Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Franchise Focus: New Orleans Saints

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan), Tom Brolley (@TomBrolley), and Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) preview the New Orleans Saints 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

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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. Welcome to the franchise focus podcast series here at FantasyPoint.com and the Fantasy Points Podcasts. My name is Joe Dolan. Tom Brawley and Graham Barfield are here with me as well, and it's fantastic to hear from those guys as we propose. pair for the 2021 NFL season at FantasyPoint.com. I want to encourage everybody to go to FantasyPoints.com.

We have been seeing the subscriptions absolutely flying in here over the last couple weeks. And I mean, that's going to pale in comparison to what we're going to see come mid-August. And everybody gets ready for the fantasy football season. But we are covering each and every relevant fantasy football player and team at FantasyPoint. com with our written fit franchise focus series these podcasts are meant to be considered as kind of an accompaniment podcast to the franchise focus written series we're only going to talk about one or two things and you know we've been doing them in alphabetical order and good thing we have been doing them in alphabetical order because if we did this a couple of weeks ago we would have that completely missed the big news guys with the new orleans saints and that of course is the injury to michael thomas we will get into that uh but first i want to start with the basics here with tom Braille. The betting markets on the New Orleans Saints. I mean, this is a

this is a kind of a reputation kind of line here. Yeah, this is almost like what the Patriots got last year, wouldn't you say, whenever Brady left. We talked to about the Patriots yesterday. They have a win total of nine, as do the

Saints right now with kind of more negative juice to the under at minus 1.18. The over under is 9. plus 300 to win the NFC South, obviously in the division with the defending champion Buccaneers, plus 114 to make the playoffs. And, you know, when you consider that they're in the division with the Buccaneers, you also have to consider that they're in the division with the Falcons and the Panthers.

So there's that, that angle here. Plus 1,200 to win the NFC, plus 2,500 to win the Super Bowl, Tom. Those odds have fallen. I wonder how much more they could fall with the news about Michael Thomas, which we will get into. But Tom, this New Orleans Saints team, This is a Sean Payton reputation kind of line. They're going to have a new starting quarterback.

Who the hell knows who the top receiver is going to be? It's going to be, they're going to have to get creative. Let's put it that way, Tom. Yeah, and he's one of the best coaches, and he certainly can be created. We saw him develop an offense for four games spurt with Tassum Hill last year. And, you know, they reeled off a 3-1 record in that span, and, you know, they were pretty successful. But it's just not the Michael Thomas thing. Drew Brie is retiring.

You know, the veteran cuts with Emmanuel Sanders and Jared Cook on. The defense got, you know, beat up a little bit in free agency. And they lose Trey Hendrickson, Malcolm Brown, Sheldon Rankins, Janoris Jenkins. I mean, it was a tough off season. And, you know, there's potential for, you know, Marshawn Lattimore to maybe get some sort of suspension. You know, he got arrested in the offseason in Cleveland. and David on Yamata, he got suspended for six games on that defensive line. So it's just not offensive issues that we're worried about here.

It's the defense, which has been a top five unit in recent seasons that took a lot of hits. So the one spot where they're still really great, and Ross Tucker had them as one of his elite lines, it's that offensive line. So that's still one massive strength for them. But everywhere else, you know, there's just more question marks than there have ever been before. I mean, this has been one of the deepest franchises the last five years. But it's certainly going to be tested this year. Graham, let's just get right into it.

With the strength of this offensive line, the fact that Michael Thomas is going to miss what looks to be at least one month of the NFL season. So, by the way, just to rewind, if you haven't heard, if you're a fantasy football player who's just kind of getting back into it, Michael Thomas dealt with a high ankle sprained ankle injury all of last year. It affected him pretty much the entire season. He attended to practice, guys, and correct me if I'm wrong. He practiced in May, OTA's mini camps, apparently was not healthy, needed to get the surgery in June. We all sat here going, why did you not get the surgery earlier? Sean Payton essentially came out this week and said all of us guys going,

yeah, you're right. He should have gotten the surgery earlier. It was a huge mistake by their mess. medical staff, a huge mistake by Michael Thomas. And now, Graham, I mean, you're looking at the number one receiver on this team is Traquan Smith, Marquez Callaway, I mean, Adam Troutman, Alvin Kamar is probably the number one receiver on this team. Graham, given that, my question is with this great offensive line, are you fucking

starting Tayson Hill and running the wing Tee here? Because I feel like you have to start Taysam Hill, given the fact that this arguably is the worst receiving core in the NFL? Yeah, that's kind of the main question we have right now is we were just talking about the Patriots and what the two offenses will look like between Cam and Mack Jones. And I think you could make the same argument

that if we're talking about Tays and Hills as a starter, the Saints are going to be very run heavy. I wrote this up in the Pace and Tendencies section in the article version of the Saints franchise focus. So definitely check that out. But man, the Saints were insane. run heavy and he'll starts last year. And his four starts, they were among the league leaders and run rate.

And I have to imagine, man, but between, you know, Hill's running ability, Alvin Kumar getting his usual 12, 15 carries per game and Lattavius mixing in for his 10 to 12. Yeah, I think you're right. I think the Saints are probably going to turn into like a, you know, a team that runs the ball 30, 35, 40 times a game if they have a lead. And that's really the easiest pathway without Michael Thomas to start, you know, at least the first five games, it seems. That's the easiest pathway for them to kind of keep a flow in the NFC South right now. Yeah, Tom, this was enough for me to push, by the way, Alvin Camara

past Derek Henry and my rankings. Absolutely. Yeah, I did that too. I think he's going to get a ton of volume. But also, you know, Latavius Murray's been a player who, without Camara has been awesome the last few years. With him in there, he's kind of just a wrench for fantasy. Tom, I wonder if that's going to change. Is he going to be useful independent of Alvin Camer? Yeah, I don't know if I'd go that far, but I mean, certainly for best ball, you know, he's not a guy I'll still be targeting for season long, but for best ball, I mean, he still has that high upside with the, you know, being one of the best handcuffs in the league. And now, yeah, I do think he's, you know, I don't think it's going to be like overly dramatic, but I did bump him up in my rankings and, you know, I could see him getting

another three to five carries per game while Thomas is out of the lineup. But they really do skew more, run heavy. And, you know, I had to bump up Tason Hill even a little bit in my rank. rankings because I think this makes it much more likely that we do see Hill early in the season if they, you know, want to lean more towards the run here. So it's not a, it's not a great situation for James Winston, even if he does get the start. I mean, he just has some of the worst receivers that he'll have ever played with. I mean, he played in Tampa with some really good ones in Mike Evans and, you know, Chris Godwin and towards the end of his tenure there. So it's a, it's a tough situation. I do think it's going to be a little.

little bit more skewed towards the run game and it's a lot like the Patriot situation. So, I mean, what do you guys are doing with Thomas as well? I think we should, I guess we should get into that. I mean, I'm going to be probably completely avoiding him and it seems like his early ADP is kind of like in that fifth, sixth round since the injury. Forget about it at that point. I mean, I'm more likely to draft him in best ball because I don't have to hold him on a roster. See, I would actually go the opposite. I'd probably be more likely to draft them and see long stack them on IR. That's my question, though. Is it, are you, do you have an IR spot?

Because that completely changes things if I have an IR spot. Yeah, Tom, I'm with you. My first gut reaction is seeing some of the draft boards. And just being in some of these drafts the last couple days, like fifth or six round for Michael Thomas, man. It's like, you know, it's the same. Scott Pianowski always talks about this. It's like, are we really going to get that optimistic?

about these guys coming off injuries. Like, how many times do we need to be burned by this? We had, Scott and I had the great doctor, Evan Porras, on two bars this past week. And he did a great job breaking down the whole situation from, you know, end of last year and breaking down, you know, why he should have gotten his surgery earlier. But yeah, he said as much, like, even if Thomas does come back by like week five or six on like the best timeline he's still not going to be close to 100 and you know with with thomas man he's we're going on two years with the century you know like who's to say that he just doesn't

you know take this extremely slowly and make sure he's truly 100% exactly what i was going to say grimm doesn't it feel there's been a lot of discontent between him and the franchise you know did you see sean paid yesterday he was sick of sniping at him and you know getting back to the Drew Bree's stuff last off season. So, I mean, he went against the medical advice from the team, you know, in July, January and February. So, you know, he waits to get the surgery. So who's to say, you know, October rolls around?

He's like, yeah, I'm not quite ready yet, guys. I'm going to wait until I'm 110%, you know, completely healed here. And then we're rolling into, you know, double-digit weeks. And then he finally shows back up. So, you know, that's my other worry, and not just the health stuff that. there's he's disenchanted here in new orleans right now yeah i mean it's the michael thomas thing is a bummer i you know i'm trying to envision a scenario where i'm really going to be drafting them in in redraft and guys i was kind of like it's a very specific situation it's like

an auction league where people or maybe might be afraid to put a bid in and i'm like all right i'll get them for four bucks and like you know i'll stash them on i are but like it's not a player I'm getting in a bidding war for because why would I why would I use 12 bucks on them when I can put it on Tyler Boyd who's going to play at the beginning of the season. So yeah, it's a really troublesome situation. And I'm with you guys. I expect they're going to run the ball a lot. And I just think that means Taysam Hill is more likely to be the starting quarterback. And if Taysam Hill is the starting quarterback here, he is the zero QB guy. Like the running quarterbacks are getting pushed up the draft boards.

The guys who might be the quote-unquote cheat codes are your Justin Fields, Tray Lance, rookies who aren't guaranteed to start week one or might not even be favored to start week one, and Taysam Hill, who I think the markets had James Winston favored to go off as the starting quarterback. I'm not sure that's the case anymore, guys. Yeah, honestly, I don't, they've kind of been, they've been taken down over the last couple of weeks. Those were kind of, but like back in like May and June, I think Taysam was like plus 180, plus 175 to be the opening day starter. And Jemis was like minus 250.

You know, those odds have been taken down. But I would think they're, if they were still up, they would be much closer to 50-50 here. I think James would still probably be the slight favorite. But Taysam certainly is much more in play right now. All right, guys, that'll wrap up the New Orleans Saints breakdown on the fantasy focus. It's just a franchise. Focus podcast. There's just a depressing team to talk about right now. You know, you're talking about a team that was a perennial Super Bowl contender,

and now we're like, just really problematic here, the New Orleans Saints, not looking good. Follow him on Twitter at Tom Brawley. Follow Graham on Twitter at Graham Barfield. Make sure you follow me on Twitter at FG underscore Dolm because I'll continually tell you to go to FantasyPoint.com so you subscribe so you can read all the franchise focus breakdowns. By the way, a basic account, which is free to sign up for, gets you a 24. hour trial, but you're going to want to extend that subscription, I guarantee you once you see everything that this site has to offer.

August is going to be a massive month, as it usually is. We're going to be getting into our players to target, our players to avoid, once preseason rolls around, and we're starting to see how some of these teams are deploying players. The projections are going to be continually

updated. I mean, it is just nut-cutting time for the 2021. Yeah, next time we're here, Joe, it's going to be August. We're done. We're done for the next like six or seven months. Our lives. We're locked into football once August hits. Honestly, I'm really looking forward to it because we were talking about this before, but like I have been, I have been like away from working like way too much this year. I've been traveling a ton between moving and everything and just I'm ready.

I'm ready to lock in then. Yeah, we were talking about it just like, you know, like we, I think because of this, like all of us have had these like these excursions and like we're all kind of like been having trouble getting like just everybody on the same page at once. I don't think that's a problem anymore. Had to break the news to the families that we're not traveling for the holidays this year. Like Thanksgiving's been a lost cause for years. Were they celebrating, Joe?

What? I'm joking. I am. Like, no, I mean, and it's nothing like, I love Christmas, but like, you know, like, I mean, the NFL seasons overlap with Christmas. The NFL has completely determined, guys, that anybody was any work to do with professional football, your Christmas is irrelevant. Like, it is over.

Like, at the very least in past years, we can be like, well, it's week 17. You know, like, oh, God, nobody cares. And your subscribers are like, guys, don't worry about it. Go enjoy your Christmas. Not this year. I mean, it's a vital week. The NFL's added on another week to the season. So forget about it.

Dolan's Christmas. Dead. Barfield's Christmas. Dead. Kukanas is Hanukkah. Dead. Tom's Christmas. Dead.

I mean, it's gone. So, like, we had to break the news to the family that traveling for the holidays just ain't happening this year. You know, I live in South Carolina. Our family's all up north. I mean, it's going to be me, the wife, the dogs, and me complaining about Hallmark Christmas movies. That's what it's going to be. Hopefully people come see us.

But that's something I would enjoy. But I'm going to be busy at Christmas. And, guys, that is what? Well, oh. All right. How do we get to Christmas here? Five months away. Don't even.

We got to get through, we got to get through August here. Yeah, let's focus on a big August next week. Guys, this was an insidious sales pitch because I'm already complaining about how busy I'm going to be at Christmas. So people know that Dolan Barfield, Brawley, Barrett, Cucanus, Hanson, Huber, we're going to be porous. We're going to be holding your hands through Christmas. We're going to be breaking it down. We're going to be with you.

We are preparing to hunker down. No days off. We'll talk to you next week on the franchise focus podcast. Thanks for listening. We got more teams to break down. I'm sick of it. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review.

view on your favorite platform and come join the roster at fantasy points.com.