Pro Fantasy Football High-Stakes Player Taking Questions!

I don't feel comfortable sharing that to be honest, but I will say that It's not quit your job type money like you're probably imagining from the Daily Fantasy commercials where there's a $1million pot each week. That's a whole different beast, and I don't really dabble in it. I will place player performance wagers now and then on season-long player projections if there is value present.  

1. Raiders have a great interior o-line

2. Isn't the travel schedule skewed because a trip to London?

3. Bowden has been horrible in camp 

4. Gruden is known for being dedicated to the run

5. DMont just doesn't get the volume Jacobs does, and that's what matters most in fantasy

Hi! I don't want to give away where I'm at/what I do at the bank I'm at, but I genuinely enjoy my day job so this is just something on top I do in my free time! I do some writing on the side for fantasy as well for some extra income. Your questions in order:

CEH is totally, 100% fine in the first round. I've seen him go as high as 4th overall. Take him with confidence if you want to. Teams that spend 1st round picks on running backs in the real-life NFL draft, those RBs have, in all but two instances that last 20 years, finished within the top-15 of the position at the end of that year in fantasy, so you have a great floor. You don't need me to tell you he's attached to the most explosive offense in the league, but he also checks the boxes of being the one who will get the goal-line touches, and most importantly, he's the single-season reception leader in SEC history, which is ridiculously impressive given the amount of running backs the SEC produces, so he'll be involved in the passing game as well. Last, Andy Reid Running Backs typically absolutely crush it. From Duce Staley, to Brian Westbrook to Lesean McCoy, as long as Reid has been calling plays, his running backs are typically top-10 backs in fantasy. Kareem Hunt did alright as a rookie as the feature RB playing for Reid in KC, didn't he? 

Ekeler: Should be fine in the late 2nd round where he's going, but I'd handcuff him with Justin Jackson at the end of your drafts. His 8 receiving TDs were an outlier last year so they will likely come down this year, however this should be offset with more rushing attempts and rushing yardage. Judging by the personnel moves that Los Angeles made, it signals to me that they're going to be moving to a more run-game-and-defense type playing style, so Ekeler's carries will go up as he's used as a main running back. His rushing touchdowns should go up to offset some of the likely receiving TD regression he's going to have, but he's also never topped 16 carries in a NFL game/isn't the biggest RB (5'8"/207 I believe), so handcuffing him with Jackson is worthwhile at the end of drafts to ward off injury risk is probably smart .. 

Sutton:  Denver's offense as a whole I think is fairly overrated. Sutton's good but there's still too many question marks around him/safer players at where he's drafted. They have a new offensive coordinator (and no preseason games to work with him on implementing the offense in live game speed), they have a bunch of new pieces (Jerry Jeudy and PSU WR KJ Hamler as the speed WR), but Vic Fangio is still their HC and he's a "run game and defense" type guy, AND the team spent pretty highly to sign Melvin Gordon away from the Chargers. They used a first-rounder on Noah Fant last year at Tight End, he will demand targets. Jeudy and Hamler will require targets, and most concerning to me, I don't understand where the Drew Lock love comes from. He had 5 games as a starter at the end of the season last year against terrible defenses, in either domes or good weather, and the one time he didn't (when it snowed in KC when they were at KC), the Broncos scored a total of 3 points that game. A LOT has to go right for Sutton to put up star numbers this year. 

Ruggs: Yup, you nailed it, your logic is correct. Only rookie WR I see getting more usage than him is Jalen Raegor in Philly. 

Tight End---If I can't get Kittle or Kelce, I want to stay away from that mid-tier and take some shots at the end. I just don't think there's a massive difference between the Engram/Henry/Waller type guys and the guys at the end. Kittle and Kelce are targeted and used like plus-sized WRs. I typically have, if I can't get one of them early, just waited and took shots on 3rd year breakout TEs (which is where TEs typically "put it all together"): I've had some combination of two of TJ Hockenson, Mike Gesicki, Ian Thomas and Chris Herndon in the couple of drafts I've had already hoping that I get a good season out of them.

PM me if you need more detail/can send over some snippets from my write-up that go more into detail. 

Hey!

Drake is a great choice, and one I've targeted in both drafts I've been in so far. The Cardinals offense is only going to get better, their first 5 games are a cakewalk, they play in a dome, and he plays with a mobile quarterback and a forward thinking head-coach who will make sure to scheme him open, in addition to having 3 WRs on the field that will ensure he isn't running into stacked boxes. It's a great fit stylistically in what should be a good offense, he catches passes and he'll get goal line work. Last season, the RB position in Arizona would have amounted to the overall RB3 last year in fantasy, right behind Derrick Henry. That said, he's going through training camp with a walking boot on AND has never had more than 92 carries in a season in his NFL career, so I would strongly advise grabbing Chase Edmonds too as a handcuff: He filled in admirably between David Johnson's injury and the Cards trading for Drake. You want a piece of the offense, so just make sure you have Edmonds as a put option/handcuff of sorts on Drake. If you end up taking him, he's one of those picks you can set pretty confidently as a top-8 RB and worry about the rest of your lineup.

I have none of OBJ this year so far but that's honestly only because he's in the 3rd/4th rounds where there are so many other picks that I've felt had higher floors and comparable upside that I've taken instead. Beckham was another player last year that everything went wrong for, and he had bad touchdown luck too: He was 1 of 11 in red zone TD receptions last year, which is horribly unlucky. He still had over 1,000 yards last year being injured (which he has apparently since fixed). All of these are things that *should* be better this season. There are a lot of mouths to feed in Cleveland, and while if Odell explodes this year and is the WR2 overall, it wouldn't surprise me, I don't think people are really weighing the fact that a) We don't know how his play will be with being back from a groin inury. He may be a good player but lose some of the explosiveness that he had earlier on, we don't know (we don't have preseason games to tell us this year) b) that new HC Kevin Stefanski is a more run-first coach, and that the team has a good defense, so it's likely Beckham's immense target share that he had in NY likely won't repeat in Cleveland (a 150-target OBJ season is highly unlikely this year like it was like clockwork in NY) due to just the fact that Cleveland won't need to throw the ball a much and c) There's just so much talent in the Cleveland skill positions that, at a certain point, Baker Mayfield can only throw so many touchdowns in a season. Landry and Kareem Hunt are in the short-area catching passes, the team made Austin Hooper the highest paid Free Agent Tight End signing this year to play in 2 TE sets with David Njoku (which Stefanski favors), etc. I'm bullish on OBJ this year but he always goes earlier than I'm comfortable: I'm not taking him before Allen Robinson and Adam Thielen in the 3rd round for instance, even if Odell is the better real life WR: Those guys both WILL see 150+ targets this year, and Odell just never falls to me in the 4th round, which is fine. Sometimes that's the way the board breaks.  

Top-2 running backs in a 10-man league with the 3rd/4th pick: It's hard to break with consensus of having Zeke as the #3 guy in the tier by himself right below CMC/Saquon. I think ESPN/Yahoo have the top of the draft ordered correctly. Kamara and Elliott are both safe, good choices. 

Just about everything went wrong for Kamara last year, and the Saints rushing attack in general. Kamara got hurt early on and had horrible touchdown luck. The Saints had bad touchdown luck in general: Their balance of rushing to passing touchdowns was the lowest in the league, which typically will regress year over year. No team had more rushing touchdowns negated by penalties than the Saints last year. Kamara should bounce back to a double-digit touchdown season now that he's healthy: His totals have been 13 touchdowns, 18 touchdowns, and 5 in an injury shortened season. He'll likely bounce back to his 800 rush yards/800 rec yard/10-12 TD season this year. I took him in an auction draft as my highest bid and am thrilled with the decision. 

Elliott doesn't miss games from injury, routinely puts up 300 carry seasons without injury, runs behind a top-OL and plays in a division with bad defenses (depending on Philly's health), catches passes,  gets the goal-line work, and is in an offense that should average 25+ points a game this season.

You do realize that looking at touchdown regression is a major factor in predicting fantasy statistics in the n+1 year, because touchdowns fluctuate year to year SIGNIFICANTLY more than any other fantasy stat, right? It's as important as projecting targets and carries when you're making projections for players. 

You're also going off training camps where every player "is in the best shape of his life", and coaches "really think player X can put it all together this year!"....a training camp where there's been I believe 3-4 total instances so far of the pads being on, and zero team-vs-team preseason games, scrimmages, or even joint practices due to corona. I'll stick with betting on touchdown reversion to a more suitable number and adjusting targets/carries based on snaps/pace and projected opportunities for how to value players....as opposed to what reports are in an abridged sham of a preseason training camp. 

Rams WR is Woods > Kupp, which is not what their current draft positions are saying. Woods had bad touchdown luck last year (he only had 2 all year), the Rams had bad passing touchdown luck on a team-wide level which should positively regress for Jared Goff/his receivers, their defense is likely to take a step back, and from a personnel standpoint, the Rams OL was so weak that the Rams had to play "12' personnel on the field (2 Tight Ends) after their bye to help protect Goff more last year. McVay admitted this to beat writers. The issue here is that Kupp's only ever really had success as a slot WR for the Rams, his splits being an outside WR being press-covered by a man to man CB against releasing against a zone as a slot are massively worse if he's being asked to play as an outside WR, which, if the Rams stick with more 2 TE sets (this is why both Tyler Higbee AND Gerald Everett have been drafted in most expert deeper fantasy leagues), it's going to hurt Kupp a LOT more trying to play outside WR than it is Woods, who typically plays there. The team knows this. They wouldn't have used one of their 2nd round picks on an outside WR to replace Brandin Cooks (Florida's Van Jefferson) if they thought Kupp could handle playing outside. Woods goes 2 rounds later in drafts but I think they'll end up right next to each other in fantasy finishes as the year goes on.  

RB that might surprise is actually David Johnson, speaking of the Texans. Going in the 5th round, he's still fairly cheap, he put up good fantasy numbers last year until he got hurt in Arizona, and most important, Bill O'Brien both a) traded Hopkins for him, so he has to use him or he's going to look foolish, and b) Has given "washed up" running backs 240+ carries plenty of times. Lamar Miller and Arian Foster in his last season as a half-washed up Texan both toted the rock 240+ times under O'Brien. A Bill O'Brien coached team has NEVER been outside of the top-12 NFL teams in rushing attempts. Johnson can still catch passes and he's still considerably larger than Duke Johnson for goal-line carries. If Johnson stays remotely healthy he's going to have a overall RB15 finish and be a viable RB2 most weeks being drafted as a flex player, just based almost totally on volume at this point. 

Yes, to all of the Texans. The OL isn't as bad anymore and Watson's numbers spike (advanced metrics like Adjusted Yards per Passing Attempt, etc. AND fantasy numbers) when he's trailing, which I expect the Texans to be trailing often this year. Feel fine taking him at his draft position now, and I've actually targeted Will Fuller a good amount. Yes, you'll get 10 games out of him and he'll be hurt for 6, but he goes in the 8th round routinely with low-end flex players, with the upside of being a strong WR2/low-end WR1 any week he's in your flex spot. Same thing for grabbing Cooks in the 14th. They have to replace 10 targets a game with Hopkins, and they're likely going to have to throw anyway. 10 targets a game have to go somewhere, you know?