6/15 MON
(8:14amET)
Today/tomorrow
-- A new/special ‘Top 10 Players for FF 2026’ series of reports from Ross Jacobs wraps tonightET.
The debut/#10 is open to all subscribers...#1-9 will be for the Draft Guide package of reports only, as the drive to redraft 2026 is upon us.
-- NOTE: I’m researching and working through all the main/key injuries lingering out there in the NFL/for FF as I work on the draft guide, which has ripple effects for all rankings and ratings and betting, etc. And I am getting a lot/learning a lot from them...and GEMINI does a lot of the heavy lifting/research, so everybody wins.
I’m gonna keep them coming as we dial in the 2026 Draft Guide projections and commentaries. I’m working my way down from the major/monster ones to the more curious/suspect/double-check-and-make-sure-things-will-be-OK injury Q&A’s...like with a Bo Nix (posting today).
-- The month of June is Draft Guide prep and reporting season. It’s pushed back a little bit from usual time ranges due to the Schedule release being so much later this year.
-- A ‘Strength of Schedule’ light reporting, daily series runs through June.
-- Miscellaneous reports on things that come my way and more scouting reports to come. I have a backlog of them to get published already.
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NEW DISCORD NOTIFICATION SYSTEM/INVITE: FFM Discord Notification System
This is not a chat room. It is a one-way channel for FFM notifications about newly posted items and critical breaking news.
This Week’s/Month’s Agenda…
-- 2026 Draft Guide studies.
-- DRD rankings will now update rankings and add/update commentaries, etc., every THU or FRI for the rest of the preseason.
-- Dynasty and Best Ball rankings audits/updates weekly +/-.
-- Holy series QB and RB done. Holy RB Handcuffs underway (on hold for draft, since we’re this close)
-- Full scouting reports on various prospects from now until the NFL preseason. Deeper looks at Cyrus Allen and more all on deck.
-- Any FFM News & Notes or Special Reports during the day as I get them.
-- New coaching staff hire’s analysis series...trying to slot/schedule this. Once the Draft Guide is set, I hope/plan to turn to this.
== NEWS & NOTES & Xs ==
-- HEADLINE: Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles referred to Kenneth Gainwell as the team’s 1B running back. Reports from mid-May indicated that the Buccaneers might use a running back committee, including Gainwell and incumbent RBs Bucky Irving and Sean Tucker.
I have said it all offseason...something doesn’t feel right about this backfield from a Bucky Irving perspective. Could be a much bigger distribution of workload this season. Gone (in 2026) are all the incessant Bucky love letters and poems from the coaches, replaced by a lot of Kenneth Gainwell respect statements and ‘he’s like Bucky’ comforting/subliminal messages.
The Buccaneers usually wear their heart on their sleeves when they're talking about the RB situations. I ignored the warning signs for Rachaad White in 2024 because it never made any sense to me why they would throw him overboard and so fall in love with Bucky Irving who hadn't even played in NFL snap yet (at the time)...and I wound up the fool; they were basically telegraphing what they flet/meant. Then 2025, year 2 of Bucky...it was all Bucky talk. But this offseason it's very tame and nice about Bucky and very reverent Gainwell. Not that Bucky won't be the lead RB but he's likely to share a lot of duties with Gainwell and Tucker.
-- HEADLINE: Jets’ HC Aaron Glenn said he’s planning to use Breece Hall, Braelon Allen, and Isaiah Davis as a “three-headed monster” this season.
As a coach, I think you have to say this...or you should. Why tell all the employees in the offseason that only one guy matters and the rest don’t. It’s technically a three-headed monster if Breece Hall gets 90% of the touches and the other two get 5%.
By a stretching of the definition, most every backfield is at least a two-headed monster...and many are three-headed monsters. The Ravens 2025 were a three-headed monster with Henry running a lot, Justice Hill taking a ton of 3rd-down work, then Keaton Mitchell popping up and taking relief work and 3rd-down work too. But did that really hurt Derrick Henry?
They didn’t pay Breece Hall all that money to do an equal three-way split. That’s silly. The headline/isolated quote is positioned to make you think it’s like an ‘anyone could be the lead at any moment’. I’ll buy Breece discounted from any goof that buys into this.
-- HEADLINE: Sports Illustrated’s John Shipley reports Jaguars WR Brian Thomas Jr. “is the leader in the clubhouse to be the offseason program’s MVP.” Shipley names an MVP at the end of each offseason cycle. Last year, WR Parker Washington took home the honor, and while Washington “has been really good again” this year, as has QB Trevor Lawrence, Thomas’ showing at mandatory minicamp puts him in the lead.
This is a continuation of the theme that I wrote about yesterday about this WR group. When this particular RotoBlurb hit--all the BTJ fanboys went bananas and the ‘paper hands’ Parker Washington people who don't even know why they took an interest in him besides seeing his name in RotoBlurbs a bunch...now they're ready to fold fast in fear of the great and powerful BTJ.
-- https://x.com/pfn365/status/2065949347989098764?s=43
Who cares about this ‘metric’ if half these guys got given up on by their teams/coaches for ever being ‘the guy’? Great, you lead a list ahead of Elijah Mitchell and Tyler Allgeier.
This stat/metric, as are most in football for RBs, are totally meaningless...warped by one big run or warped by the offense/O-Line or coach or O-C that the rookie drew.
If you were offered Ashton Jeanty (not on this list) for any of these RBs, you would take Jeanty in a trade straight up for any of them. You’d likely take Jeanty for any two on this list.
== QUOTES & QUOTABLES (pulled from an internet A.I. search, I try to make sure it’s accurate but some of it is ‘trust in AI’) ==
-- Sports Illustrated’s John Shipley reports that Jaguars RB Chris Rodriguez “the running game’s hammer,” but the team’s starter has not yet been determined. Shipley notes that the Commanders allowed Rodriguez to enter free agency for a reason. Although he is “an expert at getting downhill and breaking tackles,” his passing down abilities remain “underdeveloped.”
-- (PFT) In the never ending modern news cycle, the things that don’t happen often don’t get noticed. Case in point — the Seahawks haven’t, and apparently won’t be, visiting the White House in recognition of their win in Super Bowl LX.
There has been no announcement, by the team or by the White House. But with the offseason program over and the players scattered until training camp opens, the natural window has closed on the team from Seattle, Washington to go to Washington, D.C..
-- (YAHOO) “There is no shortage of viable candidates here given that the 2023 draft delivered an excellent crop of cornerbacks, all of whom became eligible for extensions this spring,” Barnwell wrote. “They’re collectively playing a waiting game with one another here, given that the first player to sign might set the market for the others to top.”
Barnwell went on to identify Joey Porter as one of four defensive backs capable of commanding a market-setting contract.
“Between Porter, Christian Gonzalez of the Patriots, DJ Turner II of the Bengals and Devon Witherspoon of the Seahawks, there are four corners who could credibly command market-setting deals from the 2023 class alone,” Barnwell added.
Your moment of Zen for this day...
https://x.com/MoosesFelix/status/2066197631244566629
(REPRINT from Yesterday) *NEW EPISODE DROPS TODAY*
-- We are excited to announce a brand-new video project: Two Scouts Talking.
We’ve quietly released our first three episodes to make sure everything was dialed in, and now we are ready to take it public. This is a separate YouTube channel strictly dedicated to one concept: two scouts putting a player/s under the microscope and debating the tape.
The idea sparked when Ross and I were doing a livestream for Day 2 of the NFL Draft. There is something incredibly valuable about bouncing live, unscripted scouting information off a colleague who does the same heavy lifting in the field.
Here is how the show works: We pick a player to scout. We take a few days to grind the tape completely independently. We do not discuss what we are seeing. Then, we hit record and reveal our findings to each other in real-time. We have no idea what the other person is going to say, and the fireworks go from there.
Sometimes we are looking at incoming draft prospects. Sometimes we are doing a deep-dive recheck on existing players. I have already found three major revelations just by isolating these players from Week 1 to their final game, and it has already changed my projections/outlooks somewhat radically. With these videos, you get to see that journey of discovery, the debates, and the exact moments where our evaluations clash.
There are no scripts and no pre-planned talking points. We just start shooting, and the conversation weaves wherever the tape dictates.
We purposely made this a public channel so the videos are easily accessible and searchable and findable for your research in the future. We’re not revealing our Fantasy projections on the player as a focus, more just trying to assess ‘how good’ they are and who they compare to, etc. We’d love for you to subscribe so you get notified when we drop a new 15-to-30-minute episode, which will happen randomly a few times a week.
If you enjoy an episode, dropping a "thumbs up" on the video is a huge help to the channel. But you will not hear me annoyingly begging for likes and subscribes during the show. There are no intro songs and no small talk about how our day was. We jump right into the topic and get after it. It is strictly scouting business.
The first three episodes are out:
#1: Is Jeremiah Smith Radically Overvalued?
https://youtu.be/On8daR80-Fo?si=47D44J3BKJZD9wK7
We look at his scouting and try to properly value him for the 2027 DRD...and whether or not people should sell the farm for a chance at him.
#2: How Good is Brendan Sorsby?
https://youtu.be/x2c70UL1WVk?si=s5Rg_lDn1Vrg8xU_
We look at him as if he were in the 2026 NFL Draft and 2026 DRD, along with just raw scouting his work.
#3: Scouting Bhayshul Tuten vs. Chris Rodriguez
https://youtu.be/Iy_qO-lUfl8?si=4EsZVfNLHRZiVtCj
This was my first real shocking moment of our studies/topics in the first three...where I saw something I had not before. I think you’ll enjoy my journey on this one.
== Daily Series ==
NEW for JUNE: 2026 Strength of Schedule analysis according to FFM!
I am putting my data into GEMINI and letting it do two things...do my calculations for me on our internal NFL-based ‘Strength of Schedule’...which takes a ton of things into consideration like our current win-loss projections for all teams 2026, analysis on weather, and travel, and BYE week impacts, etc.
I’m doing a slow burn for some daily fun/fare, BUT I’m also running my AI writer/creation AI_McGillicuddy1 to take all my data and guidance/notes and then make a report on the schedule as if he is an expert schedule analyzer (with our data) and then writes it in his comedic way that I constructed him to be like...a Frankenstein writer, half robot/half football writer/comedian.
We’ll add a team’s strength of schedule per day until we’re done. But we’ll begin with the first two, to get us started, the A’s group and then their quick schedule analysis reports from AI_McGillicuddy1 will hit during the day.
How we evaluate the SOS is a winning percentage (like everyone else), but ours is weighted for certain factors on top of our own internal projections for 2026 season strength of the 32 teams. The higher the % above .500, the tougher the schedule and vice-versa.
Our FFM Internal SOS for 2026, current:
*Adding Warren Sharp’s #1-32 rank on their S.O.S. calculations just for a fun check/parallel to a football research group that also gets that S.O.S. is a whole different animal than just “what was their record last year?” For Sharp Analysis notes, it’s displayed as #1 their easiest/#32 toughest scale.
45.81% = Cincinnati Bengals (#3)
45.83% = Detroit Lions (#1)
46.38% = Indianapolis Colts (#9)
48.27% = Chicago Bears (#27)
48.74% = Baltimore Ravens (#6)
49.73% = Carolina Panthers (#30)
50.80% = Houston Texans (#26)
51.10% = Dallas Cowboys (#29)
51.38% = Kansas City Chiefs (#10)
51.21% = Cleveland Browns (#4)
52.10% = Jacksonville Jaguars (#15)
52.25% = Buffalo Bills (#14)
53.11% = Atlanta Falcons (#20)
54.50% = Denver Broncos (#11)
56.81% = Green Bay Packers (#17)
57.98% = Arizona Cardinals (#32)
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