The Rookie Kit has been updated! ✅

What’s in store:

• The Raiders are in the market for a signal caller. Vegas is hoping to usher in a new era in Antonio Pierce’s first full season as HC.

• Trouble brewing for Treylon in Tennessee? Burks’ new offensive coordinator didn’t exactly give a glowing assessment of his young WR.

• BUY Rashee Rice, DO NOT SELL. We’ve heard from the couch lawyers all week that he’s cooked, but that’s not exactly the case.

• Dynasty trading best practices, presented by Faraz. 🗃️ Don’t lose sight of these tips as the excitement for the draft reaches a fever pitch.

• Raiders owner Mark Davis reportedly has ‘given his blessing’ for the team to make a move for a quarterback this offseason, per ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez

  • It’s about time. While the Derek Carr era certainly had its flaws and was far from a perfect storm for fantasy purposes, it was a hell of a lot better than what we were treated to in 2023 with the platoon of Aidan O’Connell and Jimmy Garoppolo under center. The two quarterbacks combined to make even the great Davante Adams a shell of himself on an offense that lacked any juice the entire season. Lucky for us and the Raiders, they have a full offseason to flush out the food poisoning that was Josh McDaniels’ tenure as head coach and now appear primed to find their QB of the future in this year’s draft. As things stand currently, the Raiders are too far back in the draft order at 13th overall to have a realistic shot at any of the top passers – those being Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, and J.J. McCarthy – but are in play for the two older prospects in Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. Whether Las Vegas opts to sit on their hands and let the board fall to them or get aggressive in pursuit of one of the bigger names, it seems clear that the Raiders are intent to find their centerpiece on offense… a very welcome development in fantasy land.

• Titans OC Nick Holz offers cryptic assessment of WR Treylon Burks’ role in offense, says he’ll ‘get what he earns’

  • Translation: get ready to learn Chinese, buddy. It’s a rough translation, for sure, but it’s hard to imagine a new coaching staff that just traded for a second big-name pass catcher in Calvin Ridley wanting to force Treylon Burks onto the field to help kickstart his career. With the aforementioned Ridley ahead of him, as well as DeAndre Hopkins and a new two-headed monster at running back, touches (and even snaps at this point) may be hard to come by for the third year wide receiver in new HC Brian Callahan’s offense. Burks’ career at this point has been plagued by injury and an overall failure to launch, and given that the brain trust that brought him into Tennessee is out the window, he could be a prime trade or cut candidate heading into the 2024 season. For the time being, fantasy managers holding out hope for Burks in the NFL can continue holding their breath, but there should be no anticipation of fantasy relevance for Burks this year as long as Ridley and Hopkins are healthy.

• Arrest warrant issues for Chiefs WR Rashee Rice Wednesday night in connection with street racing incident from March

  • We’ll pound the drum one more time: go and buy Rashee Rice right now. Just a few short weeks ago, Rice was locked in as an up and coming fantasy star on an offense that features the best quarterback in the NFL. We get it, the legal situation obviously isn’t ideal; but he’s still the same player he was at the end of the 2023 season. Unless he’s handed down a ridiculous sentence from any legal proceedings he goes through (which it’s looking like he won’t), he’ll be able to take the field in 2024 – even if that comes with a side of a multi-game suspension. With the way some in the community are blowing this out of proportion without having all of the details, there’s plenty of panic to capitalize on. It’s not often that a player’s value – especially a young and talented one like Rice – depreciates this quickly, and with Rice going into just his second year, there’s nothing to lose if you throw late round rookie draft picks at whoever has him in your league. Yes, it’s true – the short term prospects for Rice are a bit murky right now. But the long-term returns he could provide at a suddenly extremely low price is well, well worth the risk at a price of just a rookie third or second round pick.

• The worst teams in your league are always going to be willing to trade any studs they have for future draft picks, especially if they’re far from competing. Take advantage.

• If you trade 1st round rookie draft picks, make sure you’re getting studs back. If it’s a RB, make sure you’re going to be competing in the next year or two. I’d rather package 2nd or 3rd round rookie picks than include a 1st in any deal.

• When it’s time to make roster cuts, try your best to trade multiple players for one so you have less cut decisions. In a rookie draft, trading up services multiple purposes - you get the better rookie who has a better chance at hitting, and you have less cuts to make.

• Since you’re going to be with the same league mates for multiple seasons, understand their tendencies. Some like to overpay, some don’t mind throwing in a little extra something for what they want, some drive a hard bargain, some are impossible to negotiate with, some just need a little action, some get bored in the off-season and just want to make trades for the sake of trading, etc.

• This one is especially relevant today: As soon as a piece of positive or negative news comes to the surface on Twitter, see how you can take advantage of that situation. Sometimes there’s a negative piece of news on a player that could temporarily undervalue them. That’s where you swoop in. Sometimes it’s the opposite, where a brief positive report gives you a window to sell that roster clogger you’ve been trying to get rid of.

• This goes for redraft, too, but understand what your trade partner needs before you send an offer. Sending an offer that actually helps them and your own team will drastically improve any chance of a deal happening.

Brooks was having an amazing season before it was cut short in November with an ACL tear. The word is that he could be ready for training camp, but my guess is that it will linger until the middle of the summer. Suiting up Week 1 is definitely in the cards, since there wasn’t any damage to surrounding ligaments.

Brooks is the complete package, and would be my clear RB1 if he didn’t just suffer the ACL injury. He’s my RB1a in this class with Trey Benson being the RB1b, but without the ACL in the picture, there would be room between them. He has the size, ability, and enough of a base in pass protection to be a 3-down back in the NFL. He has tons of tread left and will be a great fit on a zone run scheme given his one-cut running style, but he’s not beholden to that scheme. The patience at the line is there either way. He’s not easy to bring down, especially at the 2nd level, whether it’s via contact or taking good angles and making defenders miss.

Brooks racked up 1421 total yards despite his season ending a couple of games early. He averaged 6.1 YPC, and the combination of his 3.91 YAC/att and 0.34 MTF/att showed serious efficiency. It wasn’t just in the run game either; his 1.45 yards/route run was 1st in this class and landed in the 74th percentile among all collegiate RB seasons since 2014.

For his career, he’s shown some of the best efficiency in college football over the last 10 seasons. His 4.1 career yards after contact/att was 1st in this class and fell into the 97th percentile, and his 0.34 career missed tackles forced/att fell into the 99th percentile. His 1.46 yards per route run ranked first in this class, and fell into the 85th percentile among all Power 5 RBs over the last 10 years. Don’t sleep on his ability in the receiving game, as he’s very capable in that department.