Fantasy Football Today - AFC and NFC East PROJECTIONS! (07/06 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

Welcome to Projections Week! Heath and Ben have projected every team and today we'll look at the East divisions. First, let's run through some news and notes (2:55) as we talk about the coronavirus, Damien Williams, David Njoku, Antonio Brown and the Scott Fish Bowl ... AFC East projections for NE (12:30), BUF (26:00), NYJ (36:21) and MIA (46:13). How fast-paced will the NE offense be and what will Julian Edelman do with a new QB? How big of a role will Zack Moss play in BUF? How many targets for Stefon Diggs? Can any NYJ WRs stand out? How does the QB uncertainty in MIA factor into the projections? ... NFC East projections for PHI (55:00), DAL (59:40), NYG (1:07:40) and WAS (1:12:35). Are we convinced that the Cowboys offense is elite? Are Zeke's touches decreasing? What the heck do we do with the PHI WRs? Same question with the NYG WRs and let's talk about Saquon Barkley's catches. Finally, how many TDs to Heath and Ben have Terry McLaurin scoring and how are they sorting out the WAS backfield? ... Email us at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @YardsPerGretch, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ 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. It is Projections Week.

It is Heath and Ben's time to shine here on Fantasy Football Today. Welcome back, everybody. Hope you all had a great 4th of July holiday. I did watch Independence Day this weekend. My wife watched it for the first time, and she loved it. It's a great movie. Doesn't have anything to do with July 4th, really, but it's a great movie and always a good time to watch it.

We welcome you to the show here. And Ben, Heath, you guys have good holiday weekends? Yeah. I was doing projections all weekend getting ready for projections yeah but i i watched uh the patriot which i thought was okay i liked it uh and then i re-watched glory which is just the far superior movie and should have been the one that was on everybody's uh patriotic list over the patriot i um yeah i smoked about 11 pounds of pork butt on saturday um had some delicious pulled pork i didn't watch any movies on on saturday yesterday we watched black panther as we move through the marvel movies it's still probably my favorite um really yeah, we're a very, very good weekend. I had some pulled pork nachos last night and have some pulled pork baked potatoes today.

11 pounds? You're like 11 pounds? 11 pounds. And that was bone out. So it was 11 pounds of meat. My goodness. Well, okay. So unfair.

Yeah, that sounds delicious. That's yeah, very envious of that. I took a plate over to my neighbor, and it was very good. Good for you, man. I guess mine's just going to come in the mail. Well, happy 4th, everybody, and now happy 6th. So this week, it's Projections Week. We're going to start with the AFC East and the NFC East,

where the Jets haven't thrown 20 touchdown passes in four straight seasons. I mean, that's pathetic. The Patriots actually have been a pretty prolific offense in the sense that they've run a lot of plays, top four in scrimmage plays, each of the last three seasons. The Eagles are also like that. They run a ton of plays. The Cowboys, boy, did they exceed expectations last year.

Dak Press got through for more than a thousand more yards than he ever had. So we're going to look at the eight teams in these two divisions and try to figure it out. We do have some news and notes to get to first. And email us, I don't know, maybe Friday we'll do a mailbag. I think Friday we're doing a mailbag. This is a jam-packed week

in terms of these shows and the content, so I don't know that we're going to read a lot of emails during the shows. But fantasyfootballatcbsi.com, send them in, leave an Apple podcast review as well. I want to do some news and notes. I'm just going to read straight from ESPN about what the NFLPA medical director had been telling the players. The player reps were told, among other things,

that testing can decrease transmission, but that the virus is very serious and should be taken seriously, that African-American males are more susceptible to it, that it is possible to get it a second time, even if you've already had it, and that false negative test results are enough of an issue that players who test positive would be required to test negative twice before they are allowed to return. So just want to talk about the virus quickly here, because we're seeing what's going on in baseball, basketball as they're testing.

And really the fact that the medical director for the NFLPA said that you can get it a second time. So that's, you know, it's obviously relevant. It's obviously, you know, interesting and always awkward for me to talk about this, by the way. I hate talking about this. But I don't even know that we had to discuss too much. Quick question for you, though. What's a better way to plan for this

in terms of roster size? Give fantasy managers more roster spots or the same amount of roster spots because the problem with more roster spots or the same amount of roster spots because the problem with more roster spots is the waiver wire gets much thinner. So yeah, it's nice to have a deeper bench, but the waiver wire is much worse. So what's a better way to actually address this

if we're just expecting more players to miss time this year? I heard something that I liked, which was essentially that if there's like a game day inactive because i could see you know i think they've they've said right that they're not going to necessarily announce um they're going to essentially just declare players inactive and we're going to have to kind of guess if it's related to the virus is that true is that something you guys have heard that could be because i know that in baseball you know you can't unless you have the player's permission you cannot say that they tested positive right so there's a the possibility that on game days

we're finding out that um players are just inactive and it's kind of the first that you know we didn't really realize that maybe they were questionable or something but we didn't really realize it was serious and especially if that happens in the afternoon or the sunday night games you might be in a position where you don't have anybody on your bench to replace them um so an idea i heard that i thought was really interesting was like if if that happens um you have like the right to just add somebody from the same team at the same position and maybe that person's backup is already on some other roster but you can at least add somebody who's going to fill some part of that workload presumably uh you know just like automatically the commissioner can just put them on your roster and you can kind of deactivate

that player and get someone into your lineup and i think that's kind of an interesting way of just like saying we're gonna you won't know for sure what the reason is but like on any surprise and active because i do think like the timing is going to be an issue if it's a sunday night surprise inactive it's gonna it's gonna you know mess some things up for some people yeah i think for me personally it'd be two extra roster spots and i would even maybe like encourage people and say i'm adding two extra roster spots because you should be carrying a backup quarterback and tight end um you don't have to if you don't want to but then also i would i'd like to just have um free agents don't lock until their game starts so you can't drop anybody who's already played you can't add anybody

whose game has already started but But if you find out on... In this case, you probably have to add some sort of IR spot as well for this. But if you find out on Monday afternoon or Monday at 6 o'clock that your player is not playing, the players from that game are still not locked. You can move that player to the IR and you can then pick somebody up. Yeah, you have to have an IR.

That's kind of the thing. But does the IR only go for COVID? I would say the IR goes for anyone who is out. Yeah. Declared out. Okay. Kansas City running back coach Delan McCullough, he expects a big jump from Damian Williams.

Was this a significant story or just running back coach saying something nice about his running back? It just piles on to kind of what Kansas City's been doing this offseason and building Williams up. And it could very easily get to a month in the season. And we're laughing about the fact that some of us bought into what the Chiefs were saying about Damian Williams. But it makes I was never drafting Clyde Edwards-Gilera in the second round anyway, but I wouldn't be surprised if this drops his ADP to the third.

David Njoku wants a trade. If he gets traded, give me a destination that you might be interested in David Njoku in fantasy. Washington, oddly enough. I know they're not very good, but I think there's some, and when we talk about them

on today's show and the projections, I think there's some pretty decent volume upside for some reasons that we'll get into, and they don't have much competition at tight end.

Heath, I'm Patriots. Bring them to the Patriots. The whole thing with the Patriots is they haven't used their tight ends really the past two years. The non-Gronk Patriots. Bring them to the Patriots. The whole thing with the Patriots is they haven't used their tight ends really the past two years. The non-Gronk Patriots in the history of Bill Belichick, it's a very short list of tight ends who have been good

other than Rob Gronkowski. Yeah, but Njoku was a first-round pick. That's higher than Gronk. He might be better than, no, I'll just say, he's better than the other tight ends that they've had. I think so. Like, I think it would tell you something if Tennessee went and we went,

we were too high on John who, or same thing for Dallas. I think Washington's a very good one though. We're talking about green Bay too. And I'll say when I did my projections and again, I just did all of them in the last week, so a lot of this is kind of new. I'm still going to be adjusting some thoughts based on this. But when I did my projections, I came out very low on Jay Sternberger.

Yeah. Okay. I think it's tomorrow. A few more news items. Buffalo wants Zach Moss' role to be similar to Frank Gore's. That was 166 carries, 599 yards, two touchdowns, and a ton of work near the goal line. We are going to project Baltimore today, and we'll see what you guys have. And the team that Jack Moss plays for, Buffalo.

I'm looking at Buffalo and saying Baltimore. Why do I keep saying the wrong teams? Yeah, and you guys have pretty different projections, I think. Yeah, Moss. Heath has Moss for 97 carries. Ben has him for 149 carries. Again, Frank Gorehead, 166. There's a chance that Seattle signs Antonio Brown,

according to NFL Network. We keep hearing wide receivers being linked to the Seahawks, Antonio Brown being linked to the Seahawks. Okay, real quick, guys. You're drafting today. Scott Fishbowl starts today. That's a super flex. Let's say it's a one-quarterback league.

When should Antonio Brown be drafted, if at all? Definitely be drafted. But the possibility of a suspension, I think, looms. So for me, it's still in the double-digit rounds. But his upside is big enough that I think the 10th or 12th makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And this is like the guy right now that if someone is using all four hours or all five hours or all eight hours of the time they're on the clock and they're doing it strategically, not just because they're not paying attention or because

they're being a jerk, which some people will do that as well. But this is the guy that it would kind of make sense for people to do that with. There's been a lot of buzz the past week about Antonio Brown possibly signing with some team. If that happens in a day or two, when we're in like round five, round six, at a fishbowl, it's going to be a lot of fun.

Do you think he goes at that point? Because I think I'm expecting that he'll sign with somebody. I mean, I don't think. It's going to be a lot of fun. Do you think he goes at that point? Because I think I'm expecting that he'll sign with somebody. I mean, I don't think he's never going to play again. Yeah, I think if he signs with Houston, which I think was the team. Houston and Seattle are the two teams that have been

most closely rumored. I think if he signs with one of those teams, he won't make it to the double digit rounds. Okay, so Scott Fishbowl is starting today, Heath. I know it to the double-digit rounds. Okay, so Scott Fishbowl is starting today, Heath. I know there's a lot you wanted to say. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if there's a lot, but there's

some things I want. It does start at 10 a.m. It'll be going on when you hear this. You'll probably hear this while the Scott Fishbowl Podathon is going on, and that is a 24-hour podcast I was on last night, Sunday night at 8 p.m. They'll be going till 8 p.m. on Monday night.

I would encourage people to check that out. I would encourage people to donate to the Scott Fishbowl Podathon if you want to. The easiest way to find it probably is go on Twitter to SFB Podathon. P-O-D-A-thon. You got it. Okay. And there will be a link to the PayPal page where you can go make a donation. They've raised, I think, over $29,000 now.

The original goal was $10,000, so we should just continue to keep crushing it. Alright. I'm going to have to remember my PayPal password or probably reset it again. Seems like I have to do that every time I go on PayPal. Poker Night is on Tuesday. So join us on Twitch for some more poker. Go to twitch.com slash FF today.

It's going to be hosted by our friends at Faded Spade. Faded Spade Card Club is a new social poker platform offering free play and custom games. It's really, really easy to use and really fun. So I'm excited for Poker Night tomorrow night. This is Projections Week, Mailbag on Friday, Apple Podcast Reviews use and really fun. So I'm excited for poker night tomorrow night. This is projections week mailbag on Friday, Apple podcast reviews and your emails. We're going long today. I'm sure.

So let's get started here with the AFC East and the new England Patriots projected for nine and a half. Whether their total is nine and a half wins. They've been top. What's that? What over, over. I thought every time you said the team's projected win total,

we were supposed to say over. I like it. I like it. Over? Ben? Over. Sorry. I was noticing that my Scott Fishbowl is about to start in three minutes

and thinking about that. What team are we talking about? The Patriots, 13.5 wins. Heath said over. 13.5? No, 9.5. I think over, too. All right, cool.

And yeah, like I said, they've been top four in plays from scrimmage three years in a row. All right, ADP. I'm going to give ADP. You guys are going to give a number to know, and then we're going to start a discussion. Cam Newton right now,

based on the last week on NFC, is still QB 20. Julian Edelman is wide receiver 36 36 round eight pick between Will Fuller and Brandon cooks. Sony Michelle is around nine pick. He's RB 39 in between Tariq Cohen and Jordan Howard, James White's going around earlier than Sony Michelle. He's around eight pick and to kill Harry is a late round pick wide receiver

64. Who wants to give the number to know for the Patriots? Heath, Kim. Yeah, I'll give the number to know. Zero. In his career, Julian Edelman has caught 36 regular season touchdowns, five in the postseason. Zero have come from a quarterback not named Tom Brady.

And I do want to start with Julian Edelman's projection. But first, is there anything about the team projections that you guys would like to talk about? Like Heath has them running 50 more plays than Ben does. And this is a good point to say, like I've been looking forward to this since before I knew that we were going to do it again. I've been looking forward to Ben getting his projections done. So I have another set to compare mine to. So there will be multiple times throughout these podcasts where I may say, yeah, I'm probably going

to change that. Or Ben may say, yeah, I'm probably going to change that a little bit. The Patriots one's so interesting because I have them projected for the total number of plays that they have averaged over the past three seasons, which is right. I think 1,080, which is 5%, not quite three or 4% above league average league average last year, or median was 1,020.

But there have been some people that have referenced that cam teams in the past have generally not played that fast. And so it will be an interesting, like I may be just a little bit too high. If Ben's got them right around league average, I think he may be just a little bit too low. But yeah, it will be interesting to see what their pace is with Cam Newton as quarterback. But as a team that has historically been very, very up to tempo. Yeah, I think this is, I agree with everything he said. I'm going to probably make tweaks as well as we go.

And like I said, I've just been doing my projections in the past week. So I'm, ditto everything he said. I'm very much looking forward to finding spots where I don't necessarily agree with what I've projected. But yeah, this is definitely a long process and you can miss things like that. But I will say that for the Pats, I feel fairly comfortable about this. Heath noted the median is about 1,020. The average is about 1,016, so slightly lower. I still have them fast paced by back towards the league average, even if a team has been pretty consistent, especially in a case like this where I expect them to be number one, a lot more run heavy, which runs more clock.

Number two, I don't expect them to win quite as much. In the last several years, they've obviously been a very good team. Winning teams tend to run more plays. It's just, it almost seems unintuitive because losing teams are playing hurry up later and they're trying to play fast, and winning teams are typically trying to run the game out. But it's when they're building their lead,

they're running a lot more plays, they're sustaining more drives. And so I think the Patriots, if they lose a few wins, would be expected to lose some plays. And then you add in that run lean. And then the third thing is just changing quarterbacks. You feel a lot more comfortable running up tempo when you have Tom Brady and you've had him for years and you know what you want to do on offense at certain points of the game. I don't know that the Patriots will ever be

quite as quick-paced of a team in terms of time to snap throughout the year. So I still have them being an up-tempo team. I think they want to play that way, but I think it will be a lot closer to league average. It's not anything that's in their recent history, but it's something that I I'm projecting forward. Obviously. I said, we should start with Edelman, but I actually think that's foolish.

We should start with cam and you guys, um, you have them projected Heath as QB 14, Ben is QB 13, but Heath, you actually have them 27 more fantasy points. And, uh,

I'm not sure where that comes from. We might have different quarterbacks scoring. I think that must be what it is. Six point versus four point? Yeah, mine is CBS scoring. Okay. All right. So we'll just say QB 14 and QB 13 here.

And the rushing yards, you're projecting everybody for 16. First of all, you project everyone for 16 games, right? Correct. Okay. I do. The rushing yards are low by Cam's standards. 382 for Heath, 437 for Ben.

And you could usually bank on 500 or more, sometimes 600 or more. As recently as 2017, 754 rushing yards. So seeing less than 500 for Heath, seeing less than 400 rushing yards as So, uh, you know, seeing less than 500 for Heath, seeing less than 400 rushing yards as a projection for camp does not, and to me does not inspire a lot of confidence. Should I be, talk now

that was seemed more like a statement than a question. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Um, no, like we also have him ranked outside of the top 12 quarterbacks, which when he's played 16 games, he's never finished outside of the top 12 quarterbacks.

So I think it makes sense that there would be some area where we're projecting him to be worse than he has been because we're expecting him to finish worse than he has. In fact, I think Ben said when he's played 16 games, he's never finished outside the top five, right? Correct. Yeah. He's only put 16 games a few times. One thing I, the one position that I don't necessarily always project 16 games for, and you'll see when we get to Miami is quarterback.

And I struggled with this. I almost projected Jarrett Stidham for part of the season, but I wanted to do a full projection of Cam and see where he came out. I have him a little bit higher than Heath in rushing, but I do think he's a little older and he wasn't necessarily running as much later in his career before he started getting banged up.

And I expect that this team will be run heavy in the sense that they'll hand off a lot. And I think both Heath and I have a decent number of run attempts. I'm significantly lower than Heath, but he has them over 500 rush attempts, which is quite a bit, almost a hundred more than league average. So you're in some of that's because Cam Newton rushes, but I think a lot of that in his projection and in mine is that we're expecting this team to turn around and hand the ball off to running backs quite a bit as well. Okay. So let's go to Edelman here and you guys have him projected very similarly wide receiver, 28 for Heath wide receiver, 29 for Ben, about 80 catches less

than a thousand yards, five touchdowns, but more than 900 yards. And Edelman has been the most consistent player. I mean, on a 16 game basis for like five or six years in a row, it is about 100 catches, 1,100 yards. The touchdowns vary a little bit. But Cam Newton's only had one player that's had more than 84 catches, and that was Christian McCaffrey in 2018. So that's exactly, I think, right around the range you guys have Edelman in. Instead of the regular 100 catches, we're talking more like 80 to 84 catches.

Top 30, but barely. Anything you'd like to add about Julian Edelman? You guys really arrived at about the same numbers for him. I feel very not confident in my Julian Edelman projection, either direction. Really? Yeah. I feel, I guess one thing to add is we talked about the tight ends not seeing a lot of targets and you know people might note that cam newton has targeted

tight ends a lot in his career obviously greg olson and i believe you know after we kind of talked about it after he signed that you can kind of expect julian edelman to take a lot of those types of greg olson, more in the middle of the field, more in those shorter to short intermediate type depth of throw. I think that's who you would expect to be the Greg Olson for Cam Newton. And so there's some, if you think about it that way, there's some positivity for his targets to be in a relatively similar range, but both Heath and I are projecting a lot fewer passes than, than a typical Tom Brady team.

And that just in itself is going to bring down his targets. It's going to bring down his receptions. And then you like, like Adam said, you have, you do have to consider that the Camden has never really been a guy who's targeted a ton of slot receivers. Newton is as somebody who can extend play,

someone who ends up throwing downfield more and, and, and has had more success with outside receivers. You're not very high on Sonny Michel. You have him as RB42 for Heath, RB40 for Ben. James White, though, there's a bit of a gap here.

Heath, you have him as RB26. This is PPR, I assume? Yes. And Ben, RB34. And if you look at the catches, it's actually like the receiving totals aren't that much different. The rushing totals are a little bit different. You both have James White for 60 to 65 catches,

more than 500 yards, four or five touchdowns. So how is there an eight spot gap in the projections? RB 26 for Heath, RB 34 for Ben. It almost doesn't seem like... Well, 21 more rush attempts, Heath, you have James White projected for. Yeah, I wonder if this is more about the guy. It doesn't sound like we have a huge difference

in the number of fantasy points we're projecting him for. This may be more about Ben just having more of the young running backs projected for more fantasy points than I do. Yeah, I'm about 24 fantasy points behind you on white. Some of it is that rushing. Some of it is a little bit lower receiving. Some of that comes back to the team volume that we were talking about.

I also have Rex Burkhead playing a decent role. And if you look at these projections, I'm actually a little bit lower than you on Burkhead overall. But if you think about percentage of total backfield points, I would be higher. And I think he was banged up last year, but he was pretty good when he played again. And I think they do trust him and use him in that combo,

rushing and receiving role. And I think that cuts into White a little bit. All right, finally, Heath, with the Patriots, why so low on Nikhil Harry? You've got him projected for 392 yards. Ben has him projected for 686 yards. And actually, type of stats that make him maybe a streamer at some point. But you, Heath, do not appear all that interested in Nikhil Harry.

I think, and what you can say with what Ben did with the Patriots' number of plays, and he might be totally right about that, is kind of what he's doing with Nikhil Harry. Nikhil Harry didn't give us any reason last year to believe that he's going to do anything, but he was a first round pick as a wide receiver. And there are things in his prospect pedigree that Ben likes. And so he's just going to project him to take a leap this year that I'm not projecting for him. I've always kind of felt like Muhammad Sanu was a little bit underrated. I don't think the Patriots are going to throw very many passes. I do think Cam will still dump it off to James White. Now, all that being said, there's a possibility that this is the second wide receiver that Bill Belichick's drafted that's good. And he might take a big leap, but

I'm not projecting the leap that he is. That's a silly stat, though. Belichick never drafted a first-round receiver. He never drafted a player with Harry's pedigree. And just because they've had a lack of success at receiver doesn't mean every player they draft at wide receiver is

going to be a bust. Yes, he was bad last year, but he was very bad last year. And I agree with you. I actually have Sanu a little higher than you. I think part of this is this projection is you're, I guess a little bit higher on Edelman and a little higher on the running back receiving rates. And I have more of the targets going towards the wide receiver position

overall. Well, and I think that goes back again, like how many, can you just real quick see the number of wide receiver targets that you have for them? Yep. We'll have them at 60%. I can sum it real quick. But the Patriots were at 59% last year,

and I think I have a total of 327 targets for the wide receivers. So that's actually, I think, a little bit lower than what it was last year. The two years before that, they basically didn't throw to their wide receivers hardly at all compared to everyone else. They've always been at the very top of running back targets. And that, again, could change. But, yeah, I think that's probably part of it as well is I just have more targets going to the combination of White, Burkhead, Michelle, Damian Harris, Brandon Bolden.

All right, let's go to the Bills here. The Bills, nine wins is the over-under. Under. nine wins is the over under under I'm going to say they're going to get exactly nine wins Josh Allen is QB 8 for Heath and QB 10 for Ben and he's QB 8 in average

draft position more ADPs in between Matt Ryan and Carson Wentz. Devin Singletary is 48th overall. Running back's going very early in drafts right now, and he's RB24 in ADP between Raheem Mostert and David Montgomery. Zach Moss is around 10 pick, RB45.

Look at the wide receiver. Stefan Diggs is around 6 pick. He's wide receiver 27, going in between T.Y. Hilton and Marquise Brown. John Brown is around six pick. He's wide receiver 27, going in between T.Y. Hilton and Marquise Brown. John Brown is around 11 pick, and Cole Beasley is basically off the board. What's the number to know? Who went...

Oh, I'm going to go to Ben. Ben, what's the number to know for the Buffalo Bills? We have 34.9%, and it says Josh Allen has taken 34.9% of the Bills' total rush attempts inside the 10-yard line over the past two seasons, most in the NFL by a quarterback, and making him one of just two over 30% in that particular stat.

Okay. Yeah, it is interesting. Because Devin Singletary, like you look at the last six games of the season, Devin Singletary had the fourth most carries in the NFL, and he did not score one touchdown. And now they're talking about Zach Moss getting the Frank Gore role, which was the goal line guy, the unsuccessful goal line guy.

And then Josh Allen became the successful goal line guy. So why don't we talk about Devin Singletary and the running backs in general? Because Heath has it leaning more towards Singletary. Um, and Ben has it a little bit more even between Singletary and Moss. Uh, Heath, I'll give you the first word. Yeah. And I think the number you have, and we'll probably run into this with multiple teams. If the numbers are from before yesterday, because I did do some projections updates yesterday in preparation for this, I have Singletary at 201 carries. I have Zach Moss at 125. And I have Josh Allen at 98. So I don't know exactly. I think I'm still a little bit lower on Moss than Ben is. The thing that I struggle with is you've got to regress Singletary's

efficiency some because I don't generally project guys for better than five yards per carry I don't but I also think that you have to project the touchdowns regress the touchdowns up some so I actually have Singletary basically with four touchdowns Moss with three and Josh Allen at five and a half on the ground uh last year Singletary had two rushing touchdowns two receiving touchdowns you also have him projected for 41 catches, I believe. 40. 39.5. And Ben has him for 31

catches. So I guess the question is, Ben, based on your projection, do you have any interest in drafting Devin Singletary? Yeah. I've actually taken him recently. I think we're going to see this in, in projections. Um, there's, there's going to be like for me projections, you have to look,

you have to think about what they are and what they mean. Um, in this case and specifically when we talk about running backs, you're just kind of choosing how you think the work's going to split, but there's a limited number of running back touches. And if you, like for me, in my projections, I have David Johnson and Todd Gurley and Le'Veon Bell very high, higher than I'm willing to take them because I can project them pretty comfortably for a large share of their backfield.

I have more of a split here. That doesn't necessarily mean that the gap between those players is equivalent to the projected number that I have. And I think he's projection is a good indication why, like all it takes is the split for me to be a little bit off on the split. And then all of a sudden the player is much, much better than I am projecting. So especially with running backs, I think projections for me are most valuable for quarterbacks and for pass catchers, which, you know, dividing out the targets is a little bit easier to project, but especially when we talk about running back, it's so opportunity-driven,

and I'm basically just picking an arbitrary number of how much of the work I think Zach Moss is going to step into. It's hard to trust that as a really firm ranking of where I would put the running backs. So the wide receivers, you guys, seem to be pretty much on the same page. Stefan Diggs getting about 125 to 130 targets, and he's wide receiver 22 for both of you.

John Brown is around wide receiver 40. Cole Beasley about 570 yards. Not a huge factor here. A little bit from Isaiah McKenzie. But in terms of Diggs and Brown, really Diggs. All right. So how did you, Ben, how did you end up with your projection? 79 catches, 1,076 yards, eight touchdowns.

Pretty nice year for Stefan Diggs. Wide receiver 22, like I said, for both you and Heath. You know, talk about that as he links up with Josh Allen for the first time in his career. Yeah, Diggs is a really tough one. Because if you look at his recent history, he had 149 targets two years ago. He had under 100 last year, and that's because two years ago his average depth of target was very low.

He was in a shallow role, basically like a Michael Thomas-type role, high catch rate, underneath option. Last year, all of a sudden, his average depth of target was in Deshaun Jackson and Will Fuller territory. It was a complete downfield threat. It was very efficient as a downfield threat. I think he's a really good receiver. But, again, this is one where you have to project it forward.

He's going to a new team. I think he's basically pigeonholed the last two years in Minnesota. I think the fact that the Bills gave up a first plus. I mean, if we go back and look at this, they gave up a first, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth and got a seventh back. They gave up a ton to get Stefan Diggs onto their roster. I think they're going to treat him like a true number one in the sense that they will get targets to him at all depths, shallow, intermediate, and deep.

And that will help him get a really, a much larger target share than he's been getting in a more well-rounded role. So I ended up projecting him essentially median depth, like between his last two years and kind of his average stats over his last two years with Minnesota with a little bit less efficiency. He's got a less accurate quarterback. It's a challenging thing to piece together, but that's where I wound up. This is a point where I, cause I don't know the answer to this question. So I'm going to play the Adam role for a second. You've got

how many targets? 129. How did you come to his touchdown rate? Because I think his touchdown rate, you've actually got higher than what his career rate is. Or how do you come up with touchdown rate for receivers or pass catchers? Because that's something I, it's the worst part of doing projections in my opinion, especially on a weekly basis because touchdowns are in a lot of ways random and so i'm just curious how you do it um and this is interesting because i think it's

i think i've we're using a different document but i think i actually have uh more touchdowns projected for him than what's in the document i have his touchdown right at 5.8 percent i i we go through these projections and make so many decisions. I can't speak specifically to it, but how I make my decisions is a combination of the player and the quarterback's career rates and the role. And I think with Stefan Diggs, my expectation is that he will get loose for some downfield plays with Josh

Allen and Josh Allen will miss him on some, but I think what we saw last year on 94 targets, how massively efficient he was downfield with Kirk Cousins, indicates how good of a route runner he is, how good he is at creating separation. I think that's a good fit with Allen, even though Allen's going to miss him sometimes. But I think that type of high ADOT tends to mean

a little bit of a higher touchdown rate, as long as the player's actually catching a reasonable number of the downfield targets. You're talking about several big play touchdowns and that's what i'm expecting from dig so i have a little bit higher rate than than league average and probably his his uh recent numbers as well you know one thing i struggle with in drafts is you look like look at the three wide receivers going uh in this range ty T.Y. Hilton, Stefan Diggs, Marquise Brown. 26th, 27th, 28th off the board. They are around six picks in NFC ADP. They are on low passing volume offenses.

And that sucks. That usually limits upside. I mean, Buffalo, they were 24th in pass attempts last year, and that was the highest that they've been in three years under Sean McDermott. They have a quarterback who I don't know, I think he was on pace for like 3,200 yards or something.

Pretty horrible. Threw 20 touchdown passes, and he played 16 games. He really only played 15. He played like five pass attempts in Week 17. It's hard to get excited about Stefan Diggs for me anyway because John Brown exists and I don't expect a very prolific passing offense. I don't think they're going to throw that much.

So, but I mean, but then like what I say, oh, I'll take Marquise Brown over him. I obviously can't make that argument for Marquise Brown. The next wide receiver off the board is A.J. Green. I'm sure they'll throw more than the Bills, probably for more yards. I don't know. If you told me A.J. Green was 100% healthy, I would probably take A.J. Green over. Yeah. But I guess at what point do you just forget about the pass volume?

Because these guys aren't being drafted as top 10 wide receivers, obviously. They're being drafted in the 20s. So it makes sense at that point. But if you're just trying to shoot for the moon and get a guy who can be a top 10 wide receiver, I don't know that it's possible on Buffalo. Honestly. Yeah, I've heard that a lot this offseason.

I think my counter argument would be what Allen Robinson just did last year. I think a lot of people were very down on Robinson despite a stellar career prior in terms of outperforming his situation for Robinson, it was more playing with some bad quarterbacks before that. I think Diggs is in that same tier as a talent. And I think you should be that high on Allen Robinson, too, if you're not.

But what we saw from Robinson last year was he dominated targets in a lower volume offense. Yes, the Bears threw more. A lot more. A lot more. I mean, they were 14th in pass attempts with 580. The Bills had 513. They were 24th. Yeah.

But I don't see the Bills getting to 14th. Something like wide receiver seven. I think Diggs at a lower target rate could be pretty easily wide receiver 10, essentially. Okay. All righty. Let's go to the New York Jets.

Six and a half wins for the Jets. Alrighty. Let's go to the New York Jets. Six and a half wins for the Jets. Under. Yeah, under. Gross. Okay. ADP. Sam Darnold, quarterback 26. Le'Veon Bell, RB 19 between Jonathan Taylor and James Conner.

35th overall for Le'Veon Bell. Frank Gore basically undrafted. Jamison Crowder, kind of like the value for Crowder. Wide receiver 44. He's a round 10 pick between Mecole Hardman and Emmanuel Sanders. And he was on pace in 13 games

with Sam Donald for almost 1,000 yards last year. Brashad Perryman, round 12. Denzel Mims, 190th overall. So none of the wide receivers going before round 10. Chris Herndon is tight end 20 between Blake Jarwin and Ian Thomas.

Heath, our number to know for the Jets is... 17. That's how many rushing touchdowns Adam Gase's offense has put in the last three seasons combined. Yeah, that's one of the best. That's the best stat that we've gotten. That's great job, Heath.

Thanks. That's messed up... That's the best stat that we've gotten. Great job, Heath. Thanks. That's a bad stat. So, yeah, 17 rushing touchdowns in the past three seasons for Adam Gase's offenses. And Ben points out that Derek Henry and Aaron Jones both had 16 by themselves in 2019. And I would say, like I said, the Jets haven't thrown 20 touchdown passes

in four straight seasons. So, yeah, why should we draft any Jets as we look at projections here? Heath, why should we draft any Jets? Well, because even last year, with as terrible as the Jets were, Jamison Crowder with Sam Darnold was a pretty good PPR wide receiver. Levy on Bell, despite being a slug and despite an offensive line that was awful and despite terrible touchdown luck, was still a starting fantasy running back. You have Bell a little higher than I do.

I guess I have him losing a couple targets and being a little bit less efficient as a receiver. You have him RB11. I have him RB19, but our numbers are not that dissimilar. So I think that's kind of interesting. He was also somebody I changed a little bit yesterday, and I've got him RB15 now. Okay.

I have been fighting this Le'Veon Bell battle for four months now. I don't think I can take anymore. I've got him now projected for 207 carries and 63 catches and not really very good efficiency or touchdown luck. And still, if he doesn't get hurt, I feel like I'm projecting closer to the floor than the ceiling for Le'Veon Bell. And Ben's going to say that's absurd. The non-injury floor for Le'Veon Bell than I am the ceiling. And your projection for Le'Veon Bell, is it updated or is it?

It is updated in my spreadsheet, yes. All right. What do you have? I've got him 787 rushing yards, 483 receiving yards, 6.8 total touchdowns, rushing and receiving combined. 63 catches. That's 230 PPR fantasy points. And that's still number 15. I love that I made this beautiful spreadsheet for us to compare projections and put

your projections in it. And then you updated them all and, and didn't tell me. These are the same. These are the same. The Le'Veon projections were the same. Oh, I just assumed that the spreadsheet that you made was pulling from mine and

would just update with whatever information was in there. I, if I was smart enough, I could have figured that out. Probably. So it's 1250 is I could have figured that out probably. So that's 1,250-ish total yards for both of you and about seven to eight, well

no, about six to seven touchdowns for Le'Veon Bell. But again, I think we should clarify this. If Le'Veon Bell plays 16 games this season, Ben, do you think he has a higher floor or ceiling from this projection?

I mean, my projection is like right on yours. I don't think I don't think his ceiling is very high. I think, yeah, like he has a lot of injury risk. He's got age risk. He's got Adam Gase getting has made so many comments that

yes, he had a massive share of the work last year, but he's not like an established player with the Jets over tons of seasons. I think there's a possibility that he does not have the same heavy workload this year and that Gase decides that he's not going to use him for whatever reason. They're not projecting him for the same heavy workload at all. No, I agree with that. And I think this is probably, yes, closer to his floor. But I think with the, I don't know, I think it's close to the ceiling as well.

But I think what the big question on this team, because I think he's a, no, I think he's a narrow projection, like a healthy projection. I don't think he has a high ceiling like some backs do. And I don't, I think you're right that he probably doesn't have a massive floor. I'm kind of trying to talk into how that could happen. But the other point I was going to make, you know, Adam noted Jameson Crowder, we both have projected way quite a bit ahead of ADP. But as I do these projections every year, I notice that just by doing them and everyone's projections are going to be relatively similar in certain ways.

I notice so many players that I understand their ADP more because I do the projection. And I just like, I think the biggest reason to do this show in general is to recognize how many people in this industry are still drafting entirely based off projections. And you should not be doing that. Jameson Crowder is a good example. He projects very well because we don't know if we can project Chris Herndon to based off projections, and you should not be doing that. Jamison Crowder is a good example. He projects very well because we don't know if we can project Chris Herndon to take a leap and be healthy. We don't know if we can project Denzel Mims to have a big rookie year.

We don't know if we can project Bershad Perriman to have a big role in his new offense. Any of those things happens. It cuts into Jamison Crowder a little bit. Even if they don't happen, Jamison Crowder is not going to be a wide receiver one. He's a slot receiver. He has a long path to get to a massive outperformance of his ADP where he goes in drafts. He's a perfect example of a very safe pick that you can take in PPR leagues, but

his upside and downside are very narrow where the other receiving options in this offense in particular all have much higher upsides. They could break out in ways, including Herndon, who could be the breakout tight end. They could break out in ways that would be very positive for fantasy. Well, but like Jamison Crowder, I'm not a Crowder guy because one thing the projections don't tell you is the way they get the stats. And Crowder has been so inconsistent.

He is an annoying wide receiver. It's like he has this four game stretch where he's great. And then last year, not including three bad games without Sam Darnold, because the Jets offense was terrible when Sam Darnold's beyond terrible. In the other 13 games, he had five games, Jamison Crowder with less than 30 yards and no touchdowns.

And then his best game, 90 catches, two touchdowns on 11 targets at Baltimore, if we remember that Thursday night game. That was after three straight horrible games for Crowder. Who was starting him at that point? So that's why Jamison Crowder drives me crazy. But just the stats, 16-game pace with Sam Darnold, 86 catches, 933 yards, and seven touchdowns.

I don't think anyone on this team has the potential. I really don't think so. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about Perryman. If Mims did that... 900 yards? 933 yards and seven touchdowns? Who's going to do that with 86 catches? Well, first of all, neither Heath or I is projecting that for Crowder this year.

But that's what his pace was. That's all I'm saying. What's that? That's what his pace was. Yeah, yeah. I'm saying that's kind of more of an upside for Crowder this year. But that's what his pace was. That's all I'm saying. What's that? That's what his pace was. Yeah, yeah. I'm saying that's kind of more of an upside for Crowder, which is not particularly high. But yeah, no, I mean, I agree.

Very well, the most likely outcome is that Crowder's the top scoring receiver on this offense. And this offense is frankly not that good. But I'm not saying that there's no scenario where I would draft Jameson Crowder even look comes out very very good in this projection for both me and he relative 80 to adp but there is a reason why he gets drafted later than this and that's the reason and he if you like mims more than ben does yeah i just i think it's that's mostly just like it's the same thing i said about his nikhil harry it's that's mostly just

like it's the same thing I said about his Nikhil Harry it's just mostly open projection okay but I do think he I don't have much I don't have much faith in Bershad Perryman being a good wide receiver despite the four or five good games he's had in

five years and so I think that there's a decent chance for Mims to be the red zone guy for the Jets. Okay. Chris Herndon, about 500, 600 yards, 550 to 600 yards in the projections and four touchdowns. Another guy that I think, not even think, that I would not be surprised at all if it just

turns out we get to October and this is one of those guys that Adam Gase just doesn't like because he was not happy with Herndon's inability to come back last year when they thought they was going to and then he got hurt right away and he said some pretty uncoated things like it was pretty clear how Adam Gase felt yeah but if you go back to the summer he was talking about how Herndon was the key to his offense Sam Darnold was talking about that kind of stuff too. They were excited about Herndon. I think some of the stuff he said in season could have been disappointment more than anything. I agree with you. We don't know anything about how Adam Gase feels about Herndon, and Adam Gase, if he doesn't like you, you're not going to do well. You might

not do well anyway because his offenses tend to not be very good. I think the flip side is that there's certainly upside for Herndon as well. Let's go to the Dolphins. Six wins is the over-under for the Dolphins. I'm going to say they're going to get exactly six wins. These lines are really good.

Ryan Fitzpatrick is actually going after Tua Tagovailoa. They're both Fitzpatrick's QB 30, Tua's QB 28. Matt Breida and Jordan Howard are going back-to-back. Breida's RB 41. Howard's actually RB 40. They're both around nine picks. They go right after Sonny Michel. So it goes Michel, Howard, Breida.

Devontae Parker is in that same range as Stefan Diggs. I think just ahead as Stefan Diggs. I think just ahead of Stefan Diggs. It goes McLaurin, then Parker, then Hilton, and I think it's Diggs right after that. So he's around six picks, wide receiver 25. Preston Williams, wide receiver 54, 142nd overall. And Mike Kosicki is tight end 12 in ADP between Jared Cook and Austin Hooper.

Ben, what's our number to know for the Miami Dolphins? It is 8.8. They had the seventh highest average depth of target on passes in 2019. After ranking 14th in 2018, they were a more vertical passing team last year. This must be a tough team to project, though, because you don't know who the quarterback is going to be for how long. Well, and the other thing is they don't have the same offensive coordinator. They got rid of their offensive coordinator

and brought in a guy with a very extensive history in a lot of in a completely different type of system. So I don't even know what to take from last year as far as the Dolphins go. Teeth, did you not project Ryan Fitzpatrick? I have projections for both he and Tua, but I'm mostly just projecting Tua to start most of the games. I think I have Fitzpatrick starting two games. It makes a huge difference for me. I don't know about you guys.

I know that we say that and how much better Brian Fitzpatrick would be for the receivers. The whole beard thing has been fun and he was good last year and he's done some things that have been... I don't... If Tua's really 100% and good,

I don't necessarily know that he's going to be a bad quarterback for Preston Williams or Devontae Parker, whichever one is the number one in this offense. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, but he's a rookie. I mean, he's just not going to do that well. Rookies typically don't.

Right. That's true. That's true, but Ryan Fitzpatrick typically doesn't either. Ryan Fitzpatrick, also, he ran a lot last year. I mean... I think he would run more than Tua, probably. Yeah, right. Which I guess would be bad for the wide receivers,

but good for the quarterback projection. All right, so the gaps here, Heath likes Jordan Howard, and Ben likes Matt Breda, I think. Is that an easy one? I think this is totally a workload thing. And either of us could be wrong. I'm just...

One of these guys has been a feature back for three and a half years. And one of them has been a change of pace back. And so those are the roles that I'm projecting them for. Okay. And you actually, Heath, I think you have a lot more carries for the team. Right? Yeah.

417. And Ben has him at 385. So that's for the team. For Howard, Heath's got him for like 50 more carries. And you also have Brita for a lot more carries. Because Ben has Patrick Laird projected.

I have Patrick Laird with 21 carries. Oh, you do as well? Some of these guys are just not copied over. But I have Laird with 21 carries also. I have Laird with 21 carries. Oh, you do as well? Some of these guys are just not copied over, but I have Laird with 21 carries also. I have Laird catching more passes, which impacts this. Heath has Jordan Howard at about double the targets that I have him at, and then we both have Brady about the same receiving role. I have Laird getting that type of receiving role that Heath has for Howard.

And so that's keeping me a lot lower on Howard. What I would say is this is a team – there's a couple teams we don't know about their backfields. When I did projections, this is a team where I got lower on their backfield potential. I was kind of excited, but as I projected it out, I was like, you know what? These guys have some pretty decent downfield pass catchers. I do still expect them to be a very vertical pass offense.

I don't think the coordinator change matters at all relative to the receiver skill sets and the quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick, who has always had a really high average depth of throw. And I think that that's still going to stick around, especially with Parker and Kosicki and Preston Williams as your main options in the pass game. But when I came out of this projection, I was lower on Breida and Howard and this backfield combined than I had been going in. Conversely, when we get to Tampa Bay,

I was higher about Ronald Jones and Keyshawn Fawn and the overall projection there, just a look ahead. So I think the lower thing is probably because of the 370 rush attempts, right? Somewhat, yeah. And then the fact that I have Laird playing a little bit of a passing role as well. You and I are close on Brita. I don't have Howard near as heavily as you in terms of his receiving role, but also not on his rushing role either.

And neither of you have either running back as a top 30 guy. Right. Yeah, so keep that in mind. And then with Devontae Parker, he's being drafted as the 25th wide receiver off the board right now, and you guys are lower than that. Heath has him as wide receiver 30. Ben is wide receiver 38.

Fairly similar projections. Heath with an extra touchdown and an extra like 70 60 yards so um yeah uh why did you come out lower on Devante Parker than his average draft position which is 25th I was even lower than Heath and it was because if you go back and look at the first half of the season when Preston Williams was healthy things were were a lot different. And if you go back and you look at even when he was doing very well, how efficient he was and how much it diverged from his prior career numbers. If Parker had done what he did late in the year for a full season, we would be talking about regression and rightfully so. So I regressed his numbers pretty heavily toward his career numbers. I gave Preston Williams a pretty significant role.

I have Mike Gusecki for 91 targets, which is a pretty significant, significant role in the passing game, but it's mostly just regression from the part of the season that made him so much so good and putting him more in line with what he did throughout the season as a whole and earlier, earlier in his career, and then not giving a massive target edge

over Preston Williams, which Heath didn't either, it looks like. And speaking of Kosicki, so you guys have fairly similar targets, 80 for Heath, 91 for Ben. I mean, that's not insignificant, but the production is very significant. Ben has him as tight end 10.

Heath is tight end 20. And so I just think you guys differ in how good you think Mike Kosicki is going to be with the targets, right? Yep. I'm sure. I don't know. You've got him at 91 targets spin?

Yep. And how many yards? 668. So yeah, that's not really even that huge of a difference in terms of efficiency. I don't know. I can't imagine 11 targets makes that much difference. It can at tight end, especially.

How many touchdowns do you have him for? Four and a half. Okay, that's a normal 5% touchdown. I think it must just be the 11 targets make that much difference because we both have him being below average in terms of efficiency. Okay. Well, you know Ben likes Mike Kosicki a lot and hasn't projected a tight end 10.

He's going 12th. That's going to do it for today's show. Well, no, not really. We have a whole other division to get to. We'll have to figure out how to cram it in so we're not doing a two-hour episode, but we're going to take a break. We're going to huddle as a team

and we'll figure it out, but we'll get you a look. We'll go long, whatever. No big deal. You like this information, so let's give it to you. When we come back, the NFC East starting with the Philadelphia Eagles

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Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful. This program operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. The Philadelphia Eagles, guys, nine and a half wins for this team. I'll say over. Over, yeah, over 10. A lot of overs today, huh? All right. Optimistic day. Well, I'm not even going to get into

the ADP, really, except to say that none of the wide receivers are going in the top 50 at the position. Zach Ertz is tied in four. Dallas Goddard's tied in 14. Carson Wentz, QB nine. Okay, there you go. Number to know, Heath, for the Philadelphia Eagles. Or would you like me to do it

since I think this was... I think you should just do the numbers to know. All right, I'll do the numbers to know the Eagles they run a lot of plays first or third in plays from scrimmage in three of four seasons under Doug Peterson uh so that's that's a good thing we like that so let's go to the Eagles projections here and and you know Ben's a little higher on Miles Sanders I think that's not a surprise. I think the wide receivers, though, how did you go about projecting the wide receivers? Because you don't have any of them in the top 50 except Deshaun Jackson is wide receiver

50 for Heath. So that matches up with ADP. How'd you go about projecting them? Like this is a team slash position that we probably just pick a receiver that you want to throw a dart at in the double digit rounds. Don't take any of at in the double-digit rounds. Don't take any of them in the single-digit rounds.

The history of wide receivers in Philadelphia with Carson Wentz and Zach Ertz both there, especially the way they threw to their running backs last year. Pick which one you hope gets the most targets and draft that one if he's there after round 10. And that would be who for you guys? Mine's DeJuan Jackson. I have Jackson the highest as well.

But the biggest reason why we're both projecting no receiver in the top 50 is the tight end target. Zach Gertz is very clearly the number one in the offense for both of us in terms of targets and volume. And for me, Dallas Goddard, I have getting the second most targets on the team by just one over DeSean Jackson.

Okay, Goddard, you have him tight end 13, Ben. Heath has him 28. That doesn't seem right. Yeah, I have Goddard taking a little bit more of the tight end targets. I still have their tight end targets overall pretty high. For clarification, I have Dallas Goddard 18th. Okay. Not as of yesterday morning.

Yeah, I didn't change the Eagles yesterday, so I'm not sure how that happened. But, yeah, I've got Goddard, and we're probably pretty close. I've got him at 49 catches, 500 yards, and five touchdowns. Yeah, wait. You're right. This is weird. Set me up.

You set me up to fail. That's okay. Like I think, yes, exactly. Everything Ben said, the key will be how much they throw to the combination of miles Sanders and Boston Scott.

And what percentage of that Boston Scott gets, are we going to see miles Sanders play 75% of the snaps or more for most of the year? Are we going to see like a 65-35 type split? That will determine a lot of people's success because Miles Sanders is like a consensus first-round pick now. So this is something I also want to bring up. I mentioned they've been running a lot of plays. But last three seasons, they won the Super Bowl three years ago. Here I mentioned they've been, you know, running a lot of plays, but last three seasons, they won the Super Bowl three years ago.

Here's where they've been in yards per play. 10th, 15th, and 21st. The offense has gotten worse. I think they kind of maybe took people by surprise, by storm a little bit with Wentz breaking out and using the RPO so effectively.

Their wide receivers have been pretty crappy or injured. I think that hasn't helped. crappy or injured, I think. That hasn't helped. But, yeah, I mean, like, Doug Peterson was Sean McVay a few years ago, and now the offense has been fairly ordinary. And I want to know what you guys make of that. Do you have a lot of optimism in your projections for this offense? Wasn't the Rams offense pretty ordinary last year?

Yes. I think it's kind of just normally. Well, I don't actually, I think they scored a lot of points. I just think they also ran a lot of plays. The most young coaches who come in and take the league

by storm regress back more towards normal because there's only room for one or two, maybe three, like offensive geniuses in the game at once. They can't all be offensive geniuses. So I just don't think it's that surprising that things,

and Peterson isn't that young, but was the first time head coach. They're good. They're just, people know what they wanted to do now, and they haven't found the right counter. Okay. And by the way, they both have Carson Wentz as QB7 with 30-ish touchdown passes and a pretty decent run, about 250-ish rushing yards.

To the Dallas Cowboys, nine and a half wins. Nine and a half. Over. Oh, man, it's going to be a lot. The other division is just going to be terrible. I'm going to do over as well. The other teams in this division are going to be terrible. Oh, that's it's going to be a lot. The other division is just going to be terrible. I'm going to do over as well. The other teams in this division are going to be terrible. That's true, I guess.

But, hey, you might take the over on them as well. Speaking of the Cowboys, I am on the clock in the Scott Fish Bowl, and I have to choose between mushing Ezekiel Elliott or mushing Travis Kelsey. Which one do you guys think that I should ruin? Oh, as a Giants fan fan i guess i'd say zeke uh plus it would make it easier for miles sanders to be a lead if zeke one one running back gone you know all right i have taken ezekiel elliott and um i am sorry to

everyone else who drafts ezekiel elliott this year because heath picking someone in the first round of the scott fishbowl has a bad, bad time for that player historically. Speaking of Zeke, he's the third pick in ADP. And you guys have him as RB5, which, okay, is that jaw-dropping? No, but it's low. It's lower than he's going to be drafted. And it's interesting. And you have him for just under 300 carries.

Actually, Ben, 284. That's kind of low for 16 games for Zeke. Yeah, I have Tony Pollard doing a little bit this year. Not a ton. I'm certainly factoring in that this is going to be a more pass-heavy offense, which we saw last season. And I actually have more runs for the Cowboys overall than Heath. But the reason he comes in at RB5 is not because I'm, you know, at 284. That's more just a product of me not projecting really anyone for 300 carries. I have Derek Henry at 286 leading

the league. I mean, there's usually one back every season that hits 300 carries. And I think projecting a back to hit 300 carries is kind of a fool's errand, knowing what we know about running back health. The reason he's fifth for me is receiving. I don't have him anywhere near Christian McCaffrey's, Alvin Kamara's, Saquon Barkley's receiving roles. And I have Dalvin Cook's receiving role, certainly a little bit better than Zeke's. And Cook's rushing role, worse than Zeke's, but at least comparable. I will say that I've got Dalvin Cook projected for more fantasy points. I've got Zeke rank tire and I would draft Zeke like I just did before

Dalvin Cook because, and maybe Dalvin Cook's not more of an injury risk than Ezekiel Elliott, but if you were ever going to say one player was more of an injury risk than another, it would be Dalvin Cook is more of an injury risk. Absolutely. It got hidden a little bit last year, but his touches across the board went down. Last year was the first year he wasn't over 20 carries per game. Yeah. Like Ben said, we only get one guy with 300 or maybe two or three with 300 carries.

Well, it's been Ezekiel Elliott three of the last four years, over 300 carries. But last year he had to play 16 games for the first time and got to 301. So we're not really taking a lot of carries off the top for him. When he didn't get 300 carries, though, he was suspended. He would have had it that year, too. But no, you're right. For sure.

I think that was actually the year he averaged the most. He did 24 carries per game that year. Yeah. One of the players I was most interested about seeing where he came out on was Jarwin because I found it really hard to have a low projection on Blake Jarwin. I haven't tied in 12 in this projection. It looks like I'm a little bit,

I'm about 13 targets light on Michael Gallup from where he is. And, and just a couple light on Amari and CD lamb. Um, but I have Jordan for 11 more targets than Heath. And Heath has him at tight end 16. Also has him as a pretty solid projection. I think he's going around tight end 15 or tight end 16, right? No, tight end 19.

Yeah, so I think we both are seeing, even with this really loaded wide receiver group, that in our projection, he looks solid. And this is a team that, remember, is going to pass more, I mean, not more than last year necessarily, but definitely more than I think what the perception is of them still, because yes, they were more pass-heavy last year, but they should be again this year, certainly.

And all these receivers, you know, we have them all for 100-plus targets. I have Lamb at 96. We're still projecting plenty of receiver targets and there's a role here for Jarwin. But does he have upside? Because there are three good receivers on this team.

I'll make that assumption with CeeDee Lamb. I'm not excited to draft Blake Jarwin. And I also think it's interesting that Ben has Jarwin as tight end 12 in his projections. Here's the projection. 61 catches, 616 yards, five touchdowns. That does not sound like a very good year for a tight end, but it that's, that's why I think Jared cook is going to be a top 12 tight end. Cause if you get 600 yards and five touchdowns, you're probably going to be top 12.

It's, you know, the bar is pretty low. Um, that's the thing. If you start the number 12 tight end each week, you're starting the worst tight end amongst the starters. Sure. One thing I will say that I noticed was the projections. I don't know. I just feel like I like the path to touchdowns for Cook more than I do for Jarwin, you know, because I think Breeze is a safer bet for 30 touchdowns.

And I think there's less target competition. Sure. I would think. I, I don't disagree strongly, but I, I will note that people are worried about Jarwin being the main tight end. Dalton Schultz last year got two targets.

This is a team that is very concentrated in their work, which is good for fantasy. And last year their main 11 personnel, which means one for fantasy. And last year, their main 11 personnel, which means one tight end, one running back, three receivers, all five of those guys, Elliott, Jason Witten, and Randall Cobb, along with Cooper and Gallup, had at least 70 targets. And then Elliott was at 71. The three receivers and tight end were all over 80. The only other play on this team that had more than 25 targets was Jarwin. They mixed him in. He got 41 targets. But they were really, really concentrated with their five main starters.

And like I said, Dalton Schultz did not compete for those additional tight end targets behind Witten. And then they gave Jarwin this contract. It seems to me he's going to be there almost every down tight end. And because they play a lot of 11 personnel, will be on the field running a lot of routes. It would not surprise me if he was close to CeeDee Lamb and targets. I love CeeDee Lamb, but it would not surprise me. Now, when you look at this team, though, there are a lot of guys that we want to...

We're excited about this team, right? Dak's being drafted, I think, as QB 3 or 4. Obviously, Zeke is a top 5 pick. Amari Cooper, round 3, round 4. Heath hasn't projected his wide receiver 12. Ben has wide receiver 20.

Here's my point. The offense has a lot of mouths to feed and was great last year. Do you see it as a great offense again? Are you convinced that this is one of the best offenses in football? Because if they take a step back, there might be some disappointed fantasy owners. 100% convinced. Yeah, I'm convinced that this is one of the best offenses in football? Because if they take a step back, there might be some disappointed fantasy owners. 100% convinced. Yeah, I'm convinced as well.

But the biggest thing that I would know that I'm not convinced about is Amari Cooper's current ADP. I want to play this offense through Gallup and Lamb and Jarwin. I think one thing we maybe haven't talked enough about was how close Cooper and Gallup were in targets. And Gallup missed time. Gallup actually had the higher target rate. He had more yards per game. He was very good last year. I'm still projecting Cooper to be the number one

in terms of target share, but I have him at wide receiver 20, and that's pretty far behind his AAP, I'm pretty sure. He's going 11th. I've got Cooper and Gallup for the same number of targets. You have Cooper and Gallup for the same number of targets. You have Cooper and Gallup for the same number of targets. Yeah, Cooper's going 11th in between Beckham and Cup before DJ Moore, before Juju Smith-Schuster.

I'll just say CBS has different rankings than ADP. I mean, we like DJ Moore and Juju better than Amari Cooper and Odell Beckham. We might like Calvin Ridley better. He's wide receiver 16. AJ Brown's wide receiver 17. So ADP is very different than the CBS rankings.

We'll go to the New York Giants. Over-under, six and a half wins. Under. They're going to hit exactly six and a half wins. Yeah, there we go. We got an under. Okay, so the Giants,

Daniel Jones is QB 14 between Stafford and Mayfield in ADP. Saquon Barkley, second overall in ADP. And then Darius Slayton goes in round nine, Sterling Shepard in round 11, Golden Tate wide receiver 58 after that. Evan Ingram is the seventh tight end off the board between Higby and Hunter Henry.

And the number to know, 18.3. That is the percent of Giants drives that ended in a turnover. Yeah, Daniel Jones turns it over, for sure. But if you look at Daniel Jones and his projections, and let's start with this for the Giants, Ben, you have 400 more,

about 400 more passing yards for Daniel Jones than Heath does. So that is pretty interesting. It's a big difference. Yeah, it really is. So let's figure out if this is an efficiency or a volume. Well, no, I haven't thrown 40 more passes.

That's part of it. But yeah, I'm sure it's efficiency as well. I know Joe Judge has made comments about wanting them to be run heavy, and I was trying to work the Giants toward a little bit more of a run heavy lean than they've been in the last couple of seasons. And it looks like Heath, you did that in your projection. You're a lot, you have about 50 more carries for them. I just think they're going to be bad enough that they're going to have to be in pass heavy situations. And so that's where I ended up with a, a, a like game script dictating them. That's where I ended up at a, at a pass heavier projection.

Yeah. And I used more of Jason Garrett's history also in looking at that along with what they've said. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like that, that would be my hope is that they, they can,

can run more or that's, that's what I would project is what I should say. If I was just trying to project what I think is the most likely outcome, but, or excuse me, what I, what I think they want to do. But I don't think they're going to be able to do that because I think they're going to be bad. You know what I mean? Like the Cowboys were good for Jason Garrett.

It made it easier for them to dictate that they wanted to run the ball. I want to see them throw the ball. And yeah, they've talked a lot about being kind of a ground and pound sort of team, but can they? And then I think, you know, I'm just going to say this, and we can talk about it another day because I want to talk about the wide receivers, but Ben made an interesting comment, I thought, earlier when he said that he didn't think Zeke had the receptions of Saquon Barkley.

And I could see that going either way because I don't know what to expect from Barkley. And Ben has him for 67 catches, Heath for 55, and Heath has Deion Lewis getting 20 catches and Ben has him getting 11. And the Giants haven't had a guy like Deion Lewis with Saquon Barkley. So that's something to keep in mind and we'll have time to talk about that.

I mean, certainly Barkley should get 50 catches or more, but will he have 67? That's what Ben has. That would be a really nice number. Now for the wide receivers, you guys don't have it the same way ADP does. You both have Sterling Shepard as the best. And you both are pretty low on Darius Slayton, I'd say.

Ben has him wide receiver 48. Heath has him wide receiver 56. You guys have him getting the fewest targets among the wide receivers. And he is being drafted first among the wide receivers as wide receiver 41. So I've heard Heath's argument. Ben, why don't you tell me why you came out a little lower

on Darius Slayton than the ADP? Well, it's targets, as you noted. But I do have Slayton scoring more fantasy points than Tate, even though he's seeing six fewer targets in my projection. And that's because his type of targets will be more downfield and that will lead to, uh, you know, higher yards per reception, higher yards per target and a higher TD rate as well. In my projections, I don't have Tate repeating a really high TD rate that he had last season. Uh, but yeah, I mean, it's just targets. And then I have Evan Ingram and, and Sterling Shepard leading the team in target share.

Okay, and Heath actually has Golden Tate with 108 targets. Ben has them with 98. Heath has Golden Tate a lot more involved than Darius Slayton. Ben has them pretty close. Pretty, pretty close. Final thoughts on the Giants, Heath? Anything that stood out in your projections? I do think there's some risk with jason garrett's history of using running backs in the passing game and the drop that barkley saw in targets in games

where daniel jones was the quarterback and he's a more mobile quarterback like i think i i don't think my 55 catches is necessarily the floor for barkley in the passing game with if everybody else stays healthy. Damn. If he doesn't, then he is probably going to be last among those big five running backs and catches. And, and even at my number, he came out behind Alvin Camaro overall,

my projections. I don't disagree with Heath. I think there's more downside to Barkley's potential line, especially when you think about touchdowns and about offense. And then what he just said about receiving, then, then people are realizing. But he's amazing. Okay, Washington.

The Redskins. Let's see. Their number is five and a half wins. Going under. Over. Over. Really? All right. I think Washington's probably better than the Giants. Well, they weren't that

much worse last year. I'll give this number to know because I wrote this one. It's the Giants. Well, they weren't that much worse last year. Adam, I'll give this number to know because I wrote this one. It's kind of long. So in 2019, Washington became the second team since 2006 to run fewer than 900 plays. When we talk about play volume, typically we're right around 1,000. Heath noted that the median is about 1,020. Under a 900 is very, very low.

Anything you usually don't see over 1,100 either. So it's that kind of 900 to 1,100 range. They were just the second team under 900 plays. The other recent example was 28-team Miami under Adam Gase. As soon as Miami went to a new coaching staff last year, they jumped to 1,022 plays, just slightly above league average. What's interesting about Washington is their new coaching staff just piloted a losing offense in Carolina to 1,077 plays last year, which was fifth most in the league.

Very high. Typically, we don't see losing teams be that fast-paced. They played really, really fast. Even with Kyle Allen at quarterback, it wasn't like they didn't have a new quarterback or anything like that. I think it's really interesting to consider that Washington, being a sub 900 play team last year could suddenly be a over a thousand play team. I didn't project them that way, but I did project them to add over a hundred plays from last year and he's projected him even higher than I did. That's big. I mean, Carolina had fancy value in large part

because of that. That will add a lot of potential to this offense. Modest projection for Dwayne Haskins, QB 30 for Heath, QB 28 for Ben. How did you try to figure out the running backs? Through darts at a dartboard. Yep. And what did,

what did the dartboard? Who is the pass catcher? I've got him at the same number of targets as carries, which is fun. I didn't even realize that. But 58 carries and 58 targets on the season for Gibson. Adrian Peterson is a bit of a pest with right around 100 touches. And Darius Geis, I expect they'll be very, very careful with him early in the year. Maybe give him 10, 12, maybe 15 touches a game.

I've got him at right around 200 for the season. I do think there's a chance midseason they unleash him a little bit. We'd love that. How come only six or seven touchdowns for Terry McLaurin? Because the 76 catches, 81 catches over about 1,100 yards, that's awesome.

For him to have a great season, though, he probably needs more touchdowns than that. Yeah, he needs to take a leap. Yeah. It's hard to project Dwayne Haskins for a high touchdown rate, just generally. I have McLaurin

at a slightly higher TD percentage than the league average for wide receiver ones. A lot of my wide receiver ones are over the league average simply because you can't really project for injuries and things. You wind up being more optimistic than

league averages across the board. I think it's hard to assume that Terry McLaurin is going to score 10 touchdowns. Would you guys take Terry McLaurin or Stefan Diggs? They were right next to each other in my projections. I think I'm still on Diggs. I'd probably take... The thing is, I don't think you make that choice.

Because I think if you're faced with that choice, you could take somebody else and take McLaurin next round. No, he's going ahead of Stefan Diggs. Okay, that's not in our drafts, but okay. You don't think so? Yeah, I think it is. I think it is. What's that?

I think it is in our drafts. No? Ben? That's how I would call it, yeah. Okay. I'll tell you what. I'm going to look up... Give me a draft. Why don't we do the June... Not the Scott Fishbowl.

The June Twitch PPR mock draft. Let's see who went first. McCloner digs, and whoever gets this right basically has won every argument that Heath and I have ever had. This is to settle every argument that Heath and I has ever had. This is the, to settle every argument that I have ever had. I just, okay. Let's see.

I have no, he, I have no idea who went first. I am pretty certain. I am not willing to put the history of our bets on this bet. I can tell you that for sure. Okay. Terry McClurin.

I am glad that we found time in our two hour show for this. Hey, I win. I win. He went like eight picks ahead of hour show for this. Hey, I win. I win. He went like eight picks ahead of Stephon Diggs. All right, that's it. Anything else on Washington?

There's not one player that's projected to be even like a number two at their position, except for McLaurin, who's projected 25th for Heath and 23rd for Bennett wide receiver. Everyone else. I think Steven Sims is interesting. I like Logan Thomas to lead their, their tight ends

he has jeremy sprinkle they gave thomas a little bit of guaranteed money he's a pretty good athlete converted quarterback just started playing tight end a couple years ago i think there's some you know darren waller light potential there if this team throws a lot more so he is somebody that in really deep leagues or tight end heavy leagues i have picked up a little bit this offseason like 30 man dynasty leagues i've picked him up tight end premium leagues. I have picked up a little bit this off season, like 30 man dynasty leagues. I've picked them up tight end premium specifically. So that's a guy that I would note that I like. And then Steven Sims was the other one that I think is probably their number

two most valuable receiving option. Zach Prescott just went seventh in my Scott fish bowl. Wow. Okay. I think I have the second pick, so I'm probably going to take Patrick Mahomes. Your league's been waiting on you for an hour and cussing you probably. And you're going to have to teach me.

I made a pre-draft pick, so maybe it already happened. I don't know how to use this website. I just, I cannot do it. I can't do it. All right, guys,

uh, we're out of here. We got the NFC North, I believe in the NFC North tomorrow. believe, and the AFC North tomorrow. So we'll talk to you then. For Heath and Ben, I'm Adam. This is Fantasy Football Today. Talk to you tomorrow.