Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 IDP Corner: Camp Notes & Injury Talk w/ Dr. Edwin Porras

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

Justin Varnes (@downwithIDP) and Tom Simons welcome in Dr. Edwin Porras (@FBInjuryDoc) to talk recent defensive players injuries, followed by training camp and preseason IDP observations. --- 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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to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome to another edition of the IDP Corner. My name is Justin Varns, one of the fantasy analysts over at FantasyPoints.com, the IDP analyst. You can follow me on Twitter at Down with IDP. Joining me, as always, our other IDP analyst and projection specialist, Mr. Thomas, Simon.

How are you doing tonight, Thomas? I'm doing very well, Justin, and hello to our listeners. And we're also very honored to have a special guest. We try to have this man on at least once a season, usually in the early parts of it. And we're very happy to have him. Dr. Edwin Porris, he is the injury and health specialist at FantasyPoints.com. You can follow him on Twitter at FB Injury Doc. Lots of great stuff.

We're going to get into some heavy hitters. But first, before we do that, welcome, Edwin. How are you? Thank you, guys, for having me. I feel honored to be here. the two IDP specialists. You two are the, I would argue, the IDP guys and IDP heads have the most overall well-rounded knowledge of the game in its entirety.

I would argue. Doctors in the house. I can definitely hear you. I can, well, I don't hear it, I guess. I read it in Slack. I know that you guys know this game, which is fun. It's fun to talk to you about it. Yeah.

And it's, you know, there's so much attention that gets paid to the offensive side of the ball for fantasy. and rightly so, but also so much of that attention tends to be real detail-oriented for the offensive side of the ball in terms of the injuries. And as obviously, as we all know, those injuries happen on both sides of the ball. So we're really excited to have you because we have a couple of huge names. I mean, some of the players we're going to discuss tonight could end up as the number one overall player in their category, but they are coming off injuries. One of the things I've really enjoyed about reading your stuff and talking to you, Edwin, is when it comes to your

knowledge base here, you've just got a ton of research to back up most of what you're discussing in terms of case studies. You've considered age. You've considered where the injury was, what the injury was specifically called. I've noticed you on a couple of times pointing out the difference between one type of knee injury versus the other and what that may mean. I remember a couple years ago in Deontay Foreman, I believe it was Achilles injury, but whatever injury it was more severe than people realized, and it basically sapped him of his power. And there are still people today that are drafting former and are holding on to him, hoping he's going to be that, you know, a massive talent he was pre-injury. And so these things to find out ahead of time,

particularly before draft season comes. And even in Dynasty, we just want to kind of get a a clear picture of some of these heavy hitters. So we're going to dive in. I picked a couple of safeties. And again, the players we've picked today, they're not currently injured. They suffered an injury last year. So what we're mainly looking at is the outlook for heading into this season. What are their chances of re-entry?

What are their chances of being 100%? And the first guy who I'm really high on this year, assuming he stays healthy, but he does have a long injury history. And that's the safety for the Los Angeles Chargers. and that's Derwin James. Do you have any feel on Derwin James's injury history plus how he might do this season, Edwin. Yeah, Derwin James is a really interesting case study, right? Because I'm always the first one to tell you that a player's injury history is the best predictor of their history of their history moving forward. At a really young age, he had the Jones fracture, which is the fracture on the outside of the foot. that's not an uncommon injury for a 23-year-old NFL player,

especially sort of his size and body type. But the more that we talked about Derwin James' play style and how he's sort of an overall athlete, it doesn't surprise me that he's also had two, at this point, two meniscus issues. Now, essentially what the meniscus serves as is a bumper, a shock absorber for the knee. Every time you get a surgery in there,

every time you open it up and you have to sort of surgically repaired or do whatever you're going to do to it, depending on the severity, you do have to bump players down a little bit from a longevity standpoint. It doesn't necessarily mean that it'll impact them immediately, but there is some data suggesting that, for example, for running backs, they play fewer snaps, they are on the field for, compared to controls, they play fewer snaps and take fewer carries, and they start fewer games. Now, that's for a running back, super involved position, right? For somebody like Derwin James, not that he's not involved, but he is able to sort of get spelled

every now and then depending on, I guess it depends on how good the defense is overall, and you guys can get into that. For a player like Derwin James, what I would really most worry about this year, though, is the fact that he hasn't played a snap since 2019. We know that players, regardless of the sport or the activity, the more their workloads vary. So in other words, are you in the gym versus are you on the practice field versus are you rehabbing?

The more that they have these sort of up and down cycles of workloads like Christian McCaffrey last year, they're actually three to six more times likely to have a soft tissue injury. So take that for what it's worth. The number one reason I'm concerned for Derwin James, or I guess I would label him as a high volatility player in 2021 is just the pure fact that he hasn't been on the field for two years. It's something that you really have to take into consideration,

not necessarily because he'll get injured again with something related to the knee or something related to the foot, but just because his body is just maybe not adjusted to the workloads yet. you know, he's just a really good player, obviously, right? Great player. Like you said, potentially top five at his position. So you have to take that with a grain of salt. He's still super young.

So this might not impact him as much as I'm saying. But I would say that at the very least, given his history of physical injuries, like you were saying earlier, like we were talking about off air, he is at an elevated risk for probably missing a game or two. But it really depends on how much you really want to fade him for that. But I can't say that he comes without risk. Do you, do you, obviously with the soft tissue issues and concerns that you have with what you mentioned with the lack of playing time and or field time, is the meniscus type injury that he's received is, does that lead to like arthritis problems down the road or other knee issues? It can. It definitely can down the road. That's where you sort of get the Todd Gurley disease, right?

Todd Gurley had had a couple of procedures. I know he had ACL at least in that knee. And that's just, that's what's called what you call an intraarticular surgery inside the joint. The more of those surgeries you have, the data actually shows that the shorter your career is in the NFL. So, but that's really more of a longevity thing, right? That's something you might view two or three years down the road if he, you know, hopefully makes it that far. But I'm not necessarily too concerned right off the bat, especially considering he doesn't play an in the trenches type of position. Like if he were a linebacker, I'd be a little bit more concerned. If he were even,

I don't know, if he were even like a pass rusher, I'd be a little bit more concerned if it were a meniscus. But given his specific position, I think he can overcome it. But again, his play style does put him at an elevated risk in addition to the fact that he just hasn't been on the field. And so his body is going to have to adapt to the workloads again. Speaking of safety, somebody who is a little older than Derwin James and has suffered his fair share of injuries. However, most of his injuries have been to his upper body. And that's a veteran playing for Washington football team, Landon Collins. As far as Landon goes, I mean, he's had, you know, he's broken his forearm.

He's had some shoulder issues. But all that was upper body. Going into this year, he's a veteran, he's a little older. Obviously, he's got definitely more wear and tear on his body than a Derwin James. And he's also moving into a position. where the Washington football team has two other safeties that they can rotate in and out, but they are weak at linebacker. And so Collins might be playing more of a box or linebacker type of role versus James,

who will spend a good amount of time in coverage or on the back end of the defense and essentially away from the heavy action. What are your feelings on Collins being able to bounce back this year being a little bit more of a veteran? Yeah, at this point, right, it's it's not looking fantastic for Collins. I'm not going to go ahead and say he's going to, you know, he's a full on fade, but he probably is going to be better off in coverage a la Richard Sherman than he's going to be, you know, in the trenches in the box, trying to quick Twitch react like we were talking about before you, before we hit record.

It's, it's something that you definitely are going to get to potentially notice on film pretty quickly whether he's got the step or he doesn't have the step. here's what I would say in leagues with Landon Collins it's something that you should expect him to lose a step because if you expect him to have lost a step but not three then you're conservatively managing for the Achilles injury which tends to happen to these 27 28 year olds if you account for that you know loss of a step then you manage your own expectations another way to look at it too sorry go ahead go ahead no I was just going to say so that's going to affect him more in coverage then if they if they if they if they they decide to use the other two safeties in coverage and deep safety positions and deploy Collins more, you know, closer to the line of scrimmage, more in the box where he's going to take hits, but he won't have to rely strictly on his speed. So if you were a coach, you might, you might lean Collins more toward the box. Do you think being closer to line in the scrimmage, he can basically compensate for that loss of step?

Maybe, sorry, I, maybe I didn't, I didn't explain myself well enough. What I would say to expect from, from Landon Collins, is for him to actually lose a step playing in the box. Got you. Shading coverages, right? Maybe even I would expect him to lose a step in one-on-one type coverages situations, if that, if he ever runs into that. That's something that, again, I'm not going to say full fade, but it's really difficult for you to have that quick twitch after this Achilles injury. That's a good end. Exactly.

It's just a monster. It's a monster injury to come back from. And just the idea that a lot of players will come back and not have that burst, right? They'll know the move. They'll see the move they need to make. They'll react to the offensive player quickly. But they just can't plant, cut, and go and make that move. So the quick twitch is lost, which what I was going to say is, I think, well, you can hide

that a little bit when he's playing, you know, as a true safety. Now, if he plays in the box, you know, maybe on run package. and stuff like that, you won't see too much either. But if he ever has to split out, you know, especially in any type of any type of like one-on-one type coverage, those are the situations that I would be nervous about. Those are the situations that I would be scared that he might have lost a step. I would be surprised if he didn't lose a step. So I would expect us to monitor his first three games in the preseason, see if he even plays.

And if he does, do they use them deep in more in pass protection, you know, deep coverage or do they use them more in the linebacker spot that Justin was referring to? It's going to be interesting to see how they unfold. 100%. And I'll ask Greg Kosell to keep an eye on him if Greg notices that he's, like you said, if Greg notices that he's lost a step or he's a hair shy, then those are huge red flags. And for as high as Collins is getting drafted, you know, I've been in several drafts already, and Collins is getting drafted as a back-end DB1.

So he's already getting a little discounted because, you know, fully healthy, he could be a top five DB. But it sounds like, you know, and we'll see what happens over these next preseason games, but it sounds like we need to be discounting him a little bit more, you know, not the type of, with all the other options, with the Justin Simmons's and so many other options out there, might be safer to let someone else in your league take the risk.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Moving on to pass rushers, there's a couple of dominant pass rushers that suffered, you know, season-ending injuries last year. We're going to start with one of the more mysterious ones, at least to us. I mean, my medical knowledge is basically only based around the TV show Scrubs. So, but all I know is that when you start talking about the neck in the case of Minnesota Vikings, he's Denial Hunter. I think of Peyton Manning and so many other football and other athletes who've had neck issues and it really can end your career very shortly. So Hunter had a

herniated disc that he had a cleanup, quote unquote cleanup surgery on a herniated disc. And right now, if he's 100 percent, he's a top three defensive lineman or he may be a shell of him, his former self. And because there are so few elite defensive linemen available, we're talking five or six. This is like tied in territory where you have a handful of monsters and then there's a huge drop off. This is a really big risk to take with Daniel Hunter. Or is it not really that big of a risk to take, Edwin? This is a really, really interesting question. I don't know what the reports have been because I haven't, defensive players are so difficult to dig up notes on people don't follow them as much as offensive players as both of you know obviously

and so it really depends on how he's been progressing after surgery what he likely had was a dysectomy where they went and chopped out basically part of the the protruding tissue that was impinging on the nerves that were leading probably to like some hand weakness numbness tingling pain in the neck and the arm and the presumption here is if he's progressing well because the surgery was i think october like you were saying at this point he should should be relatively good to go. Now, nerve, which this was a nerve issue, this was a nerve injury, essentially. Nerves are very picky. They're very finicky and they're very slow to regenerate. They actually regenerate at about a millimeter per day, if I remember correct, that's off the top of

my head. It's really slow. These surgeries, per the data, actually show that they do really well. These elite athletes are able to come back and do well. What really will help him is the rehab and the physical therapy and if he had minimal symptoms coming out of surgery, et cetera, et cetera, that's all going to be, that's all going to work in his favor. Now,

he just, I mean, it's, let's not pretend like it, you know, it's all roses and daisies because he obviously, he had a neurological surgery, right?

I mean, it's not, it's not nothing. However, there are, there is data to indicate that he can come back and, and do pretty well. You think of the worst case scenarios.

We were just talking earlier. You think of Joe Flacco. You think of Joe Flacco. you think of Quincy and Nuneway, you think of Peyton Manning, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case for a 26-year-old. I don't know if you've heard any reports on how he's doing, but this specific surgery does pretty well in most players. All I've seen, and Thomas, I wonder if you've seen anything contrary to this, but I mean, so far reports have been that he's doing, that he's doing well. and I haven't seen anything to show that he's not doing well. But, you know, and this is always across the board, everyone at this point is in the best shape of their life.

They've never looked better. They're faster than ever. And somehow faster and thinner and stronger and, you know, whatever, better in bed. It's amazing what the reports that come out here. If you just read, whoa, boy. Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you read nothing but training camp reports, all you would do is push everyone up to, you know, the number one slot in your ranking. So I will say that, you know, in June, the Viking, Hunter was not happy with his contract.

And but the Vikings and Hunter did come to an agreement and restructured his deal in June. So I would imagine if I was the Vikings, you know, team physicians, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I would be weary of locking him into a longer-term contract if I was that worried. So just based on those little things, it does give me a little bit more confidence that Hunter might be worth the risk. And it might work the opposite way, the opposite way of Landon Collins, where Hunter may slip to the end of that high-end DE run. And he may be worth, he may be undervalued.

But Thomas, have you heard anything? What's your feel on this? From what I've been hearing and the things that I've been seeing, he's come into camp and he's just been ripped. I mean, he's D.K. Medcalf, ripped physically, and his physique is just unbelievable. And he's blowing away teammates such as newly acquired or new teammate Patrick Peterson. They're calling him just, you know, the upper end of their defense. Now, again, it all goes back to what Edwin said regarding this is a herni-anyed disc. Although it is in the neck and it's different, I guess, Edwin, when it's a lower back issue,

it becomes a lot more difficult to recuperate from a back injury because the back just doesn't respond in a normal situation or normally. It can go in either direction. Whereas with the herniated disc towards the neck, they seem to have a little more control, especially with somebody who is as a physical. physically gifted as Hunter is. Yes. And the other thing that I'd say, though, I will say, all these notes, you guys gave me really good names because these are all really good sort of tease them apart, get into the

weeds injuries for these specific players. When you look at the data for players coming into the NFL from the NCAA, this is a sample of like three years, what they found was that patients, or I call it patients, sorry, players with chronic stingers. And I don't know if Hunter had chronic stingers. They basically continue to have stingers. And if these players continue to have stingers, because essentially what a stinger is,

is you transiently sort of close off the space between the spinal cord and the spine, and you get a little zinger. That's what a stinger is. And the more theoretically, the more often that happens, right? The more compression you get, the more microtrauma you get,

the more inflammation you get, the more likely you are to have a herniated disc. I don't know if that's the case for Hunter. If he did have chronic stingers before this, that would be something to definitely, if only you had an injury, I don't still look that up. I'm thinking about it just right up right. If only had somebody in charge of injuries, sorry, guys. I'm really bad at this.

But if that's something that he did suffer from, that would scare me a little bit for a recurrence. He could look great and he could come back from the surgery and he could have no symptoms, no distal symptoms, no weakness, no pain. He could regain his endurance in his back and his upper back and his neck. But if this is something that he's been struggling with, since, you know, early days, since 21, 22, this might be something that still continues to follow him. So that's just something to keep in mind that if all these players we're talking about,

recurrence is more likely, not necessarily, it's not necessarily locked in. But if there's one player who's going to have a recurrence of this injury or situation, it's probably Hunter of this list that we're talking about. That makes sense. We're going to wrap it up with one more edge rusher, another elite player. And that's Nick Bosen. And Nick Bosa tore his ACL in week two of last year. This is a player that has very little mileage on him, you know, only a couple of years in the league.

And obviously he missed all of last season. So given how young he is and given his lack of wear and tear, if you will, and how early that ACL injury was suffered, which was week two of last year. You know, the way, you know, again, my scrub's mentality here is his body is young, so it's got a recover quicker and all that. But there's also the mental aspect of trusting the knee. And I guess, you know, my thought is I seem to be worried less about physically how he recovers and more about mentally trusting it at such a young age. I find that veterans who have, you know, torn a few things and maybe questioned if he was ever going to be the same again. And then they go through a whole season. and then they just realize that, you know, every now and then your arm's just going to fall off

and you just kind of stitch it back on. You go back out there and play. But sometimes the younger players, I wonder if that's an issue. But let's mainly focus on, I guess, on the physical. Given his age, his need to push off it off of that knee, what do you think this far removed from an ACL injury for a player like Bosa? How would that impact his forecast for 2021? Now, I'm going to push back a little bit about Bosa's history, and that's only because he has, dating back to high school, already had an ACL injury. And then at Ohio State, he did have a groin sort of abdomen tear that he decided to rehab.

And now he's got this ACL essentially for the second time. Right. Now, what I would say is it's really difficult to trust players. And this is in a sample of, and I think it's three years again, 2012 to 2015. basically what this study found that I'm looking at for NFL players, and this is all NFL players, the more games a player misses due to injury in college, the more likely they are to miss games in the NFL. Now, we're already seeing that with Bosa. That's not to say that he's going to come back and then miss more games, right?

This might be the one time he tears his ACL, the one time he has a massive injury, and then for his career, he just ended up missing 14, 15 games, right? That could be how the data trickles in. however he has this pattern so far of injuries connective tissue injuries right two ACLs and a groin tear at this point aren't necessarily a coincidence so I would actually say the opposite I would be more concerned with his immediate availability in in 2021 because of potential soft tissue injuries that could pile up I know that happens 20% of the time in skill players coming off in ACL they either have quote knee on the injury report or the hamstring or groin I would be worried about that

But in terms of being physically dominant at the line of scrimmage and having sort of that quick twitch, I think he might be half a step behind, but I honestly don't think that it would be what we would call clinically relevant. Like even if he, even if Bosa's half a step behind, I think he's going to have the physical tools to overpower his man. But I would be concerned for either re-injury or just another injury because he has not shown to be, unfortunately hasn't shown to be as durable as we'd like him to be. And he tends to be more of a torque and body twist type of player. And for what he's doing, right, it hugely matters because when you're, you've got a 360-pound behemoth trying to lay his body on top of you while you're doing the twisting and torquing, you can definitely re-injure those connective injuries that he's had with his groin and with his knee and whatever else, you know, his, he could have hip problems, he could have.

have shoulder problems all because you may be compensating for the previous injuries. And I don't want to be alarmist because I always feel like when I talk about players in this light that it sounds really alarmist. I'm trying to be as realistic and down to earth as possible. The bottom line is that most players don't tear two ACLs in a matter of five years, right? Like that usually doesn't happen. Most players don't get a groin injury in between and then sit out the rest of their time at the collegial level, right? That's most players. Like that doesn't happen. So I don't want to necessarily, you know, be alarmist like I'm saying, but I do think it takes a little bit of a, hmm, if there's somebody between, if there's a line, right, if there's a tier drop,

and you're trying to choose between somebody like Nick Bosa and somebody else that you might think is in a very similar tier or same area, same level, and you know that this other person has a cleaner bill of health, I would likely lean to that person, but I know that's hard to come by, it's sort of rarefied error once you get this high in the, sort of in the rankings. And you know, you mentioned the fact that there's the possibility that this could, and it is a concern. Well, it's also a red flag concern when the team has already stated that they may reduce some of his snap count early on in the season.

Totally a possibility. Right. To keep him fresh. Now, that doesn't mean that he's going to be, you know, benched or go from 65 percent snaps to 20 percent snaps. But the fact that they're going to reduce his snap count a little bit, take the load off of him a little, means that they're concerned too. Well, listeners, it's going to have to be up to you guys to make your own decisions.

You can either trust the injury specialist or somebody who's seen it all eight seasons of scrubs. Or if you're a Vegas person, roll the dice. Well, it's funny you mentioned Vegas there, Thomas, because Edwin, you're saying, you know, like, I don't want to be alarmist and, you know, basically you're not trying to freak everybody out here. But for me, a lot of these sorts of decisions, particularly when it comes to draft day, I have a poker player's mentality, which is that I just want to know my odds. I understand that the cars I'm about to lay down, have a one and three

chance. I know that, and I'm willing to take that risk. So if it's two out of three and I lose that one, know that. I understand the risk I'm taking. I just don't like not having, I want as much information as possible so that I can, like, basically, I'm going to take all four of these players in drafts coming up. There's no way I'm not. But now that I know, have a better idea of that risk that's involved, that that's basically all I want. And that's all I think we want for our listeners is just to be more well educated on this because exactly as you said, I went like, you know, you do this for a living. and it's hard for you to dig up enough information on some of these defensive players because beat reporters and websites and ESP and pundits, they just don't talk about these defenders as much.

And so then the information is scarce. And we're often left, you know, poking around in the dark. So this was amazing to have you on here to help us out. Of course I appreciate it. And if I may, because I know that fantasy players at large really like rankings, right? If I had to rank these four players that we talked about today from the, and this is for concern for the 2021 season, right? Just in a vacuum, in a bubble, concern for performance, missing games, whatever. From the least to the most concern, I would say I'm the least concerned for Hunter.

I am the next to least concerned for Bosa, followed by Collins and James. And I would say Collins and James are a little bit dice. I'm probably the most concerned about Collins, simply because that's a tough injury to come back from and still perform. Gotcha. This was great, Thomas. It was so great having Edwin on here. We really do appreciate that.

Hopefully we won't have too many other star players injured. We don't have to bring you back on mid-season. So I'll say for all our IDP listeners out there, hopefully this is the last time we talked to you this year. Seriously. Yeah. I mean, I tell all my patience when they walk, when they get discharged. I say, I hope I never see you again.

That's it. Thanks so much for hopping on. And remember to follow Edwin on Twitter at FB Injury Doc, football injury doc. And you can read all of his amazing articles on FantasyPoint.com. Thanks so much for joining us, Edwin. Thanks, Edwin. Thank you. All right, we're going to continue on now.

And we're going to talk some about training camp. We've been taking some training camp notes. But before we do. that. We've been reaching out to the Discord channel. If you're a Fantasy Points subscriber, you have access to the Discord channel where you

can speak directly to you know, anyway, John Hanson, Joe Dolan, we're basically all on there. And there's an IDP channel. There's several IDP nuts that are on there with us. And we asked them to come up with some questions heading into the season, anything in particular

that they wanted to kind of hit on. There's also some some cool stuff we're doing in the Discord app. For those of you who only dabble in IDP or you have a, you know, maybe one or two leagues where you have to play a couple of IDPs. And frankly, you just don't have the time to delve into that. That's okay. That's what Thomas and I get paid to do.

So we've got a few people in that Discord app that are literally as we speak are texting us. They're in their draft right now and they're trying to figure out who to draft. And it's been fun kind of helping some of these players. out as they're going through their draft. So we wanted to give a little shout out and a nod to the folks in the Discord app. So we asked them to come up with a couple of questions. And we're going to dig into those questions now.

We're going to start with the username Stop at Yellow. He asked, what can we expect from Kyle Dugger? Thomas, what you got for Kyle Dugger? Well, first of all, you get paid. Dugger is currently running right now in camp behind Adrian Philips. as the strong safety. But Dugger did play 14 games in 2020 rookie season, and he started seven of them.

So he should see the field plenty, especially when the Patriots use their three safety alignment. Now, bear in mind he only had one game last year in which he posted more than four solo. So he's not a big tackle-heavy kind of guy and or big play person. But they did like what they saw in him last year, and he will be involved, although it is a busy secondary because he and Jalen Mills are backups at safety.

So there is the possibility that he sees about the same amount of snap count as he had last year, maybe a slight increase going forward in 2021. Yeah, you know, you mentioned how many safeties they, you know, basically got back down. I see, I see them using veteran Devin McCordie as. kind of their last line of defense. I see him playing deeper more often than not in kind of being the quarterback back then. I remember that the Patriots run a whole lot of nickel and dime. So using three safeties is not something that is going to be few and far between.

But at the end of the day, Adrian Phillips and McCordy will probably be on the field 90, if not 100% of the snaps. And depending on game flow, it probably will be kind of. Kyle Dugger that will go up and down in snaps. And they do play a ton of man, which sometimes will, you know, keep safeties out of, out of the zone where they, where they may pick up more coverage or pick up, you know, more opportunities. So, yeah, I'm with you, Thomas. I like Kyle Dugger, but I just don't think without injury to either Phillips or McCordy,

I don't see Dugger being on the field more than 60 or maybe 80 percent. And he's just got to, it'll be one of those things where one week he plays 100% of the snaps and gets six tackles. And then the next week he's 33%. A lot of it's going to be opponent driven. But also, you know, this could possibly change because of the fact that we were going to discuss in further notes in a few minutes. Rayquan McMillan went down with a torn ACL. And they don't really have, they were counting on McMillan to be the three down or most down linebacker on the team. and he was doing really well in camp until he tore his ACL.

They have Duta Hightower and Joam Bentley, and obviously they brought him McMillan, so they don't have a lot of confidence in those two. They could go out and get a free agent like B.J. Goodson or Patrick Anwasse or even Josh Bines, and there's another two or three other guys that they could get. But they could also rely on a Dugger and use him more in a three safety set. I do like Dugger as a wonderful dynasty stash. think he's going to be incredibly productive this year, but I think they've got high hopes for him

in the future. And Devin McCordy, long in the tooth, you know, he's, he's, he can't stay, he can't stay back there forever. He's been a, he's been a juggernaut for this defense. But, you know, at some point, I do think they think that Phillips and Dugger is going to be their future. So this might be a good year to, to trade for Dugger, you know, get a couple of weeks into the season, You just get a couple of bad games from Dugger in terms of usage, not play, but usage, and then trade for him in a dynasty and stash him. And then, you know, in a year or two, we'll probably all be clamoring for our Kyle Dugger shares. Vicka's 07 asks us, what's our take on Antoine Winfield, Jr.? Well, what is there not to like about him?

He rang third on the team in total tackles, solos, and assists. in his rookie season. Now, he may be small at 5'9, but he packs a punch when he's hitting guys. And he had five games last year in which he posted five or more solos, and he had 11 big plays total in this first NFL season. This kid can play football. He has NFL blood in him from his dad,

who was also a star cornerback, played with the Minnesota Vikings. But Junior is very much somebody you can rely on who is a right now is a top flight DB2, low-end DB1, heading to be a top DB1 altogether. Yeah, I love him as a, I mean, obviously it's a redraft, but now is the time to go ahead and trade for him because, Thomas, I totally agree. As well as he played last year, I think he's still ascending. One of the things that I liked about him last year, and you and I talked about this last year, Thomas, is unlike some of the other rookies who were coming in with no training camp, no preseason, all that sort of stuff. His name is Antoine Winfield Jr. And his dad was a hell of a football player himself.

And we've seen this time and time again. It's not only that it's in the blood, it's in the genetics and all that. It's that, you know, I mean, you've got an amazing football player as a dad. which means you were getting coached every single day. From the time you could remember that you decided you were into football, he probably has your feet set the right way. He's showing you game film. So when he showed up as a rookie,

he probably felt incredibly comfortable in, you know, in this position. So they were immediately able to use them. I do want to talk a little bit about scheme because I do think that the scheme that the scheme that the Bucks ran last year and are likely to run this year really does fit well for Winfield. They played a lot of single high. And because of that, it's more often than not that Jordan Whitehead was the free safety. And Antoine Winfield was the one who played closer to the box. Now, obviously, they've got two amazing linebackers in Devin White and Levante David. But that does not mean, just because they got a couple, you know, there's a little bit of a myth going around

about, you know, if you've got great linebackers, well, then there's not a whole lot left for the safeties to quote unquote clean up. And same with the inverse. If you've got bad linebackers, it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, that, you know, that certainly does happen. There are, there are cases for that. But don't discount Winfield's ability to hang around the line of scrimmage and in the box just because there's a couple of great linebackers next to them.

There is enough room there, particularly because they use Devin White and Levante, David, in a number of different roles. They don't just sit in the middle of the field and wait as, as a match. matter of fact, sometimes when they will blitz one of those two, it is Winfield that will move into the box and pick up the slack. So I love Winfield this year. I think his arrow is still pointing up. And I would not be surprised if, you know, this time next year, we're looking at rankings where he's, if not the number one DB, if he's not one of the top three or five. You know, and you had mentioned scheme. There's also opponent is a huge factor. There were a few

games in his rookie year where Winfield disappeared on fantasy owners. The Packers game, I know with the Rams game, he kind of had a, yeah, he had four tackles and I think five assists in the Rams game, but he didn't have any big plays. And the same thing with the Packers, it was like a three, two solos to assist. And these are the type of games where he's not necessarily going to have an outstanding or impact outing. And that was something we kind of expected for a rookie. And you got to also consider, too, like you mentioned, not only does he have David and White in front of him, but he has in Domic and Sioux and Vita V. DeVay on the front. He has the pressure of Shaquille Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul on the outsides, which allows, you know, supplies pressure on the quarterback to give

Winfield the ability to make some big plays. So he's on a defense that is stout and stella. He's on a defense. probably one of the better defensive teams in the league. And I just see nothing but good things for him. And like every NFL player you look at and or try and acquire, they're going to have down games, especially DBs. Everybody has a down game. There's the rare breed that consistently give you solid outings. And I think Winfield is approaching that.

So we were given a couple other Discord questions. And we're going to get to those next week. We're trying to spread these out and make sure, you know, these shows don't run too long. So thank you guys for the questions. We'll definitely, when we don't have Edwin on, we'll have a little bit more time to dig in. So there's a really good question about playing in deeper leagues that we'll get to. But for now, we're going to close it out with some news and notes. And these are going to be a little bit more rapid fire, just very quick things that we've picked up so far in training camp.

And we'll kind of go back and forth between Thomas. I, one of the ones that Thomas wanted to mention he already covered, which was the Raquan McMillan news. But Thomas, there's another linebacker you wanted to discuss that has a little bit of news. Luckily, not as bad, though. Well, Raqwan Smith on the Bears has been dealing with a groin strain. Mike Nagy has been very gray area about he's been pulling a bullet, Belichick as far as

not having any information regarding Smith and when his return is. In the meantime, recently signed Alec Ogletree has been stepping in and doing very, very well during training camp. And, you know, they activated Christian Jones, and the bears do have enough talent in camp to get them through training camp, and they don't have to rely on Roquan Smith. But groin injuries, as Edwin had mentioned, you know, you get these soft tissue injuries and they can be really, really tricky. I wanted to move on and talk a little bit about the Jaguars. There's a couple things going on with the Jaguars that are worth discussing. The big one is one of their outside corners who they were planning on relying on this year. They have a young cornerback group except for Shaq Griffin, and that's C.J. Henderson.

There's a little bit of a mystery about what's going on there. They've made it known that they're willing to trade or they're listening to trade offers on C.J. Henderson. From the digging I have done, which is just kind of piecing some stuff together, I believe that what C.J. Henderson is going through is personal and it's not football related. And it's nothing, you know, when we think of cornerbacks and the Jaguars and or defensive players of the Jaguars and issues, you know, we think about all the issues that Jalen Ramsey and Janique and Gakwe and a lot of these players had, I don't think that's what's happening here with with CJ Henderson. I think it's not football related. So it's a situation that hopefully all

that will get sorted out. But for now, because it's not like, it's not contract related, it's nothing like that. I think it's the sort of thing where, you know, at least until further notice, we have to assume that C.J. Henderson's, you know, draftability has taken a huge plummet. But hopefully everything works out there okay for him on a personal level. And with some team, I would love to see him come back because I do think he's got a lot of talent. He's very young and talented player. But if C.J. Henderson does not end up getting things sorted out at Jacksonville, I do think that cracks the door open a little bit more for their second rounder Tyson Campbell.

He might take on a bigger role than they were expecting to start the season. So that'll be interesting to watch. And you have to keep in mind, too, that Urban Meyer is not in a four-year plan. He's in a one year do it now plan. And he has no ties to Henderson because that was the previous administration that brought Henderson in. So it's either you play for me now or I'm going to move on from you. So one of the other things that have been interesting to watch in Jacksonville, and this is the sort of thing that we'll see play out.

You know, hopefully your drafts aren't for another week or two. And that is that, you know, the Jags brought over linebacker Damien Wilson from the Chiefs. And Wilson was a very versatile player for them, part-time player for sure. But he's had certain things that he excelled at, and they tried to set up their defense to do that. Well, lately, or at least actually right even from the start of camp, Wilson has been heavily rotating, in particular with Joe Schober, but also some with Miles Jack. Now, it could just be that they need Wilson to get reps as the direct backup to both Schober and Miles Jack. and I believe that's most likely the case.

But remember that they, you know, they basically are bringing over more of a Baltimore-style defense. And they may be taking some stuff from the Chiefs as well. They're trying to reinvent this defense and be more multiple. And it's, there are a lot of defenses out there that have a heavy, and the Chiefs are one of them, that have a heavy rotation at linebacker. And if this ends up being the case,

if we see that Wilson is doing a lot of rotating with these two, obviously we have to pull back our expectations for both. Or it might be that Wilson is just rotating mainly with Schobert, in which case that really puts a hamper on the fact that we have been considering Schobert a top 10 or top 12 linebacker. Now, way too early to assume that this is what's happening. Please don't overreact, but we're looking for clues and we want to see if those things get stacked up once the games come into play.

And you also have to consider the fact that, as you mentioned, that they're bringing in more of a Baltimore-style scheme, which is a 3-4 base. And Miles Jack is not well-acquainted with a 3-4 base, even though Schober played 3-4 with Cleveland. He does have deficiencies as well. And that's the reason why they did bring in Damien Wilson. Because of his versatility, he could be one of those guys that they keep on the field. And that would mean if he plays more downs and or even becomes a third. three down linebacker, then either Jack or Schobert, most likely one of the two, depending on the scheme that they're going to use or the defensive packages that they're going to run,

could suffer snap count loss. Now, all these bad news about linebackers, we have some good news for once. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, Darius Leonard signs a five-year, $99 and a quarter million extension. Now, that included a $20 million signing bonus and a $52.5 million. dollar guarantee. So we had talked about earlier in our first podcast that Leonard is playing for a contract, well, he's already got the contract.

So we're looking at this now as, okay, he's the big dog on this defense. But we're also concerned in having the back of our minds now that he has a big contract, will that affect his play whatsoever? How do you think that will affect him? I think it's a good side of me. first of all, he's had some injury history. So the fact that they're willing to lock him up for five years means their team physicians must feel pretty confident about, A, you know, his injury history being fluky

and not something that they're too concerned about. And B, after just a little bit of training camp and watching Leonard, they must feel incredibly confident that he's that, like, high impact pro bowl player that he was just a couple of years ago. So all those signs mean that the team. team, you know, is happy to invest heavily in him. And I would imagine for Leonard, you know, who doesn't strike me just from his interviews and, you know, the things that I've read about him, doesn't strike me as a type of player who is now going to just kick it into cruise control.

I think he's got, I'm sure he's glad to have the money, but I think he's got, you know, the Hall of Fame on his mind more so than that. So it gives me just even more confidence that he's a, He's a top two or top three linebacker this year. So why don't we wrap this up with a rapid fire, just make some mention of like nine, ten different things that are happening in training camp and or we see Forks coming. And I'll start us off by saying that I did a mock game in Seattle. And the one thing that I really struggled with was getting used to the Jersey numbers.

And it's going to be tricky for fans out there in 2021 because these jersey numbers, I'm looking at a number eight on the defensive end position and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And, you know, normally when you see a pile and you see a 75 or a 60 or that's an offensive lineman, if you see, you know, the 50s, that's most likely the linebacker. And you can pretty, all of a sudden now, a number eight, well, is that, is that a defensive end? Is that a linebacker?

So you're going to have to get used to these new numbering, uniform numbers that the NFL is allowing. moving on to Dante Fowler for the Falcons. He's finally started practicing. They've got, you know, big plans for him. He's been an up and down player. He did well with Aaron Donald next to him playing defensive tackle. The Falcons have a pretty good defensive tackle themselves with Grady Jarrett.

So, you know, best of luck to Dante Fowler. I'm not incredibly high on him, but the fact that he's back practicing and will definitely have a shot and has flashed in the past. He's not, he's at the end of the world to grab him late in drafts. Now the Ravens penciled in Malik Harrison as a starting weakside linebacker for now. And we emphasis for now because he made enough mistakes in his rookie season that this could be a temporary, I wouldn't say temporary because he is going to be their ultimate starting weekside linebacker down the road.

But they could pull him off the field when he, you know, he'll have a short leash. Let's put it that way. Speaking of young linebackers who were making a move on their team, Logan Wilson for the Bengals, I've read some things that they are trying to put them in a position to be there every down linebacker, which would be great because the Mingles had such a mishmosh last year. And we really want to see that every down linebacker there, as many of them as we can get our hands on. They drafted Wilson highly.

Obviously, every rookie last year struggled with no preseason and no training camp. They're really trying to give Logan Wilson every opportunity to earn it. And so far he's been standing out as they're starting Mike Lambacker. Over in the Packers training camp, you have two starting cornerbacks in Jari Alexander and Kevin King. But the man that there's really starting to turn heads a little bit is Shandon Sullivan, who is currently the nickel or what they call the star cornerback for the Packers. he could see a lot of playing time and get a lot of snaps in the nickel roll. So the Packers who roll out three cornerbacks often,

Chandon Sullivan could benefit from that. Let's stick with the Packers and other linebacking situations. The beat reporters so far are saying that Chris Barnes actually has a slight lead for the every down linebacker role there in Green Bay, which would be huge. However, they're also talking up Devon. Dr. Campbell quite a bit. Now, granted, last year they talked up, Christian Kirksey, and he ended up being a gigantic bust for them. So it's a little hard to tell. We don't want coach speak. We want to actually see film. So, but keep your eyes when the Packers start hitting the field, particularly maybe in

preseason week two, that's going to kind of be our magic number. If Barnes is, is the one that stays on the field, then we're starting to see a smoking gun here. And it might be a, you know, we can pick up on Barnes because right now the conventional thought is that Campbell would own that role. But if Barnes could actually snag that role, he's got a lot of value as a sleeper. Indeed. Now, we, as we have mentioned earlier in our injury report, we've been mentioning Derwin James quite a bit. He's standing out early in training camp, and that's a good sign. Now, there was some notes that you had from James in camp, yes?

Yeah, so speaking of every down linebackers, you know, more and more defenses are starting to entrust the play calling duties or wearing the play calling helmet, which comes with a green dot. So we call it wearing the green dot. Derwin James has been wearing the green dot for the charger. There's a couple of things. Yeah, he's a play caller, which means he is not leaving the field. So if that's the case, any concerns that James, that they would try to ease James in. and maybe only use him in a part-time role. Out the window.

We can wash that away. The other thing that it brings up is if he's on the field for every snap, that means they're not trusting Kenneth Murray to be on the field for every snap. So that also helps us pump our brakes on whether or not Murray. Because remember, they've got a slew of linebackers over there, Cazir White, Drew Tranquil, and then what's his name? Blake taught his name, which... Because of your white and base...

I mean, Kerry. Right, Murray and. Yeah. Not Parameda was last year. I just said Murray's name. I just, yeah, I just said Murray's name and I completely forgot he existed. So, you know, they may do one of these kind of, we're calling it Baltimore,

not Baltimore defense things, but, you know, Green Bay has done it to, a lot of teams have done it, where they may rotate their linebackers. So Murray might not be a three-down linebacker as we were hoping he would be. And there's somebody else that you want to mention that where's a green dot. That's right. Anthony Walker for the Browns. It does look like Walker will be there every down linebacker. And this is also

great news, just like the Bengals last year. The Bingles and the Browns both had messes when it came to their linebackers where you couldn't really trust any of them. They were so scheme dependent that their snap cows went out of down and became very frustrated. We were hoping that they would eventually settle on some every down linebackers.

And I know Walker just got injured, but I think they are hoping that Walker will be their every down linebacker. Remember, he was a hell of a player for the Colts just last year. Although there are some concerns. I mean, when he was with the Colts, by the end, he was struggling to stay on the field for every down. But that's a pretty stacked linebacking corps over there with the Colts. The Browns is a little iffyer there.

So it would be nice to see Walker settle into that every down roll so he can be reliable. Indeed. Now, the first unofficial depth chart for the Las Vegas Raiders has come out. And we've been pulling our hair trying to figure out who's playing what and where. We've talked about Nick Kukowski being the starting middle linebacker. And, well, in this first unofficial depth chart, the Raiders have listed Corey Littleton as the weak side linebacker, Nick Morrow as the starting middle linebacker, and Tony Mews is the strong side linebacker. So with Mews on the strong side, chances are he'll be only a two-down linebacker.

at best. Morrow still hasn't totally claimed the middle linebacker spot. Kutkowski could still challenge him for that. And Littleton likely won't be a three-down linebacker either. So this is still a messy situation. And we have a feeling this is going to just keep changing and evolving as the weeks go by. Speaking of messy situations, the safety slash linebacker situation in Dallas is also a mess. Do they've got Jalen Smith and Leighton Van der Leish? And then they drafted Micah Parsons and they've got Keanu Neal, you know, they're calling him a linebacker. And then what I've seen from practices and from the Hall of Fame game, he's playing a lot in that box.

So the real question here is how will Neal's snaps affect Smith and Vanderex and Parsons if he ends up playing a, you know, more of a traditional linebacker role in certain setups and certain schemes, but also how does that affect Donovan Wilson, who also is somebody I think they would prefer to have closer to the box than necessarily deep. So how are they going to use Keanu Neal with Donovan Wilson, with those other three linebackers? I'm sure there's a plan there, but that's a lot of players to work out, and it just makes you hesitate. It should make you hesitate to draft some of these players, just in terms of consistency. I would love to see some more snaps before I have to draft any of them.

But for right now, they're all players. I'm downgrading at least one tier based on the uncertainty of their roles. I'll wrap this up with a couple of linebacker notes. C.J. Mosley on the New York Jets in 2019, he had a bunch of injuries. And in 2020, he had COVID-19 where he opted out. He's finally returned to the Jets practice field, and they're looking forward to him being a mainstay on this defense and hopefully give them 17 games in 2021. Now, J.M. Brown on Tennessee has looked really, really good early in camp. Granted, it's early. While they have put pads on, they haven't put full-blown pads on, you won't really start seeing the full-blown pads until the first preseason game. but Brown has been looking decent early on in camp.

All right, my friend, this was fun. It was great to have Edwin on. Hopefully we answered some of your questions and helped you get some sneak peeks into these training camps before the preseason game starts, before you guys can actually see some actual football. These early training camp notes, please take them with a grain of salt.

But trying to give you all as updated news as possible, but of course all these are incomplete. But it's nice just to note, that we've already had at least one football game and we have a bunch of more coming up. Now, when these games start, we'll start breaking down what we see on film, which is really what we're hoping to do

is have this be a little bit of like some clues that we're building. And then once we see at least one week of preseason games, we can start seeing if one plus one is going to occur, in which case that gives us more or less confidence of some of the notes that we've mentioned here today.

And also keep on the Discord board, keep throwing those questions out there, and we'll try and address more of them during the future podcasts. Absolutely. Well, there's been a lot of fun. Hope you guys have enjoyed this as much as we have had recording it. Please visit FantasyPoint.com where you can see my IDP analysis, as well as Thomas Simons, as well as the great work that Edward Poros is putting in

on both sides of the ball for the injury report. Oh, and by the way, there's John Hanson and Graham Barfield and Joe Dolan and Thomas Brawley. Scott Garrett, a few other people you might have heard of. So please join us over there at FantasyPoints.com. Again, if you want to follow me on Twitter, it's down with IDP. Thomas, take us home. Be well and be safe. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast.

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