Fantasy Football Today - 07/01: Projections Week! AFC North and NFC North (Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

Welcome to Projections Week! Heath Cummings and Ben Gretch have projections for each team, and we'll give you four episodes of projections this week to help you think about targets, pass attempts, backfield splits and much more as we continue to get closer to our Fantasy drafts ... BAL (2:00), CIN (10:00), CLE (18:14) and PIT (27:30). We've got new Offensive Coordinators to consider in a couple of these spots. Does the addition of an elite WR make projecting the Browns difficult? How does the subtraction of an elite WR change the projections for the Steelers? How many carries for Lamar Jackson? How does Andy Dalton NOT sneak up on people? ... CHI (39:00), GB (45:10), DET (53:00) and MIN (1:01:00). What does the Aaron Jones/Jamaal Williams split look like? 300 touches for Dalvin Cook? Does anyone break out on the Bears? Maybe Allen Robinson? Plus conflicting Kenny Golladay projections ... Email us 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

This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. Here we go! Email us at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Here we go! It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Let's go! Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Big week on the Fantasy Football Today podcast.

It's Projections Week. We've never done it before. This is an audition to see if we'll ever do it again. But I'm glad to have you along with us here. We're going to try to do all eight divisions in four episodes this week. I'm Adam Azer. Heath Cummings is back from vacation.

Welcome back, Heath. Feel refreshed? You know, there is so much good information here, and it's going to be a fantastic set of four podcasts. It's really the only thing that could mess it up is the host. I agree. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm basically going to just step out of the way and let Heath do his thing, along with Ben Gretsch, who is back.

What's up, Ben? How you doing? Doing really well, yeah. And just echoing what Heath said, we both put a lot of time in these projections. They take a lot of work, a lot of digging into, and it'll be fun to kind of dig into all the stats and little useful nuggets that we found. Yeah, just echoing what Heath said, the only thing that can screw this up is the host.

I thought that's where you were going with this. Yeah. Right, so Ben and Heath have projections for every team, every player or every relevant player? I mean, the whole team pretty much kind of do it like from from the team perspective and figure out how many plays and then break it out i know heath and i both go pretty deep three four running backs deep sometimes three four receivers multiple tight ends so pretty much every player in the league great i think it's fair to say that there are players who are going to touch the football this year who are not in either of our projections.

It's hard to imagine those guys being useful even with an injury. All right, cool. So let's get to it. We're going to do the AFC North and the NFC North today. Kind of random, but it's just what I decided. And we'll go in alphabetical order within the divisions. Let's see how it goes. Let's start with Baltimore. Last year they were first in rush attempts, 16th in pass attempts. Heath and Ben agree that this team is going to run a lot,

but what stood out to me were your Mark Ingram projections. Heath has him projected as RB26, Ben as RB36, and there's a difference of nearly 300 rushing yards in the projections. So, Heath, I'll let you start as the high guy on Mark Ingram here compared to Ben anyway. Where do you think the discrepancy is? You know, why, like, why do you have him rushing the ball 51 more times basically? Yeah. I mean, I think judging by what I'm seeing here, like we have not seen Mark Ingram with a big workload for quite some time and the baltimore

rush attack even when they were very run heavy in the second half of last season rarely saw someone get 20 carries in a game i think the difference here i mean it's probably three to four i think it's 41 carries over the full season there's a little difference in efficiency but it's mostly i think based on lamarar Jackson's rush yards, it may be that Ben has Lamar Jackson with a few more attempts because I also have Justice Hill and Kenneth Dixon with more rush attempts than Bendis. Is that right? Yeah, Lamar Jackson's rushing volume is like the huge point here, right? Like we have no – like last year in his eight starts, including the playoffs, he paced for over 250 carries.

I mean that's – if a quarterback rushes for over 250 carries i mean that's if a quarterback rushes for over 250 carries that kind of limits the workload for the whole offense right so that's that's pretty nuts but a big thing for me here is just that baltimore the last three years the presumed number one has basically been usurped throughout the season a couple years ago it was justin forset coming in and then terrence west ended up leading the backfield late in the year then it was terrence west the next year and alex collins ended up leading the backfield late in the year. Then it was Terrence West the next year, and Alex Collins ended up leading the backfield. Last year, we thought it was Alex Collins. It ended up being Gus Edwards late in the year.

So part of my thought is just it's just a philosophy with Baltimore and that we might see guys like Kent Thickson or Justice Hill involved throughout the year. The only counter I would have to that is none of the names you just said that have been usurped over the past three years are as talented or have the pedigree that mark ingram does sure definitely and so i i think there is a little bit of risk of looking at ingram like i'm kind of going to sound like i'm agreeing with ben here of looking at ingram as a surefire starter in fantasy partially because of the age partially because of the way they divvy up carries partially because we don't know how many of those carries Lamar Jackson's going to take. I do think he's an excellent option as a flex, and he's an okay number two running back if you're going with a wide receiver-heavy approach

at the beginning of the draft. Ben, how many fantasy-relevant players are on this team other than Lamar Jackson and Mark Ingram? I mean, maybe zero. It's really, like, very well could be zero. It depends, again, on Lamar Jackson's rushes, because if he's running and we know they're going to come down, he's not going to run 250 times. I think I projected him for about 180, which is still a ton for a quarterback. And anytime he's running, a running back isn't touching the ball. Right. Nobody's catching a pass. also look at their different positional depth charts none of them are really well like they're not there's no clarity there like the receivers okay marquis brown we we think might be the wide

receiver one uh but willie sneed will be involved miles boykin chris moore all those guys could be involved mark andrews looks like a potential sleeper tight end but hayden hearst is getting some uh some decent you know talk this offseason and then we just talked about how many running backs there are i i think especially if you're in an offense where the quarterback's going to run probably more than any other offense in the league, and then you're going to have the touches split within the positions, it's not a good

fantasy spot. And I don't really see a ton of upside, and I'm probably not going to be targeting a lot of guys here. Let's talk about Marquise Brown real quick. You guys both have him projected for right around 90 targets, 52 or 53 catches. Heath guys both have him projected for right around 90 targets, 52 or 53 catches. Heath, you have him going for more yards, 743 yards and five touchdowns.

Ben has Marquise Brown as their first-round pick out of Oklahoma who's still dealing with an injury for 665 yards and four touchdowns. And that means in terms of your projections, Heath, neither you nor Ben have Marquise Brown as a top 50 wide receiver. Yeah, and I will admit that at this point in the summer, it's a bit of a hedge for me. If Marquise Brown were to show up at training camp on day one and be a full participant, and we start getting reports that he's really developing good rapport with Lamar Jackson, then I'm probably going to bump his target share up a little bit.

The interesting thing right now, and listen, when Lamar Jackson was quarterback last year, it didn't matter who the number one wide receiver was because he didn't really throw to his wide receivers very much. But I do think there is an opening for one of these guys to be the clear number one target in the offense and maybe get 105 to 110 targets. And I don't know that Brown has a huge advantage over Boykin or Snead at this point, although he was the first-round pick. If one of those guys can get to that target share, they probably become a second flex. And, Ben, we'll finish off with Lamar Jackson.

Okay, you have him projected as QB 18. Heath has him projected as QB 14. Are we talking six-point-per points per passing touchdown leagues? Yeah. We were both using six points here. Okay. So you both have him for 18 to 20 passing touchdowns, six rushing touchdowns, similar yardage,

similar fantasy production. How confident have you been in your projections of Lamar Jackson? How much more upside is there how many not yeah he's tough right he's tough not not confident at all i mean it could be it could be a lot more rushing it could be a lot less rushing i mean again i think the reasonable range of how much he runs is like a hundred attempts and that's a ton you're talking

about fewer than you know maybe right around 500 attempts for the whole team. And it could be 20% of that one way or the other is kind of the, the, the range from Jackson's low end to high end of how much he runs this year. So that impacts a lot of stuff, his projection and the whole team. One thing I did think was really interesting with these guys, uh, they led the league last year in plays, right. And they ran more than 60 plays more than any other team. And Greg Roman, the new offensive coordinator six years as an offensive coordinator for San Francisco and Buffalo, and he coordinated teams that had similar quarterbacks, Colin Kaepernick in San Francisco, Tyrod Taylor in Buffalo, guys

that ran a lot more than a typical quarterback. All of his offenses, every one of those six years ran fewer plays than league average. They all had at least 9% more rush attempts than league average. They all had at least 12% fewer pass attempts in league average. So slower paced run heavy teams. I think we're going to see Baltimore run a lot fewer plays this year than last year. Uh, so that does limit the upside a little bit for Lamar Jackson and the whole offense as well. All right. Yeah. And I know we've got just a small difference in the number of plays. I think Lamar Jackson could legitimately be a top five quarterback this year and fantasy think Lamar Jackson could legitimately be a top five quarterback this year in fantasy, and Lamar Jackson could legitimately get benched

halfway through the season. It's all going to depend on whether his pass attempts look more like what he did in college and what he did when he was good last year or the bad stuff. Bad was so incredibly ugly that he may not get as long a leash as he deserves. The other one, before we move on to a different team, the other interesting note that I had, and I think it's a guy Ben and I both could be sleeping on,

is Mark Andrews. He was a monster when catching passes from Lamar Jackson last year. Average 23.7 yards per attempt. And there has been some buzz out of Baltimore already this summer just talking about how amazing it is, how far ahead of where he was last year. Jackson did target tight ends at a pretty high rate last year. So if they go to maybe just two tight ends involved in the passing game instead of three or four, as they have the past couple of years, I think Andrews could take a big step forward. Okay. Current projections, not so kind, but Mark Andrews is about 500 yards, three touchdowns on about 40 catches.

But again, could certainly change. So yeah, I'm going to ask Ben and Heath to end every team with a stat. They just gave them organically. Ben's stat was about the new offensive coordinator, Greg Roman, and Heath's was about Mark Andrews. So let's move on to our next team, and that would be Cincinnati. Originally I had Cleveland number two in the notes, but I just realized that I actually comes with four L in the alphabet, so I'm getting better.

And Cincinnati, they were 26th in rush attempts last year, 18th in pass attempts. They have a new head coach, Zach Taylor. He is the former Rams quarterback coach. So what are you projecting, Ben, just in general? What kind of an offense do you expect from the Bengals? Well, I mean, there's definitely upside here. There's a lot of talent.

I think it's kind of a make-or-break year for Andy Dalton. They went and drafted Ryan Finley in the middle rounds of the draft. You know, could feasibly be somebody we see this year if Andy Dalton's bad. But I think as a baseline projection, I have them as a below average offense. I have them a little slower pace than league average pretty generic projection on my part in terms of just kind of a generic, you know, like 25th best offense type team.

I do think there's some upside from that, but not really projecting them to come out and explode this year just because I don't think Dalton is that great, and they just haven't been very good the last few years. That said, do you think Mixon and A.J. Green are top 12? You both have them projected to be top 12 with their position, right? Toward the back end of the top 12. Yeah, i think that

makes sense right like if it's not a great offense they're probably not going to be top five guys but they're that you know joe mixon and aj green are good and and if they're getting the bulk of the work even at a bad offense they're still top 12 options yeah but i think like it's interesting because i noticed in the projections that ben actually has Andy Dalton 20 fantasy points more than I do. He's got him as a top 20 quarterback. I've got him outside of my top 20. I don't like that. I think I actually had him higher before Adam made me feel bad about where I had him ranked at one point. Um, but I, Tyler Boyd is the key because if we agree that Joe Mixon's a top 12 running back, AJ green is a top 12 wide receiver A.J. Green is a top 12 wide receiver,

if Tyler Boyd is a top 20 wide receiver, Andy Dalton's going to be much better than where he's being drafted this year, and he's going to be an enormous value in two quarterback leagues. Yeah, right. It's just he never—in two quarterback leagues, yes, where you have to start Andy Dalton. Well, you can't say never. Well, he rarely feels like an impact player player he's kind of a waiver wire replacement guy

yeah but he probably has the best talent around him right now maybe not of his entire career but certainly for a while boyd having broken out is pretty huge yeah um didn't connect with john ross at all but he does have that speedster if r. Ross can be a little bit productive this year. And if Tyler Eifert stays healthy at tight end, he's always been productive. I mean, he has a lot of talent around him. The interesting thing is going to be what does Zach Taylor's offense look like?

Yep. And we don't like, if you want to lean on the Sean McVay comparison, I think that's good for Tyler Boyd because it's not targeting one receiver 150, 160 times. But that's not necessarily great news for A.J. Green. Well, I feel like you guys are like a little

well, Heath maybe. You have A.J. Green just under 1,200 yards. I don't do projections, but I look at that. You're projecting him for 16 games because I know you don't project injuries for almost anyone. That just feels a little low. Ben has him at 1,273 yards. Heath at 1,193 yards.

If he plays 16 games, I don't know. How does he finish as a top 12 wide receiver without 1,200 yards, considering you have him projected, both of you, for only eight touchdowns? I would say, and I can pull up the exact projections there's probably a big log jam between like 9 and 14 in terms of total fantasy points but like the interesting thing is i've got aj green one spot ahead for ben does but ben's got him for 80 more yards and four more catches part of the reason that i have him lower is just on an efficiency basis, he hasn't been quite as good the last couple of years.

And I don't know, he is 31 years old. I don't expect him to get back to the 150, 160 targets that he had in 2012 and 2013. And I, like he played 16 games in 2017 and had 1078 yards uh yes so yeah that is true however i mean 2016 and 2018 i think he was on a much better pace yeah he's definitely been good on per like per game he's been very good throughout his career, right? But health is a big factor too. But Tyler Boyd, I mean, was good last year.

Even when Green was injured and it was clear he was the guy, he came into the league out of pit as a guy who was very, very productive in college. He wasn't very good his first two years, obviously. But I think his breakout is real. And he's going to make it harder for A.J. Green to have this monster season. At the same time, it helps A.J. Green a little bit that there's another legitimate weapon in the offense as well because AJ Green's been dealing with double teams the majority of his career so it kind of depends on Andy Dalton where Andy Dalton goes he both these guys could be solid

solid receivers if Andy Dalton plays well enough and this offense is good. Well, I just looked. His 16-game pace for the last three seasons is 85, 12, 51, and 8. That's on 146 targets. I've got him on 138 targets, which would pretty much put him right about where I've got him in terms of catches and yards. All right. I mean, I could quibble a little bit because, like, last year he played nine games, but he barely played in one of them.

So he really only played eight games last year. But I won't do that, Heath. I won't get bogged down. I will say that you guys have Joe Mixon projected for 47 and 48 catches, and you have Giovanni Bernard projected for 37 to 40 catches. So you think that if they both stay healthy, Joe Mixon catches more passes than Giovanni Bernard. Ben?

Yeah, I mean, I think that makes sense. But I think probably the other way of looking at this is that Joe Bernard is going to limit Joe Mixon's reception upside. I think a lot of people are looking at Joe Mixon's potential first-round pick. I don't think he has the same type of reception upside or even floor as a lot of the other first-round running backs. And that's a huge thing, especially in PPR leagues, for finishing as a top- the other first round running backs. And that's a huge thing for, especially in PPR leagues, for finishing as a top end running back.

One, last year we saw all those guys at the top having just really big receiving workloads and opportunity. Bernard's going to play. And I think a lot of people are concerned about Travion Williams. You know, they took two running backs in the sixth round this year,

but they also had, they needed depth at running back. They got rid of Mark Walton. I still think Gio Bernard is there pretty clear. Number two running back. It looks like he does as well. When you look at the projections, he's going to he's going to play solid. They've been talking him up a little bit this offseason is still an important part of their offense. So I think, you know, Mixon is definitely the clear number one, but Bernard being there and the fact that he's more of a receiving back does limit Mixon's overall statistical upside, in my opinion.

And that was actually my stat. So I'll just go ahead and give it because it's kind of fits in here. I was really surprised when I was going through doing projections because it felt like Joe Mixon took a bigger share of the receiving load. But Bernard still averaged four targets per game in the games that he played last year mixon's usage in the passing game wasn't really as high when he when bernard was on the field so i i'm a little like i do think that mixon probably catches more passes than bernard but not a lot more okay and ben what is your stat of the Bengals? Yeah, kind of just an interesting note that I found,

but per Sports Info Solutions, John Ross last year, his catchable target rate was 50%. It was the lowest in the NFL for anybody with like 30 or more targets, and there was only one other player below 60%. So him and Andy Dalton do not have a very good connection, but I also think the flip side of that, we look at how bad he was from an efficiency standpoint, literally half of his targets

were graded uncatchable. There's still some potential that he could be a useful player at the NFL level. Alright, let's go to the Cleveland Browns. Last year they were 15th in rush attempts, 11th in pass attempts. I don't know if it makes sense to even look at anything from last year. I mean, they got a new offensive coordinator

in Todd Monken, who joins head coach Freddie Kitchens, who was a midseason promotion that kept the job. But obviously you've got an ascending quarterback, and you've got Odell Beckham. And I did find it kind of interesting that your projections for the main players on the Cleveland Browns were pretty similar. But Heath, can you really draw on any history here, or is it just sort of a blank slate

for the browns my question is like i you can and we will know at some point this season which history we should draw on but i like even the offensive coordinator history todd monken has been under dirk cutter who largely has called his own plays for the time that they were there together. I don't know. And now he's going to Cleveland where Freddie kitchens got the job because, and called his own plays in the second half of last season. I don't know whether to use kitchens or Monkens. So I've kind of used a little bit of a blend of the two. It,

and there have been some reports already this summer that maybe the transition to Monk's offense or philosophy hasn't been as smooth as was expected. It's an interesting situation just with the success that they had in the second half of last year, largely using Kitchen's system with no input from anyone else. And now they're bringing in Todd Munkin, who's had some really great offensive success we don't

know how much of it's his because he's been with Dirk Cutter yeah that's really interesting I'll jump into my key stat right now because it fits uh Todd Monken's Tampa Bay offenses last year and you mentioned we don't know how much of them were just his but Tampa Bay as a team they were the only team both of the last two years with over 6,000 total air yards, just both completed and attempted passes, how far downfield they were. And if you combine the two over the last two seasons, Tampa Bay has like almost 20 percent more air yards than any other team, which is just an insane volume boost. What's interesting is if you combine the last two seasons, 2017 and 2018, the team that's number two in air yards is Cleveland. So the one thing I do think fits with Monken and Kinchin's from like a scheme perspective or at least their history, and we don't know how much, again, is theirs and what they want to do. But both of them have been with coaching staffs that have been willing to really press the ball down the field.

Jarvis Landry last year we saw having having 11.9 average depth of target ADOT he was never above eight in Miami I mean he went up over four yards on average of depth on his pass attempts I think that will come back down a little bit with OBJ there but David Njoku gets a lot of downfield looks for a tight end um I think we're going to see a lot of vertical passing in this offense which is like very good for fantasy it's good for baker it's good for the receiving core a lot of upside here i think yeah the other interesting thing and it goes kind of with my stat and with what's happened with monk and last year jarvis landry once kitchens took over only had a 21 percent target share and there were not a lot of other talented wide receivers on that team they were just spreading the ball around and not even to the same guys every week. If you look at Tampa Bay over the last two seasons, Mike Evans

has averaged about 8.8 targets per game. They have really spread the ball around to Godwin, to Adam Humphries, to the tight ends. And so I do wonder with Odell Beckham, a guy who has basically been 10 and a half, 11 targets per game over his career in New York, if he's going to see a little bit of a pullback in terms of the number of opportunities he has. Okay, well let's talk about Beckham. Ben has him projected for 150 targets, Heath for 139.

Ben has him having a better season. I mean, 12 more catches, 250 more yards. Wide receiver 4 compared to wide receiver 7. Heath projects him at wide receiver 7, Ben at wide receiver wide receiver four ben you don't seem to share those concerns really about the targets for for odell beckham yeah no i mean i i think i do actually share those concerns but i would say that in terms of you know how i'm projecting him i just think he's such a talented player and i think that for him it's such a massive upgrade, both in terms of the offense

and in terms of the quarterback play. I mean, I think Eli Manning, we've seen all circulating on social media and all over the place, the, the gifts and the, the videos of how many times Eli Manning missed Odo Beckham over his career. A lot of people are really excited about Odo Beckham playing with an improved quarterback. Right. And we don't know for sure that Beckham Mayfield's a stud, but I think he's probably going to be quite a bit of a step up for Beckham. And I think Beckham is just that talented that I do share some of those concerns, but I'm willing to project that he will dominate the targets the way that most teams have a number one that really kind of dominates targets

in the way that, as he said, Jarvis didn't last year. Just to clarify the point, because I was kind of doing the math here. It looks like we both have Odell Beckham at a 25% target rate. The difference is Ben has the Browns throwing 40 more passes than I do this year. Right. And that gets back to our comment at the top. I actually have in my, like, I take notes as i do these projections in my notes to what adam said i wrote couldn't use prior use prior years and i just chose to go up tempo with a slight pass lean but you're absolutely right adam like we can't look at what they've done in the past they're going to be a better team as well they're going to instead of playing from behind in a bad game script they're going to probably play from ahead a little bit more this

year so we might not see them be a team that leans towards the pass. That's how I went with the projection, but I totally see why Heath didn't go that way necessarily. So it's a tough team from a team volume perspective to project. Yeah, one thing I noticed with Baker Mayfield was that when Freddie Kitchens took over and they started winning more games, he didn't throw the ball as much. His fantasy production was still really good because he threw a lot of touchdowns,

but his pass attempts were down when the Browns were winning. They were more of a running team. I think that they have a good enough team where they don't have to have a high volume to have good offensive production like what we've seen in the past with the Packers, not last year necessarily, but Aaron Rodgers didn't throw the ball that much, and he was just so good. I'm not saying Baker Mayfield's that, but they just have enough talent where guys can get theirs without them being a high-volume passing team. But let's transition to Nick Chubb here and what you expect from him, because I think it's

interesting. Baker Mayfield, you guys, Heath has him projected as QB7, and Ben has him projected as QB5. Heath, do you have him ranked as QB7, Baker Mayfield? Actually, the two guys that I've got ahead of him in the projections, I'm both a little bit concerned about injuries right now, so he is QB5 in the rankings. Who are those two? It is Cam Newton. And Wentz, I think, right?

And Wentz. Okay, so let's go to Nick Chubb, because neither of you have him projected as a top 12 running back. In fact, Ben, you have him 18th, RB 18 in your projection. That would be a borderline bust. I mean, that means you're getting like a pretty inconsistent, I would say, guy. And Heath, you have Chubb at RB 13. So for Ben, how much of that was the impending return of Kareem Hunt after his suspension?

I mean, definitely a little bit. I gave Kareem Hunt 80 touches, it looks like, for the season, which is only going to be eight games, right? So I'm giving him about 10 touches a game when he comes back, thinking that they might go into a little bit more of a committee. That's a tough one to read, obviously. We know that. But Chubb is very good. And again, I also leaned a little bit pass heavy with my team projection. So that limited how much I was projecting him in terms of rush attempts as well, having just under 250 rush attempts.

And I don't have him doing a ton on the receiving side, which is really the big thing I think that pushes down his projection because I have Duke Johnson still involved. And then later if Kareem Hunt comes back, he's a strong pass catcher as well. So, um, don't, don't think I like it where he comes out of my projections. I think I'm probably ranking him a little bit higher than that, but that's just kind of where, where my projection came out. It's a little bit pessimistic for sure. Yeah, I've got, I think I've got him ranked two or three spots ahead of where i have him projected so he's closer to running back

10 or 11 in my actual rankings i do think that like the chub the difference in our chub projection and ranking can be traced right back to the difference in the baker mayfield and odell beckham projection and ranking and it's mostly just about Ben has this offense more high-paced and more pass-heavy than I do. You want to give me a quick thought about Jarvis Landry, guys, and Antonio Callaway real quick, and we'll move on? Callaway, I want to give a quick thought on. If we do see a lot of three wide receiver sets like Monkins,

Offenses, and Tempe, we're running a lot of. If we see some more of that, to me, he fits really well in that deshaun jackson role and we and jarvis landry would be more like the adam humphries the jackson slash chris godwin role and we saw that be very successful if there are a lot of air yards that's the way um you know multiple guys can hit beckham would be like the the mike evans right and then landry would be like the adam humphries who put up good numbers and callaway would be kind of that downfield field stretcher and i think he does have have pretty good best ball value, I would say, as a late round guy that could have some splash weeks.

And I like Callaway even more than Ben does. So we're on the same page there. All right, cool. Let's go to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Heath, what does it mean to you that the three of the four teams in the AFC North start with a B or a C and Pittsburgh's all the way down a P in the alphabet like I'm just kind of realizing how different alphabetically they are so yeah I do think it's interesting that Ben has them projected for 621 pass attempts 404 rush attempts I'm not gonna go as pass heavy as they were last season but I do still have been attempting more passes than any other quarterback this season. Yeah, and that's a big deal.

I think I do as well, but I just think the difference in our run pass splits is just that I regress them probably a little bit more heavy towards like a league average. But I don't think you're wrong in doing it your way either. I think it's totally viable because the Steelers,

of all the teams that were extremely pass-heavy last year, some of the other teams were like the Packers and the Vikings. Those teams all pretty much had negative game scripts. They were worse than expected as a team, and they tried to throw to get back in games. The Steelers actually had a positive average game script last year. I think they finished 9-6-1. It was their final win-loss record.

They chose to throw. They didn't throw because of game situations. They chose to throw. They should still be because of game situations. They chose to throw. They should still be expected to be a pretty pass-heavy team. Did you – or I guess how much did you lower Ben's efficiency due to the loss of Antonio Brown? Because I've dropped him down to 7.3 yards per attempt. I dropped him down I think below a 5% touchdown rate to like 4.8 or something.

The interceptions are up a little bit, and I've still got him ranked in the top 10. Yeah. I mean, the volume is, is key for him, right? I know I dropped his efficiency.

I don't have that right in front of me, but I know it definitely comes down a little bit without Brown. It has to, right? Like that's, that's a huge thing. I, I do think Juju Smith Schuster is,

is the real deal. I, I, the big thing I look at with, with prospects is age-adjusted production, so basically just how good a guy was at certain age levels. He came into college really young, was productive pretty much immediately at USC. He came into the NFL at age 20. He's only 22 right now. He's younger than some of the rookie receivers. I know he's younger than Debo Samuel.

I think Hakeem Butler are a couple of the guys that he's already played two years at the NFL level, and he's younger than these guys. he's been more productive at the nfl level over the last two years than these guys were in college uh i think juju smith schuster is a legitimate stud and is going to be a high-end wide receiver one for several years to come again still just 22 has so much uh you know ahead of him he can he people are worried about him transitioning to the wide receiver one role i'm taking it the way. I have him projected for the most targets in the NFL. I think he's going to pretty easily step into the wide receiver one role. And I don't think it's going to be much of a drop off for him because I just think that guy's really good. And I have him projected for six more

targets than Ben. Yes. And actually had him in the first run of my projections as my number one wide receiver overall. Yeah. And I have him at wide receiver two at the end of mine. So we're both very high on him. It's really easy to be that high on him. He had a 25% target share last year alongside Antonio Brown. He had 166 targets last year alongside Antonio Brown. And the thing that really makes that kind of crazy, and this is, this is my kind of my key stat for Pittsburgh before Juju last year, no wide receiver a tight end other than antonio brown hit 100 targets in this offense from 2014 to 2017 for four straight years bell did a couple of times in that in that span levy on bell but we knew for a lot of years

that uh big ben liked to zero in on antonio brown That was just like the thing that we took for granted. So that puts into context even more the fact that Juju, earning 166 targets in this offense, what an accomplishment that was. And again, that's why I think this guy is just going to be totally fine stepping into the wider receiver one role. I also think that impacts the other receivers in this offense. Vance McDonald, James Washington, Dante Moncrief. I think that key stat, we might see that play out again.

I think Juju dominates targets, and then those guys are all just kind of cannibalizing each other. Well, my number was 675. That's the number of passes that Ben Roethlisberger threw, and I'll just use that to continue talking about Juju. I don't want people to think, oh, they love Juju. They're telling us about his upside. I tried to leave some room for upside here we saw antonio brown get over 180 targets multiple times in this offense i'm still only projecting juju for 10 touchdowns despite 111 catches for

1415 yards he could very easily be the number one wide receiver this year. Yeah, I mean, we just talked about it. This offense is a good offense to project for the most pass attempts in the league, right? And he had a quarter of the targets in the offense last year playing alongside Brown. I totally agree with you. There's upside for 200 targets this year. I mean, there legitimately is.

So what about Allen Robinson as the downside of the guy who had this huge year, 80 catches, 1,400 yards, 14 touchdowns in 2015, gets a lot more attention in 2016 and has not backed it up, has not been the same player? I mean, do you get scared of that scenario? Because I understand the projections, but we've never really – well, I shouldn't say we haven't seen Juju without Antonio Bale. We actually have, and it's been pretty

spectacular. Week 17 last year was a struggle, though. But in 2016, he played like 2.75 games without Antonio Brown, and he was really, really good. But I guess just the fact of being the number one guy, not something you could necessarily project.

Is he good enough? You think he is yeah i mean i the alan robinson thing is a fair warning the thing i would say is alan robinson didn't have juju's track record as a prospect he had a good one a good track record but not quite as good as juju's and he didn't have he didn't come into the league at 20 and start producing as well as juju did right away at 20 years old and then back that up at 21 years old. For Juju, we have two years now where he's been pretty darn productive. So my response to that would just be that Robinson hadn't displayed as much as Juju has. Okay.

Let's talk about James Conner, Heath, and you both have him projected as RB7. I brought up a serious concern that I have with Connor on the last show we did and it was just that you look at week 17 Jalen Samuels he had like seven catches so Samuels sort of got more involved in the passing game then Connor got hurt and when Connor came back Samuels stayed very involved in the passing game then connor got hurt and when connor came back samuel stayed very involved in the passing game and so much of what connor did last year was in the passing game like he saved his bacon basically by being a total stud catching passes scoring touchdowns getting yards so you don't based on your projection you don't seem to be too concerned though heath about james

connor well i i don't know that that's true because he played what, 12 and a half games last year and had 215 carries and received 71 targets. I've got him projected for 77 targets over 16 games. I do have 45 of those targets going to Jalen Samuels. I only have him for 248 carries, so I'm not giving him anywhere close to the Le'Veon Bell workload. I'm actually, I feel like I'm believing a little bit in what they've been saying this summer. I don't feel comfortable doing it because the Steelers have shown us for the past decade that they don't do this. And now they're all saying they're going to chop up work a little bit. I don't know that I necessarily believe it, but I've tried to shade the projections a little bit towards what they've said. Before that, I had James Conner as my number five running back in PPR. So I have downgraded him just

a little bit. I am just a little bit concerned, but it wasn't just work in the passing game that he did last year either. He was used at the goal line and inside the five-yard line in a way that Le'Veon Bell really wasn't when he was there. He had 12 rushing touchdowns. He did average 4.5 yards per attempt on the ground, too. It's not like he was bad running the ball. So, yeah, I think he's going to be good, and they're still upside beyond where we have him projected.

All right, I've got to wrap up on the Steelers here, Ben, but certainly worth mentioning. You and Heath have Vance McDonald projected for very similar numbers. Within two catches, within three yards, Ben, you have Vance McDonald with one more touchdown, and you have him as tight end seven, and Heath has him as tight end 14. Yeah, so I have this

huge tier that is six points apart at tight end that starts at tight end seven, goes down to tight end 13. My projection is only like 6.9 points higher than than he's this is just an example of where like rankings aren't as great necessarily as giving a little bit more context because he i mean uh vance comes out atop this like big tier for me but that doesn't mean i'm drafting him tight end seven i'm kind of if i get to that

point at tight end kind of waiting to see whoever falls because i think there's a big group of guys it includes like jordan reed and Jared Cooks in there. I mean, everybody outside the top six tight ends, which is Ingram and O.J. Howard and Hunter Henry are my four, five, six behind the top three. So anybody, you know, there's just this big tier for me right after that. Cool. All right. That's the Steelers.

That's the AFC North. We're halfway home. Let me tell you about our Facebook group. Go on Facebook.com. The Facebook.com. And remember when it was the Facebook? Wow. And you don't remember that, Heath? No, I was too old to use it then. Did you see the movie? I think when it was the Facebook, it was only for college kids and I was already out of college. Oh, maybe. Did you see the movie, though? Yes. It was excellent.

You don't remember Drop the The? Drop the The? No. Come on. One of the best parts. Go to our Facebook group. Join it. I have been approving one to two posts a day. I currently have about 100 posts in my queue to approve. The thing is I'm just not going to do that

because if I approve everybody's posts, it'll be the most annoying Facebook group ever. What I might do is I might start a post like, hey, ask your keeper questions here. And you can comment on it or something like that. I have to figure out. I don't know Facebook all that well. I don't know the Facebook all that well. So I have to figure out what is less annoying and more fun for everybody.

And we'll get it. So just like I keep saying, be patient. But join the group. Over 2,000 members so far. It's a lot of fun. CBS Sports HQ, make sure you download that. That certainly has more than 2,000 members. And download the CBS Sports app on your Roku, on your Apple TV, on your Amazon Fire, wherever you're watching. CBS Sports HQ is on the CBS Sports app, and it's all free, and it's 24-7 sports coverage. And I met Ben Gretsch in person last week.

And we went to my favorite barbecue spot in the world, my favorite restaurant in New York City, Hill Country Barbecue. And we dominated. And it was great to meet Ben, but even better to have food like that, I'd say. Yeah, that was delicious. I mean, that was – I haven't been to a barbecue place like that where you just go up and order by weight how much you want of each type of meat. And we just got a huge old platter and went to town. Man, that was a really good meal. Yeah.

It felt like a caveman. It was just like so basic and I don't know. It was just wonderful. And I think it was good because Ben was surprisingly pleased. But he probably thought, oh, Acercer takes in movies and music are terrible. This restaurant's going to suck. And I came through, and then I'm pretty sure I convinced him by the end of the night that Jerry Maguire is not a sports movie. Let's go to the NFC North to the Chicago Bears.

Now, the Chicago Bears have a bit of a logjam at running back, but I find it interesting, guys, that Jordan Howard, who's no longer on the team, he only missed one game over three seasons, but he had 250 carries or more. Three straight seasons. Do we project anyone to get 250 carries on the Bears'

Heath? We do not, and I come closer than Ben does. My stat was actually that there were 299 total touches last year from the running backs in this offense, not named Tariq Cohen. And if we got a little more indication that David Montgomery didn't have to worry at all about Mike Davis, I think it's more likely that we might get someone there. But I have David Montgomery leading the team with two hundred and three carries. Two hundred. So, yeah. And I only have been 171 part of that is for me it's not just mike davis it's that jordan jordan howard and david montgomery are different types of back so without howard i added a little bit more pace

this offense and made them a little bit more pass heavy. And I have Montgomery doing more in the passing game than anything that Howard did. Not a ton more, but just I'm figuring that they will throw more with a player like that on the field than when they had Jordan Howard on the field because Howard is kind of one-dimensional. So I don't come out with a great projection for Montgomery, partly and mostly because of Tariq Cohen. I think his role has been so consistent the last couple of years. He's been so productive. I think he's going to continue to see that same type of workload, the dual, you know, 90 rush attempts, 80 targets type roles. What I have here, he had 91 targets last year, so I dropped him down a little bit. But a big part of this is just I have them a little bit more shifting to a little bit more of a pass heavy lean okay so last thing then on the on the running backs when you have a situation like this i don't even know if you do it this way but do you project david montgomery

to have the same type of involvement from week one through week 17 or do you expect a slow build up and then like you haven't projected his rb 29 but is it a situation where it's like well the first four weeks you're not getting anything after that he's like a top 15 running back i do that with some backs but i'm not doing that with montgomery i think he's a high enough level prospect that i expect him to be contributing from week one yeah that would be a good explanation of like why i was a little bit low on mark ingram's end of season line because i think that throughout the, he might lose some of that work. You know, why I was a little bit lower on Nick Chubb's end of season line.

But that's not necessarily what I would project Nick Chubb for week one. But yeah, I agree with Heath. I don't think that necessarily comes into play here. I think Montgomery's going to probably be pretty involved right away. Okay, so then let's go to the passing game. Ben, if you expect them to pass the ball more, do you see any breakouts in the passing game? It was very evenly distributed last year

in a very frustrating fashion too. And Trubisky finished in 14 games as QB 15. Do you see anyone, Trubisky or a receiver or a tight end, whatever, breaking out? So yeah, that was my you know my takeaway too from last year was how frustratingly even it was when i dug into the numbers a little bit um i think alan robinson was more of a wide receiver one than he gets credit for in the fancy community he still had the team in targets even though he only played 13 games

um and then his biggest game was in their one playoff game. I think he went 12 targets, 10 catches, over 100 yards, and a touchdown. If you take a 16-game pace, including his playoff game, so he played 14 games last year. He missed three regular season games. And you turn that into a 16-game pace, it's 122 targets, 74 receptions, 1,025 yards. It would have been wide receiver 20 in PPR last year. Even with some kind of

depressed TDs, he scored five touchdowns, including that playoff touchdown. His actual fancy finish was wide receiver 40. So it would have been way better last year. And again, that's just what he did last year, including the playoff game and not knocking him for missing a couple games with a little bit of nagging injuries he had. And we know that receivers sometimes have a little bit of a hard time when they change teams. So I think there's some potential for him to actually grow on that in year two, knowing the offense a little bit better, knowing Trubisky a little bit better. I'm kind of starting to like him as a value. He's definitely a little bit depressed, and we know he has pretty big upside

from what he did in Jacksonville, which you alluded to earlier in the show. And I've got him 12 spots below where Ben does, but this is another one of those situations. It's two things. One, I don't have the team going quite as pass-heavy as Ben does. I think I've got him for 25 fewer pass attempts this year, which leads to a few fewer targets for Robinson. And the other thing is I just have an enormous tier at wide receiver

that starts right around wide receiver 27 and runs down to wide receiver 36 and there's only five points separating them and i think we'd say the same thing for tight end and trey burton appears to fit into that you know vance mcdonald's here you guys have them just outside your top 12 and projections very similar projections 570 ish yards five touchdowns 51 to 55 catches um yeah you guys seem pretty similar here, except Taylor Gabriel. Ben, you have him, I would say, significantly higher. Getting 17 more targets, getting 10 more catches,

115 more yards and another touchdown. Taylor Gabriel, you like him better than Anthony Miller. Yeah, I mean, he saw pretty solid volume last year. If you go back, I think he was second on the team behind Robinson by only a single target, I think. The big thing for me with him is that he has a defined role in the offense. He's kind of that Swiss Army knife.

He's probably their best deep threat. They also like to throw bubble screens to him, get him in motion, do some of the things that when Nagy was in Kansas City, they were doing with Tyree Kill. So he's not obviously on the Tyree Kill caliber, but I do think he's not going to just disappear, even if Anthony Miller takes a step forward,

because I think they have him for a pretty specific role. So that's a great indication. You pointed out where I'm a little bit higher than Heath. That's where those extra pass attempts are going for me is that I have Taylor Gabriel as kind of a viable option. Okay. Wide receiver four. All right, let's go on to the Green Bay Packers then.

And, you know, Aaron Rodgers, I mentioned it earlier in his career. He didn't really throw that much and still was amazing. Starting to throw the ball a little bit more. Let me just get my notes. I think they were, like, among the leaders. They were one of the lowest in rush attempts last year. Green Bay. Oh, I skipped Detroit.

Went out of alphabet. That's okay. They were third in pass attempts and 32nd in rush attempts. The alphabet is not as easy as you think, you know? Like, I haven't done it in so long. I guess I've just forgotten. We'll go right to Green Bay, though. Heath, with a new offensive coordinator,

well, with a new head coach, Matt LaFleur, how different does this offense look? From everything we've heard so far this summer, and we kind of have to go on what we heard, because I don't think we just want to give Matt LaFleur what Sean McVay's done, and I don't think we want to assume that he's going to do the same thing he did in Tennessee when he had Derek Henry, Dion Lewis and Matt Castle and Marcus Mariota. So

it's a little bit of a guessing game, but I expect this team to be less pass happy than they were. I expect them to be a little bit more creative in terms of actual production in the passing game. And I, the other thing that I'm a little bit concerned about in terms of Devontae Adams is I don't know that they're going to throw as many targets to one player as they did in 2018. I expect it to be more multiple than it was. There's been a lot of talk about how they aren't really going

to encourage Aaron Rodgers to improvise in the line of scrimmage. It's scary to think how that might work based on reports we have about how Aaron Rodgers to improvise the line of scrimmage it's scary to think how that might work based on reports we have about how Aaron Rodgers feels about just running an offense but it's going to be interesting Ben what's your stat to know for the Packers yeah I mean so across Aaron Rodgers career seven different guys have had eight plus receiving TDs um that includes guys like Richard Rodgers, Jermichael Finley, James Jones did it a couple of times. Randall Cobb did it a couple of times.

I mean, obviously Devontae Adams and Jordy Nelson and Greg Jennings earlier in Rodgers' career as a starter. But some of these breakouts have come out of nowhere is kind of the point of this stat. I mean, Devontae Adams was thought of as a boss after two seasons and had that monster third season where he was kind of an afterthought in drafts. James Jones did that earlier in his career. Jordy Nelson's 15 touchdown season earlier in his career came as kind of the third receiver. Jones did it again after he was cut from the Giants that year when

Jordy Nelson tore his ACL and he came in and was their lead receiver that year um they added him in August so I I use this word unprojectable with some of some of my projection projection things and and with Rodgers there there is going to probably be a receiver on this offense that has an unprojectable touchdown right it's just too high of a rate for us to just guess at um but I think you should just recognize that it could be anyone and they all have similar upside it could be geronimo allison it could be marquez valdo scantling it could be jimmy graham i just noted two tight ends that have done uh that 8td thing even with adams being productive that's very possible that we see another guy have eight to ten touchdowns i really like marquez valdo scantling uh his upside is somebody i'm targeting drafts but i

also think jimmy graham is a reasonable late-round tight end option. And again, Geronimo Allison, I know Heath really likes. I'll let him chat about him. Heath? Geronimo? Yeah, I really liked Geronimo Allison more about two weeks ago. Sure, yeah. Until all the off-season stuff started happening when we found out Marquez Valdez-Scantling was running in the two wide receiver sets.

And that kind of sounds more like Allison's going to settle into that Randall Cobb role, which has been good at times in the past and mostly terrible over the last three years. So right now I've got the targets pretty much split. The secondary targets split evenly between Valdez-Scantling and Allison, both of them right around 90 targets in the offense. I do think it's going to be interesting in terms of rogers himself my stat to know was that rogers over the last four seasons 7.1 yards per attempt that ranks 20th amongst quarterbacks with at least a thousand start attempts in that time period

there have only been 30 quarterbacks to do it. If the volume goes down, and I am projecting that number to come up, that number has to come up or he's not going to be anywhere close to worth what he's going to cost on draft. He played hurt all year. That's over the last four years. Oh, sorry.

But last year he was hurt. Yeah, he has been hurt a lot. Last year was his best yard per attempt over the last four years. Oh, wow. That is interesting. No, there's definitely been some signs of slippage for Rodgers. I think Devontae Adams, you guys have him projected as wide receiver five, both of you.

And I know he's not going to get targeted like Juju. I don't think he will. But basically the number one wide receiver on the Packers when Rodgers is healthy, he pretty much finishes first or second in fantasy every year unless he gets hurt. Last year, Adams was the number one receiver going into Week 17. He didn't play Week 17.

Maybe he was number two in non-PPR, but I don't know. I don't love having him at five. It's more optimism on Juju and Odell Beckham that jump on my head, and then I think Julio Jones is my wide receiver four. I don't love it. I don't love having him at five. It's more optimism on Juju and Odell Beckham that jump on my head, and then I think Julio Jones is my wide receiver four. I don't love it. I don't love the fact that because I'm so optimistic on Juju and Odell,

it means that I probably won't draft a lot of Devonta Adams this year. But when you think about Odell versus Adams, do you take Odell's injury history into account? Yes. Yeah, I think that's fair. You can definitely comment on that but i i think you know we're sitting here talking about how rogers may have lost a little bit of a step maybe the offense isn't the same as it was i also don't think that i trust um i'm not saying that

baker's like better than aaron rogers already but i also don't think that i trust the the volume in the offense i think i i i'm pretty optimistic on cleveland throwing a lot more i don't necessarily think that the packer's gonna throw a are going to throw nearly as much this year as I expect the Browns to based on the coordinator history mainly. So for me, it's just a little bit more faith in the offense, and I think the Browns are really on the way up, which is kind of hard to say because we know Aaron Rodgers obviously has extreme upside. But one's going on the way

up one's maybe coming on the way down I wind up a little bit more optimistic on the Browns offense all right so I do want to move to Detroit since I so unceremoniously skipped them but Heath I have to ask you you have Jamal Williams projected for 157 carries and Aaron Jones for 212 whereas Ben has Jones for two 13, basically right. The same as you, but, but Jamal Williams only for 98 compared to your 157 carries.

Very different outlooks here for these backfields. Heath. Yeah. Well, I've got him running more, a little bit more as part of the thing, but I just don't, I don't feel confident in Aaron Jones ability to be a workhorse back over a 16-game season.

And I don't feel like I've seen anything yet from LeFleur that would tell me he wants to have a workhorse back. So I'm expecting a little bit more of a committee. What's interesting, though, is where the rest of those rush times go for me is to Dexter Williams, who I think might actually compete with Jamal Williams for the number two job. Because I don't think we really think Jamal Williams is very good either. Right? Right. Yeah, that's true.

I absolutely hate the early season schedule for Aaron Jones. Chicago and Minnesota in weeks one and two at Washington. Oh, no, no. I'm sorry. I'm looking at last year, but I do think they open with Chicago and Minnesota again. I'm not sure if we can check that. Let's get a little Green Bay schedule check, and then we'll transition to, yeah, they do.

Chicago, Minnesota, Denver, Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit. I hate their early season schedule. Remember, Detroit with Snacks Harrison, really good against the run. Chicago, Minnesota, always good against the run. Denver, not sure, but could be pretty good. Same with Philadelphia. Dallas, usually very good against the run. Denver, not sure, but could be pretty good. Same with Philadelphia. Dallas, usually very good against the run. That is a terrible schedule and something we're going to have to talk about a little bit more.

All right, two more teams. Definitely going long on today's show. I know all you people who want us to do longer shows are going to be very happy about Projection Week. The Detroit Lions are next. They were 18th in rush attempts and 11th in pass attempts in 2018. They have a new offensive coordinator, Heath Darrell Bevel, and you guys have no love for Matthew Stafford in your projections. I think you have him outside the top 25 in your projections,

certainly outside the top 20. But, Heath, how much does Darrell Bevel change your opinion on what we might see from Detroit this year? He has caused me to make this offense just a little bit more run heavy than I had initially. Lions are a team that over the last three or four years have talked a lot about wanting to have a good run team and have a good defense. And they've just failed every time. I think they have Kerryon Johnson, someone who is able to do that.

It's just whether he can stay healthy and whether they give him a high enough percentage of the carries. But yeah, I think they're going to be more run heavy. I think they're probably going to be a little bit more slower paced, which is not necessarily great news for the wide receivers and definitely not good news for Matthew Stafford. I had this conversation with Jamie on our last show. We were talking about third year breakouts. Does Kenny galladay have a chance to have like a massive year you know top five top maybe top eight i'll knock it down a little bit and he didn't really seem to think so and and i do but i'm not sure how much conviction i have so yeah let's talk about those wide receivers and kenny galladay and marvin jones and ben what do you see from them this year yeah i mean i think the big thing that i noticed when i looked at mine and his projections here is that I was a lot more pass heavy and probably too pass heavy.

It's probably something that I'll tweak. And that was just a big takeaway I had. But I do think it's interesting that and my key stat for the Lions is just their win over under. It's six and a half or seven, depending where you get it. And they're all pretty much juiced to the under. People don't think the Lions are going to be very good my i know they want to run more my question is can can they run more can they be in game situations where they can run more are they going to be trailing a lot and not a very good team and in situations where they have to

throw more in the second half um that's kind of why i wound up with a little bit more pass volume so in terms of whether where the receivers come out my projections are pretty optimistic i've getting all day wide receiver 16 i end up getting marvin jones into the top 30 receivers at wide receiver 27 again probably needed to drop down their pass volume a little bit i think it's a little higher than i like but i i could see those two guys primarily being the big focal points of the offense. Even though I have more volume, I have fewer targets for Amendola and TJ Hawkinson, who are kind of the other two downfield targets than he does. So I think it's going to be more concentrated to Galladay and Marvin Jones. I mean, I think I think Galladay does have that upside if they're bad enough that they have to throw a ton.

Yeah. And I will say that the key for Galladay, I don't have this offense very concentrated at all at this point. I've got Galladay at 116 targets. Ben right now has about 137. That number might come down a little bit, but I, the key for Galladay is for it to be very concentrated. It's an exam. Take some from Marvin Jones as well. He, I think he probably with the efficiency I expect from the pass offense, he's going to need somewhere close

to 140 targets to jump into the type of range you're talking about. And I don't really think top 5 or 8 is really possible, but top 12 is absolutely possible. I love the talent. Yeah, but you have him projected to basically be a bust with 1,052 yards and 6 touchdowns. I mean,

that would be a terrible, because he's going right now on the Fantasy Pros consensus rankings. Kenny Galladay is wide receiver 18, and he's not going to be wide receiver 18 with those numbers. No, no. I do have him currently projected to be a bust, and I don't like that. This is not a I don't like Kenny Galladay thing

or I don't think he's talented. I just... I'm not particularly excited about Dararyl bevel running the offense or what their plan is and i don't think they're necessarily like we talked about it with the browns so they're gonna have lower pass volume they've got enough talent and they're good enough where they could still just be awesome i don't think that's the case in detroit right and i feel the exact same way about galladay i mean i i don't like that i'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on him in drafts but i'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on him in drafts, but I'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on him.

So why is such a low carry projection, Ben, on Kerryon Johnson at just 202? Well, I see you have a sizable chunk, both of you, to C.J. Anderson. Heath projects C.J. Anderson for 133 carries, Ben for 121. And another interesting thing here is that you're both projecting Theo Riddick to be involved in the passing game somewhere between 35 and 42 catches. And then we had that report that, you know, Kerryon Johnson could catch 70 passes this year. You're not buying it as long as Theo Riddick's on the roster, it seems. But I don't know, Ben, I look at your projection, 246 total touches for Kerryon Johnson. I would hope for more if he's going to have a breakout, certainly.

Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely hoping for more. Part of that is, again, I'm probably too pass heavy on the offense. I only have them at 404 rush attempts, which would be pretty well below average. If they do run more than I'm projecting, then carry on's number comes up a little bit. But yeah, I mean, I think replacing

like Garrett Blount almost directly with CJ Anderson, you have to feel like they're probably going to do kind of a similar balance that they had last year. They've talked about that. We know Matt Patricia comes from New England where they've done that for years. I just kind of, I really like Kerrigan Johnson, another guy whose talent I really like. I just kind of don't like that he has this back and CJ Anderson behind him behind him who's going to probably steal some rush attempts and then this back and theo riddick who's probably going to steal some pass attempts is the same situation he was in last year he's a do-everything guy but he's got guys vulturing him on both sides so it's kind of tough and i i have him at just a little bit ahead of where ben does i think at running back 15 in ppr

and i feel like it's too low we have just 13.9 PPR fantasy points per game last year. That was with LeGarrette Blount stealing basically. He had three touchdowns on the entire season or four touchdowns, three on the ground, one in the air or something. I expect a little better touchdown luck, and I think there is immense upside. I do think a top six or seven season is more likely from Kerryon Johnson than it is from Kenny Galladay. Okay. I agree with that. And the report was that

the Detroit Free Press expected 60-plus catches, not 70-plus catches from Kerryon Johnson. Sorry, I misspoke there. I'd be really happy with 60-plus targets. You gave your stats. Ben's stat was the Detroit win total, 6.5 to 7. It's the over-under. Heath's stat, the

13.9 Ppr fantasy points per game for carry on johnson um do you want to do we care about marvin jones is he exciting in any way he's a tough one for me i mean he was pretty solid on a per game basis last year before he got hurt he was projected he was on pace for over 100 targets i think nine touchdowns a pretty solid season i came out with a pretty good projection for him, but I've been trying to find ways to lower that down. I don't want to be taking him. Yeah, wow.

You have him projected at wide receiver 27, 984 yards and seven touchdowns. Just give some more to carry on Johnson and be done with it, Ben. Right. I mean, that's what I got to do. The one thing I do think could happen with no more Golden Tate with Matthew Stafford's just uh pass kind of profile is that he'll probably throw more downfield passes I mean they had so many short passes to Golden Tate I think he'll start to push more downfield um so that's that's where I wound up there I had I have Stafford throwing a

little bit of a deeper average depth of target than he has in the last several seasons and I think Galladay and Jones would be kind of the two main guys as downfield options. But, you know, I don't, Jones is not a guy that has big upside, even less than Galladay.

Cause I don't think he's nearly as talented first of all. And then the offense issues apply to him too. So he's not a guy that I want to be taking. All right. Last team here. Last team is the Minnesota Vikings. My, how the mighty have fallen.

You guys do not have Kirk Cousins projected to be a top 20 quarterback. Granted, there are a lot of great quarterbacks this year, but, Heath, you have Kirk Cousins projected for 3,577 pass yards. Did his arm fall off? Are you kidding me? Too low. Too low. I have Kirk Cousins projected for 49090 pass attempts i still have him at about a league

average in terms of yards per attempt it's just hard to get very many touchdowns or very many yards when i expect this to be one of the best defensive units in the nfl with a head coach that's probably coaching for his job this year and so he's installed an offensive coordinator to do exactly what he wants, which is to pound the rock. I do expect this to be a run-heavy offense. And we have to expect that their average game script, I mentioned some

of the teams that were really pass-heavy last year had this negative game script. The Vikings were one of them. We have to expect that that flips, and they're going to be a little bit better this year. They were a Super Bowl pick, a very popular Super Bowl pick last year they're not obviously this year after a disappointing season and cousins first year uh but there's a lot of reason reasons to think that they could bounce back this season they had a couple weird you know pumpkin games

against like the bills and um if they can be a little bit more consistent throughout the year they're probably gonna be playing from ahead more they can probably get back to a more run heavy projection i'm not quite as run heavy as as heath in terms of what i expect to happen um but yeah i mean i i get that i i don't think cousins is a is a great option but i do have him in like the end of a tier that stretches uh up into like the the mid-teens in terms of quarterback i have him just outside the top 20, but, um, his, his projection is very similar to like my QB 17,

for instance, which is Dak Prescott. You know what? I'm just going to point out to Adam because the first part happened at the very beginning of the show. And this is happening at the end of the show. And I want Adam to get mad about it. Okay.

Ben has Andy Dalton projected ahead of Kirk Cousins. Yeah. When you say it. I don't like that. I could never take Dalton ahead of Cousins. But, Ben, you have two Vikings wide receivers projected as top ten receivers. Yeah, I mean, I have them being extremely concentrated. Their target's extremely concentrated. Again, this year they were last year.

I don't like any of their wide receiver three options. I have Kyle Rudolph getting 81 targets as well. Again, I'm a lot pass heavier than Heath. He said 490 pass attempts. I'm at 559, which is just above the average. Anything below 500 is definitely very run heavy, and that's where Heath's at. And I get that.

That could very well happen if they get that turnaround in terms of game script that we were just talking about. But yeah, I think it's going to be very concentrated. I don't like Laquan Treadwell for, you know, that's not really a hot take. Jordan Taylor is a guy they brought in that looks like he might be a

better option as a wide receiver three, but whoever it is, I don't think those guys are going to see a lot of targets. And yeah, I think digs and feeling are both, both really good options this year. I like Diggs more. I mean, we've heard that every offseason,

and I know a lot of people are exhausted, and they think that Thielen doesn't get the credit he deserves. The reality is that Thielen is more than three years older. He's turning 29 in August. Diggs is turning 26 in November. Diggs is still a really young guy entering his prime. Thielen, definitely not over the hill, but if one of these guys is going to just break out and emerge and become

even better, take another step. It's, it's still big. So that's, that's the guy that I have projected a little bit more and think that that might happen this year. I I'm terrified of digs,

stealing Rudolph cousins, basically anyone relying on the passing game. And that kind of leads to my number from last year, 48%. That was the rush percentage for the Vikings after they fired John D Filippo in their final three games of the season. It would have been the fourth highest in the league. And I just, I didn't go quite that high. I actually tried to come down from that a little bit, but I do think that's their game plan. So I do, I've got a significant

decrease in targets for Thielen and I think think target pace for Diggs. And both of those guys right around 1,000 yards, seven touchdowns in the high-end wide receiver two range, but I wouldn't want either one of them as my starting number one. Okay. Heath, I think you have a very annoying habit. So correct me if I'm wrong here. So we're all sharing these two Google Docs that Ben created. Yes. Ben basically has produced this show, by the way. One Google Doc. He's done a fantastic job.

One of the best produced shows. This is really terrific. So one Google Doc has like, compare like all the projections. One Google Doc has like notes on what I'm supposed to ask, which I haven't really been using, just so everybody knows.

I have doing some of my own work. But I think Heath is the one, I couldn't figure out who it was, but somebody's just been going through the Google Docs and just moving the cursor around. It's probably me. I do that a lot. I know I've 100% been highlighting things. Yeah, it's really annoying.

100%. Okay. So, glad it took me an hour and six minutes to figure out who it was. Both of us. It was both of you. Great. And you know what? For that, Heath, I think we have to get the Heath sigh.

All right. So that was Heath's stat. Ben, what's your stat on the Vikings? Yeah. So my stat is 24 combined touches last year for basically all of Alexander Madison's competition for the number two running back role that's on the roster right now. I mean, definitely teams can add guys in August. We might see something like that. But Rock Thomas, Mike Boone, Amir Abdullah are guys that would feasibly be competing with Alexander Madison for that number two job.

And last year, even as Cook was struggled with injuries and all three of those guys were on the roster they combined for only 24 touches none of them really got an opportunity uh that to me says the coaches were not not high on them not um don't don't think they have what it takes and then they go and they add alexander madison in the offseason with a third round pick it seems to me he doesn't have much competition for the number two role for a team that as we've been talking about wants to run behind a running back who's been injury prone. I don't know how good Alexander Madison is, but I don't really care. I mean, he's in a really great spot. And now we're having a Google Docs fight. And then I just want to say this last thing here.

You have Dalvin Cook, both of you projected for about 300 touches. And you have him at running back 10 for Heath, running back 11 for Ben. If this man gets 300 touches, he will be a top five running back. And next year... Yeah, but that's true for any back. We're protecting health.

No, he's better than almost every running back. Here's, I think, the thing that is a good thing to finish on because no one's listening anymore, according to adam i bet a lot of you are you should all email and say i adam i listen no stop don't say that do not do what he just said or get him on twitter at adam azar um if someone is in my projections as the number 10 running back i am essentially saying if they play 16 games they will be a top five or six

running back because half the running backs ahead of them aren't going to play 16 games. Okay, but if everybody plays 16 games, Dalvin Cook's going to be... That's what we'll never know. Dalvin Cook is the sixth best fantasy running back. Kerryon Johnson averaged more PPR fantasy points per game last season than Dalvin Cook did. Oh, okay. That's good.

I really like Kerryon Johnson. I'll take him in the first round now, Heath. Thank you. You're welcome. Alright, that's part one of our projections. We're going to have four episodes for you this week, even though Thursday and Friday are holidays. Probably drop the fourth one on Friday. We'll record it on Wednesday. And I want to thank Ben and Heath for joining me today.

And thank you all for listening. Hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you join our Facebook group, and we'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today.