Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Franchise Focus Series: Washington Commanders

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

In the premiere episode of the 2022 Franchise Focus podcast series, Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) invites Senior Writer for the Athletic Ben Standig (@BenStandig) to discuss the upcoming season for the Washington Commanders. The Franchise Focus Podcast series is brought to you by Underdog Fantasy (@UnderdogFantasy). New users can sign up to Underdog using promo code FANTASYPTS for up to $100 in bonus cash on their first deposit. Visit fantasypoints.com/underdog for more info. The podcast series is also sponsored by Evan's Sports Cards & Collectibles (@evanscards). Follow @EvansCards on Twitter for weekly updates and card releases, Like on Facebook, and head to evanssportsnj.com for more info, including the always-updated eBay store. --- 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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That's promo code FantasyPTS. Head to FantasyPoint.com slash Underdog for more information. Now let's get to the show. It's time for 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. Welcome to the franchise focus podcast series here at FantasyPoint.com for the 2022 season. My name is Joe Dolan and everybody over the next month plus here, we're going to be releasing 32 podcasts, one for all 32 NFL teams with 32 people who cover these teams and know them intimately.

And we're so excited to bring them to you here at FantasyPoints.com. So make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. Really excited to bring this series to you something a little bit different. and it's going to go with our article series, obviously, that you guys know and are familiar with at FantasyPoints.com. We're going to have one article, one podcast for all 32 NFL teams. It's going to be awesome. And this year we decided, you know what?

The teams at the back end of the alphabet, they kind of get the shafts sometimes. Like, if you go in alphabetical order, oh, you always start with A, so you're going to start with Arizona and Atlanta. No, we're doing it backwards this year. We are starting with the end of the alphabet. this year. So our first podcast and our first article is on the renamed, the Washington Commanders, because even though they have a new team name, they're still at the back end of the alphabet. So we're going to start with them. And guys, I got a treat for you because I got the best. We got Ben Standing here. Covers the commanders for the athletic, does great

stuff with the draft. He has the Standing Room only podcast on the commanders. And that is Ben Standing. that's standing without the second end and you can follow him on twitter at ben standing it is a pleasure to have him here had him on the ross tucker uh fantasy feast uh podcast a couple of weeks ago and thrilled we can bring him here at fantasy points dot com ben knows the commanders inside and out ben thanks for joining us on the podcast and you know we'll have it a quick podcast by the way 15 20 minutes is my idea for all of these podcasts so just a nice easy digestible format for you all and ben thanks for us here and for kicking off the series here in 2022. I appreciate that. And I do appreciate the reverse alphabet bit because you're right.

Like every time we on the athletic, you know, they ask us a question for all 32 of us. I'm always at the end. So if people make it all the way through, I'm always like, really? I kind of doubt people reading all my stuff. So I appreciate that we're going the other way. Well, yeah, this is the first one. And now, I have to throw it out here because Ben, obviously, when I'm scheduling 32 podcasts with 32 different beatwriters, 32 different people who cover the teams, it's a lot of scheduling, right? So I got to make sure I get in ahead a little bit.

And you know well, things can change at the drop of a hat. We are recording this on Monday the 20th. If y'all are listening to this, it is the 24th of June, releasing this on Friday. And Ben, anything can happen right now with Terry McLaren. I saw Jeremy Fowler, I think, reported today that Washington tried to re-engage him on contract talks in the last week. Things haven't gone anywhere thus far with those contract talks,

but we've seen this off-season with the wide receivers. Things can happen. AJ Brown moves to a new team. Something still hasn't happened with Devo Samuel, but Tyree Kill moves on, gets a new deal. AJ Brown moves on, gets a new deal. Stefan Diggs gets a new deal despite there being some trade rumors with him. You know, Devonte Adams moves on, gets a new deal.

Terry McLaren is obviously sitting here standing, hey, look, I've put up 3,000 plus yards in three seasons with atrocious quarterback play. It makes sense to me that Terry McLaren wants to get paid. What is your latest read on the situation with Terry McLaren and what should fantasy players be expecting from him? Should we see him in training camp? Do you think a deal is going to get done? What do you think is the most likely outcome here? Well, first, like when you say, you know, anything can happen, that is the truest statement ever about this team. in particular. I mean, this is not about the fantasy world, but like, you know, on Wednesday,

there's a, there's a hearing on Capitol Hill in which Roger Goodell is going to be there answering questions about the commanders, and we're dealing with the fact that Dan Snyder's not going. That's just today. So we'll see where we are in a few more days. There's always something going on here. But you're right. In terms of the biggest questions about the team, Terry McClure's contract is definitely tops the list. I haven't been that concerned about it ultimately getting something getting done. You know, there hasn't been any signs of anybody saying they want to, you know, that he wants to trade and they, and Ron Rivera has gone out of his way for months to say we're definitely not entertaining dealing him. So it's just a matter of when does something happen. Now,

obviously it would have been great if something had already been done during the OTAs or mini-camp. So he has that time to practice with Carson Wentz because you think that's kind of a big deal. That didn't happen. So now they just have to get something done at least before the start of training camp. I imagine they will. Last year they signed Jonathan Allen minutes before the start of camp. I don't necessarily know we're going to have to wait that long here. But I would imagine something ultimately gets done. I think part of the problem as best as I can sort of read the room is,

you mentioned all these other deals that happened this offseason. I think back in January when the season ended, Washington probably had a view in their head of what Terry McClellan was worth to them. and then the wide receiver market went nuts, and that price just went up, regardless of what they think. And I think maybe it took a little bit of a time to adjust. And if you look at the salaries of the receivers, right, the, like, as we all know, whenever they say a guy,

whatever the initial numbers on a contract are, a lot of that sort of funny money, and you have to sort of strip away some of that. But that said, using those of raw numbers, there's a top six receivers that are all averaging about $24 million. a year, including A.J. Brown, who's part of Terry McCorn's draft class. And then it drops number seven as DJ Moore, somewhere around just over 20 million. And my guess is the gap is somewhere there. It's like either, you know, McLauram, I think he's part of that top group, especially with Brown

in there. And the commanders may be looking at it like, hey, we've got you down here. I imagine there's an easy way to ultimately get to meet in the middle as we imagine how these things do, but we're not there yet. So I'm not worried about it at this point and something could get done here sooner than later. But at the same point, they've already missed that opportunity to practice with McLaren to Wendt and not going to be able to get that back. One guy who gives them a little bit of an extra cushion with Terry McLaren and just quite frankly, something they totally lacked last year. A reliable number two wide receivers. As a matter of fact, Terry McLaren was the only player on the commanders last year at the time

they were the team with more than 400 receiving yards. And they chosen essentially to make sure that doesn't happen again. They go out and they get Jahan Dotson, 16th overall in the first round. And, you know, I think if you just look from a kind of a macro point of view without zooming in and looking at all the nuances, I think you might see two similar stylistic players here, you know, kind of outside wide receivers who do a lot of work down the field. But what have you seen from Dotson so far in minicam? his work with Wentz.

And what did the commanders see in him? Obviously, at 16 overall, they took him, not that I disagree, but they took him probably a lot higher than a lot of the draft Twitterati had Jahan Dotson go. Yeah, they definitely did. I mean, I think wide receiver was a position we all certainly were focused on for them in the draft when they had the 11th pick. But John Dotson wasn't one of those guys. And even if we were thinking of a trade down, it was more for a guy like a trail

Burks or maybe Chris Oliva if he slips, not Dodson. That said, you know, he's looked at the part, I would say for sure, so far in camp. There's no such thing as an offseason program MVP. But if there were, for offense, I would give it to him. I mean, in the format and what it is, you know, no game planning, no hitting, all that stuff. Understanding that, he's getting open all the time, short, down the field. He's made some catches in traffic. Like his hands are very, very impressive.

He's got, it's not the biggest receiver, but everyone talks about his catch radius. He's just really able to go kind of anywhere and snag the ball that's within reach. And yet, he's been really impressive. And you can kind of line him up in a bunch of different spots. Now, they haven't had Tara McClorne, as we just discussed. And Curtis Samuel, who should have been the number two receiver last year, but his whole season got, you know, wiped out with it with sort of this mysterious injuries kind of happening. he's only participated half the time, I guess you could say, in the offseason program. So it's really going to be interesting when we get to training camp to see what it looks like with all three of these guys out there on the field,

not to mention the running backs they have. They'll eventually get Logan Thomas back from his ACL injury. So I think Dodson's been really impressive, you know, from a fantasy number, I can't sit here and tell you today. He's a guy that's going to have a huge year, in part because they have a lot of other guys. but at the same point, he is looked the part. And at a minimum, when you're dealing with rookies in these offseason programs, to me, I just want to see, do they look the part? Do they look like they belong out there with professionals?

As long as we get past that barrier, we move forward to how they may contribute. And he definitely exceeded that and then something this time. Knowing that your division rival, let's just say you're Washington. And I know you're an objective observer here, Ben, but let's just say you're Washington's front office. your division rival gave up on Carson Wentz. And then Wence's kind of hand-picked mentor, Frank Reich and his team, gave up on Carson Wens. What do the commanders see in Carson Wens? Well, I would say this.

You know, first off, Ron Rivera, I think, kind of boxed himself in a little bit because he kept talking about, you know, from the second of the season ended, he kept talking about how, in year three in Carolina, they made a big jump from sort of in that, you know, seven-win range where Washington's been in in his first two years to, you know, becoming a team with double-digit wins and, you know, playoff contender and on all that kind of stuff. In order to do that, you obviously need a quarterback. He had Cam Newton there here. They don't really, they haven't had anybody.

And this was, as we know, not a draft class with players that people were really excited about in the first round. We saw how that played out. they tried to make a play for Russell Wilson and some of the higher-end guys. But once that didn't happen, and you look at the board, you know, you didn't know for sure what was going to happen with, you know, Matt Ryan or Baker Mayfield or Deshaun Watson for that matter. And Carson Wentz is kind of sitting there. Like, I get it. It's clearly been a lot of negatives the last couple of years to say the least.

But he's still a viable starting quarterback. He did have 27 touchdowns to seven picks last year. I mean, I think those numbers may be misleading according to people that were kind of really monitoring that team last year. There's constant questions about his decision making, things like that. But he was also arguably the best available quarterback in the time. I think they paid too much in terms of the fact that the Colts seemingly needed to get rid of him based on how they were talking about Carson went. but Washington kind of paid the full sticker price. On the other hand, what they gave up isn't really that much if Carson Went

works itself out. So I understand why they did it. I understand the trepidation that people have out there. I think his size, you know, he's a lot bigger than Taylor Hineke, a bit bigger arm. His physical tools raised the ceiling of this offense in ways we haven't seen since the Rivera regime took over. But obviously, there are a lot of questions.

about him after what happened the last two years. He's also got the best weapons he's probably had in his entire career. So it's going to be really interesting to watch this. Again, I totally get why there are a lot of questions. But Ron Rivera has, whether he both 100% believes it or not, he's all in on wents and he kind of has to be having made the move. But I kind of think they didn't have a ton of other choices. They needed to get a vet and he was available and they made the move.

Yeah, I agree that his weapons are better this year. But I think you saw last year with Indianapolis. if Wenz is going to function at a higher level. The 2017 guy, that guy's not coming back. We know that. The question is whether he could be 2018, you know, 2019, Carson Wence, when he was a solid enough quarterback to get the Eagles in playoff position.

If you're going to have that guy when it comes to Wence, I think you need a solid run game. And one of the hardest things to suss out, Ben, and you're a fantasy guy, you know this. This backfield, all of a sudden, you know, early in the offseason, it looks like Jady McKissick's going to Buffalo and the draft hasn't happened yet. Whoa, Antonio Gibson, you know, to the moon here, all of a sudden, McKissick has his

Dalianz with Buffalo. He's back for whatever reason. And then the commander spend a top 100 draft pick on Brian Robinson, as you well know and as anybody out there knows these days, a top 100 draft pick is not a throwaway pick on a running back, and now it's got everybody in kind of this weird spot with Antonio Gibson. Fantasy players are having a really hard time pulling the trigger on drafting him. Do you understand that? What's your read on this backfield now with Brian Robinson in the fold and J.D.

McKissick back in the fold? Yeah, no. As a fantasy player, I'm not that excited about Washington's backfield all of a sudden because it feels like it's going to be a pretty confusing one. I mean, you're keeping McKissick, look, that guy's been really effective when he's been healthy, catching passes out of the backfield, a change of pace runner. But Antonio Gibson is, you know, a tremendous player in space, you know, one of the bigger, I think one of the better playmaking running backs in the league.

His issues have been injuries, fumbles, and honestly, I think he's been sort of miscast the last couple of years as this sort of workhorse back. he was a receiver in college and they've somewhere sort of turned him into a between the tackle guy for the most part. I actually think to a degree this is probably a good thing for Gibson. Maybe his touches go down a little bit, but in theory he should be a little bit fresher. He will, I think getting him in space, like I said, it'll be a benefit there for sure. So I actually think his production may be comparable on some level to last year, even with fewer touches because if he can stay on the field more, and his usage is a little better suited to his skills that could work.

That said, you know, Brian Robinson is going to be the real hammer or running back. And I don't know about the goal line situation. You know, we haven't really seen that play out so far and, you know, these OTAs. How does that work, right? Because if, you know, as we all know, whoever's getting the goal line work is the guy who's really become more attractive. I'm not saying Gibson won't, but you didn't bring Brian Robinson in to sort of not do these things. he is a non-fumbler, which is a huge deal. So I think it's going to be really interesting.

So I'm with you. I'm not that excited about any of them. I really don't. McKissick probably doesn't work for me at all. And the Gibson part, it really is probably just comes down to, as we know, it's not like there's a, you know, you get past the top 10, 12, 13 running backs. You start guessing anyway because it's a lot of committees at that point. So I think Gibson could be one of the better committee guys.

But at the same point, this is absolutely, it feels like a committee. and that's not a great position to be in. And the fumbles being an issue. I mean, especially, you know, if Carson Wenz keeps up. The picks were down last year for Wence, but the fumbles were some of the more spectacular, quote-unquote, turnovers that Carson Wens had last year with Washington. You can't have your main back fumbling either.

Hey, Fantasy Points listeners, Ben Cucanis here, letting you know that the franchise-focused series of podcasts is brought to you by Evans Sports Cards and Collectibles. The best place for cards, collectibles, autographs, and more. All of our memorabilia giveaways are always from Evans' sports cards. He always has the latest boxes and releases from Panini, Upper Deck, Tops, and more.

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I'll let you go. I'm going to be posing this question to everybody who's doing these little franchise focus interviews. Maybe a player we haven't mentioned thus far, or maybe somebody we've mentioned only in passing. A player that the average fantasy player might be surprised could carve out a role on this offense and become a fantasy contributor down the line. Is there somebody who maybe at OTAs you've seen and say, hey, not somebody I'm going to be forgetting about there. Right, right. I mean, I think Dodson will be like the sort of the surprise guy, the sleeper, the people who want to want to get and we'll see how that goes. I would say this, you know, he has a guy that's played before. He's been a contributor.

in the fantasy world back in 2020, and that's tight-in Logan Thomas. But I feel like he's probably gotten, I don't know where he ranks among fantasy tight ends. He had a significant knee injury at the end of last year, ACL, MCL, Meniscus, and he's coming back, and he's kind of told us he's not sure he's going to be ready for week one.

That said, you know, Carson Wentz really, really likes throwing to the tight end. I believe since 2017, only long. Omar Jackson has thrown a higher percentage of his passes to the tight end. In general, Wentz had success throwing to taller receivers. Washington's receiving core, as talented as the top three guys are, all of them are six feet and under. Logan Thomas is the one guy that's going to give them size.

So, you know, I get it. You probably don't necessarily want to stash potentially a second tight end. But I do think there's a world where Logan Thomas becomes a, I don't want to necessarily say, a top 10 tight end. but it wouldn't stun me if he puts up pretty good fantasy numbers, assuming that he comes back from his injury in a pretty good space. He seems to be saying he's recovering nicely. And I just think the combination of the lack of size of receiver, Wentz, liking tight ends. And the fact that we've seen Logan Thomas have some success has me keeping an eye on him.

But, you know, like I said, we just discussed the committee at running back. There's a little bit of a committee at receiver outside of McLaren. I just feel like with Thomas, there's not a ton of other options at that position. John Bates is sort of an interesting guy, but more for the team than he is going to be for fantasy. So I just say keep an eye on Logan Thomas' health as we go through training camp. And if it looks like he's all getting close to being ready for week one, I think he could be a guy. You know, if you sort of don't get the Travis Kelsey's of the world and you're looking for a sleeper tight end. And I think he could be somebody to keep an eye on.

Well, just for posterity, Ben, as we're recording this, very cheap in underdog fantasy bestball drafts, tight end 25 right now. So he's not even being drafted as a second tight end. being drafted as a third tight end. So that just shows you where people are with Logan Thomas coming off the injury and the fact that he's 31. So there you go. I mean, somebody who, as your third tight end, you can get in a best ball league, you're not even going to have to draft this guy, by the way, in like your weekend warrior league with your buddies in the neighborhood. Like, he'll be available on the waiver wire early in the season. That is for sure. Yeah. And like I said, I mean, John Dodson or Brian Robinson, those are going to be a lot more fun players. So you want to throw that

dart as I do sometimes for a keeper at the end of a draft. That's more way to go. But like I said, I just think the way Carson Went is and the lack of size, I just think Logan Thomas could be fun, but we'll see how the injury goes. He is Ben Standing. You can follow his work at The Athletic. Follow him on Twitter at Ben Standig, again, S-T-A-N-D-I-G. He has the Standing Room-only podcast covering commanders.

You're not going to find better content from him. Ben, thank you so much for joining us. here on the franchise focus podcast series. Kicking the series off, I'm glad we can push you to the front of the alphabet and the front of the line here with our little format this year. Yeah, I appreciate you looking at for the back of the alphabet and thanks for having me on. My name's Joe Dolan. His name's Ben Standig.

We'll be covering all 32 teams over the next number of weeks. So make sure you subscribe, rate and review to the podcast at FantasyPoints.com. We'll be back. Thanks, everybody. And have a great day. 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 FantasyPoint.com.