Fantasy Football Today - 07/02: Projections Week! AFC East and NFC East (Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 2, 2019

Tom Brady as QB20? How many catches for Ezekiel Elliott? So many questions to answer as we look at the AFC East and NFC East ... BUF (1:38), MIA (9:30), NE (15:33) and NYJ (25:23). Le'Veon Bell's workload, sorting out challenging backfields, offenses that play at slow paces and more ... DAL (35:35), NYG (44:06), PHI (53:00) and WAS (1:03:00). How much upside does Dak Prescott have? Will Miles Sanders emerge in a crowded backfield? ... 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. Projecting two of the most exciting divisions in football today,

the AFC East and the NFC East. You have been wondering, what is the Dolphins' offense going to look like? How great are the Redskins going to be this year? We are going to time. Even the Patriots might be a little bit boring. They're just going to run the ball a ton, but who is going to get the lion's share of the carries?

I'm Adam Azer. Heath Cummings is back. What up, Heath? I am back from yesterday. Yes. Back again. Yes. Checking, directing.

Let's begin. Ben Gretch, how are you? You feel like you're part of the podcast family now? You feel like acclimated? You're part of the team? Yeah, yeah. I feel like an old vet now i've been on i think three times so yeah that's all you needed that's that's all it takes all right

we're doing it we are actually drafting as we speak a ppr super flex startup dynasty draft the easiest draft to do uh it's 22 rounds and we we're into round 15, and I'm going to be on the clock soon. So, with that said, let me turn it over to the projections. Or should we run through news and notes in a little bit? Let's turn it over to the projections. Start with the AFC East. We're going to go in alphabetical order. I've been working on the alphabet, and I think I've got it. Buffalo is first.

They were 6th and 10 last year. They were 6th in rush attempts. They were 28th in pass attempts. How similar or different is this team to the Baltimore Ravens, who we opened yesterday's show with, had a pretty interesting discussion? Ben, what do you project for the Bills? Like, compared to the Ravens, how similar are these offenses? No, I mean, yeah, it's kind of the exact same thing, right? Like, we talked yesterday about how Lamar Jackson's rushing

is going to limit the production for the running backs and the receivers because obviously people aren't catching passes or recording stats when he's running the ball. He wasn't a very good passer of the football last year. I mean, I know a lot of people really like him, but he had a 53% completion percentage. He had more interceptions than touchdowns. He didn't hit 250 pass yards in a game, even though we saw some highlight plays, some downfield completions, and those stick out in our mind. He wasn't ever a consistent yardage passer either. So it's really similar to me. And then also just unsettled depth charts at running back and receiver. Is there anybody here that we even want? Well, yeah. I think the difference between these two offenses

kind of highlights how extreme Baltimore is because we view Buffalo as one of the most run-heavy offenses in football, and that will probably be the case. But we don't project, Ben or I, them to have more rush attempts than pass attempts, and we do have, both of us, at least 60 more rush attempts than pass attempts. And we do have, both of us, at least 60 more rush attempts than pass attempts for the Baltimore Ravens.

So they are on the Ravens' end of the spectrum, but they are probably not going to be as run heavy as Baltimore was. And the thing that really I struggle with, with Josh Allen specifically, I do think there's potential and upside there. He does have an absolute rocket launcher for an arm, and he looked really good running the ball.

The difference was those weren't designed runs. Those were scrambles because that's what he chose to do and because the offensive line was so bad. I have a hard time projecting that part of it to repeat itself to the extent it did last year. Yeah, but you are much more optimistic on Allen than Ben is. Ben projects him to be QB 24. You project Allen to be QB 17, Heath,

and you've got him for about 250 more yards, 260 more passing yards. Similar rushing stats, but five more passing touchdowns. So you have him as a starter. Ben really hits Josh Allen. Start So you have him as a starter. Ben really hit the shot. Startable. Startable, not starter. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of his passing.

I just noted that he has some real problems or had some real problems statistically last year. I could see a little bit more passing upside than I haven't projected for. The rushing is my key stat for these guys. Everybody wants to make a lot out of what he did late in the year. He averaged over 80 rushing yards and nearly a rushing TD per game over a six-game stretch late in the year. But my stat is the 16-game rushing pace for that, for that six-game outburst. And it's 1,250 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.

That's not doable for a quarterback. There's one quarterback season in NFL history where a quarterback ran for 1,000 yards. It was Michael Vick, and he only did it one time. Josh Allen's not going to run for 1,200 yards. He's not going to run for 1,000 yards, and he's not going to run for 13 touchdowns. You can't expect that type of rushing production from him. But Heath does that. It looks like Heath is very similar to me in terms of bringing that rushing way down.

We both have him in the 500s in terms of rush yards. And I have him at four TDs. Heath has him at five TDs. It's just a matter of Heath being a little higher on his passing. I'm just not. I didn't think he showed enough last year. I don't think he's that great of a passer. All right.

So you project LaShawn McCoy to lead the team in carries with around 170, finishing outside the top 30 at running back. RB 33 for Heath, RB 34 for Ben. These are PPR projections, by the way. But how do you account for Devin Singletary? It's a crowded backfield, obviously. You're projecting McCoy, Singletary, Yeldon, and Gore. Heath, how do you, when you do your projections, account for the possibility of... I mean, I asked you this yesterday, I think with the Bears guys, but now with the Bills guys of Singletary starting out slow but eventually wrestling that job away becoming a starting running back a true starter and a fantasy option you know the impression that I get from the decisions the Bills made in the offseason is that they do not want like even if

Devin Singletary impresses more than I expect him to, and I wasn't really a big fan of his coming into the draft, I do agree it's not a bad situation because of the age and talent level of everyone in that offense. Like, it's a possibility he could win the job. But I don't think you go out and sign Frank Gore, sign TJ Yeldon, keep LaShawn McCoy, and draft Devin Singletary with the idea that you are going to have a feature back. So I am kind of envisioning this to be a two to three headed monster for most of the season on a bad offense with a bad offensive line, which is just, I can't get excited.

Well, they, they up, they did take, didn't they upgrade their line? I mean, they definitely brought in some new faces and a lot of new faces as I recall. And I don't see how he could have much easier

competition like frank gore is nothing tj yeldon is a role player and mccoy yeah mccoy is interesting but he might be at the point where he's like not well the problem is like frank gore is nothing but we we are going to talk about kenyan drake in just a little bit he's been remarkably successful on a per touchtouch basis in terms of fantasy production the last two years and looked very good at the end of 2017 when he was given a feature role, and Frank Gore still got, what, 200 touches

last year in Miami. Coaches like giving the ball to Frank Gore, especially coaches like the Buffalo Bills employ. Ben, are there any receivers that we're interested in from fantasy? What are you projecting from the Bills receivers? Yeah, no, I don't think there is. I think Robert Foster is a name that a lot of people are interested in because of how he closed the season last year. But I mean, John Brown and him have such similar profiles. Josh Allen had the highest average depth of target

of any regular starting quarterback last year. So yeah, he's going to throw plenty of deep balls, but you have to think John Brown coming in is going to limit Robert Foster's deep opportunity. He was almost exclusively a deep threat. His ADOT was extremely high. I don't have it in front of me, but it was very, very high. And most of his production was on hitting on some of those deep passes. And John Brown's going to operate in the same area of the field. They're not going to just chuck it deep every single play.

So that, to me, limits Foster's upside. I don't think he can catch more than like 50 passes. I think that's like his absolute ceiling. I'm projecting him for 30 catches. Um, I also think it's really interesting to think about how Cole Beasley would even fit on an offense where the quarterback had the highest average depth of target, uh, for any, for any regular starter last year, because like Cole Beasley is not going to be running those routes. So I don't think he's a very good fit. I still think Zay Jones, I have him projected for two fewer targets than Brown as the second

receiver, but I still think he's decent. But I think that just means that nobody is going to get a good target share. Yeah, and my number was actually about Zay Jones. I have him projected for fourth on the team in targets. I don't feel confident in it he did lead receivers and targets last year when josh allen was under under center i shouldn't say but playing quarterback um i i think there is a possible opportunity but again it looks more like a situation with the way they've stacked this receiving core where it's not going to be a guy that's getting eight targets on a weekly basis it's going to be a week where one of them gets nine and then a completely

different one gets nine and then a different one gets nine uh just the on the offensive line mitch morse is the key addition there he'll be their starting center and they drafted cody cody ford in the second round they brought in quentin spain from the titans ty niseki i believe believe it's pronounced, from the Redskins, who's like a swing tackle, and a few other names. It doesn't mean it's going to be good. Hopefully, it will be better. We'll move on to our next team here, and it is the Miami Dolphins, 7-9. Kind of a surprising 7-9 last year. 25th in rush attempts, 30th in pass attempts. So right there, not a lot of plays last year. Heath, what kind of pace are we expecting from the Dolphins under a new regime? That's difficult because I would expect they are

going to be faster. I don't want to steal Ben's stat, but it would be hard for them to be slower. Let's get Ben's stat. I noticed that you have a similar one for the Jets, but with Gase going over there. But it's their plays last year, 878 total plays. It was the first time a team was under 900 since 2006. I mean, that's an obscenely slow pace. They could run as many as 100 more plays and still be well below the league average. So we should expect more plays and just because of that, more pass attempts more targets more rush attempts but uh you know even with some regression of my projections i still don't have anyone coming out as like a really viable fantasy option other than drake who you know i have in the rb2 range but

none of the receivers for me come out better than wide receiver 48 um just not really thrilled on the offense as a whole i have them running 965 plays, which would be quite a bit more than last year, almost 100 more, like I said, but just not an offense, obviously, that we like. And this is kind of like the Lions situation where I think we have a big difference in the run-pass split. I anticipate they want to run the ball and play slower because they need to run the ball and play slower because they need to shorten the games because they are going to be less talented

than basically everyone they play. They may not be able to do that, and they may end up throwing more passes than what their intention is, but I do have them projected for fewer passes than Ben does and more rush attempts. I love the opportunity for Kenyon Drake if we could just get him the workload. And I know there's probably a reason he hasn't gotten it yet.

He was so good in those final five games of 2017. Even last year, my stat was he was the number 14 running back in PPR despite receiving just 173 touches. I think there's a real chance you're looking at number one running back, Kenyon Drake, in PPR this year. Not the number one overall running back, but an RB1. A number one running back. Right.

So, Drake, you have him projected as RB12, which obviously would be number one, with 224 carries compared to 167 carries for Ben. So, you guys, you should talk about the difference in your projections for Kenyon Drake. Well, I think it comes back because I have Kalen Balazs for more carries than Ben does as well. It largely comes down to I've got the Dolphins running the ball 440 times this year and Ben has 380, I think. Right. Yep. That was what I was going to say, too. I mean, I just have them being still being a pretty slow pace.

And then because they're going to be in negative game scripts, kind of being forced into throwing under 400 rush attempts is a really small amount. Like he said, he's at 450. That's a lot more respectable number. And if they get there, I'm sure with the share of the backfield I'm projecting for Kenyon Drake, I would my projection would look a lot like Heath. So I think it's more team level. I just think this offense will still end up not being very good. They got a conservative. I mean, they got a defensive head coach in. I don't know if he's going to be conservative, but the Patriots' former linebacker coach Flores, is it? Brian Flores?

Yeah. So, you know, I'm thinking we'll still be slow-paced, and then when they're trailing, they'll be forced to throw in second halves. That's the one place. I would not argue with Ben about the Dolphins' run-pass split because I think we are left to do nothing but speculate. The difference between our projections is completely reasonable. If I was going to try to start a fight with Ben about Kenyon Drake's projection,

it would be that if they do have to get into those situations where they throw the ball a lot more, I would expect Kenyon Drake to get a lot more than 64 targets. For the wide receivers, Kenny Stills and Albert Wilson are both right around wide receiver 40. Heath for Heath. Heath has them projected very

similarly. Wide receiver 41 and wide receiver 39 for Stills and Wilson, respectively. And Ben has similar projections for the two of them, but not as good. Ben has Wilson, respectively. And Ben has similar projections for the two of them, but not as good. Ben has Wilson wide receiver 48 and Stills wide receiver 50. How much does the quarterback – by the way, we're talking about for Stills, 850 to 900 yards and five touchdowns.

Well, no, sorry. I'm looking at both. On my projections, both of them are 850-9 with five. And Ben's right around 650-750 and four or five. Yeah, for Wilson and Sills. How much does the quarterback matter? Because I actually feel like Fitzpatrick and Stills could be a decent fit. Yeah, no, I think that is a great fit.

And Fitzpatrick's another guy who had an extremely high average depth of target last year. And that played into it as well but i i just have a little bit more uh a few more targets going towards mike gasecki as well um and i think my my spread is just wider you know i have some targets for jakeem grant and i have some targets for some other guys in this offense because they kind of did that last year nobody had really high shares so i think this might be a team that winds up being out of it and throwing passes to other guys and involving other people. So just not an offense I'm super stoked on. And that's part of why I don't really have anybody projected for bigger target numbers.

Do you think there's a chance Mike Gasicki has a breakout season? No. I mean, maybe, but no. Short answer is no i think there's like a small chance but it's not something i'm chasing because i don't like the the volume in the offense i do think all three of those receivers uh you know stills wilson and parker and then even jakeem grant potentially will be involved enough that it's going to be hard for him to be in a position where even you know guys like delaney walker have shown that if you get a good target

share in a slower-paced offense, you can still be a viable tight end. But I just don't know that he's going to be able to get that here. Okay. All right. Let's move on. I think we're good with the Dolphins. Next up, the New England Patriots, 11-5 in the regular season. I don't remember what they did in the postseason. Third in rush attempts last year.

Eleventh in pass attempts. I think it's crazy. You guys have Tom Brady projected as what? Like QB 20? QB 20 for both of you. Like, no. He's going to play every game, and he's going to be a top 12 quarterback,

top 15 at worst. Like, I'm not really interested in drafting him because he has very little upside, I think, at this point. But he's not going to be the 20th quarterback. Are you kidding me? Come on. This is me fake arguing.

But I do believe it's too low. I think this is a good time for Ben Stapp. Yeah, that's what I was going to jump into. So Tom Brady's yards per attempt in games Gronkowski has played and not played. The difference between the two is 1.1 yards per attempt. That doesn't sound like it's that big. But 8.0 yards per attempt is his number when Gronk played. The difference between the two is 1.1 yards per attempt. That doesn't sound like it's like that big, but 8.0 yards per attempt is his number when Gronk played. That would be the best mark since the merger among 189 passers who have at least a thousand attempts since the merger. Literally the best passer in history with Gronk on the field. When Gronk's not on the field,

he's down at 6.9. That difference would put him at about 100th out of those 189 passers. It would put him behind his backup Brian Hoyer's career mark. Or Red Roddy LeMannig. Right. It's a massive difference in his yards per attempt when Gronk's on the field, not on the field. I think they'll do things differently. My big expectation for them this year, I mean, the thing that we've seen with New England throughout, Bill Belichick's reign, is a willingness to fit scheme to personnel rather than trying to jam

players into roles. I don't think we're going to see any tight end be the new Gronkowski. We'll definitely see them change. And my big thing is I think the running backs will get plenty of targets. I think James White has a pretty stable projection. I think Rex Burkhead is being, you know, just completely avoided and,

and maybe fairly, he might not even make the team. He's probably the fourth running back right now, but if he does make the team and if he is active i don't necessarily think michelle and harris are going to be in the passing game i think you'll see white and burkhead in the passing game and i could see some scenarios where what where burkhead has some usable games as a pass catching back um so yeah i mean i think they'll they'll replace some of those tight end targets with with running back targets uh but yeah it's going to be really interesting to see what they do because they have different personnel and they they tend

to change up their whole system when when that happens all right it just he gronkowski hold on sorry gronkowski really was a total shell of himself last year and brady still finished as a top 12 quarterback so and also taylor gabriel just went 224th overall some of that is because gronk is on the field defenses have to play teams differently it's not just gronk's production himself it's game planning it's scheme you have to plan for this six foot seven like you can't not be giving attention to gronkowski all right fine and And I will say that even with Gronkowski, people talk about, will anyone replace Rob Gronkowski? The Patriots last season threw 14.6% of their passes to tight ends. That was the fourth lowest mark in the NFL.

They threw a third of their passes. 33.5% of their pass attempts went to running backs. And would you expect that to be, like, that seems high, but would you expect that to be stable or to fall this year? I don't think it really can fall. Right. Unless, and that brings me to my stats, 10.6, that's the yards per target when Tom Brady was throwing to Josh Gordon in 2019.

That was the best on the Patriots last season. If Josh Gordon is reinstated at the start of training camp or we find out he's got a two game suspension, that would change my outlook for Tom Brady just a little bit. Just what's that? That's it. Just a little bit. Well, I don't know that I can feel confident that Josh Gordon is going to play all of the games once he's back from suspension. Okay. There.

But when he's on the field, I would feel like there is a better chance of Tom Brady being a number one quarterback. It would absolutely ruin Nikhil Harry for the time being. All right, so who do you project to be? I'm looking at, okay, we got Julian Edelman projected as a top 15 wide receiver. Heath has him for 90 catches, 1,021 yards, and six touchdowns. Ben for 101 catches, 1,120 yards, and seven touchdowns. So a significantly better season. That's like 45 fantasy points better. No, no, I'm sorry. 25. Good math.

And he had last year? No, then Heath's projection. Oh, yes. And stop moving the cursor in the Google Doc, Heath. So who do you project to be the second leading receiver on the team? So Gordon is a really tough one. I'm with Heath that he could be a stud if he's playing. And so I have him projected right now for 46 targets.

He's not going to hit that numbers. It's just kind of a silly projection unless he plays eight games or something. But if he's playing 16 games I expect him to be a lot bigger part of the offense if he's not playing obviously those targets are going to go somewhere else I do really like the opportunity for Nikhil Harry I think a lot of people aren't as excited about him he had a young breakout age I talked a little yesterday about looking at prospects through age-adjusted project production he was very good at a young age at Arizona State.

I know there's some film people that are not high on him have pointed out that he caught a lot of wide receiver screens and things like that. That kind of stuff doesn't seem to have been a huge issue for a lot of other prospects that have similar numbers to him. He looks like a really good prospect and somebody who's kind of underrated in my opinion, especially when people are also throwing in the Patriots history drafting receivers. They haven't taken a first-round receiver since, like, what, the early 00s or something. I mean, most of the guys they've drafted are third, fourth-round receivers. Nikhil Harry was, in my opinion, the best receiver in this draft. They took him in the first round. I think he's somebody that we should expect big things from.

Okay, what do you have him projected for? I have him 80—I only you have projected for i haven't 80 i only haven't projected for 80 targets part of that's the josh gordon thing again i mean if gordon's on the field i think it makes it a lot harder for harry yeah uh but i do it yeah i haven't projected for 80 targets 49 catches 633 yards and five touchdowns right now but again it's a hedge projection it's not something that i'm that i'm content with yeah and i've not really projected anything for gordon yet so I do have Harry projected to be a number four wide receiver this season.

I think he's got a chance to creep into that number three range if he really gets off to a good start to camp and Josh Gordon doesn't come back all year. I don't think there's a massive breakout available for him, but I would not be surprised at all if he's the best rookie receiver this year. I mean, if Gordon doesn't play and

Demaryius Thomas isn't healthy, you don't think there's really room for him to break out still? Break out as in a top 30 wide receiver season? Yes. A top 20? No. That's basically where I'm at, too. Yeah, I agree.

All right. So let's break down the Patriots' backfield. Of all the projections that we do today, this one might be the most important. I don't know. Sonny Michel coming off a good rookie year was amazing in the postseason. But in the regular season,

he was not. Well, first of all, he caught seven passes last year and didn't play every game. But yeah, coming off a great postseason. Now, when we talk to Ben Volan, Patriots' beat writer,

he kind of brought up that he wasn't great in short yardage. And then they invest a fairly high draft pick in Damian Harris. And then, of course, there's James White, who's going to be the pass-catching guy. But you guys both have James White projected for 72 or 73 carries and a little over 300 yards rushing. So how did you go about, Ben, splitting up the Sonny Michel, Damian Harris,

and then even Rex Burkhead carries? Yeah, I mean, I just kind of guessed. I mean, it's really hard to tell, right? Because we know Michel's had some injury issues. In his 13 games last year, he got 44% of the rush attempts. I'm projecting him for actually a slightly larger share than that this year

at 48%, which is still very low for a number one running back projection. And, you know, I might still be too high. I might not have moved Harris up enough yet with, you know, the latest reports indicating that he's going to be kind of involved.

I only have Harris at 70 rushes, but we know James White's going to get 70 or 80 carries. I have Rex Burkhead getting another 56. He has even more. So I think he agrees with me on Burkhead being involved. But yeah, it's a really hard thing to read. And this is a situation where I won't draft Sonny Michelle in almost any league, even though he comes out as my running back 26 in my projections.

I probably won't draft him in a single league. Well, and I think the interesting thing here is when you look at our projections, it tells you a little bit about how we see the entire position of running back because I have him as running back 35, Ben has him at running back 26. There's 3.5 points difference between our projection for it. We're basically projecting up just under a thousand yards, basically nothing in the passing game and eight touchdowns, which is a number three running back. It's either a high end number three or a low end number three,

but I, I don't feel good about him and not in PPR at least as a starting running back, but not even a top 30 guy for Sonny Michel? I think I may have him ranked right around 30th just because there are pass-catching running backs that I'm not particularly excited about that I have projected to score more fantasy points than that. Right.

Yeah, if he falls outside the top 30 backs, yeah, there's a point where I would consider him, too. I agree with that. But I don't think that I will get him in eight leagues, and he's not somebody that I'm actively targeting in eight leagues. Sonny Michel was 25th in non-PPR, 33rd in PPR last year. He played 13 games. There you go. All righty, let's go on to our last AFC East team.

It's the New York Jets. And, yeah, I think we should start with Le'Veon Bell, guys. You did not project Le'Veon Bell for double-digit rushing touchdowns, which he has never done, but Heath is projecting Bell for 227 carries. Ben is projecting Bell

for 245 carries. His 16-game pace in Pittsburgh was 317 carries, so you do not expect that. Heath, you could have the first word, only projecting 227 carries for Le'Veon. I think one of the most difficult things to do is project the number of plays for the Jets this season

because Adam Gase in Miami was a tortoise and not in the type of tortoise that eventually beats the hare because he's slow and steady. He just goes slow and never goes anywhere. Ben already gave my number of offensive plays during, during the dolphin stat, but it's eight 78 and that would just absolutely. I mean,

one of the things about Pittsburgh, not only did they use bell as a workhorse, but they've always been a high volume offense running well over a thousand plays. So I do have them projected for 965. The thing that concerns me, I make up for the rush attempts a little bit in the passing game. I think I have him for 15, 20 more targets than Ben does.

But I've been a little concerned about Adam Gase's initial comments about maybe splitting up the workload just a little bit. So I do have Elijah McGuire with 105 carries, and I got a few carries in there for Ty Montgomery as well. All right. So, Ben, what are you thinking for Le'Veon Bell this year? Yeah, I mean, I would just echo a lot of what he said. The reason I'm a little lower on his passing is his target share in Pittsburgh

was just massively high, and I think a lot of that had to do with just how that offense worked, probably something to do with Ben Roethlisberger, the way that he can extend plays. He doesn't go down for a lot of sacks. His sack rate's always really low, even though we can all picture him being hit in the pocket. He's just a really tough guy to bring down. I mean, the numbers bear that out.

And a lot of times that ends up with the dump off. They split him out a ton, and they might split him out with the Jets, but you're probably not going to see him split out as much it's kind of like what happened with david johnson last year with the new offense they didn't use him the same way that that bruce arians used david johnson and so for me i i have levy on bell just kind of regressed more towards like a good running back target share as opposed to something closer to what he did in Pittsburgh, because I just think that the change in scenery and that type of thing probably causes that. I also think along with that, Elijah McGuire is a decent pass catcher behind him. And Trent

Cannon is another guy that they'll probably use a little bit and caught some passes last year for him. So I, you know, I, he has some guys behind him that can also catch the ball. So I, I, I'm not super stoked about his, his passing game or his passing usage. And I do have him projected for a large percentage of the rushing attempts just almost because I don't know what else to do there. He's another guy that I'm just not really excited about, though. And it goes into my my key stat for the Jets, which is two numbers, 406 and 423. 406 is Le'Veon Bell's touches in 2017, the last time he played a full season. 423, just 17 more touches.

That was the entire Jets' backfield last year. You can't expect him to get 95% of the touches. That actually would be more than that. I mean, the total size of the pie in terms of running back touches is going to be way smaller for the jets uh again to he's point adam gaze is a tortoise uh it's just even if bell gets still gets a huge share like he did in pittsburgh and he probably won't based on the the comments we're getting his share of the backfield in pittsburgh was always like top of the league uh even if he comes down to like the 75th percentile and he's still getting a an above average share but he's not top of the league

you know you're gonna see him lose more touches to backups and then the the whole size of the pie comes down and running back touches that's just like his touches uh could just drop they could drop 100 100 touches that would just be massive. They could drop 20%. You still haven't projected Heath as RB6 and Ben as RB8. And, I mean, Gase did sort of say, like, I mean, I thought he said, basically, he's excited to use him in the passing game. And I understand he's not going to get 300 carries. But 57 catches, I don't know, feels a little low. Feels a little low to me.

That's what Ben has. Heath has 75. All right. And I think Le'Veon Bell in the passing game obviously affects the wide receivers. Robbie Anderson. Heath, did you give your exact stat? I know it was about the pace.

878 plays. The number of plays that Adam Gase's Dolphins ran in 2018. Very low. So Robbie Anderson, here's my stat, he averaged 10.5 targets per game without Quincy Anunua. Only four games, but without Quincy Anunua. 10.5 targets per game, that's huge. With Quincy Anunua, 5.1 targets per game.

Twice as many, more than twice as many without Anunua. Now you've got Jamesison Crowder there. You've got Le'Veon Bell. So, Heath, how did you divvy up the targets, the production for Robbie Anderson, who is wide receiver 30 for Heath, wide receiver 38 for Ben in the projections? There may not be a player whose usage

slash piece of the pie slash efficiency I've messed around with as much this preseason as Robbie Anderson's already, because he is someone who I liked a lot going into last year. I do like his skill set. I think he improved as an overall route runner in 2018. I hated it when Adam Gase was hired to run this team because that is not the type of wide receiver

that has been used a lot in Gase's offense. It's been more the Jamison Crowder, Quincy Anunua, over-the-middle type wide receiver. So I had him down around where Ben did. I've bumped him up a little bit, just totally based off of the comments that we got from Pete Prisco and from Robbie Anderson himself, talking about how he was going to be used a little bit differently in this offense. They weren't just going to have him run as fast as he could

down the field over and over again. And so that helped me. That caused me to bump his target share up. I do think there's room for one of Inunua or Crowder to be more of a better option in PPR. I don't have good confidence as to which one it will be yet. Okay. And Ben, I don't know if you want to get a word in on the wide receivers. No, I mean, I agree with that. And I actually think I might be a little low on Anderson. He had 21% target share in the games he played last year, 23% the year before he got used a little bit more as Darnold got more comfortable and was willing to push the ball down the field.

I have him at 19% right now. Um, part of that's because I, I think Jameson Crowder is a pretty, pretty good fit for this offense. Like he was talking about with the slot receiving role. And I have him projected pretty high. And I also have a new one projected pretty high. And I also have Chris Herndon getting a decent amount of targets, although he'll be suspended for a couple of games. Um, so my projection for him is a little bit lower at 62 targets, but that's not on a full 16 game. That's a player we know we'll miss some time. Uh, the thing about Anderson that I would, I would say in his favor is that he has, you know, we talk about this with some, some receiving cores. He has a unique skillset in this core. Uh. He's a downfield guy, right?

So when Noon was going to play and he was kind of the shortfield guy, Crowder kind of overlaps that. Herndon actually had a pretty high average depth of target for a tight end, and I would expect him to be their kind of second downfield guy, but Anderson's going to be their field stretcher. And any deep shots that Darnold does take, and if Darnold takes a step forward and is willing to push the ball down the field more, that's all really good for Robbie Anderson.

To his point, Noon, Crowder, those guys could overlap a little bit. I do like Crowder more than Anunua. I've always thought Crowder was a pretty solid receiver, just never in great spots, and this could be a situation where he could be a little bit better. But he only came out as wide receiver 52 in my projections, so I'm not super high on him projections-wise. But I do find myself taking him a little bit in late rounds and drafts. You guys are kind of low on Chris Herndon.

About 60 targets, 40 catches, 530-ish yards, four touchdowns. There is a suspension there likely coming. And projecting him to be tight end 23 for Heath, tight end 19 for Ben. And I'll just wrap it up and say you don't have Sam Darnold in your top 25. QB 26 for Heath, QB 27 for Ben. I'm sure pace has something to do with this, but about 3,750 yards

and over 20 touchdowns, but less than 25. All right. Yeah, I mean, there's obviously pedigree potential, and he finished last year strong. We'll see what that means. I think Le'Veon Bell's going to help. I would call him a sleeper. I would.

If we knew that they could run over 1,000 plays and neither of us projected that, yeah, I think Sam Darnold would be an interesting sleeper. The problem is in these projections, we're still factoring in Adam Gase's former pace. There's upside from that, sure. And the other problem is, you could project Sam Darnold for 325 fantasy points,

which used to be a pretty good year at quarterback, and he still wouldn't crack my top 20. Yeah. So it's just there's so many quarterbacks. But he's going to play 16 games. The others aren't. That's still— I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Okay, let's move on to the NFC. Oh, I can't wait to talk about the Giants. Two teams away, but just some news and notes real quick. Kareem Hunt was questioned outside a bar last weekend. Seems like a minor incident. Seems like it for Kareem Hunt. Already facing a six-game suspension. Ezekiel Elliott, six or eight?

I'm sorry. I always forget. I think it's eight. Eight games. Ezekiel Elliott will meet with Roger Goodell regarding his Las Vegas incident. Again, not necessarily expecting anything. James Conner says he expects his role to be similar to last season's. And like a week ago, there was a report that James Conner said they were going to share all the workload.

So who knows? Emmanuel Sanders thinks he could be ready by week one. And Greg Allman of The Athletic believes that Peyton Barber is likely to finish with more yards than Ronald Jones. And we will project the NFC South tomorrow. All right, to the NFC East. The Dallas Cowboys. They were 10-6 last year. They won the division.

10th in rush attempts. 21st in pass attempts. All right, so Dak Prescott is going to be one of the more interesting players that we talk about in leading up to drafts. I'm not really – like he threw six more pass attempts per game with Amari Cooper than without Amari Cooper. I'm not buying that their offense is changing that much. They have a new coach – or a new coordinator in Kellen Moore, same coach.

You know, are you buying it, Heath? Because you have Dak projected to be QB 12. Are you thinking that they throw more than usual? Well, first off, projecting Dak to be QB 12 is just basically projecting Dak to be what he's been most of his career, a number one quarterback in fantasy.

Yeah, I guess. But quarterbacks are getting better now. I know that's frustrating to you. No, I like Dak Prescott. I just think he's a low upside player. I don't necessarily think he is a low upside player. A lot of people disagree. Yeah. And my number was actually a Dak Prescott number.

It's 43-88. That's his 16-game pace for passing yards after Amari Cooper arrived. I expect this offense to be a little bit more creative than it was last year. Yeah, it's still going to be a month. If you're dividing offenses into 50-50, half of them are

more run heavy, half of them are more pass heavy. This one will be more run heavy, I believe. It's not like Seattle. It's not like Baltimore. I don't even think it's probably quite like Buffalo. There's going to be enough attempts for Dak to approach 4,000 yards. Whenever he's had a number one wide receiver that was actually a number one wide receiver, he's been a very good passer.

He always runs for six touchdowns. I've only got him projected for five, which seems stupid because he always runs for six. But yeah, I think he's going to be a top 12 quarterback and better than that in four-point-per-pass touchdown leagues. Yeah, I have him 15 points away from my top 12. I have him at QB 17, but I'm not down on him. He's definitely somebody that I would say. I just took him in the Dynasty draft. You referenced that we were drafting during the show.

I took him in that draft. I think he's a good quarterback. He's a stable quarterback. He's going to provide the rushing numbers uh, the rushing numbers. I only have him for four rushing touchdowns and fewer rushing yards in Heath, which means that I'm probably more conservative on his rushing to his point. He's rushed for six TDs, I think at all three of the seasons. Right. So, so he's, you know, we're, we're projecting him for less than that this year, but he could easily do that again. Um, I, you, you know, I have him a little bit more conservatively projected, but definitely somebody

that I like in the back end, you know, in the RB two range, especially if I wait on a quarterback and I feel comfortable with him as my starter, because I know he's going to provide solid floor with the rushing. And he at least has weekly upside, I would say, because when he does have 50 or 60 rushing yards and gets a rushing TD, that's when he hits the 25-point games. And those do come fairly frequently for him. And, yeah, I really like him in basketball for that reason as well. I mean, he's a very stable quarterback.

Oh, he is. That's the thing. He is stable, but does he have the upside? I'm going to probably compare him to Jimmy Garoppolo offseason because I feel like everybody's going to want Dak, and I'm going to take Garoppolo. I see Garoppolo having a lot more upside. But if they really are more pass-heavy, and he's throwing six times more per game than he usually does,

that is a huge deal. I just feel like they're a run team first, and that's their identity. Ezekiel Elliott had a shockingly low amount of rushing touchdowns last year. You guys have him projected for 11 for Heath, 10 for Ben. It wouldn't surprise me if he had 15. But Heath, you do have Zeke projected as RB1 in PPR. Do you rank it that way?

I do rank it that way. The only thing that's made me question it is this silly meeting with Roger Goodell because I'm afraid they're going to throw some suspension at him just because there's some history there. But no, I think one of the questions we talked about was his work in the passing game and something

that just shocked me because when I went to project the Dallas offense, I tried to look more at what were they like after Amari Cooper got there because it's over half the season. If you got the playoffs, you look at what he did. He was on pace for more targets after Amari Cooper got there than he was before Cooper arrived.

They actually threw the ball more to Elliot with Cooper there. So I don't really worry about Cooper taking away the targets. He showed that he could handle that role in the passing game last year. And there have been reports that they are prioritizing extending Dak, extending Amari Cooper, and there have not been any discussions with Ezekiel about extending

him. I think they may just use him. There have been some rumblings that they'd be willing to or want to cut him back a little bit too, right? And they were a playoff team last year, right? Yeah. And I think they expect to be again this year. When you get to that point, you want to make sure that your player is healthy and available in the playoffs.

It's interesting though. I'm looking at my projections. I have Elliott projected for the most rush attempts in a league. Heath has him for 22 more rush attempts than me. I haven't projected for the most rushing yards in the league. Heath has 150 more rushing yards. I haven't projected for the most rushing TDs. Heath has an extra rushing TD.

So I think maybe I'm just a little bit more unwilling to project a really monster rushing total. But I don't think he's necessarily wrong. One thing about Ezekiel Elliott is every season of his career so far, he's led the NFL in rushing yards per game. Wow. He definitely has the ability to have a 1,500-yard rushing season. I just think for me,

like my baseline projection, I'm a little bit more conservative on that. The big difference in our projection, though, even more than that, that rushing difference, I think, though uh even more than that that rushing difference i think is the passing game and that's my my key stat is zeke's first two seasons he had 58 catches combined in 25 games last year he had 77 in in 15 games i mean that's obviously a massive increase he went he had almost 20 more catches than the two seasons combined will that sustain

and i think that's something that we should be a little bit concerned about especially considering that the cowboys went and drafted tony pollard who's a specific type of back he only had 104 or excuse me 139 college rushes in his whole college career he played some receiver 104 catches in college he's definitely a pass catching back i think they might use him like they used Lance Dunbar in the past. So if they are concerned about Zeke's usage and they do try to cut it back, that selection in the draft makes me think that they're going to try and take him off the field a little bit on passing downs to go the old traditional route where you have a third down back who comes in.

That would make it really hard for Zeke to match his 77 catches from last year. So I'm a lot lower on his receiving projection. And for me, that drops him to running back four. It drops him pretty much a tier behind the other three running backs that we're all talking about at the top of drafts. I don't think there are too many players. I have him running back one. Ben has him running back four.

I don't think there are too many players that we're 65 fantasy points apart on, though. Yeah, probably not. PPR, yeah. It's a big difference. And then Amari Cooper, you guys have projected. Heath at wide receiver 13, Ben at wide receiver 16. But similar projections, about 82, 83 catches, about 1,150 yards. And Ben gave him eight touchdowns.

Heath gave him seven, expecting around 130 targets. So very solid player. Those numbers right there tell me third late third round pick probably wide receiver 13 wide receiver 16 maybe fourth round value but steady player there um do you see real quick any hope for michael gallup to be fantasy relevant heath you actually have higher projections for gallup. 95 targets, only 75 for Ben, and more production. Yeah, so I can answer for Ben and say probably not.

Unless Amari Cooper or Ezekiel Elliott go down, I just don't think they're... Because like, even with me talking about Dak throwing the ball a little bit more and them not being quite as run heavy, I still expect that you're going to see a very high percentage of the targets going to Cooper and Elliott. I still expect that you're going to see a very high percentage of this

off of the targets going to Cooper and Elliott. I think Gallup's an okay late round best ball wide receiver. I'd expect he's going to have a pretty good games. He's like Terrence Williams, right? Like remember, I mean, he's going to play that Terrence Williams role. You'll have some splash plays. I'm never going to feel

comfortable putting him in my lineup. Okay, so let's go to the Giants. Everybody's been waiting for this. 5-11 team. Yeah. 5-11. No. Okay, crappy team. 19th in rush attempts, 9th in

pass attempts. Scored the most points in the NFC East last year, people. So how does a possible quarterback, mid-season quarterback replacement or early season, whatever, change your projections, if at all? Well, it's funny.

I split up my quarterback projections on teams where I think there might be a little bit of a little bit of a change there, mostly just so I can change rushing rates if I think there's a backup quarterback that would run at a different rate uh i projected eli and daniel jones for essentially the same passing efficiency numbers i don't think eli manning's a very good quarterback at this point i don't think daniel jones will be able to step in as a rookie and be really efficient so i just projected them for the same essentially

the exact same profile as a passer so i don't think it's going to change much for me. No, and this is like neither of them can run. What? No, no, false. What do you mean? Daniel Jones is a rusher. He's a mobile quarterback. He actually moves pretty well. See, you haters, you don't know anything about Daniel Jones. I don't think he—

I have him projected for more rushing yards than Eli and one-third the passing yards. I actually think— I have him projected for 31 rushing yards. Sure, but I got him for a touchdown as well. He is a mobile quarterback. And 972 pass yards. I assume you have him starting six games? I didn't do it by games.

I just did it by percent. So I have him at a quarter of the season. So four games. And Eli at three quarters. Basically, Ben Jones is amazing. Ben Jones. Daniel Jones. I'm looking at Ben's projections of Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones sucks, but Ben Jones is great. Alright, Saquon

Barkley. You guys both have him as RB2. If I had a stat, and I've given it so many times, so I'm sorry, but first eight games of the season, he was on pace for 116 catches. Last eight games of the season, he was on pace for 66 catches. Both times, though, he was on pace for more than 2,000 total yards. Just one time more of a rusher, one time more of a passer.

Late in the year, they started giving him the ball more. I'll give you my stat because it goes along with that. The Giants lost five games by at least a touchdown last year. Saquon Barkley saw at least eight targets in all five of those games. He averaged 11.2 targets in those five games. So, you know, typically with running backs, you want your team to be in the lead. Then you're going to get more touches.

Saquon, very clearly game script proof, if his team is way behind, he's going to get all those checkdowns from Eli. Okay. Yeah. And they're going to be behind. I think we both have Saquon projected to lead the giants and targets, or at least I do.

I think I have Sterling Shepard, two targets. Yeah. Two more. All right. So Barkley is pretty self-explanatory. He's great. Now,

how did you break down the receivers, Shepard, Tate, and Ingram? Who scores the most fantasy points in the pass-catching— well, not Barkley, but among the wide receivers and tight ends. Ben, who scores the most fantasy points? I have Shepard ahead. I mean, it's just kind of a philosophical thing where I think it's hard for tight ends to be the number one option.

I think it's certainly possible that Ingram is that guy. But I have Shepard kind of playing the OBJ role. Dave Richard wrote a really good piece about how he was split out more outside when OBJ hasn't been in the lineup over the last couple of years. We know Tate's a slot guy. I'm expecting Shepard to be outside and kind of be that OBJ type presence. I don't think he's obviously going to be nearly as good, but I think with that will come a pretty solid target share. We know in Eli's history before Odell,

he still targeted guys that, you know, like his number one receiver at a really high rate. He had, you know, Victor Cruz had a really big season with him. You can go back to Plaxico Burris. You can go back to Amani Toomer even. So for me, I think Shepard's going to get the opportunity to have a big target season. I don't have him projected for – I have him projected for 117, not a ton. But he is somebody who's pretty interesting to me.

I think Tate will also rack up targets in the slot but just not be – use the way that Eli has typically leaned on his top target, which is how I expect Shepard to be used. I've got them very, very close with a slight edge to Golden Tate. I do think he catches more passes. I wouldn't be surprised if Shepard is better than him in yards. I think Ingram probably catches the most receiving touchdowns, but all three of them are right within like eight fantasy points of each other in my projections. I do have a slight edge to Tate in PPR. Ingram would be my favorite in non-PPR.

I'm looking at your Evan Ingram projections. You guys both have him for 101 to 109 targets, 68 or 67 catches. Very, very similar. 804, 805 yards and six touchdowns. So nearly identical stats. That projection makes him tight end four. And I just look at that and say 804 yards and six touchdowns to me is not good enough to justify.

I've had this conversation before. I'll have it again. Not good enough to justify a top 50 pick. It might be tight end four. I don't think it will be enough separation between tight ends five through 12 or whatever to justify a top 50 pick. And that's where I've seen him go. It's forever. I agree with that.

Yeah, I think the big three tight ends going as high as they are pulling that second tier of tight ends higher than they should be going. And I like all those guys. I like Ingram, OJ Howard and Hunter Henry, but I agree with you. Top 50 pick you're talking about into the start of the fifth round. I wouldn't take any of those guys personally until the fifth round. So that's what, 180 fantasy points? Yeah. About 50 more than where the number 12 tight end was last year.

40 more than where the number nine tight end was last year i try to generally and i don't do it exactly but um use a somewhat of a value-based drafting approach based on how much they're outscoring the replacement cost at that position and i think he's pretty close to a top 50 pick all right uh i guess like yeah well i guess that you know it's gonna come down is he a top 50 pick for you like i would take him in the fifth round outside the top 50 like is he close to top 50 or is he a top 50 i am going to look at it like i'm i'm not i think i have him in the top 50 i'm just verifying right now and just so you know, those numbers, what was it? I have in the top 50. For Evan Ingram. Low 800 yards, 600 touchdowns.

I mean, his pace without Odell Beckham has blown that away. So that has not included Golden Tate, though, which is the issue. My concern with all these guys is, I know everybody hates Eli Manning. I think he's going to be better than Daniel Jones this year. And when they

do turn it over to Daniel Jones when they're out of it, if that does happen, I think everybody's going to be better than Daniel Jones this year. And when they do turn it over to Daniel Jones when they're out of it, if that does happen, I think everybody's numbers are going to suffer, including maybe Saquon Barkley's. It's hard to know, but that's definitely a risk when you're drafting any giant. It's just really hard to imagine somebody being worse than Eli. No, you're wrong. And the thing is, and this should be part of your projections, Eli Manning statistically had a much better year last year

than he did the year before, right? Yes. Why? I know the answer, but in your opinion, why do you think that was? Well, he had Odell Beckham for one year. Because he was so bad the year before? Well, that's part of it. But why was he better last year?

In my opinion, it's two things. He had the best running back he's ever had, and he had the best offensive line he's had in a long time, and that's not saying much, because it wasn't that good, but this year it could be... But he had Odell Beckham for three times as many games. But this year it could be... But no, not as... But he was

better last year than probably he was two years ago, too. Anyway, or three years ago, whatever. My point is, you're finally giving Eli Manning an offensive line, which he hasn't had since they won the Super Bowl, and you finally have given him a running back. It makes a difference. They're going to have, I would say, a top-ten offensive line.

That would be my guess. So maybe he won't just give up the job to Daniel Jones. I don't know what we're talking about here. Part of your point on Saquon Barkley, he had a.3 average depth of target last year. I mean, a lot of running backs have low average depth of targets, but he was third in the NFL in yards after the catch. I mean, yeah, those are just free yards for Eli where he's dumping off balls.

I know there was a game where Saquon, one of his double-digit target games, where he had like negative 20 air yards because Eli just kept dumping it off to him like five yards behind the line of scrimmage and just said, go make a play. And he actually caught for like 50 yards in that game because he had so many yards after the catch and he can make those plays. So, I mean, I think there is something to be said about that. He had 700, 700 and something yards after the catch that just got added to Eli Manning's total because Saquon Barkley is amazing.

He is probably going to be the best running back ever. I'm just going to. All right, Eagles, Eagles. Here we go. The Philadelphia Eagles were 9-7. They were 20th in rush attempts, 7th in pass attempts. Heath, how much do you hate having Carson Wentz projected as QB5?

Not at all. I don't have any emotional attachments to my rankings or projections. What's your stat for the Eagles? My stat for the Eagles? My stat for the Eagles is 46.5%. That's the percentage of the Eagles targets that went to wide receivers in 2018.

The lowest percentage in the league. And for one thing, that's not great for the Philadelphia wide receivers. But then you add into that that they went out and added Deshaun Jackson. They drafted J-Jaw. There are not enough footballs to go around in this offense. So what does that mean? Who suffers?

It puts a pretty serious cap on a guy who you think that i hate that's alishan jeffrey you do it definitely hurts all of the other wide receivers and i i don't think it's going to have any impact on zach hurts but it might hurt the pass catching running backs a little bit. Okay. I mean, the Eagles haven't used the running backs like a ton in the passing game. I think if you go, I'm not 100%

last year, but I think if you go back the year before when Sproles was hurt and Ajayi was their main lead back, they didn't have, I don't think they had anyone that season catch more than like 20 passes. I mean, it was a very, very low usage for the Eagles in the passing game. They just threw 36% of their passes to tight ends last year. That's 5% more than any other team.

Yeah, because Ertz and Goddard are both going to be involved. Yeah, exactly. They're going to get a ton of passes there. And this is another team that will push the ball down the field. Carson Wentz is going to rack up air yards. He's a great quarterback. I have him QB 9 in my projections, but I will say he's less than a half a point literally behind both of the two guys ahead of him. Uh, and 10 points behind my QB four, which is Cam Newton.

So he, it's just a big tier there from QB four down and even QB three down to QB nine. So that's, that's where Wentz falls. But I, you know, I, Heath has him at a QB five and he could easily be my QB five as well. If I just had him production for like one more passing touchdown. Well, what about a rushing though for Carson Wentz? Cause his rushing totals last two seasons, 299 yards in 13 games. And then only 93 yards in 11 games.

Right. Cause he's coming back from the, the really catastrophic knee injury. You'd think maybe he'll bounce back a little bit this year, but I don't have him projected for much rushing this year. I kind of split the difference between those two. I have him at 196. I feel like that might be a little bit

high, but 150 to 200, somewhere in that range. It's a big deal to me. Not necessarily his rushing totals, but his mobility and whether or not he's going to be back to just being able to get out of the pocket. I'm sure that's a very difficult thing to project because he had a back injury that he's coming back from now. We don't know what his health is.

You go by his rates last year, they were really good. But he also fumbled the ball a lot last year and left a lot of points on the board. And just didn't, even when he was worth starting, Carson Wentz was not amazing last year. And he's kind of always, he led the NFL, or at least quarterbacks, in fumbles in 2016. That was his rookie season? Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right, so that's interesting.

I mean, you don't really talk about that a lot, but it kills possessions and it loses your points. So hopefully you can clean that up. Let's get to the running backs. Ben, give me your stat and let's talk about the running backs for the Eagles. Yeah. No Philly running back last year played more than 65 percent of the snaps in a game. In 2017, there were one of two teams who didn't have a black back play more than 60% in more than one game. They had a couple guys do that one time. And typically when they have these really high snapshares, I think the highest one that year was Darren Sproles in like week two before he got hurt. It's when they're in these like game situations where they have their pass catching back on

for the entire second half or something like that. But when they're in any kind of reasonable game script, they rotate more than any team in the league. They have since Doug Peterson took over. Now, wait, let me interrupt you. Let me ask you this. Do you think they've done that because they haven't had the guy they like there?

Or should we look at what Jay Ajayi did when he got, and that was a mid-season trade, so that was kind of tough because LeGarrette Blount was still getting a lot of work. Like, can Miles Sanders overcome this history? Well, that's why I went back to the Ajayi trade because people said that a lot last offseason about Ajayi. Or I mean, I went back to the Ajayi year because people said that a lot about Ajayi last offseason that his workload ramped up late in the year. And it did, but they went on a Super Bowl run. And a lot of people talked about that playoff run it was mainly because they got into a lot of positive game

scripts they got hot at the end of the regular season and won throughout the the playoffs so they're in situational places where ajay would get more touches his snap share didn't rise a ton he was just getting more touches per snap because they were running a lot in the second half like he wasn't all of a sudden a feature back And I don't think we would have seen that last year had he not gotten hurt. He didn't. It wasn't that way in the first couple of weeks before he did get hurt.

Because, again, no back on their team played more than 65% of the snaps in a game all year last year. Can we look at that, though? Because he must have gotten hurt in week two and then again in week five. Because he missed week three. But he had 15 carries in week one, seven carries in week two and then again in week five is he missed week three but he had 15 carries in week one seven seven carries in week two 15 carries in week four and then eight in week five but it

seems like he got hurt in weeks two and five when he only had the seven and eight carries but looks like his healthy games ajayi had 15 carries in both games right so my whole point because his snap shared none of those games was over 65 My whole point there is he was their closer. He was their big power back. These guys rotate backs and those were game situations where they gave him second half rushes. And the guy that I think that's going to be for the Eagles this year is Jordan Howard. I think they brought in Jordan Howard to be that guy. Miles Sanders is more of a multidimensional guy. So the guy who might have a 15 carry game, I doubt Ajayi had,

you have the game log up, but I doubt he had very many targets in any of those games. The second game he had four targets. The first game he had none. Right. So it's more just like a rushing heavy, not target heavy role. I think Sanders,

you're going to see play more in the first half of games when they want to, you know, be like not tip off what they're doing, whether it's running or passing. But they still like the fact that they brought in Howard is the other reason that I think that Sanders might have a hard time overcoming this, because I think they're still going

to have different backs for different roles is essentially where I'm at. And I actually was more optimistic about Sanders at the start of the summer, but I don't think it helps him at all that he missed so much offseason stuff in his rookie season. I don't think there's much of a path for him to start the season having a good workload. He could be someone that makes more of a pop in the second half, but even when he does, I think it's a borderline number two, high-end number three running back, and probably nothing more.

All right. If I were going to take the optimistic approach, it would just be that I don't really think very much of Jordan Howard. I think the Eagles could obviously be a high scoring team as they were two years ago. They took a step back last year, but you're talking about could be a great offensive line, a quarterback you guys like a lot.

So I just want the run, the starting running back on that team. Totally, totally get where you're coming from. Well, no, my thing is like, talent's going to win out.

And by week five, if they're smart, they'll let loose and let Miles Sanders go. They pretty much did with Josh Adams last year because they were forced to. I will say, I think that's possible. I mean, I don't think just because they've done what they've done in the last three years that we should assume

that the Eagles have no possibility of having a workhorse running back one. If Miles Sanders is that good and he's just clearly the best player, they're going to play him. I mean, I would assume so. And we've definitely seen that with similar trends and other teams in the past where they go away from it based on the player talent.

And he could force his way. I don't think that's insane. I've got a new stat for the Eagles. Okay, Adam. Inspired by you because you hate Carson Wentz Since Carson Wentz Entered the NFL in 2016 No player has fumbled more

Than Carson Wentz Yeah That's really something you gotta look at Is Dak Prescott number two? Dak Prescott is ninth Really? Okay Is Eli Manning number two? Eli Manning is eighth.

Who's number two? Wentz is tied with Russell Wilson, who's played eight more games than him, and Jameis Winston, who is a notorious fumbler. Yeah, he is. All right. Just give me a yes or no. Is Dallas Goddard fantasy relevant this year? No.

Does Zach Ertz get hurt this year? Yeah. You should handcuff Zach Ertz with Dallas Goddard. Hand take. If you have more than 16 rounds. I mean, he's a great player, right? But no. The answer is no.

Yes. More than 16 rounds. I quickly want to mention Deshaun Jackson, though, because he's a guy who improves almost every quarterback he's played with. He improves their efficiency. It's similar to what we were just talking about with Gronkowski being on the field, even if he's not getting the targets. Jackson has always been that guy in his career until he played with James Winston. He did have that effect on Ryan Fitzpatrick as well. Whenever Deshaun Jackson's in a lineup, it's good for the quarterback.

So that's one reason that I'm optimistic about Wentz and definitely want to have some Wentz this year and think that he could have a big year. I'm glad I took the Sean Jackson in our Dynasty League today. No, I see a lot of I see a lot of Jackson does not make fantasy teams better. He makes quarterbacks better. Well, yeah, my team is a quarterback. OK, so the two quarterbacks, in fact, let's go to our last team, the Redskins. Thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back.

The Redskins are Thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back. No, the Redskins are 7-9 last year. They were pretty good before Alex Smith got hurt. And they were 14th in rush attempts, 26th in pass attempts. Ben is currently projecting Case Keenum. Heath is not. Heath, you think Dwayne Haskins starts from day one? I pretty much just project one quarterback. Oh, okay.

So, yeah, but i think he does and if it's looking like he won't and i'll change it to case keenan but regardless i'm not going to draft either of them yeah my thought on haskins i actually think he might start week one but i think this is such a bad situation for success that it's going to be really hard for him to play from week one to week 16 like essentially i think we might see a Deshaun Kaiser situation when he was in Cleveland where he's not going to look as good because he's not going to be getting the protection. He doesn't have very good receiving weapons and then he might get benched

and then reinserted late in the year. I think it's going to be really hard for Askins to make it through 16 games because so much falls on the quarterback. Let's talk, let's talk about, let's talk about the running backs. Let's do some stats. I hope your stats are about the running backs here.

Ben, what's your stat? Our stats are the same. That's about Jordan Reed. Convince me why this is not the worst offense in the NFL and how that's going to affect the running backs. Nobody wants to draft the running backs. Why would to draft the running backs.

Why would we do that? Why would we convince you of that? Do you think this is the worst offense in the NFL? I think this should be the team where the number one running back gets drafted the latest, probably. I think there is a little bit of upside with Darius Geis, but I think probably there should be a running back taken from every single team before Geis. Maybe not every single team, but very close to that before Geisist just because we've already heard talk that they're going to bring him

on a little slowly they brought back adrian peterson chris thompson's gonna play in the passing game i mean that guy's still alive and very good uh it's just not a good situation to be targeting any of these backs so what how many touches are you guys projecting for Darius Geis? Heath at 221? Just under 200 touches. Not a lot in the passing game. 174 rush attempts, 18 catches. Because I have Chris Thompson catching 53 passes.

Again, because they don't have any real weapons in the passing game. Based on the projections here. Yeah, I think that Darius Geis could just be like... It's going to be hard for him to have success when Adrian Peterson's running for 2,000 yards. Which running back would you draft first, Heath? I don't plan on drafting either of them this season. But you do have Geis ahead of him. And you have Thompson ahead of both.

So I would just say this. When it comes to the Redskins, they do not... Ben and Heath are not projecting a top 35 running back. Not projecting a top 50 wide receiver. With Paul Richardson being the favorite wide receiver on the team at about 700 yards and four touchdowns. And then let's get to Jordan Reed then.

Because that is... He's a top 10 tight end in the projections, eighth for Heath, tenth for Ben. Ben, what is the Jordan Reed stat? Heath, you go first. Okay. Jordan Reed led Washington with 84 targets last season, despite the fact that he only played like 12 games and one play. And then mine is in Jordan Reed's career, 5.8 targets per game is his low. He's never

averaged fewer than 5.8 targets per game in any season of his career. He's always been hurt, but when he's on the field, you're going to get six targets per game almost minimum, and now there's no competition here. Yeah, and I think last year he was actually, because if you take out that one game against the Giants that ended his season where he basically didn't play, the other 12 games, he averaged

6.9 last year, almost seven targets per game. That's pretty good. But he was so bad last year, though. What's that? He was so bad. Even with the good. But what he was so bad last year though, what's that? He was so bad. Even with the targets that he, like, if you look at the start of the season,

he started off with four for 48 and a touchdown. That's very good in PPR. Then he gets six for 55. That's good enough in PPR four for 65. That's good enough in PPR. Like I don't, I don't know what happened. His efficiency was a lot worse.

In his first five years of his career, he caught at least 74% of the passes that were thrown to him every single season, which is high. I mean, tight ends, even lower A-dot tight ends, that's still very high. But he was right between 74% and 77% every single year.

Last year, it was down at 64%. So, easily his career low in terms of catch rate. I don't think he's got it anymore, guys. I think he's too beat up. I think he's broken down, Jordan Reed. Not to say he can't finish as a top 10 tight end. But I think, like, you know, in previous years, even last year, you were thinking, well, not only can he finish as a top 10 tight end, but he's also been a top 2 tight end in the past.

And he's this great player. I think he's more like if he finishes as a top 10 tight end, it's just because of targets, not because of talent anymore at this point. Yeah, for me it's more about, because Jordan Reed is available after about 15 tight ends are probably going to be taken in your draft. Nobody seems to want to take him in our drafts. For me it's more about, assuming Jordan Reed is healthy in training camp. He is currently healthy.

We know that. I would just assume if I haven't got one of the top six or seven, wait till the end of the draft, take Jordan Reed, and I'll start him until he gets hurt. And he'll be a top 10 tight end until he gets hurt. He may not finish through 16 games as a top 10 tight end, but I expect he will be for as long as he plays, and then I'll find somebody to stream. So I actually have a different take on

his numbers last year than Adam. I don't think that he necessarily doesn't have it anymore. He actually played 13 games last year, which was the second most in his career. He didn't get to 16. He's never gotten to 16. But this is a guy that in 2015 and 2016 in PPR leagues, points per game, he was a tight end one both years. Better than Gronk.

Yeah. And that was three and four years ago. I mean, this guy has the opportunity to be a complete target hog and be very, very productive. And so my take on last year is like he actually was reasonably healthy. He's now further removed from like that foot thing looking like it could completely end his career because he did get through more games last year. They did limit his snaps and try to keep him healthy last year a little bit. He's probably not going to play 16 games. He'll probably get a couple of maintenance games.

It's definitely a risk. But I agree with Heath. You can get him so late. You can play him until he gets hurt. And he has the per game upside where, you upside where we just saw a reasonably healthy Jordan Reed season where he got volume, and really it was just an efficiency issue. If Haskins plays and Haskins is good, Jordan Reed could be a top-five tight end until he's hurt.

But just to clarify, I didn't mean like he's broken down, he can't stay healthy, which is kind of true, but I just mean like he's been robbed of his explosiveness, athleticism, what we saw in the past. I just don't think he's the same player. But look, I don't know that for sure. I'm not a scout. It's just sort of what I felt when I was watching him play.

And then I would say this. As soon as Alex Smith got hurt in the Texans game, that's when Jordan Reed started playing better, started putting up better numbers. Because he was pretty much droppable. Smith got hurt. I think Colt McCoy came in and there was a little bit of a brief one to three game, like two to three

game renaissance. I think it was like two and a half games for Jordan Reed. And then McCoy got hurt and they finished with Josh Johnson who's more of a scrambler. Maybe Alex Smith was killing him. Who knows? All right, guys. Well, that would be the AFC East and the NFC East.

We will come back tomorrow and give you the West. No, the South. AFC and NFC South. And then on Thursday, you will hear on 4th of July, whenever you decide to listen to it, you'll hear our show, which we're also doing tomorrow, on The West. So, hooray. We're almost there.

Thanks for listening. Ben, thank you. Thank you. Heath, thank you. Yep. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na.