📝 News & Notes

• Miami gets their replacement Pro Bowl TE: Darren Waller. Last seen in the studio recording an album, Waller is five years removed from his last quality season, missing between 5 and 8 games each of the his last three years prior to retiring.

  My take: I have already seen a wide range of projections on Waller but I have substantial concern he can 1) stay healthy, 2) contribute at a high level, and 3) maintain his desire to play football after deciding to retire mid-game. I’ll continue to monitor but for now he is nothing more than a last round stack partner for Tua.

   

• 🚨Sleeper alert: The Chiefs have plans for rookie RB Brashard Smith says Chiefs beat reporter, Adam Teicher. [ESPN]

  My take: This assessment comes from “how he was utilized in offseason practices” which to me is stronger than something like applying his college tape or skill sets to team need. I would be happy with just assurance he makes the team (a tall task for 7th rounders) but hinting at a role this early is quite tantalizing. I’ll likely start mixing him in a bit more as a late round flyer.

• Underdog Fantasy goes on the offense by suing the California AG to block them from issuing a legal opinion on DFS. [@WALLACHLEGAL]

  My take: This move should, at the very least, delay any regulatory action and hopefully keep best ball alive for Californians through the summer. I’ll keep a close eye on developments here.

🔍 ADP Tracker

📈 Risers

• Justin Jefferson - Small rise, but major by percentage. This likely attributed to what we discussed yesterday with savvy drafters feeling better about their early pick teams after they start WR.

• J.K. Dobbins - He is continuing to rise since the Broncos signing and I’m comfortable saying the injury risk, efficiency concerns, and lack of upside with Harvey in town has me out at this price

• George Kittle - Combine Aiyuk’s health concerns with Kittle getting positive praise among analysts and not surprising to see him rising. He’s the one “elite-ish” TE I’m happy to draft on Underdog.

• Travis Etienne Jr. - This price is too high for me when I’d rather be drafting Tyrone Tracy or Najee Harris. Using this time to draft more Bigsby and Tuten.

📉 Fallers

• Saquon Barkley - Simply the inverse of Justin Jefferson. I’m still taking him #3 in drafts at this point.

• Joe Burrow - I don’t expect this drop to stop as the more he drops, the more tempting it is for people to push him to the 6/7 turn, and thus dropping his ADP even more. As a side note on DK: don’t think you’ll get Burrow at the 6/7 turn as that has only happened six times out of 13,059 drafts.

• Jack Bech - I expect him to keep falling but we’re getting to a place where the risk is worth the upside for a 2nd round draftee that could easily become the #2 WR

• Jaydon Blue - Blue’s early ADP didn’t make much sense given he’s an undersized, 5th round pick, that has never carried a significant workload. That said, I have had some very sharp people including Evan Silva tell me this is a guy I should be targeting.

🔁 In Case You Missed It

• Should we be drafting elite TEs? Highly recommend reading this article that touches on both redraft and best ball implications.

📊 Poll of the Day

Yesterday’s poll led to a two-horse race between Achane and Waddle for who will be the greatest beneficiary. This makes sense as the expectation is Jonnu’s low ADOT targets need to go somewhere (94% of his targets were within 5 yards of the LOS). My vote is for Achane as if the offensive line struggles again at protecting Tua, I think Achane could lead the league in receptions again and have outs to being the overall RB1.