Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Franchise Focus: Detroit Lions

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan), Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley), and Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) preview the Detroit Lions 2021 season in the companion podcast to the 2021 Franchise Focus piece on FantasyPoints.com. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast, brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top-level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. We're putting our focus on the franchise of the Detroit Lions here on the franchise focus podcast series at FantasyPoint.com and the Fantasy Points podcast as we continue breaking down all 30. NFL teams throughout the month of July and into August. My name is Joe Dolan, and they've joined me for each and every podcast so far. That's Tom Broly and Graham Barfield. We're going to be talking Detroit Lions today.

Guys, I don't think it's really much controversy here to say that the Detroit Lions are in a multi-year rebuilding process. That's a very gentle way of saying they are going to absolutely stink this year. I think they know they're going to stink this year, and they're okay with that. So good on you, Detroit Lions. But if you guys want to hear more about these podcasts, remember to subscribe to the podcast feed because we're doing one for all 32 teams. But we're also releasing companion articles for all 32 teams that give you like dozens of times more information than these podcasts do. We usually only cover one or two angles with the teams here.

And Tom Bratley is also releasing companion betting previews where he's going to look at the betting markets for these teams and give his best bets and his liens. remember he was 8 and oh on win totals last year for his best bet so i would consider uh following tom brawley on win totals this year tom win totals for the Detroit lions the markets are not optimistic no not at all in a 17 game season i got to ask do you think dan campbell knows that this is a multi-year rebuild he's he wants to go out and bite kneecaps i mean i think he just wants to you know i don't know i think i think deep down he does but like Like, I don't think a coach is going to go out there on Sunday being like, well, you know, it's okay if we lost. Like, I never expect a coach to think that that, especially him.

But I think Brad Holmes, the new general manager, knows exactly what's at stake here. You know, the season win total, guys, Tom, it's five with juice to the under minus 122 in a 17 game season. Yikes. Plus 2,000 to win the NFC North, plus 575 to make the playoffs. I mean, plus 6,600 to win the NFC, plus 15,000 to win the Super Bowl. I mean, it's the longest odds on the board, but you're throwing your money away, Tom. I mean, these are the numbers of a team that is expected to stick. Yeah, they're somehow not the worst in the league.

The Texans own that honor. I mean, it takes a special kind of bad to be below five wins in a 17-game season for the first time. And the odds, they have gotten a little bit worse as the summer has gone along. Yeah, it was plus 10,000 at the beginning of the offseason. You know, that was, they did the Matthew Stafford trade before the Super Bowl there. So, you know, it's been known for a while here. But, you know, it's very clear that this is going to be a big time rebuild. The only guy they signed to a multi-year contract who was, you know, not one of their own free agents was Jamal Williams at running.

back. So, and the Texans basically did the same kind of thing. They were just all one-year contracts. Keep the books free. Collect picks, collect assets. This is going to be a multi-year deal. So, Jamal Williams, the only guy with a multi-year contract. This is going to be a major overhaul over the next couple of years. You know, the one thing I will say, though, if we're looking for a reason to be somewhat optimistic for this team for fantasy, and by the way, people are not optimistic about this team for fantasy. The only guy going, two guys essentially going within the first 10 rounds of fantasy drafts are DeAndre Swift and T.J. Hawkinson. I think Hawkinson for obvious reasons.

He's by far the most accomplished receiver on this team. And that's going to lead me, Graham, though, to what's going to be the discussion of the podcast. Tom mentioned it. Jamal Williams was the only outside free agent to sign a multi-year deal with the Detroit Lions this offseason. Anthony Lynn's comments are scaring the shit out of fantasy players Because, you know, fantasy players in general, I think people who follow the NFL view Anthony Lynn as kind of a square, Somebody who can't get out of his own way.

You know, like this is a guy who got, if he even broke even, or even a little less than broke even on close games, he'd still be the head coach of the Chargers. And it wasn't bad luck. I mean, these were self-inflicted wounds. and now he's calling plays for what's going to be a bad football team. He is going to be as the offensive coordinator. He's going to be working in the rotation in the backfield.

Graham, I've got to be honest. As somebody who is keeping DeAndre Swift as a fourth rounder in my long-term keeper league where I haven't won the damn thing in 13 years, I'm sick and tired of being on this drought. This is scaring the living hell out of me. Look, I love DeAndre Swift. I actually like Jamal Williams. I like Williams as a player, but I just, I, there is, I just can't see a way that we're not going to be banging our heads against a wall with how Anthony Lynn uses these two guys.

Please talk me off the ledge or give me a push. That's all I'm asking. Yeah, when I was, uh, when I was writing up the pace and tendencies for our article on the Lions, I spent like a couple of hours digging deep in like, you know, Anthony Lynn's history as a coach. And, you know, I think we talked about this, this offseason with, with, with cap. He's only called plays once in 21 years of his NFL career. As a coach, he's only called place once. He was a running back coach early in his career. But the only time he's ever called plays is in 2016.

That was after Greg Roman got fired in week two. And the bills were kind of on the last legs with the Rex Ryan tenure there. But yeah, in that year, Lynn was basically the most run-heavy coach adjusting for game script in the NFL. Granted, Tyrault Taylor was there. You know, Taylor's always been attached to very run-heavy teams. Jared Gough is not as near as mobile as Tyrone Taylor that goes without saying. But, yeah, Lynn was extremely run heavy. And he spent all offseason talking about how run heavy he wants to be.

You know, there's a quote from February where he was, it was a couple weeks after he got hired. And he said, you know, hey, we got to have an emphasis on running the ball. You've got to be balanced and you've got to be, you know, have a balanced attack and your approach. And that's our intention. I think, you know, Lynn gets a lot of deserved crap for. or just the way he managed games with the charters. I mean, they have a very good roster, and they literally fired him because they don't think,

they didn't think Lynn was good enough to take him to the next level. That being said, I think this run game is going to be sick. I mean, they have a great offensive line. Top 10 offensive line. It's the best unit on the team by far. It's not even close. I think they're going to be able to run the ball and run the ball effectively. The problem with this team right now,

we talked about it a little bit with their win total is, I mean, how many top 12, top 15 running backs do we see every year on like three to four win teams? And I went and looked at this. Like their start of their schedule is freaking brutal, man. They get the Niners, Packers, Ravens. So if the Packers have Rogers, I mean, that's your first three games. You're probably losing. Then they play the Bears, the Vikings, Bengals, and Rams. Then they got the Steelers and Browns in the middle of the season. I mean, it's just, it's a really tough, like, opening eight games for this team. And I could see them coming out one and six.

And I don't know, man. I really don't have a great read like on Swift. Like I was, in May he was going in the second round, right? Now he's going in like the mid third, which is a much better and fair price. But it's still like, there's a lot of great receivers in that range. I mean, but this is a guy we know who can produce, Graham. I mean, down the stretch. And not even down the stretch.

After week six last year, this guy was like a top 12 fantasy running back. As a matter of fact, from week six on, he was RB 10 in fantasy points per game, and he was a top 24 running back in seven of those nine games. I mean, this guy was in your lineup, and he was producing, look, I like Jamal Williams. I remember Tom talking earlier in the offseason. He's like, I hope the Steelers sign this guy. They don't wish they would have.

They could have used first round pick on damn offensive linemen. Not that I don't think Nogh Harris is going to be good, but I would have loved to see Jamal Williams in black and gold. Yeah, I mean, he's one of those guys who's got like kind of that infectious playing personality. He's just fun to watch. He was a fan favorite in Green Bay. And I remember we were just sitting there and was like, you know, I'm really interested to see where Jamal Williams goes in free agency. And as soon as he went to Detroit, we were like, no, no, not there.

Please not there. Go anywhere else. And look, I think Swiss price is kind of fair. I have to admit I've been looking over him for some receivers in the third round, a best ball drafts thus far. maybe that's a mistake. That's the thing, Joe. We just talked about the Cowboys. I mean, you've got to draft Swift over Cooper and Lan and all those guys.

That's the thing. Yeah, I mean, you look at them. The times I've really been looking at them is, you know, if I go with a, you know, a Kelsey in the first round or receiver and I kind of need to get a running back there in the third round. Because there's so many good options at receiver in there. And I've usually drafted a running back in those first two rounds. So that's usually the kind of the team build that I have to have some sort of receiver heavy build in the first two rounds to really get interested in swift. But yeah, you guys are right.

The offensive line is the one area where, you know, they could have some potential success. They drafted Penny Sol and they have Taylor Decker and Frank Ragnow coming back and, you know, interesting prospects in Jonah Jackson and hello to Vaitai. Did I get that right there? Halapolavadi. Yeah, I'm not going to try that. Tom, do you know, Tom, they call him Big V. Big Vee. That's why.

That's why. That's why. Halapolavadi Vaita, yeah, which is a, which, it does roll off the tongue when you know how to say it. But yeah, like, I think he's moving to guard this year, by the way. They signed him to be a roughback. He is. They'll have Tecker and Selecker at left tackle. The kind of the plan at the tackle position.

So, you know, it's going to be a. you know, potentially a top 10, top five type of unit. But the question is, can their defense keep them in games to, you know, keep games close enough where they can continue to run the ball with Swift and Jamal Williams. And that's a huge question. And here's the problem with Williams. Like, this isn't an Adrian Peterson thing where, like, they're going to, like, stubbornly just give him the early carries.

But you know he's a zero as a receiver. Jamal Williams is not a zero as a receiver. He's a good pass protector. I know he's coming off pro football focus. Like, you know, they grade running backs and pass protection. By grade, he's coming off his worst season there. I don't read a whole lot into that, Graham, because I feel like running backs in past protection can be noisy if you're trying to put a grade on them.

But this is a guy who, I mean, from a rookie on, has been trusted to be a pass protector for Aaron Rogers in Green Bay. So that's the problem when I look at Jamal Williams, where you're saying, well, you know, if they're playing from behind, they really are going to want to get DeAndre Swift out there as a receiver. Are we 100% sure of that? Because those are the situations where the Packers played Jamal Williams. Because he's so good in short yardage and he's good as a pass protector.

And he's good receiver. He's not explosive in the way DeAndre Swift is, but he's good in that regard. And we've seen it time and time and again because this is a guy who's produced like RB1 level numbers when he's had to take the lion's share of snaps in the backfield when Aaron Jones is unavailable. So the fact that Williams has this well-rounded skill set, Graham, is why I'm so leery about Swift. Yeah, it's a great point. You know, when I was watching Williams coming out of college, he kind of, you know, there's always like different tiers of past blocking backs coming

out. Like there's guys that are just like rock solid no matter what. Like they just, they get their feet in the right spot, they square up and they execute. But, you know, Williams is always like, even though he might have allowed some pressure. He was always like extremely willing as a pass blocker. And we saw that in Green Bay. And this is, you know, kind of once we get to the Packers, this is one of the reasons I'm higher on Aaron Jones is because Jamal Williams did take a lot of those passing down snaps. He took, you know, he took pass blocking snaps. He took a few targets away. And I think that's a legitimate concern with this backfield on top of like Tom said, on top of the defense. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, Swift is such an interesting conundrum because there's so many different ways you could kind of analyze and pick him. Poles into his profile. Yeah, the good thing is their defense is going to stink.

And, you know, maybe that, you know, there are going to be more passing situations than normal for, you know, a better team. So we just hope that it's, you know, more like a, you know, 60-40 split in Swift's favor or like a 70-30 split somewhere in that range instead of like a 50-50 split. Like, you know, like it very well could be because, you know, he was. Clearly the one guy they covered it in free agency. If you guys remember, that was a signing, like the day that free agency started. It was kind of surprising.

And I thought, you know, because a lot of times running back markets, they develop really slowly. You know, these guys kind of last out there. You know, we're seeing it with Todd Gurley's, you know, very obviously a different player at this stage of the game. But, you know, the running back free agency market usually develops really slowly. And he was a guy that was signed within the first day or two. of opening. So they clearly have big plans to get him involved. And I think it's when you look at the way the roster is constructed, I mean, Jared Gough's your quarterback, you know that's going to be short to intermediate area. And I think they decided we're

going to try to, I guess, be as competitive as possible by essentially trying to run the clock out on the other teams. We know that doesn't necessarily work. But, you know, I think that's what their plan is. And they're going to use these first round picks that they have, you know, starting next year in with, they have two first round picks in each of the next two. seasons. One of them's going to be high because we know the lions are going to stink. And they can maybe build up receiver, get a new quarterback as well with those picks. But, you know, it's a long-term plan for the Lions. They do have some guys who are appealing for fantasy guys, but I don't think it's going to be

a terribly fun year in Detroit. I don't think Lions fans should get too excited, despite the fact that they have some players we do really like. So that'll break it down in full for the Detroit Lions. Well, if you want it broken down in full with breakdowns on their receivers and their tight ends and Goff himself, go to FantasyPoints.com. Check out the franchise focus article, which is launching with this podcast. So it's up there already for you to go and read if you're a subscriber at FantasyPoints.com. If you sign up at FantasyPoints.com and you don't have an account already, you get a free 24-hour trial period so you can check out all the stuff that's coming down the line this month of July and into August when obviously the money is made.

So for Grand Barfield, at Grand Barfield on Twitter, at Tom Brawley on Twitter, I'm at FG underscore Dolan on Twitter. My name is Joe, by the way, at Fantasy PTSD on Twitter. If you want to follow the website and get all the updates, this has been a wonderful week of franchise focus here at FantasyPoint.com. We'll be back next week to start talking about the Indianapolis Colts and other teams. I'm excited and I hope you'll join us. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points Podcast.

Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.