juicing your
opportunity to win the football game. If we're down by
two touchdowns, all right, Travis, you know what, You're finishing
out the game on defense. But we can probably save
some hits for you here. Whereas games where they're closer throughout,
I think you will see him out there on the
field more than that forty percent, and they will probably
(06:40):
trying to look to get him the ball even more
because he can swing games.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
You've got Travis Hunter. I'm looking at your most current
mock draft at fantasylife dot com. You've got Travis Hunter
going third to the Giants. Yeah, that's a you know,
it's Russell Wilson or Jameis Winston throwing him the ball, which, honestly,
from a fantasy standpoint, I take Winston because we don't
care as much about the interceptions as we do the
long arm the you know, so he'll have funk quasi
(07:08):
functional quarterbacking. I don't you know, I don't love the
quarterbacking spot there for Travis Hunter, but that's okay, and
that I think that would make sense for him to
drop to the Giants. He's arguably the best player in
this class, right so him going third overall wouldn't be
a stretch.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
At all, one thousand percent, and he would be a
perfect fit for the Giants as far as the dude
takes over CB one right away and then that you know,
we'll say the forty percent of snaps as a rookie
on offense. Can you think of a more awesome second
banana for Elik Neighbors? Right, Like Elik Neighbors, He's gonna
be doing his thing on one side of the field
and then Hunter on the other side. And neither of
(07:45):
those guys, of course, has Tetoa McMillan size or you know,
somebody like that, but both of them not only can
slice and dice you a short and intermediate by manufacturing
stuff you hit him on the hands in space. They
also can both win downfield, right and and Travis Hunter
is incredible downfield because his best thing as both a
(08:05):
defender and a receiver is his ball skills. And you
don't have to take my word for it, ask any
of the coaches that have ever worked with Tim. It's like,
I've never seen a guy with these kind of ball
scales and down the field. Obviously he has all the
athleticism that he needs to get there, and he he
has like this gumbyl like contortionism to him as well.
So he's going to get the best of it with
(08:25):
this with his body control when the balls on the doorstep.
But the other thing that's kind of unique about him
beyond that is, uh, you know, and beyond you know,
just the sort of the rope ball skills is physically
he has longer arms than he should with his frame.
In fact, his arms are I believe just one inch shell.
(08:46):
I'm looking it up to to make sure I don't
yeah one inch shell or actually yeah, almost exactly one
inch sheth of teterol McMillan's wow the arm arm mu Yeah, yeah,
so you're you're you're talking about to do with with
super long arms and that manifest down the field there.
You know, as far as extending that catch radius, he
(09:07):
has more athleticism than you, so you know, again he's
usually getting the step and then he can obviously get
off the carpet and get in the air. And with
those long arms, he has the ability to get higher
than most of the guys that are defending him, certainly
in college, but that's going to be the case in
the NFL as well. He doesn't drop anything, So I
mean that's you're getting a home run hitter there. It's
(09:29):
also a guy of course, you know you hit him
on the hands in intermediate in space like I mentioned,
but talking about it, awesome second banana next to Moleague neighbors. Yeah,
the Giants you obviously would have you for the first
time since Eli Manning retired, you would have an interesting
passing offense.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
There's that's Trevis Hunter and I do want to we
will dive into the next set of of wide receivers
and especially when I want to hit you with like
Day one and two receivers, guys that could go in
the first three rounds. When I look at teams that
could for make a wide receiver in the first two
days of the draft. I think Buffalo's in or really
(10:05):
just Khalil Shakir. New England is always in play at receiver.
They never do much about it and they haven't really
been able to start a gold there, but they certainly
need one. The Jets fall off a cliff after Garrett Wilson. Yes,
Tennessee has Van Jefferson as a starter right now, so
you know that is a team that needs wide receiver help.
Las Vegas. We love Jacobe Myers on this show, but
(10:28):
they need a number one wide receiver. Washington, they just
landed de Ball on that one year deal, but it's
only a one year deal, and Luke McCaffrey barely even
got on the field last year. You and I differed
on him a little bit at this time last season,
and maybe his best days are still ahead of him.
But I feel like that's a team that, looking ahead,
could use the receiver. Green Bay's got all those, you know,
(10:48):
that gaggle of good receivers, but not that great receiver
that they've been searching for, and nobody's really emerged from
that group yet. Carolina spent that late first rounder on
Xavier lyget Lie last year, but they and so they
probably don't spend high equity on receiver again, but still
pretty telling that Adam Thielen was their best receiver last
year at age thirty four. And I'll hit you with
(11:11):
two more teams that I think are in play. New Orleans.
They've got Chris Olave but like the rest of the
receiver room is coming off ACL surgery. And then the Rams, right,
so they added Devonte Adams obviously at his age, that's
a stopgap measure and they ultimately need somebody opposite pokin Akua.
They could be an interesting team later in the draft.
And then Seattle, who signed Cooper Cup to a three
(11:34):
year deal, which I do not understand at his age
and given the metric drop offs that we've seen, but
he's not a long term solution. And they lost DK Metcalf,
So I think Seattle is in play as well.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I would the ones I would add, did you say
Jaguars and Cowboys.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I did not say Jaguars or Cowboys. Tell me why
you think they're they're in play here at receiver.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Well, with the Jaguars, you have Brian Thomas and you
like you, like Brian Thomas a lot outside. They need
guys that can advance the ball for them, and I
think they're a sneaky you know, everyone now is putting
Mason Graham to the Jay and I have plenty, but
I think they're If there's going to be a surprise
(12:13):
in the top five, I think it's Lee and Coleen
to commandeering that war room and saying I need I
need a dude who can advance the ball for me. Now,
this probably is more for our tight end conversation because
I think Tyler Warren could end up being that guy. Yes,
teterol McMillan, that might be. I like Tet, but might
be just slight slightly over where you should be. But
(12:35):
like Tyler Warren, it would be hard to argue against
him there, right, Like, that's a guy who is one
of the better way we'll talk about this in the
tight end prospect, but that's one of the best prospects
to come out at that position, particularly just with the
idea of moving that football forward.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, that makes sense, That makes sense. Yeah, I think
I think the Jaguars like Brent Strange, and I think
they're you know, I think that's part of why they
let Ingram go. So you know, I don't know if
they love Strange enough right now that they would pass
on potentially a different game changing tight end. Let's dive
into your wide receivers. You're number one ranked wide receiver
(13:11):
and again not counting Travis Hunters will put an asterisk
on that. That's Ted McMillan. You've already referred to your
comp on him as T Higgins, and the ball skills
on Ted McMillan are just sick.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
That's the thing. And like T Higgins, I think Ted's
destiny if he's defined the right situation, it would be
as an awesome wide receiver too. He kep you know,
in the same way that Drake London's a wide receiver.
Ted's also very similar to Drake London. But I you know,
if you're talking like a very dangerous offense and a
(13:47):
dangerous sort of contender, that's the role that I would
prefer Ted end. His tench ball scials are insane because
he has one of the biggest catch ratierses you'll see.
You know, obviously he's stretched out at a little over
sixty four and then he's got to long arms as well,
and his insure hands as well, Like he has some
(14:07):
highlight reels out there on YouTube, and you know, like
in the facility where he's you know, jumping up, catching
the ball between his legs and then putting the ball
through his legs before he lands, like all this sort
of he can do all sorts of ridiculous things, but
he's awesome in contested situations. Nineteen for thirty one last season,
he was number two and contested catches in this class
the year before that. This is also the thing people
(14:30):
nitpick him for, though, is his work against man coverage,
where it's it's not that he couldn't create separations that
sometimes it doesn't appear that he's even trying. It's it's
he is one of those guys with man coverage he
wants to It's sort of like a child who's afraid
in the dark and they're with their parent and they
want to sort of feel that their parent is next
(14:52):
to them. That's sort of what he's like with his
man defender. He wants to know where that do it
because his ball skills are so good and he positions
his body so so it's like when when he going
down on you know, along that stem, he sort of
wants to know, get his bearings with where is that guy?
And then it's the equation when the ball's on the doorstep,
what he's going to do with his body in his hands.
But his his separation rate against man coverage was very,
(15:15):
very low. Interestingly though, he was at the top of
the class in separation rate quote unquote against zone coverage.
And he has a very good zone coverage barometer or
calculator in his head. Like right after the snap, those
couple beats you see the movement of the defenders. Tet's
one of those guys that immediately knows where they are headed,
which means that he knows where the open spot of
grass is before it appears right And those are the
(15:37):
guys where it's like they're always available to the quarterback
and the balls right there. You would see Noah Fafida,
the underside scrambling quarterback for Arizona, when he saw the
drop zone his eye. You'd see it every time on film.
He's going right to tat because you know tech going
to be open right like and you know and and
and then he can even throw an Aaron ball and
it is going to be speared by those long arms.
(15:57):
But Te's a very good receiver. It's not I would say,
an Alfa Alpha wide receiver one in the NFL, but
it certainly an acceptable Drake London like wide receiver one
if that's what he ends up going to an offense
like that. But like I said, his destiny, I would
prefer that he get in a situation. Not everyone can
play across from a Jamar Chase or a Justin Jefferson
(16:17):
or someone like that. But if he could get into
that situation, you could just allow him to do tet
things while the other guy is rampaging on the other
side of the field.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
You've got tet right now. Going to Dallas, had picked
number twelve, he's Is he the best contested catch receiver
in this in this draft class?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah? Probably yes, Yeah, in terms of contested catches for sure.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, it feels that way, and that you know, Ceedee,
Lamb's already awesome at that. But that is a team
where the drop off after Lamb it goes to what
Tolbert and then it's I don't know, are they going
to actually play Jonathan Mingo in one of the worst
trades that nobody talks about, that fourth rounder that they
gave up for Alison Mingo.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Let's just say they they need to draft a receiver
real quick because right now on their projected depth chart,
Mingo is the wide receiver three and they need to
knock him down. Maybe even wide receiver four is a
little bit above Jonathan Mingo's import as to what he
actually is. So they need some help.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
All right, Let's go on our next receiver. Matthew Golden.
This is the speedster from Texas. You've comped him to
Chris Olave and you've got him going in the first round.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah. The thing that evokes Olave is Olave. So I
always think of it as like a jet ski, you know,
just because I'm from northern Minnesota with you know, but
like the throttle ford, throttle back, throttle forward, throttle back,
the speed change temple guys. And that's like Matthew Goh,
you just think of him out there on the jet
ski throttles forward but then throttle back, throttle forward. He
(17:50):
changes his speed so well that that's how he ends
up creating separation because he keeps guys off of him. Right. So,
so along the stem you're able to keep the defense
off you, and once you get to the route break,
you got a little more room to maneuver, and he
certainly has the footwork and agility through there. He's a
good route runner. And then I think that's a part
of the reason why no one was seeing that four
(18:12):
two nine come in, because he does not play full
throttle all the time, certainly along the routestem by design, right,
I mean, that's what leads to the separation rate that
he has, very very good with that. This is also
a guy even though he is quote unquote undersize at
that combine five ten, one nine one, I know that
he can play on the boundary. He can absolutely be
drafted by a team that's like you are one of
(18:33):
our starting bowery wide receivers going forward. Because gold improved
the concept of that in college. Yeah, first two years
was at Houston, and then last year at Texas he
did it, you know. I mean he was the dude
down the stretch there when they were making a run
trying to get to the national championship. And in part
because Matthew Golden got injured right before Treveon Henderson did
his seventy five yard touch and run delayed screen right
(18:54):
before halftime. Those two things in conjunction took all the
wind owt of the Longhorns' sales, and the rest was
history as far as Ohio State goes. But Golden can
interchangeably play between the slot or the boundary, so creative
offensive staffs you can move him around to try to
get matchup advantages for you. This is a guy and
probably the only other dude in the class besides Tep
(19:16):
McMillan that you know, if we're not counting Hunter, you know,
the wide receivers only that proved that he could win
at all three levels consistently at the field during his career.
I'm a big fan of his game, and he absolutely
should go in the first round.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
All right, Matthew Golden, And I'm pulling up your mock
draft right now. You've got him going to Seattle, which
makes which makes a ton of sense at pick number eighteen.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, Seattle. The best case scenario for Seattle would be
if Teed McMillan had the free fall. And you know
there are scenarios, right this is that would be more
of the Lloyd Christmas. You're saying there's a chance point zero.
But if Ted got there, you know, because like you
were talking about, you know, with Cooper Cup and then
it's JSN. It's two guys that probably should be playing
(20:01):
mostly in the slot. Obviously it's JSN going to be
playing the boundary this year a lot more. But that's
why they can't take a book. I'd be fun to
to reunite Buka with js N, you know, but you
can't do that. You have too many guys with similar
skill sets. You're trying to build a basketball team with
your pass catching group, and you would have a bunch
of small forwards at that time, or point guards or
(20:22):
however you want to you know, look at that or whatever.
But Matthew Golden, like I said, a guy that you
can project to take over a boundary spot on day
one and he can win downfield. And of course that
team has experience with the undersized U boundary receivers. They've
they've done that for for a little bit now, right
locket and yeah, Golden Tape back in the day played
(20:43):
some out there. So yeah, I think I think Golden
would be a good fit.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
When you're on a jet ski, it's awesome. Jet skis
are a blast. You know, you're powering through the water,
You're you know, you're doing big cuts of waves, you know,
and you open it up, you throttle open, You're going
Thi down the lake. Everybody hates you. Everybody on that
lake freaking hates you. It's so loud and noisy, you know,
(21:09):
you know, like it's a pristine day. The water's calm.
You can hear loon in the background. And then.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
And then Thor comes out of nowhere dressed like Kenny Powers.
Remember in Kenny Park, you ever watch He's bonding down
and Kenny Powers out there on the jet ski. He's
like dressed, you know, it's like dressed like a suit
and he's got a beer and every day like, yeah,
that's that. That's me coming out. Someone's dropping their morning
coffee on their.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Decks exactly exactly. It's like it's it's it's awesome for
you and it's bad for everybody around you. That is
that's the jet ski. Let's go to your number three
ranked receiver and if I I'm gonna you and I
are terrible with names, let's hope we get this right.
A mecha Eggbuka. Yeah, perfect, thank you. I've been I've
(21:55):
been working on that. Thank you very much. Your comp
here is the aforementioned Jackson Smith and Jigba. He is
a true slot receiver and you know whatever team, whatever
team takes him, is going to is going to need
to use him that way.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
That's right. Yeah, I mean he is your slot dude,
but what and he's not going to give you the
explosive plays he will give you. He will improve your
offensive your offensive efficiency right away. I mean, he's the
paper cut guy. He's going to pay per cut your
paper cut, your paper cut you. And the more space
that he has the work with, the more he's going
to abuse this single coverage. They're very, very good route runner.
(22:30):
He just understands what he's doing. And it's not like
this guy's a bumba an athlete. He was a former
five star recruit who was at the top of his
receiver class when he was coming out. Yeah, he went
into a receiver room that I believe had four other
first round wide receivers. Every time he got there, it
was a Lave Wilson, Marvin Harrison Junior, and JSN and
then him. He's going to be the fifth one from
(22:51):
the receiving Yeah, absolutely ridiculous. But the other you know,
I was talking about this with Ted Buka is even
better with his own coverage thing. It is just a
media He only needs like a half step from the
defense and he's like, okay, this is where they're going, right,
Like he just sees the whole chess board and he's
always available to his quarterback. You know, on those zone concepts,
(23:11):
he doesn't drop the ball five point five percent career
drop rate on two hundred five career receptions. And then
this is also a guy who is very good in
contested situations for a slot guy. And what that is
is on money downs when it was third and four,
third and six, whatever, they love to just try to
fit balls into windows too, Igbuga because they know he's
(23:33):
going to catch it his career. In his career, he
was twenty five of forty six in contested situations. And
it wasn't because he could not create separation. He absolutely can.
His separation rate was one of the highest in the
nation these past couple of years. It's because he is
so reliable. The quarterback will try to fit it into
a window when you just need those five yards and
he is going to convert for you. So he's going
(23:55):
to make an offense really happy.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
All right, that's how much do you think he was
just aiighted by the rest of Ohio State's receiver room, right,
you know, over the here he is running from the slot.
They've got these amazing boundary receivers who demand their own coverage.
And so I've had some people at least ask openly,
was Agbuka a product of Ohio State's amazing roster and
(24:20):
how much of that would it? You know, would that
same level of productivity automatically transfer to the NFL? Do
you think that's a fair concern.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I think it helped him in the same way that
it helped JSN because those two guys, the better the
boundary receivers are around them, the more space you get,
and they're going to destroy you in space. But it
didn't make either of them right, Like Egbuka was the
number one receiver in his class, and then we haven't
gotten the testing metrics on him. I don't really care
about that, though. There are numerous reports that he was
(24:50):
running in the four fourds in high school. And by
the way, real Analytics that does the in game data
on the chips, I've been looking at those a lot
more in my value, because the NFL has begun to
look at them a lot more in their evaluations, Eggbuka
had a ninety six point zero in game athleticism score.
So that's a combination of your your max speed, your
(25:10):
max acceleration, your max deceleration, your agility, you know, all
these sort of different things. Ninety six point zero means
he's a ninety six percentile athlete for that position. So
this is a guy who is a really good athlete
for the role that he plays in as all the
athleticism he needs, the apolish that he has as a receiver,
it speaks for hisself and so does the pedigree.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
All right, when we when we come back from a breakthrough,
let's hit him four or five more wide receivers that
you think are going to be taken day one, day
two in that kind of range, including the next guy
we're going to talk about, a polarizing player, Luther Burden,
when we come back. Welcome back Fantasy Football Weekly. Paul
(25:57):
charchiin Thorn Eistrom with you. Thanks for hanging out over
the break Luther Burden from Missouri. You've comped him to
Percy Harvin, but you know, I've seen a lot. I've
seen a lot of different opinions on him. People who
love the athleticism, the strength, and other people who see
some who see maybe at best a Deebo Samuel, an
(26:17):
inconsistent player who's got to get the ball behind the
line of scrimmage. You hope he breaks the tackle. What
do you think about Luther Burden and where do you
think he's going to go in this draft?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Church? Is it the rorshack test when they say your
response it says more about you than it does. Yeah,
that's that's Luther Burden, Because I feel like Luther Burden
has one of the more straightforward evaluations of any guy oka,
especially in this receiverse. He just is what he is.
He's the manufactured touch slot who is an absolute Ferrari
(26:47):
with the ball in his hands. But the limitation, of
course is, for whatever reason, that level of movement it
is not apparent with his route running, and so you
don't want him running down the field that there's not
a lot of the way I put it as salesman ship,
like he just doesn't have a good idea of putting
himself in the driver's seat of the other car and
thinking through like, oh, you know, if I was to
(27:07):
try to fool that guy, how would I do it?
Like there's just not a lot of that with his game.
He's not very sudden with that. But with the ball
in his hands, it's a different thing. And that's where
you know the Percy Harvin thing. It's the same sort
of a deal that propulsion going forward. You have the
noss button where you hit it and then all of
a sudden you're at top speed immediately, and just like
Percy Harvin, you get an element of power there right
(27:30):
where it becomes the acceleration times the forest time, you
know whatever that equation is from Einstein where he all
of a sudden he equals him squared right here. That's
that is exactly right. Yeah, it's it's it's the thing
of you know, he's only two hundred and six pounds,
but the speed. You know, usually we talk about speed
to power conversion from edge defenders. The same principle applies
(27:52):
here and you get the contact balance with some tackle
breaking power from Luther Burden because of that. But it
was really fun watching his tape because you got to see,
you know, both how good of an athlete he is,
but then also how creative Missouri's staff was, where all
these kinds of different concepts designed to get him the
ball in space like one of them. They'd have the
four receivers, and then they would have Burden lineup in
(28:14):
the backfield as the running back, so they technically have
five receivers on the field. They have three receivers on
one side. They would spray down the field just clear
out routes, and then they would leak Burden out of
the backfield exactly. Yeah, and you put him into basically
the whole playbook for Missouri the last couple of years.
The whole idea of it was get Luther the ball
in a situation where he just has to break one
(28:37):
tackle and we get an explosive play. So basically their
whole playbook was designed like that. The manufacturer touched off
the other thing. Every time you saw the defense going
to a drop zone, you were about to see a
four to five yard hitch route run from Luther Burden
and the ball coming right then. And for people out there,
hitch routes just a mini hook. You know, a hook
(28:57):
is like at ten eleven yards depth hitches four to five,
and you almost always see it with drop zones because
the wide receiver one on that team has been told, yeah,
just you see them all drop back, it's four or
five yards, turn around, the balls come in, and that's
what it was for Luther Burden. You get a free
catch and run opportunity. But yeah, I mean eighty four
of his career catches Luther Burden out of one hundred
(29:18):
and ninety two came behind the line of scrimmage, speaking
to how many of these touches were manufactured. And I
think charge with the debate of Luther Burden, you have
people that are in on Luther Burden, people out on
Luther Burden, even though again it's a straightforward evaluation. So
it's like, where are these these disagreements and these discrepancies
coming from. I think this has more to do with
the one is sort of the pratfalls of having a
(29:41):
job like mine that people don't understand, which is you
rank out a board as a media member. You don't
have an offensive scheme, you don't have an offensive coordinator
that's saying, hey, this is the scheme, this is the
position I need, this is the sort of player type
that I need for that position, right or advice of
on defense. And so because of that, you're just trying
(30:03):
to rank everyone in a vacuum, and the people that
don't like Luthor Burden. They're the ones saying, well, this
guy's not a wide receiver one in the NFL. He's
a manufactured touch guy. And how am I going to
put that value with you know, a guy that like
Tad or you know, one of these different Matthew gold
and whatever. But like, whereas the people that love him
are like, this guy's clearly the best with the ball
(30:24):
in his hands. He is going to manufacture yards and
if he finds the right situation, he's going to put
up Ludacris numbers. And both sides are right, you know
what I mean, It's just we don't know what situation
he's going into. This is a situation specific player right
where he needs to get into that thing in the
best one for him would be the team that has
(30:45):
the best boundary receiver. That's right, Yes, that's what it is,
because you will naturally create that space. I was talking
about that with like Buka, he wins before the catch.
Luther Burden is winning after the catch, and the more
space that is provided for him, now it can be
a thing where you're in you just have that one
tackle to break and then you get the explosive play
but that's Luther Burden.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Let me give you the ideal landing spot for Luther Burden. Yeah, Bengals.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Bengals would be good. Bengals would be really good. That
is Larry David. That would be pretty pretty good.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
It would be. My worry on Luther Burden is just this.
It's all these short catches. You noted forty four percent
of his catches were behind the line of scrimmage. We've
seen this with Deebo Samuel where he'll have a four
catch game and you know, most of those catches are
added near the line of scrimmage, and if he doesn't
break a tackle, he gets tackled near the line of
(31:40):
scrimmage and you've got a you know, this is just
a fantasy standpoint. You've got a four catch, thirty yard
game on your hands, and that's that. You know, that's
not saying, but we all know that Deebo Samuel can
also be incredibly special and when he you know, when
he does break a tackle, cyon are a highlight time
and we remember those things. I think there's going to
be just good and bad games for Luther Burden, depending
(32:01):
a lot, of course on landing spot. Do you uh
do you see, like Percy Harvin went in the he
fell to the middle of the second round when he
was drafted in part because of personality concerns and character
concerns and stuff like that, much of which ended up
being actually pretty valid. Where do you have Luther Burden
going not in the first round. I don't believe.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Well, Percy actually was twenty second overall.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Oh was he okay? Thanks Zicher, I had misremembered.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yeah. I think Luther he's right, you know, right on
that line. Whether it is at the very end of
Thursday night or whether it is right away on Friday night,
I think it's gonna be one of the two. I
think Luther Burden is a top forty pick, but I'm
not definitely not saying Locke for the first round. But
but if he gets out of it, like I said,
I think you're gonna see teams trying to move up
(32:46):
for him, because you're gonna have the teams where like
you saw last year at Missouri, the reason his stats
were down is because the offense wasn't his gut. It
didn't have anything to do with Luther Burden. It had
to do with the fact that defenses could collapse on
him because Missouri didn't have a running game anymore, and
they the other receivers weren't great, and the quarterback play
was atrocia. So he got ganged up on and he
(33:07):
got frustrated by that, et cetera. But it shows again
you need to get this guy into a situation where
he's an awesome for instant third banana, which is what
it would be with the Bengals. Yeah, that's how his
game plays up. He is not a Michael Jordan. He's uh,
you know my basketball metaphor sting Scottie Piper a little
or or you know, a Dennis Rodman.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I guess if I were to put Burden on the
team based in if he is going to go early
second round, it's not very exciting, but I could see
Tennessee going cam Ward and then second round Luther Bird.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Kim Ward loves thrown into the slot, just as every
strippo about that.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
All right, well there you go. That's so I'll go
to war with that prediction. Uh, your fifth rank running back, Sorry,
wide receiver Jaden Higgins from Iowa State. This is not
Iowa State had two really good wide receivers. It turns
out yeah, highly productive. Your comp here is Kenny Galladay,
which makes people go, oh, but how about this rass
(34:05):
nine point nine to two holy cow?
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah yeah, and incredible at that size. The six' four
and change two fourteen runs the four four seven has
the thirty nine inch Vertical and this, guy this guy
has the wingspan of an offensive. Tackle we're at the
eighty with. Him so he's got the super duper long
arms and he's a he's a smooth operator out. There
the movement is really really smooth with. Him the thing
(34:30):
he doesn't Have it wasn't a surprise to see him
duck the three cone and the shuttle the side decide
agility isn't, great but the north south stuff. Is and
you can build a route tree around him where you
can leverage his. Strengths just have him going north south,
right like you don't the rout breaks with, You like
you don't want him running the whip route for. You
you have another guy doing. That but this is a
(34:52):
guy that can win. Downtown he can also win short and.
INTERMEDIATE i mean that's more stuff like the slants and the. Drags,
yeah but he doesn't he doesn't drop in, thing and
he's got the catch, radius LIKE i, said is absolutely.
Enormous but his career drop rate over four seasons and
three hundred and fifty targets three point zero.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Perds that's.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
It that is. Absurd that's a drop a year thor
it's absolutely. Insane and then three consecutive seasons with two
point two percent drop rate or. Less it's only at
three percent because he dropped a couple more his true
freshman season when he was in THE. Fcs so he
does not drop. Balls and that includes in contested situations
deep forty five of eighty one career contested catch situations
(35:35):
For higgins in this bad receiver, CLASS i just really
like what he brings to the. Table this is the
guy who's going to be a really good wide receiver
two boundary guy in THE nfl for a long long.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Time so, okay if he's gonna be vertical downfield is
where he's gonna be really. Helpful how about that we
talked about The. Cowboys how about this is Your cowboys landing.
Spot it picked forty four where you, KNOW cd can
do a lot of, things all the amazing separation and,
everything but, see he's not a deep downfield. Burner this would.
Give this would feel like a natural compliment To Ceedee
(36:08):
lamb for me If Jayden higgins found his way To.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Dallas, Yes, Jayden, YEAH i mean he's actually the guy
that they want a mingo to, be AND i guess
The panthers want a mingo to be. Before but this
is actually that that guy that is gonna win for
you on the boundary.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Consistently all, right let's go to your number six rank wide,
Receiver Elick iomanor DID I i THINK i got that?
Right is it IOMANOR iomannera? Nice i'm two for two
on tricky. Names it's like it's.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Like lord of the manor But? Iomanner?
Speaker 1 (36:35):
OH i like? It all, right your comp Here's Brailan.
Edwards When Braylon edwards came, OUT i thought he was
gonna be, great AND i really ended up being a very,
middling underproductive career and that was kind of a. Bummer
he hid national prominence a couple of years ago when
he Roasted Travis. Hunter, right had almost three hundred yards
in that, game and all of a, sudden people are
(36:55):
taking are Following Elick.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Iomanor, YEAH i mean this is a big boundary receiver
six two two oh, six and he has the downtown
wheels and he knows what he's doing down the, field
the ball skills and then pinning people behind that big
muscular frame of. His but this is a former track.
STAR i don't think people realize how athletic he, was
but at that size he ran a four four four
(37:18):
and thirty eight and a half vertical is spectacular at that.
Size you see that propulsion off the, snap but it's
it's a there's rawness to his. Game this is a
kid who came From canada and so he picked up
the sport late and then when he went to, college
it was At stanford and they have an abysmal passing,
attack so they they sort of used them and in
(37:38):
sort of this sort of limited way where it was
it was leveraging the downfield. Stuff but he is really
really good down the. Field As Travis hunter learned first
hand in that game in twenty twenty, three you don't
get a, lot you, know of the yak with With
iomanner because a lot of those those plays where you're
getting value from, him it is further down the, field
(37:59):
so so that that's where you see that the speed,
leverage but it needs a little bit of. Work it's
not a finished package right. Now you're gonna have to
work on the routes a little, bit especially if you
want to try to get him winning in the intermediate section.
More and then the release package is a little bit
raw as. Well but they're the physical package. Here and
the ceiling is one of the highest in the. Class
(38:21):
so when you just look at it like, That so
who is gonna take a swing On Io manners upside
walk to see on that there is a lower floor
than some of these other, guys but one of the
higher ceilings in the receiver.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Class i've Got iomanner going sixty two To. Buffalo buffalo
needs the receiver. HELP i feel like end of second
round does end the second round feel about right for?
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Him, YEAH i mean it's gonna. Be it's gonna be
somewhere there in the second, round and we'll have to
see where the other wide receivers end up. Going but,
YEAH i would probably IF i had to, say, RIGHT
i probably put it middle. Second but would it be
a surprise felt in the Second, no it wouldn't at,
All like because again there is the rawness to his,
game And i'm curious the sort of situational assumptions that
(39:03):
teams are, making you, know that are shopping for receivers
there on day two of like this isn't a great receiver,
class and then should we buy the Floor we're about
to talk about more of a floor prospect or should
we get a ceiling on a guy Like Io. Manner
it's going to be really interesting to see that as.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Well, yeah and Maybe Kean coleman ends up being great
in his second season and The bills don't go this,
direction BUT i think they could Use they could use
some depth of the. POSITION i want to hit two
more guys and let's do. Them we'll have to do
them a little bit more. Quickly Trey harris from Ole.
Miss your comp here Is Alan. Robbinson he was highly,
productive went healthy at Ole, miss but some worry that
(39:42):
that production was a byproduct of a first repassing scheme
From Jackson. DART i Like Trey.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Harris he's been producing for a long. Time he got
on the field early when he went To louisiana tack
and then he transferred up a course into The Lane
kiffin offense and he was the wide receiver. One and
the biggest criticis About jackson darts evaluation as he locked
into the first rue through the first read all the,
time that was Tray. Harris, yeah, right SO i mean
this guy's. Good he is. Reliable but, yeah and just
(40:10):
speaking to that last, year five point one five yards
per route. Run, NO i did not. Speak that is. Gigantic,
holy that is like It it's like you're two and
a half is really?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Good right, right you're.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Double it is absolutely. Absurd and those games where he was,
healthy he averaged almost one hundred and thirty yards per game,
Receiving so, LIKE i, mean that is legit doing that
in THE. Sec but you, know to the point of
sort of the empty calorie. Stats he had seventy nine
targets last. Year forty of them came on either hitch
routes we talked about hitch routs before or wide receiver.
(40:45):
Screens that's as empty calory as it. Gets and then
With harris that the other stuff he would. Do you
have the downtown, stuff and he is a good down
the field, receiver but you'd have, that and then you'd
have the slants right, there there Wasn't this isn't a,
guy it's another. Guy he ain't gonna do any whip
routes for, you you, know the agility, thing and now
we snap off the clean break and it's our kami
(41:07):
and now we're going To he's not going to do
that stuff for, you but if you can par that
route treat down for. Him the hands are. Reliable he
has that big. Frame he's athletic in that big. Frame
so that's what you're gonna get from. Him but, yeah
just keep in mind with those, stats how much of
it was empty?
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Calorie all, Right last, GUY i want to hit, On Jaalen,
noel who is somebody That i've seen a lot of
people falling in love, with and there's a lot of
people that like. Him you comped him to one of
my favorite, Guys Khalil, shakier so you, Know i'm automatically
super interested. Here and this is Another iowa state guy
who This Jaylen noel playing in the Slot Jaden higgins
on the.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Outside, Yeah Jalen noel is just so. Reliable this is
you talk about high. Floors this is one of the
higher floor receivers in this entire. Class this, ceiling, though of,
course is cap by the frame and then the fact
that he is only going to be playing in the,
slot but he's going to be starting from day one
for whoever, pay and he is your long term starting slot.
(42:02):
GUY i mean that that's just what it's going to.
Be he's also you, know what's interesting about him is
he can win down the. Field he you, know he's
smaller and he has a small. Wingspan, yeah so it's
not a big catch, radius but he knows what he's
doing running routes and that includes getting being able to
stack guys when he's going down the. Field so for
a slot, guy you get some more of.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
That.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Uh this is the guy where earlier in his career
he had some issues with concentration. Drops he seems to
have solved that last year four zero point eight percent
drop rate on a bunch of different. Targets take. That
heel not bad at. All and this is the guy
thirty nine career contested, opportunities he converted fifty one percent of.
Them so it's like it's not, again it's a guy
who can get down the. Field it's also a guy
(42:43):
in congested quarters who can make the catch as. Well
and he proved this pre draft. Process first of, all
nobody could cover him in the one on ones in
mobile and then he tested absolutely incredibly of the four
to three nine he had a six eight two three
cone way above, average four to one seven shut away,
average forty one and a half inch vertical absolutely. Elite
(43:04):
as broad jump was over eleven. Feet that was a
lead to nine seven to three ras and he did
all the. Tests So Jalen noah is a guy that
fantasy owners need to keep a close eye.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
On he ran a four to three and he's gonna
be a slot. Receiver i'm trying to think of how
many other four to three guys are running from the
slot in THE.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Nfl and a guy who gets the top speed real.
QUICK i mean you saw his tenure split a one
five to. One was was you, know amongst the top
ten of the receiver. Class it's it's a guy with
and you KNOW i Mentioned. Shakir that's what he reminded
me of down there in the one on. Ones that
the frame is fairly. Similar of, course the way they'll
be deployed as. Similar It's noel is a bit better
(43:45):
of an. Athlete so that's the, one like you, know
you sort of, say LIKE i don't want to say
Rich man's that's probably taking a little bit, far but
like you're getting a little bit more athletic juice out
of a guy who the rest of his skill set
it's rock, solid Like, Shakir are.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
We talking third For?
Speaker 3 (44:00):
NOEL i Think noel goes in the second especially in
this receiver class that. Stinks, Yeah LIKE I i think
he deserves to go in round. Two well we'll end
up seeing but if THE nfl agrees with, me BUT
i think he should be around to pick in this,
class all, Right.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Well we'll see how that plays itself. Out we've got,
uh that's. UH i think we managed to hit on
if you Include Travis. HUNTER i think we hit on
nine or ten, guys which is not too. Bad we
got to your top eight Plus Travis. Hunter we encourage
people to check out all your work at fantasylife dot.
Com you've got a lot more detail on a lot
more receivers than the guys that we've covered. Here but
great to get prepped up and ready to go at
(44:37):
the receiver. Position and next week we get to break
down tight ends at a Much is this one of
the deepest classes of tight end in? Years it feels that.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Way this is this is a good tight end. Class
this is a really good tight, End it really.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
IS i, mean Brock bauer is obviously amazing last, year
but we've got really highly productive college tight ends that
are going to hit the. Here and it's you, know
it's reasonable to talk about a bunch of, them whereas
you know most of yours, past we're, like, well there's like,
two maybe three guys that are gonna have a fantasy.
Impact we GOTTA i think we've got the potential of
(45:13):
like five or, six don't you think for tight ends
that could be meaningful?
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Here, yes, yes and that's the. Number. YEAH i, LIKE
i think we have five or six guys that are
going to be contributing fairly early TO nfl passing.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Offenses love. It we'll break down tight ends next. Week
thanks for, listening, Everybody Fantasy Football. Weekly Fantasy Football weekly
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