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Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly. I'm Paul Charchi and co host today Thor Nice. Jump back another draft day edition.
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Yeah, join the Discord community. Fantastic. So that's up and running now already, lots of great conversations happening on our Fantasy Football Weekly Discord channel. And again you can get that link in the show notes. Today's topic dork so broken down all the other meaningful positions. We just have tight ends left, yeah, and we've got an amazing one in Brock Bauers. You and I talked about Brock going back a whole year and how he was going to be a lottery pick player, and we knew it last year.
He did nothing in his senior not a senior junior?
Is he a junior junior junior year?
To change anybody's mind here, I don't.
Think no, no, Yeah, And a guy that led Georgia and receiving yards two of his three seasons. Of course, Georgia won the national title in two of those years, right, Not only that, you know, we call him an offensive weapon. Kirby Smart said if they had used him at running back, Bowers would have been their best running back as well.
All that, and you know, they just figured out all these kind of ways to manufacture touches for him, whether it's out wide, whether it was in the slot, whether it's uh you know, in line, whether they shifted him into the backfield and they would do end rounds with him like a Deebo Samuel at tight end sort of a thing, the creative usage, and that is going to continue at the NFL level. Great athlete obviously, the speed and direct change of direction are both elite, super duper
skilled receiver. He was charted with a couple of drops on PFF and both of the ones were Yeah, well it was like balls were anyone else, I don't think they would have given him drops like reeling out. But the standards for him are higher, there's yeah, they absolutely are because he can get to you know. It's like back in the day, was like Ozzie Smith because he had such great range. Football clanged off into his If someone else wouldn't have got to, they would have given
him an error on it. But yeah, super duper dangerous with the ball in his hands, and he facilitates that with the route running machinations before that. He has an eye for detail with that, and then he becomes the broken tackle machine speed when he has that ball in his hands. So that's why they Kirby smart and that staff went to those lengths to manufacture opportunities for him to get the ball on his hands because he had that speed, he has the agility, he has the power.
He also is a decent blocker, you know what that Yeah, I mean he gets after it for sure. He does not take plays off. Of course, you know his size six three two forty three, there's gonna be some guys that can overpower him. But especially in space, he'll take care of who you need him to take care of. Very very very good player. And of course he's going to go somewhere in the top fifteen, a little bit fluid right now where that that eventual landing spot is.
But wherever he goes, it's going to be the same thing that you saw at Georgia. They will figure out all kinds of creative ways to manufacture that ball into his hands.
We're talking about brock Bauers from Georgia and the word that I love that gets associated with brock Bauers and why I get so excited finisher. He you know, when the ball gets in his hands, that's just the beginning for him, you know, And that dude is it's like all right now, it's game on, you know, And I love that about him, and I think that's part of why twenty six touchdowns in thirty seven career starts. But you know we're talking, you know, point eight touchdowns a game.
Oh for my tight end, I'm really interested in that.
Yeah.
You know, with college players, you can tell the really elite ones by the way that the defense reacts to them and the defensive strategy of the coordinator heading into the game. With Georgia games, you would see the enormous amount of attention that was paid to Bauer's pre snap and then the delineation of coverage resources to him after this snap. Sometimes they couldn't stop him anyway, right, but this always opened up spacing for the rest of it.
His teammates I remember when they remember when they slapped around TCU in that National title game. TCU, they were trying to take Bowers away, but whenever they would wrote double team him, it would leave someone open on the other side, right, So it's sort of like pick your poison. But yeah, he is just so dangerous and a different kind of a tight end too. Let's say than Kyle Pitts, you know, the last one that wins high as we think he's gonna go. Bowers is more that guy like said,
shift him around. You can do all these different kind of things with him.
Bowers, everybody's got pegged going to the jets at ten. Honestly, I think he's a great value at ten. I think, you know, you could you can make a case from going much higher. But it makes sense where he go to the jets at ten. Other possible landing spots if he slides past the jets Denver could make sense at twelve. Indy at fifteen, and Seattle. I'm really fascinated by Seattle that has not had a meaningful tight end. I I don't know how long it's been. I'm trying to remember
the last good one. You know, if Seattle at sixteen, I can see them moving up a few spots, that will be a.
Dangerous pass catching corps. You add him to DK and lock it into into JSN. I know, right, that's gonna be a tough one at a defan, wouldn't it be?
So?
Seattle would be fascinating to see if they and I think they'd have to move up a little bit, but maybe they don't have to move up that much.
Yeah, it's one to monitor because because of the the you know, you were sort of hitting on the positional value the way the NFL sees that, it does open up the possibility of a potential quote unquote fall beneath where he probably should go. Yeah, And to that point, there's that argument about what the franchise take cost per position, and so this argument is sort of made against him, like the amount of money you're gonna have to give him initially it's close to what the franchise take is
for tight ends. But on the other side of that, you could begin franchising brock Bauers once his rookie contractor's done and get him for way cheaper than he should be on the open market. This guy is more just again offensive weapon pass catcher get the ball in his hands, than he is comparable apples to apples to other tight ends.
The Vikings could move down from eleven to sixteen, Seattle moves up. Seattle's biggest needs across the offensive line, garden center. There's no garden center that should go at sixteen. Well, guard maybe, but that's a whole other conversation. All right, So that's Brack Bauers.
We love him.
He's probably gonna have an immediate fantasy impact, and in any tight end mandatory league. He's somebody that's going to have to be taken early in your dynasty rookie draft for sure. Let's go down one level, I think, and probably one full round down. Ben Senate from Kansas State. This is I think you're a little higher on him than others as I'm looking at some other grades. Tell me what you love about Ben Sennett.
There's and I almost don't even want to evoke this name because I love this guy so much last process and I don't want to put like that expectation on him. But his game reminds me a lot out of Sam Laporta. Boy, it's it's a very similar frame six four two fifty and the RAS nine seven three. You see the athleticism with him on the tape, but the similar thing with with Laporta, it's the tackle breaking stuff in the lunch
pale game that he has. He's very skilled at getting open right off the get and then when he gets that ball in his hands and he turns into the runner, he has the agility with the power so he can force off angle attempts, ar arm tackle attempts, and he's going to run through them like turnstiles. And then He's one of those guys who becomes the best friend, you know, not only the quarterback in the passing game, but to the runners as well.
He is a vicious blocker.
He's the guy that you want as the lead guy, you know, heading out to.
The second level, he's going to destroy someone. You know.
It's the the seek and destroy kind of a thing. He sort of seems to savor that aspect of the game. Very contact intensive. But yeah, you have a little bit of the athleticism there with that lunch pail thing, you know, to the point of why you know he's a little bit lower with the consensus. A couple of things. He wasn't a belly who had recruit at all. In fact, he was totally overlooked. And then his arm length is on the shorter end, and that's something the NFL is
going to. Dingy Fort's this his teammate Cooper Bebe coming out was one of the best guards we had in college football as a couple of years. But he might fall down a little bit because the shorter arms. It's the same thing with Senne you know, of my top let's see twelve guys, I think he has the shortest arms of the tight end class, but the other stuff all plays. You have the athleticism, you have the production profile. You saw him block in college. You could do all
that kind of stuff with him. Another guy you can shift around the formation. He has plenty of experience in line, so you could do that with him. Versatile player, and I think he is definitely a fantasy guy, a fantasy asset that people need to monitor because of the pass catching ability, the athleticism, and then the tackle breaking afterwards.
I'd love to see Ben Sennett find his way to Cincinnati later in the raft where he could walk right. It wouldn't that be glorious?
Yeah? Yep?
T Higgin's gone. Yeah, And you know, potentially.
They were a team that we've been pointing at take a tight end for a couple of years now, and they probably should have done it last last year, right, Yeah, and they might be kicking themselves of why didn't we just take Sammy Laporta. And now the next year we get into day two because I think Senate's going to fall a little bit more than.
Laport You know, Laporta early round two.
Yeah, And people out there need to remember during Laporta's process, he was ranked where you know, by the media essentially where Senate is now. Yeah, so yeah, don't don't use that to discount Ben Senen's game at all.
I don't have Cincinnati's full draft chart in front of me, but I'm assuming they pick they pick eighteenth in the first I'm assuming they have their second round pick and that they're picking roughly eighteenth in the second. And if that's the case, that could be a Ben sinence.
Yeah, that would be really interesting. They're at forty nine and eighty okay.
Forty nine and eighty okay, so forty nine, yeah, forty nine totally in player. Yeah, absolutely, so that we'll see. Uh, let's uh, let's get one more in before we take a quick break. Jatavian Sanders from Texas. He's the next tight end on your list. I've seen only seven touchdowns in thirty nine games. Worries me a little bit because I want you I want touchdowns from my tight ends if I can get them right.
Sure, those guys are special. Talk.
Let's break down his game a little bit. What do you like about Jatavian Sanders.
Jatavian Sanders is a guy that I liked more off of film and his work during the season than than what I've seen during the draft process. Okay, he did not help himself with a five to seven to three rats.
Yeah. Wow. And the reason why it.
You know, it's case specific with these tests in the athletic profiles. You know, with regards to the prospects, this one hurts because Jatavian Sanders can't block.
He is a he's a big receiver. He's a big slot is what he is.
And you were hoping to see the athleticism becoming of that because you know you're not going to deploy him as a blocker at the next level. The testing profile dragged that down a little bit. Will he still be tight end two as he was seen? He was seen his tight end two with a bullet coming into the process. Will he still be the second tight end take it in the draft? I'm not sure about that anymore. But he's six foot four two forty five catch first tight end.
He is skilled, and he's very good down the scene, very smooth with that. He has plenty of experience playing in line at Texas. But like I said, I would not trust that guy to be blocking out of in line.
He's going to get ragged. All he has to be the big slot.
So it's just going to depend on does he have the athletic trump cards, does he have an or I should say, does he have enough. We know he doesn't have the trump cards. Does he have enough athleticism for his game to be able to translate one to one the receiving aspect of it to the next level. But I saw the speed, acceleration, agility on film. He appear to move better as a route runner on film than he tested. I like his core strength and balance. He
does not get jarred when he's running his routes. He also has a high conversion rate in contested scenarios, which I think is important here when you're talking about going to that next level when you're facing the elite athletes, especially if that's something that he has to overcome.
He was very good at that.
He doesn't break many tackles, but if you hit him on the hands in space, he is a yet guy because he smoothly transitions from the receiver to the runner, thing gets up field, starts running, has pretty good vision. But yeah, he will not be a blocker at the next level. He's got to be. He's got to make it as a big slot. It's bad sign, bad sign.
You know, in my experience, players who don't have a natural fitted at anyone position fail at all of them, you know, And I would get worried that I'm thinking of like the Iowa state wide receiver from like three years ago, who they you know, like, was too big and slow to be a wide receiver. Butler Keem Butler super productive, like all these acrobatic catches and stuff. And I was really excited for what I thought could be
a decent NFL career. But he was a player without a position, and I worry that that's a little bit of what we've got with Jatavian Sanders, a player without a position for dis guys and a size and skill set. Let's take a break. When we come back.
I want to get to.
Tight End University, Iowa. H You like Eric all And a lot more than some other people. Let's talk about him. He started at Michigan ends up but at Iowa. Let's talk through him when we come back. Welcome back, Paul Charchie and Thor Nystrom with you. You can follow Thor on Twitter at thor K. You like Kansas University, you got it at Paul Charchie in as well, and again check out our Discord server. Go to the show notes, click on the link there, and or just look for
Fantasy Football Weekly on Discord. Eric All was I don't know, three years, four years in Michigan and then left Michigan, which is like, why do you leave in Michigan, goes to Iowed, which is I guess the one place that titan could go, or it makes some sense. Tell me why you like Eric Hall a little bit more than some others. I've seen him ranked as low as like ten, eleven, twelve and in some rankings, but you're a lot more optimistic.
Let's talk about it.
Yeah, I think he's getting slept on, and it's good symmetry to talk about him. Right after we brought up Sam Laporta, Eric All was imported to replace Sam Laporta, and he went right into the inline spot that Laporta had played and then became the same sort of aspect of the offense. Of course, Iowa's offense is terrible, and right there's funnel a bunch of usage from this terrible passing get into good tight ends. And Eric All certainly
is that and was that at Michigan. He was the move guy, the h back guy, more the sort of the niche pass game stuff. Then he had a back injury that ended his season in twenty twenty two. There was a disagreement about whether to get surgery or not, the ultimately, you know, cutting the season short. That ultimately led to him transferring spinal surgery.
By the way, for Eric All, you know what, that.
Doesn't ever make me feel better.
No, yeah, it's you know, and he is going to be a big medical guy where your your team's medical staff is gonna pulke around in there, and they need to give him obviously not a clean bill of health, but you need to know what the risk of re injury is, you know, how elevated is that. And then he comes off an ACL tear in October, So we're getting this scary stuff out of the way first. Now he's rehabbing from the ACL, right, which is the reason he did not work out during the pre draft process.
Of course, so the health caveats aside, right, Like, Eric All needs to be healthy at the next level, and I think that's why some people rank him maybe a little bit lower. If now this is a big if, I grant you, but if Eric All is healthy at the next level or healthy ish. If he has a season long periods where he's healthy, he is going to be a steal, not only in the NFL draft, obviously for fantasy players as well. Eric All six foot four and a half two hundred and fifty two pounds. Like
I said, he did not get to test. If he did get to test, I think he would have run the fastest forty time of any tight end. The guy who did that was Theo Johnson with a four or five seven. That the Penn State kid we're going to talk about in a second. Yeah, but eric All, interestingly enough, you see multiple instances of this on tape, but one sort of proof of concept I have on this idea
against Penn State. He caught a ball, accelerates around the corner around Kaylan King, and then it became a foot race. Eric All separated away from Kaylan King down the field. Kaylan King runs a four or five two right a draft prospect in this class. I think eric All was going to perhaps run a high four to four forty, just didn't get the opportunity. I also like his change
of direction on the field. Pretty solid route runner. The best thing about his route running is he accelerates quickly out of route breaks and then gets back to top speed. There are some there's a few concentration drops. That's the one thing I'd want for him to clean up. But I like his ball skills. He's one of those guys that works back to the ball, attacks it in the air full extension. I comp him, you know, interestingly, we also had brought up the Seattle tight end room and
former Iowa guys. No, you're gonna go a lot of no offans in his game. When again, when he's healthy. The first six games of this past season at Iowa, when he was on the field prior to that ACL tear, he was putting up numbers comparable to most other tight ends in the nation. Like he was way up there in terms of just the counting stats and certainly yards per roub run. He might have even been first. But
then you know, of course, what happened happened. But I see if he is healthy at the next level, I think it's a Noah fan like skill set.
All right, that's Eric all from Iowa. Why do you leave Michigan.
Because of the back the back injury and then they didn't think he should get surgery, but he thought he should get surgery. Okay, it was a little trust broke in there, Yeah it was, and there was a deal, like not all of it got out, but we knew that there was a disagreement, and then right after that he summarily announced his transfer.
So yeah, okay, all right.
Kate Stover from Ohio State grew up helping raise cattle and pigs and farming hay, corn and soybeans. His teammates call him farmer Gronk Stover. Stover has an nil deal with an agriculture company called agg Pro, and he plans to return to farming after his playing days. He says, I just want to go play ball and then come home and go back on the farm.
This is incredible.
I love that.
Yeah.
Tip of that to Dane Brugler who sprinkles that stuff into the beast and it's which is great. Kate Stover, Ohio State, talk to me about him?
Yeah, true, true renaissance man.
Kate Stover was also a former star prep basketball player and Ohio's Mister Football. Coming out of high school. He signed it's such an interesting profile. He signed with Ohio State actually as a four star linebacker and when he came out to forty seven Sports. In the recruiting by I they'll put they'll do scouting reports and then comp them to a current NFL player if they're a high enough recruit. They comped Kate Stover coming out of high school to Anthony Barr.
Wow.
Interesting, Okay, he was going to be getting after it there from the outside linebacker spot when he gets to Ohio State. They were working with him on the edge initially, so it was defensive end and linebacker as a freshman. He moved to tight end as a sophomore in twenty twenty. Then Kate Stover briefly switches back to defense late in twenty twenty one before he finally got to play tight
end for two full seasons the last two. Some of my notes on him springy athlete, skilled receiver, very good hands, very very good hands, only two drops on one hundred plus targets the last two seasons. Love it, and I like so with his route running. He's not like the brock Bauers guy with that, but I like where he's at with how new he is to the position. He seems to have a pretty good understanding of route running
concepts despite being a neophyte to the position. I also like I love the stop startability with guys into and out of route breaks. It's it's where you can create that separation, and he can do that. The thing he does not have is the high end deep speed, but the stuff in the short and intermedia game is certainly gonna do.
Uh.
He's coming along as a blocker. I like the way he uses his length and he understands leverage. He also takes good angles, different stuff like that, but he needs to continue working on his the overall technique and certainly the core strength for that to become upper echelon at the NFL level six four two forty seven eight two two ras I comped him to Hayden Hurst.
I'm my worries on drafting Kate stove around to my fantasy roster would be he's so green at the position that in Titans already take mostly take time to develop. I worry that my payoff in Kate Stover is gonna be like twenty twenty six.
That's that.
That would be my worry from a fantasy aspect. Yeah, yeah, okay. Last guy that I want to hit on Theo Johnson from Penn State. I saw just okay productivity from him, and I would like to see, like to have seen a little bit more. But that's you know, this is just me looking at at a handful of plays and looking at stat lions. Tell me about THEO Johnson.
Yeah, he was.
He was the talk of Indianapolis as far as this position group went, because he just dominated athletic testing. And it's like we get these Penn State guys every year that just test ridiculous.
Yeah, you know, I don't know what they're doing down there.
But with THEO Johnson sixty six two fifty nine, boy wow, ninety ninth percentile athlete, and he did all the tests, including the agility stuff. Was very impressive. I mentioned the four five seven speed before. The surprising aspect to me wasn't necessarily the speed because north south he's really good. What surprised me was the agility because on film he
does not change directions that fluidly. It sort of reminded me of the year before with zach Kunz, how he had tested in the agility drills and tested elite, but on film he he changed directions like a cruise ship. Interestingly enough, zach Kunz began his career at Penn State. Oh, he had left because Pat Fryermouth you know, yeah, yeah, had him a fix to the bench then, you know, and now we have THEO Johnson coming out and ends
his career there. He got the development obviously, he was in the the strength and conditioning program that turns out all these awesome testers during the pre draft process. But being at Penn State complicates his evaluation a little bit. And this gets back to your point chart. So they ran twelve personnel but had this super risk averse passing offense. You know, they led, They were led by the foot of their run game, but they wouldn't let the five
star quarterback drew a Lard throw down the field. Why this matters for THEO Johnson is I think his best thing when we think about him for the next level threatening the seam. He gets off the line quick, and he gets nor Sell super quick, and he has decent enough ball skills. I think down the field is where the receiving utility with him would be, where you would be misusing him would be on quick in and out breaking stuff short and intermediate. Well that's all they were
using their tight ends for. So the passing production, the receiving production wasn't quite there with him, and there would be long stretches of games where he would disappear as a receiver. I would suggest that that was both a usage issue and then you know, endemic to their offensive strategy as a whole. But he is THEO Johnson obviously one of the best size athleticism combinations in this tight end class, if not the best, but very inconsistent production
on the field. Like I said, you see, you see the flashes, but yeah, he needs to it worked on.
He needs to be used a little bit differently.
I'm not sure if he's ever going to be that efficiency machine that that Penn State wanted him to be in that specific role.
So THEO Johnson, you're buying traits, you're buying traits, You're buying traits and saying, you know what, in time we can we can develop him.
It's sort of like a Luke Musgrave thing sort of from last year, you know, with how well he tested and then you saw flashes on film, but it wasn't enough of them for Musgrave. It was for different reasons the injuries. But with Theo, he was on the field and we've gotten to see him play in line in a pro style ish offense. Yeah, it's just if the usage was different with him, I think potentially then he could play up. You know, we talked about Musgrave last process.
The most important impressive thing that we had seen with him was winning downfield. Again, we just didn't get to see enough of that with Leo because of the way Penn State played football.
That's Theo Johnson from Penn State. Well, we will circle back with you after the draft, not the Friday of the draft, but the friday after that. I'm already I would like to book you now, I mean, and let's break down all the all the big moves, and that might be some more tight ends we're not talking about. Maybe it's Dylan Holker, whoever, you know who knows well, you know, there could be a surprise. Somebody jumps into the third round and it's a perfect spid. The Bengals
pick a tight end in the third round. We're talking about it.
We're all gonna be crossing our freight.
Yeah, so there's some there's gonna be some great opportunities there. Terrific job breaking down Bowers, Sinnate Sanders, Eric Hall, cad Stovert, Theo Johnson, thank you, appreciate church. All right, talk to you later, my man. Thank you for listening, everybody. We'll be back with more Fantasy Football Weekly next week. Fantasy
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