Transcription
An industry plant is someone who appears to have gained popularity naturally, but behind the scenes, the industry has been pushing them up the entire time, giving them attention, credibility, and opportunities that make everyone else believe the hype is organic. And fantasy football has its own version. A fantasy football industry plant is a player the entire community suddenly decides going to be a superstar despite the production, talent, or opportunity not actually supporting it. One analyst ranks them higher than ADP, the next guy follows, the next guy follows. It almost becomes a competition of how far ahead of ADP you can be of this player. And a good example of this was Jacquory Croskey-Merritt last season.
If y'all remember with Jacquory Croskey-Merritt, I actually selected him in the final round of the Flock League. My thought process at the time was, "Okay, he has some training camp hype. It's a very empty backfield, and at the same time, it's a really good offense. So, I think he's a really good pick if you can get him in the last round of your fantasy football draft because it's very easy to cut him after week one or week two if he doesn't do anything, right?" Well, what ended up happening with Jacquory Croskey-Merritt? Oh, he didn't really do anything early, right? I mean, he was on my bench. I wasn't able to start him. But instead of me having to cut him after week two when he only scored 1.7 fantasy points, the entire community was hyping up JCM, giving him nicknames, everybody calling him Bill, making memes, putting them on Twitter. And instead of having to cut him, I was able to sell Jacquory Croskey-Merritt in the Flock League to Mr. Zachary Savage for Tony Pollard, and that was even before Austin Ekeler went down with his season-ending injury.
So, of course, in this video, we're going to talk about a ton of these players that I think the fantasy football community is maybe way too high on. I mean, analysts are pushing them up for, in my opinion, not valid reasons. But I want to stick with Jacquory Croskey-Merritt Merritt 1 second because a player can go from being an industry plant and the hype getting out of control to all of a sudden looking like a respectable pick in drafts. Like at the moment, Jacory Crosskey Merritt is in a backfield with almost no competition, right? I mean, yes, Rashad White is higher in my rankings if you're looking at the site, and I would draft Rashad White over JCM because White has the receiving upside that Jacory Crosskey Merritt just simply doesn't. But here's what I do want to point out. The cost is actually pretty damn compelling given how much better this offense should be this season.
We just launched onflockfantasy.com the consensus ADP page. Now, a lot of the stuff y'all got with the season pass last year was like Google sheets that I would have to manually update once a week, right? And the consensus ADP sheets were just that. I was only able to update them once a week. However, the dev team at flockfantasy.com, they have done an incredible job to just connect all the different fantasy draft platforms to flockfantasy.com so we can get all the latest real-time ADP for you. And in some drafts, yeah, he's expensive. Like CBS, you would have to take him as a top 100 pick, which I mean, there if you miss, it actually is going to negatively impact you. But like your ESPN drafts at the moment, he has an ADP of 129. Like if you were to get Jacory Crosskey Merritt in the 11th round, and Rashad White turns out to be the full-blown starting running back for Washington and you need to cut JCM, it's not harmful cutting your 11th or your 12th round pick. So, I'm completely fine drafting him with the uncertainty that we have in this backfield yet again this year, even if the hype got out of control last season.
Now, moving over to a player that I think is the textbook definition of a fantasy football industry plant, let's talk about Josh Downs. Now, the easiest giveaway that the fantasy football diehards, right? The people making YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, reading articles, that that group of people are way higher than consensus on a player is if their Underdog ADP, their FFPC ADP is well ahead of where they're getting drafted on ESPN and Yahoo. And you can see, right now Josh Downs is getting drafted at pick 90 on Underdog. He's going off the board 91 in CBS drafts, 96 in the FFPC. So, you're having to take him here in the eighth round, sometimes the seventh round in those expert leagues, where if you miss on a pick like that, that is detrimental to your team. And if we go through and if we look at what Josh Downs has actually been in fantasy football, cuz I know a lot of people want to turn on the tape, and they go, "Oh, Josh Downs is a really good football player." Oh, Josh Downs is, I mean, all of a sudden going to be much better because Michael Pittman Jr. is no longer in Indianapolis. Obviously, Pittman going over to Pittsburgh. I don't know why that's that exciting. I mean, Michael Pittman Jr. ultimately averaged 11.9 fantasy points per game last season. It's not like there are 1,000 targets all of a sudden being unaccounted for.
But anyway, what are you paying for? Josh Downs was the wide receiver 56 in points per game last season. The wide receiver 56. So, yes, I I I get it. I know people are excited that you have no Pittman. I know he looks good on film. I I know he grades out well. But, the fact of the matter is, this dude averaged eight fantasy points a game last season in his third season in the league. This was no rookie. And if we look at the updated sports book projections on flockfantasy.com, you'll see the Indianapolis Colts project to be one of the worst offenses in the league when it comes to their regression year over year, last season the Colts averaged 27 and 1/2 points per game, and this year they project to score 22.8. So, the offense is supposed to be way worse. They just paid Alec Pierce a ton of money. And at the same time, it's a rush-first team with Jonathan Taylor.
Now, of course, I mean, he's decent at a certain cost. Like, I myself even have him ranked ahead of some of these draft platform ADPs. Like, Sleeper is an example. Sleeper has an ADP of 145. He's a lot higher than that in my rankings. But, actually, what we have just done with the custom draft sheets we put out there for y'all on flockfantasy.com, is we have not only won custom rankings for your exact league format, whether it's a 18-league, 10-team league, 12-team league, 14-team league, whether you start two wide receivers, three wide receivers, full PPR, half PPR, non-PPR, over 50 custom variations for your exact league, but also for your exact draft platform. So, say you are using the draft sheets on flockfantasy.com or the live drafts assistance with flockfantasy.com, we'll take the average ranking of him saying be at like 95 on the site, and his Sleeper ADP like 145, and instead of us telling you to take him at 95, we'll suggest that you take him at pick like 120 instead. So, I think that's going to allow y'all to build some of the best fantasy football teams this season. And of course, if you don't already have access to the draft sheets, the draft assistance, the season pass is still only $34 on the site. I don't exactly know how long that's going to last, but at least for the time being, 34 bucks gets you access to everything on flockfantasy.com for your redraft leagues. And if you use code flock, you're going to be getting free start/sit and trade questions you can ask me during the season as well. Very easily the number one way to win your league.
Now, Parker Washington is another decent example, in my opinion, of an industry plant. Like let's just run through the Parker Washington profile real quick and let's look at what the actual production is and what the actual cost is at the moment. Because we can see very similar to Josh Downs in these expert fantasy football drafts where the absolute die hards are drafting at the moment. Parker Washington has an ADP of 68 on Underdog. I mean, you look at Yahoo, Yahoo is going to pick 108. He's going four rounds later. And let's see what's more realistic. Parker Washington was a sixth-round NFL draft pick, right? So let's start off there. Parker Washington very little to no pedigree. And then let's go through and look at 2023, 2024, 2025. Parker Washington in 2023 was the wide receiver 84 in points per game. In 2024, he was the wide receiver 92. In 2025, he was the wide receiver 39. He was the wide receiver 39 last year. All his production came when Travis Hunter was already out for the season. Keep in mind with this as well, the Jacksonville Jaguars were one of the best offenses in the league in the second half of last year. If we go through and look at the updated sports book projections of how the Jags should score this next season, very similar to the Indianapolis Colts, they're in line for major regression year over year. And you're going to have added target competition with Travis Hunter being healthy again this next season. We'll talk about Travis Hunter in one second. Let's just talk about him right after this, but and if we go through and look at the big weeks we've had from Parker Washington in 2025, he had one game with 20 or more fantasy points. In 2024, he had one game with 20 or more fantasy points. In 2023, he had zero. So all of a sudden in Underdog drafts, you're having to take like a round six pick, take a wide receiver going into your four that's had two games with 20 points. That's the deal with a healthy Brian Thomas, a healthy Travis Hunter now in an offense that's supposed to get worse. I I I don't get this one. I at least understand the Josh Downs one to some extent, cuz Michael Pittman Jr.'s gone. I've no idea why the industry's high on Parker Washington.
Now, I'm going to include Travis Hunter on this list, right? Because I can't sit here and say, "Oh, I'm the ultimate contrarian. Everybody that every other fantasy expert loves, I hate." Of course, I mean, guys in the fantasy football industry fall in love with players for good reasons. Travis Hunter, I think, has very interesting things about his profile. Travis Hunter has all the team investment into him. The Jacksonville Jaguars went out there and traded like the fifth overall pick and a 26th first to go ahead and select Travis Hunter second overall in the 25th draft. Like, unbelievable to see a team invest that much into a player, whether it's a wide receiver or whether it's a corner. Now, you go ahead and you look at contracts NFL teams give to both of those positions, indicating which one of them's viewed as a more valuable asset for teams, cuz obviously teams want to invest more with draft capital, where they invest their dollars in free agency. And wide receivers get paid way more than corners do. So, this type of investment told me in year one, Travis Hunter's probably going to use offensively a considerable amount. What happened year one for Travis Hunter? He ran over 30 routes per game, 30.3 routes per contest. And yes, we had the report in like March or April that Travis Hunter was going to play a ton on the defensive side of the ball, primarily defensive side of the ball, at least that's what they said. And then Liam Cohen came out and went, "Oh, I don't know where you got that from. No, Travis Hunter's playing on offense." And then Travis Hunter came out and said, "Yeah, I've no idea where that report came from. I'm planning on playing on offense, just like I did last year."
And if we go through and look at Travis Hunter right now with his cost, again, we looked at Parker Washington going in like round six of some drafts right now. Travis Hunter is the exact opposite of that. Yes, in some of these he's expensive. Like in ESPN, he's going to pick 113. I probably want to take him there. Like if that's where I have to draft him in the Flock league, I'm not taking Travis Hunter. But in Sleeper drafts, he's going to pick 169. So, there's a good shot that in your fantasy league, you're able to take Travis Hunter where the kickers and defenses are being drafted. In the range of drafts where you're like, "Oh, okay. I'm going to go through and I'm going to cut these players anyway for my interesting week two or week three waiver wire pickups." So, I am in on the Travis Hunter hype of the fantasy community and that I think he is a perfect late round pick that we could comfortably cut after week one if we go through and look at the snap data and we see that he primarily played on the defensive side of the ball, right? Like if we see week one, he only runs 13 routes, bye-bye. You're going to the waiver wire, buddy. But if week one, he goes out and runs 30-plus routes like he did in his rookie season, I think he could be a league winner at cost. Now, of course, all comes down to your draft platform. Again, use the consensus ADP sheet on flockfantasy.com. It's going to be constantly updated for y'all. And there you'll see that ESPN, his price is out of control, but Sleeper as well as Yahoo, very reasonable.
Now, moving over to Khalil Shakir. Shakir historically has gone as a top 10 pick in fantasy drafts. And he has done absolutely nothing. I think it's also NFL players that really like Shakir as well because I mean, I went through and I got put on a TikTok edit a couple years back when I said the only reason we even know Khalil Shakir's name is Josh Allen. So, maybe it's the NFL community uh and the fantasy football community that really like Shakir. Um right now, the cost of him is respectable. At least in Yahoo drafts. Yahoo drafts, take him if you want. He's going to pick like 180. Sleeper, ESPN, Underdog, there he's going in like the 120 pick range. And at that cost, it's probably going to be a little bit too much for me if I have to take like a 10th round pick on him. Cuz there you can take like a Rashad White, a Jahmyr Gibbs, a Raheem Mostert, a running back that has the upside to be the starter in their own backfield. And I'm just going to keep it stupid simple with Shakir. 2025, one game with 20 or more fantasy points. 2024, one game with 20 or more fantasy points. 2023, one game with 20 or more fantasy points. 2022, zero games. So, he is going into year five now. He has only had three games in his his NFL career with 20 or more points. And at the same time, he now has more target competition than he has seen since like 2023 with Stefon Diggs, with DJ Moore coming in. So, I I can't imagine drafting Khalil Shakir in a regular redraft league. Maybe like an Underdog draft, sure, cuz you need the floor of those fantasy points, and you know he's going to be a contributor weekly. But in like your ESPN league, what the hell would you be doing drafting this guy? Like, where is the upside coming from if he hasn't been able to do it over the past few years? Why would we assume that he gets it done in year five now that he has more competition?
Now, you know the number one fantasy football industry plant, and I don't really think it's up for debate, is Luther Burden. Now, there is a wide range of where he is getting selected. I think the ESPN and Yahoo drafters at the moment, they're on the ball. They know what they're doing. ESPN, Luther Burden is going in the sixth round. Luther Burden is an extremely high-upside player, where we saw the yards per route run and the yards per target be at the very top of the NFL his rookie season. And he was an incredibly inspiring prospect coming out of school as well. and he's attached to a good coaching staff with a good quarterback. So, the upside is incredible, but the downside is very much real for a wide receiver that couldn't jump Olamide Zaccheaus in the pecking order in his rookie season. It's not like this is a Justin Jefferson, Ja'Marr Chase level talent guaranteed, where we know they got to the league, they were the alphas on their team immediately, they broke out immediately. No, with Luther Burden, I mean, we can go through and look at this. He had one game with more than 15 fantasy points before week 17 this past year. Like, Luther Burden, if we are just looking at his game logs, didn't see a week with more than 51% of the snaps until week 12. Like, they didn't trust him getting on the field. So, I think the ceiling is incredibly high. The floor is incredibly low, as well. With that in mind, where am I willing to take a boom-bust wide receiver? Am I willing to do so at the end of the third round, the beginning of the fourth round, with where he's going in sleeper drafts at the moment? No, because at that cost, you can't miss. Right? You take a third-round player, and he's a bust, well, GG's, you may not make the playoffs. In the sixth round, or at the end of the fifth round, you can take a swing there. You can miss, and it can end up being okay. So, I think Luther Burden, in your ESPN, in your Yahoo drafts, he's a fine pick. But, in your sleeper or your underdog drafts at the moment, I there I I can't take him at the beginning of the fourth round.
Now, I really appreciate you. I really hope I was able to help you out with this. And, of course, I like some of the names on this list, like Zay Flowers, Quentin Johnston, and Travis Hunter this year. I think they're compelling prices. It's not like I'm fading everybody the industry loves. But, again, if you want to win your fantasy league this year, it's extremely simple. We just made it only $34 for you to do so. We have all the real-time draft assistance that you can use in your ESPN, in your Yahoo, in your Sleeper leagues. And we have all the real-time draft sheets that you're able to use as well with constantly updated ADP for your platforms, with constant updates to my rankings that will match your exact league settings. We're making the adjustments for you, whether it's a half PPR, non-PPR, or full PPR, whether you're starting seven guys, starting eight guys, double flex, single flex. It's all being accounted for. And the link to the season pass is in the description. It's in the comment section. Make sure you use code Flock. That way you get free questions you can ask me during the live streams this year. But I think that's all I got for you. I really appreciate you. And I really hope I get to see you on the live stream later tonight.