RC's Daily Notes 2025: For the Week of 7/14-7/20 (TUE am. Judkins, CMC, Addison, Cowing, QB+Team Hierarchy)

: R.C. Fischer; FFM; 15 July 2025

Just an open page for me to drop notes/ideas/things I'm hearing/seeing/working on or just caffeinated or lack of sleep thoughts on football items.

7/15 TUE

-- The latest on Quinshon Judkins, from NBC and from Tom Pelisssero.

Arresting officer Steven Pohorence reported that the victim of Judkins’ alleged assault reported the incident the day after it occurred, alleging Judkins “punched her in the mouth/chin area with a closed fist” while adding he later struck her in the arm and thigh. The victim also showed pictures of her chin/lip area, with officer Pohorence noting in the report “the bruising was clearly evident.” Bruises could also be found on her arm and thigh. This situation is far from resolved and could have a direct impact on Judkins’ availability for training camp as he remains unsigned at this time.

This is getting very serious/troubling.

I don’t think the Browns will cut Judkins. What they should do is fire their entire awful, league-worst-for-years management team, but they won’t...nor will they cut Judkins. They probably delight in the fact that they have leverage over the currently unsigned RB...and they do. They will likely sign him closer to training camp start when the news dies down some and then let the league enact a six or more game suspension.

Don’t count on the Browns to step in and do anything extra above the NFL’s penalty...they didn’t do anything extra with Deshaun Watson, nor with rookie Michael Hall last year...so they won’t with Judkins. The fans and media will feign concern for a few days, but the Browns know this will all blow over with the excitement of the new season and onward with the awful running of the team the Browns can continue as-is.

This situation obviously puts Jerome Ford in a nice spot for FF purposes...and it drives Dylan Sampson’s current and future value higher. If Sampson gets a real shot at work for 5-6+ games this season and gets more time in training camp -- the numbnuts in Cleveland may actually see Sampson is a better prospect than Judkins.

The 2025 Judkins redraft ADP is starting to leak faster and faster based on the latest details.

We also don’t know if there is a wrinkle in this situation that none of us knows about and will result in charges being dropped and there is no impact...or the case gets pushed down the road for two years, like Rashee Rice.

-- Jordan Addison is having his DUI trial set for today. He has pleaded not guilty. If he is found guilty, he could face a (projected) 3-game suspension different experts are saying. He also has a second DUI out there to bring more pressure to his case and suspension possibilities down the road.

More information, and possible outcome of the case (assumed) should be out today, and we’ll discuss it tomorrow.

-- Sports Injury Central (SIC) website had this to say (below) about Christian McCaffrey in a free release email they sent to their mailing list members:

It’s Dr. David Chao’s website (a respected sports doctor, long-time NFL team doctor, now specializes in NFL injury reports...if you don’t know him)

The note: Dr. David Chao isn’t concerned about Christian McCaffrey’s injury history going into 2025. While some fantasy players may be hesitant because of past calf and Achilles issues, Chao believes those injuries are not recurring and says CMC is healthy. He compares McCaffrey to Saquon Barkley, who struggled after his ACL tear but bounced back strong the next season. With Kyle Shanahan’s usage and McCaffrey’s PPR upside, he remains a top fantasy option.

I keep talking about this situation because the CMC FF 2025 proposition is so fascinating...he’s a ‘do not touch’ for many...he’s a ‘bargain of 2025 redraft’ for others. I’m thinking -- why draft CMC highly with the risk/all the other options? But the news has been so positive lately that it is sucking more-and-more believers in, and starting to drive CMC’s ADP higher.

-- An NBC headline yesterday by way of The Athletic: The Athletic’s Vic Tafur believes Jacob Cowing in 2025 “could take a lot of the departed Deebo Samuel’s gadget plays.”

I have a short reaction answer to that: No.

Not likely.

Deebo led all WRs in carries with 42 last season...no way Cowing is getting 42 carries at 168-175 pounds soaking wet. Cowing may get a few jet sweeps, as could Ricky Pearsall (who is the more likely to take carries of a ball)...but painting Cowing as just stepping in to the Deebo-like run-role, to me, is ‘no way’. It’s apples and oranges on Cowing and Deebo skillsets.

-- My key REWIND report is coming out today...a deeper look at Jameson Williams and the changes to the Lions offense upcoming in 2025. It’s an important report for 2025 for various reasons that will be evident this week and next.

-- QB hierarchy (daily)...

(Same intro daily): I got into a conversation with Ross J. the other day about who were the top QBs in the NFL, and where did Patrick Mahomes rank among them...which got me to thinking about the QB group as a whole, for just 2025 -- if I had just this one season as an NFL head coach and I could have any ONE QB, who would it be? So, I am going to go in team alphabetical order each day and just simply put that day’s QB into the list/rank...so I can focus on just that QB and compare him to the other options. It will be a vertical list, and quickly/also a horizontal one putting them in ‘tiers’.

One QB a day, as we play this out for a month...just for fun.

Today’s add: Minnesota.

Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert

Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen

Lamar Jackson

Jared Goff, Matt Stafford, Dak Prescott

Bo Nix, C.J. Stroud, Michael Penix

Jordan Love, Geno Smith, J.J. McCarthy, Kyler Murray

Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagovailoa, Caleb Williams

Joe Flacco, Daniel Jones

Bryce Young

-- (Same intro daily): I wanted to add another little ranking thing, for fun, before training camps begin -- my NFL team power ratings. Who I think has the best roster/team/coaches/GM...who I think the best TEAM in the league is, right now, for 2025.

We will run this ranking parallel with the QB hierarchy, going in alphabetical order/daily:

Buffalo, Detroit

LA Chargers, Denver, Baltimore, L.A. Rams, Kansas City, Minnesota

Houston, Green Bay, Cincinnati, Dallas, Atlanta, Arizona

Carolina, Miami, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Chicago

Cleveland

-- Coming up on FFM today/this week...

*Devy 2026+ scouting series runs all month.

*Next scouting report will publish ASAP.

*Next DRD top 300 rankings update will be Thursday/s all summer.

**Special reports that pop up will be published randomly all this week.

**Working on my next REWIND report to be published ASAP. My latest will publish today.

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*For those into Best Ball and Unique FF tourney action...It’s FastDraft, from our friends at PlayerProfiler. https://ffmetrics.com/5680-the-fastdraft-best-ball-and-specialized-tournament-style-fantasy-action-and-promo-code

7/14 MON

(7:25amET)

-- The latest on Quinshon Judkins, from NBC: Details around Judkins’ arrest continue to emerge. On Sunday, Sergeant David Soika of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department Media Relations Unit shared that upon arriving at the scene where the reported crime took place, officers determined after speaking to the victim that a battery occurred, which led to the arrest of Judkins soon after. The rookie second-rounder remained in police custody overnight and is scheduled to have an initial hearing on Sunday.

Ok, this is starting to look a little more serious. Still, we have a-ways to go...but Judkins is taking hits to his ADP already this weekend.

It’s weird how this rookie RB class is going...

Omarion Hampton taking small hits/sliding a bit on ‘Najee exists’ fears.

RJ Harvey was flying high, and then they cut his legs out with JK Dobbins signing.

Judkins was rising in the face of all of this, but if Judkins gets into serious trouble...down he’ll go.

The RB class is fading before they even hit the field. It makes Ashton Jeanty even more valuable...and TreVeyon Henderson continues to get more consensus love...all because this RB class is crumbling week-by-week this summer.

I think if Judkins did something bad and thus got suspended for like 6 games -- Kaleb Johnson is going to rise in the Dynasty Rookie Draft rankings, among the consensus, surpassing Judkins in ADP...as the mainstream tries to find RBs to love.

The era of supply & demand and RBBC situations is going to continue to make RBs less and less valuable in Dynasty because you can only trust them for ‘right now’/a year at a time.

A main carry RB is worth their weight in gold ‘right now’, but you don’t know if they will be main carry a year from now/who the team adds in the draft, etc.

-- Jauan Jennings is going for a contract extension...

https://ninernoise.com/jauan-jennings-extension-drama-brewing-49ers-fans-worry

It makes sense because JJ has some leverage right now because Brandon Aiyuk is hurt, likely to miss 1-2 months of the season...and is out of favor in SF...and Ricky Pearsall is promising but always hurt...Jennings is the SF #1 WR for 2025 -- but he is paid like a chump. He is due some money.

I don’t think it will become a thing, or he’ll miss any time, etc. Jennings likely gets a 1-year deal for $10-15M+, which allows him to have a big season and go for big bucks in 2026. But SF may respect him enough to go like 3-years, $50M or something like it...some sign of respect.

He’ll get a raise, we’ll see how much and how long likely in the next 2-4 weeks. The contract SF gives him will say a lot about what SF thinks about him overall...and will impact what we think about him some more for FF 2025.