Fantasy Football Today - Breakouts: 2021 League Winners! (07/18 Fantasy Football Podcast)
Episode Date: August 18, 2021Bid on our Draft-A-Thon items right now to benefit St. Jude! http://cbssports.com/ebay "One Good Stat, One Bad Stat" for some of our breakout predictions starting with D'Andre Swift (2:15) and CeeDee ...Lamb (10:50). Dave and Heath have awesome debates on these players. Plus news and notes (19:15) and can you Name That Arnold Schwarzenegger quote (23:30)? ... Heath's breakouts (24:00) include Darrell Henderson, A.J. Brown and Noah Fant. Should Henderson be drafted ahead of Miles Sanders and Josh Jacobs? Can Fant get enough targets? ... We quickly run through Jamey's breakouts (41:00) which include Terry McLaurin and Damien Harris and then we bounce over to Dave's breakouts (51:30). Dave loves the potential for Jalen Hurts, Jonathan Taylor and T.J. Hockenson ... Email us at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." 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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This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports.
On his way to the end zone.
Tell you what, that was a spectacular play.
It's time to dominate your fantasy league.
What a play.
Off to the races.
Touchdown.
Oh, he's done it again.
Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Beck.
A wise man once said, sleepers win you weeks, breakouts win you leagues.
So let's put those words into action here and win some leagues with some great breakouts on today's show.
2021 Breakouts Fantasy Football Today. Adam Azer with Dave Richard and Heath Cummings.
We might get Jamie Isenberg on.
If not, we'll still talk about his breakouts.
It'll be a lot of fun.
Dave, welcome back from a little weekend trip,
some fantasy football in your life.
How you doing?
I'm doing great. I saw two preseason games.
I have plenty to report from them,
Bill's Lions and Panthers Colts,
and I spent a day for the third time in four years.
I'm really like lucky to have spent a day drafting at the pro football hall
of fame with a bunch of other analysts from other sites,
catching up with a lot of people and,
uh,
building some interesting teams and 14 team leagues that we run there.
So very long weekend,
a lot of fun,
a lot of writing, a lot of writing,
a lot of football.
Cool.
Good stuff,
man.
And I'm going to do one good stat and one bad stat for some of your
breakouts to start the show.
We have another Arnold Schwarzenegger segment,
which is really cool.
One of our listeners gave us an Arnold quote,
and I can't figure out what movie it's from,
but I will ask you guys a little bit later and see if you can figure out if
you can name that Schwarzenegger movie. But mostly this is a breakout show. We'll
see if we have time for your emails. Fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Also, thank you very
much for your Apple podcast reviews. We very much appreciate it. Listen, we know we're one of the
top fantasy football podcasts out there. We want to be the number one. So we need you to tell your
friends, spread the word. If you don't want to tell people in your league, that's fine. But tell
other people about fantasy football today.
All right.
One good stat, one bad stat.
The first one is for a Heath breakout.
Ready, Heath?
Yeah.
Woo!
DeAndre Swift is one of your breakouts.
He is going 29th overall in CBS ADP.
He is RB15.
And good stat for DeAndre Swift in his last six games.
He was on pace for nearly 1,400 total yards,
61 catches, and 14 touchdowns.
That is one hell of a pace.
The bad stat for DeAndre Swift,
Lions running backs combined for 17 rushing touchdowns last year.
That was as much as they had in the previous two years combined.
It was the first time in, I think, seven
seasons that Lions running backs had more
than 13 rushing touchdowns.
This just hasn't been a good
backfield. It was last year.
When's the bad stat?
That seems like two good
stats. A player gets
drafted by a team that never
scores running back touchdowns, and
as soon as he joins the team,
they score as many touchdowns
as they had the two years prior.
Fine.
That seems like two good stats.
Bad stat, the Lions might be awful this year.
And I don't know.
It has not been, in recent history,
the Detroit backfield has not been good for fantasy.
That is the bad stat.
But it was once DeAndre Swift got there. Yeah, it was.
Yeah, it was.
They haven't finished in the top half
in the NFL in rushing since Barry Sanders
was on the team.
Wow. I'm old enough to remember that.
Alright, Heath, so make your case
for DeAndre Swift as RB15
off the board right now, mid-third round,
early to mid-third round.
Yeah, he's a
22-year-old running back who
as a 21-year-old just changed
the fortune of an entire franchise
in terms of rushing touchdowns.
All jokes aside,
when he was
used as anywhere
and not a feature back even, but even
15 touches per game,
he basically averaged the same PPR fantasy
points per game as Derrick Henry. Now he has a new head coach that wants to run things like the
Saints do and compares him to Alvin Kamara. He has a new offensive coordinator that wants to run
things like the Chargers did in the Austin Eckler role. Those are two guys who don't get a workhorse
role, but we still still taken the first round
because so many of their touches are in the passing game
and because they're really good.
Well, you know what?
DeAndre Swift is really good as well.
What is Jamal Williams' role?
Yesterday, you were saying that people might think
of Jamal Williams more as the early down role.
That's exactly what the Lions have said.
They've compared him to Latavius Murray.
Yeah, so is that what you think is going to happen?
Or is he just not going to have much of a role at all?
Because that's not what his role was
with the Packers, obviously.
No, it wasn't.
I think that he will be...
I think he will start the year
as a Latavius Murray slash
whatever you want to call the combination
of Kalen Balazs, Joshua Kelly, and Justin Jackson last year,
where he's getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 14 touches per
week.
I know that sounds like a lot for a backup running back,
but Anthony Lynn's running backs have averaged 31 touches per game over the
past four seasons consistently amongst the league leaders and the number of
targets and
touches the running backs get. So you can have Jamal Williams in that 12-ish range and DeAndre
Swift around 17. I think that there's a chance that Jamal Williams takes some of the short yardage
runs early in the year from Swift, but nobody is watching Jamal Williams and DeAndre Swift run the
football for more than a game or two and thinking, you know, when we're close to the goal line, we should really give it to that guy.
Or anywhere on the field.
Well, no, they're not going to give Swift 25 touches a game.
Right.
I know, but he should.
I just think he's going to be a much better rusher than Jamal Williams.
Dave, do you have any issues with the DeAndre Swift breakout call?
Dave hates DeAndre Swift.
Yeah, I'm not as big of a fan as Heath is.
I think of him more as a round four pick, and that's even in PPR.
I'm nervous about him staying upright.
I think the coaches are serious when they talk about a split
because they've been talking about a one-two punch,
literally their quote, and they've both said it,
both Campbell and Anthony Lynn have said it,
ever since Jamal Williams really joined the team.
And I like their offensive line,
and I think their offensive line has a chance to be good.
I think they view Williams as the hammer,
and I think they view Williams as the thunder.
Jeez, Louise, I should be able to get this in now.
Hold on. I think he view Williams as the lightning of the thunder. Jeez Louise, I should be able to get this. And now they're put out.
Hold on.
I think he's the lightning.
I think they absolutely do see him as the passing downs guy.
And that's where he still has value for me in PPR is because I,
I agree with heat that I think he's got high catch potential.
I don't necessarily see as many carries there for him from game to game.
They've, they've talked, and Campbell
said this on Friday after the game, they don't mind going with a hot hand approach. How often
is Swift going to have the hotter hand than Williams? It might be half the season, but it
also might be half the season, which means that half the times you start DeAndre Swift, you better
hope he gets five, six catches a game. That's possible. I don't know if we can absolutely
promise that to happen game in and game out. And this is a team that's possible. I don't know if we can actually promise that to happen game in and
game out. And this is a team that's probably not going to score a ton of points. So when we talk
about touchdowns, I don't know how many there actually are for these two to even split. And
then you just look at how he ranked in terms of elusiveness last year, yards after contact last
year, and Swift didn't rank high there at all. So I'm
nervous about him getting a big workload. And that makes me really want to stay away from him in non
PPR and half PPR. And the only reason to stay with him in PPR is because of the full point per catch.
I think he'll get a lot of catches as long as he stays healthy. He dealt with injury issues last
year, including concussions and migraines from a concussion. And now this year it's the groin that Campbell said on Friday wasn't healing fast enough.
So they didn't want to push it and put him in the game. And they said the only way they would
have played him is if they really, this is a quote, really, really needed it from DeAndre Swift.
So hopefully he's back at practice soon hopefully he does have a good year
please draft him as a number two fantasy running back and i just i feel like there's other running
backs out there that we can expect more from in terms of overall yardage overall touches that'll
do better for us in fantasy the couple things that i would push back on because like mostly
for the first half of that dave was saying the exact same thing I said about Jamal Williams and DeAndre Swift's roles.
I don't know what evidence we have that suggests that Jamal Williams will half of the time be the hot hand in combination with a guy that was taken 35th overall last year and averaged 4.6 yards per carry on a team where nobody else averaged better than 3.9.
Let's see him do it again.
Honestly, they're both starting clean slate with this team. New coaches,
new offensive mindset. They really want to lean on that big
offensive line. But you don't think Jamal Williams is as talented as DeAndre Swift.
No, I don't think Williams is as talented. Jamal Williams is such a jag.
He's a jag. I mean, Jamal Williams is such a Jag, right? He's a Jag.
He's just the guy.
Swift should be able to beat him out and get...
I don't know.
I wish the Lions were...
But it's not about beating him out.
It's about mixing and matching.
They're going to both play.
For sure.
That's how it comes down to it.
Right, yeah, I know.
When I take a running back in round two,
I want a guy that's not going to be in that type of situation.
But he's not going in round two. He's not going in round two. Well, I know that Heath would take a running back in round two, I want a guy that's not going to be in that type of situation. But he's not going in round two.
He's not going in round two.
Well, I know that Heath would take him in round two.
You'll take Alvin Kamara and Austin Eckler in round one, though, right?
Absolutely.
But they'll play more than the guys that they're with.
I'm certain that Alvin Kamara will lead the Saints
in touches and playing time and all that stuff.
You just differ on the splits.
You guys see the splits being different.
That's how I'm interpreting this.
Dave thinks Jamal Williams has more of a role
than Heath does, or more of a valuable role?
I think Dave said 12 touches a game.
I would agree with that.
Okay.
If I'm taking a running back with 12 touches per game,
it's not going to be with the top 40.
That's exactly what the running back
opposite Austin Eckler has had.
Right, so why would I want that have you watched austin eckler yes so he thinks that's the guy
opposite eckler not eckler himself i'm saying the guy opposite the same touches as we're talking
about for williams you're drafting swift expecting him to be eckler or camara we're around i don't
think it's going to happen well around and a half cheaper. I don't think it's going to happen.
Well, around and a half cheaper, though.
I'm not drafting him where we're drafting both of those guys in the first round.
Of course.
All right, let's move on.
Let's go to one good stat, one bad stat for one of Dave's breakouts.
It's CeeDee Lamb.
CeeDee Lamb had 900 yards last year.
All right.
There have been 24 wide receivers since 2003 who have had 900 yards as a rookie. That includes three last year. All right. There have been 24 wide receivers since 2003 who have had 900 yards
as a rookie. That includes three last season. So that means 21 going into last year. Of those 21,
only five of them had bad sophomore seasons. Keenan Allen, Anquan Bolden, Michael Clayton,
Eddie Royal, and Mike Williams of Tampa Bay. I mention this all the time. 900 yards as a rookie is a really solid mark.
It means most of the players who have reached that
in the last 17 years have gone on to have very good careers,
and most of them have scored more fantasy points
in their second season.
The bad stat, CeeDee Lamb had only three more targets
than Michael Gallup in 2020.
And the not sure if it's good or bad,
Lamb played almost exclusively in the slot in 2020, and that will not be the case in 2020. And the not sure if it's good or bad, Lamb played almost exclusively in the slot in 2020,
and that will not be the case in 2021. I'm not sure, Dave, do you like him playing more on the
outside? It seems like they're going to be creative with the way they use their three receivers.
Yeah, I think that's fine. I'm okay with him being on the outside because they're going to
try and manufacture matchups for him. And the reality is that they're probably going to play
against a lot of zone defenses. Teams don't really have the type of defensive personnel to line up with what Dallas has on offense.
You think about their three-star receivers, their two good tight ends,
their running back ain't bad, and their quarterback will run.
So if he's going to see zone coverage, I think he can beat that,
whether he's in the slot or out of the slot.
My favorite number about Lamb is that last year with Dak Prescott,
he had a minimum of 10 PPR points in every single game.
He had 16 plus PPR in three of the five,
and that was on a target share below 17% from Prescott.
I think the target share is going to go up.
I think you're going to see him put up more points per week,
and I think he's got a chance to finish as a top 12 wide receiver.
Okay.
And Heath, I know you're obviously concerned just about the target share and you've
broken it down.
Yeah.
Like,
yeah,
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
There's,
um,
there's a lot of competition for targets in Dallas and,
um,
Amari Cooper is every bit as good as CD lamb at this point.
I think if Cooper doesn't get hurt,
it's very difficult for either of them to be top 12 unless Dak is on that record-breaking pace
that we've talked about with Kellen Moore.
Because this offense has been pretty consistent
since Moore took over of about 100, 120 targets go to tight ends,
about that much is going to go to running backs,
and then that third receiver plus
is going to have a good chunk of targets as well.
So it's not a situation like we've talked about in Minnesota
where maybe 52% of the targets go to two wide receivers.
It's a less concentrated attack.
So I really think Lamb has to either displace Cooper
or Dak has to have an otherworldly season
for Lamb to be a top 12 wide receiver.
And Dave, you're taking Lamb over Cooper?
I'm taking Lamb over Cooper.
I'm nervous to take Cooper as a top 15 receiver.
I'll do it in PPR.
But last you see, he was wide receiver 14 in PPR points per game in 2019.
He was wide receiver 20 last year.
I think he can do better than wide receiver 20,
provided that both he and Dak say
healthy all year. But I don't want to draft him too close to his ceiling. And I think Lamb does
have the chance to be the better receiver to get more targets and to do more with them than Cooper
this year. But I think they could both operate as number two receivers for fantasy managers.
Yeah. And I tweeted this out a while ago.
Have you seen what Amore Cooper was on pace for with Dak Prescott?
Yes.
Like 196 targets over a 17 game season,
144 catches,
1500 yards.
Like he was,
I think,
I think Liam actually had one more touchdown,
which was funny because Liam barely scored any more touchdowns the rest of the year.
But the targets and catches in yards
were not all that close between Cooper and Lamb
when Dak was healthy.
And that was the good stretch for Lamb.
I think what people like about Lamb is
the guy has no preseason,
no preseason games,
no minicamp,
no offseason like a normal one last year.
He comes out, and in the first five games of the year,
he has five, six, five, five, and eight catches.
He has 79 or more yards in three of the first five games,
and those were the five games that Dak Prescott played him.
That is crazy good for a rookie.
But why?
But why was he so much better than Michael Gallup?
I mean, he was so much better than Michael Gallup? I mean, he was so much better
than Michael Gallup. Right, and we're drafting Michael Gallup.
But it's not about comparing. It's about
it's about, look,
okay, fine. You want the math, right? The first
five games. He had like 16% of their targets
and maybe 20% of their yards. He caught
72.5% of his targets in the
first five games. 10.83
yards per target, which would have ranked seventh
if he had done that in a full season.
I know he wouldn't have done that in a full season,
but he was great.
CeeDee Lamb was awesome.
Okay, I'm sure he was better than Amari Cooper
in Cooper's first five games of his career.
Like, people don't come out and do this.
So I think that's what has people really gripped,
is, oh my gosh, that was only five games, I know,
but, you know, you're projecting,
this was not unprecedented. This was tremendous production
from a rookie wide receiver, and that gives people hope that he's going to be better than
Amari Cooper. And how about the fact that he caught 64% of his passes from quarterbacks not
named Dak Prescott in those last 11 games of the season? He had 10 plus PPR points in six of those
11 games with terrible quarterbacks.
And, you know, everybody gets caught up in the training camp highlights that you see on social
media. But what I see as a receiver who's open, even when he's covered that the quarterback knows
that they can just throw it over his head by a foot and lamb will go up there and make the play.
And that's just something that's, that's a trait of an elite wide receiver guys that can do
that and still make the catch when they're covered. And lamb's going to probably make a
bunch of those plays this year. And I think he's got the confidence of Prescott going into his
second year, building on the experience from last year. I think there's a real case to be made that
he is the best wide out in Dallas. All right. We're going to talk about a lot of players today.
So let's move on and get deeper into the breakouts list.
Also, we have some injury news to update you on
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Some news and notes for you.
Cam Newton says he has not been guaranteed
the starting job for week one.
I don't think this is necessarily a shock, but...
I'm shocked.
Yeah.
Bill Belichick's not going to just say, oh, he's starting.
He's going to make him earn it, but we'll see who starts.
We'll keep a close eye on it.
I thought Mac Jones looked pretty good, by the way.
Very conservative.
Yeah.
4.5 yards per attempt or something like that.
But his best throw was a beautiful throw in the end zone.
It was a deeper pass and it was dropped.
Can I say one thing about Amore Cooper real quick?
Just because we said that he wasn't near as good
as CeeDee Lamb his first five games.
I just looked it up. It was good.
Amore Cooper was awesome.
It wasn't as good.
It wasn't as good.
He didn't play on a team that was on pace to throw for 7,000 yards.
He had four more targets in his first five games than CeeDee Lamb did.
He was playing with Derek Carr.
And CeeDee Lamb had, what, 50 more yards or something on four fewer targets?
No, I just think we don't, like Amari Cooper was an elite level prospect,
an elite level draft pick, and one of the best rookie wide receivers
up until the last couple of years.
I hope CeeDee Lamb's career is better than Amari Cooper's.
I expect it to be.
How about that?
And Cooper's had a very good career.
I expect lamb to be better.
It should be much better.
It's a different,
like the games changed quite a bit in five years and he has a much better
quarterback.
Yeah.
Yes,
he does.
Then he has,
then the one that Cooper started with. The one that Cooper has now,
I would say compares very similarly to Lamb's quarterback.
Darren Waller is back at practice.
Stefan Diggs is still out with a knee injury.
And are you guys getting close
to moving Stefan Diggs down in your rankings?
I'm not.
Not there yet.
Yeah, I've got so little separation
between him and DeAndre Hopkins.
And really, like Calvin Ridley and A.J. Brown,
they're all close enough that I'm not too far away from it.
Okay, Traquan Smith returned to practice.
The Seahawks signed Jamal Adams to a four-year extension.
There's Safety, who I believe set the NFL record
for most sacks by a defensive back last year.
Justin Jefferson was limited in practice on Monday.
That's a good sign.
By the way, it's Tuesday now,
so we don't have all the practice reports.
So I know a lot of this information.
There are no official practice reports this time of year.
Well, I mean the media reports from practice.
Sure.
Because it's Tuesday afternoon right now.
Joe Burrow won't play this weekend.
Or Brandon Allen.
Yeah, so what's the deal with Burrow,
where you guys are with Burrow right now?
He got off to a slow start in camp.
He's recovering, obviously, from the knee surgery.
Heath, where are you on Burrow?
Pretty much the same place I've always been.
I was never drafting Joe Burrow because of his floor.
It was all about ceiling, and I still think he has the ceiling.
So he's one of the first guys that I don't feel comfortable with
as a starter that I would draft.
He's around QB 12, lower than that in a two-quarterback league.
I've got him 13th.
I've got him behind Tannehill, Rogers, Jalen Hurts, Matthew Stafford.
I've got him ahead of all the rookies.
There's tons of upside, obviously.
Look at the offense that he's in.
But I think he's a little bit of a risk just because of the knee
and because he's not necessarily playing in preseason games
in that offensive line. It's still going to worry me when it comes
to pass protection so i'm taking a step back from burrow not drafting him to be my starter
in one quarterback leagues and courtland sutton could be back in action pretty soon might be able
to play this weekend that would be nice and. And Elijah Moore could practice next week.
Poor Denver. Denver's got
wide receivers coming out of their ears and they can't
find a quarterback.
Maybe they did. Locke had a nice debut.
Locke played well. Locke played well. Locke made some
good throws. Alright, here's today's Arnold
Schwarzenegger segment from Andrew. He says
just for fun, who can be the first to name
the Arnold movie based on this quote?
I can't believe I can't get this.
I can't place it.
Quote,
Sully.
I have to remind you, Sully, this is my weak arm.
That's the Arnold quote.
I just, I feel like I should know this.
I can't believe it.
Let me see the answer. Oh, I don't think I would have gotten this. I can't believe it. Let me see the answer.
Oh, I don't think I would have gotten this.
I haven't seen this movie in so long.
But it was probably, if not consensus top five,
it was probably six.
Total Recall, right?
No, it's Commando.
Oh.
I remember loving Commando,
but I haven't seen it in so long,
so I don't know the lines.
All right, good stuff.
Feel free.
More Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes. We love it. Breakouts. All right. Heath had DeAndre Swift. He also has
a few more. He's got a lot. You can see him on the website, but he gave me four today. Darrell
Henderson, AJ Brown, and Noah Fant. Darrell Henderson. So currently on CBS ADP, this is a guy
who I don't really pay attention to what the ADP says because it's, it has been rising so much,
but he's RB 24 61st overall.
Let me go set a date range on NFC and see if I can get a better gauge of
where Daryl Henderson's going.
Where would you take Daryl Henderson?
I like him in round four.
No,
this is a,
this is Heath's breakout Dave.
Sorry.
Oh,
I,
you didn't say that.
I know.
My bad.
My bad.
All right. Uh, Heath, you're up. Then Dave, you can
follow up. Yeah, I like him
in round four. I think I've actually got
him at the head now of that group
of running backs. We aren't totally
sure how many touches per game
they're getting or how many catches they're getting.
I think realistically, if Henderson stays
healthy, and that's a question mark based on his
history, if he stays healthy, I think he's going to be easily in that 16 to 17
touch per game range. He was actually better
in terms of your favorite stat, Adam, yards per carry.
Not in terms of Azar stats, he wasn't. If you look at Azar stats
yards per carry, he wasn't. I can explain that if you'd like.
I don't know what AYPC for
life. How is Azarie stats, yards per carry different? Sure. So Cam Akers averaged 4.3
yards per carry. Daryl Henderson, 4.5. Akers was averaging 4.8 yards per carry before week 17,
when he should not have played. He missed week 16, and then he had 21 carries for 34 yards on an
ankle injury in week 17 and he
lost half a yard per
carry on his season average.
In the Acer world, Cam
Akers was more efficient than Daryl Henderson.
In reality, Daryl Henderson was
more efficient per carry than Cam
Akers was last year. Regardless,
it's not as if Cam
Akers just displaced Daryl Henderson last year in an easy fashion. I think Akers was last year. And regardless, it's not as if Cam Akers just displaced Daryl Henderson last
year in an easy fashion. I think Akers
was
more athletic and more talented than Henderson,
but Henderson was
a pretty decent prospect coming in
and had some success last
year. And I don't... Xavier Jones
and Jake Funk are
fine late-round sleepers in case
something happens to Daryl Henderson.
But I view the situation a little bit like I view Mike Davis with the Falcons.
Quadri Allison and JV and Hawkins are not taking the ball away from Mike Davis. I don't really
think those guys are taking the ball away from Henderson either. If he stays healthy, he's going
to be a top 20 running back and he's got top 12 upside because this offense consistently produces running back touchdowns in boatloads.
He's got top 12 upside just because he might compile his way there.
If he stays healthy for 17 games, he'll be the top back for the Rams,
you figure, for almost all those games
because Jones doesn't have a lot of experience.
Funk doesn't have a lot of experience.
I'm still not sold on them.
Not adding another running back along the way.
He could get the Rojo treatment circa 2020,
and that could actually send his stock down on draft day and make him an even
better value.
The other thing that I don't like about Henderson,
he doesn't have a lot of experience playing on third downs,
38 career third down snaps.
That worries me about
what he'll do this year. And it's a brutal schedule to begin the year. He's got the Bears,
the Colts, Bucks. I think Arizona's run defense could be pretty good at Seattle, at the Giants.
That's how it starts for them. A lot of those teams have suspect secondaries. And I think this
offense will revolve around the arm of Matthew Stafford. Henderson will get some decent opportunities as long as he's the main guy,
as long as he doesn't screw up.
I'm worried about him screwing up and getting in the doghouse.
Before, I wasn't prepared to take him with a top 50 pick.
He's crept just inside my top 50 because other running backs I'm souring on,
including guys like Mike Davis, Miles Sanders for now. I'm souring on, including guys like Mike Davis, Miles Sanders.
For now, I'm souring on him. I'd rather have Henderson. So he's an okay pick in round four,
but I prefer to wait until like the last possible moment in round four. So if you've got McCaffrey
in round one and say you go receiver receiver in rounds two and three, you've got a chance to get
Henderson in late round four. If he's still there, take him. Okay.
And he is currently in the last week of ADP on NFC national fantasy championship.
He's going 51st overall.
He's running back 22.
He's going after miles Sanders,
Travis ETN and Josh Jacobs.
So are you guys saying that Daryl Henderson should go ahead of miles
Sanders,
ETN and Jacobs?
I would take him ahead of all of those guys and a few other running backs as well.
And a couple other things.
I would just say,
while he has not played on third and down a lot,
he has averaged 9.8 yards per reception,
which is very good.
And in terms of screwing up,
he's not fumbled once in 197 career NFL touches,
so that's not a bad start.
Okay.
Let's go to one more Heath.
We'll do a couple more
Heath breakouts here and we'll go to Dave's AJ Brown. So what would a breakout look like for
AJ Brown? He's the 30th overall pick on CBS eight, eight ADP. That's wide receiver eight
25th overall on fantasy pros ADP. Would he have to perform like a first rounder?
I've got him projected for 90 catches, 1,434 yards and 12 touchdowns. So I think that would
qualify. And I don't really, I'm not really sure that that's his ceiling.
He still hasn't had a season where he finished as a top 12 wide receiver.
He had about six good games in his rookie year.
Maybe it was seven, and he had almost double that last year.
But I think the guy we've referenced before when talking about him
is the Tyree Killpath when you look at his targets per game, and he hasn't yet got to that level where he's earning the but he's probably not
going to get to Devontae Adams Michael Thomas level but he hasn't quite got to that 140 150 target
range but Tyree kill didn't for quite a while before he got to 130 so I think this could be
the year where he takes another step forward I believe the Titans will throw at least a little
bit more and if something happens to Derrick, they'll throw a lot more this year. And they're such an efficient passing team
too. Like they do a really good job of scheming them up. And if Julio Jones is healthy and on
the other side, you can say bye-bye to double teams for A.J. Brown. He averaged 16.9 PPR points
per game last year. As a rookie, he was at 13.1. but if i may azure stat this a little bit his last
four games he averaged 23.5 ppr remember i had that big finish to his rookie season it was 23
and a half ppr points per game so if you take that you tack it on to what he did all of 2020
18.3 ppr points per game in his last 18 overall i think he's as talented as hell he seems healthy i know he had the issues with
his knees this offseason he had surgery on both of them he seems back in the fold i think there's
a really good chance that he could finish as a top five receiver in fantasy and you don't have
to necessarily draft him like one but you do have to draft him like a top 10 receiver you absolutely
have to i think he probably has the best chance of any wide receiver not being drafted in the first two rounds of finishing as number one.
I think he'd just be the best wide receiver in fantasy this year.
It's kind of the Justin Jefferson argument.
He might just be the best wide receiver in football.
He's certainly in that discussion.
A.J. Brown was fifth per game in non-PPR,
seventh per game in PPR last year.
And that was with bad knees.
So I know he's coming off the surgery,
but he played hurt last year and he played tremendously.
Would you guys take him as your sixth wide receiver?
Is he your sixth wide receiver off the board?
Fourth for me.
He's sixth for me.
So you have him ahead of Hopkins and Ridley Heath?
No, I've got, well, okay, he's fourth in projections.
He's fifth in rankings.
I've got him projected just barely ahead of Diggs.
Okay.
All right, then.
Noah Fant, Heath, last breakout we'll talk about for you today.
Tight end eight, 90th overall.
He is so talented.
Can he get enough targets and get a good enough quarterback play to to really break
out yeah and i don't i don't really think that targets are going to be a problem there's more
than enough vacated wide receiver targets for fant to earn the same target share he did last year
and he was basically i mean if even if you don't have to take out all of his injured games if you
just take out the kendall hinton game he was basically on the same target pace as TJ Hawkinson last year. And he's much better generally
on a per target basis than Hawkinson is. So I think the, it was encouraging to see what Drew
Locke did in the first preseason game, but regardless, one of two things is going to happen.
Drew Locke is going to improve and play better this year, or Teddy Bridgewater is going to play
and he's better than Drew Locke was last year. So no offense going to improve and play better this year, or Teddy Bridgewater is going to play and he's better than drew lock was last
year.
So no offense going to have better quarterback play than he did last year.
An excellent way to put that.
Um,
18.5% target share in 15 games in 2020.
I don't think you can fight with that 6.2 targets per game.
I don't think you can fight with that.
The man needs is more touchdowns and more red zone work.
Um,
and,
and I, I do think it's important just to, when you say those in 15 games,
that includes the Kendall Hinton game and the game where he played five snaps.
Yeah, absolutely.
He was tied for 18th among tight ends in red zone targets with 10.
And this is where there's a disconnect for me because I look at him.
He's,
he's super talented,
right?
Super athletic profile plays a unique role, but why isn't he getting more work in the red zone?
What,
why aren't the coaches calling more plays for that?
I just,
I don't know that tied for 21st in targets inside of 10 yards.
I don't know that there's an answer to that.
I just don't think there's an answer to that.
I think it's fluky. I think it
could easily change.
Sure, it could easily change
or there's something about what he does
that the coaches are fearful of.
I don't know.
This team might want to be
more run focused when they get near the
goal line. The way Javante played
in that first preseason game, can't blame him for that.
The way Melvin Gordon's track record is, you can't
blame him for that. They could do both.
I mean, they could do both.
Why haven't they over the past
two years?
Don't have an answer for that.
We could do a lot of that, why haven't
they with TJ Hawkinson? We could do
a whole lot of that. But at least with Hawkinson,
there were other...
Galladay was there, not last year
for very many games, but the year before he was.
Marvin Jones was there.
And I just... I can
kind of understand why Hawkinson... And there was no
running in there, so maybe we could do it for Hawkinson
and why he wasn't used more there.
But he was... In PPR leagues, he was pretty
close to breaking out last year. I think he
had like nine or more PPR points in 12 of 16 games Hawkinson had.
I think both Hawkinson, I'm pretty sure Hawkinson and Fant
both led their team in red zone targets, by the way.
I'll double check that.
Yeah, okay, so you can't say that with Hawkinson.
He had 15 red zone targets that led the team.
He had nine green zone targets inside the 10 yard line that led the team. Fant also led his team
in red zone targets. He was tied with Tim Patrick. It was just a low number. Hawkinson had 15 and
Fant had 10. Fant only had four targets inside the green zone. So they both led their team in
red zone targets, but Fant just didn't have very many of those. The other thing that happened was that
Fant had 33 PPR points in his
first two games, and then he averaged
7.5 PPR points in his remaining
13. Because he didn't score.
Look, he's got to score
touchdowns. So is it a byproduct of the Broncos not being
good enough to even
get in the red zone, much less get in the
end zone last year? Yes.
I'm going to give you their pass. You know how bad their passing offense was,
but I'm just going to give the numbers.
You go to a website and you look at passing leaders for teams,
it subtracts the sack yardage lost, but just the raw numbers,
3,673 yards, 21 touchdowns, 23 interceptions.
That is just dreadful.
And you can subtract 13 of those yards
because they were from Kendall Hinton.
But 3,673 passing yards last year for a full season.
That is just dreadful.
But yeah, so they were awful.
And Fant also finished the year strong.
He averaged 14 fantasy points per game
in his final three games.
And he averaged more fantasy points per game
in complete games with a quarterback than DJ Hawkinson.
Yeah, except Hawkinson's situation probably got better.
And I think fans probably got worse if Cortland Sutton's healthy.
I just don't know how it's not worse.
I know what you're saying about,
hey, there were targets to all these guys, whatever,
but I just don't see how adding Cortland Sutton isn't a problem.
When tight ends, it seems like the biggest,
the biggest, most important stat for tight ends is targets.
That's just what it is, unless you're Robert Tunyon.
Retrievers, too.
Yeah, but I'm just seeing, yeah, yes,
but tight ends, man, I keep giving this stat.
Over the last five years,
one tight end has finished as a top five tight end
without being first or second on his team in targets.
It was Robert Tunyon,
who was only three targets behind number two.
So if you're not number two
or number one on your team in targets,
you just haven't finished as a top five tight end.
Is he going to be,
and maybe he doesn't have to finish
as a top five tight end, okay?
Maybe he can still break out,
but that's just the only concern, Heath.
It's just, does Cortland Sutton really foul
things up for him?
Well, and I mean,
we need to see is Cortland Sutton currently a better option in the passing
game than Noah Fant.
Yeah. And Jerry Judy takes a big step too. I don't know. It's just,
this is not the kind of offense. I have the same problem with Herb Smith.
Is he one of your breakouts or Jamie's breakouts? Dave,
I was talking to, I think he's on Jamie's list today. I mean, I have the same problem with Herb Smith. Is he one of your breakouts or Jamie's breakouts? Not mine. Dave, I was talking to. I think he's on Jamie's list
today. I have the same problem
with Irv Smith. Jamie has him as
a breakout. He's going 120th overall.
He's much later.
You look at the Kirk Cousins era, four years.
If Irv Smith is going to be the third
best option on the team,
that is usually just an insignificant
player.
In the Vikings offense.
I don't think the number three receiver has had more than 600 yards
in four seasons with the Vikings.
So that's, you know, look, Thielen,
maybe Thielen craps out,
maybe he gets hurt and things change.
But these are considerations that I have with tight end.
I'll let you guys talk about,
I've said a lot here.
I'll let you guys react to what I've been saying.
It's a target issue.
To sum up my last two minutes of speaking.
Yeah.
Listen, we do this thing with Mark Andrews as well,
and I just spend way too much time on Twitter talking about it.
I value having earned targets
just as much as the potential to get more targets
because everybody on your team is bad.
Does that make sense?
Like last year, the Raiders drafted Henry Ruggs in the first round
and Brian Edwards in the third round,
and we spent a good portion of the offseason worried that Darren Waller's
targets were going to get down because they added so much talent at wide receiver.
Yeah, big mistake.
Big mistake.
But Sutton's proven.
And Fant wasn't that good last year.
Sure.
Neither, but neither.
I was talking more in relation to Hawkinson.
I don't think Noah Fant's going to be Darren Waller.
I think it's more likely that Noah Fant's Darren Waller
than TJ Hawkinson.
I would agree with that, Dave.
Lost your audio, Dave.
We'll get it back.
Lost it?
All right.
All right, we'll get Dave's audio back.
I can say whatever I want about this guy now.
Dave, gosh, that Dave guy.
This is fun to watch on video.
Bye, Dave.
Why don't you get me Dave's breakouts?
I'm just going to tell you why I hate him.
That sounds fair.
That sounds fair.
All right.
So Noah Fant,
AJ Brown,
Daryl Henderson,
DeAndre Swift.
These are the breakouts that we talked about
for Heath Cummings today.
Let's take a quick break on fantasy football today.
Hopefully we'll get Dave back soon.
When we come back,
I'll take a look at the list that Jamie gave me
for his breakouts
and see how he feels about them.
We'll be right back on fantasy football today.
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Jamie's Breakouts, Clyde Edwards, Elair, Damian Harris,
Terry McLaurin,
and Irv Smith.
Clyde Edwards,
Elair,
Damian Harris,
Terry McLaurin,
and Irv Smith.
How do you feel about that list?
Love Terry McLaurin.
That's easily my favorite of Jamie's breakouts.
And I don't like,
I think there was a point this summer where Jamie might've had Terry
McLaurin top five. And I didn't even hate it that much. There was a point where I think I had
him top seven. He has been really good with mostly miserable quarterback play. 9.0 yards per target,
over 227 targets from bad quarterbacks. He already basically had his breakout last year, in my
opinion, 134 targets in 15 games, 87 catches, 1118 yards, but it was disguised by the fact that he
had some injury problems and he always scored four touchdowns on 134 targets. The year before,
he scored seven times on 93 targets. I think you should expect, now you shouldn't expect that type of rate either, but you should expect the arrival of Ryan Fitzpatrick to help McLaurin finally produce
as the top 10 wide receiver that he is. Yeah. Is he, do you see a big difference
between McLaurin and Metcalf and AJ Brown and Justin Jefferson? There is a difference because we are kind of projecting
that A.J. Brown and D.K. Metcalf
and Justin Jefferson
are going to make the next step
to the targets
of what Terry McLaurin already has.
On the flip side of that,
we've never seen Terry McLaurin
be near as good on a per-target basis
as those three wide receivers.
So they're different.
But in terms of like the,
the,
if you just forget about that and you just look at their projected fantasy
points,
um,
no,
I think that they're like,
they all have the possibility to definitely be top five wide receivers.
I have McLaurin,
Jefferson and Metcalf much closer than I have.
Oh,
you have a Brown ahead of the pack, right? Okay. Dave,
you back? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. So we're looking at Jamie's breakouts and talking
about Terry McLaurin here. And what's interesting about McLaurin is that if Terry McLaurin is close
to the wide receivers who are going in the middle of round two, then you could just say, you know
what? I'm not going to take one of those guys as much as I
love them. I'm not going to take Metcalf or Jefferson or A.J. Brown right here. I'm going
to take Darren Waller, or I'm going to take a second running back who I love. And then I'm
going to take McLaurin as my first wide receiver in round three. Let's say you drafted Ezekiel
Elliott or Austin Eckler or something in round one. You know, if you don't feel like you're losing that much
going from the three wide receivers I just said,
A.J. Brown, Metcalf, and Jefferson,
to McLaurin in round three,
obviously you have to gamble and hope he's there,
but based on his average draft position, which is...
It's going to be right around 37.
Right, he should be.
Oh, it's 42nd on CBS, but it's 32nd in
Fantasy Pros ADP. But again, if you have like the
30th pick from the middle of round three, I think
he'll probably be there. Anyway, Dave,
what do you think about that? Do you think there's a
big separation between the mid-round
two wide receivers and Terry McLaurin
in round three? I don't know if I would
say a big separation. I would
say that there's a modest
one there just because we've never quite seen McLaurin have that huge year. We've seen him play well. Last year was 14.5 PPR points per game. The year before that was 13.3 PPR points per game. If you go non-PPR, he was basically about the same. 8.7 in in 2020 9.1 in 2019 i would agree though he's getting an upgrade
in quarterback with ryan fitzpatrick and that might make all the difference in the world a
couple of stats fitzpatrick's on target rate last year was 79.9 percent 80 percent of his throws
were on target that was six best among all quarterbacks his top target each of the past
four seasons had at least 19.6% of the target share.
And a lot of them were outside type of wide receivers, just like McLaurin is.
So it makes sense that McLaurin is going to see around 20 to 24% of the target share from
Ryan Fitzpatrick.
And Ryan Fitzpatrick last year, very much on target.
The year before that in 2019, 73% on target.
That's pretty good.
So there's a chance for him to see
that little jumpstart in terms of efficiency. And if you mix in an increase in targets on top of
that, then it's pretty clear to see that McLaurin is at least a top 12 receiver, regardless of
format, but a chance to finish in that top, I don't want to say top three, but anywhere from
wide receiver five to maybe wide receiver nine, he can get in there.
And if you can draft them like right in that wide receiver nine type of range,
I don't think you're, you're, I think you're baking in plenty of upside and even a little
bit of downside. It wouldn't be the end of the world. If you took him as wide receiver nine,
he finished wide receiver 12 or 13, still had a good year. We just haven't seen him do it yet.
We're counting on that happening in Washington
with Ryan Fitzpatrick.
On the surface, it sounds crazy
because Ryan Fitzpatrick is old,
but the track record that he's shown
over the past two years is that he can still sling it,
and he loves slinging it to that number one outside guy.
Yep.
My only concern is that Ryan Fitzpatrick
is really, really good at losing his job.
So I just hope that he could keep it.
Taylor Heineke, I mean, I don't know if it's the best competition.
Almost 30% of McLaurin's targets last year were not catchable.
Well, that was Alex Smith.
So that's McLaurin.
And I just want to give, we should spend a lot of time on Clyde Edwards-Ziller,
probably on a separate podcast.
We'll do some rankings debates.
Edwards-Ziller, an important pick.
I just took Clyde Edward Ziller in a draft
that I'm doing right now, a best ball draft,
three hours between picks.
So that's why I'm not on the clock or anything.
But he was my third round pick.
I had Dalvin Cook second overall,
Justin Jefferson 23rd, and then 26th overall,
I took Clyde Edward Ziller.
And that's basically his ADP on CBS, 27th overall.
So Damian Harris is one of Jamie's breakouts,
and I just want to give these statistics here.
Damian Harris had five catches in 10 games.
We've seen this roll from a Patriots running back.
It doesn't come with a lot of catches,
whether it's LeGarrette Blount,
who was a top 10 running back five years ago
with 299 carries, and I think eight catches or something like that. Whether it's Sony Michelle,
whatever, you know, he's not going to catch a lot of balls. So I went back, I looked how many
running backs finished top 24 with fewer than 20 catches in the last five years.
So I'll just give you the numbers in non PPR.
Um, here are the amount of running backs in non PPR who finished top 24 with less than 20 catches two, one, two, four, and four. So for running back, Oh yeah. Two, one, two, four, four. Great.
Um, for running backs, each of the last two seasons finished top 24 in non-PPR.
There was also a year where three running backs had exactly 20 catches and finished top 24.
But, okay, there's that.
Half PPR.
Last five seasons, we've had two, one, two, three, and three running backs finish top 24 with fewer than 20 catches.
Full PPR, this is a little scary.
One, zero, two, 2, and 2. No more than two per year finishing
top 24 with fewer than 20 catches. Another thing to consider, go look at the standings. This guy
finished RB21. Sometimes a guy didn't really have that great of a year. Sometimes it's a guy like
J.K. Dobbins who had six great games or something, but was also kind of irrelevant for a while.
And there's this.
Only three running backs finished top 12 in the last five years with fewer than 20 catches.
One of those running backs has done it two or three times, depending on the format.
That's Derrick Henry.
But it was LeGarrette Blount, Derrick Henry, and Nick Chubb.
You are not drafting Damian Harris to finish top 12, but the catches do matter.
And should you be able to wait an extra two rounds on Damian Harris in a full PPR league
compared to a non-PPR league?
Is he that much different?
Let's say you're in round seven or something
and you're thinking about taking Damian Harris.
Does that make sense in non-PPR,
but he should be more like round eight or nine in full?
At that point,
though, it's less about
what is their projected finish and
more about filling out your roster. Maybe it's
a round. He's definitely less valuable.
I might be more open to saying he
should be a round six pick in non-PPR
and a round eight pick in full PPR.
Maybe that's possible, but I think it's like he's in that range where a breakout from Damian Harris
doesn't necessarily mean a top 15 season.
He could break out and just finish top 20,
top 24.
And I think there's like,
there's certainly potential.
It looks right now,
like it's Damian Harris and James White.
And that's the,
that's the running back situation with the first team.
If it continues to look like that throughout the preseason,
he might be like a poor man's version of Josh Jacobs.
You better hope the Patriots are good.
He had a stretch of nine games that he didn't leave with an injury.
Nine consecutive games where he basically't leave with an injury that, you know, nine consecutive games
where he basically was the lead running back. He averaged 16.5 carries per game in wins and only
12 carries per game in losses. And in the losses never played more than 40% of the snaps. So I
guess final question here, Dave, 49ers running backs, Bucks running backs, Damian Harris, rank them.
So I think Harris would be at the top of the list if it's non-PPR.
If it's full PPR, and I'm just double-checking
because I don't want to make a mistake or say anything that's wrong,
I believe I've got Mostert, Sermon, Jones.
No, Harris, Jones, Fournette.
Okay.
Bernard.
Yeah, and I've got Mostert, Harris, Sermon,
and then whatever buck you want to draft.
Okay.
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Dave's Breakouts.
We already covered CeeDee Lamb.
How about Jalen Hurts?
He is QB 12.
I'm starting to feel a little bit better about Jalen Hurts.
I know maybe we shouldn't react too much to preseason,
but I thought he did a nice job in the first game.
This is all without Devontae Smith.
He had good joint practice going up against the Patriots this week.
I'm starting to feel it a little bit, Dave.
Hey, let's go. Jalen Hurts.
He's starting to throw the ball a little bit better. You see the on target throws there.
That's a good start. It kind of sucks when his receivers don't catch it or in the case of Hurts,
a tight end. Go back and look at that throw to Goddard. I think he put it in a real good place
for Goddard to make a big play downfield. And he didn't really do a whole lot of rushing in that
game. And we know that that's going to be part of his weekly production,
his on the ground.
That gives you a boost, obviously, in fantasy points.
The offensive line, it's healthy.
It's got a chance to be really deep, actually.
It's going to be a strength, whereas last year it was a weakness.
Not sure if they're going to become a run-heavy type of team.
I don't think that's what they're into.
And when you get Savante Smith back, that's a sure set of hands with some wheels on them that can make plays for him downfield.
I think that there's a lot of upside. Perfect guy that you can take later on on draft day.
I'm talking round nine plus to get Jalen Hurts on your squad. And you shouldn't make him your
only quarterback, pairing him with Burrow, pairing him with Stafford. I think that's a smart way to go
where you've got a veteran just in case something goes wrong with Jalen Hurts along the way.
But I do think he's got a chance to really improve in terms of completion rate, adjusted
completion rate, probably right around the same type of attempts per game. He only attempted 33.3
attempts per game when he was playing last year late in the season. I think he's got a shot to be more efficient,
better completion rate, good fantasy numbers,
and beat the 24.3 fantasy points per game he had in four starts.
It was weighted heavily on his 43-point game.
Short of that, he wasn't really very good.
I say he takes a step forward
because the offense is going to be better suited for him.
Let me ask
you guys this about jalen hurts or anyone really you can give any name here i think it's been three
years in a row now we've had a running back drafted around nine or later who was depending
on the format i guess number one mahomes jackson josh allen Who's the best bet to be that guy this year?
There's really only...
Yeah, I mean, look, we don't have to be too specific, but Josh Allen was a ninth round
pick last year.
But you know what I mean.
What's Tannehill's ADP before we answer this?
That's a good question.
Tannehill is...P before we answer this. That's a good question. Tannehill is QB 10.
He's ahead of Jalen Hurts.
I don't know his overall ADP.
I'm sorry.
Maybe Heath does.
He's good at ADP.
I am pretty good at the ADP.
85th.
85th.
Not quite.
Okay, so that's well before round nine.
To me, there's three candidates,
and two of them don't have the starting job with their teams yet.
It's Hurts, it's Lance, it's Justin Fields.
And I would throw Burrow in there.
Okay.
Let's talk about another Dave breakout.
A Dave out.
Jonathan Taylor.
Now, what does a breakout look like for him?
He's going 14th overall.
I think he was RB6 last year because of his big finish
and crappy year for running backs.
But, yeah,
what,
what,
what does a breakout look like for Jonathan Taylor?
A breakout for him would be like top three running back by the end of the
year,
flirting with 2000 total yards,
double digit touchdowns.
I don't see him getting a ton of catches somewhere between 30 and 40 seems
about right.
But I think that this offense will revolve around
taylor and i think he's got a shot to just reel in a bunch of scores and a couple of big breakaway
runs on top of it he just seems like he's that type of running back and his his special traits
can help carson wentz kind of ease back into things and we we saw this at the end of last
year from him when in his final eight games he he averaged more than a hundred total yards per game. I think he had eight or nine
touchdowns, nine touchdowns. It is in those last eight games that includes the playoffs,
just massive productions on the table. His offensive line isn't a hundred percent right now.
It should be by like week three and it might even be by week one and so i don't mind if i draft taylor in round one
and i get a couple of iffy games from him to start the season but once that clears up i think the
offensive line will click especially when nelson's back carson will feel good their schedule is
really good after the first i think five weeks of the season. And you'll see Jonathan Taylor take off and have a monster year.
I am comfortable taking him in round one.
Rank Barkley, Chubb, and Taylor.
Taylor's going to be first.
Barkley's going to be second, and Chubb's going to be third.
Cool.
Okay, do you think we need to talk about TJ Hawkinson?
Just the difference in Hawkinson's situation
compared to Fant
and compared to a lot of other tight ends
is that he's got a chance
to be the number one target on his team,
whereas last year he wasn't.
Yes.
Yes, he does.
That's really it.
This is true.
I asked Jared Goff about it after the game,
about the role that tight ends will have,
and he specifically mentioned TJ
as someone who will have a big role in the offense.
And this is also,
like it probably gets into my process
a little bit as well.
We've got like four or five games
where Jared Goff has produced an elite tight end.
We don't have a like,
Hunter Henry's been fine with Anthony Lynn
about what TJ Hawkinson was last year.
I just...
There's not...
I'm kind of assuming that he's not going to...
He might lead the team in targets,
but not by a large amount.
And at his...
The other thing he could do, though,
and I don't want to discount this
because I always end up being the anti-T.J. Hawkinson guy,
it's possible, as a 24-year-old side end, that he has a good year,
and he stops being so terribly inefficient, and he improves.
I'm not sure these are the circumstances that I think that would lead to that,
not having any other receivers to draw attention away from him
and having Jared Goff as his quarterback.
Okay.
Well,
on the Anthony Lynn thing,
does it really matter?
Does it really make sense
to look at Hunter Henry's usage
when they had Keenan Allen?
Right.
I mean, you basically would have to look at games
where Henry played and Keenan Allen didn't.
That was year one.
I think this goes back to something
Dave has talked about.
Generally speaking, if you have
a ton of targets to running backs, you don't
have a ton of targets to tight ends.
Those targets are
both short area targets.
Yeah.
And historically,
Lynn has leaned more towards the running backs
than he has to the tight ends.
I,
and I think you could have a debate
about whether DeAndre Swift or TJ Hawkinson
is a more likely future star at their position.
They both have very good pedigree.
All right. I was going to leave it at that
on the breakout episode of Fantasy Football
today. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you
with some busts on tomorrow's show.