Transcription
There are five players that you should be targeting in your fantasy football drafts this year if you want to win and you have to get them before they break out. Now, the majority of these guys are actually going in round 10 or later, the double-digit rounds, but they could actually win you your league.
And we're going to start with Cam Skattebo. Now, full disclosure, he's not one of those guys going in the double-digit rounds. I wish he was like he was at times last year before his rookie season. And look, we didn't get to see a lot of Cam Skattebo in his rookie season. The guy only played eight games before a season-ending gruesome injury, although he's healthy and it looks like he's going to be ready week one. However, in that limited sample, Cam Skattebo, as a rookie by the way, and not a day one or a day two, he was a day three rookie, meaning he was drafted in the fourth round of the NFL draft on day three, he was getting 51 rushing yards per game in not the greatest offense while competing with a mobile quarterback and 26 receiving yards per game. Again, he left a couple of these games early, including the one where he was done for the entire season and week one when he wasn't a starter. Despite this, the dude was averaging nearly 80 yards per game as a rookie.
And if you take it a step further and you look at the six games where he was actually the full-on starter, you remove week one when he was splitting work, you remove the game when he gets hurt. In those six games, Skattebo averaged 17.4 fantasy points per game, 97 total yards per game, and four and a half targets per game. So, what does that come out to? A top 10 RB during that stretch. And if you want to take it a step further, you could look at what Cam Skattebo was doing in the last season that we saw him fully healthy playing football, his final year in 2024 in college at Arizona State when they had a somewhat Cinderella run to throughout the college football playoffs. Uh and you could see that he was a workhorse. 293 rushing attempts, over 1,700 rushing yards averaging six yards per carry. And by the way, in the college football playoff, he was facing some of the best teams in the nation at that time like a Texas team, right? Still finding success. 24 touchdowns. Oh, let's not forget he was also second on his team this year in overall receiving yards, 605 receiving yards as an RB, 45 catches. This three-down skill set, the ability to find the red zone, the ability to pass protect, we saw all this on display in that limited sample of eight games and six healthy games last year.
And now, here's the beautiful thing about this. All off season, we heard rumors the Giants might be interested in Jeremaih Love, they might be interested in signing a Kenneth Walker or Travis Etienne, some of the bigger running backs in free agency. What do they do? None of that. Cam Skattaboe right now here's a depth chart the unofficial depth chart heading into the season. It's still Cam Skattaboe, it's still Tyron Tracy, it's still Devin Singletary. So I mean maybe even Singletary gets cut. It's the exact same backfield competition that he had last year whereas soon as week two he started to take over that backfield last year. Now I know there's a new coaching staff in although I think objectively it looks like Cam Skattaboe assuming he's healthy which right now he is is the best RB in this backfield.
Now speaking of that new coaching staff like the Giants last year were second in rush attempts per game and with a mobile quarterback they had Brian Daboll. So that's not going to be the exact same when you have a new coaching staff in but they do bring in John Harbaugh with a lot of his friends from the past whether it's guys he's taking directly from the Ravens or at earlier times in his career who were in and out of the Ravens facility. This is going to be a coaching staff that although John Harbaugh known as a special teams guy defensive guy for the most part not known for offensive play calling he's always liked a run first approach no matter who his coaches have been for the majority of his seasons. In fact the Ravens have ranked in the top 10 in rush attempts for like each of the five years the last five years John Harbaugh has been there. Again that is easy when you have a mobile quarterback and you have Derrick Henry for part of that time it's kind of easy to build your run game around that. But this Giants team has a mobile quarterback. They have Cam Skattaboe who's not Derrick Henry but he's a three down back he's a bruiser he's a bigger back. Like why wouldn't they build their game around the run game. And if you don't believe some of my theories in terms of the run game well let's just look at what they did this off season right? First off they bring over Patrick Ricard a fullback that John Harbaugh has experience with. They lose Wan'Dale Robinson a wide receiver in free agency who's had 140 targets in back-to-back seasons with them. They spend their first round pick on an offensive tackle. Don't draft a wide receiver until round three a big body possession receiver not necessarily a guy you're going to feed 100 plus targets. And outside of that Darnell Mooney, Calvin Austin, Odell Beckham, JuJu Smith-Schuster no star wide receivers. I'm not even sure if any of those three guys will be a starter on this team. Malik Nabers rumors are he might not be ready until week four five or six. So like everything is shaping up that this is going to be a more run heavy team. The off season moves, uh, coaching staff now, the personnel they currently have healthy. We're getting good quotes as well, and again, they're just quotes. This is literally coach speak. As you can see here, Giants head coach, uh, says about Cam Akers, "He's a top-tier back. I thought he was just what you saw, a downhill runner, a tone-setter type guy. He's a tough tackle. That's what you look for. How many guys can make yards where they're not supposed to make yards on their own?" Kind of remind you of a Derrick Henry like John Harbaugh worked with the last couple of years in Baltimore.
We're also getting reports that in OTAs and mini camp and training camp's going to be starting by like the time that you're watching this video for some teams. We're getting out there right now that Cam Akers, he was going through This is a video I'm not going to play for any copyright reasons, but he's going out there, he's running drills. This is a guy who you still have months before the season starts by the time OTAs were starting in mid-June, and he was already out there. So, it seems like the ankle injury, the fibula injury that he ended up having, uh, the lower body leg injury, that it should be fully healed by week one. Maybe he's not like 100% mentally healthy for week one, but he's physically going to be okay in the early parts of the season. And you can see in some of the sportsbooks right now, they have his season total at about 800 over/under rushing yards. I mean, I think this is a fair total. I think it's a little bit low, but obviously as a bruiser back, you have to build in the fact that this guy runs with his head first. Those were all the memes last year, right? So, he could miss some time with injuries like most running backs do on average, two games per season for starting running backs. But, this doesn't factor in his receiving yards. This is just 800 rushing yards. The Vegas markets have his receiving yards between 3 and 400 depending on the site. So, if you're looking at 1,100 to 1,200 total yards is the projection, six, seven, eight touchdowns is the projection. As a fourth-round pick where he currently goes in fantasy drafts, that's pretty strong. And here's exactly where he's going as of this recording, he's going as the 42nd overall player, which puts him smack dab in the middle of the fourth round. He's going next to some very strong picks. I really like the fourth round of fantasy drafts this year. Garrett Wilson we've talked about on this channel. Josh Jacobs we've talked about on this channel. Uh, Luther Burden, the Jaylen Models, the Terry McLaurins. Like this is a loaded round. If you really want a tight end in this range, you have a Cole Kmet, and then a Tyler Warren goes in a similar range. In my opinion, the fourth round is a loaded round. If you can get back-to-back picks here and you end up snagging like a Cam Akers and Josh Jacobs, and you skipped running back in your first two picks, that's not or your first three picks, that's not a bad, uh, RB room to to push out there with a fourth and a fifth round pick. If you wanted to just go with a Cam Skattebo and a Garrett Wilson, and that's going to be your third or fourth or fourth and fifth round picks. Also a pretty strong area. This part of the draft is very good. Cam Skattebo is another one of those guys in that range.
Now, a player who does go in the double-digit rounds, he's one of the players in this video, there's a majority of them that go in round 10 or later, is going to be Malik Willis, and I'm very I would say a borderline shocked. I'm definitely surprised by the fact that he's going in the later rounds because look, I mean, Malik Willis, do we really have a lot of experience with this 27-year-old quarterback getting a lot of starts in the NFL? No, in terms of just games played, and some of these are just games that he appeared in, right, because of injuries or just a couple of snaps. Over the last 3 years alone, you're only getting four, seven, and three. So, you're getting 14 games played, not even a full season of starts over the last three seasons alone. But, in the limited time over these last 2 years when he's had starts, call it three to three and a half to four due to Jordan Love injuries, we've seen Malik Willis, at least with the Green Bay Packers, be really good. Last year, he was only in there really for two games with the when they called upon him against Chicago when Jordan Love ends up getting hurt. He goes out there, he looks pretty good. He averages 11 passing yards per attempt, no interceptions, completes nine of 11 passes. The big game was against the Ravens. This Ravens game, outside of, you know, previous games in 2024, he was able to hold the offense up. This game against the Ravens probably got him his contract, or at least as big as the contract was in free agency that we'll cover in a second. He completes 18 of 21 passes, 288 yards, showed off his big arm in this one multiple times for 20-plus pass attempts, 13.7 yards per attempt. And oh yeah, then he shows off his cheat code. Nine carries, 60 yards, multiple rushing touchdowns in this game. In this game, he's going for 31 and a half fantasy points, like a a top two quarterback performance on that week. And that is a big reason why, probably, in my opinion, that with that film and ability to go out there and be multi-dimensional against a quality Ravens team at the time that was pushing for the playoffs, you could see the 3-year, $67.5 million deal, $45 million guaranteed for Malik Willis. Good for him. He got an absolute bag.
Now, you're going to look at some things here, and the Miami Dolphins, like, whether it's just you looking into it because you like fantasy football, other analysts, real football, you just simply look at the depth chart. Miami Dolphins starting offense right now is atrocious. Like let's go down the board. Malik Willis, unproven quarterback for the most part as a full-time starter, but a good fantasy asset because of his legs and limited sample. Devon Achane, no doubt about it, slam dunk, one of the best running backs in the NFL. But then we get to the passing attack weapons. Malik Washington, the returning wide receiver leader from this team last year for like 300 receiving yards. Jalen Tolbert, a wide receiver four for the Cowboys like in past seasons like behind a bunch of different guys. A Rondale Moore behind. Tutu Atwell, wide receiver three at best, probably four when you factor in tight ends and running backs for the Rams over the past couple years. And maybe their number one pass game option besides the running back Achane. Greg Dulcich, who's like a fantasy sleeper, but like this is going to be the offense you're trotting out there. We'll see if they sign a veteran running back wide receiver later in the process. They do have some rookies who could maybe break out. Chris Bell coming off of an injury. Supposedly like maybe a first or second round pick if he didn't get hurt. Caleb Douglas, who's a speedster, big body receiver as well. So they have some options here. Even Kevin Coleman they drafted this year in the later rounds. So literally none of their starting wide receivers are proven at all. Like the most proven wide receiver that they have is Tutu Atwell, who's had a couple of decent games paired with Sean McVay and and Matt Stafford when like Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua out in past years. Like in a couple of decent games is all he has. So there's definitely risk here, but in my opinion, that's why he's going after round 10 right now, Malik Willis. The upside is this right here. Ian Hartitz points out that 26 of 28 quarterbacks, that's 93% with 100 plus carries in a season ranked inside the top 12 in fantasy points per game over the last decade. Even the two exceptions were pretty skewed. 2018 Lamar was the quarterback nine after taking over as a starter, so he didn't get to 100 plus rush attempts. And 2020 Cam Newton was only 30 was the only 30 plus year old in the sample. So what does all this mean? You can see the six quarterbacks projected to reach 100 rush attempts this year, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, Jalen Hurts, Jackson Dart, and Malik Willis. Malik Willis goes significantly later than all of those guys. Dart goes as the quarterback 13, Hurts the quarterback seven, and the other guys are top three quarterbacks. Malik Willis is quarterback 21. What does this mean? If you're a quarterback and you're able to either stay healthy enough or keep your job enough meaning quality play to end up getting 100 rush attempts in the season, there's a 93% chance, maybe even higher because of the exceptions, that you'll finish as a quarterback one in fantasy.
Here's another tweet from Ian Hartitz. He says that fantasy life's projections only have five quarterbacks projected to have rushed for 500 plus yards this year. Those five quarterbacks, Jayden Daniels, and the guy they have projected for the most is Malik Willis at 759 rushing yards. If Malik Willis runs for 759 rushing yards this year, he's going to finish as a top 10 quarterback assuming he just throws the ball 20 to 25 times per game and has like, you know, even an atrocious season. If he runs that much, he'll finish as a top 10 quarterback. He's currently going as the quarterback 21. So, are the weapons bad? Yes. Is Malik Willis unproven as a starter and like he has a defensive-minded coach, although that coach is coming over from the Green Bay Packers organization from last year. He's their former defensive coordinator, so he kind of knows what works for Malik Willis. I think that helps him. Like, the 133rd overall player means that right now Malik Willis is going as a four a 12th round fantasy pick. Like, if you were crazy enough, and it might not even be that crazy, to just not take a quarterback at all, you're going to stream quarterback, you're going to aim for Malik Willis, maybe you take him a round early in round 11 just to make sure you get him, and then you just load up the rest of your roster, and you hope that Malik Willis has that rushing upside. He's getting you 60 rushing yards per game, a touchdown here and there on the ground, and whatever he does in the air is bonus points for 16 plus fantasy points per game. It's not the worst idea ever. Probably take another quarterback, but it's not the worst idea ever. Kind of reminds me of a past season we saw from Justin Fields the last time that he was a full-time starter actually able to go out there and complete an entire season. When did that happen? That happened back in 2023. He played 13 games in this season, right? And when he took over, he only threw for 2,500 yards. It wasn't anything crazy. He only completed 61% of his passes, but he ran for 657 yards on the ground, four touchdowns, and that helped propel him to being a top 10 quarterback that year. He wasn't even good. It was not a good Bears team. They did have DJ Moore. We will give him that. He had a wide receiver one that Malik Willis won't have this year, but top 10 in fantasy points per game for quarterbacks with 18.4. Only 16 touchdown passes that year. The guy's throwing basically one touchdown pass a game. We've already seen Malik Willis probably has a better arm, definitely has a better arm in terms of strength than Justin Fields. I would say he has more upside than Justin Fields. He just needs a weapon to break out this year. Quarterback 21 is way too late.
Now before we keep going, we are getting very close and I mean maybe even weeks to days away from your fantasy drafts. The season is here, so I just want to let you know that the fantasy blueprint is now available. It is the proven system for winning your fantasy football league. You can check it out at jointheblueprint.com. It is linked down below. Everything you need to know about the fantasy blueprint is right here. Testimonials, a video, frequently asked questions, really what you get in the fantasy blueprint, why it's actually worthwhile, what sets it apart. All this stuff is at jointheblueprint.com. And I just want to make it very clear. The fantasy blueprint is not a draft guide. It's not a set of rankings for your draft and then it's done. It is literally going to help you prepare for your draft, dominate your draft, and then it helps you from week one all the way through championship week and even the off season. This is a 12-month, 365-day-a-year service and product. It's not just a draft guide. Week one to championship week, one-on-one help from me, helped me win 75% of my leagues last year including the Flock League, a $10,000 Refer the Experts League prize, the most watched league in the world. That was amazing. Helped over 10,000 people the last few seasons alone win their leagues as well. So, check it out right now. Jointheblueprint.com. That will take you to this page. You basically just click through to here, get the blueprint, and then it'll forward you over to the options for the blueprint this year. I should call out there are limited spots available this year. We're making it more exclusive, so less people are getting in than last year. So, if you know you're going to get it, get it right now. Jointheblueprint.com.
The next guy I want to talk about is not a player who goes in round 10 or after. He's not one of those majority of the guys in the video, but it is going to be DeVonta Smith because quite simply, A.J. Brown is gone. DeVonta Smith for the first time since like 2021 is going to be the clear-cut wide receiver one in his offense and that is very important. Because DeVonta Smith last year as the wide receiver two in his offense with A.J. Brown there in an offense that extremely, extremely, whether it's the run game, the pass game, whatever it was, they struggled under under Kevin Patullo. Despite that, DeVonta Smith for the third time in his career cleared 1,000 yards, Still had 113 targets, didn't miss a game, was able to had a very strong and solid 24% target share, which was top 20 in the NFL as a wide receiver two on his team competing with AJ Brown, one of the most physically gifted wide receivers in the NFL. 77 catches, overall was a very strong season for DeVonta Smith. And now when you break it down, his stats per season, over the last four seasons, he's topped 1,000 yards in three out of those four seasons. The only time he didn't was 2024, when he missed four games, when he was banged up for like six to seven games on the injury report, only had 833. But for the most part, you're getting 110 plus targets a season, and in big seasons, like we saw in 2022 when the Eagles offense was actually clicking with a good offensive coordinator, even with even with other competition there, you still saw a 1,200 yard season, 136 targets, playing every single game. The guy for the most part, despite being a slider build, stays healthy. He's only missed in his NFL career five games over five seasons.
And now, like I said, the biggest piece of this puzzle, and as the reason why DeVonta Smith is not a fifth round pick anymore and he's going in the third round of fantasy drafts, which is still maybe arguably too cheap for him, the biggest piece of this is the fact that in the team changes tracker, one of the very, you know, not even 1% of what you'll get in the fantasy blueprint this year, but a very helpful tool, shows you the offensive changes from this off season. The biggest move here, obviously, AJ Brown is now gone, as you can see down here. The only wide receivers brought in, traded for Dontayvion Wicks, signed Quez Watkins. We'll see if both of those guys make the team. And a first round pick in Quez Watkins, who I do like, but it might take some time for him to come on. Second round pick in Quez Watkins, who profiles out of my opinion more like a slot tight end as opposed to like a blocking and brawling tight end in the NFL, more of a pass catcher. What does this mean, though? There's going to be pieces coming in and out. Like Quez Watkins, he's going to get some of the target share from AJ Brown, right? So will Quez Watkins, he'll compete with Dallas Goedert, the veteran who will block him a little bit. Dontayvion Wicks, Quez Watkins, not really concerned about them taking a ton of target share. The biggest piece here is the obvious piece. It's that AJ Brown is gone. And why is this very important? Well, over the last three seasons, when he's been a member of the Philadelphia Eagles, as you can see right here, what has he been doing during this time? Oh, well, he's only been going over 1,000 yards every single season, including a a over the last four seasons, I should say, with the Philadelphia Eagles. Uh he's only going over 1,000 yards every season, going over 1,400 yards in two of those seasons. Oh, what is he doing getting 120, 158, 146 targets? Basically, during this time, A.J. Brown has averaged 131 targets, 85 catches, 1,259 receiving yards, and 14 fantasy points per game. He's been a top-12 wide receiver over the last 4 years. If you combine all that, every wide receiver in the NFL, he's been top-12 for fantasy. Now, he's gone, and a very talented number two, who'd be a number one in a lot of offenses, DeVonta Smith is going to eat because of that. >> Or at least on paper, he should.
Here's some supporting evidence. Eagle Times on Twitter, be sure to follow them. DeVonta Smith, since 2022 as the wide receiver two on the Philadelphia Eagles, ranks 11th in the NFL in receiving yards, 13th in catches, 14th in receiving touchdowns, and seventh in 25-plus air yard receiving yards. So, in terms of targets downfield, explosive plays. He's basically been producing as a top-15 wide receiver despite competing with A.J. Brown, and despite in some of those seasons the Eagles being extremely run-heavy, like 2024 when Saquon ran for over 2,000 yards. Here's another tweet that's helpful from Zane The Honey Badger over on Twitter. He says, "DeVonta Smith, when A.J. Brown does not run a route since 2022, 273 route sample. His targets per route run nearly 2x, insane. His yards per route run go up by nearly 50%. His efficiency goes from 1.99, which is good, to 2.94, which would arguably be leading the NFL and definitely top five on a given year, and his fantasy points per route run jump from 0.35 to 0.53, a 53% jump. This guy has all the upside in the world to be a guy who's going in the third round, outside the top 10 wide receivers, who could easily And I'm not even saying like it's going to take a stretch here. Easily finishes a top 10, if not top five wide receiver in the NFL this year, if he just stays healthy. His current competition that we kind of touched on earlier, it's going to be a rookie in Mekhi Becton, who is probably going to be mostly a slot receiver this year. Donte Jackson Wix is probably going to compete for the wide receiver three job with Marquise Brown, with Elijah Moore, with Darius Cooper. Elijah Moore is reportedly having a good camp, but we we really don't know what to expect here. Like I think Donte Jackson Wix is solid. I think he's exactly a wide receiver three for a team. And then we have the combination of Dallas Goedert and rookie Eli Stove at tight end. I mean like for the most part like the guys that are going to see a 20% target share on this team, I don't know if anybody's topping 20% or hitting 20% other than DeVonta Smith. We also have a new offensive coordinator here who according to reports right now has hit it off with Jalen Hurts and the new offense there's going to be more under center for Hurts. There's going to be more play action which you know in general is just going to increase some efficiency to an offense. It's going to be quote unquote looking different. So I mean if these things happen and honestly it just has to look different. That's all it needs. Kevin Patullo's offense last year was stale. It wasn't creative. He did not know what to do when just injuries arose and it led to a lot of turmoil. That's why he's not there anymore. And A.J. Brown's not there either. So if this offense can just get back to being competent meaning like a top 15 offense which I think they can. They have the players to do so under Shane Steichen and the new offensive coordinator. Well we could see Jalen Hurts return to what he was doing in previous seasons. Was he one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL? I mean in some categories like downfield efficiency and downfield passing sure. But we don't need him to be the number one quarterback in the NFL. We just need you to be an above average quarterback to an average quarterback like we saw in 2023 when he threw for 538 attempts. Last year he threw for 458 54 attempts. That would even work. We just need the efficiency to go up. We need you to not average 6.5 yards per attempt in a lot of games right? We need that efficiency to go up. If we get 450 to 500 plus passes, I think it's going to be a good year for this Philly offense especially DeVonta Smith who currently goes as the 26th overall player. Now he is moving up in drafts as the summer goes on. Earlier this off season he was going as like you know basically when A.J. Brown news was pretty locked in around June 1st, he was like the 35th overall player. You can get him in round three late round three. Now you got to spend an early third round pick on him but I don't hate that. Like if in round one your draft starts let's say a Bijan or a Jahmyr Gibbs one of those stud running backs and you come back around and you land a Rashee Rice and a DeVonta Smith as your wide receiver one and two and you're starting your draft with say Bijan, Rashee Rice and DeVonta Smith. Like you legitimately might have top five players at their position at the end of the year with your first three picks.
Next up let's talk about a guy who does go in the double digit rounds. He's going in round 10 or later and that's Casey Cauchon a member of the Browns offense which by all accounts on paper this Browns offense does not look like it's going to be good, but right now Casey Concepcion was brought in to maybe be their wide receiver one. Concepcion is a 21-year-old early declare out of Texas A&M. He transferred there this past season. What did he do? He looked really good. He had over 100 targets, 61 catches, 919 receiving yards, a 25% target share despite not the greatest quarterback play at all. And what has he done at every step in his career, whether it was NC State or Texas A&M? He earns targets. 28%, 23%, 25 and 1/2% target share. The guy knows how to get open. He also had rushing success, special teams success. This guy is a playmaker. Arguably, you could say he is the absolute best route runner in this class. In terms of like route running plus dynamic ability, I would say it's Casey Concepcion, the best rookie wide receiver in this class for that combination. And he's battle-tested. Playing at Texas A&M last year, one of the best teams in the country, he had to face some of the best teams in the country. Notre Dame, a top 10 team that ended up going to the national championship. Whoops. Let's go back. Um we ended up facing in the SEC like a ranked LSU team, a ranked Missouri team, a ranked uh Texas team right in the playoffs. You get Miami, a top 10 team. So, he's facing like arguably the two best, the three best, the four best teams in the country last year. Even the non-ranked teams, Florida, Auburn, like these are very tough matchups. He's going out there and he's facing some of the toughest competition that he's getting. And if you watch these games, whether it's on special teams with punt returns, whether it's just turning nothing into something on his catches, like some of these game logs are just going to see the game logs. Four catches, 82 yards against Notre Dame. Watch those four catches for 82 yards and a 20 yards per catch he averaged. He was really good. You're going to see some games like a three-catch for 45 performance against LSU, a top 20 team. Go back and look at what his quarterback was doing in that game. Go back and look at the time his quarterback was getting and the off the off-target throws that his quarterback was throwing. Casey Concepcion with a quality quarterback, and I just mean an NFL capable one, which who knows if that is Deshaun Watson at this point in his career, Shedeur Sanders. But if they can just get him the ball, it's going to be trouble.
Here's a tweet from Matt Harmon. Be sure to follow him and his company, Reception Perception, over on Twitter. He says, "Casey Concepcion, amongst the wide receivers I charted for this draft class, number one in success rate versus man coverage, dominates man. Number three in success rate versus zone coverage, number one in success rate versus press coverage. You might think he's only a slot wide receiver, he's far from that. Number four in contested catch rate, which is insane because he's not a 6'4, 220-lb wide receiver, and number nine in rate of plays in space with a broken tackle. Kind of echoes everything I said. He's a great route runner, he understands his feel for zone, and he knows how to make a play after the catch and at the catch point. He kind of does everything that you want from a wide receiver, he just doesn't look like that A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf mold of like your big-bodied wide receiver. But, he got the draft capital and that's all that mattered. He went in the first round, 24th overall to the Cleveland Browns. And, I'll be honest, this Browns offense is not good. It's either going to be Deshaun Watson, Shedeur Sanders, maybe even Dylan Gabriel at sometime this year being the quarterback. Deshaun Watson, you remember the name, you know how good he was, a top-five fantasy quarterback at times with the Texans. That was a long time ago. Obviously, a lot of real life stuff has happened during that time. Not a good person. Obviously, torn Achilles and then a re-injured Achilles to that. So, like he tore the Achilles again before it was fully done healing. That's obviously going to affect a quarterback. Not even talking about where he currently stands in terms of wanting to play football. Rumors have come out about that, not really being his priority these days. Uh Shedeur Sanders, so like the quarterback situation, it's atrocious. If the quarterback situation was average, you know, call it a Geno Smith, call it a middle-of-the-pack Jared Goff, Casey Concepcion would be going where the other rookie wide receivers are going, like in the sixth or seventh round, like a Jordan Tyson or a Cornell Tate. So, you're getting a discount because of the bad quarterback environment. But, in terms of like target share, like David David Boston. David Njoku's gone, rookie Denzel Boston is there. Harold Fannin might be a focal point of the offense in the middle of the field. And, Jerry Jeudy, the veteran, is going to come back off of a down year. Like, out of these guys in this offense, who do I think can threaten a 24% target share? Maybe Jerry Jeudy, we've seen him do it in the past, but at this stage it would be pretty bad if he's going to get a 24% target share in your offense. I don't think Denzel Boston's that type of guy, especially as a rookie. I don't think Harold Fannin they want to do that with. I think the guy that you're going to feed a 24 to 25-plus percent target share, meaning he could have a big breakout season, is Casey Concepcion. In my opinion, he's currently the best playmaker on this team. Now, that's not to slight Harold Fannin, who as a rookie, a 21-year-old rookie last year, he was by all accounts very good. 72 catches, 731 yards, six touchdowns right while competing with David Njoku in a terrible offense. But at the exact same time, he's still a tight end. He's not lining up out out wide. He'll go in the slot, he'll work on the line of scrimmage, but that's going to limit his ability to have explosive plays, limit his ability to win one-on-one match-ups. So the Cleveland Browns last year who ranked second to worst in the NFL in overall passing yards for the season, who ranked a dead last in completion percentage at 58%, I'm here to say it can only get better. It can only get better. And when you invest in your offensive line, when you bring in two first-round caliber wide receivers in Denzel Mims and a first-round pick in Casey Conceição, when Quintez Cephus comes back healthy, you're hoping that it can only get better. And if it does, it's going to benefit and probably be because of a guy like Casey Conceição. We also have reports of Todd Monken who's going to be calling the offense this year, the new coach for the Cleveland Browns. He's coming in, he's comparing Conceição to doing some of the things that Zay Flowers could do. Zay Flowers was a clear-cut number one receiver in past years for the Ravens under Todd Monken. If Casey Conceição has anywhere near a Zay Flowers type season, and I'm not the biggest Zay Flowers guy, but if he finishes somewhere like around a wide receiver 25 to 30, that would easily pay off where he's going in the 10th round of fantasy drafts right now. Borderline 11th round pick actually. He's going as the 120th overall player and at his position right now he's the wide receiver 52. That is far too late in my opinion.
Now before we keep going, I've got something to tell you because I've teamed up with DraftKings and you're going to want to hear this. Because they just dropped the biggest fantasy football contest in the history of the sport. We are talking about a $20 best ball prize pool where three different people are going to walk away millionaires this year. Now look, if you've never played best ball, no worries, here's what you need to know. You draft your team one time and that's it. No setting lineups, no waiver wire, no Sunday morning panicking. Your top scores automatically count every week. You're basically getting a fun sweat all season long with your team and players without having to lift a finger or do any work after the draft. Now here's the part you don't want to miss. DraftKings is running a draft one get one offer right now. All customers enter a lineup into the $20 best ball headliner contest for $25 and get a bonus ticket for a second entry. That basically means you have two shots at your share of $20 and maybe being one of those three people who will become a millionaire. So, all you have to do now is download the DraftKings app, sign up with promo code Sal, and get your lineups in before the season kicks off. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours.
Next up, let's talk about a tight end that I want to talk about Isaiah Likely who spent time the last couple of seasons behind Mark Andrews, but now he's not behind Mark Andrews. He has the same coach, John Harbaugh, but he's now a member of the New York Giants after this off season. And it looks like he should be stepping in as the tight end one in my opinion on this Giants offense. Now, if you look at Isaiah Likely's past stats, they're not going to look good, especially recent seasons are not going to look good uh in terms of 2025 if we pull it up on PlayerProfiler. 14 games, dealt with injury, only 307 receiving yards. Well, Lamar Jackson was dealing with injury, the entire offense fell apart, it was not great, right? Lamar was out for an extended period of time with his hamstring injury. So, for a guy who's already a backup tight end, yeah, when that happens, your quarterback goes down, you deal with your own injuries, 27 catches for 307 yards is what you're going to get. The year before that was the best season of his career. Uh 58 targets, 477 receiving yards. He had a great start to the season in year one, six touchdowns, but he still only averaged 7.7 fantasy points per game. But of course, once again, he's always been the tight end two in his offense. He's not even getting starter snaps. Mark Andrews was getting those starter snaps. But in 2024, the last time he was healthy and his quarterback Lamar Jackson was healthy on a limited sample, Isaiah Likely, as he has been whether it's been preseason, whether it was college, has been good. Top 12 efficiency in yards per route run, 11th in first downs per route run, right? These limited samples, but he was still paying off the last time that he was healthy. Now you're getting him signed like every other tight end this off season, a big deal. Three-year $40 contract with an upside of 47 and a half million based on his uh incentives to sign with the New York Giants. That deal makes Likely at the time the third highest-paid tight end in the NFL, which is absolutely insane. This is an extremely athletic tight end. You're now getting a Giants offense that very quietly, although it is so banged up, when they're healthy, Malik Nabers, Jackson Dart, uh Isaiah Likely, like this is an extremely athletic offense or at least skill positions passing game core. And what makes things interesting for Likely is like he might have to step up and quietly be the guy to start the year in this offense. Malik Nabers injury update from the Giants insider Jordan Raanan, he says he doesn't believe that by week five Nabers is going to be back playing at an elite level. Says nobody knows when he's actually going to be back. My take is what Zay Flowers says here on Twitter, avoid avoiding until after training camp pumps him down ADP. So that's just kind of like a fantasy take. Don't be drafting him right now only going to drop in drafts to like probably the fifth round of fantasy drafts. But anyways, the whole point here is that it seems like Malik Nabers is not playing the first four games of the season. That's like a foregone conclusion. Not only did he have the ACL tear, there was meniscus damage. It takes longer to come back even though he's a younger player. He's also a player that relies on explosiveness and like that's something that's not going to be back right away. So even if Nabers is back by week five, like like Jordan Raanan says, the insider, week five Nabers is going to be back playing at an elite level, he doesn't believe that. So what does this mean? It means that the current depth chart since Wan'Dale Robinson has 140 targets are gone, would be if Malik Nabers can't play week one, your starting wide receivers for your New York football Giants would be Darius Slayton, who's 30 years old, Darnell Mooney who's on his third team in like four years, and then probably at that point Malachi Fields, a third round rookie, or like Calvin Austin or Isaiah Hodgins who might not even make the team. It looks like you're probably going to run two tight end sets with Theo Johnson, Isaiah Likely likely being the better pass catcher there. I wouldn't be shocked if the first four to six weeks of the season Isaiah Likely is the number one option in this passing attack. And based on early reports since Malik Nabers isn't practicing right now, Isaiah Likely has been Jaxon Dart's favorite target in open practices this spring. That makes a lot of sense based on the other options out there. I don't think it's going to be Odell at this point in his career, or JuJu Smith-Schuster at this point in his career, or Calvin Austin, right? It's going to be the more athletically gifted and bigger Isaiah Likely. So as it stands right now, Isaiah Likely goes as the 130th overall player in fantasy drafts. He's going as an 11th to 12th round pick. I think he has all the ability in the world to break out this year.
So these are the players that you should be targeting before they break out this season. Next year, they're going to be going probably way earlier in fantasy drafts, so get them this year and actually have them help you win your fantasy league. Now, if you want to see the players that not only in this video that are going to break out, but the guys who are currently skyrocketing up the rankings for one reason or another, off-season moves, coaching moves, training camp news right now, check out this video right here. This is going to keep you ahead of your league mates. And how do you win your fantasy leagues? You stay ahead of your league mates. Check out this video. It will help you out a ton.