Fantasy Football Daily - Julio Traded: Reaction and Analysis

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) & Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) discuss the news of Julio Jones and what it means for fantasy purposes in Atlanta and Tennessee. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle. From numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. It's been a while since Graham Barfield and I have podcasted together here on the Fantasy Points podcast. It's been, yeah, Graham, you and I used to do some podcast back in the day at Fantasy Guru. and we used to go weekly, but it's been a while since just you and I were on the podcast, and I thought, you know, what a better time to have a chat, you know.

We're just sitting here in June, which is supposed to be our dead time. It's wedding season now that we're kind of over, it looks like we're over the COVID hump, obviously, with things getting back to normal and crowds and sports. People are having their weddings. I've got a couple to go to. You know, but we're supposed to be able to take some time off, take a deep breath.

and, you know, the NFL has said to us, you know what? Screw you guys. Like, no, Julio Jones got traded this weekend, Graham, and he gets traded on a Sunday. You know, I'm going out to brunch. You know, that's something that, like, I've started doing. You know, I moved to South Carolina last year, and I didn't really know anything about the area I'm in, but we went to brunch on Sunday with some family. And, oh, no, no, Julio Jones, I've got to be buried in my phone the entire time.

So that's the NFL. That's what it's doing to us. This is the Fantasy Points podcast, by the way. My name is Joe Dolan, and he is Graham Bar. Field if you didn't pick up on that. Graham, what's going on, my friend? I know you are in a hell of a situation. If you want to explain to the people, maybe the Cliff's Knows version of what's going on with you, but not only as our staff, as many staffs are in this day and age, Graham, we're dispersed around the country, but we're even more dispersed right now with people moving and whatever the

hell happened with your situation. Yeah, and then first and foremost, it's good to be back. I remember those Friday shows. It was always kind of like, you know, long work week. We're breaking down the news before, before DFS slates. Definitely, definitely miss doing those. We should, uh, we got to find some time to get this back because it's, it's good to be back with you. That's the key word finding time. Yeah, exactly. It's easy to say we should do something, but anyway. Yeah, but your, your situation is wild right now. Yeah, man, I've been on the road now for about a month. I've been like a nomad. Um, my, Ash and I, we, we drove out from Denver. We drove eight states, 1,700 miles and three and a half days.

Long story short, but our place in Denver, like, needs, like, massive renovations and, like, some pipes burst. And, yeah, first week we were there, like, a big winter storm came through and the whole basement flooded where we park our cars and stuff. It needs massive renovations, but I think you're almost bearing the lead. This building's brand new, right? It's, like, five. It's essentially brand new. It was, like, it was, like, five or six years old. But yeah, they just finished up the renovations.

Actually, I think they're finishing up today. So we're going to head back this weekend. We'll drive back. Her brother's going to come with us. We're going to do some sightseeing. Go through Nashville. Go through Chicago, stay a couple nights and have a good time. Yeah, it's just, it's been fun to be on the road, but I'm ready to get back home.

Scott's on the road right now, too. He's out in New Mexico. He was driving through Kansas yesterday. I was texting a little bit. So we're all kind of all over the place. It's funny that we're all going our different ways here. I know you've been on the road a little bit here too recently. Yeah, I'm going up to, I was in Atlanta a couple weekends ago.

I'm going up to Connecticut for a family wedding this weekend. And then I've got another wedding up in Scranton in July. Scranton? Yeah. See Michael Scott up there. Oh, yeah. I've never actually, well, I have been to Scranton, but like I've never done like the office tour thing. I don't really know what there is to tour from the office because it just kind of takes place in Scranton.

Yeah, they shot it in California, I'm pretty sure. You know, I have no idea. I'm pretty sure they shot at some out. I don't know. I think they shot in like Temecula or something. I have to look at it. But isn't Temecula where like the guy on Christmas Day on Twitter got in the fight with somebody else and like literally was going to drive to Temecula to beat him up over a Kobe Bryant argument? Isn't that what that was? I think so. I'm Googling it now. Let's see. It's like literally on Christmas Day he's like I'm going to I'm driving to to Temecula to kick your ass over. Kobe Bryant.

Well, when you figure that out, we'll talk about that. But yeah, so Julio Jones got traded, Graham. He got traded from the Atlanta Falcons to the Tennessee Titans. This is something that, it seems like it's been in the works for a few months. And, you know, when you heard the rumor a couple of months ago, I, like, my whole thing was thinking, why would Atlanta trade Julio Jones? And obviously the cap, the cap, the cap's a number one, why that's happening. I guess Julio requested the trade.

He wants to play for a contender. But let's start with Julio himself and his impact on the Tennessee Titans because Tennessee lost a lot this offseason. Now, they don't throw the ball a whole lot, but they lost Corey Davis. They lost John Hussmith. That's a lot of time. I think they vacated like over 200 targets. That's quite a lot for Tennessee to be vacating.

They've upgraded here. I mean, you say what you want about Julio Jones at this stage in his career and he's certainly on the back non. even if he's I mean hell depending on injuries he might be coming up the 18th fairway but he he's better than Cory Davis right now he's a big time receiver what does he give the Titans offense first and foremost from a fantasy standpoint when it comes to Ryan Tannahill A.J. Brown because I think that's what most people are going to wonder with this trade. Well first and foremost Joe and most importantly the office was shot in Van Nuys not Temecula so we got we got some housekeeping to do there no but yeah man. So he still got it. You know, I just, we're going to, by the time this podcast is up, you can go ahead and check out free article up on the site.

Broke down Julio probably wrote a little bit too much. But I don't know, it's just such a fascinating move from a lot of different angles. But from the Titans perspective, yeah, man, they traded a second round pick, a 20, 23rd, fourth for Julio Jones. Granted, yeah, he's 32 years old. But last year, you know, you know, everybody loves that hate on Julio for missing games. You know, he only missed three games in the previous three. years before he missed, you know, seven last year with the hamstring injury. But even with, you know,

a nagging hamstring injury that he had, I think it was like week two or week three first got it, Julio was still the same exact player. He every, uh, he actually ranked fourth in yards, yards gain per route run. That was actually right behind AJ Brown, who was third. And this is now Julio's like seventh or eighth straight year ranking in the top five of yards per route run. Um, and even looking a little further, um, Julio was the same. exact guy on some deeper throws, too, of throws of 15 more yards. He was fourth in EPA per target. He was the same exact guy. And granted, that's with the hammy. Sure, the Titans are a lot more run heavy than the Falcons are. But I think there's reason to believe in reasons to suspect the

Titans are probably going to have to throw a little bit more this year, mainly Joe, because of their defense. I mean, their secondary is in a really rough spot right now. Yeah, their defense is bad. I texted Greg CoSell last night, and I was just like, what's your thought on the Holyo trade? And, you know, the thing I love about Greg is, while Greg's never going to come out and he's not going to skip Bayless you with like a hot take. Oh, my God, this is the best offense. He actually made the joke. He said to me, you know, if you're browsing Twitter, you're looking at people are calling this like it's the second coming of the greatest show on turf. And, you know, he was like, Greg likes to pump the brakes a little bit.

But he had a really good question. And he said, do we just assume that Todd Downing is going to run the same exact system that Arthur Smith ran? Now, they promoted Todd Downing to be the offensive coordinator. So you think there's going to be quite a bit of similarities. But Todd Downing learned under Scott Linnehan. Scott Linnehan, a heavy 11 personnel type of guy, used 11 personnel, you know, heavily in Dallas and all those places. And so the question he had is, are they going to throw the ball more? Is Todd Downing going to lean on his background and decide we've got Julio Jones,

we've got A.J. Brown, arguably the best one-two punch at receiver in the NFL. Josh Reynolds is a solid number three receiver. We drafted Des Fitzpatrick. So now we think we can go four deep at wide receiver. Do they run a lot of 11 personnel? And I think that's a fair question. And then it comes to your point here. They don't have much of a pass rush at all.

You know, they did sign Bud Dupree. That'll probably help matters. Caleb Farley is their first round pick, but he fell in the draft because of injuries. So how much can they count on him? This is not going to be a very good defense. And while if they play slow and they run the ball, that can be kind of massaged a little bit. I do anticipate that the Titans are going to throw the ball more this year. Yeah, well, the good news for the Titans is the AFC South in general is still, you know,

It's still kind of a dumpster fire. Jags are a couple years away. Texans are doing Texans things. And the Colts are basically, you know, they're riding Carson wins. So I still think even though the Titans, you know, they could win nine or ten games and still win the AFC South. But, you know, just looking back, you know, while I was doing some research writing this article, it's kind of surprising. Like the Titans trailed on 42% of their snaps last year.

And granted, you know, that was with, you know, an elite run game. They were top five in run rate in every game script. But they were trailing probably more than most people. would expect. They actually trailed more than, slightly more than the Falcons, which is, which is kind of crazy. So you combine that with a bad secondary, new offensive coordinator, like you mentioned, that might see this offense a little bit differently. You know, coaches, for the most part, have shied away from, oh, this is my scheme. We have to run my scheme. I don't care who's on the field. It's like, no, your your talent drives the plays that you call. And, you know, adding Julio certainly should should, should, uh, I'm not saying the Titans are going to immediately become a top five pass, you know, top five team in pass right. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I do think, I do think they're going to throw a little bit more. And Joe, for our game, like Ryan Tanyhill was one of my favorite quarterbacks to target before the trade. And he's certainly going to be

one of my favorite quarterbacks, especially now. Yeah. So I want to bring this up because Wes Hubert just wrote a really good piece on cover three. You know, he wrote a fantastic a breakdown. He's doing a series, by the way, up at FantasyPoints.com called Fantasy Shels. And he's talking about all like the main coverage defenses, how he exploits that for fantasy, while also breaking down like how it works, how quarterbacks recognize it. And cover three is the most, most used coverage shell in the NFL. And one of the advantages of cover three is, you know, you bring the strong safety into the box. So you technically you have an extra defender against the run. But this is where it's interesting for Derek Henry Graham, because

cover three is really good against the run. But Ryan Tannahill is one of the five best quarterbacks against cover three per West Huber in the NFL. A.J. Brown and Julio Jones are two of the three, three best wide receivers against cover three in the NFL. So now you've got this cover three is a strong run defense, but you also have these passing game options who can really attack that. So I have a. actually look at this is very interesting for Derek Henry. Graham, tell me I'm nuts, but I actually moved Derek Henry up from number five to number three on my best ball rankings. I actually think this has a positive impact for Derek Henry. I do. And I don't,

I don't expect he's going to carry the ball 400 times. But I definitely think this is certainly a move that doesn't preclude Derek Henry from putting up massive numbers. Quite the contrary, actually. Absolutely. Yeah. You're not, you're not crazy at all. I had Henry at three all offseason in our best ball ranks behind McCaffrey and Cook. I think there's still a fair bit of distance between McCaffrey and then Cook and then Henry is the one, two, three. But yeah, I mean, you know, you had Julio and it just, in theory, should give your offense more scoring opportunities.

You know, Julio, excuse me, Henry and is, you know, over the last two and a half years since he became the starter, he's been like, I mean, really, it's been like Maccafrey has the higher ceiling. When the, when the Titans win, Derek Henry average. just nearly 25 fantasy points per game. He has like a number of performances well over 30 PPR points. And that's with, you know, as we know, basically no passing down usage. So yeah, we're going to get some more red zone opportunities for Henry.

Get more red zone opportunities for Ryan Tannhill. Tannhill's touchdown rate has been, I think, kind of unsustainable. But, I mean, if you factor in Julio now, it's probably going to be more stable. But yeah, man, I just, I love this move overall for the tight. It really doesn't hurt AJ Brown. Maybe it takes AJ Brown of like out of the top three consideration where I had him at. It brings him back down to like receiver eight, receiver nine, but still, he's still a strong receiver one. Julio's still a strong receiver two.

And like you mentioned, I think it's enough, you know, if you didn't already have Henry at three or four, it's enough to kind of put him in that range over Camara and over Barclay because both of those guys have their own concerns. Yeah, my concerns with Camerra not to go off the tangent, obviously the concerns with Barclay are obvious. this is coming off an injury. The concerns with Camara for me is if Tason Hills the starting quarterback, like how many targets is he going to get, and because we know how heavily Alvin Camara's

receiving has factored into his production thus far. So let's talk about the receivers just really quickly. Again, this is not a significant move for me at wide receiver. What I did do is I moved A.J. Brown down from wide receiver four to wide receiver six. So I still have him in the top half

of my fantasy wide receiver. one. So not a significant move at all. But what I did do is I moved him behind Calvin Ridley, who we will talk about, and I moved him behind D.K. Metcalf. That's for best ball. We still have him ranked aggressively for, for fantasy purposes in our projections. With Julio Graham, prior to the trade, his ADP was wide receiver for, excuse not wide receiver 44, but 44th overall. I kind of like that. I think it's fair. I like Julio more in bestball. I have him wide receiver 18 in best ball.

And again, in best ball, you've got the opportunity to look at Julio and say, okay, he might miss a few games. There might be a couple games where Henry gets 30 carries. But in best ball, I like him as that high-end wide receiver two. Mid the high-end wide receiver too, in kind of a weird way, Graham, I'm almost like operating the Titans offense like it's the Vikings offense. There's a narrow, there's a narrow target tree. You've got two big time wide receivers. You've got a tight end who I think can make an impact. I like Tannahill more than I like cousins only because he runs a little bit more and he's been a little bit more efficient. But I kind of view these two offenses kind of similarly to how I'm treating them for fantasy. That is, that is such

a good comp because like, you know, you got Jefferson who got 26, 27% of the targets. Then, you know, Thielen was around like 21, 22 and scored a bunch of touchdown. That's, that's, that's pretty much exactly what we're looking at, especially in a run first offense. So that's a great comp. And if we go with that comp, Thielen's going in the fourth round too. And I think Julio will probably end up being cheaper than Thelan. You know, man, if Julio drops back past like 50 overall, he starts calling that early fifth round range, that's just like such a home run pick. His running back is dead through there. Tight end, you know, it's, you got to move. We'll talk about pits. But I like Coalio a lot if you can get him at a wide receiver three price,

because that's probably what we're going to end up looking at. And yeah, I still think he's got those big six for 150 and two touchdown games. He's got a few of those left of the tank for sure. This isn't AJ Green to the Cardinals. That's not what this is. Like, I must be completely honest. I have Ryan Tannehill. I moved him up to quarterback nine in my best ball rankings. John Hanson also moved him aggressively. He's quarterback nine. He's quarterback nine. on our season-long projections, too. And John, John was kind of not necessarily out on Tannahill, but he had him like, we had him at like 17, like 16 or 17 before the trade.

So that's a pretty big move up. Yeah, it's just, it just, I think it's going to allow him to be efficient. Again, you know, maybe somebody you like a little bit more in best ball. You know, you get those games. I forgive me. I forget who on fantasy Twitter was, was talking about this yesterday, but it's like, I'm really looking forward to the weeks when I stack Tannihil, Julio, and AJ Brown and Derek Henry has four touchdowns.

Oh, yeah, those are definitely coming. So those are definitely coming. Forgive me if you're listening to this. It was somebody on fantasy Twitter. I always, I am so bad, Graham. I see a funny tweet, and I'm like, that's a really funny tweet, and I always forget who tweeted it. Yeah.

But I wanted to call that out, but it's like, those days are definitely coming. So maybe Tannahill, you like them a little bit more. But, yeah, I'm taking him inside the top ten at quarterbacks right now. I think he's firmly in that range where you take like Stafford, Herbert, Jalen Hertz. I think he's firmly in that range. Yeah, that's what I was about to ask you. Do you have him over Stafford?

I do. Yeah, I think I have him like one or two spots over Stafford. And I like Stap in a lot this year. Yeah, I think I have it Tanahill, Stafford, and then Brady. I've hurts, like, because I like Hertz a lot more. Yeah, I mean, Hertz for best ball is just ridiculous. I mean, you know, and even season long. But like, the one thing I like about this tradegram is, you know,

Scott wrote about this last week. The quarterbacks are actually becoming more expensive. People are starting to realize that quarterbacks were a cheat code. And not just Konami code quarterbacks, not just quarterbacks who run, but quarterbacks in general, the late round quarterback strategy was a cheat code for so long for fantasy. But it's bumping guys up. But to me, this gives like another really appealing kind of mid-range option at the position. Like, you know, if you miss out on the sexy names like Murray and Jackson and Allen and Prescott, you know, maybe you're in on Prescott despite the injury that, or even Hertz. Like, you know, Hertz, we were talking about like two years ago, he'd be the guy we'd be targeting in the 11th, 12th round the way we were Lamar Jackson. That's not the case with Jalen Hertz. You can't get him at that price. But this adds somebody to that kind of Stafford, Wilson, Herbert tier.

maybe if you want to throw Brady in there where you can there's all right he's not Lamar Jackson but that adds Ryan Tannihill as somebody who all right maybe I missed out on those on those early running quarterbacks but I can get a hyper efficient option here in the ninth round that's where he fits in and that's why I really like this trade from a fantasy perspective because it adds a quarterback to that tier. Yeah. I mean I had Tana Hill. I think I had Tannehill pretty much in that tier all along but it definitely like boosts him up. I mean last two years. only one quarterback has scored more fantasy points per drop back than Ryan Tanehill. And that's Lamar Jackson. The freak Lamar Jackson. And that's why? Because he runs a lot. Yeah. And Tanahill sneakishly runs a lot too, man. Like especially, you know, he gets those 15, 16 yards per game. He scored quite a few rushing touchdowns inside the red zone. So yeah, adding Julio is just going to add to the touchdown

equity. But yeah, man, I love, I'm going to love like a Julio-Tanhill stack. I think I probably have, I inadvertently probably have plenty of those right now on Underdog. I've already done like 20 drafts on 100thog. I better, uh, after all I have a few. Yeah, I mean, this Julio trade, yeah, it's great for the Titans. Let's go to Atlanta. It's really just kind of, I understand why Atlanta did the trade. And like, nobody's going to be like, I don't think anybody's going to be like really blaming Terry Fontna, the new general manager.

You know, he had the old roster, a bunch of like bloated contracts that, you know, and like, you know, to be fair to Thomas Demetrov, Graham, they had a Super Bowl window and it shut on them. And, you know, they cleaned house. This hurts Matt Ryan, I think, above all. Actually, I really think Matt Ryan is pretty much the only guy in this entire equation who gets hurt by the deal. You know, say what you want about Matt Ryan, and I still think he's a decent, like, high to mid-QB2 because they're going to be

throwing a lot still, I think they are, I mean, at least. but losing Julio and the problem is look at the depth chart behind Calvin Ridley and we'll get to Kyle Pitts because I know you have thoughts there but look at the dev chart behind Calvin Ridley I mean it's Russell Gage he's a good player you know he's not Julio and like Alameday Zakiis Frank Darby Christian Blake I mean I could have just made those names up and you wouldn't have known like I mean it's brutal at the wide receiver position depth wise for Atlanta right now it truly is So let's talk about Atlanta's passing game overall.

And let's start with your thoughts on Calvin Ridley Because I know I moved Calvin Ridley up and above A.J. Brown after this deal. Again, I didn't move A.J. Brown down a whole lot. I don't think it really hurts him. I just think it helps Calvin Ridley more than it does A.J. Brown. And I have Calvin Ridley right now at wide receiver five. I could have made an argument that you could rank him as high as wide receiver three. Yep.

I'm 100% with you. I got him at receiver four. I take it a step further. I think you can make an argument that Calvin Ridley is in the same tier as, like, Devante Adams and Stefan Diggs now. You know, this team, this Falcons team, we're looking at the same exact situation as last year. They're going to be a carnival. They're going to give up a ton of points.

Everybody's going to score against them. They're going to have to throw a ton. And Calvin Ridley, without Julio, has just been, I mean, he's been lights out. There's been eight games over the last two years where Julio has missed and Ridley has played. and he's averaged 20.2 fantasy points per game. That was basically what Stefan Diggs did last year. And in those eight games, Joe,

Ridley has seen nine or more targets every single time. He's finished as a top 25 receiver in seven of those eight games. He's been above 13 fantasy points in all eight. Like, this is, I mean, it's just a perfect situation for Ridley. You know, we have a sustained eight game sample size of him being an alpha, receiver one for Atlanta. You know, you add in Kyle Pitts to kind of take off some of the, some of the coverage away from Ridley and, you know, give that offense just another piece to, to run around.

It's just, it's just the perfect spot. I mean, I would not be surprised if Ridley starts passing Devante Adams in ADP in the next couple weeks. That's not, and that's not outrageous. And like, you know, Devante is like, DeVante is like basically, I mean, not the hardest player to rank, but he's really difficult because he's got a first round ADP. And I just don't know who his quarterback's going to be. You know who Ridley's quarterback's going to be. You know who Diggs's quarterback's going to be. You know who Metcalf's quarterback's going to be.

On Adams, too, I mean, he scored, if you eliminate the one game, I think it was against the Bears in like week three, he left like a quarter into it with that injury. If you eliminate that game, he averaged more fantasy points per game than Jerry Rice did in his season where he scored 22 touchdowns in 12 games. That was the most ever for a receiver. Devante Adams, even if Aaron Rogers comes back and I think they end up getting something done with Rogers, But even if Rogers does come back, Adams' touchdown rate is not going to sustain. He was basically their goal line back. I just don't, I don't see that level of volume returning. And Adams can still be and will still be a top five receiver if they get Rogers back.

But Ridley's volume. And I mean, his role last year, Joe, is just incredible. I mean, he was like top three in every single stat that you care about. End zone targets, deep targets, intermediate targets. I mean, it's just, it's the nuts role. Okay. Let's get to the elephant in the room. Kyle Pitts.

Graham, I moved him up. I had to. He's my tight end five now. He was my tight end seven pre-draft. I moved him past Goddard because the Eagles haven't moved Zach Ertz yet. I moved him past Mark Andrews. He's going to be, I have him one spot overall behind T.J. Hawkinson. The question is at 66 overall, am I going to get Kyle Pitts there?

That is a mid-sixth round pick. No chance. think that's, you don't think that has a shot of happening. No, no chance, man. The, the Twitter hive mind and he's, his ADP is just going to go through the roof. And the hype was already insane to me. I thought he was slightly overvalued before all of this. And now it's just, it's going to be crazy. I think, I think by July, Pitts is going to be in the fourth round, like consistently going in the fourth round. And, you know, I wrote about this in more detail, if you want to kind of check out, like, the logic side of it and the number side of it.

kind of tried to break it all down. But like, you know, for Kyle Pitts to pay off what I think it's going to cost to get him, you know, late fourth, early fifth round pick at best, he's going to have to have not only the best tight-in season by rookie in modern history, like throw that out of the window. He's going to have to, you know, have at least 850 yards, 8 to 12 touchdowns and 65-ish catches. Does he have the opportunity to do that? Absolutely.

But as we know with rookie tight ends, it always takes them longer to develop. And Kyle Pitts is probably going to immediately be a week one starter at wide receiver. He is going to start week one at lining up at X receiver and beating corners. There's no, they're not slow playing this. I mean, he's going to play basically every second. No, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, from week one. But, you know, will, does he have, is there enough value in his cost?

for you to make that chance or take to take him in that fourth round. And on that note, Mark Andrews and T.J. Hawkinson, I've done 30 or 40 drafts already. Mark Andrews and T.J. Hawkinson are consistently in that like 60 to 65, 70 overall range. So they're back half fifth round, early six round picks. Is Kyle Pitts really worth like a 20 pick premium on those two guys? Because I think if you have like a, you know, a bell curve of the range of outcomes, I think all three of them are very similar in terms of, you know, yardage, touchdowns and catches. And I just think the hype, man, it's just going to get, it's going to get nutty on Pitts. Yeah. And believe me, I expect him to produce.

Don't get me wrong. Oh, absolutely, man. You know, you should project Kyle Pitts to have one of, if not the best rookie tight-in season ever. That still means he can be overvalued, though, for season long. Both of those things can be true. Mike Davis, Graham, I didn't really move him much at all, quite frankly. I still have him as like a mid-to-late fourth-round pick as a wide as a, he's like one of those like, if I'm loading up on wide receivers early, he's kind of like that low-end RB2.

I'm at running back 21, which I think is a fair price for him. I don't see a whole lot of competition for him. And while Atlanta is going to throw the ball more than Arthur Smith did in Tennessee, there's absolutely a guarantee that that's going to happen. Mike Davis can catch football too. So I actually expect, you know, maybe this opened up some checkdowns for Mike Davis if guys aren't getting opened out. Yeah, Mike Davis is like, you know, that fourth to fourth to seventh round range of ADP is pretty much dead for running backs this year. And Davis is really the only one I'm like actually targeting.

He's actually slid to like the fifth or sixth round, late fifth six round in some best ball. BB 10s that I've done recently. But yeah, I mean, Davis is fine. The volume's secure. people were taking Todd Gurley, foolishly taking Todd Gurley, I should add, in the third round last year, even though we all kind of knew he was pretty close to being done. Davis is a better player. Yeah, you're going to discount on a better player and a better role.

I would argue a better role because the Falcons don't really have anything behind Davis besides two to UDFAs and quadroaleson. So, yeah, man, I think Davis is a fine pick. He's probably not going to be a league winner, but he's a really, really solid RB2 and really the only running back. in that range that I'm kind of targeting. I moved Matt Ryan to QB16. I think that's fair. I actually have him behind Kirk Cousins. I think that's unique among our staff.

But, I mean, QB16 for a guy who's still got Ridley and Pitts and is going to have to throw a lot. But, I mean, I think Matt Ryan's floor is super low now. And he's been a guy who's been a ceiling floor guy, Graham. I mean, even with some of these great receivers, he's had awesome seasons and he's had disappointing seasons for fantasy. I'm ranking them smack dab in the middle at QB16, and I think that's fair. Yeah, the efficiency drop off is just nuts.

Last year, those seven games that Julio missed, Ryan was at 6.6 yards per attempt. He was at 7.9 with Julio in the lineup. You know, Pitts will obviously help kind of even those things out a little bit, and the volume will certainly be there. I think Matt Ryan's going to be easily among the top two or three quarterbacks in volume. But, yeah, I'm with you. I was actually thinking about that.

I'm thinking about that earlier, moving him behind Cousins. I think I'll, I think you pushed me over the edge. I'm just like, I view Cousins as like boring Tannahill, like to make that, that Tennessee, Minnesota comparison again, you know, just like he's got the two receivers. He's got the tight end and Irv Smith, who, I mean, I like Irv Smith more than I like Ferxer, but, you know, I just view them as kind of similar in that regard. Oh, by the way, Ferkser, Graham, I'm a tight end 18. I'm totally cool with him as a number two tight end for fantasy. I just don't know what the volume is going to be for him. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, you know, people are, there were some people that were hyping him up as like having a tight end one ceiling when Johnny Smith was essentially irrelevant for our game. And Johnny Smith is like magnitudes better than Anthony Furxter. So yeah, I'm with you. I mean, Ferkser's a fine tight end too, especially in like Titan stacks. Like I think Furkser's going to get cheaper now.

But yeah, I mean, he kind of just says what he is. And he's going to be, I'm not going to say he's going to be a part-time player, but he doesn't block. Like, Jeff Swim's going to block. Fersel will be the move guy. And, yeah, I think Ferxler kind of is what he is. He's just a solid tied in two. And if you're expecting a top-ton ceiling, you're probably fooling yourself. Exactly.

And then that's where the question that Greg Kosell posed to me comes in. Do they play more 11 personnel and lead in the Todd Downing's background? That would help Ferxer. That would help Ferxer. Yeah, but the question is, though, if they play 11 personnel, do they trust Ferxel or to be their blocking tight end? In that case, he'd be running, he would be running routes the majority of the time. Because like last year, they had to keep their tight ends in.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, last year, you know, they can do so much now with Julio and AJ Brown. I think they're going to, I think they're going to rotate those guys through the slot, too. I think they'll play Reynolds outside when they go into 11. Last year, I mean, Arthur Smith ran multiple tight ends on the field more than any team in the league. I still think 12 is going to be their base. But yeah, they now have like the flexibility by adding Julio to like, you know, mix and match

that. I mean, it's a pretty impactful move for fantasy. And like the thing I like about it is I mostly like it from every angle. Yeah, that's the best part, man. It's like everyone wins except for Matt Ryan. Yeah. Who cares? In the grand scheme of things, that's like, yeah, whatever.

Other than the fact that I just drafted them in our super flex dynasty, which, you know, that's pretty significant. I wasn't running to the podium to draft Matt Ryan. So like, all right, now maybe I'll take cousins more often. Like that's not a big deal. I kind of like it from everybody's perspective. I don't think it hurts Henry or Brown. It might, I mean, it might knock the target value for A.J. Brown.

It might knock the carry value for Derek Henry, but I think it makes them more efficient. We already know how hyper-efficient Tanna Hill is. It's a move that just made sense from the Titans perspective. If I were the Falcons, I'm. Again, not to say Terry Fontno should be sitting back and saying, man, I made a mistake. You know, he dealt, he played the hand. He was dealt the way he thought he had to play it.

It's just from my perspective, it's very disappointing because if the Falcons were looking to extend the career of Matt Ryan and reach that ceiling, the best way to do that would have been to keep Holyo Jones this year and try to score a million points. I mean, that, that, and that ceiling has, it's lowered. They were cathedral ceilings, Graham, now you're ducking when you go into the when you go into the room. I mean, that's quite frankly what it is now.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's, you know, the NFC South is going to be super competitive. The Panthers are really interesting this year, too, especially if darnall, ends up being what, you know, Brady and Role wants them to be. It's going to be a rough go of it, man. I mean, the Falcons owe Ryan a ton of money next year, too. I mean, they would have, it's not like the Carson Went situation where the Eagles ate all that money. The Falcons would have to eat even more and probably not going to.

much in return given Ryan's age. It just really kind of, you know, Fontno is just kind of in a lose-lose situation. At least he got a second out of it. But, you know, for the Falcons best player in history and potential, you know, definite future Hall of Famer, it definitely hurts for Falcons fans. Like, you know, they've just been, they've been taking grenades since 28 to three, man, I feel for him. Yeah, and this is like, by the way, one of the groups that's, funny you mentioned

cars once, one of the groups I saw celebrating the trade were Eagles fans. because they viewed this as making the Titans better, which improves the Eagles' chances of a good draft pick. And so I was like, you know, that's a good point. It's a ripple effect kind of deal. Look, I'm not trying to say, like, I don't expect this deal is going to have the impact

that Stefan Diggs had on Buffalo last year. But it's a good deal. And the cool thing for Julio as well, Graham, is he doesn't need to be the alpha dog. Now, maybe you were saying he had that in Atlanta, too. I just think A.J. Brown's kind of a different piece than Calvin Ridley. I just think he's more of like that alpha dog like oh my god we got to stop that guy I you know it's just I think this is a good move for Julio I think it's a good move for Tennessee

not so much for Atlanta that's just that that's the that's the debt collector coming around that's what it was for Atlanta so a really good fantasy move and if you want to read more about it go to fantasy points.com Graham Barfield has a fantasy fallout article up as well that covers every angle, maybe gets a little bit more technical than we got here on the podcast. That is free up on FantasyPoints.com. We just did a run of best ball rankings. We did a run of projections. So everything's been updated over the weekend.

If you want more breakdowns of the Titans and the Falcons, and I think we obviously discuss the possibility that Julio would be traded with Adam Kaplan and Greg Kosell. Our Fantasy Points Powwow series is available here on this podcast feed. And additionally, as a video up at FantasyPoint. That is also free. So make sure you go to fantasy points.com. We have so much up right now.

A lot of our content is available for free right now. Just so you guys know, like, you're getting a lot of great stuff. And you might want to subscribe for the 2021 NFL season. Follow him on Twitter at Graham Barfield. Follow me on Twitter at FG underscore Dolan. Follow the site on Twitter at FantasyPTS. It was good to be with you, Graham. My friend, we'll talk soon.

Sounds good. Thanks. Take it easy, guys, and enjoy drafting Julio in the fifth round. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.