This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Hello, everybody. Welcome into the Fantasy Pro's football podcast. I'm Ryan warmly, joined by Andrew Erickson and Jake Sealy from The Athletic. And we are talking takeaways for the NFC North today. If you missed it, we already did the NFC East. We've got all the divisions of the NFC coming out throughout the week. We did the AFC last week, if you missed any of those divisions. I want to hear us bicker and argue about Zay Flowers for a good 10 minutes on one of those shows. You can go check out the AFC North. This is the NFC North. It was won by the two seed Bears who won a playoff game too and are on the divisional round. Good job for Chicago. Jake, let's start with you here.

What's your fantasy takeaway for the Bears after 2025? Oh, the Bears are, I want to be involved with everybody on this offense, but mostly Luther Burden. Like, Luther Burden, it's so funny.

Like, I guess it's funny as not, but we've done this before with Jackson

Smith and Jigba. We did it with Romo Dunesay on this team to start this year before he got hurt, and now we're doing it with Burden's like, everybody's like, oh, the talent's so great, the talent's so great, the talent's so great, and they go to these teams as the third option. Jackson Smith and Jigba but was the third option for the Seahawks when drafted.

Roma Dunes was the third option last year.

Luther Burden was the third option this year.

We can get excited about the talent. it was the third option for the Seahawks when drafted. Roma Dunez was the third option last year.

Luther Burden was the third option this year. It's like we can get excited about the talent and we can know what they are and we can get excited. Like if an injury presents itself for the opportunity, which it did for burden at the end of the year, as it did for when we talk about the Buccaneers it did for a Bucca at the beginning of the year is sometimes these third rookie wide receivers, third on their depth charts, can surprise with injuries, but more often than not, they're buried for a year. And when do we want to be back in? Year number two, give me some hell of Luther burden next year, especially with Caleb Williams and that comfort level, which, by the way, as we just saw in that playoff game, which you're talking about, has really made DJ Moore an afterthought, like beyond an afterthought. I don't know that Caleb Williams knows that DJ Moore still on the team, because whether or Dunezay or Burtain or anybody else is healthy on this team, he, like showed up that one time a few weeks ago, only because there was nobody left to throw to, including Zakias. Like there was nobody. He had to go to DJ Moore. So I want to be in on the Bears, and I want to be in specifically for Luther Burden at a value for next year because I see the same thing that just happened with JSN that happened with the Dunezay, again, before injury, that is going to happen with burden next year. It's these year-two wide receivers that are drafted in what is a luxury spot by their teams, as in we can stash them, let them come along, produce when they

can. But year two is really what we're looking at. Burden, I can just already tell is going to be

one of the most interesting guys to talk about throughout the summer because you can feel the

hype cycle starting early already.

Fitz, we were talking on the Dynasty.

Dynasty is a little different than just to strictly 2026 rankings.

But in Dynasty, Fitz was like, I'm all in.

He is my wide receiver 10 in that format in like overall rankings.

Like just very much all on board with what this expected breakout is going to look like.

And you see a lot of people who look at some of these efficiency and rate stats for burden and say, like, if DJ Moore isn't there next year, and there's a real opportunity here where this passing offense is basically all centered around Romadunes Day, was he there this year, Colson Loveland. Yeah. But like next year, if he's like not even in the built, like you could see a world where it's like this passing tree is the two receivers and Loveland and that's it. And I mean, that's going to be really exciting if he can maintain anywhere close to the efficiency here. Obviously Wider Procedure 10 and Dynesee is pretty aggressive, but he's inside the top 24 for 2026 rankings

and consensus. He's wide receiver 23, which, you know, might look high given, you know,

the actual production from this year. But like you're talking about, Jake, there's a lot of reasons

to be really excited here. Does wide receiver 23 sound high to you? Does that sound low to you, or

...