9 Rookies Who Will SHOCK You at Training Camp

**Dave Kluge** (0:11)
Rookies are reporting to Training Camp and we have identified the guys who are going to catch their coach's eyes. From deep sleepers to day one starters, Jeff Bell and I are going to talk about some of the players that you need to pay attention to during the early part of Training Camp. Jeff, the first guy we're going to talk about here, no huge sleeper. This isn't a deep surprise or anything, but Mackay Lemon is a player that players should be watching closely. Talk to me about it.

**Jeff Bell** (0:34)
Yeah, Mackay Lemon, obviously, first round pick wide receiver stepping into huge opportunity with AJ Brown leaving the Eagles and they need him. They need him to develop. But at the same time, Mackay Lemon needs to show that he is potentially a different type of player than what we saw at USC. I think some of the concerns about Lemon being married to the slot, the inability to track down field are overblown. I think he is a little bit more of a vertical receiver, but he's coming in.
We know Davonta Smith is going to be the clear wide receiver one. We know when AJ Brown has been out of the lineup, that Dallas Goddard has seen heavy involvement. And in some elements, Goddard's coming off one of his best seasons. And in some other elements, he's coming off one of his least efficient seasons. But we know he's going to carve out a role. And then you've got Dantavian Wicks coming over from the Packers, coming out of trading for him, following the offensive coordinator that I am, Sean Mannion, coming from the Packers and a player that's familiar with the system. So LeMann needs to prove himself as the ability to be that receiver that can step into the AJ. Brown role. Or is this going to be a situation where Wicks, as the veteran, is getting the nominal wide receiver to snaps and starts? And LeMann kind of starts from behind the eight ball. And given where LeMann is going in ADP and redraft leagues, you're going to need to see him be an immediate contributor and be that wide receiver too in the offense, I think, to repay value.

**Dave Kluge** (2:01)
And you know, the kind of take that I've had, for lack of a better term, just like kind of how I'm looking at this offense, is there is no one to one replacement for AJ. Brown. There wasn't a single player that the Eagles could have drafted this year to get AJ. Brown production from. But when I look at what McKay LeMann does and then a name that you didn't mention, Eli Stowers, I see those guys as kind of like an aggregate AJ. Brown. We're like, McKay LeMann can play out of the slot, get downfield, do some of that sort of stuff. And Eli Stowers is more that can run the slant across the middle of the field, yards after the catch, those crossing routes. So that's another player that I'm going to be watching here because there is no AJ. Brown. You know, Devonta Smith is going to be the clear top target in this offense. But we have already seen that this offense with Jalen Hurts can struggle to support multiple fantasy options consistently. So if we're looking at Devonta Smith getting his share, Dallas Goddard is going to be involved. And then we're looking at the wide receiver, two duties kind of getting split between Lemon and Stowers. That could potentially set both of these guys up to be traps through rookie seasons where neither is really producing. And these could end up being more long-term plays than immediate producers like a lot of people are hoping.

**Jeff Bell** (3:08)
Yeah. And what is going to be the long-term future of Jalen Hurts? That's the question as well. And there's been concern about Hurts his game marrying to Lemon's strengths. I think there's a lot of questions around this Eagles offense that there's a lot of volatility involved here.

**Dave Kluge** (3:22)
Well, we are here, Jeff. It is the red zone. I couldn't believe it. This weekend, I started planning. I was like, I'm going to get ahead, do like a week or two of pre-planning. And before I knew it, I was to week one. Like this season is here. Training camp is open. We are going to be working on training camp reports next week.
Busy, busy time of year. So be sure to hit that subscribe button. And of course, like this video as well. We are going to start bringing you daily content, Monday through Friday, every single day, right here on the Footballguys Fantasy Show YouTube channel. On top of the daily shows, we've also got live streams with NFFC and DraftKings. Just a really, really good time to be plugged in right now with non-stop information coming your way. And Jeff, I think you and I would both agree here that during training camp, this is the time of year where we are getting the most valuable information. So a lot of people already have their preconceived takes that they've been holding on to since the NFL draft. All that is about to flip on its head when training camp opens up. So you definitely want to stick around for these episodes because there's going to be non-stop information daily that we're going to be doing our best to decipher here.