2025 Rookie Class Breakdown with Matt Waldman (Ep. 231)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back, everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's the Dynasty Fantasy Football Podcast on Fantasy Pros.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
I'm your host, Scott Bogman.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm joined as always by Pat Fitzmorris at fits Underscore
FF on the Twitter Machine, and today it is one
of our yearly favorite shows that we do before the
draft every single year with one of our favorite guests,
mister Matt Waldman, the rookie scouting portfolio Man. Check out
his website over at Matt WALDMANARSP dot com.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
The guide is out.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
It is glorious as it always is, mister Waldman, and
thank you so much for joining us on the show
once again.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Scott, Pat always look forward to getting to do this,
and so you know, it's another fun draft year and
I'm you know, I'm just excited about being able to,
you know, talk about this stuff with you guys and
and share a lot of the stuff that I spend
doing all your quietly watching film.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
So I love it.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yeah, we're we're gracious to have the chance to talk
to you, Matt, especially since I would think after the
RSP and the magnitude of that effort, that you would
just go into hibernation for like four months after that
because I can't imagine you sleep to get that thing
out as thorough and as long as it is.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
You know, there used to be a time where I
really didn't sleep much, and now it's getting a little better.
But I would say that it's it's funny I do.
I have two desires after watching the RSP. It's to
lay on my couch and do nothing and watch just
like meaningless shows, or go to the park and walk.

(01:32):
And then I have the equally strong desire to talk
about it because you're quietly putting all this stuff together,
not talking to anybody other than you know, a few
people who have to bend their ear who they're gracious
enough to let me bend it. Like I'm like, I'm
an absolute crazy narcissist or something, you know, But I
feel that way while that's going on. So it's nice

(01:54):
to be able to share this. You put all that
work in and then you want to talk about it,
you know. So it's like my wife and I have
different jobs and we're both introverts. But it's funny because
she spends all day talking and negotiating with people and
spending she gets home she doesn't want to say a word.
I spend all day writing and watching film, and I
want to talk to somebody, you know, So, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
You talk about cam Ward and this whole QB class
is what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
No, I'm out in the park talking to myself as
I'm walking a dog and scaring the Jesus out of
people thinking that I'm probably crazy, you know, So that's
really more what's happening.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
Well, we can, we can scratch that itch for youpreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Hey, Matt's absolutely fitzy. I'm going to hand it off
to you. I know you have a nice opening question
here for mister Wollman.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Yeah, Man, all right, we know you hate rankings, but
cam Ward is your top ranked quarterback. Not too controversial ranking,
I don't think, but you do raise some concerns about
his lucy goosey backyard style of play and his footwork.
So on a scale of one to ten, how confident
are you that? And I think it's kind of a

(03:00):
foregune conclusion that he's going to the Titans with the
first overall pick.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
How confident are you that?

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Brian Callahan, Titans offensive coordinator Nick Holts and quarterbacks coach
Brian Hart agree can smooth out the rough edges in Ward's.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Game, I'm gonna throw a curveball with the number that
I give, which is zero, because those guys aren't going
to be working on that. It's going to be up
to cam Ward and his quarterback coach away from the
field to actually be the one to do that work.
So from what I've seen of his footwork when he
moves in the pocket, he has some very good techniques

(03:37):
that he uses to stabilize his feet that for some
people may look like it's not good footwork, but it
actually is. So he's getting coached and I'm confident that
he will get there. So I would probably say on
the scale of zero to ten, I'm probably like at
a six and a half seven, probably confident that he's
going to get smoothed out. But year one might be

(03:59):
a little bumpier, just because you know, he does run
a lot of different things in both Washington State and Miami,
but he ran a ton of four verts and a
ton of RPOs and screens, and you don't see a
lot of three five step drops with timing on routes
that you're gonna see in the NFL.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Yeah, that makes sense, And I know you mentioned you
don't want him to change that whippi throwing style he has,
and you know that you think that can work in
the NFL.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Is it one of the cars that had like they
set the ladders up in his practices and made him
throw over the ladders because they didn't like his sight
arm delivery. I mean, is that what you're talking about
with cam Ward?

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Like, just if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, Because I was just looking at there's a good
quote from a wide receiver coach forum that I belong
to on X that was talking about an interview excerpt
from Puka Nakua talking about his routes and how if
you I don't get the exact steps at the top
of your break, but you're accelerating into the top of

(05:04):
your break and you hit that break point right even
if you're not taking the exact number of steps to
accelerate into that, it doesn't matter. And in the same
way that I would look at Brett Favre back in
the day and you know, being nearly what forty or
close to it or over it with the vikings in
the NFC Championship game, and he's still throwing balls with

(05:26):
a wider release motion than Tim Tebow ever had. I mean,
he literally brought the ball down to his knee and
he's getting it done. And I'm like, if you want
proof that the real guideline isn't the exact technique of
what's done, but what's the purpose of that technique and
are you achieving that purpose with whatever technique you're using it?
Is it repeatable and something that isn't going to get

(05:49):
you hurt doing it? And I would say that with
cam Ward, his release is very fast, even though you
could say, imagine how much faster it could be if
he made it order, But to me, that's wasted time.
You could be spending time on other things and he
needs to work on because if it's fast enough doing
what he does, then you're just making him your risking

(06:13):
and making it worse and taking extra steps he is,
he has to spend more time reading the field, or
more time with his foot drop back footwork so that
his timing's perfect on these quick hitting routes in the
quick game in the NFL, where he's got to do
three and five step drops from center or he's got
to time it up just right because a lot of
that time and he's doing with these you know, his

(06:33):
you know, when you look at rhythm for a drop
back footwork, you could almost say, like every number I
say is his steps, and I go, you know, you
would expect it to be like one two three or
one two three four five, But him, it's so fragmented.
It's like one two three or one two three or
one two three. You know, I mean it's like that

(06:54):
all and you just don't know if he's really got
if that timing's going to work. Because you look at
Caleb Williams last year and when Shane Waldron didn't have
prescribed footwork for specific drops on specific plays, williams accuracy
was not good because he didn't know how when he
should be set to throw the ball and get it out.

(07:16):
When Thomas Brown came in and performed mash surgery on
that offense and said, here, Caleb, here's every play is
going to have prescribe drop footwork, among other things that
they did well, Caleb Williams was in a near elite
producer at the end of the season, so I mean
some of those things make a difference. And Williams didn't
have issues with his footwork, you know, in college cam Ward,

(07:39):
I just don't don't see him getting to do it
enough because it's like he's wheeling around and throwing balls
the minute it snapped because it's an RPO or screen
or he's buying time on four verts where it's like
this is probably going to go off script anyway. So
I mean it's a it was two extremes. You need
to see the.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Middle interesting interesting, and yeah, Ward has feat arrhythmia. It
feels like, you know, like it's not completely balanced, but
it is. It works for him and that's all that
matters here before I have a question about Jalen Milroe.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
But before we get to that, I got to remind
you guys.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
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(08:38):
the new videos are up and when to claim your prize.
So I'm a big fan of Jalen Milroe. FITZI, I
feel like is a pretty big fan of Jalen Milroe
as well, and you seem to be really locking in
on him. Matt, I have a quote from the RSP
for you. If I were a pivotal decision maker for

(08:59):
an NFL Teamalen Milroe is the only quarterback I'm considering
within the first three rounds of the draft in this class.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
I'll take shots on.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Passers available later who have growth potential as journeyman, starters
or reserves. Maybe one of them surprises us and proves
there's a lot more in this game. Otherwise, Milroe is it, period,
end of story. You also wrote that Milroe is the
best pocket quarterback in the class. Can you give us
the sales pitch for Jalen Milroe because I've been saying
the whole time, this is the guy with the most

(09:28):
upside in the class, even though he seems still pretty raw.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah. I mean, it's always funny because I hear always
this raw stuff about players, and you know, I talked
about that with Anthony Richardson and people still say he's raw,
and you look at what he did production wise last year,
and it would aid their argument to think that, you know,
but at the same time, when you look at the
offense and the surrounding talent that he's working with, and

(09:53):
also how perception could have been different. And like say,
let's Texas Texans game last year where his receivers legitimately
dropped seven passes and three touchdowns, and you know, and
there were multiple games that were maybe not as egregious
as that, but close enough that if their receivers caught
reasonably thrown balls that he threw, that we might have

(10:18):
seen maybe another eight to nine touchdowns and probably added
at least one hundred and fifty yards of passing per
game to his average. And we have a very different
conversation about him right now. You know. So when you
look at Milroe, I mean, Lamar Jackson was considered lost Lamar,

(10:38):
you know, and he was not. Lamar Jackson played in
a you know, studied, worked in a pro style offense
with Bobby Petrino that Tom Cofflin said was one of
the best pro designed offenses in many years. And he
was doing VR work before Jade and Daniels probably even
knew how to use. Well, this was in middle school

(11:01):
or high school at that point, so he at least
he may not have been taken calculus yet, I'll put
it that way, you know. But you know, Lamar Jackson
was doing VR every morning at Louisville, you know, and
was one of the best pocket movers in the in
the class. Well. Jalen Milroe is a lot like Lamar
Jackson as a pocket player, very quiet feet. He can

(11:23):
when he moves the ball is still in position from
the throw, his eyes are downfield. He doesn't try and
do a Michael Vick or Kyler Murray thing where it's
like he's trying to make the most dynamic move away
from pressure. It's like it's like having it's kind of
like a trap, you know, like when the when the

(11:43):
pressure springs the trap, does the trap just slowly close
the doors down or smoothly close the doors down, or
does the whole trap jump, you know, like those old
mouse traps where the whole thing just jumps and flies everywhere.
You know. That's more like Kyler Murray and vikl Vic.
They don't have quiet feet, and that what ends up
happening there is that you break the containment of what

(12:06):
still exists with your your blocking and you end up
like creating more pressure than you needed to. You also
end up forcing your receivers to reroute. So now you're
making these dynamic look at me, look at me plays.
That's not intentional, but that's what happens. Maybe I'd argue
with Kyler it's intentional, but it's a but you know,
but I I bust on him a lot, but it's

(12:27):
a They move around a lot and it looks beautiful
and when it works out on ESPN, Wow, they've got
eight plays this year that that worked out. But as
Kyler Murray, how many times have Kyler Murray had eight
wins in a season. I don't think very often, if
at all. So you're you know, when you look at
Miroe quiet feet and not only that, but he's the

(12:50):
only quarterback I've seen in this class who manipulates middle
of the field defenders during his second reach or after
his drop, and he can do it after moving slightly
in the pocket, and do it while pressure is bearing
down on him. So when you integrate skills like that

(13:14):
that are all difficult and difficult to teach, I don't
care if his offense may have been a little more basic.
I don't care if that if he went to work
with a guy like John Gruden that he might not
know all the verbiage in the West Coast offense that
John Gruden knows. And you know, and I don't care
if whether or not that that makes him raw. What

(13:34):
doesn't make him, What makes him advanced is the fact
that he can do what Alex Smith, who was always
seen as advanced, actually looks raw at doing in the past,
which is he was a quick processor of identifying the information.
He was slow as hell at being able to actually
confidently act on it. And you need someone who can

(13:57):
confidently act on it. Jalen Milroe act on what he
sees and when he does it, when he's manipulating, those
are special qualities, you know. So for me, the fact
that yeah, he's fumbled the ball affair a bit because
he got blind slot sided a lot with Alabama's offensive
line that doesn't look like the Nick Seba era offensive

(14:18):
lines and he got oh and he doesn't throw fade
routes very well. You know, he's got to work on
those fade routes and the touch passes, which is legitimate,
and he's got to learn more offensive terminology and coverage disguises.
But he carved up Georgia, which is the closest thing
to an NFL defense, and did it twice. He's carved

(14:38):
up Alabama. He has the quickest release I have seen
ever studying a player. The only player that I went
back and looked at Dan Marino because I was like,
is his release as compact as Dan Marinos? And the
answer was yeah, Wow, you know it's that compact. And
he's got good footwork. He can drop back and move,
and he does the prescribed drops and he reading multiple reads.

(15:02):
So to me, if you have if you have all
the processing and to be able to integrate these pocket
management skills and manipulate people at the same time with
pressure coming in, I think as an academic Heisman winner,
you probably can process information on the Alex Smith level

(15:22):
enough to grow and then that other stuff that you
can't teach will continue to proliferate into his game as
he gets excepted.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Well, my favorite thing that you can't teach Jalen Milroe
is that he works harder than anybody. All of his teammates,
all of his coaches say he's first guy in, last
guy out every single day. So he is working on
his craft to get better.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
Yeah, and I'm surprised there is a more enthusiasm in
the fantasy community considering that even the college football casuals
were probably watching the Georgia Alabama game last year, where
Milroe was responsible for almost five hundred yards of offense
and four or five touchdowns.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
It's the same thing to describe Richardson are being used
to describe Milrow. And I think people are getting they're
getting cold feet on these super high upside guys.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
And I laughed because I'd still take Jay, take Anthony
Richardson nine times out of seven, you know, nine days
out of the week, you know, just because he landed
in the situation where maybe he has an owner who
thinks he's a member of in Sync when heever he
goes on to Instagram, you know. I mean, he's older

(16:32):
than I am, and he looks like he's trying to
he's still going through midlife crisis with his with his image,
you know. And you know that you've got a reactive
owner there. So I think that they need to be
patient with Richardson. And there's much ado with I thought
there was much ado about nothing about the whole sideline thing.
I mean, even his teammates were like he just should

(16:52):
have lied. But this guy, when you have when you're
throwing fifty yard passes downfield with pinpoint accuracy with Aaron
dnald and you're just as a rookie and you're carrying
defenders on your back like that all the time, you're
pretty much the modern day version of what Steve McNair was.
I don't think if Steve McNair said I needed a
play off that that that, you know, Brian Baldinger was

(17:14):
going to lose his mind from a beach looking like
a manatee waiting for a shark to overtake him, you know.
And I like Baldy. Baldy's great, but I laugh because
one day I do not want to see the GoPro
version of the shark coming up behind him, mistaking him
for something delicious, you know. So it's you know, but

(17:36):
as long as he's talking about Anthony Richardson when it happens,
I might have a good laugh, you know, after I
warn him. But you know, but the the point of
the manner is is that, yeah, when you look at Milroe,
you look at Hurts, you look at Lamar Jackson, it's
that subconscious bias, unfortunately that we still have where certain
quarterback Black quarterbacks get bench earlier, they get fewer up

(18:00):
opportunities to try again. They're not Daniel Jones where they
can go somewhere else and get a chance to compete
after they've already shown very clearly that they aren't good
starters in the league, you know. And so it's not hate,
I don't think. I think it's just subconscious bias that
sometimes we look at things and we don't realize what

(18:20):
we're doing. And I think that, you know, like Bill Polling,
I don't think Bill Polling was a racist for saying that,
you know, Mala R. Jackson Lamar Jackson was a running back.
It was just his view of the game hadn't evolved
and he didn't really recognize the things that he needed
to to see that. And from people I've talked to
in the league, there's probably a good sixty percent of

(18:42):
the league that still wants the Matthew Stafford looking quarterback,
you know, and if he can run, that's great, you know,
And they're willing to project more and give those guys
more time even if they show that they're more like
Daniel Jones than Matthew Stafford.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
Before we move off the QBS, Matt real quick on
Jackson Dart, you seem maybe less than excited about him.
And I know you wrote in the RSP that if
you have only ten seconds for a scouting report, it's
this quote. If Dart can unlock his accuracy beyond twenty
five to thirty yards, lookout how he'll do it.

Speaker 5 (19:19):
Good luck?

Speaker 3 (19:21):
End quote.

Speaker 5 (19:22):
So what are your concerns with him?

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, it's just that when he needs to reset his
feet better so that they in a better position to
be accurate when he moves in the pocket and he's
got a fire from there, can you correct that and
that will get better? Yes, if that when your feet
are in good position to throw the ball downfield, that
you are accurate when you do that. The problem is
he's not accurate when he does that, even when his

(19:46):
feeeder said he's not accurate downfield beyond twenty five yards
when I've charged plays and so it's and it's scattershot,
it's not predictable. It's not like he's always behind or
always overthrowing. It's it's just any old way. It's like
Carson went before they put him in pistol. He was
struggling with the Eagles because they put him in the
dropback game and anything over twenty five yards he was

(20:07):
just scattershot. Once they got his feet said, it was good.
The problem is is that Dart is in a pistol
offense and it's still happening. So but I would love
to see him with the Rams because I think on
a team with that kind of offense where you could
have he has good footwork to drop back and move around.

(20:27):
You can use the play action game, the short game,
the short passing game across the field where he's a
little better with his accuracy or it's a little easier
than it is on just vertical shots that he misses
a lot, and then you can give him time to
work that out because he'll at least be behind Stafford
for a year, and if they want to keep Garoppolo
for a year or two, it can be functionally helpful

(20:48):
for him, even if it's not functionally helpful for the
Rams to have Garoppolo. You know, you know, I think
Garoppolo has a purpose, but he behind two veterans like that,
it may give him the best chance has to unlock
the areas of his games where it's.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
So you don't wanted to see him. You don't want
to see him in New Orleans.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
I do. If I'm the Falcons, Tampa or Carolina fan,
I definitely want to see him there. I don't want
to see him in Cleveland.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I would love to see him
in Cleveland, but I'm a Steelers fan. Let's talk about
some running backs here, and I mean you're not an exception.
Everybody thinks Sashin Genty is amazing, so I don't even
know how much we need to talk about him. Let's
talk about one of your other favorites, quinch On Judkins.
And you wrote in the RSP the fans underrated Judkins,

(21:37):
but the people I know with NFL experience agree with
the RSP. Judkins is one of the backs in this
draft who can deliver quality starter production in nearly all
phases of the position, any scheme.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Versatile.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Your comps are fascinating Jonathan Taylor on the high end.
On the lower end, you had Chris Carson Isaiah Crowell.
Chris Carson was a good back whose you know, career
ended because of injuries. Here Croel is very useful, so
that's a pretty high floor for him. But three down

(22:10):
backs are a rare special species these days. But it
seems like you think Judkins can be one of those
three down backs.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, I mean Jonathan Taylor is probably I like to
use wide ranges, either wide or narrow ranges for players
based on what I see, and so he had I
don't think he's going to realistically reach the Jonathan Taylor ceiling.
I mean, Taylor is much twitch here than or significantly

(22:38):
teaching twitchier than Judkins. But I think Judkins might be
a more technically sound all around runner with more versatility
than what Chris Carson was. But I think as runners,
they're similar, powerful, shifty enough, someone with enough bursts to
work outside on design runs, but you can pound it

(22:58):
inside and they can create, and they can run a
variety of schemes for you. And he's he has promises
a past protector as well, so and then you know
the floor with Crowell. I mean Crowell just honestly, the
biggest problem with Isaiah Crowell was that he was an
immature young man who was the number one running back
recruited out of high school, who went to the University

(23:20):
of Georgia and should have been the first of that
long line of Georgia backs that we have seen. He
should have. You know, he was that good. He had
that kind of Marshawn lynch as quality to his game
in terms of the way that he moved between the
tackles and the power, the speed he had. But the
fact that he went from being an undrafted free agent

(23:43):
to the Browns and you know, they had Dian Lewis
get hurt, and they had Jamal Williams get Jamal Lewis
get hurt. He ended up getting a chance, but they
were like, they were like, we didn't really know what
we had until the fourth quarter of like the third preseason.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
He was a battering ram and he.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Was and I you know, Crowell was my number one
back that year. I put him number one in the
rs be in the pre draft. That's why I like
doing what I do because it's like, you know, I
had somebody the other day go on x and this
rarely happened, so it was memorable, but I had somebody
in XO. I think this is gonna be the last
year I'm doing the RSP because your are RBS behind

(24:23):
the your RB rankings are so far beyond the consensus.
It's just mind boggling to me that you'll get anything
right other than Ashton juntie and that, you know, and
that the consensus seems to be that gms have figured
out how to pick running backs. And I'm thinking, well, Isaiah,
you know, Isaiah Pacheco was one that didn't really see coming,

(24:46):
but I did, you know, I mean, you know, and
I seem to Isaiah Crowell. I put number one overall,
I had Isaiah, I had Nick Chubb over Saquon Barkley,
you know, back in the day, and there were lots
of things like that that happened. I'm going to missed
my share. I've had Trey Sermon number one and that
doesn't work out at all, and I overestimated some things

(25:06):
probably with him. But at the same time, you know,
that's that's just I like the fact that I can
grade players outside of the things that NFL looks at
in terms that makes them more risk friendly, and sometimes
those risk friendly things they look at. It's kind of

(25:27):
like how Wall Street can set up shop with job
fairs for IVY League students who aren't even studying finance
or any kind of business, but they'll welcome them because
they went to an IVY League school. Meanwhile, the kid
at the University of Georgia, who might you know, basically
run circles around them. At the business school that I

(25:47):
worked at for years, who took finance and who actually
could you know, have those opportunities has to work much
harder to get an end because the Ivy League school
hasn't set up set up a recruiting thing or of
the finance. The finance here hasn't set that up on
the University of Georgia campus, you know. And there's good

(26:07):
reasons for why that is on a certain level, but
it also means that you create some biases that don't
make sense. I want unvarnished looks of talent, and then
when we draft, I can say, now we have fit.
So if I don't like Omar and Hampton as much
as everybody else, but he fits on a team where
he's not going to have to block and he can

(26:29):
be the be back between the tackles. He might give
you twelve hundred God forbid.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
There's dissenting opinions, you know what I mean, like, uh,
oh my oh, my lord, dissenting opinions evil.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
I don't get that at all. So but I know
Fitzi's got another RB question for you. But before we
get to that, I got to tell you guys about RSO.
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(27:43):
real at Reality sportsonline dot com. I love that you
brought up with Mario and Hampton because that is an
excellent segue, FITZI.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Yeah, Matt, I've heard Todd McShay say that he thinks
there is not that big a gap betweenent, you know,
Marion Hampton, and it seems like even the people who
don't maybe love Hampton as much as McShay does still
really like him a lot. But you maybe raised a
few concerns. One is that he's maybe not the best accelerator.

(28:16):
Can you talk about that in any other issues you
might have with Hampton?

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah? Sure, I mean, like Hampton right now, with his grade,
if you put him into a lineup and said we
need you to be the starter, he would fare fine. Okay,
So if he goes to an RB week team, which
is very possible, he will probably be the lead back
or at least the co starter on a team as
soon as he maybe works on a couple of things

(28:42):
that they can or they figure out how to minimize
what he doesn't do well. One of those things is
past protection. He has a good success rate right now
but success rates are a nice layer of information that
have a lot of holes in its degree, because if
you're not judging success rate based on how you project

(29:05):
to the NFL, using projectable techniques that actually a blocker
should use, then you're just judging success rate on whether
he gets in the way or whether he's in blocking
inferior talent that doesn't know how to use their hands,
doesn't know how to see when of a receiver and
one of runners tipping off his block, and Omari and

(29:26):
Hampton drops his head and tips off his blocks a lot.
And that means that when you get to the NFL,
those line linebackers are going to be able to run
around them, grab them by the shoulders and throw them forward,
or just can them like he's a center, you know,
And that's he's going to have to work on that
his ball security is enough to be passable. But from

(29:51):
the studies I did last year, preliminarily, when I looked
at six years worth of RSB data in recent years,
of six years of specs that I've evaluated, if they
didn't meet the baseline expectation for ball security rates, only
ten percent of them ever got one season of RB
two value only three percent of them only got RB

(30:15):
top ten value as an RB once. So I'm going
to go back and do some more work looking too that,
looking into that. But he's closer to that baseline value
than I'd like to see him. He needs to get
a little better, especially as a power runner between the tackles,
who's going to be you know, trapping me doing a
lot of work in tight traffic. And speaking of that,

(30:37):
you know, when he gets those big runs with that
four four eight speed or whatever it is that he
had for his size, that sounds great as an athlete,
and it is, but he's running against air, you know,
he and when you see him on film doing it,
it's great when he gets a big runway and he
has no linebackers that had angles on him. Early in

(30:58):
the play, when he's running through the tackles and there's
linebackers and safeties that have angles on him, he never
gets to the secondary or rarely does because he doesn't.
He's got elite speed, he's got on the cusp of
starter acceleration, more of a committee level type of acceleration,

(31:19):
which is good enough but not great. So I think
of like Latavius Murray, who had great speed, but how
often did he break away and how often did he
get big time yardage? And he'd say, well, he's been
in the league for a long time and he was,
but he was never the star that people made him
out to be. And that's kind of the low. There's
a bit of a floor there for him. As a result.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Where would you like to see him go Omar and
Hampton for like immediate success to start?

Speaker 3 (31:47):
You know, it's a great question. I think that maybe
as a be back you know.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Cincinnati.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
I think you know Cincinnati, he could probably be helpful,
but he's not going to get like twelve hundred yards.
You'll probably would Chase Brown there. He could be a
six to eight hundred yard back and show promise in
that regard that could be worthwhile. I think in Oakland
or looks mean, not Oakland, but Las Vegas, you could
probably see a scenario where he could work his way

(32:18):
into that and they can get another back later who's
more of a scatback type. If they don't, if they
don't give Dylan Lobby a second chance in there to
do anything, because they let him have one carry fumbled
and then he never saw the field again. So you know,
we might see a little bit more there that could
be an option. So there's a couple. You know, Cleveland

(32:39):
I think has a decent enough offensive line where he
could work out on a team like that and they
could use Ford as more of a as more of
the A back to his B back.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Interesting I'm going to be Denver is where everyone puts him,
and it just feels like there's no way he ends
up there. So we'll see where he goes. But Matt,
I'm a huge fan of cam Skataboo, and do you
share my enthusiasm. I love watching this guy. I know
that there are questions, there's even and you even mentioned

(33:13):
the RSP. You know, there's off the field questions about
him being Johnny Manzel esque in terms of being a
frat boy and all of that. But you don't care
about that. We're just looking at the work that he did,
the juice. I heard Daniel Jeremiah talking about that. You know,
the NFL is probably lower on him than most evaluators

(33:34):
are because they're not sure if he has the juice.
I don't know what more they need to see. I
saw him walk all over my Longhorns defense, and most
of those guys are going to be pros in the
NFL this year. Works well in traffic. I think he
has enough bursts to do it. I see a guy
that can carry a heavy workload, work in traffic and

(33:54):
run people over. He's one of I was going over
this with FITZI and Wormley in the background, one of
like three players to break one hundred tackles according to
like PFF's numbers and all that over the last like
however long they've been putting those numbers together. So what
are your thoughts on Scataboo and where do you want

(34:14):
to see him end up?

Speaker 3 (34:17):
As a pure runner, He's as good as any runner
in this class not named gent. That's you know, That's
that's it. Now, if you're going to add what a
running back also has to do oftentimes in their role,
which is pass protect then that pass protection is what
brings him down because right now he leads with his
head literally, will try and earl Campbell circa LA Rams highlight,

(34:41):
run his head into you, and he tips off a lot.
He's really he's really deficient as a pass blocker. But
he can fix that. So if he fixes it and
he gets slightly better at ball security, he would he
could easily be one of my top two to three
backs on my boy right now. So, yes, I like

(35:02):
him a lot. I think he's you know, I think
the comparisons to David Montgomery are very are very good
comparisons as long as you're you know, I'm busting on
Todd McShay, But I mean, listen, Todd's to Todd's been
doing this a long time, and he he covers things differently.
You know, he's got to cover a wide expanse of players.
But I remember his much fabled you know, He's got

(35:26):
the feet of Sakuon Barkley, the body of this, the
arm of that, and it was like a Frankenstein of
every Hall of Fame player in existence, you know. So
and that was for Montgomery. And then when Montgomery just
showed that he was just a good running back but
he didn't have juice, everybody lost their minds, especially in
the fantasy community. And now look at them. You know,

(35:47):
Knuckles is doing pretty well in Detroit, and he was
doing pretty well at the end of his career in
Chicago too. I still have Chicago Bears analysts who are
like I know one over at TTNL, Philotocian, who I
really enjoy the work that he and Shane Marsa are doing.
Feels like I can tell that Phil wants camp Scatibo
there again because he's hoping that he can replace his

(36:08):
binkie that was David Montgomery, and I agree. I think
the worst case scenario for him is that is that
he just tends to be more like Ontario Smith in
the off field department. Who if Smith, Yeah, the guisinator
because he had higher aspirations pun intended, you know, And

(36:30):
I think that that's nowadays. I think that you know,
if that's all that is, you know, it won't be
as big of a deal because the NFL drug tests
in a way that you've really got to be immature
and frankly dumb to not navigate around that test. It's
the play and that's all the NFL is doing. Whether

(36:51):
they're going to deny it vigorously, but you know that's
what they're doing. Is like, we're doing it for optics,
and you've got to be an idiot to not pass this.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Matt, I know you like Damian Martinez quite a bit
and refer to him as maybe one of the safest
running backs in the class. What I like about Damian
Martinez is that he played it somewhere between like two
hundred and fifteen pounds two hundred and twenty five pounds
in college, but he moves like he's one hundred and
ninety five pounds. Like he kind of gave me a
LaVey on Bell vibe in that regard.

Speaker 5 (37:21):
What do you like about him?

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Yeah, he's a smooth accelerator like that. And when you
watch him at Oregon State, they ran a lot of
outside zone and toss plays, and you don't do that
if you're not confident in your guy's ability to get
to the top speed quickly. And he does that well. He's
also at Miami they used some more of the grinder
between the tackles inside the tackles, and he was excelled there.

(37:46):
He was a determined runner with good contact, balanced, strong feet.
He can turn, he can mitigate losses and be able
to keep the play on schedule, and he showed a
propensity for soft hands. Now, he only had thirty two
recepts in his career, but James Connor only had thirty
at pitt you know, and same with Jonathan Taylor. I

(38:09):
think he only had forty two career, So you know,
it's not. We can't judge by the volume. We got
to judge by the quality, and the quality is there
for him. So yeah, he's He's one of those guys
that I just say, like James Connor, maybe they're different
type of runners to a certain degree. He's going to
be there forever, you know, he's going to be. He
might find a second team because of an old first team,

(38:31):
might you know, scapegoat him a little bit, Scott, you know,
with their offensive line not being all that hot, and
then they get all enamored with Benny Snell and yeah,
remember that Monday Night game where people declared Benny Snell
as like the next starter.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
James gets hurt again, he runs against you know, the
ghost of Giants past. It was all super young and
old guys, and now Benning Stell he's a He's only
a battering ram.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
That's all he ever was.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah, And meanwhile, James Connor has kept himself in great
shape since then, and he's holding off Trey Benson, right,
you know. So I think if I were to make
a bet, and it's obviously a long shot bet with
running backs in general, with how crazy their careers are,
but if there's a guy I bet ten years later
we're looking at him, going, you know, he might be

(39:21):
one of the best backs we've got all this class.
He's just so consistent. He's never going to give you
fifteen hundred yards, but he's given you like eleven to
thirteen hundred yards every year and getting you eight to
twelve touchdowns, and and you're going, he's one of those
guys that you just feel great getting as your running
back too, because he can give you running back one value,
it's going to be his.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
He's going to go so late in rookie mocks. I
feel like he's just going to be such he might
be the best value of this class because of what
he can do and all the other the hype around
everybody else in front of him. So yeah, I like
that call out on Jami Martinez. Before we get to
another running back question here, I got to tell you
guys out our draft coverage, watch the first round of

(40:03):
the NFL Draft live with our experts breaking down every
single pick. Get instant fantasy reactions and team fits from
Joey p Pat Fitz Morris, Derek Brown, myself, and others.
As the draft unfolds. Coverage starts on Thursday, April twenty fourth,
at seven thirty pm Eastern on the Fantasy Pros YouTube
channel at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros. Miss Waldman,

(40:28):
you have a big crush on Taj Brooks, who has
been flying under the radar. He seems like a guy
NFL coaches are really going to appreciate because of how
many things he can do well and because of his
potential as a third down back who can catch it
and block. Please explain the nickname Lemonade for us here.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
Yeah, because mitigating the losses is a big important part
of running back play. As I mentioned, and I joke
that when at that Texas Techs offensive line was really
like a lemonade stand where the defenders could just grab
all the lemons and just start throwing them in a
taj Okay. There's so much penetration into the backfield early

(41:09):
against Texas Tech, blocks that weren't met, guys falling down,
you know, just blocks not getting completed that Brooks oftentimes
had to take the lemons that defenses were thrown at
him in tournament in the lemonade. So I nicknamed him
Lemonade because he mitigates losses so well. Like that and
then there's another back who did that really well, and

(41:29):
that was Frank Krer. And when you look at Frank
Korr's metrics, wasn't unbelievably fast after two torn acls, but
he still had that acceleration and short area change in
direction that had you know, I think it was Jerry
Coker or Larry Coker. Was it Larry Coker? Yeah, Larry

(41:50):
Coker saying when he was the recruiter at Oklahoma State,
when he and the running back guy who basically coached
Thurman Thomason, Barry Sanders, that when Frank Gore came out,
he said, that was the best high school running back
I ever saw was Frank Gore. And I saw early
Frank Gore at Miami, and it was like watching Barry

(42:10):
Sanders with power, with more power. He was unbelievable. But
you know, you look at Taj bro you know Taj Brooks,
and you see that he mitigates a lot of losses
and turns and keeps the playbook open. He can run
through you. He's got very good contact balance. He's got
he's got the best direct contact balance score of any

(42:33):
of the backs in this class. He can literally he's
not going to do it every play. He's not Earl Campbell,
but he can run through direct hits from defensive lineman
on occasion, and that's rare. He does that. You know,
he's someone that also can run around you. He unders
he has very good vision. He processes information well, and

(42:55):
when he gets to the second level he can still
use that quickness and efficient movement to turn a ten
yard game into a thirty yard game. And he's a
good blocker. He's not NFL good yet, but he's going
to be NFL good. Like he he can block defensive
linemen and defensive ends and linebackers through the gaps, and

(43:17):
he diagnoses as reasonably well. The disguises the NFL will
throw at him, he'll have to work at. But the
ability to punch and squares all there, and he catches well.
So when I look at all that, seeing him lose
fifteen pounds like Bell did between years one and two
of being a Steeler, you know, and I was high
on Leveon Bell at Michigan State because I was like,

(43:38):
it's not the speed, it's the acceleration in the short area,
change of direction. Well, Taj Bell scores at the combine
for those two areas and those workouts were nearly the
same as Gore and Bell, and then he lost fifteen pounds.
He was doing it at two thirty, lost fifteen pounds
so that he could run a four five two forty,

(43:59):
which is still not bad. Concerning that Levon, excuse me,
Leveon Bell was slow ish, Frank Gore was slow ish,
and Aaron Foster was four six five, you know. So,
I mean, I think this is a guy that you're
probably going to see in the sixth or seventh round,
if not as a UDFA, who could make a team,

(44:21):
contribute and then maybe even start. And if I'm wrong, well,
I tend to have some sort of some sort of
bias in favor of running backs with the last name Brooks,
whether it was Kennedy Brooks Chris Brooks, who I still
think Chris Brooks looks pretty darn good. And I rated
him lower than, you know, than I rated Taj, But
Taj is a guy that I think really could fit. Oh.

Speaker 5 (44:43):
As a packer fan, I will cape up for Chris Brooks.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Matt.

Speaker 5 (44:46):
I think he was one of the fines.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
And now it's almost like, what are they going to
do with Lloyd? Yeah, Marshall Lloyd after you know, like
tumb the hold onto the ball. Good point, Well, Matt,
we have to segue from running backs to wide receivers.
I think I have a pretty good guy to discuss
for that transition. You included savvy on Williams with the

(45:08):
running backs and the wide receivers. It seems like you're
pretty high on him, but like he's just such a
weird guy to classify. So I'll give you another scale
of one to ten.

Speaker 5 (45:19):
Question.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
On that scale of one to ten, how confident are
you that save On Williams ends up in certain some
sort of role that would make him a worthwhile dynasty asset.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
I would say a five and a half to a
six out of ten, and I'm probably being a little
bit conservative based on where I have him scored in
both wide receiver and running back scoring. It's just I
don't know how teams are going to potentially screw that
up or make it great. You know, that's not my
biggest cut. If I thought, if I was confident that

(45:52):
a team would handle him right, i'd pay put him
more like a seven or seven and a half. But yeah,
I mean as a as a receiver, I think people
logo scout and go, oh, it's quintin Johnston part two.
And it's like he drops some balls a little bit,
but the reason for the drops is important the context,
and his generally are focus drops where he's just so

(46:15):
can't wait to get downfield and show people what he
can do, kind of like Terrell Owens early in his
career that you know that's correctable. And then sometimes he
has some difficult extensions where he has to clap onto
the ball rather than keep his hands together, and every
almost every NFL receiver does that and has drops because
of that. So it's not massive an issue. It's not

(46:37):
like he doesn't know how to track the ball like
Johnston with certain types of throws. And then he runs
decent routes. You saw him against Texas two years ago, Scott,
he made some big plays against those longboards. You know,
in tight coverage in the red zone, clutch situations, can
run decent routes and then it just so happens while
he's more limited as a running back on you know,

(47:01):
using the wildcat and gap plays well off, NFL offenses
are now embracing a lot more gap because defenses are
spread out a lot and they are a lot lighter
and faster, So when you run gap plays, you can
run through those guys and overpower them. And he's really
good at that. So if you base an offense with
him doing the cord Aero Patterson gap type of work

(47:24):
that we've seen with him Patterson in Atlanta, you know,
a few years ago, you're looking at a player who
could give you that kind of ceiling as a running back.
He's got a higher ceiling for me as a running
back than as a receiver, but a good enough ceiling
as a receiver to actually be like a contributor starter.

Speaker 4 (47:44):
Yeah, Matt, since he does have that weird cord Aero
Patterson profile. If you were a betting man, would you
bets that his first team tries him at running back
or wide receiver.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
I'm going to bet on what I would do, and
I would probably I would bet on him as a
running back. But I think if I'll say, if I'm
the new England Patriots who don't know doesn't know what
an X receiver looks like and is just learning to
figure out what a flanker looks like, I would say, here,

(48:18):
here's an X you can use him on fly sweeps.
You can use him on our pos. You can let
him go down the field and win some fade routes
and run some routes for you. And you know he's
not going to be your favorite receiver because Josh McDaniel's
the slot receiver is your number one receiver, the tight
ends your number two receiver, and your running back is
your number three receiver. So he can get a little

(48:39):
time to acclaimate. And if it doesn't work out, you
can stick him in wildcat packages with Romandre Stevenson and
when Stevenson leaves, and you can make him your full
time running back. And he didn't waste them.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
C K and I, who writes for Fantasy Pros, we
did a we're working on a seven round mock right
now to come out on Monday, and we at him
in San Francisco as the debo replacement. I think they
know how to use a guy with this skill set already,
and I think we should be pushing him more towards

(49:10):
debo than Quentin Johnston. He has, he has more skills
than Quentin Johnston does. So it's a good cop good
I'm glad to hear that from you, so appreciate that.
Let's talk about one of my favorite whiteouts here, and
I feel people are knocking him because of his down
twenty twenty four, but also the offense was down for

(49:32):
Missouri and twenty twenty four, and that's Luther Burden.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
He is.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
I love your comp of Rashi Rice. I think that
makes a ton of sense. But one of the other
comps you had foremost Brandon I you can you tell
us more about that comp and what you like about Burden?

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Yeah? Sure. What was hilarious is that I was on
JJ Zacharison's podcast and we were talking about it, and
he told me that Matt Harmon also had a Brandon
a you comp for him, and I was like, good,
because you know, I respect Matt's work a lot, and
we come from different perspectives with certain things, so sometimes
we fill in each other's gaps with certain things of

(50:10):
what we do analytically. But the reason Brandon Ayuk is
this is that you know, there is a lot of
there's a lot of talking about oh well, if you
just look at his yards per route run and you
look at the r PO and the screens and how
often he's used in the short area of the game,
he you know, he he might be a tire uh

(50:31):
Mi Cole Hardman type player. And as I joke with people,
if if he's me called if Luther Burden is Mile Hardman,
I'm John Coltrane, right, so that you know that is no.
So you know I can play some John Coltrane songs,
but I'm not John Coltrane. I'm about two universes away

(50:52):
from that. But the but the thing is is that
you know, you look at Burden and they look at
volume when they're doing the scouting of that type of nature.
And so models can sometimes lose context of how you
project and when you because they're saying, well, if it
all comes out in the wash, you know, but then

(51:14):
you get these wonky ass ideas of that he's Mikole
Hardman out of that wash and you say, maybe you
should use a different detergent and a different machine. But
you know, to me, it's because when you watch Luther Burden,
he runs Chris Browns. He can separate the line of scrimmage.
He knows what type of techniques to use at the

(51:35):
right time. He's skilled it uncovering downfield in man and
man coverage. When plays go off script, he can bait
defenders last second to uncover late in contested situations, in
compressed areas in the field, like Lad mcconukee did so
well with Justin Herbert and had Herbert and May going.

(51:55):
This dude runs routes and is on the same page
with me like a veteran. That's NFL receiver, the technique,
the conceptual understanding. Oh and by the way, yeah, he's
miles ahead of anybody else as a runner after the catch,
as a wide receiver. You know what that you know
who also got pegged as a Oh he's an RPO player.
He's basically Rashie Rice, you know, at best, but at

(52:22):
worst he's just this gadget player who we're going to
give the ball in the short range of the field.
And might as well call him wan Dale Robinson. You know.
You know who also was given that model, Brandon Ayuk,
because all he did at Arizona State was run RPO screens,
slants and occasional play action deep passes. And people were like,
I don't know, And brand Ayuk's one of the better

(52:42):
route runners of the league. He's a tech mission yes,
and so is Burden. And Burden can play all three positions.
So if you want him to be if you want
If you want him to be a split end with
the New England Patriots, he could do that really well. Well.
If you want him to be a flanker with the
New England Patriots, he could do that really well too,

(53:05):
and they could see what those two positions actually look like.
And then if they just decide they're so obsessed with
him being the slot, well he could do that too.
So if they want to put him in that lead role,
he could do that. But hopefully some other team will
take him. Rather than yelling Josh.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
Matt, I have a big man crush on elc Iomaner,
and I feel like you are about to splash me
with cold water. So go for it, brother, tell me
why high on Iomanner?

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Sorry? Man, I hope, I hope that you got a towel,
so I amner. You know, physically, you know, he's definitely
the athlete that you're looking for there. And then he
he runs some good routes in terms of like stems.
His stem work is good and there's some good technique

(53:52):
sound technique there, but you don't see him separating very
well against man coverage and maintaining it and his catch
points stuff needs a lot of work. There's just a
lot of fighting the ball or mistracking the ball and
issues at the catch point that just kind of derail
his game. So it's like it's really pretty on the

(54:13):
front end and then the back end is but his hands.
You know, he's a butt his hands kind of person
that will put it that way there.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Yeah, Johnston esque, but his hands.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
I mean, it wouldn't be a show with me on
it unless I ask you about some Texas players here. So,
but you seem to have a little enthusiasm for my
Texas white outs here, Matthew Golden, and I say it,
Bond and a lot of the guys who do the
statistical models for prospects, like JJ Zacharison, whose show you
were just on with Scott Barrett, they're not very high

(54:46):
on Golden.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
You seem to like him.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
You also seem to like Bond, who seemed to fall
out of favor in the Dynasty community because he didn't
run a ridiculous four to two that he opened his
mouth about, which should have never if he just doesn't
say that no one. I mean obviously as the off
field stuff now, but you know, I don't think people
were going to be as mad when he underdelivered on
that promise. But what are your thoughts on these two longhorns.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
Well, I'm gonna start with a quick little story about
Shikari richardson the Gold Miners gold medal sprinter, okay, where
I think she was coming off of some sort of
layoff and she had to race the trio of Jamaicans
and she got beat by such a long amount distance
that it looked like she might as well not even

(55:33):
be a track athlete, you know. And I remember they
interviewed her afterwards and she goes, I'm happy because I
just came off of a layoff, you know, I was
still getting the back of the things, swing of things.
They all know I'm the fastest woman in the world,
and they know I'm going to prove it down the
line here, so they can keep talking all their smack
after this one event right now, but just wait. And
at the Olympics, they had her lined up in the

(55:54):
ninth lane, which is like, not the lane you want
to be in a one hundred meter race. She she won,
you know, she won the gold in that. So I'm
going to say that to say this. You know, you
look at Isaiah bond to start with. And yeah, he
opened his mouth and said he's going to run a
fast time. And yes, the difference between like a four
to two and a fourth fourth three to two and

(56:14):
a four to two two, they showed Xavier Worthy being
like two steps ahead of Calvin Austin. You know on
that Sure, that's fine, but everyone can have a bad
day in that department. All I know is that when
I watch that dude on the field, he's the only
receiver that you can look at in this class and go,
that's some legitimate acceleration, Like watch it, and like you

(56:36):
don't have to like study him against other players making
sure that you're looking at the top, wasn't he Yeah, yeah,
so he the dude can move. His functional movement is
among the best, if not the best, in the class.
And oh it's not just that, it's about how well
you use that speed with your routes. There are a

(56:56):
lot of fast guys who who tip off their because
they got to slow down too much or move their
body and away to tip off what they're doing to
the top of a stem and a defenders like, I'm
just gonna sit on this all day and attack it
because I know you're not going deep on me. Once
I see those those shoulders come up. Isaiah Bond accelerates
into the into his breaks better as well as anybody

(57:19):
in this class. And on top of that, he can
win contestant catches. He can uncover late that Auburn game
or was it the Auburn Yeah, when he was at
Alabama and Alabama Auburn game. On a fourth and long
at the end of the game, Milroe throws the ball
across the opposite field to the back left corner of

(57:40):
the end zone, and Milroe, I mean, excuse me, Bond
literally has to bait the defender in two different directions
with the ball in the air to uncover and make
the play in the corner. You know, that's a that's
a very t Y Hilton esque kind of play. That's
an Isaac Bruce type of play back in the day. Now.

(58:01):
I don't know if Bond's ever going to become Isaac Bruce,
but I think he's a lot closer to t Y Hilton,
who could double as oh a primary receiver on the
outside if you need him to. But if you put
him on a team where he's the slot the big
place got Wayne, Yeah, Yeah, so that dude can that

(58:21):
dude's great. It's just a matter of you know, we've
got the off field stuff and he's probably going to fall,
and whether the teams feel like he's going to be
exonerated or even if he's not, but like, you know,
just you know, but still get away with whatever's going
on to the point that he's going to get an
opportunity to still be on the field. You know, if
you feel like this is someone that can grow from

(58:42):
the experience that they had and the justice system doesn't
go any further than that what we're seeing, then yeah,
if you're from a pragmatic perspective, you'd probably say he
still can be a good player and a good value
as long as he stays mature. You look at Golden
and I think also another one yards per route run

(59:04):
looks like Nicole Hardman, And that's another one where I
go watch the route. You know, I would like to
see some guys who look at the modeling part, maybe
what they what would be beneficial for them is to
actually learn some you know, I would recommend this if
you're one of those modeling people out there, and I'm
not trying to bash you in any way, you guys

(59:26):
do great service out there. But if you want to
learn more about wide receiver play and you feel like
that you can trust what I'm saying about that, go
to YouTube and go look up Drew Lieberman the side
line Hustle. He coaches pro receivers. He's done it for
a long time, and he has a list of all

(59:46):
sorts of techniques that you can watch on YouTube for
no more than thirty seconds to a minute, and you
can start writing them down and learning what those techniques
look like, so then you can recognize what good technique is.
So if your model doesn't fit what the player looks
like on the field, and you start to say, well,
maybe my model is being too high or too low

(01:00:06):
on this, you can look at those techniques. Because Golden
has good technique as a route runner, he catches the
ball well, he can win contested plays. He's just used
in the manner where they use the speed as a
bully pulpit. If you have a guy in college who
can run a four to two nine and is good
after the catch, you're going to put him in those

(01:00:27):
situations as a as a bolster of the running game,
especially when in college football you don't see press coverage
a lot you don't have. You know, you can just
put guys on the field and you're not you don't
have to do so much. You can keep it simple,
let's put it that way. And a lot of college
teams keep it simple with wide receivers. That's why there's
a lot of wide receivers who fail in the NFL

(01:00:49):
because they don't have all those techniques that Golden does have.
They just have the skills that he does. And then
when he gets leveraged in that way, everybody's like, oh,
he's going to be awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
He think Van Smith was a legit prospect here for
a little bit, right right, and he got benched at Houston,
So coming over to Texas was outstanding.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
I love watching him, yeah, without doubt. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
Last question, Matt, A lot of people think Tyler Warren
is Superman, and you stepped on Superman's cape a little
with your evaluation. Why do you think everyone should maybe
pump the brakes a little with Tyler Warren?

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
They should pump Yeah. I mean he's tight end five
for me, and his score is one of that. If
you put him in a lineup and he minimize his
weaknesses and he maximizes strengths. He can be productive. He
could probably give you five hundred to seven hundred yards
in an offense where he's used as Tyler Kraft. Okay,

(01:01:46):
flat routes off a play action, let him rumble. Okay,
But when you actually watch his game and now look
at his stats, what you see is a player who
can make contested catches and he can reach away from
his body and move his body really well to win
the ball. Great skills, Okay, He's also someone that after

(01:02:08):
the catch, if you give him a runway downhill, he
can run through people and run over him. Awesome stuff.
I just described a combination of Michael Mayer and Tyler Kraft.
Now Michael Mayer was given a superman kind of look too,
but all he could all I saw him being able
to do was win and zone or in a compressed

(01:02:29):
area of the field and man the man. But if
you ask him to be Brock Bowers, a guy who
can line up against cornerbacks and safeties and linebackers, and
he can win after the catch and turn a twenty
yard gain into a sixty yard game, and you know,
really break the game wide open and do the contested

(01:02:50):
stuff and make people miss in the backfield and run
through them. That's a lot different than Warren. Warren's more
Mike Jesseki in that department. I know that he was
used as a what as a quarterback slash wildcat kind
of guy at Penn State where you can run behind
the line and play rugby a little bit. He's a
good rugby scrum kind of guy in the college level,

(01:03:14):
but that doesn't translate to dynamic movement in the open field.
And then when you watch him block, he's not a puncher.
He hugs, he's not a you know, I don't get
the he's a great blocker. He gets in people's way
right now. But in the NFL, defensive ends, even safeties
have better hands than some of the defensive linemen that

(01:03:37):
you see in the college game, and they're going to
be able to just rip and run right through him
if he's hugging, you know, or they're just going to
call holding penalties because if he's hugging that effectively, they're
going to see that. So can he get better in
those areas, absolutely, But is he going to ever be
a better athlete on the move to make the first
and second patent person miss in the open field and

(01:03:59):
be that dynamic guy brock Bowers is no, So why
on earth would you score him on a brock Bauers
level when he's not that guy. Brock Bauers a superman
of the tight end position and this you know, he's
more like Aquaman.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of Tyler Warren, but I
agree with you one hundred percent in that sentiment of
I just I don't think that he is anywhere close
to brock Bowers, and I don't think anybody really is.
So yeah, I think this, you know, top five hype
people having going to Jacksonville. I don't know, you know,

(01:04:35):
I think ten is probably closer to where he needs
to go. But mister Walman, is there any prospect before
I let you promote all your stuff?

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
Of course?

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
But is there anyone that we didn't talk about that
you just that you're over the moon about, or that
people are way too high on, or any other point
that you want to make before we let you go,
because we only get you this one time before the draft.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
Here, Well, I'll bring up another end that I just
like that I think isn't getting as much love as
I think the NFL will love on him. A little
more than I think the community has. And that's Mason Taylor,
the LSU tight end. I don't think LSU had to
utilize him at the levels that they did until last
year because you know, they had Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas,

(01:05:21):
you know. But when you watch his game, he's smooth,
he's got a lot of finesse. He's a good rot runner,
but he's also very physical, and he's he's a better
blocker than Tyler Warren right now, and he's my number
two tight end on the board. I could see a
team getting him and he could be like a Mark
Andrews with a little better blocking skill if it's the
right fit. I don't know if he'll get that fit,

(01:05:41):
but he reminds me a lot of Mark Andrews in
the middle of the field. So that's the one I like.

Speaker 4 (01:05:47):
It's too bad the Miami Dolphins basically need an entirely
new offensive line in an entirely new secondary because it
would be so much fun to see Mason Taylor go
where his dad, Jason Taylor, and his uncle Zach Thomas
right right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
I'm with you, don't rule it out.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
It's still McDaniel there, so it's definitely not to be
ruled out. But yes, please, mister Wallman, promote everything that
you're doing right now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
We appreciate you taking the time to be with us here.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
And thanks for having me here. And you know, I'm
not going to stretch this out past a certain mark
unless you want me to flip the bird at your producer,
you know, but we will. But I think you guys
like him and probably are very happy with him, so
we'll put it this way. The RSP is in his
twentieth year of publication. It's very well known as a

(01:06:34):
big part of the Dynasty community, and I'm very appreciative
of that over the years. It's rooted in best practice
principles that I learned as in operations and quality management
a career lifetime ago, and I use that information to
just get become more and more adept at football, to
the point that the RSP is also something that I've

(01:06:55):
been able to consult with a variety of people related
to the league, including quarterback coach Will Hewlett, who's done
work at Cortex with Tom Gormbiley on quarterback prospects like
you know, Brock Perdy, Caleb Williams, Anthony Richardson, I'm provided
Scott and Reports. I'm on them pre draft for them,

(01:07:15):
and you know, do that work, and it's a big
it's a big thing for the media. So you get
a pre draft, as we've talked about why I like
doing the pre draft, you get the post draft that
gives you a rankings cheat sheet that gives you kind
of sweet spot value. So when I have some crazy
ranking of some guy you disagree with, like say Ladd
mcconukee over you know Marvin Harrison junior, and I say

(01:07:38):
mcconukey's going to be one of the fifteen best receivers
even in redraft this year, and Harrison might not even
be in the top thirty six if he's fighting to
get there. You know, you can tell me I'm an idiot,
but I can tell you where you can draft both
those guys and make sure that you've gotten the best
value without overreaching or waiting too long. And then you know,
I have my own podcast, the Ourspcast, where I have

(01:08:01):
various guests like Brandon Angelo who's a co host with me.
Bob Harris and I have a profane show we do
on Mondays that people enjoy where we curse all we
want to and the titles cursing, so we have a
good time there and also, you know football guys, great
group of folks and I've been working there as a
senior staff writer since two thousand and nine.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Excellent.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Well again, thank you so much for joining us, and
we'll have to get you on after the draft to
see how you like the landing spots for all of
these players and who is moving up and down your
fantasy board. So appreciate you once again, and we will
see you guys next week. Take it easy, everybody. Thanks
for listening to the Fantasy Pros Dynasty Football podcast. If
you love the show, the best freeway to support us

(01:08:45):
is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify,
follow us on x, Instagram, and TikTok at Fantasy Pros,
and subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com
slash Fantasy Pros.

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