Fantasy Football Daily - The NFL's Top 10 WRs and Super Bowl Roster Construction | Take Talk Podcast

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

In Take Talk 68, Steve O'Rourke (@callmesteveo7) and Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) discuss some of the latest news around the NFL, break down the top wide receivers in the league, and take a big-picture look at the roster construction of a modern Super Bowl contender. Want to join a high-stakes dynasty league -- or any other high-stakes league? All new FFPC users get $25 off their first FFPC league of $35 or more, including dynasty orphans, using our affiliate link: ⁠https://myffpc.com/cms/public?affid=fantasypoints⁠ ⁠FANTASY POINTS PROJECTIONS ARE LIVE⁠ FOR ALL STANDARD AND PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS! Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. ⁠Use our code FANTASYPTS⁠ to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! ⁠https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog --- 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 FantasyPoint.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 into another episode of the Take Talk podcast. I'm your host, Brett Whitefield, with my usual co-host, Stephen O'Rourke. Stephen, how are you, sir? Doing good, man. one week closer

one week closer getting excited that's right today we have an action packed show for you guys first let's jump into some things Brett likes today as part of the new series continuing

Steve went last week with some very interesting things this week you'll see a lot of the things I like revolver on food Steve you know I was sitting here and I was like I bet you the first one he's going to do is going to be food

because of your sware, not suorre, but you're what you did up last night. Yeah, well, so it is, you nailed it. One of the things I like is related to that. I'll just start with that one. How about that? I like Blackstone

Grills, or whatever you call it, blackstone cooking apparatuses. They are freaking awesome. I kind of thought they were hokey for a while when the craze is going on. And then I finally, we built a new deck on the back of the house and we

some budget left and my wife was like well you can either go get yourself a brand new grill or you can get whatever you want this is what you got to spend and i was like oh cool i was thinking trager maybe i was thinking yeah grill but i have a pretty decent grill so there was really no reason to go grill route and i went to costco and saw the giant black son like the biggest one you can buy was on sale for like i think got it for like two 99 which is ridiculous oh it's not bad at all yeah so i grabbed that boy seasoned it up and i've been just slaying the food on it ever since like three meals a day but last night Steve and you saw pictures was my wife and I's anniversary we're celebrating we did like a day morning date we had the nanny and then we went out for breakfast and coffee and all that yada yada yada then for night I cooked us

a really nice meal and I got uh some three pound tomahawk steaks and I slow cook them to internal temperature was like 100 degrees so I think it was like 45 minutes at 2.50. the I slow cooked them and then brought them out another layer of oil, some more salt, pepper, espresso, garlic. Then I had that blackstone ready to go like 700 degrees on the surface and threw that, those tomahawks on the blackstone. And dude, they came out fantastic. Espresso was a bit of a mix up there. I always season my six of espresso. Interesting.

Just a little bit, just a little bit. Especially if you're a big crust guy. Yeah. I love crust. Espresso really helps. So I do, so I'll do like a layer of avocado oil, some salt, crack black pepper, garlic powder, espresso. It's not a lot. You're not trying to take it like black or anything.

But just enough. And the savouriness in the espresso really cuts through with the fat and like a ribby or a tomahawk steak, which is basically a ribby. It's really nice combo. And these things came out. I got like a probably an eighth inch crust on these boys. and they were just perfect medium rare. Sliced them up real nice. They were, oh, dude, awesome.

So I like Blackstone Grills because you can do some incredible searing type stuff. If you like a seared steak, I think grilled steaks are a little overrated because you lose a lot of the moisture and a lot of the fat with the off. So I personally like a reverse sear process. I usually use like a cast iron pan, but the Blackstone is basically just a giant cast iron pan. Right, right. You can do some fun stuff with it. But anyways, did not.

next thing I like is also in the food realm. It's Matari coffee in Canton, Michigan. If you're local, if you're a local listener in the Metro Detroit area, it's worth driving out to Canton and going to Matari coffee. If you're Canadian, they also just opened one in Toronto, which is pretty cool. But this is a Yemeni coffee. So Yemeni owned, the vibe is super. I would say it's almost like being in Abu Dhabi or Dubai, like it's really cool decor. like black and gold like real kind of boozy feeling but the drinks are just I'm an espresso snob like I I absolutely love espresso and their espresso is probably my favorite that I've ever had not at my own house so I'm gonna have to go check that place out yeah it's really good yeah if

you're ever out here checking it out please call me and I will join you yeah yeah yeah it's it's really awesome also I may may or may not have just unfortunately tipped off where I kind of live So, whoops. Zeroing it on you now. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, the next thing I like is this is a total curveball from the last two. I like Chrysler Pacificas, Steve. What a throwback.

Chrysler Pacific is a minivan. So, as you guys know. Awesome. Yeah. And there's a reason I'm going this direction, because I resisted minivan life for years. You know, we had our first child over eight years ago now. We have four kids now.

My wife has been saying for a long time, Brett, we just need to do the minivan. You know, I tried rolling with the bigger SUVs. Like, we had a traverse for a long time. And then the fourth kid, the travers was just too small. So we were in the car market about six months ago. And, you know, I was looking at like Tahoe's and Suburban's and, you know, what's the big for the expedition yeah what's the there's a jeep one too it's the um oh my gosh what it's called it's brand new it's not even a year old it's huge though it's like the size of an expedition but it's a

jeep yeah anyways you know we're looking at buying one of those and you know i never buy cars brand new i think that's a waste of money but we're looking at like year old models or used models and even buying a year old model these cars were like a house payment dude like my mom My wife and I are into investment properties and like there's no way I'm spending that much money on a car. So the only way we could then fit our four kids into a car was to go the minivan route. And I got a fully loaded Chrysler Pacifica, a 2021 with 30,000 miles on it for like 30 grand. Yep. Or steel of a deal.

It's my favorite car I've ever owned. It's like fully loaded. It's like a rocket ship on the inside, bro. It's beautiful brown leather. All the bells and whistles you can possibly imagine having in a car it has. and I love it, I'll never go back. And in fact, I pretty much try to take that car anytime I can now. Like, I'm minivan guy.

I'm fully embraced it. I'm minivan guy. There you go. It's comfortable, you know, like doing a road trip, dude. It's so comfortable. Back doesn't get sore. You got good support on the arms and the shoulders. It's just, it's amazing.

It's amazing. So Chrysler, Pacifica, Chrysler, you did a good one there with that car. I've never owned a Chrysler before because bad rap with the transmissions. But, yeah, you did a good one of that car. and they should probably pay me for this advertisement. Send you the bell. That's enough for things I like. Let's jump into some NFL news.

It seems like every week it's only running back news. Yeah. What is happening? You got Zeke signed with the pads, Cook signed with the Jets, and then Jonathan Taylor left camp again after he returned to camp for, what, 24 hours? Yeah, just about that. Yeah. Steve, any takes on the free agent running back settings?

I mean, they seem to settle kind of where we all, I mean, Zeeke, apparently, we've heard that Belichick has kind of liked Zieg for a while. Yeah. That's kind of come out that he's been a fan of his. So I don't think that came as a big surprise once you heard the Zique went to visit there. I thought I honestly was getting worried that Zieg might not even get onto a team at some point. And for him to get there on a $6 million deal, honestly, good on him. Because I think that was more than a lot of people thought he would get paid.

Yeah, I think likely it ends up being somewhere between four and five because it is incentive-laden. That's still good money, though, for a guy. Right, right. The thing that puzzled me about it, and, you know, Belichick has this weird way of doing things and Zeeks a veteran presence. And I can't measure what he brings in terms of leadership and stuff like that. So it's hard for me to really, like, you know, criticize it too hard. But when you look at the metrics

between the guys, I tweeted about this, Harris and Zique are very similar players. Yeah. Harris is a lot younger and he's got a lot more thump in those pads left. And he's also really good in pass protection. Ramandri Stevenson's also good in pass protection. I know I think Hanson cited that he liked it because

that, you know, it's value added with the pass protection stuff. But both those guys were good in past protection. So I didn't see a huge need to like target that skills that specifically. So I just, you know, Damien Harris left for Buffalo is making $1.7 million. Close to league minimum for a guy who's been in the league for four years. So I probably just would rather they re-signed him.

But maybe Harris wanted a different opportunity. Who knows what happened there? It just seems weird to think they opted to go with a twice, almost three times more expensive player with a very similar efficiency metrics over the last two years. So the Cook one, though, Steve, I don't know about this. I like Delvin Cook. I think he's a heck of a player. Yep.

You can get up to 8.6 million this year. And it's likely to be about 7 million, I think, what it's all said and done. But even still, even at 7 million, that is the second richest running back free agent contract over the last 10 years for a running back leaving one team for another. And the crazy thing is the Jets did the number one. And that was Levyon Bell from Pittsburgh to New York. Right. We also did like number four and five as well with Isaiah Crowell and. There was another one in there.

Another, oh, Matt Forte. Over the last. So the Jets just love dumping money on free agent running backs. And history isn't actually very good with that stuff. Like running backs have a hard time going from one team to another. Yeah. But, yeah, so I don't, it's just a little rich. It seems like with the stable they had with, you know,

Breece Hall, I know he's coming off the, you know, the pup or whatever. And he might not be ready to go right now. That's okay, though. They still had Michael Carter. They still had Zonovan Knight. They still had Izzy Abinaconda. It didn't seem that necessary to them go spend $8.6 million on a running back, especially when they have a dire situation at offensive tackle.

Yep. You know, Dwayne Brown is 39 years old playing left tackle this year. Their right tackle is not very good. And their backup right tackle, Mackay Beckton, who has all the potential in the world, can't stay healthy for more than five practices at a time. Right. So, like, I would have much rather seen them invest some money into an offensive tackle.

But that did not happen. So here we are. Yeah. Like you said, it's an interesting investment. I mean, I can kind of see where they're going with it. I mean, if Cook has shown that he still got some poppy, he had a good year last year. I mean, it's... He's definitely got more than the same physique.

Yeah. And you've got now, once Bruce comes back healthy, you've got two. kind of bona fide horses back there, but at the same time, you have Aaron Rogers there now, and you'd like to think that they're probably going to air the ball out a little bit more. And so I just, it's double dipping into a position that I don't think you necessarily need to double dip because, like you said, there are spots on offense that I think there were more necessary improvements that needed to be made. And especially having, you know, they have a.

decent interior offensive line, but those tackle positions, I mean, that directly influences the run game. And so if you can't get pushed with the offensive line, well, then it kind of influences how effective those running backs are going to be. So, you know, I get it, kind of, but for that deal, for, I mean, both players, it's just kind of, it's interesting as far as is like from a team building standpoint of just is that really the most necessary position that you need to address for that money? And it seems obviously the Jets are kind of pushing all their chips to the middle of the table right now with Aaron Rogers and yada yada yada.

It's possible this is an Aaron Rogers request. Like, hey, we have a lot of young running backs that I promise, but I want a vet in here. Yeah. We can buy on for a good chunk of snaps, rely on him in pass pro and catching the football, yada, yada. So I get it from that standpoint for sure. Yeah. We know how much Rogers loves having his veteran presence alongside him. True.

True. That's a big thing to him. For as much as we've heard about him complaining about not, you know, in Green Bay, not addressing receiver, you see also heard, you know, the complaints and grievances here and there when they did go after those guys. And he definitely prefers guys that he has a rapport with, guys that have, you know, been in the league for a while. And so I get it from that standpoint if that's what where the request came in from

because it is something that Rogers specifically prefers over like, you know, similar to like, I think Brady was kind of the same way too. Brady was definitely the same way. The only other real bit of news is that Zach Martin got a new contract. So they resolved their little beef there. I know he was kind of a quiet holdout so far. Yeah. Or what do they call that a hold in?

Yeah. Right. He wasn't really participating, but was present, but was pretty much just saying, hey, I need a new contract for me to go on. So he gets some more money this year than gets two years added to the deal. I think a lot of it's guaranteed. So he's feeling good about that. That's huge for the Cowboys, honestly, because he is still probably the best right guard in all

of football, not even close. And their offensive line actually has a chance to be really, really good again this year. And that's another team that's kind of all in. Like the Cowboys have, you know, planted their flag. Like, hey, we're for real. we're coming for. They made a lot of moves this offseason that suggests they're going for it. Yep. Yep. All right, Steve, real quick, the main topic of the day is going to be some team building stuff.

I wanted to look at how Super Bowl contending teams have constructed their rosters last few years. But before we get to that, we did have a fan request, Steve. We had a fan request that we quickly touch on, and I'm emphasizing quickly here because we're not going to do a whole episode on it. but we quickly touch on the top 5, 10 receivers in the NFL. They really enjoyed the top 10 quarterback conversation that we did. So I wanted to kind of see where our headspace was at with the top five receivers in the NFL. I actually ended up just going with the full top 10. I don't want to discuss all of these guys.

I'm sure all of our names are similar, maybe just in different spots. Yep. But why don't you rattle off your top five and then I'll do mine? my top five and I'm not doing this in any necessary in any like order respectively in any way but just five I mean for me it's Tyree kill Justin Jefferson Jamar Chase Devante Adams and then the fifth one I could have gone a lot of different ways but I've Cooper Cup oh nice I actually forgot about Cooper Cup in this exercise so we had the first four you mentioned we had the same I had Tyreek is my one Devante Adams is my two. Justin Jefferson, my three, Jamar chased my four, and then I went A.J. Brown with my fifth. Okay.

You're a big A.J. Brown guy. Yeah, big A.J. Brown guy here. So, Cup is definitely in the mix there. If you were to go with another five, who would you go? Another five? I would throw A.J. Brown in there.

Stefan Diggs. I'd probably put Ammon Ra up there. I've Ammon Ra. And then I want to say Terry McLorne. It's unfortunate the situation that he's in, but I love Terry McLaurin. And then I'm honestly between probably Devontas Smith and I'd say C.D. Lamb. Nice. Those are probably, you know, like a 10A, 10B.

Yeah, C.D. Lam was my last out. Devante Smith was probably the next guy. So I went Amon Ra, Stefan Diggs, Jalen Waddle. Okay, he was right there for me too. Yeah, Cooper Cup in there and then T. Higgins. So I bumped Cooper, I bumped Lamb on the fly for Cooper Cup there because I think he's definitely a good guy. Yeah.

I went Tiggins over Devante and Lamb. I just think T just does so many little things well. Obviously, he's a ball winner. We need him to be the contest to catch stuff, but for a big guy, he runs very precise routes. I think that's pretty invaluable because there's not a lot of corners that can match his route running prowess and his size together because usually you need a bigger corner on him and he's going to torch those guys.

You get him a big stiff corner. Tehiggins is going to put him in a blender. Yeah. So I like him a little bit more than those other guys because of that. Devante is a freak show though, and so is C.D. Lamb. I mean, we're in an NFL right now. We're like, and you'll see this going through the next segment. like good teams have good receivers i mean it's it's pretty remarkable actually

receiver talent has a lot of receivers right now yeah it's crazy i mean it goes so deep you can mean you can get uh 25 20 over over 20 for sure where you're like comfortable with that guy being your number one probably like you're number one or you know if you're lucky enough to get him as a number two like where they you know they can produce and be effective and it's it is crazy how you're getting so many more just like very precise route runners guys with very like good hands

good good um long speed too a lot of fast receivers in the NFL right now and it's yeah it's it's fun to watch like they're hitting the ground running like they're coming out of college like ready made products basically right right because you are I mean

not like there are the examples of like a trail on Berks but like guys that are coming out of like Ohio State or even like USC a lot like some of these teams are these guys are starting to run a little bit more of like advanced route trees compared to like you know even five to seven years ago where a lot of the times it was so necessary to kind of get them up to speed with the NFL route tree but a lot of these guys are coming in now where they have more experience with that and they you know it's not as much of a learning curve to you know figure out some of the timing in the routes of a more intricate route tree now compared to previously.

And I think, you know, you've seen it year and year out now where, you know, five to six guys that come out of the draft are immediate day one contributors. And, you know, showing that they can be effective in an NFL offense right away. Yeah. It's crazy. Even just looking at this really quick, like I left Keenan Allen office list. That feels good. Yeah. Alan's a fantastic player.

Right. Giante Johnson. We've already mentioned those two other guys. Terry McLaren, like you mentioned, like, I mean, I'm probably given him too hard of a time, but he's dealt with terrible QB play his entire career. So, like, maybe if he had Joe Burrow thrown him in the ball, he'd be on this list. It just once I'd like to see him in a functional offense with a functional QB. Yeah, I mean, that's another, he's just, he's awesome.

I mean, we didn't even mention Amari. Cooper and I'm like he's one of the yeah he's and he's incredible and you know Brandon Iyuk is ascending Mike Evan Chris Godwin yeah yeah it's a good it's a good league for the F for receivers right now yes that he is um all right hopefully that uh you know suffices and fulfills the listeners thirst for a top 510 wide receiver list so all right Steve let's get into what the show is actually about today 20 minutes into the show we're going to get into the show's topic I'm just kidding But we want to we've been talking obviously about team building for the last two seasons basically at this point Are starting about a year ago Steve we started this podcast and yeah

Team building comes up I would say like every other every third episode and this off season specifically we spent a lot of time Talking about how you construct a roster we really wanted to nail down what a what a championship contending roster looks like. Some questions we wanted to answer were like, how many good players does a contending team have? How many elite players does a contending team have? And then what is the breakdown? Does the breakdown change based on your quarterback play?

If you have an elite quarterback, how many less good players do you now need because you're getting elite quarterback play? And then the last bucket would be like bad players. How many like outright holes do you have on your roster that you just can't? Just got guys playing a lot of snaps. I probably shouldn't be playing a lot of snaps. But you got talent everywhere else so it works. I charted out just I quickly ran through the rosters of six teams over the last two years

the 22 Eagles the 22 chiefs the 2022 bills and then 2021 I looked at the Bengals Rams and then the 49ers and I kind of comboed the 49ers with this year and 2021 yeah they were both years they almost went the distance and I found some pretty consistent things with each roster actually yeah like really like scary consistent and one of the surprising thing that stuck out to me is most these teams had at least one guy that came out of nowhere. Yep. So they had the elite players, they had the good players, they had their bad players,

and then they had like a guy who like, yeah, you weren't expecting that performance when the season started. And then that really helped them take them to another level. What did you find? I know you looked at more winners and losers of the Super Bowl the last, what, six, seven years. Yeah, I found that. a lot of consistency in that your weak units running back and linebacker. Those are the two units that you can suffice to not have elite or even great talent at and you can get by because a lot of these teams generally have very good defensive lines

in front of the linebackers and good offensive lines in front of their running backs and their quarterbacks. I mean, there are a couple exceptions here and there, but that, that was the biggest thing was that like, okay, the positions that we've kind of deemed as a whole, as an NFL community as not as necessary, those are the units that are, you know, they're fine getting by with. And another surprising thing, at least among, you know, the Super Bowl, like winners and losers, was that if you have a good quarterback, like if you have an elite quarterback, there are quite a few teams that kind of got by and got there with not the great. greatest wide receiver rooms.

Yeah, I mean, just look at last year's chiefs. I mean, Kansas City Chiefs in 2023, you know, 22, most of the season, behind Cooper Cup, the Rams before OBJ got there, their wide receiver depth wasn't that crazy. Yeah, Robert Wood's good. You tore his ACL, what, like week 10, 11? Yeah, and then, like even the 2020, San Francisco 49ers, their wide receiver room, wasn't, you know, elite, the 2019 New England Patriots, even the 2019 Los Angeles Rams, they had emergence of like Cooper Cup mid during the season, but then he got hurt.

Robert Woods came along a lot more. But if you have a good quarterback, or at least like an elite quarterback outside of, you know, the L.A. Rams in 2019 with Jared Gough. And that's a McVeigh thing. That was when, you know, he really went into a lot of the motion stuff and was really getting the offense on the move a lot more and was able to kind of disguise things that, you know, an elite quarterback can make up for a little bit of a deficit at wide receiver. But if your quarterback isn't quite there, that's where the wide receiver room kind of comes

to life and lifts him up a little bit. Yeah, for sure. That's basically the same thing I saw. Premium positions, every team had those in common. Like at least one really good pass rusher. At least one really good cover player. Yep. At least one really good receiver.

But a lot of teams didn't have more than one of those, one good receiver. Yeah. Looking at like, so the breakdown too, I really was curious. Like if you have elite QB play, it seems like the rest of your roster doesn't have to be great. Or you can have more holes, I should say. Yep. And the thing I was shocked about is that actually the math for teams that didn't have elite quarterback play was actually similar. Yeah.

The big difference is they just didn't win. Like that 49th posture, like I broke this down. I had in the elite bucket. I had Nick Bosa, Eric Armstead, Fred Warner, Trent Williams, and George Kittle. In the good bucket, I had Drake Greenlaw, Traverius Ward, Emmanuel Mosley, Jimmy Ward, your boy, Huffanga, Debo Samuel, Brandon Ayuk, Mike McGlinchy. That's a lot of good and elite players. It almost pairs with like the Kansas City Chiefs perfectly.

They have almost the same exact breakdown. But the difference between those two teams are one was led by Patrick Mahomes and one was led by Jimmy Garoppolo or slash Brock Purdy. And they didn't get it done. So the 2021 Rams is another one that sticks out. I had them for six elite players. Cooper Cup, Andrew Whitworth, Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, Vaughn Miller. Matthew Stafford had his best season as a pro. And so he was elite that year.

We talked about performances, you know, guys taking to the next level. I think Stafford did that season. And then good players. Same breakdown as 49ers. Havenstein, Brian Allen, Robert Woods, Austin Corbett, Tyler, Higby, Okarankwo, Jordan Fuller, Ashon, Robinson, A'shaun Robinson was good that year. Leonard Floyd.

And then the holes, they had like one hole. It was Troy Reeder, their middle linebacker. He was an undrafted, you know, undrafted kid starting. He played like a thousand snap that year for the Rams. And that was it. Like you said, linebackers are, it's okay to have a hole at linebacker. Yeah. Especially when you have space eaters like A'Shaun Robinson and Aaron Donald in the middle,

keeping, you know, Reader who's not, you know, not the biggest like sideline to sideline guy. He, you know, he's more of a fill the hole and hope he makes a play. But when you have guys like that in front of him, those holes, you know, they become a lot easier to come up and fill. You're not, it's not as mucked up for you. And so, you know, it takes that pressure off of a guy like that. Yeah. And you know what they called plays that fit their personnel too, right? So like Troy Reeder, not the most gifted lineback on the world. So they didn't play really any man that year. It was like a really zone heavy team. Yep. You have guys like Jalen Ramsey and Jordan Fuller and who's their other Taylor Rap?

These are versatile coverage defenders that you can get matchups you want. They sat back, they played, you know, like a ton of off zone coverage and it worked. Ben don't break. Eventually Aaron Donald, Vaughn Miller, Jailen Ramsey, eventually those guys are going to make a play that stops your drive. Yeah. That's what they beat on. And they won it all. And even in the Super Bowl, they had Ernest Jones kind of come to life in their playoff run.

and, you know, kind of become a more integral piece and was able to subful or kind of substitute for Reeder a little bit here and there. Then they would also walk wrap into like a dime linebacker, nickel linebacker situation where, you know, to make up for the lack of speed that Reader has there, they would put rap in there. And he would be a little bit more of the sideline to sideline guys. So like they had ways to pivot and to, you know, mask that weakness a little bit more by giving him some of the easier matchup. and, you know, work around him to, you know, not have him be this glaring hole. The 22 or sorry, 23 Eagles team, like, I don't know what you thought of that roster. As I went back and looked at it, that has to be one of the best teams to ever lose a Super Bowl. Yeah, I mean.

Insane. Like, when I put a hole in there, and the only hole I, was able to put was linebacker and even that was like even that it's not like they like yeah it was the weakest group but it's not like it was bad they still had a solid linebacker room like Edwards win got paid this offseason so right like that was a so I judge I judge players like I really only looked at guys who played 500 plus gnats um you know and in and we're a crucial part of the team at the time of the Super Bowl or time of their pinnacle right I had the eagles with three back players Marcus Epps, Kwez Watkins, and Jake Stoll.

Epps is debatable. I don't think he's a bad player. I think he just kind of had a bad season. Yeah. And then Kwez Watkins pretty much was a non-factor. He played like 800 snaps and like did nothing as the third receiver there. It's tough when you have A.J. Brown, Devante Smith, and Dallas Goddard. I get it. But they really didn't get anything out of him. And then Jack Stoll, he was basically just a blocking tight end who didn't block very well. So yeah. Watkins was an all all track team guy just out there running routes not really getting targeted but when he when he did he was a good deep threat and so like he had his usefulness when called

it was like week one or two he called a bomb for a touchdown I was like oh my gosh this team is cooking with gas like they have brown smith and then walkins can hit that that deep vert from the slot that's disgusting and then I don't think he really did that again the rest of the year but all right I know they give him a lot of like design touches too some screen action stuff like that but

like look at the good players in that row so elite I had Jason Kelsey A.J. Brown. Lane Johnson. Hassan Reddick. Reddick was one of these guys I was talking about where his baseline was good

but he went from good to freaking elite last year. Yeah he was a guy that was kind of stuck in the middle no one really knew what I mean no one didn't really figure out what to do with him. I think with the Cardinals

he went from, you know, Mike to Edge to we'll try them at safety. Same thing they're doing with Isaiah Simmons. It's annoying. Eventually he ended up at Edge in Carolina. He got his career back on track. And then, you know, that baseline became good. But he took it to another level last year.

And, like, you really got to think if he doesn't do that, like, oh, how much worse is the defense, you know? Right. He was outrageously good. And then Jalen Hertz is another one. Like his baseline, we knew he was an ascending player. going to be pretty good. He played way better than anyone thought he would last year. And I was his biggest fan. So, um, Yvonne Hargrave was another elite pass rusher they had. And it hurts was a guy that got better every single week too. Yeah. Like you could see the, you can see improvements in

his game week over week. His best year was a Super Bowl and they lost. Right. Right. It's crazy. And then good players, dude. This is the list that's insane because it's very lengthy. Yeah. Isaac Malu, Landon Dickerson, Jordan Milada. By the way, that's all five of their offensive of linemen are on good or elite Dallas Goddard, Devante Smith, Dariuslade, James Bradbury, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, Chonson & Johnson Gardner Johnson. You could even throw T.J. Edwards in there, I think, if you want to, but I'm cool just calling him a neutral at this point.

Yeah. That's just insane talent on that roster. D-line, O-line just loaded, secondary was loaded, receiver was loaded, quarterback was loaded. All the premium positions, they had multiple dogs at each spot. Yeah. And like one of the things that you also like notice going through like going through contenders and then, you know, the Super Bowl winners and losers over the last few years is offensive line is massively important.

Oh, God, yes. The Bengals are the one team in the last like few years, the last like seven, seven, eight years that we're able to, you know, get by with a middling to bad offensive. line. Everybody else that has like made it, bend to the Super Bowl, been in it, they all had very solid offensive lines in front of them. And that's why you see a lot, that's why you see like I said, the running back not

being as important why teams were able to get by without, you know, an elite running back and able to get by with guys like, you know, CJ Anderson, Ligarrett blunt, things like that, you know, functional players, but nobody that jumps off the page is that offensive line is having a functional

good offensive line. line in front of your quarterback and commanding that offense is so crucial to your ability to go far in a season. Yeah, I agree. I mean, and not only that, like to add to that, it's not even just a collection of good players. Usually these teams have at least one elite, if not two elite guys on the offensive line. Like Eagles have Kelsey and Johnson. The chiefs had Creed Humphrey, who I would consider elite for sure. The Rams had Whitworth, who's elite, the 49ers had Trent Williams, who's beyond elite. It's not just having good players.

They have usually one of the best in the league at that spot. The bills are another interesting one. I wanted to get your thoughts on this roster because they're 22 bills. I only had them for two elite players. It was Josh Allen and Stefan Diggs. Their offensive line was not very good. In fact, I listed them with two bad players, both offensive linemen. Spencer Brown, Roger Saffled,

of those guys were extreme liabilities for them last year. Yeah. And they're good players. I listed Vaughn Miller, but he didn't really play past what week six. Yeah. Reger Rousseau, Matt Milano, Jordan Poyer,

at Oliver, Micah Hyde, Dequan Jones, Taryn Johnson, Trey White, Dion Dawkins and Dawson Knox. I think you could probably throw Gabe Davis in there. I just want to see a full season of that dude being healthy, though.

Yeah. But, like, they're another team. They're similar to, like, I just, I don't know, they don't have a ton of, like, big-time needle movers. They just got to collect, like, a pretty solid roster top to bottom. And the biggest thing with them is, or at least a gap that I think you've seen in these years where they've had Josh, like the last two years of having Josh Allen competitive, is their inability to develop draft picks. Yeah. You're not seeing a lot of guys that are, like, homegrown talent.

that are developing into good, great elite players. A lot of these guys are, you know, holdovers, guys they've brought in. And I think that, like, that's been a big deficit for them. I mean, now not to say that, like, you know, the Rams were able to do what they did. They went and kind of, you know, basically just built their team through trades. And, you know, four, kind of forewent the future that we're seeing the consequences of that now. but a lot of other teams like the chiefs, the Eagles, you know, you have these other teams that are developing some talent in-house or at least, you know, guys that they bring in that are,

you know, like for the Eagles, the Hassan Redick and, you know, even James Bradbury, you're seeing them. The guys that they bring in, they're, you know, either developing or helping to take a step up. And with the bills, you haven't really seen that as much. The guys that have come over have kind of stayed what they were. or what they are, you're not seeing a lot of influx of like very good and like elite, great, impactful rookies, second year guys that, you know, are taking a step. And that's where they're kind of, they're at an impasse right now where they have a, they were able to develop a couple

cornerbacks last year. I mean, they got some, you know, contributions from Dan Jackson, Kyir Elam, Christian Benford. But like, it's just, that's where you're kind of, that's where I think I see the gap with the bills is that you're not getting the young influx of talent that is contributing. And with that, they're also not, you know, making a ton of trades or movements to go get guys that they think they can develop a little bit further. Yep. I mean, you're 100% correct. Those good players I mentioned, like Vaughn Miller, they brought in from somewhere else. Stefan Diggs they brought in from somewhere else

Jordan Poyer they brought in from somewhere else Micah Hyde they brought in from somewhere else Dequan Jones they brought in from somewhere else Did they draft Terran Johnson? I don't know. But yeah, I mean, shoot, to your point. Even like Roger Saffel, the guy I mentioned as being bad, like they brought him in

as a free agent. So, not a ton of development there. I mean, it's tough though because they do have Josh Allen who they developed in house. Trey White is a draft pick they developed in house. Dion Dawkins was another good one they made. I think he was a second round pick and he's, you know, he's probably a top 10-ish left tackle in the NFL. So, um, but yeah, probably less player development than a lot of these elite teams. Any other, uh,

trends or things you want to know before, because I, I wanted to take this to the next step, which was like, let's identify a roster or two that we think could really surprise this year, um, based on how they've constructed that. Yeah, nothing much else is like, like you said, I think that, you know,

again, having gone through like Super Bowl winners and losers, you're pretty much sitting at a minimum of three to four elite elite guys. Like that's the bare minimum is that you have, like you have to have three to four like elite guys. And then you have to have about five to six good to great guys at least. And that's kind of your threshold there.

Yeah, I agree with you. Sweet, I'll just take, let's just take it to the next level then. I want to throw out a roster, I think, might be different this year. That could surprise some people. I'm going to go with the Cleveland Browns. Yeah. I've been a Deshawn Watson hater, but this is what I'm talking about. If Deshawn Watson can play a little bit above his,

his career line. I think this roster is primed for the taking. Look at elite players they have. They have Miles Garrett, Denzel Ward, I would consider an elite player. And Amari Cooper, I would consider an elite player. I know

he didn't make our top 10 receiver list, but the receiver class is deep in this league. Yeah, that's not a knock on him. It's more of a commentary on the depth overall. He's still a bona fide number one. Yes. I would say, that their guards are both elite.

Joel Bentonio and Wyatt Teller. Yep. Right there you've got five elite players. That's not including their quarterback. I'd put him in the good bucket right now. Yeah. But again, if they get elite play out of him, this whole thing goes, boom.

Their offensive line in general is pretty good. Jedrick Wills, Ethan Pochich at center, and then Jack Conklin to round it out at right tackle. These are all good player. Every player on the offensive line, I would say, is good. Their tight end, David and Joku, is good.

They have, I don't want to put, running backs don't really move the needle for me, so I'm not going to put Chub in there, even though he is notably very good. Delvin Tomlinson is a good player. Zedarius Smith is a good player. O'Bo O'Garanku is a good player. Jeremiah Ousu Kouramoa is a good coverage linebacker. Grant Gilbert played his ass off last year. Like, he's finally back in the mix.

that brought in Juan Thornhill from Kansas City, who I would consider a good player. Greg Newsom is an ascending good player. Dude, they have like 12 players in the good column. And they're, I mean, elite. They're legitimately a top three to five talented team in the NFL right now. I don't like, you're saying if Watson can get to elite play, I don't even think they need elite play out of them.

I think they need, if he can be what he was in Houston and knock out like a couple turnovers here and there, I think that, I mean, that gets them to 11 wins. Well, yeah, I'm talking true Super Bowl contender. If they're actually going to put up their best effort to take down the chiefs, I think they've got to get near elite play from Watson. Yeah. To make hay in that division, they just need, like, better than average play from Watson.

And they just need that, I mean, it's, I talked about it constantly last year. is that you need that defensive talent to turn into something. It's all there. They were not that great on defense. They had flashes here and there, but they would get burned pretty consistently. And their secondary was, again, extremely talented, but they had breakdowns constantly.

That needs to be cleaned up. I mean, talent-wise, on paper, this should be a top three defense this year, I think. I mean, obviously with defense, there's a lot more nuance. There's, you know, the way the ball rolls can kind of influence a little bit more compared to an offense. But just pure talent-wise, I mean, this defense should be so much better than what it's

been the last, like, two years. And I like, they brought in a new defensive coordinator, Jim Schwartz, who's, you know, known to be more aggressive. I think that, you know, hopefully that him coming in, I think that that defense is going to take a step. And they could really, you know, pave the way. way for how this team does. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, their roster reminds me of kind of how I felt about the Eagles roster last year. Yeah. Now, the Eagles had way more likable players, guys I like to root for than the Browns do. Right. I was actively pulling for the Eagles to put it all together. But I think the Browns are right there. Yeah. Anybody else you got?

Any other teams you think their roster just stands out as? the Dallas Cowboys for sure I mean this is a team that I think could take a leap I think they could leapfrog the Eagles take the NFC East and I think are probably a contender to come out of the NFC right now you know take away everything you think about the Cowboys and all the times they've you know come up short in the playoffs the last couple years and you know a couple unlucky roles here in there, but talent-wise, again, you know, elite guys, they've got Zach Martin. They've got Tyron Smith, who's still, you know, still kicking and playing well. They've got C.D. Lamb, uh, to Marcus Lawrence, Micah Parsons, Stefan Gilmore.

Yeah, I'd probably put Lawrence in the good bucket. The Parsons, that's the only elite. Yeah. And then, yeah, if you want to go like good, or you can even argue Trayvon Diggs, kind of made the leap into the, near elite category last year with, you know, his turnover numbers came down, but his overall coverage in yards given up came way down with it. But like good players, you've got Donovan Wilson is a very good player. Layton Van der Leyen Wendresch is, you know, he's kind of aging a little bit. He's had some injuries, but he's still a good player. Malik Hooker, O'Digee Zua, Dak Prescott, if he can knock down the turn.

Again, it really comes out in the quarterback, but he got super unlucky with a lot of his interceptions last year. I think those interception numbers come down a lot this year. I think you don't see it as much. And, you know, Terrence Steel is a good player. Yadish is a good player. Tyler Smith is a good player. Brandon Cooks is a good player.

Michael Gallup is a good player. I mean. Yeah, and you know what they have Jaylon Tolbert is kind of emerging, too. He's had a really good preseason. He's had a great camp so far. I even, I mean, I, Even like Jordan Lewis and the nickel, he's, you know, he's been injured here and there, but when he's been on the field, he's been, he's been good. J. Ron Curse isn't even in their starting lineup, but he'll play a lot of, like, nickel, dime linebacker sets.

And he's a very good player. He's a, you know, a tight end eraser type guy. Like, Demone Clark is the worst player on their roster, I think. And then their tight ends are if they have Jake Ferguson, Schoonmaker had, uh, hender shot. I think they're looking for a good, all young guys. they're looking for someone to emerge there. Yeah. To be fair, we don't know what DeMone Clark is yet. No, not really.

He hasn't had a ton of burn yet. So, I mean, this is a roster that probably, in my opinion, has the least hole, probably the least holes in the NFL, in my opinion. Yeah, it's pretty close. And, man, even if Vander Esh and Clark aren't very good, like, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that much. And you look at the.

guys behind him. What I love about that is like Van Derrash and Clark are kind of stiff. They're not great athletes in space, but the guys behind them, Jibril Cox, DeMarvian, Overshown. They're like coverage specialists at Limeback. Malik Jefferson's a freak athlete they brought up

from Baltimore. You already mentioned J. Ron Curse, but he's going to play in that coverage linebacker role too. So when they get this D-Line is so good too, when they get into those obvious passing downs, they can get those guys on the field. And They remind me a little bit of the Eagles last year.

Their second team defensive line is insane. Could be a starting defensive line for a good number of teams in the NFL. They've got Sam Williams, Jonathan Hankins, Neville Gallimore, who is not the greatest. And then Dorrance Armstrong. And they even have Dante Fowler Jr., who is a functional pass rusher behind those guys. Hunter Goldstein, who can play a little bit. And they have Duran Bland, who played a lot last. year as a rookie and shown a lot of promise played really well the Chicago Bears would trade

their starting D-line for the Cowboys second team D-line right now they for sure would straight up easily yeah and like the other thing that's crazy about the defense is the speed everyone like they have insane speed everywhere oh it's sideline Bannigoo who's like their eighth edge defender right now who's one of the freakiest athletes we've seen Mazzis Smith is insanely athletic for a 330 pounder. Like all these guys are just freak athletes. Yeah. Across the board.

It's pretty impressive what they've done. Yeah. So, I mean, really, their one week spot is what does Mike McCarthy look like as a play caller again? He hasn't been in the role in a little bit. We think he might have had some influence with Kellynne Moore the last couple years. And that's a big reason why Kellynne Moore made the jump. But having Brian Schottenheimer and Mike McCarthy as your as leading your offense that is genuinely really the only concern that I have.

And, you know, it's been a minute. McCarthy getting away from Aaron Rogers, Aaron Rogers has so much influence over the offense. It doesn't even have to be amazing because of how much talent they have. It just has to be functional and makes sense. Yep. I'm trying to figure out if there's another team I want to throw out here or not. I don't think there's yet.

I was going to potentially throw out the dolphins, but I think there's still maybe a year away. But the dolphins roster is good, by the way. It is. It is. And they've got some ascension in their pass rushing ranks as well. I think that's... Yeah, let's just do them for the sake of it. Yeah, let's talk about them.

Yeah, elite players, I go Hill, Waddle, for sure. Karen Arnstead, for sure. D-line. Christian Wilkins, is he there yet? Or is he just, he's knocking on the door, though, right? He's right. I think one, this year, if we see it from him this year, I think you can make the case

for him to make it to be in that conversation. And he's finally going to be in a true three-tech role this year, too, which I'm really excited about. Because, like, I think he's a much better past stretcher than that scheme allowed him to be. He's very athletic. Yeah, under the last couple years. So getting to, you know, play more, you know,

one gap assignments, one and a half gaps is better than him being a two-gapper for sure. Jaylon Phillips is a main on a mission. I don't think we can legally call him elite yet, but this is what I'm talking about. He might be the Hassan Reddick of this year. Right. This is a- Nowhere and drops an 18-sack season. This is a team that has a lot of guys in a position to be kind of that X-factor guy

that makes the leap that turns this team from, you know, talked about near the contenders to being an actual contender. They have like along the defense and they have a lot of guys that really have a chance to make that lead. Yep. Jerome Baker, good. David Long, good. Bradley Chubb good. Xavier Howard Elite.

Brandon Jones. He's fine. Javon Holland, very good. Another guy possibly jumping from good to elite this year. Yep. This is what I'm saying. This is why I want to throw the dolphins out. They're like a couple things going their way.

a few development, a few guys developing a little bit. Like seriously, if Jalen Phillips is this year's Hassan Redick, where he drops 15 plus sacks out of nowhere. And Javan Holland steps into that role is that true, deep safety, who can do basically everything. You can play in the slot, can play in the box, but he's a ball hawk. Yep.

And then they've got the corners they do. And Xavier Howard, the Jeff at Cam Smith. I know Jalen Ramsey is going to be on the shelf for a bit, but they still have Cater, who's a really good slot corner. Yep. His backup, Nick Needham, is actually pretty good. They drafted Cam Smith.

They brought in Deshaun Elliott from the Lions to play the box safety role. They have someone else I'm forgetting. Oh, Noah Iggybahagony. They drafted him. He was a first round pick like two years ago or something from Auburn. He's another versatile guy. I know he hasn't developed the way they wanted him to,

but it's still, it's legit depth, though. Keon Crosson is legit depth. Eli Apple. Yep. It's like their third or fourth outside corner. Like this is, you know, they have legit depth here. And it'll be interesting because with the Ramsey injury, that kind of pulls Cam Smith to potentially develop right away and be a contributor.

And that could yield. That could be a very good development for them. I mean, obviously you want to have Ramsey in there. But there's, I think it's six weeks, about six to eight weeks is the estimation to get them back. that's enough weeks in there that you know if cam smith shows a lot of promise that's you know that changes how you get to play your defense there yes exactly it's almost i hate saying a guy getting hurts a good thing for a team but it's almost a good thing because you're going to get cam smith a lot of reps before you thought you'd have to so then when ramesy does come back now you have options right maybe maybe this week we're playing ramsie at slot right maybe this we're playing ramsie in the box at safety maybe this you know like you That's where the versatility really starts to creep in because you feel like you can trust James Smith a little bit more because he's got some seasoning under his belt. And you saw that with the, I mean it happened with the Rams, not necessarily through injury, but in their Super Bowl season with the development of Darius Williams, they were able to move around Ramsey a lot more. You saw him playing in the slot a lot more.

And that changed the complexion of their defense quite a bit. It made them a lot. It allowed them to play a lot different schemes. And, you know, being able to get a guy like Ramsey into the slot and still feel solid about your outside corners, that can't be overstated how much that helps a secondary, how much it helps the defensive line overall. Like it's, it really, like you said, it could make so, like so much difference to have Cam Smith be a guy that you can plant in there and say, we need him on the field at all times. Yep. I agree. So this is hot takey because I don't think anyone is on the dolphins this year.

Like literally I don't think anyone is. Yeah. I mean of anyone being like all up on them. I think this roster is so good. And I think they're like I said a few pieces developing away from being like some pretty big noise makers. I mean, two is the X factor. You need to see two have one, he needs to be healthy, which in another. itself is a challenge, but you also just need to see him have and make almost a Jalen Hertz level

jump. Like that, that is what will, that's what would take them to the next level this year is to have to see the marked improvement from, to a, I feel like we saw that jump last year. The problem is it was sandwiched between two horrendous concussions. Right. I do feel like we saw that jump though. Like, I feel like if they just get that to a... He was playing at a pretty near elite level.

I know he didn't make our top 10 QB list. And we didn't really consider him, mostly because of injury concerns. But, like, he was... I mean, shoot, I don't know. Like, most metrics, we have, Steve. He was popping at the top of just about everything from... Yeah.

You know, hero throws to accuracy rates, to accuracy while under pressure, to pass a rating under... Like, most of these high-level analytics we had pointed that he was having a really good season. Yeah. Even if I go by PFF grade, and I know that's,

that's now a forbidden word at fantasy points, but PFF grade, I think he was like number one in the league when he had that second concussion. Yeah. I'm just saying, I'm not saying he's elite. I'm just saying he was playing at that level

for a stretch last year. So I think if they just get that, I think they're fine. But, yeah. I don't know. I feel good about this. Should we just call it here?

We're like just under an hour, make the listeners happy? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's not, I think those are probably the three rosters that you can make the case for that are right there. There are more that are, you know, a year away. We could have this conversation about them next year. But these are the teams that have veterans in the right places with guys that have a chance to make, that you've seen flashes from. that can make a full legitimate leap this year to like push them over the line and make that go take them from you know a solid division winner to talking about them coming out of their conference yep and you know like we purposely try to target teams that are kind of on the dL right now like they're on the download not a lot of people are talking about them taking that leap that's why we obviously we could talk bills and chiefs all day long we know they're contenders guys right bills

chiefs, bangles, you know, 49ers, we could have the conversation around them, but everybody at Eagles, everybody knows about them, everybody expects them to be there. Yep. All right, cool. Let's cut it there. That's going to do it for us. We will be back next week.

Make sure you guys are checking out the site, fantasypoints.com data dot fantasy points.com is the data suite. You need to go check it out. Both of them. The content coming out right now is disgusting. Scott Barrett, Joe Dolan dropped. Joe Dolan dropped some content last week, Steve.

Yeah. Like that's a rarity for us. Like Joe is kind of taken on this more behind the scenes. You know, he's like, he's a maestro. He's like a maestro. He has his hand in everything and things are going smoothly because of that. But when he drops some content, that gets me excited because I don't always get to read content from Joe. And if you're an auction drafter, he dropped his draft plan as an auction.

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