Fantasy Football Today - AFC and NFC South PROJECTIONS! (07/08 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

Can Deshaun Watson be even better without DeAndre Hopkins? How will Bruce Arians and Tom Brady mesh? Get ready for our AFC South and NFC South projections after we briefly touch on DeSean Jackson's situation (6:48) ... AFC South projections with IND (9:30), TEN (22:13), HOU (35:15) and JAC (40:40). We've got different projections on the Colts RBs, plus a mandatory A.J. Brown debate, a mandatory Will Fuller debate and why our rankings of Leonard Fournette don't quite match the projections ... To the NFC South with NO (46:00), TB (50:30), ATL (56:40) and CAR (1:02:00). We're expecting big seasons from Tom Brady, Matt Ryan and Drew Brees. What about their RBs? And wait until you hear D.J. Moore's projections ... 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

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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. All right, we got projections for the AFC South, the NFC South. Fun teams. Tennessee Titans, incredibly efficient last year. Yes, A.J. Brown will be discussed today. Looking forward to that. We've got some of the best quarterbacks ever. Tom Brady and Drew Brees.

Matt Ryan is not exactly there, but he's pretty damn good when it's all said and done. We're talking about their projections. In fact, guys, I want to start with this and just the way projections work. Because everybody's projected for 16 games. But if you looked at the spreadsheet that I look at with Ben and Heath's projections, and you see Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, these guys projected to throw for more than 4,500 yards. In some cases, like 4,800 yards. For most of these projections,

we're talking like 30 or more touchdowns. Just monster seasons. And I don't even think they're cracking the top eight in your projections. So take us on a little walkthrough projection world and why you could have these three guys, Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, just having huge seasons and not being,

because if they do hit those numbers, they're probably going to be more like top five. But they don't come out that way in the projections. For me, it is, those guys are Tom Brady in six-point propensity. Tom Brady is QB7, Brees is QB9, Matt Ryan's QB10. They are all at least 10 points clear of QB12, and so it's

essentially like those big probably some of those top 10 quarterbacks will wind up getting hurt, missing time, and they'll finish in the top eight or the top six if they hit any of these projections. It's just something where we're projecting every player for 16 games

is kind of the way that I look at that. That's exactly right. They're 9, 11, and 12 for me. 9, 11, and 12, I think, for me. If they play 16 games and do exactly what I've projected, all three of them will finish in the top eight. And that's true with wide receivers, especially if it's like somebody's projected at wide receiver 30

and you'll look at the numbers and say, well, that was like wide receiver 23 last year. Well, that's because seven or eight or 10 guys got hurt in front of them. And also, they don't run. They don't run. Yeah, projections love rushing quarterbacks. So you have the top six and all of them have some mobility, you know,

my homes, Lamar, Russell Wilson, Kyler, Dak, and Deshaun. They're all going to be probably top six across the board. And like I said,

for me, those three that you named are all in the next four, along with Carson Wentz. And they all are quite a bit lower than those quarterbacks because of the lack of rushing. You know, Wentz is the lack of rushing. Wentz is the best of that group, but the three NFC South QBs, none of them

project for much rushing at all. But they're all pretty clearly ahead of everyone else. I think it's... You guys have Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley projected in your top 12. You have Hayden Hurst projected in your top 8. When I saw that, I was like, you know what? Makes sense. Matt Ryan's going to have a huge

year. He's got a chance. He's got a chance to have a really huge year. Might be the first true pocket passer, I guess, if you want to say that. I mean, Dak Prescott's non-runner. Okay, let's say that. First guy who's not going to be a plus with his legs to come off the board. I think that's the way it is right now. Let me ask you about another quarterback. Houston, explain this to me. They lose DeAndre Hopkins. They trade for David Johnson.

They also trade for Brandon Cooks. And you think they're going to throw more than they have in the first three years of the Deshaun Watson era. Huh? Why? Cause I thought, I think your projections are a little too high on the,

on, on Deshaun Watson. That's my, I think they will have to, because I don't, I think they will be a little bit worse. And, you know,

they actually have a projected, you know, Vegas went over under of eight and they've won 10 and 11 games in 2019 and 2018. Uh, I expect that they'll have to chase points a little bit more. And then I also expect because of the transition from Carlos Hyde to David Johnson, you just like David Johnson's not going to be that type of ground and pound runner. And Lamar Miller was always used that way.

Maybe they'll use Johnson that way. Um, it's tough to project David Johnson in this offense, but I do think that that probably means they throw a little more and try to use David Johnson's skill set for what it is. He's a better pass catcher. But yeah, I think there's going to be a lot more on Deshaun Watson's shoulders this year, and I actually am projecting him pretty optimistically,

I'll admit that, but to basically be up for the task, like he always has been, David dating back to Clemson. I don't think I have their pass rate higher than last year. I believe they threw 534 passes in 2019. They're 525 in 2017. I've got them at 535, so one more pass attempt. I believe I have them running a few more plays than they did last year. Okay, then maybe it was just the passing yards

specifically for Ben. Because Ben has a 4,400-yard season. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, we'll get into all these, some things that caught my eyes when we look at the AFC and NFC South.

We have a couple things to promote. We're on YouTube. I have three or four shirts that are exactly like this in different colors. So come join the fun and see which waffle shirt I'm wearing today.

Today it's red. Green, I think, was earlier. No, black was yesterday. We'll throw out the green one later in the week. But YouTube.com slash Fantasy Football today. Sometimes Heath's chest hair

likes to make an appearance. Regularly. It's kind of... In fact, on the Tuesday show, I think you could see if you watch my eyes, there were times that I was just mesmerized, just kind of lost staring into it. I appreciate that. Yeah.

And look, baseball is coming back July 23rd, and it is time to draft. It is time to get ready for your fantasy drafts. So over the next two weeks, listen to Scott White, Chris Towers, and Frank Stample previewing each position for fantasy baseball, letting you know who to draft, who to avoid, the sleepers, the busts, the breakouts.

You'll hear me on there occasionally. Actually, once the position previews are done, I think you'll hear me on there more regularly, and I'm looking forward to getting back on that show. And listen to fantasy baseball today and play on CBS Sports because you can do it for free this year. The fantasy baseball commissioner product is free. Go on CBS Sports because you can do it for free this year. The Fantasy Baseball Commissioner product is free. Go to CBS Sports and find out what all the hubbub is about.

Let's do news and notes real quick. So it's Tuesday afternoon. I imagine there's going to be more on this story by the time you hear this on Wednesday. So I guess we won't spend that much time on it, not because it isn't important, but because we don't know what the outcome will be. But you know about the Sean Jackson's comments,

what he, what he put on Instagram, very regrettable stuff. And we will see how the Eagles deal with it. Um, should we even talk about Eagles wide receiver ADP right now? Or do you want to just wait and see how this plays out? I would finally get excited about Jalen Rager.

If something, I mean, if he gets cut or something. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I did draft to Sean Jackson two days ago in the draft that we did on Tuesday or Monday, rather. And I think week one, I was putting him in my lineup

for week one against Washington. You know, that's week one against Washington last year, like 150 yards and two touchdowns. And now, obviously, I have very different feelings, which I won't get into. But it's really, it sucks what happened. So we'll see what the Eagles decide to do. Rex Burkhead took a pay cut to stay with the team. I think some people thought maybe he could get cut. Probably wanted him to get cut.

Rex Burkhead has not been cut. And that's it. Those are your news and notes. All right. AFC South. Well, and two things I'll say just as far as projections, because we've been across those teams, just purely on the projection side,

and I agree with you that the Deshaun Jackson stuff is very unfortunate and sad to see. And, you know, not good. But Deshaun Jackson I have projected for 80 targets. We have the Philly tight ends, obviously, are so important to that offense. And I have Zachary leading that offense and Dallas Goddard being right there with Jackson as the second most targeted player. So, yes, this would be, you know, positive if he were to be. That's poorly phrased, but if, if he were to be cut, it would, it would increase Jalen Rager's potential for this year.

I don't think it would make him even necessarily a hundred target receiver in, in projections. Uh, so that's one note. And then Burkett, I think is, is interesting. He's somebody to consider what his role might be because he's going to probably be there with the Patriots this year. And I think Carson Wentz, we can't forget about that. That would be a hit for him, without question, right? If it didn't have Sean Jackson. He was a top eight quarterback with no

receivers last year, though, right? Doesn't it limit his upside, though? I think it does. Deshaun Jackson has always been very good for his quarterback's efficiency. No matter what team he's been on, and even regardless of his own production, his speed, and he himself has always been very efficient, but having him on the field, his speed, the way it stresses defense,

has always been very positive for every quarterback he's played with across his career. Yeah. All right. Well, look, I'm sure we'll have more to react to later in the week. So we go to the Colts. Total wins is at nine right now. Ben, right the week. So we go to the Colts. Total wins is at nine right now. Ben, right on the

nose, nine wins for the Colts? Colts are an over. Easy over. Okay. Easy over. Heath? I'm not as emphatic about it as Ben, but I'm not going to say the same, so I'll say over. Okay. So the team that went from

fifth in scoring to 17th from 2018 to 2019, I think we all know the reason why they addressed the quarterback position now, they have Phillip Rivers. And here's your number to know, 10.5. Ben, you want to take us through 10.5 and T.Y. Hilton. That's the number to know

for Hilton and for the Colts. Yeah, that was his average depth of target last year. It was a career low. He typically was much more downfield. I would say kind of across the board with Indy, I'm in some ways throwing out last year because they were a lot different than they were in 2018 in terms of their, particularly their willingness to run the ball. And they were a lot more conservative. And I think Frank Reich is a really interesting coach. It's something we've seen in the weekly trends throughout his tenure that he's

willing to change up usage very dramatically, more dramatically, I would say than any coach in the league based on game scripts. So, you know, I remember in Stealing Signals last year, the week that Eric Ebron went off and his snapshot exploded, I was warning people. They were favored the next game. I think it was against Miami or something.

Hey, his snapshot is going to come back down if they lead in this game. And that's what happened. But a lot of people were like, oh, Eric Ebron's a full-time player now. Well, no, it was just because they were trailing, and they used to play Eric Ebron a lot more when they were trailing, and they used to play Eric Ebron a lot more when they were trailing, and they would play Naheem Hines a lot more when they were trailing, and they wouldn't play Marlon Mack when they were trailing. A crazy stat about Marlon Mack is that he only, I believe,

only caught passes last year in wins. I don't think he had a single catch in losses, which is just a really bizarre stat. One thing that was really weird about Hilton, and I've drafted a lot of T.Y. Hilton already, fifth round, occasionally in the fourth round, once in the sixth round. His yards after catch also went down last year,

which is really weird. And his yards per catch. Mike Evans gets mocked a lot because he never does anything after the catch, but that's because he's catching the ball 18 yards downfield, and that makes sense. T.Y. Hilton's yards before the catch plummeted, and you would think he might do something

after the catch, and he really didn't at all. What I'm saying is, yes, I think Jacoby Brissett hurt T.Y. Hilton, and yes, I think he's generally a good value, and Phillip Rivers should help him bounce back. But at his age, there is a chance that his skill set has just deteriorated. Well, why don't we take a look at the projections

for T.Y. Hilton? We're not going to talk much about Phillip Rivers. He's like outside the top 20, I think, in your projections. QB 20 for Ben, 29 for Heath. We'll get to the running backs. T.Y. Hilton, wide receiver 20 for Heath, wideB 20 for Ben, 29 for Heath. We'll get to the running backs. T.Y. Hilton, wide receiver 20 for Heath, wide receiver 21 for Ben,

129 targets, 81 catches for both of you guys. Very, very similar projections. Over 1,100 yards, six or seven touchdowns. Now, his yards per catch obviously went down to really, really low levels for him. This is a guy who in his career is at 15.6 yards per catch. And he's like always right around there. He's actually typically above that. But it was

11.1 last year. And I'm wondering how you think he fits with Phillip Rivers because T.Y. Hilton's basically been a top 15 wide receiver whenever Andrew Luck's been healthy, at least the last three times Luck's been healthy. And the number one receiver for the Chargers is always a top 15 receiver under Phillip Rivers. Put two and two together, you see where I'm going with that. But Hilton and Keenan Allen are pretty different. So, you know, maybe he's similar to Tyrell Williams who had a great year that one season.

How do you think they fit? Are you confident in projecting him as a top 20 wide receiver? Not at all. Not confident with this projection at all. It's kind of a split the difference projection for me. I agree with you. He could have some deteriorating skills, and I agree with your point that he's nothing like Keenan Allen.

But I will say that Rivers likes to take deep shots in a way that I don't think Percet really did or was asked to. That was kind of my point with the right comments. Hilton is going to be a little bit more like the Mike Williams role last. And Williams did get a ton of air yards. I mean, this is a great time to bring up air yards. Williams had the highest average depth of target of any receiver with at least 75 targets by a couple yards.

He was at over 18 yards of depth per target. So just a good end. And he had 90 targets, good indication of Rivers willingness to chuck it down the field. And he's always had players like that going all the way back to Vincent Jackson and, you know, all Malcolm Floyd, always had guys he's willing to throw down field to the question with Hilton is will he get a lot of underneath targets too?

Or will somebody like Paris Campbell step into kind of a Keenan Allen role and see a lot of targets? Will Jack Doyle get a lot of targets because Rivers tends to favor tight ends? And will Naheem Hines be in this Austin Eckler role? So it's a question of how much Hilton gets targets at different depths. I think those deep shots will come back for Hilton, but especially if he's right about his skills deteriorating and if his usage isn't necessarily at all depths of the field, he could be a lot worse than this projection. Now, he could be a lot better if he's treated like he was with luck, like you said. And his ADP is pretty favorable

though, because you have him projected as wide receiver 20 and he's wide receiver 26 off the board between Parker and Diggs. Let me throw it over to you guys now let's talk about the running backs and um and first of all you know ben has the colts as a more up-tempo team and he also has 30 touchdown passes for philip you're pretty bullish on this team i think um yeah i love this so the reason i like the the over on the winds as well this team is far and away the best when you look at those projected over-unders i was just referencing, the cumulative schedule. They have a very soft schedule this year, and a great offensive line, which I think is probably not discussed enough

when we talk about fantasy teams, but they're in good position to be leading in a lot of games, to be scoring a lot of points. Okay, so Heath, Jonathan Taylor versus Marlon Mack. You both have Taylor getting more carries, and you both have Taylor getting more carries, and you both have him getting within five carries of each other, 209 for Heath, 204 for Ben. But Heath, you don't see as much of a role in the passing game,

and you have Taylor as RB 31, whereas Ben has Taylor at RB 18. Yeah, I would guess that those receptions make a big difference. There's a pretty big log jam between RB 20 and RB30. I am concerned really about two things for Taylor, getting on the field on third down, which is hard for any rookie to do. I anticipate it will be harder this year for rookies to do early in the season. And he's not battling one guy, he's battling two guys. So I think that makes it a little bit more difficult as well. And then my other concern with the rookies, especially when they have a guy like Mack that's had some success in this area, is if they're going to use him early in the season in the red zone. I actually have, yes, Taylor, 44 more carries than Marlon Mack. I have them with the same number of rushing

touchdowns, which I'm sure is not the same way as with Ben, but I expect that Mack will be used more in the red zone. And I don't really, like I do have Taylor more involved catching the ball than Marlon Mac is, but only with 16 catches on the year. Yeah. That's really interesting. The touchdown point, because Mac is,

I've noted this before, but he's five, 10 and about two. I want to say he's like about two 11, Jonathan Taylor, or excuse me, max five, 11, Jonathan he's 5'10 and about 2'11. Jonathan Taylor is 5'10. He's an inch shorter, and he's about 15 pounds heavier, about 227-ish. So a much higher BMI and somebody that I think physically makes a lot more sense as a goal linebacker. But Heath could be right with the veteran deference. We definitely see that. Yeah, no, I totally agree that Marla, that Jonathan Taylor is going to be a better short yardage and red zone

running back than Marlon Mack is. I just worried about this year and I don't know, like I don't, I have just almost completely with this projection. And anytime someone's brought up on Twitter, just shrugged off the fumbling thing with Jonathan Taylor in college. I, I super do not care,

but that I don't know that that means specifically with the red zone work that the Colts will be completely convinced that that's not an issue at all. Sure. One thing I think is really interesting with this team and, and projecting them is there again, their schedule, but as particularly their early half schedule, they start with Jacksonville.

Minnesota is not an easy second, second game, but then the jets bears Browns bangles by lions. That's their first eight weeks. There's pretty much no tough teams there. Maybe Minnesota at home is, you know, uh, one tough game and the bears can be better. And the Browns, I think will be better, but no games where it's like, okay, they're,

they're going to be out of this game. I expect that they'll run a lot in, in September and October and be able to run plenty. And, and I think both Mac and Taylor will get plenty of work, but like what I'm basically betting on is that during that time, both of them will, they'll have enough running back opportunity for both of them to get

double digit carries for the most part early in the season. And, and then I think during that time, if Taylor is much better than Mac, as I expect, that Taylor can kind of prove that, you know, if he has some big plays and he, and he sees this kind of more of the work in the early part of the season, that would be what I'm kind of banking on and kind of the way I would see their season playing out. It might not be accurate, but I do think Jonathan Taylor is a really special

prospect. And then as far as his receiving, the max that I gave was a little bit wrong. Mac did catch one pass in losses, but you always expect teams to throw more when they're trailing and they do use Hines in those situations. I expect they'll use Hines and I have Hines projected for a lot of receptions, as many as Heath, but I have, it looks like a lot more receptions overall for the Colts. And that's because even though I don't expect Taylor will play on third downs, it's Phillip Rivers. I really believe in his high running back target rate. And I've had people send me things that say, you know, they're not totally checkdowns or whatever. I think it's just more the way he plays. He gets through pre-snap reads really quickly. He can identify defenses and he'll

swing a pass out to a running back really quick in his read, just because he knows that that guy has space to work with, especially on early downs. It doesn't look like it's a check down, but it's more or less that he made a pre-snap read or made a quick read of the defense. He's happy to get his ball to his running backs in space and gets the ball out quick and is accurate. Rivers, you know, we know he throws a lot of interceptions and things,

but his receivers throughout his career have always had pretty strong efficiency. So I expect that the early down backs, much like Melvin Gordon always did, and Taylor notably caught more passes at Wisconsin than Gordon did in his final season. I think that the early down backs, both Taylor and Mack, will see an uptick from last year from when they were playing with Brissette. Well, I think a lot of this comes down to it sounds like Ben has the Colts producing a lot more yards and points than I do. He's high on them.

That may just be what it is. I think I've got them scoring 41 touchdowns and right around 6,000 yards of offense. It sounds like Ben's got them higher on both those counts. I have them for about 45 touchdowns. What did you say? 41. Yeah, so I'm definitely... That's a big difference in a projection. I don't know total offense.

I don't have that summed anywhere, but yeah, probably higher as well. Okay. Well, last thing I want to say about this team is the schedule is really easy early in terms of the teams they play. At least it looks that way. But weeks two, three, four, five, Minnesota, Jets, Bears, Cleveland, if you just look at the defensive tackles on those teams, they might actually have very good run defenses.

I mean, the Vikings added Michael Pierce. I know they lost Linval Joseph. The Jets have had a good run defense, I think, at least two, maybe three years in a row, like a great run defense. The Bears had a pretty solid run defense last year, and that was without their best defensive tackle for most of the season.

And Cleveland was horrible last year, but it didn't make any sense. They have Larry Ogunjobi and they have Sheldon Richardson, so they should be a lot better. Just blame it on Freddie Kitchens. They're going to be good against the run this year because of Freddie Kitchens. They're talented. They have good personnel, I would think, to have a better run defense.

Okay. Sure, but I will say that the Colts also have the best guard in football in Quentin Nelson. Okay, let's go to the Tennessee Titans. Eight and a half wins. Under, I think they'll go eight and eight. Yeah, I think they're going to be right on 8.5. They're 8-8 or 9-7. That just feels right.

The number to know is 7.3. That is the yards per play. In the seven games after A.J. Brown became a full-time player in Week 10, they averaged 7.3 yards per play. No offense since the merger has averaged 7 yards per play over a full-time player in week 10. They averaged 7.3 yards per play. No offense since the merger has averaged 7 yards per play over a full season. So they were incredibly efficient.

You know what? When I was calling you out for the Deshaun Watson thing, I may have been confusing it with Ryan Tannehill and his pass attempts because you guys have him projected for 500 pass attempts for Heath, 478 for Ben. They have not even thrown 450 passes in their last two seasons.

And Tannehill was on pace for 432 passes in his 10 starts. So a little bit of an uptick there and pass attempts for Ryan Tannehill. And why don't we start with that? And that aspect of the projection. I believe the 500 pass attempts I have them projected for is the second fewest ahead of only Baltimore. And you could be right.

I may have over normalized this a little bit because it is two years in a row. They did make it to the AFC championship with this game plan. They're probably going to be really, really stubborn about going more pass heavy,

I would think, because it was so successful last year and they start off. This is one of the things that like talking about a schedule that a team starts off with, they start off with Denver, Jacksonville, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, the bills.

Like they may have a bunch of just low scoring slobber knockers early in the year. But like 500 pass attempts is not very many. It's nothing. Yeah, we talked about that on yesterday's show. Five teams per season on average since 2014 when there was a slight change in emphasis on rules regarding defensive legal contact and defensive holding.

And that led to an uptick in passing and passing efficiency. Since then, five teams per year have been under 500 pass attempts. It's quite a bit below average. But them, three years in a row, at least three years in a row. So let me finish. Four teams total in that span, 32 teams per year, have been under 450 pass attempts. The Titans are two of them for the last two years.

You can't choose to throw that little. There have to be things that happen. And last year it was the efficiency. Another team that did it was Seattle in 2018. They were all the way down at 427 pass attempts. They still wanted to be run lean. They threw 517 times last year. They added a ton of

passes last year from the year before in part because their defense regressed a little. They were behind in games, even though they finished with a winning record and Russell Wilson had to throw more in second halves. They still finished as a team that we talk about this off season, hoping to see them throw more. They still finished as a not pass heavy team with 517 pass attempts. But that happens. Sometimes teams just have to regress because of game situations. There's no way the Titans throw under 450 pass attempts again. They will try to, but they won't be able to. Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as to say there's no way they do it.

I think that they want to, and they might pull it off. You just can't project it that way. All right. Well, obviously, with this projection, Ryan Tannehill, you guys have his QB 20 and 22 for Heath and Ben, respectively, and he is in average draft position. He's QB 19 going between Joe Burrow

and Drew Locke. Would you rather have Tannehill or Joe Burrow? I think Burrow for upside for me. I think I have Tannehill ranked higher. And it sounds like to I'm sure it frustrates people to hear burrow

for upside when Ryan Daniel was the number two quarterback in fantasy after he was the starter last year. Like that's a that's a difficult thing to I'll say burrow, but it should probably be Tannehill. Okay, and then you guys both have Derek Henry as a top eight running back,

getting a monster season again. 13 rushing touchdowns. So we have to talk about A.J. Brown. Heath has him coming out as wide receiver 23, and Ben as wide receiver 11. Ben has him for 14 more targets, 13 more catches, oh, about 150 more yards yards and about another touchdown. So I feel like Heath has A.J. Brown doing almost worse

than he did last year in terms of yards. Is that true? 1,087 yards? I think he had 1,050 last year. Last year he had 1,051. Okay, 1,051. And you have him for 1,087, whereas Ben has Brown taking a big jump

to 1,232 yards and eight touchdowns. All right, Heath. Spoil the party. Yeah, I'm not trying to spoil anybody's party. I've got him at wide receiver 23 on a team that's going to throw the second fewest passes in the NFL. That's liking a guy.

I think I've got him at a 23% target share. I believe Ben's got him right around 25. Is that right? 27% and 27. He was 25 in the final six regular season games of last year. If you include the playoffs and they are not more important than those six games, but I don't also think they're less important than those six games, that rate falls to 22% because he only saw a 15% target share in the playoffs behind Corey Davis and tied with John O. Smith.

So I'm just not as confident that he's going – 27 is taking another leap forward from where he was last year, and he was a rookie wide receiver maybe he will um i also think it's possible that teams weren't treating aj brown like the number one wide receiver for most of the second half of last year because he didn't do anything for he didn't do very much for the first nine games and then in the playoffs he was treated like a number one wide receiver and he didn't get the ball as much. Okay, Ben. I mean, I've made the case a million times, but yeah, he wasn't playing a full snap share until week 10.

That's why we talk about week 10 on, and it improved their whole offense. Their team was way more efficient. It was very clear that once A.J. Brown was their number one receiver, this was a completely different team. He had, I think, more yards after the catch in that stretch than anyone else on the Titans had receiving yards or very close to that. He was essentially the reason for Ryan Tannehill's success. And again, a lot of that was yards after the catch.

You can, you know, your results may vary, but there are definitely numbers that support that claim. And I believe pretty strongly that A.J. Brown is going to grow into a better player. He was a very good college player. He makes a decent point about the playoffs, but there was two games where he only saw four targets and they threw about, I think it's 15 and 16 passes in those two games to do about 30 passes combined, which is when we talk about a 500 pass attempt rate, we're talking about 28 passes per game. So their first two playoff games, they were as run heavy as ever. They got out ahead and they leaned on Derrick Henry and they're going

to do that as much as they can next year. But Derrick Henry can't rush 35 times a game. He'll get like 500 rush attempts. It's just not going to happen. So like what they did late last year is not actually sustainable from just a purely like you can't give your running back 35 carries a game standpoint it's just something that they found success with and and wrote out i'm not saying henry's going to get hurt necessarily because of all those touches but i do think they they will have to scale back his workload just period then there's some other facts that i've written about like in the aj brown write-up i have on the site i recommend people just type in ben gretch aj, AJ Brown, CBS sports.

You'll find it. There's like a big picture with a heart. Yeah. But like Tennessee was the heaviest run team in win seven plus point lead, or I think it's a win percentage. I'm stealing this number from Hayden Winks at Roto world. I think it's win percentage when they're win or win probability. When the win probability was over 75% in a game, they ran, I think it's 69%.

They threw 31% of the time. And only one other team, the Vikings, were below even 40%. They ran about 10 percentage points less than everyone else in the league but Minnesota when they led and were in a clear run-to-win situation. So you have to assume that the Titans will be in that type of situation again very frequently all next season. And Adam noted it on the number to know at the top. They were more efficient than any offense in that stretch

when they were winning a lot and Henry was running a lot. They were more efficient than any team ever. They're not going to do that for 16 games next year. They're going to be in worse game situations, which means they won't be able to run 70% of the time in those situations, which means Derrick Henry's rushes will come down. They'll throw more. And also, another point, when A.J. Brown's receiving regression kicks in,

which it will have to, they'll have to throw more because of that. They won't have long touchdowns to take their offense off the field and allow them to run so few plays. You can't regress their passing efficiency and their rushing efficiency and their offensive efficiency without then recognizing that they won't be able to score as quickly. And they'll have to stay on the field some. That's why I have them with 30 more pass attempts than you do. Sure. So the main point, I guess, comes down to market share.

I think A.J. Brown is a 27% guy. He was 25% down the stretch. I agree with you that the couple playoff games, your stats obviously accurate, but I just think those were wonky games. And I don't think there's really any competition here. Corey Davis hasn't shown that he can do, I think, the role that you're projecting him for.

Let me get into Jonu Smith then. Yeah, let's finish with Jonu Smith because he's really interesting. But I will defend the honor of Corey Davis. He has shown very well that he can do 55 catches for 700 yards. He has absolutely shown an ability to fill that role. Okay, sure. All right, Jonu Smith, wrap up on this. Tight end nine for Heath.

Tight end 23 for Ben. Heath has him at 85 targets. Ben at 57. I mean, very, very different projections here. A big role for Jonu Smith for Heath. Go ahead, Heath. Yeah, I've just got him at a very similar target share for tight ends as what they were last year,

but I've got them throwing 80 more passes, so there's about 115 targets to go for the tight ends, about 70% of them going to John who 30% of them going to Anthony Ferg, sir. I don't, I think this is probably more in line. I've got them at 17% of the team's pass attempts. Yeah, I have them. Oh, wait, what you have John who at 17% at 17. You probably got him at 14 and I've got him at 12 and I have Ferg's are at

eight. So I actually have a 60, 40 split there. And I have their tight end targets coming down a little bit and their receiver targets going up a little bit because I have AJ Brown being kind of more of that elite number one. So it's basically just that John is Smith sucks because Anthony AJ Brown's awesome. No, it's because he played as the starter all last year, and this is basically the percentage that he got. You're projecting a huge leap forward from his numbers last season.

I don't think he quite played at the starter all year long, but yeah. I am projecting a leap forward. So let me ask you this question. I just want a one-word answer. If Adam Thielen and A.J. Brown have the same amount of targets, who has a better season? It's a dumb question is my response. It's not a dumb question because we've only seen six games of AJ Brown being

good, but yeah. Oh, we haven't. That's the whole point. We've seen his whole college career. And the guy who dominated in college is now a guy that you love in the NFL. We've seen three years of Adam Thielen. This is not like we've seen half a year. Adam Thielen's been great.

I was just asking a question here. It's not a dumb question. No, I know, I know. It's not a dumb question. Because your projection, Ben, you have them projected for a very similar amount of targets. So, Adam Thielen or A.J. Brown, they have the same amount of targets. I think A.J. Brown has way more upside for a couple of reasons. One, he's going to have a higher average.

No, just one word answer. Who has a better year if they have the same targets? Brown. Easily Brown. He's not a 30-year-old coming off a couple of reasons. One, he's going to have a higher average. No, just one word answer. Who has a better year if they have the same targets? Brown. Easily Brown. He's not a 30-year-old coming off a hamstring injury. I mean, we could do this all day, though. We're going to take a break. When we come back, six more teams to get to,

including the Houston Texans, who have Brandon Cooks and David Johnson. How do we project them right after this? Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially,

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Under. Probably under. Okay. Number to know, 10.7. That is David Johnson's yards per catch over his career. That's exceptional. And 10.5 yards per catch last year for David Johnson. It's not a team that throws a lot to their running backs,

but that had been in the DeAndre Hopkins era. So Heath, how much, what's the best way to say this? Basically, how did you go about projecting this team without that wide receiver, that DeAndre Hopkins, that staple who's been there, played every game and been so productive? Well, we've got, in terms of the running back targets, what I basically did was we've got three years worth of data with this coaching staff, and the most they've thrown

to the running backs is 86 targets back in 2017 i've got them at 86 targets that may be kind of a coincidence but i tried to stretch as far as i can the bigger problem for me with david johnson is the fact that duke johnson is the other running back there and he's also been very good catching passes i i kind of disagree with the idea that there's not enough room for david johnson because of how much they don't throw to running backs. My concern is more that if they split those between he and Duke Johnson, then there's not enough room for David Johnson to be a great pass catching back. I think you have to assume they're going to change. They did not want to be an offense that fed all of their targets to one guy anymore.

And so I've got I don't have anybody on the team with more than 112 targets this year. David Johnson's ADP, Ben, is round four, RB21, going in between James Conner and Chris Carson. How do you feel about that? Well, I don't like it because of injury, but I think he hit on all the important stuff. I don't have anyone with more than 115 targets. That's Fuller for me. It's Cooks for him. It's cooked for him. We're a little bit different on who we think the number one will be.

But Johnson, the key here, and the reason is yards per catch has always been so high is he split out a lot and he's a very good receiver when he splits out wide. They, you know, we didn't see enough of that from Arizona after Bruce Arians was gone. And after, you know, he came back from his injury where he missed 2017, but that's what we saw in 2016 that made him great. Whenever he did it in 2018 and 2019, he was good.

The big question for me with David Johnson, it's impossible to know, but it's will they split him out a little bit and use him as a downfield receiving weapon, and if they do, I think that's really good for David Johnson and the running back target things, you know, they won't, they won't carry over because he won't be playing running back. I just,

I hate the fact that they signed Randall Cobb and traded for Brandon cooks because they already had Will Fuller and Kenny stills. And like, they don't have a receiving core that would suggest playing a running back at receiver regularly. Yep. What does this mean to you guys just this trend under bill o'brien with texans running back since arian foster no more than 44 catches for any running back that was duke johnson last year

and not a lot of rushing touchdowns and i noticed sean watson takes some of them but just not a lot of carries inside the 10 yard line. Lamar Miller had eight in 2016. Carlos Hyde had eight in 2019. And like for Carlos Hyde have 245 carries and only eight of them inside the five. You know, it's just, it's just a weird thing. Like, for example, I don't think that Julio Jones touchdown numbers make any sense. I think it's fluky year after year, after year, after year, but the low touchdown numbers for Texans running backs, is that fluky year after year after year after year. But the low touchdown numbers for Texans running backs, is that fluky or is that by design and is that something that

we should factor in with David Johnson? You should factor it in because he has Deshaun Watson. Yep. I think it's by design. They do some trick plays. They ran some options and things in there. I think teams have different kinds of red zone packages and things.

I think Bill O'Brien likes to try to put the ball into Deshaun Watson's hands when they get in tight and let him make plays. Then let's talk about the wide receivers. Ben is team Fuller. Has him projected as wide receiver 24. Heath has Fuller as wide receiver 43. And Heath has Brandon Cooks as wide receiver 34. And Ben has Cooks as wide receiver 43. And Heath has Brandon Cooks as wide receiver 34. And Ben has Cooks at wide receiver 40.

Big difference here is Ben has 19 more targets for Will Fuller, whereas Heath has 11 more targets for Brandon Cooks. And I say 11 more targets than Ben has him for. Okay. So Heath, team Brandon Cooks. Yeah. I mean, this is a guy who until last year, four straight years of at least a thousand yards, four straight years, essentially as a high end number two wide receiver, he has been awesome in a variety of different situations. And I really just kind of feel like if the Texans thought that will Fuller could be their number one

wide receiver, I'm not sure why they'd go trade for Brandon Cooks. Brandon Cooks has been a team's number one wide receiver, some very good teams, number one wide receiver. And it's worth noting, you're not projecting him to be the top 15 guy that he usually is. You have him as wide receiver 34. Yeah. I'm like right behind Heath in our projection of Brandon Cooks. I just had them throwing more enough Fuller as number one. I think this is a great situation where we talk about the shortened off season and what the impact is going to be. There's all sorts of stats about how much better Deshaun Watson is when Will Fuller is healthy and on the field.

He knows Will Fuller like the back of his hand. They've always been super efficient together. I don't see how Brandon cooks is going to come in, stay healthy and outperform Will Fuller. It's just not going to happen. Let's go to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Four and a half wins. Can they win five games?

So four and a half is the total. Over or under for Jacksonville? Under. Four and a half? I'll give them over. I'll give them five wins. So the number to know is 31. They were 31st in red zone production last year.

So they just did not score. Leonard Fournette, three touchdowns. Crazy. You look at ADP, Gardner Minshew's QB 25. He's going in between Teddy Bridgewater and Sam Darnold. Real quick, since I know Heath is obviously high on him, so let me ask Ben, because you have him as QB 18. Who are some quarterbacks like

would you take him over Tannehill and and yeah, let's start with that. Would you take Minshew over Tannehill? You don't have to. I don't think he's ever gone over Tannehill in any format where you're drafting. Who do you like better? I have

a one spot behind Tannehill, but I probably would take Tannehill for a little bit more security, but I do have Minshew projected higher. This is a team that's going to throw a lot because they're going to trail. I really like the LaVisca Chenault addition, and I like the addition of Chris Thompson to take some of those

Leonard Fournette targets away. And Thompson's always been an efficient receiver when healthy for running back and Fournette not so much. And I like the addition of Tyler Eifert, which is a, you know, not a huge addition, but when healthy should be an upgrade on their tight end situation from, from 2019. So I think Mincher's in a position and he scrambles enough and everything

else that he could pretty easily be this top 15 quarterback that, that he has projected. Yeah. Heath has him as QB 14. If you look at more ADP for the Jaguars, you know, I think where cbs where we seem to be so much different than everyone is leonard fournette and we'll get to projections versus rankings in a second but he's rb 17 he's a round three pick between melvin gordon and jonathan taylor right well armstead is rb 58 dj charke is round five wide receiver 22 lavisca chanel is wide receiver, 75 actually going after DD Westbrook,

just after DD Westbrook and NFC ADP. I know we wouldn't do that, but like, if you look at for net, Ben, you have a pretty generous projection, RB 15. He has RB 22,

but I just feel like nobody in our drafts wants Leonard for net. Whereas when you draft with other people who aren't CBS people, he's going pretty early. So what's the deal? I'm sorry. I'll let Heath talk later, I promise. But Ben, just stick with you since you have him as RB15. You won't take Leonard Fournette as the 15th.

Right. So what's the deal here? Perfect example of just projections. I have to project somebody to to carry this much and to do these things in in the jacksonville offense i have his receptions coming way down but i still have him being higher than chris thompson because i don't know how healthy chris thompson is going to be but there's a lot of risk in fornat the the downside is he's just bad enough that they turn away from him there's a lot of people that think okay they could ride

him out because it's the last year of his contract. They try to trade him in the off season and they'll give him a ton of touches. And that's basically what I've projected here. But if he's got attitude issues, which he's been suspended for in the past by the team, not by the league, if he is not performing, there's the downside to Leonard Fournette is they just bench him. They just decide he's not going to play anymore, and they're going to move forward with this young team and put Rykel Armstead out there and Chris Thompson out there. So this is not a guy I'm drafting anywhere near my projection for. Heath, do you like DJ Chark this year?

You and Ben have pretty similar projections for him, around 130 targets, 75, 80 catches, over 1,000 yards. Ben's over 1,100 yards, seven touchdowns. Ben has him wide receiver 18. You have him wide receiver 27, separated by 15.5 points. Do you like DJ Chark this year? I do. He's a guy I constantly feel like,

man, I should project him a little bit higher. But I'm just not sure, like as good as the connection was with Minshew and as fun as it is to watch him throw those bombs and hit him occasionally on the sideline. He was still a quarterback quarterback that dumped the ball off a lot. And so I have a hard time getting Chark over like 130 targets. I don't think Minshew is going to be exceptionally efficient. And so the efficiency is good, but not outstanding.

I love like with the Texans, I don't have anyone over 112 targets and I have a guy at 115. I can't get chart to 130 targets. You have them at 127, but I have them at 131. So you're like these little slide notes to where my projections are. I didn't know what you had him at. I just think if I had him at 132, he'd probably be a top 20 receiver for me.

I think that's probably the difference. Five targets would make that big of a difference? Maybe seven. That's the thing about projections, Adam. That's why Leonard Fournette, I only have Leonard Fournette for 12 more receptions and 11 more

catches than he does, and I have him a lot higher in total points. That's the thing with projections. You make small tweaks, and a guy can fall a bunch of spots, and that's why I don't think you should cling too much to the final projection number usually. Okay, but 12 catches is a lot, whereas five targets. Yeah. Okay, NFC South, fun division this year.

Saints, 10.5 wins, over or under? Over. Under. The number to know is 12. In 2019, Alvin Kamara and Latavius Murray combined for 12 total touchdowns. In each of the previous three seasons, Saints running backs combined for at least 24 scores.

That's wild. So way down in the touchdown production by the way these are not my stats i know i give a lot of stats these are i stole them from from you guys know that stats but i just saw that i split the difference i have them combining for 18 so right in between 12 and 24 yeah and people are going to think of tasem hill so we should address that he had eight touchdowns last year uh excuse me, seven touchdowns. But six of them were receiving, which is weird. This is kind of crazy.

He only rushed for one. He caught six touchdowns on 19 receptions, which is the most ridiculous rate of any player in the league. I actually want to start with Latavius Murray. Except Mark Ingram, maybe. I know that Latavius Murray is a weird place to start, but if you think about the way people think about Murray now compared to a year ago,

we were kind of expecting Mark Ingram-like production and definitely a guy that you could start, like a zero RB, great target, you know, good flex option if you're waiting on running back, something like that. And now he's kind of an afterthought.

He is the 46th running back off the board. You guys have him projected for more than 120 carries. And before Kamara got hurt, Kamara got hurt in week 6, the first five games of the year, Latavius Murray was on pace for 77 carries. And if that holds up,

if I knew that was going to be the case, I'd take Alvin Kamara second in fantasy leagues. Because Alvin Kamara was on pace for 240 carries and 83 catches. After the injury, it was more like a 120 carry pace using some A's or numbers,

eliminating the first and the last game in that stretch, blah, blah, blah, for various reasons. But whatever. I just want to talk about the backfield split, basically. And if Latavius Murray is not getting a lot of cash, because he threw

him for 151, then that would mean that would be great for Alvin Kamara. So, Heath, break that down, the backfield. Yeah, I wonder how much New Orleans has talked about how the fact that Alvin Kamara had to play at 75% the second half last year because he never got fully recovered.

And again, another one of those situations where they tried to kind of give, and I have him with quite a bit of work. I think the Saints will be more run heavy than they were last year because they had trended that way three years in a row. So I don't necessarily think that Kamara has to take much of a backseat. The thing that's really interesting with Murray is in drafts, a lot of times I don't really want to take him around some of those other running backs that we think of as high upside if the guy gets hurt. And that's not really fair to Latavius Murray. He had 307 yards and four touchdowns in two games without Camara last year. Like he showed massive upside.

He was arguably the best waiver wire ad of the year. Even though it was only for two games, he may have won you those weeks and those two games could have gotten you in the playoffs. It was remarkable what he did. Ben, you have a pretty aggressive projection for Kamara with 216 carries, 15 more than Heath. Heath has him as RB3 in the projections. Ben

is RB2 in the projections. But in the rankings, real quick, guys, Kamara is where for you guys? Three. I have him at three, third overall. I'm questioning whether I should have him above Barkley. My projection for him was comfortably ahead of Barkley's. Let's see, what else stands out, Ben, when you look at the Saints projections?

Anything in particular um I have been down on uh Emmanuel Sanders and I think the the big point about the the Saints rushing TDs is you know a reminder that Jared Cook as well didn't see a lot of targets last yearught more touchdowns than he has in his career on kind of low volume. But he's still there. But realistically, like, not a lot of Saints. We talked about this on a show, I think, just last week. Not a lot of Saints have had more than 70 targets outside of Thomas and Kamara since Kamara came in the league.

And I think now that you have Sanders and Cook kind of competing for that third receiving role, I don't see how either of those guys is really if like an effective, you know, fantasy option consistently. Yeah, I didn't, I was unaware until this week that there were some people that were kind of excited about Emmanuel Sanders.

He's been going to like the eighth round in some drafts. I don't think he should be drafted at all. Drafted. Okay. To the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I'm taking the over nine and a half. Okay. To the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I'm taking the over. Nine and a half. Under.

No, I said over. I'll take under too. I said over. Under. Oh, you were giving your own answers. I have drafted Tom Brady on way too many teams already that are actually playing out. It would be kind of funny though if he went to Tampa Bay

and was just bad, right? Yeah, it would be pretty funny. That's not just to Tampa Bay and was just bad right yeah it would be that's not just me no that'd be hilarious okay well you have a projected for some pretty good numbers here let's take a look at the projections here and let's let's take a look at ADP I didn't mention this is Drew Brees but I love this average draft position for Drew Brees it goes Tom Brady Drew Brees Aaron Rodgers you're talking about three of the greatest quarterbacks of all time going back to back to back right now in NFC ADP. So Brady's QB 10. It's Carson Wentz.

Then it's Brady. Then it's Breeze. Then it's Rodgers. Ronald Jones and Keyshawn Vaughn are going back-to-back in round 7, just outside the top 30. You guys favor Ronald Jones. Chris Goblin and Mike Evans are going pretty close to each other. Chris Goblin's the sixth wide receiver off the board.

Then it's Kenny Galladay. Then it's Mike Evans are going pretty close to each other. Chris Godwin's the sixth wide receiver off the board. Then it's Kenny Galladay. Then it's Mike Evans and Rob Gronkowski is tight end 10 in between Hayden Hurst and Jared Cook. So Ben, how did you go about projecting the combination of Tom Brady and Bruce Arians? A lot of past attempts expected. I went with a lot slower pace than Heath, which I think is kind of interesting. Both the Patriots and the Bucs have been very fast paced, but I'm expecting maybe a little bit more running in Tampa than they've had lately. The reason they've been fast-paced is that they've just been really good.

They win a lot, and winning teams run more plays. So I'm expecting this team to be a little bit worse than those New England teams, but also a little bit more run-heavy and kind of to just regress a little bit in tempo. The one biggest thing that I think is interesting is Dave's given that stat that Brady's most of the guys he's ever targeted have been inside players. And if you think about his career, wasn't a big passer early in his career, really until Moss in 2007.

And Moss is one of the only outside receivers in Dave's stat that has ever really had big numbers. But even after Moss left, it was still just Welker and Edelman and Gronk, but they never really had great outside receivers. The one year in the last few that he had a good deep threat was Brandon Cooks or a guy who's been reasonably productive elsewhere was Brandon Cooks. And he was very good.

Brandon Cooks was, or maybe not great, but good. But more importantly, Tom Brady's average throw depth in that season compared to his other recent four or five years has been, was a full yard higher. And, and for reference quarterback average throw depths, like the really high ends, like barely over 10 yards. The low end is like in the six yard range. Most quarterbacks are between seven to 10. Brady was at 9.1 that one year with Brandon cooks on the high end. And he was eight or lower almost every other recent season. So I do think there's some, and he led the league in passing that year. I do think there's some reason to believe that Mike Evans can coexist with

Brady. And that went now that he has a guy like Mike Evans on the outside, he will throw down the field to him a little bit more, just like he did with cooks. Yeah. Well, the projections are quite different because Heath, you have Mike Evans wide receiver 17 and Ben,

you have him for a hundred more yards and 15 more catches. And you have his wide receiver eight. So Heath, what do you think? Mike Evans wide receiver 17 and Ben, you have him for a hundred more yards and 15 more catches and you have his wide receiver eight. So Heath, what do you think Mike Evans wide receivers, wide receivers, 17 year projections? Yeah, I just worry.

Like I do think he'll throw down the field more than he did last year. And I do have like, I think 74 catches, 1179 yards and seven and a half touchdowns is probably not too far from what Brandon cooks did that year. And if Mike Evans plays 16 games and put those numbers up, he'll probably be a top 12 wide receiver. But I don't think he'll get, I do expect that he'll be second on the team in targets. I think Godwin's going to lead the team in targets. And I think Godwin is a more efficient wide

receiver. He's definitely going to catch a higher percentage of those passes. Evans has always been a below 60% guy for the most part. So I don't have a huge disagreement with most of the things Ben said. I just think the type of receiver that Evans is, is definitely the type of guy that I struggle with in terms of so much down the field that the catch numbers can really suffer if the target numbers can really suffer if the target numbers come down just a little bit. And I was curious to see if you had him ranked 17th. I thought maybe, well, he's 17th in projection, but he's higher in your rankings.

You have him ranked 17th in PPR. By the way, he is ninth for me in non-PPR. So there is a big difference there. It's just when you've only got 74 catches, it's hard to be top 10 in PPR. So what do you guys think about Gronkowski this year? Complete and total wild card. He's a good low-end starting tight end.

If you get past the guys that you feel confident are going to be top seven or eight tight ends, there's no better dart to throw than Gronk because when he plays, he could be a top three tight end again. He looks like he's in outstanding shape. He's basically the same age as Travis Kelsey. If he's 100% healthy,

then he could be perfectly fine. Was he a thorn in the side of the wide receivers? Did you downgrade the wide receivers because of Gronk? A little, yes. Godwin in particular, because I care a lot about the depth of throws and what he was talking about with Evans. He's a downfield target.

Same thing I was saying with Brady. Evans to me is actually less impacted by Gronk. Gronk's a vertical tight end, but his depth is going to be really close to Godwin's. And I don't think Godwin's going to run the same kind of option routes and everything that Edelman and Welker ran. He's just a different player.

He's a more vertical slot receiver. Those guys were like six yards of depth per target. Godwin was like 10 last year. Evans was like 14. So I actually have Evans leading the team in targets, and I have Gronk cutting into Godwin a little bit. But I ended up with Godwin having more targets than Heath even did because I had them passing a little bit more.

Okay. All right, we got a couple of teams left. We got the Atlanta Falcons and seven and a half wins for the Falcons. Over. Really? Under. I think all the teams in the South besides Carolina might win nine games. Well, they

finished strong last year. In fact, their defense, they went six and two in their last eight games and they gave up 18.6 points per game. 31 points per game in their first eight games. They went 1-7. 18.6 in their last eight games. They went 6-2. Very interesting.

We talk a lot about the Bucs defense getting better. We don't talk as much about the Falcons defense getting better. I'm not sure that we buy it, because I think people think their defense is going to stink this year. The number to know is 29. The Falcons have been 29th or worse in rushing production. Each of the past two seasons, Matt Ryan's QB seven going in between Deshaun Watson and Josh Allen.

Todd Gurley is around three pick early round three RB 15 in between head Edward Z layer and Melvin Gordon. Would you guys have rather have Melvin Gordon or Todd Gurley? I think I'm taking Melvin Gordon over him, but I don't really draft either. I actually have Gurley one spot ahead of my rankings, but I don't usually draft a running back ever in that range. I've got Gurley a little higher in non

and Melvin a little higher in PPR, but they're very, very close. I would take both of them over Clyde. And I know you're going to love the ADP for Calvin Ridley, wide receiver 16, round four. In between, Adam Thielen and A.J. Brown. About that. Give me Ridley over both of them.

How about you, Ben? I have Ridley over both of them, too. I have Ridley over A.J. Brown by one spot. Very excited about Ridley. Good, good. And yeah, like I said, both guys projected to be top 12 wide receivers, Julio and Ridley. Seven touchdowns projected for Julio Jones.

That's a lot. Big year. That's a lot for him. Todd Gurley, 220 carries in a 16 a 16 game season that's what he had in like 15 games last year so not the typical workload for todd girley heath i don't know how the falcons could like we we know that he's not quite the same guy that he used to be and i the one thing that could i don't even know if it would change it, but if their defense was good, maybe he gets to 240 or 250, but this is a team that historically has shared the football,

and now they've got a running back who's got some arthritic component in his knee. I think they're going to keep sharing the football in the backfield. Now, the question is, who is it? Ito Smith? Is it Kadri Olson? Is it Brian Hill? We don't really know that, but there's a second running back

that will be draftable in Atlanta. We just don't know who it is yet. Olsen was used pretty heavily as a goal line back, like a pounder. He's a bigger back. So I split the backup attempts basically between Ido and Brian Hill and gave Olsen kind of a smaller amount, but a much higher touchdown rate. I think that's a possibility for his role. I agree with Heath. It's hard to know, and I don't have either of the backups looking great. The thing that

stands out to me with the Falcons' projection is how concentrated this offense is. You don't project a lot of offenses as concentrated as you will when you look at Atlanta if you do a projection because they basically have Julio Jones, Calvin Ridley, and Hayden Hurst, and they project for over 600 pass attempts pretty easily.

Both me and Heath have them way over 600. Even if their defense improves, it's something that Dirk Cutter brought last year and also did earlier in the 2010s when he was their coordinator for three straight years. They threw a ton, and he threw a ton everywhere else he's been. That's Dirk Cutter for you. So we're going to see a lot of passing. We're not going to see a lot of great weapons in this offense so that means a lot of targets to those weapons that are there and even russell gage who's going

to be their number three this guy was on 116 target pace in the final nine games when he started playing decent snaps i wanted to bring that up because i kind of like russell gage he was a nice little waiver wire pickup last year, specifically in PPR. I kind of feel like he can do what Mohamed Sanu used to do. Kind of challenging, I guess, what you said about how concentrated

it would be. I feel like Russell Gage could be a little bit of a thorn in the side of the big three on this team. Well, he wasn't good. He was very inefficient inefficient he doesn't have a long track record in college because he's a converted defensive back uh and both calvin ridley and and julio jones were very good so in my opinion yes he there's there's a lot of option like a lot of target potential i would say for because that's that i just said he had 116 target

pace and there's so many targets to go around in this offense. Um, but I, I just don't think he's really a threat to Ridley or Jones cause he just wasn't very good. Okay. Yeah.

I didn't mean like a, just, you know, get some targets like, like Muhammad's new used to do. I didn't think Muhammad's decent late round streamer. Okay. Uh,

let's see. Yeah. I'm going to target him in the Scott Fish Bowl. Not target. Are you going to take Russell Gage or Larry Fitzgerald first? I have Gage ranked higher, but I projected Fitzgerald for a lot of targets. Wow.

That's a good question. Let's go to our last team here. And it is Carolina. Five and a half wins over under. Under. Under. Okay. 633 is the number to know.

Second most pass attempts in the NFL last year. 633. Teddy Bridgewater is actually going ahead of Gardner Minshew. What? We don't like that here. Christian McCaffrey going first overall. DJ Moore, wide receiver 13 off the board in between Cooper Cup

and Juju Smith-Schuster. Robbie Anderson and Curtis Samuel around 60th at wide receiver. Ian Thomas, tight end 21. Ben, you have a lot more volume, a lot more plays for the Panthers, right? Yeah, I do. Just kind of expecting

that that's how they'll play. We don't know. We don't know what to expect from Matt Rule and Joe Brady. A couple college minds that are basically taking over the head coaching and offensive coordinator duties and building this offense from the ground up with a new quarterback. We don't know what that's going to mean, but I'm expecting that they'll be a little bit more modern,

a little bit more shotgun spread, quick passing, short passing and a lot of plays because Teddy Bridgewater is more of an underneath thrower. You just, you know, move the ball and run a lot of plays. Yeah. I, I think that will be the intention. It's just that what we've seen lately from my perspective, rookie play callers are not very fast at getting plays in. And I think the short underneath passes, and I

don't know this for sure, but I would expect Bridgewater's going to complete a lot higher percentage of his passes than they did last year. And so, completed passes, the clock keeps running. So I don't know. Maybe I'm just a little bit low. I have them

20 plays below league median, 15 plays below league average just because of the rookie play caller and the fact that they're going to lose so many games. But they might be closer to league average and they may be a team that speeds up as the season goes on as they kind of gel and figure out what they want to do. Yeah, and I'm like 15 plays over league average and take the same thing. They might be closer to league average, but we're just leaning opposite directions, basically.

And I must point out, you both have DJ Moore projected as a top five wide receiver. Good. Next question. On the AJ Brown point, I probably should have just directed everyone to the article and quit i'll do that here i think everyone's already seen dj moore or heard my take on dj

moore okay i don't i top five is aggressive but okay okay uh he was on pace last year for about 152 targets before he got hurt and he's consistently been over nine yards per target. All he needs is normal touchdown luck to be a top five wide receiver. If he has good luck one year, he might be the best wide receiver. Does it matter to you how good Teddy Bridgewater is? That's obviously an X factor. I think Teddy Bridgewater is good.

I know what you're going to say. He's better than their quarterback situation last year. For sure. But he's never... I don't even think he's been on pace to throw for as many yards as the Panthers threw for last year. He's never... Where is he good? He's really, really... He throws

underneath and he's really, really accurate underneath. He's still... Even when adjusting for depth, that next-gen stat, I've mentioned completion percentage over expectation. He was still positive, even adjusting for the fact that he was throwing underneath, and those should be completed at a higher rate. And so he's right.

He's going to complete a lot of passes. That's where DJ Moore works as well. So the risk I see for DJ Moore is if they really change Curtis Samuel's role. He was mainly a deep threat last year. Robbie Anderson could be the deep threat this year. If they make Samuel a player who's playing more around the line of scrimmage, like he did a little bit more at Ohio State, then maybe it's McCaffrey and Samuel and Moore around the line of scrimmage

instead of just McCaffrey and Moore. But I still think Moore kind of proved last year he's a lot better of a player and will command more targets than Samuel. But it might make it harder for him to hit what me and Heath have, which is 145 targets essentially each. That will do it for the South divisions, the AFC and the NFC. it might make it harder for him to hit what me and Heath have, which is 145 targets, essentially each. Oh, that will do it for the South divisions and the AFC and the NFC. We're going out West to Ben's world on Thursday show with the AFC and the

NFC West. How will the 49ers backfield look? How will the chiefs backfield look? I'm going to just, you know, that's it. Those are the only two teams I'm going to, I'm going to just, you know, that's it. Those are the only two teams I'm going to tease. I did not even realize those were the Super Bowl teams from last year when I did that.

That was just a real professional tease right there. All right, we're out of here for the day, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Hope you're enjoying these projection pods. One more to go and then a mailbag on Friday. So get your questions in via Apple Podcasts or fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Heath Cummings, Ben Gretsch, Adam Azar saying goodbye. We'll talk to you on Thursday.