Fantasy Football Today - 01/23: 2020 Rankings and Projections Disputes! (Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

Let's get into 2020! Heath kicks the show off with his most surprising projections for 2020 (1:04) and then we get into the rankings. Should Lamar Jackson be a Top 20 overall pick (4:40)? We debate RBs (10:15) Joe Mixon, Chris Carson and Austin Ekeler. Ekeler has an interesting case as a Top 20 overall pick in PPR. And is Amari Cooper elite (21:05)? ... A quick round of news and notes (24:55) as we discuss Ryan Fitzpatrick's likely return to MIA ... Revealing some of Heath's 2020 projections including Baker Mayfield projected very low (30:10) and Damien Williams projected very high (36:50). Plus some Courtland Sutton projections (42:00) and a couple of young TEs that could enter the Top 10 at the position (44:00) ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. It's never too early for rankings and projections. We're going to get into the 2020 rankings today. I actually am going to have to defend Lamar Jackson as a top 20 overall pick. Can you believe that, listeners? You're all thinking, oh, these analysts are crazy. Of course he's a top 20 overall pick. Is Austin Eckler a top 20 overall pick?

Someone might think that he is. And we'll get into Heath Cummings' projections as well and do a little bit of news and notes and some emails at fantasyfootball at cbsi.com. I'm Adam Azer, joined by Ben Schrager and Heath Cummings. Heath, if there has been one projection so far, as you've started your initial projections, that has really stood out like, whoa, I can't believe this. What would it be? It was definitely on the Atlanta Falcons receiving core. The first run of the projections had Calvin Ridley at 10.4 touchdowns and Julio Jones at 7.8 touchdowns. And it's super frustrating because the only thing we can really use is what's happened in the past and you look at ridley has scored 17 times on 185 targets in two years it takes julio jones three years to score 17 times so

i definitely will adjust those towards each other i might at some point in actually displayed projections have calvin ridley projected for more touchdowns than Julio Jones and I'll feel stupid for it why well Ben I think that's perfectly reasonable Calvin Ridley will probably score more touchdowns than Julio Jones who I think scored four touchdowns in his first three games and then didn't score again until like week what 15 against the 49ers yeah I mean I don't have a problem with that projection at all I mean Julio is still going to be projected as a better receiver for you but I can easily see Calvin scoring more touchdowns next year well i could see it happening i just when you've got one guy again looking at the rest of the projections you've got one guy with 157 targets 99 catches for 1500 yards and the other one has 77 catches for a

thousand yards and then there's that type of disparity between their touchdowns i'll probably just smush them together a little bit yeah but at the same time you're using julio jones career numbers and the touchdowns really aren't there any year so it does make a bit of sense and i understand putting them a little closer together but like i said ridley could definitely score more touchdowns than julio and would not surprise any of us okay let's get to promotion here because holy cow, what a week we have coming up for you on this podcast, but also on CBS sports HQ. So we'll be in, in Miami in a mad media scrum, uh, on radio row. We will be doing CBS sports HQ fantasy football today,

the live video show Tuesday through Friday at at 10 a.m. Eastern. If you want to watch it, you've got to download the CBS Sports HQ app. It is free. You don't have to sign up or anything like that. Just download CBS Sports HQ. You can watch it on your Roku, on your Apple TV, your Amazon Fire, any connected device. You can watch on CBSSportsHQ.com if you want,

but watch it on your TV. It's better. And we'll be doing the live show now. We're going to have amazing guests. Ben Schrager, tell him who we're going to talk to next week in Miami I'm most excited to talk to Juju but we're talking to Juju we're talking to Savon Diggs we're talking to the bus Jerome Bettis Dan Marino so guests are ranging all over the place but I think the Juju conversation will be real interesting I'm curious to see what he has to say about James Washington whether he thinks there's a breakout potential there or Johnson or what's going on next year with that Steelers

receiving core. I'm curious to see how he feels about us naming him the best NFL player to host Saturday Night Live that he would be, you know, so we'll see. Maybe that's in his future. Maybe we can get that going. Let's get that trending, I guess. So again, that's 10 a.m. Eastern from Radio Row on CBS Sports HQ, Tuesday through Friday. Tune in. We'll also have three, I think we'll have four podcast episodes next week, including you're going to hear from the Pick 6 guys. They're going to do a preview. Heath's going to be on that, give you some DFS advice. So we'll talk a little bit about the Super Bowl, obviously, but also more general fantasy topics. And hopefully we'll be able to interview some cool players, some writers, and get some sound for you. Also, if you have Amazon Alexa, you can ask Alexa to play FFT,

play fantasy football today. Just tell Alexa to play fantasy football today. And that's an easy way to listen to our podcast. And we like Alexa. I have a cousin named Alexa. She's wonderful. Let's get to some rankings disputes. So before we get into the projections, we'll do some rankings disputes. We all had to submit top 20s, overall top 20s close to a month ago, I guess,

several weeks ago. And I'm going to let Ben Schrager queue it up because he picked the ones that he thought were interesting that were worth debating. So what's our first rankings dispute, Ben? Our first one is Lamar Jackson being in the top 20. Only one person had Lamar in the top 20,

and that was Adam. Adam, I want to hear why you have Lamar in the top 20, and why you think that's going to be a valuable pick for you. I want to hear why you didn't watch any football this year. Don't you know who Lamar Jackson is and what he just did, sir? I watched a lot of football over the past 10 years, and none of those quarterbacks were able to be the number one quarterback the next year and everyone's dropping off over four points per game if you're the number one quarterback so lamar could still be the number one quarterback but he's not going to have the crazy season he had this year

i would rather get some value at the running back or wide receiver position i just think it's really something that like last year coming into this year we'd pretty much decided we're not taking any quarterbacks in the top 20 and now you want to take two quarterbacks in the top 20 well let's just stick with one and let's just stick with bar jackson well i wait i think i think you should make it clear after the what's happened in the playoffs because like when you've put this top 20 together that was after week 17 if i remember I remember correctly. I think it was before week. I think it was after week 16. It might have been right after week 16.

Yes. You were taking Lamar Jackson over Patrick Mahomes in 2020. Correct. Are you still taking Lamar Jackson over Patrick Mahomes in 2020? Yes. Yeah. I would in a league that was only four points per pass touchdown, but there's not any chance that I would in a league that's six.

I mean, that's fair. And Mahomes, so, well, let's start with this. Let's say we could play the season again and Lamar Jackson does exactly what he did. Where does he deserve to be ranked? I would say number two overall. I would say McCaffrey should be the first pick and Lamar Jackson the second pick.

How about you? Yeah, if you told me he's going to have the exact same season, I'd say probably that's a good range. I mean, I would have him at three behind Michael Thomas? Yeah, maybe. Fair, totally. I mean, those are the three in consideration, right? So you said, Ben, that he'll lose at least four.

Based on history, he'll lose at least four points per game. Okay. So that would drop him from 31.5 points per game at a six-point-per-passing touchdown league to 27.5 fantasy points per game. The number 10 running back in 2019 in PPR on a per-game basis averaged 15.3 fantasy points per game in CBS leagues. That was Mark Ingram.

So this year, Lamar Jackson averaged more than double RB 10 on a per game basis. Even if you take off four points, that's 27.5 to 15.3. Okay. That is 12 more fantasy points per game in PPR. He's not even catching any passes. So,

you know, we've never seen a quarterback have a historic season and then do it again. Like Peyton Manning didn't do it. Patrick Mahomes didn't do it. Dan Marino didn't do it. Breeze, I guess, pretty much came close. But, you know, he will drop off. But we've also never seen

a quarterback do this with rushing. And that's what, you know, his passing totals were fairly modest. I mean, 3,100 yards. He did have 36 touchdown passes. He led the NFL. I could see him losing passing touchdowns. I could see him gaining rushing touchdowns.

He only had seven of them, despite having the, I think, the seventh most rushing yards, and the sixth most rushing yards in the NFL. So when push comes to shove, I don't know if I would actually take him 17th overall, but it would be close. And I can certainly justify him as a top 20.

The problem with your comparing Lamar Jackson to Mark Ingram is that Baker Mayfield was 10% better than Mark Ingram last year. Like that's completely and totally irrelevant. I can find quarterbacks that were a lot better than Mark Ingram on the waiver wire. I, how he compared to the 10th best running back, all the quarterbacks are better than the 10th best running back. I understand, but he was twice as good. So you're talking about who are you taking in that spot? You're going to be taking 20th overall.

It's going to be around RB10 in a PPR league. It should be about 10 running, maybe even RB12 or something like that. Maybe some tight ends, wide receivers. He was twice as good as that player i i understand but the quarterback that was taken in round 11 was probably 10 times better than the running back taken in round 11 but those guys aren't starter i don't know that that matters what i'm saying is if you look at the quarterbacks in the top six this year they're all over 24 points per game that's significantly more than mark ingram scored

and you can get those guys significantly later than well first or second round i mean lamar was double digits rounds right dak dak was double digit rounds um wilson and winston weren't that much higher like most of the quarterbacks were available and the top five quarterbacks this year were available after the sixth or seventh round and probably will be next year too but the difference is he has this floor because of his rushing ability that none of the other quarterbacks might actually be lower like lamar jackson has to be the most likely quarterback to miss time with injury next year if he's going to run the ball 175 times he didn't get hurt last year he didn't get hurt this year and he ran the ball a lot both seasons so we have we have a much larger nfl sample size of

running quarterbacks than just the last two years all right fine i guess agree to disagree. Ben, what's next? What's next? Oh, goodness. So Dave has Chris Carson in the top 20. No one else has him in the top 20. Dave's not here to defend himself. Heath, what is your argument against Chris Carson in the top 20? I'd like to see him healthy. I think I mostly agree with what Ben Gretsch said on our last podcast, that I don't necessarily feel like they're going to give Chris Carson the workload they were giving him before he got hurt. And even if they did, I wouldn't be sure

that it'd be worth a top 15 pick, but he's a, he's a fine round three running back, assuming that he's 100% when we get the time of drafting. I think he's underrated, but it'll depend on Rashad Penny's health. I think more than Chris Carson's health is if Penny's ready to go, I assume Carson's workload will drop a little bit. We talked about him, I think, more than Chris Carson's health. If Penny's ready to go, I assume Carson's workload will drop a little bit. We talked about him, I think, yesterday because before he got hurt, he was second in the NFL in carries. If you're second in the NFL in

carries and you're going to be on a good offense, you're going to get those touchdowns like he's going to get, most likely. He might end up as a top 10 running back, even in PPR. I can understand ranking him outside. No huge disputes here, Ben. I think we should move on to the next one it's a lot spicier next one dave and i are both involved joe mixon is in our top 20 joe mixon is not in any other top 20 did you skip austin this is not this is yeah you skipped the most interesting one that adam wanted to do

i have eckler up next but yes let's talk Mixon and then let's talk Eckler. Okay, fine. The problem is I did my top 20 based on PPR and Giovanni Bernard is still under contract next year. And as good as Joe Mixon has been catching the football, he just does not get the number of receptions needed to be a top 12 running back in PPR formats. And I'm not certain that the offense is necessarily going to be a lot better this year than it has been the last two or three years. Joe Burrow, I fully expect, will be a Cincinnati Bengal.

In fact, I even ranked him. I fully expect, has more, I don't even say fully expect, he absolutely has more upside than Andy Dalton. But the odds of Joe Burrow being better than Andy Dalton in his rookie season are probably 50-50. He might be worse. Yeah. Now, what does Mixon being a top five running back in PPR

in the second half of the season tell you? He has done it for half of a season in his three seasons in the NFL. Yeah. In those last eight games, Mixon was the number four running back in both non and full PPR, but he only had 16 catches. He had 817 rushing yards and five touchdowns.

But also, he did it against really tough competition, which was impressive. And he will have that tough competition next year. I mean, he plays in a division with some good run defenses. Yeah, I mean, look, A.J. Green didn't play the entire season, and Mixon only had 35 catches. So that stinks.

And Bernard only had 30 catches. It's not like Gio was always on the field getting the passes caught. And he, like, in those final eight games, he faced the Raiders and the Dolphins and the Browns twice. So I don't think he, like, his great finish to the end of the season wasn't against really good competition. Well, no, because he did well against Baltimore. He did well against Pittsburgh, as I recall.

And he actually had the runs or whatever in the Dolphins game, which was a hugely disappointing game. And the Raiders actually weren't that bad against the run. But fine, the Browns were awful against the run so he had 350 yards and three touchdowns against the browns in two games that was most of the reason he was a top four running back he also played over 65 of the snaps in this stretch and he was over 65 of the snaps for the entirety of 2018 when he was a top 10 running back so i was encouraged by that because we thought geo was going to take more of the work and he was playing some passing downs but mixing was on the field more and we saw this year catches didn't matter as much for finishing in the

top 10 for ppr so that's that's the one thing that keeps mixing in my top 20 but i totally understand the the being scared of geo bernard and lack of catches. But speaking of catches... Who did you put Mixon ahead of? Because I think the question is probably upside. He's really solid. He's going to get a ton of work. He's going to get pretty much all of their goal line carries. So that's awesome.

But does he have the upside of some of the other guys that are in that range? So who did you put Mixon ahead of? For running backs, over Josh jacobs over miles sanders sanders would have more upside but i'm more confident in mixin's floor i have my head about those guys and then in terms of wide receivers dj moore kenny galladay tyreek hill but you had him ahead of chubb i have chubb one spot ahead of mixin you have my head of four net ahead of four net that one i i would have him ahead of four net

probably in non-ppr not in ppr i don't i'm not as confident about four nets catching ability past attempts towards him this year with a new office of coordinator it may help him but his past i was really encouraged by four nets passability this year i don't know if it's repeatable next year that's the only reason I have Bixson ahead of him. All right, let's get the Austin Eckler debate going. Austin Eckler will be a top 20 overall pick, says Heath Cummings. And no one else.

And absolutely no one else. So this is, like, the Chargers are probably the most difficult team because their quarterback is not under contract melvin gordon is not under contract hunter henry is not under contract and they have an offensive coordinator that i'm not even totally sure how to pronounce his name and has eight games under his belt and doesn't even have a page on pro football reference yet um steve shane styshen and so i i the way i go it, and it's one of the things that we'll probably talk about later when we get into the projections more, is I'm looking at player history. I'm

looking at opportunity. I'm looking at play calling history. There's not a lot of the latter. But when you look at their final eight games, they threw the ball to running backs about 33% of the time. That was after they made the offensive coordinator change. You look at Eckler's games without Melvin Gordon. He was on pace for about 100 targets and 224 carries. You look at his season from last year, he had 132 carries, 108 targets, 1,550 total yards, and 11 touchdowns.

Right now, I'm projecting Eckler and justin jackson to own this backfield i think there's a chance they go add someone else i don't really think there's a chance they go they re-sign melvin gordon or add someone of his caliber to take that share of the rushing workload i've got eckler projected for 151 carries so 19 more than last year i've got Eckler projected for 151 carries, so 19 more than last year. I've got him projected for 106 targets, so two fewer than last year. And I've got him projected as a top five PPR running back. What do you think, Ben? I don't think it's totally crazy if we have this discussion in July and it's just Austin Eckler and Justin Jackson in the backfield.

They are definitely going to add someone. First off, is this person definitely better than justin jackson or is that their lead back and then second off is this person a threat to take 60 of the carries like melvin gordon did in the second half or 70 of the carries even so i i think like we know the chargers are going to add a running back probably going to add two to three running backs they're're going to draft at least one, I would say almost for sure. They're going to sign a veteran. It's how good is that veteran. I agree. And I mean, Eckler having more targets than Chris Godwin this year,

very encouraging with the new offensive coordinator who loves to throw to running backs. I would be really encouraged if they went out and signed Tom Brady, who you know loves targeting his running backs. Right. I mean, they looked like the Patriots in the second half last year in terms of how they were distributing targets. The other thing that I will say about Eckler is,

I know last year was the first year he was awesome in fantasy. He has been awesome as a pass-catching running back since he came into the league. If you average eight yards per reception, you're doing a pretty good job. Nine yards per reception, you're close to elite. His last only three seasons, 10.3 yards per reception, 10.4, 10.8. He catches 80% of the balls thrown his way. And there's no reason to think that he's not going to get a ton of targets. Yeah, he's really good. And in his first four games of the season, before Melvin Gordon came back,

he was the number three running back in non-PPR, number two in PPR. And in the last 12 games with Melvin Gordon, he fell to number 16 in non-PPR, but he was actually, Eckler was the number five running back in PPR with Melvin Gordon. And he had 76 carries in those 12 games,

but he had 68 catches. Only Christian McCaffrey had more among running backs. The yards per catch is always great, as Heath mentioned. The thing that scares me is zero rushing touchdowns with Melvin Gordon, five receiving touchdowns. And I'm going to say it all the time. Receiving touchdowns from running backs are just...

You just cannot trust them. It is a fluky, deceiving stat. And pass-catching running backs disappoint us every single year. So he has to have a bigger role in the running game than a guy like Tariq Cohen, than a guy like James White. And he did last year. But he needs it. Yeah.

Well, he had 76 carries in 12 games with Melvin Gordon. So is that really enough? I mean, 100 carries? No, probably not. Do you with Melvin Gordon. So is that really enough? I mean, 100 carries? No, probably not. Do you think Melvin Gordon's coming back? I mean, I kind of do, but I might be alone on that. But no, but let's assume he doesn't. Because certainly in September, it didn't seem like he was going to.

He certainly didn't want to. But if they bring in a third-round pick, something like that, how many carries do you think Eckler would get? I think that's a good line to draw. If it's a third-round pick, I would probably drop him. I've got him at 151 now. I might drop him to the 120

range. If it was a second-round pick, then he might fall back to where he was two years ago, around 100 carries. And that's still more than what you normally see from Tariq Cohen and James White, but it's not quite enough. If it's fourth round pick or worse, then he might actually go up. I guess my only question, Heath, is that the 100 carries from two years ago, what's the breakdown with Melvin Gordon and without Melvin Gordon? Because I would bet he was on like a 70 carry pace or something like that with Melvin Gordon.

I'm just throwing that number out there. But remember, he got future work. If Melvin Gordon resigns, then I'm going to have to reevaluate everything. I don't think he's probably going to. If they let him walk, I don't think the odds of the next running back being Melvin Gordon-esque are very good.

Let's do one more. Yeah, they should. One more. One more. Adam, i want to hear from you amari cooper in your top 20 give me two reasons why it was it was early i hadn't slept much at that point i was buying christmas presents uh no well because he was a top three or four wide receiver in his first nine games he was third in non-ppr fourth in ppr he was on top three or four wide receiver in his first nine games. He was third in non-PPR, fourth in PPR. He was on pace for

1,500 yards and 12 touchdowns on only 126 targets. And then the last seven games were pretty lousy. But there have been injuries. There were games that he just left early. The Jets game he barely played. He played hurt during the Eagles game.

Dak got hurt later in the year. This one, really, I have to move him down, especially since I had him behind Devontae Adams. That can't happen, but I probably will be the highest guy in Amari Cooper because I think we saw when everything was right, when he was healthy, when Dak was healthy, he really

finally busted out. He was really that great elite wide receiver. I certainly think he needs to be a top 10 receiver. probably a late. I'm thinking more like 24, 25 overall, like going in that turn instead of top 20. split montage for amari cooper throughout his career because he's had at least three half seasons where he was a top three or four wide receiver um it's just kind of often often like in dallas not last year but the year before the second half of the season he was a top five wide receiver and it was all based on two or three games and he had a couple of those in oakland as well where he'd have these stretches where he wasn't actually consistently good over eight games but two or three of the games were so incredible that you could look at the eight

game split and say wow he was a top five wide receiver for half the season he's a he's a borderline number one wide receiver for me probably better suited as a uh number two on your roster there's three guys that i will have ahead of him most likely in the early projections that adam will be very upset about probably um dj moore courtland sutton and terry mclaurin yeah i mean i took a little bit of a deeper look at Cooper's splits, and every year of his career, he's had five games under 10 PPR points. 10 PPR points is not a lot. That's pretty terrible for a receiver. It's bad.

But here's the thing. I really don't want to look at his Oakland career. He's got a much better situation now. He's got a better quarterback, just a better situation. Now, I don't love the targets he basically had very he basically the same amount of targets as michael gallup so i he needs to get more targets uh i gotta really dive in and break that down in the games he left with an injury and whatnot but i you know 119 targets and 16 games that's not good enough

heath the only one that i think uh i vehemently disagree with is is mclaurin but no more in sutton but sutton you know we can get into your projections but i'll talk about sutton with drew lock it was no that was not a good combination uh in the final five games i'm just going to randomly find these from out the show now in amari cooper's rookie year from week two through week 10 he was on a 90 1378 pace not as good as last year easily a top five wide receiver from week two through week 10 i don't know i don't know about 45 pit balls for 685 yards and four touchdowns uh not as good as the pace he was on in this nine-game stretch, which was 1,512 on, I think, 96 catches. All right, we will get into projections, including Cortland Sutton.

Heath is apparently quite high on Cortland Sutton. Why shouldn't he be? He's very good. We've got some news and notes. We'll talk a little Dynasty in a bit. Your email's at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Eli Manning is retiring. Wait, Ben Schrager. I don't even think I know who your favorite football team is.

I grew up an Eagles fan. Pretty neutral right now, but I spent a lot of time watching Eli Manning in the local market of New Jersey. In Amari Cooper's second year, he had an eight-game stretch where he was on pace for 104 catches and 1,574 yards. How many touchdowns?

He only had two touchdowns in that stretch. There you go. He was on pace for 12 in this nine-game stretch, so still better. Still better. Okay, sorry. An Eagles fan saw Eli Manning. Do you think Eli Manning should be a Hall of Famer? Yes.

I think his numbers are pretty pedestrian throughout the regular season but his playoff performances I think in and of itself plus the longevity make him a Hall of Famer I don't know that I would necessarily vote for him which is weird to say but I think he should be in in general and i think he will be a hall of famer no without a doubt eli manning like somebody needs to be the floor the bot the worst quarterback in the hall of fame and eli manning is the perfect candidate and i look for he deserves all the accolades great career congratulations i agree with just about everything that was said i don't know if he's the worst quarterback he'll be among the worst regular season quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame

if and when he gets there. Ben, I don't know why you wouldn't vote for him. Maybe you'd be the one guy who also wouldn't vote for Derek Jeter. Oh, no, come on. Don't compare those two, although there are some similarities. In Amari Cooper's fourth season, he had an eight-game stretch where he was on pace for only 1,068 yards, but 12 receiving touchdowns.

Not as good. Not as good. 1,512. Find me a stretch where he was on pace for 1,512. I've shown you 1,500 and I've shown you 12, but not in the same stretch. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

That shows you he's just in a better situation now. He's a better quarterback. He's capable of better numbers. Exactly. That shows you he's just in a better situation now. He's a better quarterback. He's capable of better numbers. Okay. And Miami GM Chris Greer says he fully expects Ryan Fitzpatrick to be back in 2020. We also got a report that their owner, Steven Ross, really likes Joe Burrow. But let's, I mean, if Fitzpatrick's the starting quarterback for the Dolphins next year, that's a good thing, right? Definitely for Parker. Yeah, I think that's a good thing right definitely for Parker yeah I think it's a good thing um I I wouldn't expect Parker to repeat what he did this year it that whole situation is going to be interesting with Chan Gailey there he has spent his last four years I believe as a

play caller with Ryan Fitzpatrick as his quarterback um one interesting thing I I know we're going to get to Gasicki a little bit later. I can just bring it up now since we're talking about the Dolphins because Fitzpatrick did kind of lean on Gasicki a little bit towards the end of the year after Preston Williams got hurt. Fitzpatrick did have some moments with Charles Clay. Chan Gailey has called plays in the NFL 14 years. One of those years, a tight end on his team had more than 75 targets. Only three times did a tight end even have 50 targets. This is a guy who was running the spread offense really before anyone else was.

And it will be interesting if Kosicki is going to just be a slot wide receiver in this offense or like most of the tight ends under Gaileyily he's just not going to be any good by the way here are your top four quarterbacks in the final six games of the season in six point per passing touchdown leagues one drew breeze to lamar jackson who sat out week 17 and actually averaged almost five more points per game than drew breeze three. Three, Ryan Tannehill. Four, Ryan Fitzpatrick. Did you see Fitzpatrick's matchups for the final games of the season? I did. Cleveland, Philadelphia, Jets, Giants, Bengals, Patriots.

25 points against the Patriots. But yes, he certainly took advantage of the matchups. In Amari Cooper's fourth season, he had a nine-game stretch where he was on pace for 87 catches 1387 yards and 12 touchdowns nope that's close but no cigar he basically does it every year it's never been quite as good as it was last year right but he's he's going to have an eight game stretch next year where he is just one of the best wide receivers in football i I have zero doubt about that. He'll probably finish a little bit higher than what you're going to project him for because you are still considering him an Oakland wide receiver.

He's a little bit better than he was in Oakland. Yeah, I'm going to have him right around 15th probably. At receiver? Yeah. Okay, too low. Heath's projections, when we come back, we'll take a quick break here on Fantasy Football today, get into Baker Mayfield, Damian Williams, Cortland Sutton, and more. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.

Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. So he's going to continue to roll out the projections. Baker Mayfield, not a top 20 quarterback is that still with with another division left to project by the way um it's been a running joke so far that like will there be any quarterbacks that i project lower than baker mayfield in the first run these won't like i will adjust where baker mayfield is

after i get through all of the teams and i'll i'll fudge the numbers a little bit because i don't want than baker mayfield in the first run these won't like i will adjust where baker mayfield is after i get through all of the teams and i'll i'll fudge the numbers a little bit because i don't want to rank him below almost everyone but so far we're through seven of eight divisions and sam darnold is the only quarterback projected for fewer fantasy points than baker mayfield now so which division which division do you have left the nfc west so it's going to stay this way um this is more of less about baker mayfield more of an insight into how i build my projections and what looks bad for him um like I said, it's a combination of what has the player done in his career and

play calling history and his new head coach and assume the guy that's going to control how they run the offense was the guy leading Minnesota's offense, which is one of the more run heavy offenses in the league. So for Mayfield, we've got a quarterback who has over the course

of two years now been slightly below average as a passer. You want to call him league average, I'm fine with that. And offenses that ran more than we expected and played slower than we expected. And his new head coach has led an offense that ran way more than we expected and played way slower than we would expect. And so it's hard for me to get behind projecting Mayfield for anything more than below average pass attempts and average production. And he doesn't run. Like you have to either be really good as a passer or run. And he doesn't look like either right now so what do

you just think about this argument because yes they bring in Stefanski and the Vikings have the third fewest pass attempts per game last year but the Vikings also were fifth in scoring defense and the Browns were 20th we actually thought the Browns had the makings of a good defense so maybe they'll have some improvement next year it was not not a good season for them. I don't understand why they were so bad against the run. But you can only, like, it's easy for the Vikings to go out and be super run heavy because they have a good defense every single year. It's not going to be the case necessarily for the Browns. So, you know, does that impact your projections? Uh, yes. But I will say that you said the Browns were 20th in scoring defense last year and

Baker threw the ball 41 fewer times than the average NFL offense over the course of the season. So he was still like 5% below average in terms of pass volume. So like, I'm not, I think Kirk Cousins may have thrown the ball like 460 times or something something ridiculous last year baker was at 534 my initial projection had baker at 519 for pass attempts but at 519 pass attempts you've got to be like almost russell wilson good to sniff the top 12 unless you're running well what is this yards per attempt going to be it was down to 6.2 this year uh his adjusted were 6.2 his yards per attempt were 7.2 he's 7.4 for his career

league average last year was 7.5 or 7.6 he even when he was really good it was was 7.7. So that's not too far from average. He does have great weapons, I think. Maybe. Yeah, he does. Yeah, and he does have great weapons, and he's still young. And I know if Ben Gretsch were on the show, he'd be talking about the coaching.

So hopefully there's a coaching upgrade for him, even if the philosophy is worse. Maybe some other things are better. But there won't be a ton of excitement about him but i think it'll be a popular late round pick considering oh he will be an overall pick in the draft he'll be a guy that i rank higher than i project for most of the summer hoping that he gives me some reason to project him for more fantasy points but he's also a guy that I'm probably not going to. There's way, way, way too many quarterbacks to say, well, yeah, but I got to take Baker Mayfield because he has, does he have more upside than Matt Ryan?

No, not even close. Does he have more upside? Matt Ryan, Matt Ryan's an elite quarterback. I actually want to talk about what you just said. You said, you know, that there are so many quarterbacks. Do you view it that way still i i don't know for sure i don't know how i feel about it right now uh i i feel like it's a little more top heavy than it used to be here's my quarterbacks 10 through 14 in the projections

and i would be happy to draft any of these guys at the end of the draft as my starter or as part of a combination of starters matt ryan matthew stafford drew breeze kirk cousins okay that's i'm not talking about that range though because in most leagues 14 quarterbacks are off the board fairly quickly like you know what i mean through 14 and i have not yet ranked russell wilson kyler murray jared goff or jimmy garoppolo russell wilson i haven't ranked him yet that's right the nfc west so two of those right okay that's probably going to be 12 through 16 or 13 through 17 yeah who's 20 random number uh jacoby brissett yeah he stinks like he's not gonna be my he's definitely not gonna i don't know he's gonna be the colts quarterback he's not gonna be my starting quarterback you know in most no i don't think you should but you're not saying baker would be your starting

quarterback either um but i'm saying i would definitely probably be 20th okay i would definitely take baker over jacoby brissett i think most people would people would. Even if the projections don't come out that way, I have a feeling you'd rank it that way, right? Oh, I think that's right. If I was going to rank Baker Mayfield right now, it'd probably be right above. I actually have Drew Locke one spot ahead of Brissett, so I would probably put Baker right ahead of Drew Locke.

And where's Daniel Jones on there? 14, so he'd be five spots behind daniel jones but you know how much i like i've always liked daniel jones you always like giants quarterbacks very consistent okay uh a uh running back running back discussion here you have davante freeman and damian williams as top 15 running backs and carry on johnson is not in your top 25 davante for this is ppr right so and obviously helps davante freeman many things will happen most notably free agency in the draft that will change a lot of these numbers i'm doing this now because we have rankings that come out right after the super bowl as their teams are currently constructed i think and chris towers tweeted this towards the

end of the season man it sure looks like all that went wrong with drafting damian williams was him not staying healthy because he's been awesome at the end of the season and the playoffs since they've given him the ball and he stayed healthy so if it's that far-fetched to think the chiefs a team that may be getting ready to pay a quarterback $40 million and have salary cap problems, would just run Damian Williams, Darwin Thompson, and Daryl Williams out there at running back. That's not a bad group. If that happens, he's probably going to be a top 15 back for me. Freeman is top 15 in PPR. It is a 16-game projection. He did play 14 games next year. I don't know how many games you want to project him for, but I think he's at the very least deserves to be viewed as a solid number two running back and then carry on I like carry on Johnson a lot I think he's very talented I thought I loved him

in college I don't really believe in this rush offense I don't think I think this is probably Patricia's last year there and I think they're probably not going to trust him to stay healthy they kind of wanted to be a committee team they gave him a chance with more of the work he got hurt again i don't have much confidence he's going to get a huge chunk so you think bo scarborough will have some sort of role next year scarborough or a rookie that they draft or a free agent they bring in they may just bring in a pass catching back i'm not sure what they're going to do but i don't i've got carry on johnson at like 240 total touches and it's hard to be a top 20 running back at that number ben how would you rank those three damian williams davante freeman carry on johnson as of

right now damian freeman carry on i think damian by far has the most upside he got really hot at the end of the year and he was playing all the snaps now daryl williams wasn't active so that kind of hurt uh next year well i think it's kind of like what we saw with green bay aaron jones was playing all the snaps in the postseason like just kind of pushed jamal williams out of the way i doubt they want to do that for 16 games like i think we'll see dame you have to share and jones will have to share a little more early in the year but i do think williams reasserted himself as clearly the best back in Kansas City definitely I mean down the stretch last year he was doing the same thing this year down the stretch over six yards a carry I think he's going to be really exciting to draft next year and people are going to be scared to draft

him because they got burned by him this year and we can kind of take advantage of that and for Freeman specifically I think he was a little bit unlucky last year to only score two rushing touchdowns. Part of his game had been how much he got into the end zone. And when I look at touchdown rate, I'm generally looking more at their career touchdown rate than what it was last year. So that's one reason that I would project him higher than where he finished last year. What was scary, though, about Freeman is he was noticeably slower this year, less athletic. I think there may be a drop-off next year. And that, just from watching the games,

it seemed like he was not the same running back, which is why I'm scared to have him in my top 15. Yeah, what's his contract situation? They owe him a lot of money. I don't know, man. Yeah, so there's encouraging stuff and there's discouraging stuff for Freeman. He didn't look as good, and he wasn't as good. He averaged 3.6 yards per carry.

He'd been pretty darn good basically every time he touched the ball throughout his career. He gave him the ball, he did well. But he didn't run the ball that much at the start of the season. When their defense got better in the last five games of the season, he came back from injury, and they were giving up about 20 points per game down from about 28 points per game in Freeman's first nine games of the season. So he was on pace for 246 carries and 67 catches, huge workload. He was getting a lot of work as they were in the game where they were running the ball and playing better defense.

So that was good for Freeman, but he still wasn't doing a ton with it. For Damian Williams, I just want to know, what's going to be different next year? Sometimes on this podcast, some of the analysts say, I just wonder if they're going to save him for the postseason and not use him. And I feel like that pretty much never happens, except Damian Williams. It may have happened.

He was hurt twice. He suffered two different injuries. But even when he was healthy, he had plenty of games with single-digit carries. They brought in LeSean McCoy before the season started. They did not seem to want to give him the workload that they give him

now. And to be honest with you, even at the end of 2019, or 2018, rather, and going into the postseason, he wasn't getting that many carries. He was just getting a ton of catches. So I don't know what the workload's going to be be i don't know that they think he can hold up he's he never has he's never been a workhorse you know he got hurt well i don't think he's going to be a workhorse but you don't have to be a workhorse in the kansas city offense to be a top 15 running back

um like you give me two i guess i said 240 touches for carrie and johnson you give me 200 damian williams touches next year in the kansas city, and he's going to be a top 15 running back. All right, wide receiver. You have DJ Moore and Cortland Sutton in the top 12. And Ben, do you have any issues with that? Moore and Cortland Sutton in the top 12? No, I love Moore in the top 12. I have Moore in my top 10.

Sutton for me is borderline top 12. I'm a little scared of his production with Locke. His yards per target were very high. That was very encouraging. But he struggled. I mean, he did have five-plus receptions in half the games. But in the other half of games, he was struggling. So I know you're really high on him, Heath.

Why are you so high when the quarterback that he's probably going to have next year didn't really mesh very well with him? Well, I think that can be overstated because of how small of a sample size it is he was still dominating targets the catch rate wasn't quite as good but you look at his last four games 7 10 10 8 in terms of targets with drew lock and they like they were probably a little bit better in terms of win loss than i would expect them to be they won four of their last five games which could be a little bit of why we saw those receiving numbers be down a little bit. But I was actually kind of impressed with what we saw from Drew Locke

as a rookie. I expect him to be better in his second year, like almost all second-year quarterbacks are. And Sutton, especially right now, there is just nothing threatening his targets. He is the clear number one. He might be the number two as well okay his 16 game pace with drew lock five games of drew lock 70 catches 896 yards six

touchdowns on 128 targets how many targets do you have sudden projected for 143. Okay, let's see how many top 10 PPR-wide receivers had fewer than 130 targets. One, two, I think three. I think Chris Godwin, Kenny Galladay, and Amari Cooper, who I believe were 9 and 10. Godwin was 2, and then I think Galladay and Cooper were 9 and 10. All right, tight ends pretty interesting, Heath, your tight end projections.

We've got Dallas Goddard. So yeah, what do we got? We have Dallas Goddard and Noah Fant in the top 10. So Godd zach ertz as my number three tight end i expect this to be more of a timeshare at tight end between the two of them and when they're both on the field zach ertz draws the majority of the coverage so goddard is more efficient on a per target basis he does not draw as difficult of coverage and he is still on the upswing of his career and getting better ertz has either plateaued plateaued or is going to start getting worse. So I won't have him like as a top six or seven tight end, but Goddard will definitely be inside my top 10. Fans get right behind Goddard, but I do expect him to take a step forward as a second year tight end. I do think that with them bringing in Pat Shermer, there will be more

targets going to the tight ends in Denver. He's got a pretty extensive history of targeting his tight ends. So I expect Fant to take a step forward. I actually thought I would have Hawkinson ahead of Fant. It's not particularly close. Fant is well ahead of Hawkinson. Heath, my biggest issue with Goddard is I think there's three tight ends in that offense. I think Alshon Jeffrey this year was moving around like a tight end.

And unfortunately for Goddard, that means that he's splitting three ways. Well, if we're calling Alshon Jeffrey a tight end, then they have zero wide receivers. So there's plenty of targets. They'll just throw it to him 260 times again. I think they add a weapon. And I think they're going to be encouraged by an Aguilar or by even a Greg Ward who showed some signs of greatness I just I'm very scared he had six games of seven plus targets I'm not sure that he could do that again with Alshon and Ertz playing a full season yeah he had 87 targets last year I've got him at 83 this year I don't think

he played 16 games last year if I remember correctly but a slight downgrade in targets but not much and we'll see if they if they go at a true number one wide receiver then that'll change my tune that was got her played 15 games and i can only think of one time where we were drafting two tight ends in one offense that would be the patriots with hernandez and gronk i mean it's just so unusual um you drafted gates and henry the year after henry scored all those touchdowns, right? I don't know. I don't know if we were drafting Gates at that point.

And certainly they weren't good enough. That's a good point. I think that that was actually the offense that Ben referenced when talking about how much Philadelphia targeted their tight ends. It was the most since the New England Patriots. And that was actually more on a percentage basis than the Patriots because the Patriots threw it more that year. Unless they go add a true number one wide receiver,

I think this is the way their offense runs. And it's not something that was just new last year. If you'll remember, the reason Trey Burton got all that money in Chicago is because he and Zach Ertz were combining for a lot of production back then. So I think it's just a two tight end offense. Yeah, but he wasn't combining for fantasy relevant production. The only time he was fantasy relevant, Trey Burton, was when Zach Ertz was hurt. And I would say that any offense that relies that much on the tight end

probably needs better wide receivers, right? Oh, they do need better wide. That's what I said. If they go at a number one wide receiver, then it changes things. But right now, Alshon Jeffrey, assuming he doesn't get cut,

is their number one wide receiver. And he won't be cut either. Too much dead money. He might have to restructure. All right. So Ben, we're going to, we're going to save our dynasty talk until next week with risers and

fallers. Let's read some emails. Fantasyfootball at cbsi.com. This one's a very long one. I will read it, but here's the gist. It's from Matt. Matt, good email here. Matt basically came up with his own method of ranking players,

and he weights yards very heavily and not touchdowns. So here's the email from Matt. I hear a lot of comments about touchdowns not being predictable. So got me wondering why most analysts don't just analyze yards instead of total points per game. Same deal for those who look at consistency based on points per game. I did my own analysis based on non PPR, which I play in,

and I would love some critique on my methodology. I started with total yards, rushing plus receiving per game, excluding players who only played a few games. The top wide receivers have an average of six touchdowns less than the top running back. So I took 24 yards per game off the wide receiver numbers to equalize it. I then looked at the 65th percentile because 75th was too restrictive and 50th was too far the other way

of all individual game yards scored by the top players and calculated how often each player scored more than that value giving a consistency percentage i then multiplied that uh player's percentage by their yards per game number and i ranked them So finding consistency plus yards per game and I ranked them and came up with this list. McCaffrey, Thomas, Dalvin Cook, Jacobs 4, Zeke 5, Chubb 6, Derek Henry, Barkley, Fournette, Carson, Julio Jones, Eckler, Camara 13, Godwin 14, DJ Moore, Robert Woods 16,

Aaron Jones, Mike Evans, Miles Sanders, Devante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, Joe Mixon, Amari Cooper, Mark Ingram. That's your top 24. So, yeah, I don't know. First glance at this, what do you think about this method of ranking players mostly based on yards and, I consistency i don't put a lot of weight into consistency but i do think that it is much better to invest in guys that you feel comfortable with their yardage totals as opposed to shooting for touchdown outliers and i agree with that i think the one challenge to this system is that a guy like davante adams or a guy like aaron jones they have both proven that they are going to be scoring more touchdowns except for adams last year right but across his career than the average wide

receiver or running back so aaron jones averaging a touchdown for every start he has so i think touchdown regression is real i think we should not value touchdowns that much you should target guys who didn't score a lot the previous year as good value candidates, but I don't think touchdowns should be thrown out entirely. No, don't throw them out. Yeah, and look, I think we as analysts certainly do put more value on yards because if not, all of us would have had Aaron Jones in our top 20. I don't know how many of us did. If he was in it, it was closer to 20. He was the number two running back in non-PPR, number three in PPR, but I do think you can look at a guy and say he's more likely to score touchdowns than another player. For me,

is he sharing goal line work? Is he getting red zone targets or green zone targets if he's a wide receiver? Stuff like that. So yeah, I think we're pretty much on board with the guards portion of this, Matt. Good stuff. Here's another email. Very long one. Again, everybody just try to

pay attention to this this is from dawson would you rather keep mile sanders in the seventh round or debo samuel in the final round half ppr sanders sanders for sure you got all that guys feel good yeah you understood it okay good and finally this one is actually kind of long joe from cleveland this is a regulators question. Esteemed regulators. Where's the music? Do you want to do it? I don't have the capabilities right now.

I understand. Go for it. No. Esteemed regulators. We have an issue with transferring the trophy between champions in our league. We recently wrapped up 2019 where Chris won it all. Dave, the 2018 champion, says he didn't get the trophy early enough and he needs more time to, quote, break her in, end quote. Recourse, any general thoughts on handling trophy transfers?

Here's more helpful information. 2017 champion Doug says he tried to get the trophy to 2018 champion Dave, but for whatever reason, it didn't happen. Once I, as the newly appointed commish GM this year, found out at this year's draft, I took it upon myself to pay out of pocket to send the trophy through the mail to Dave so he could have it for at least a little while. So what do you think? He's thinking maybe give Dave another month. And then after that month, if he hasn't sent it out to the new champion, impose a $10 a week penalty fee to next year's dues. And next year, make it a known rule to get the trophy to the next champ within a month. Yeah, and I think I can empathize with Dave here

because he didn't even get the trophy until the draft. He had zero offseason with the trophy. Now you're telling me he has to give it up as soon as this season is over? I think he should get at least half of the offseason. So take the time from Week 16, hopefully. You don't have Week 17 games. Week 16 Sunday to whenever your draft is going to be, the offseason so take the time from week 16 hopefully you don't have week 17 games week 16 sunday to whenever your draft is going to be split the split the baby and he gets half of the off

season that's the only thing that's fair and i think instead of fining him if he doesn't hit that deadline i think you go flex suspension for every week that he doesn't send it in time suspend his flex for a week he's's just going to quit the league then. Which is what Heath wanted to begin with. He always wants to eliminate someone from the league. So really this worked out perfectly. All right. I would just say that if I were getting the trophy

and somebody who was giving it to me said he needed more time to break it in, I'll be a little bit nervous. That would be a little uncomfortable for me. But thank you for the email, Joe, from Cleveland and everybody else, fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Remember to download the HQ app and watch our show next week,

Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. Eastern, from Radio Row in Miami. We will talk to you on Monday, though, first with another podcast for Heath, for Ben, I'm Adam. Have a great weekend. Talk to you Monday.