Fantasy Football Today - 🚨Antonio Brown to the Bucs! (10/23 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: October 24, 2020

We give you our initial thoughts on Tampa Bay's addition of Antonio Brown. Check out their Fantasy playoff schedule! Tom Brady could be a league winner down the stretch. But for now, how are we ranking the Bucs WRs, would we rather have Brady or Matt Ryan and is Ronald Jones a winner or a loser?  Listen to the brand new Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-in-5/id1528634304 '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, @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

Bruce Arians once said that Antonio Brown was too much of a diva for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Fooled you! He's a perfect fit, apparently, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They're signing him to a one-year deal, eligible to play in Week 9. It's Friday night. I'm not sure the last time we did a Friday night podcast. Friday night's a great night. Thank you, Dave. It's a late Friday night, apparently.

We're losing it. Yeah, yeah. All right. So Dave and Jamie are here. I'll get out of the way and stop singing and let them talk. Antonio, who has impacted the most, positive or negative here, Dave? What do you think? Positive, it's Tom Brady.

I think it could end up being really good for Antonio Brown, too. We just don't know exactly what type of shape he's in and if he can still do the things that he was doing back in 2018 and prior to that. And it's, it's going to be rough on Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Grok too. Jamie, your thoughts.

I think God, God will be okay. If they, you know, keep him in the slot and, you know, keep him in the slot. And, you know, as the inside guy, if Antonio Brown comes in and plays in that role, then it's going to be bad for Godwin. But Mike Evans, I think, is the one that's in trouble.

You know, just looking at what his target share has already been with Chris Godwin on the field. And now you're adding Antonio Brown into the mix. It's clearly not good for all of the receivers because you're bringing in a guy who, you know, is going to command targets to some degree. He's not just going to be Scott Miller or, you know, Justin Watson or, you know, Tyler Johnson or any of these guys, he's, he's on a different level. So, you know, and any momentum that Rob Gronkowski has been building is, is not good. The hope that Chris Godwin was going to be a top five wide receiver,

probably not. He'd still be top 10 guy. But the two big winners here are Antonio Brown and Tom Brady because Brown gets a team and he gets to play. And Brady now gets just another weapon to this arsenal. So they're the best offense in the NFC. And we'll see if they're able to carry this out to the Super Bowl. Yeah, I think the biggest winner I'll cheat trick question. DK Metcalf.

Breathe a sigh of relief. Let's rank the wide receivers rest of season and tell me where you think they are just amongst the field. Jamie, you said you think Goblin can still be top 10. Do you like Brown better than Evans? How do you rank them and what are they rest of season?

Goblin's one and he's still a number two fantasy wide receiver. I'll drop him down to that range. Evans is still two, just based on his having an established role in this offense with Bruce Arians and having an established rapport with Tom Brady with the Buccaneers. Obviously, Brady and Brown played together in New England for that brief stint, but I'll still take Evans over Brown, and then Brown is third. So I would say Evans and Brown can be number three fantasy receivers.

It's kind of like the Cowboys. There's going to be a week or two where there's a guy that's good and a week or two where there's a guy that's bad. But Godwin's the one that I'll still start on a weekly basis. Dave, your thoughts? I got to tell you, I don't think Antonio Brown signs if Evans and Godwin are healthy and productive and good to go. Scott Miller's been banged up too.

Okay, they got him to replace Scott Miller? All right, maybe. That's possible. I think it's okay to rank Brown third for now from the group, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if three weeks from now, he's the best receiver of the group and right back to a number one receiver. And I know that's not going to be fun to hear. A lot of people don't like Antonio Brown and off the field, he's crazy, but I'm thinking solely of what his potential is. We saw it in one game, not even for the whole game, but he caught four passes

56 yards and a touchdown from tom brady with the patriots this is a more explosive offense defenses if all three of these receivers are on the field plus gronk holy guys it's it's a super team they're not going to be able to say all right we got a double cover and turn around it's going to be the same defense they see every week it's going to be the same type of defense that the chiefs see every week where they're like please please don't throw on us we'll let you run the ball five yards per carry and then we'll hope to stop you inside the 20 please don't do it and brady's gonna say nah man i'm gonna throw and he loves antonio brown he wouldn't do this if he didn't love playing with him for one stinking game he's been playing

with evans and godwin for a little while now and he i don't know if he begged to get antonio brown there but i'm sure he went to bruce arians and said i'd love to have this guy on the team and bruce arians relented and said okay he's a diva he's going to be a pain in the butt but the price is right it's a one-year deal let's get him in here his potential is literally league winner now his floor could also be black hole on your fantasy roster, but if you're picking him up off the waiver wire at this point, or if you've already done it, which is what most people

have done. 64% rostered right now. It's going to be close to 100 really, really soon, and I don't blame you one bit for it now. You have to wait a little bit. I'm trying to trade him immediately if I pick him up off the waiver wire. If you can get something good, absolutely. What would you get? Who would you be looking for?

I'd rather have Godwin, so I'd trade him for Godwin. Would you rather have Marquise Brown? No. Would you rather have Terry McLaurin? Wow. A thousand percent. Would you rather have Amari Cooper? A thousand percent.

A thousand percent's a lot for Amari Cooper after what we saw. Would you rather have Cari Cooper? A thousand percent. A thousand percent? A thousand percent's a lot for Amari Cooper after what we saw. Would you rather have CeeDee Lamb? A thousand percent. Over Brown? Yeah. Okay. It's kind of impossible to imagine these three wide receivers and Rob Gronkowski all being good for fantasy, at least consistently.

And I think the Cowboys are probably the best example to look at, okay? Amari Cooper, great. CeeDee Lamb, great. Michael Gallup, dud. And I would say tight end position, pretty damn good for them. So that's three out of four. Keep in mind, Dak Prescott. And they're still able to run the ball.

And they're still able to run the ball. But they were doing historic things. Dak Prescott was on pace for 6,000 passing yards, just short of that, 5,939. So we're not going to have a 6,000 passing yards, just short of that, 5,939. So, we're not going to have a 6,000-yard passer. Is Gronkowski the odd man out? Do we just

not know? Do we have to wait and see? And the good thing is, we don't have to do anything right now. We have two weeks before he's back, before he's playing. So, you know, it's just hard to imagine all of them being good. Maybe it's a revolving door. Well, the thing that's different for Tampa Bay this year,

you know, we talked about this, I think, on Thursday's podcast, Adam, is that, you know, Bruce Arians didn't have a run game last year like this. He didn't have a defense for the majority of the year like this. But there's still sixth and pass attempts per game. I wanted to bring that up. It's a good transition. Yeah, but it's not the same as they were a year ago. No, it's not. So there's still, and as they were a year ago. No, it's not. They're still, and as we've seen the last couple weeks,

they're winning without having to throw the ball all over the place. No, just last week though. I actually, I looked into all this right before the show. I wanted to give the numbers actually. Let's talk about this. They have the number one defense in yards per play. Not scoring defense, but they obviously have a good defense.

Brady has thrown at least 35 times every game except for last week against green Bay. And that was an easy blowout win 38 to 10, but there've been some games where they gave up 17 points, 10 points, and he's throwing 35 to 38 times. Uh, they gave up 19 points against the bears. He threw 41 times. They're on pace for 595 pass attempts. I said they were sixth in attempts per game. They're seventh.

Last year, they threw 630 times. So 595 is still a pretty high number. You know, Jamie, talk about the pass attempts. Talk about Ronald Jones. And this is a fascinating move. It's just fascinating. This might be the, you said the best offense in the NFC, so that's good to know.

You know, they're going to be a great offense, but do you see him throwing less? You see him throwing more the same discuss? I mean, I'm going to guess he's going to throw the same as he has been, but you know, this is now three weeks of the run game being really good.

And that's without Leonard Fournette, you know, so Fournette, if he's right, is going to only help the run game, you know, and make things, if he's, you know, doing things similar to what Ronald Jones been able to do with just fewer touches. That's going to be a good thing. You know,

it's hard to defend the run when you have all these weapons at your disposal. The defense is going to put them in situations where they have the ball a lot because they're going to get a lot of three and outs on the other side. So I think this is a great team. It's a, you know, it's a move that hopefully makes them better. You know, the only concern would be is, does it do anything to the locker room, you know, and does that cause a problem because Antonio Brown's had some issues in the locker room before specifically in Pittsburgh and in Oakland. I hope everything, you know, is, is a positive scenario for this but again Brady wins you know he gets he

gets another guy that he is clearly comfortable with and is going to make him you know better with his production I hope it doesn't take away too much from the other two guys but at the same time I hope Antonio Brown's able to help fantasy managers but I think this is just going to be one of those situations where from an offensive standpoint they're probably in the 35 pass attempt range. And in those 35 passes, you just have to hope that it's seven to eight targets for the three receivers and the same thing maybe for Kropp. And you just take your chances with them each week. And you hope that they can turn.

I hesitate to say that Antonio Brown will be as consistent as he was in Pittsburgh. He was outstanding in Pittsburgh. But he got a lot of targets in Pittsburgh, and it was more than eight targets per game. So he probably won't be quite that good unless one of Evans and Godwin end up not playing for a while, and he's there to basically replace one of them because they're so banged up. And that is within the realm of possibility here, in which case his target share would also go up.

We can't say for sure that that's the case, but it's interesting, man. And the fact that he's there, it's just like I told you a few minutes ago. Defenses are going to play zone coverage. They're going to play back. It's going to make it easier for whoever's running the football for Tampa Bay to put up really nice numbers. So do you think Ronald Jones is a winner now?

He's a winner if he keeps the job. I think he's earned enough leash where he can make two mistakes and then he loses it. Whereas before it was like one mistake and Bruce Arians couldn't wait to yank him off the field. Now I bet he's got himself at least one extra mistake. Bruce Arians couldn't wait to yank him off the field. Now I bet he's got himself at least one extra

mistake. Bruce said on Friday, because Leonard Fournette's going to play in week seven, he was asked, what's his role going to be? And he said he's going to have the same role, essentially. So that's the backup. But it's also the fourth quarter guy.

That's what he wanted him to be. Okay, we'll see if that's what he does. That's what he said anyway. We never saw it play out. We'll see what Fournette does because this is a game they should win. If the offensive line for the Raiders is as bad as it is and they're playing with a lead,

we'll see what they do with Fournette. We'll see what they do with Ronald Jones. We'll see if this is a motivating factor for the two Tampa Bay receivers. Hopefully they're healthy. Rest of season, would you rather have Tom Brady or Matt Ryan? I'm comfortable with Ryan. Yeah, I think as long as Ryan has a healthy Julio,

he's got a higher ceiling. Tom Brady or Ryan Tannehill? Brady. I hate disrespecting Tannehill over and over again, and I said I wasn't going to do it, but I'm doing it. It's Brady. Josh Allen or Brady? Allen.

Allen's got more value right now, but I would love to sell high on him and buy low on Tom. By the way, did you see who the Patriots play in week 12? The Patriots or the Bucs? The Bucs. I'm sorry. They play the Chiefs. They play the Chiefs in week 12. Did you see who they play after their bye?

Yeah, that's Minnesota, Atlanta, Detroit, Atlanta. That's weeks 14, 15, 16, 17. Those are the last four games of the year. Yeah, Minnesota, twice Atlanta, Atlanta week 17, one of them, and Detroit. It's just Tom Brady has a chance to be a total league winner, but the thing is you never know if they're just going to be blowing teams out.

I think they're going to win the Super Bowl. I'm sorry. I think they're going to go to the Super Bowl. If everybody's healthy and there are no distractions off the field, I think they're absolutely a contender. Well, that would be history. First host team playing in their own table. That's right.

Oh, wow. Wow, with like 30 fans. But the lightning, the Rays. Oh, wow, yeah. What a year for Tampa, for Bay Area sports. Well, the state of Florida. I mean, the Heat were in the... The Heat were in the finals, yeah. Yeah. What a year for Tampa, for Bay Area sports. Well, the state of Florida. I mean, the Heat were in the... The Heat were in the finals.

Yeah. Yep. The Heat will be in the national championship. You just reminded me the World Series is on, so I'm going to go... I heard that. So I'm going to turn the World Series on right now, watch a little baseball.

Thanks for joining us on this Friday night. FYI, we already recorded the Saturday Mailbag, and we talked a little bit about Antonio Brown. We had no idea he was signing with the Bucs. I got to tell you, Frank Stample, amazing, in saying Antonio Brown to the Bucs and giving that full breakdown about how that'll all go. Just an unbelievable job by him.

I don't remember what happened. He said, Brady's going to get Antonio Brown. Oh, okay. You should trade for Tom Brady right now because that's going to happen. And he said, Gronk's going to score four touchdown he said Gronk's going to score four touchdowns. Gronk's going to score four touchdowns. Oh, he also on Tuesday said,

look for Carson Wentz to hit Boston Scott for a game-winning touchdown. And he said Daniel Jones will trip after an 80-yard run when he had a touchdown in front of him. I mean, Frank is a genius. I don't know what this is all about, but I think I'm ready to go. Okay, everybody, we'll talk to you on the mailbag, which has already been recorded, and then Sunday, some NFL action.

Have a good one.