Fantasy Football Today - Busts! Plus Miles Sanders Reaction (08/20 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

Twelve of the Top 24 picks in 2019 were busts, so let's try to avoid those bad picks this year, OK? Let's start with the red flags you should look for when you're searching for a bust (1:00). And we react to the Miles Sanders injury (2:15) and determine if we're ready to downgrade him in drafts. Then we've got another round of busts for you with Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes (12:45), Leonard Fournette (17:15) and Derrick Henry (20:10) ... News and notes from around the NFL (23:30): Updates on the NE and CHI QB situations, the LAC and WAS backfields and some more players getting preseason hype ... More busts! When should DeAndre Hopkins be drafted (31:35)? Let's have a big discussion about Round 3 and Round 4 RBs and which ones are most likely to be busts (35:51). Then Jamey talks about Amari Cooper and Keenan Allen (51:35) while Heath picks a Top 4 TE for his bust list (53:00). and Ben has another WR to avoid (54:25). Finally, we finish with the Bustometer (58:30) as the listeners submit their 2020 busts ... 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll 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 Ben. Wednesday, August 19th. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today. There were a lot of busts in the first two rounds last year. I think you could say there were maybe half the picks were busts. So we're going to give you some of the biggest busts that we expect in 2020.

Adam Azer with Jamie Isenberg, Heath Cummings, and Ben Gretsch. Oh, man. So we're going to go through those first two rounds last year and see how many there were and what kind of lessons we can learn. But yeah, we're going to help people avoid those traps. Heath, what's a red flag for you when you're looking at busts? What's something that's like, oh, this is going to be a problem? If I have a hard time imagining how a player is going to be better

than where they're drafted, it's one thing if their mean expectation is lower than where they're being drafted. If you don't have to be that creative to imagine them justifying ADP or being better than ADP, then you can overlook that. But if their mean expectation is below where they're being drafted and it takes a lot of creativity to see them ever exceeding where they're being

drafted, then I'm out. Give me an example. Well, my biggest bust is going to be Lamar Jackson slash Patrick Mahomes on CBS right now because it's not changing. They're both still being taken in the first six or seven picks. And the mean expectation is that they're worth about a third-round pick this year. And I guess you don't have to be that creative

because you can just say, well, look what they did last year. Look what they did two years ago. But it would also be like 20% better than what anyone else ever did. And no one's ever repeated that. Other than the way I expect to be treated on this podcast, what is the mean expectation?

How would you define it? The most likely outcome? Okay. All right. Ben Gretsch and Jamie are also here. Let's talk about a couple of news items, Jamie. Miles Sanders, lower body injury, and he's week to week.

They say he's going to be ready for week one. Are you dropping him down your board? I'm struggling with it. You know, I, I think it's, uh, he's in that spot where, you know, you're in the back half of the first round and, you know, I guess the middle to the back half of the first, of the first round where there, there are pros and cons for all the guys around him. Uh, you know, for me, it's a non PPR, Josh Jacobs, Joe Mixon, Nick Chubb, Derrick Henry. And if he's not right, it's hard to say he should go ahead of all those guys. You know, so they all have the upside to be really good in PPR. You know, you throw in Kenyon Drake and Austin Eckler and it's the same thing. So,

you know, I still think he's somebody that you look for in the first round, but this, this is a concern. And so so you know i still think he's somebody that you look for in the first round but this this is a concern and so you know you don't want to take a player that is starting to have injury concerns now especially the fact that the week-to-week thing is is the troubling part you know they they were quick to label boston scott day-to-day for whatever reason that he's whatever thing he's dealing with his lower body injury why is miles sanders week to week is just precaution or is there really really something that he's dealing with is lower body injury. Why is Miles Sanders week to week? Is it just precaution, or is there really something that he's dealing with? And he got hurt last year in training camp,

and he got hurt in week 17 last year, which was only his seventh game as a starter. So do we have injury concerns with Miles Sanders? And Ben, where are you? I know we all love Miles Sanders here, but what about you? Are you moving him down? Yeah, I'll be a little bit less likely to just snatch him up around the seven

or eight pick at least for the next little bit until we get some clarity i mean i i think when i hear a report like this that's so vague that says you know week to week lower body it's not really clarifying anything it can immediately be like oh this could expire a lot of control and be something really serious but it could also just be the coaches basically saying, we're not going to overwork the guy that we've been saying all off season is going to be our workhorse running back. And if there is a preseason in any other year, we see tons of teams not use their running backs all through August.

They don't use them in the preseason. Some backs only get like a couple of carries that all four preseason games, some get zero just outright. Don't get any. And it's not really made a big deal of it. Obviously we're talking about a report of a lower body injury right now, but it wouldn't be that surprising if it was a way for the Eagles to just be like, Hey, we're not going to overwork him right now. We're going to be cautious. We're going to make sure he's ready for week one.

Heath final word. I just worry. Cause we talk about this with guys that aren't injured, just guys that are holding out that they're more susceptible to a soft tissue issue injury early in the season. If he's like, let's week to week right now. So if it's one week and he's back out practicing next week, it's probably not a big deal. But if he goes a couple of weeks without practicing,

we've already seen a ton of injuries here at the start of the first real football part of camp because these guys haven't been allowed to do anything. So what I said on HQ today was, for me, this is the clincher that if I'm faced with that decision at the end of round one, I'm just going to take Michael Thomas or Devontae Adams or Tyree Kill or Julio Jones or Travis Kelsey. Over Miles Sanders. Not necessarily moving a running back that I didn't have ahead of Sanders ahead of him now, Thomas or Devante Adams or Tyree kill or Julio Jones or Travis Kelsey over

miles, not necessarily moving a running back that I didn't have ahead of Sanders ahead of a male. I'm just going to take one of those pass catchers. Okay. Now that makes a lot of sense. That was actually my next question. So thank you for answering it. And one of those pass catchers got hurt today.

Devante Adams hurt a lower body part might've been a leg might've been an ankle. They're all connected. Uh, as of right now, it doesn't seem serious. This is about 3 o'clock Eastern on Wednesday afternoon, but Devontae Adams is a little banged up. We have

more news for you later in the show. Are the Patriots going to rotate their quarterbacks? Some insight on the Bears quarterback situation, a Dalvin Cook item, Chargers backfield, Redskins backfield, Paris Campbell getting some love, Van Jefferson getting some love. We'll talk all about that.

Let's play a game called Was He a Bust? So we'll look at Fantasy Football Calculator ADP from last year, half PPR, first two rounds. And tell me, was he a bust? Number one overall was Saquon Barkley. Was he a bust? Bust. Yes? Man, it's so hard to justify, like, because he was so good in the fans' playoffs.

I know. He really was. And so it's like, if you got there, he probably won you a title. But there also was a very other side of it, you know, a big other side of it that he cost you from getting to the playoffs. So I guess by definition he's probably a bust because he he didn't you know deliver top five production over the course of the season but you you've probably still cashed if he uh if he helped you uh get there to the end of the year yeah it's just a matter of whether you consider injuries busts i guess because as

far as a player he was fine when he was healthy early in the season and late in the season all right we're gonna we're gonna call him a bus Saquon Barkley, which means we have to call Alvin Kamara busts So the top two picks were busts McCaffrey was three Zeke was four. They were good. David Johnson was a bust bust James Conner Was a bus Le'Veon Bell Was a bust. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Oh, come on, Heath.

Oh, come on. He scored fewer fantasy points than both Barkley and Kamara. He stayed healthy. It's a clear bust. He should score fewer fantasy points. He was drafted after them, and he played 15 games. They played 13. It's not that much different.

He was RB 17 in half PPRs. He was RB 17. I'm calling him a bust. Nick Chubb, no. Devontae Adams, yes. Wide receiver 24, got to call him a bust. Sure. Here's an interesting one.

DeAndre Hopkins. So he finished his wide receiver five last year, but he averaged 2.75 fewer fantasy points than he did per game in half PPR than he did in his great seasons where he was always over 17 fantasy points than he did in his per game and half PPR than he did in his great seasons where he was always over 17 fantasy points per game. He was like 14 and a half fantasy points per game or something like that.

Finish as a top five receiver. What do you say about Devontae Adams? Bust or no bust? Sorry, DeAndre Hopkins. I'd say no. Yeah, I don't think you can call top five receiver a bust. It's just variance. Okay.

Barkley, Kamara, Johnson, Connor, Bell, Adams. That's six busts in round one. Round two, Dalvin Cook, no. Juju Smith-Schuster? Yeah. Bust. Another injury bust. These are all injury busts so far.

I mean, a lot of them have. Well, Juju was a quarterback injury bust mostly. He also missed four games, though. Well, in his own injury, he was pretty good with the first six games or so. I think his per game average was well below top 12 receiver, though. Yeah, he had two games where they

didn't throw downfield, but every other game in the start, he had at least 75 yards, but he didn't have any like 150 yard games. So it was like he was consistent. He was a bust. Great. Yeah. Todd Gurley. didn't have any like 150 yard games so it was like he was consistent he was a bust great yeah totally a bust todd girley i don't think so i'd say no right he was running back 14 he was the 15th pick he was picked like running back eight and he finished running back 14 i think it's just variance as we said with the andre hopkins it's different with running back

because there's more injuries. There were more busts ahead of him. DeAndre Hopkins finishes the top five receiver. Heath, you say all the time when we talk about projections, if a guy plays 16 games, a guy like this, he's going to finish in the top 12 running backs. This guy didn't even get in the top 12 running backs. I think if Ben has decided he's a bust this year,

then he was definitely a bust last year. I think Ben's outvoted. Gurley's not a bust. Beckham? Beckham? Yeah, he's a bust, right? Oh, yeah. Beckham for sure. Gurley's win rate in best balls, by the way, was 4.4% last year. Just atrocious.

Tyreek Hill? Bust. Sure. Injured bust. Fine when healthy. Travis Kelsey? No. Joe. Yeah. Fine. When healthy Travis, Kelsey, no Joe Mixon. No Patrick Mahomes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Leonard Fournette. No. Um, Mike Evans. I think I think I'm going to go.

No, even though he missed him. No, no, not even close. Ooh, tough one here. Antonio Brown.

Total bust. Tough one. He played one game. It was good. It was great on a per game basis. Ooh, tough one here. Antonio Brown. Total bust. Bust. Tough one. He played one game. He was good. He was great on a per-game basis. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. And Adam Thielen.

Bust. So that's Juju Beckham, Hill, Mahomes, Brown, and Thielen. That is six. That is half of the first two rounds were busts. But thankfully, most of them were injury busts. Who was not an injury bust? David Johnson, Le'Veon Bell. David Johnson missed time.

But he also just straight up got benched. But before he was hurt, he was like a top six running back, right? Yes. He was fourth through the first four games. I'm sorry. Through the first four games, he was number eight running back in PPR. The game where the tide shifted, he started, if you guys will recall, on that New York Giants game, played a couple snaps,

and then Chase Edmonds just took over, and then they traded for Kenyon Drake. I really think it had a lot more to do with his play that led to them being like, we're going a different direction. He was hurt too, but that'd be my— But wasn't that the game where they screwed with us? Yeah, they started him, and he wasn't fine. And then he missed the next week but he's interesting because i like he he did come back from injury and they just didn't play him that's

why i put johnson as like a non-injury bust but all right fair enough i mean what about james connor was he an injury bust or a non-injury bust injury bust injury bust but also i mean you know the quarterback situation didn't help levion bell non-in Bell, non-injury bust. Juju, what did we decide on him? Injury bust because of his quarterback. I think the only players... All right, maybe David Johnson, definitely Le'Veon Bell, definitely Beckham,

probably Thielen. And that might be it. Most of these guys were bust because they were hurt or their quarterback got hurt. So that's actually a little bit encouraging. You're saying Thielen wasn't an injury bust? He definitely was.

Absolutely was. He missed so much time with the hamstring. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Oh. Yeah. Oh, well, no. Because I think when Thielen came, it depends. When Thielen came back, he played some games where he wasn't healthy,

barely got any snaps, came out. He's the perfect comp for David Johnson. Like good in a weird kind of way before they got hurt, missed time, and then came back and weren't really used. All right. So almost every bust, which was half of the first two rounds, was injury-related. And that, again, is encouraging.

It means we drafted well. All right, let's go through our biggest busts. Heath, yeah, let's start with the quarterbacks if you want to expand a little bit more on that. Mahomes and Jackson. So nobody here is going to advocate for them going in the top six picks. But on Fantasy Pros and on NFC, we're talking about middle of the second round,

anywhere from like 16th to 20th overall. You think that's okay? The problem with that, and I guess you could almost make the argument for Lamar Jackson, but I think just looking at regression, he's likely to lose 10 passing touchdowns and a couple hundred rushing yards from this year, which could still make him the number one quarterback

in four points per pass touchdown leagues, which is what I believe fantasy pros and NFC mostly are. But it wouldn't be the number one quarterback by a ton. There wouldn't be any reason to separate him from Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson by two or three rounds. He should just be drafted at the start of that group based on those expectations,

and it could be a lot worse than that. We saw it with Mahomes. Even when he was healthy, I'm sorry, the four or five games before he got hurt the first time, he was justifying that cost. But you can't go into it with the expectation the four or five games before he got hurt the first time he was justifying that cost, but he's just, you,

you can't go into it with the expectation. They've got to have an 8% touchdown rate and average nine yards per attempt to justify the ADP. And that's what both of these guys would have to do to justify their ADP in the middle of the second round. You're saying, I think in the middle of the second round. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, I guess if I were going to counter that, I would just say you could look at a lot of guys who are being drafted in the middle of the second round and have plenty of question marks about them, right? Aaron Jones and Juju Smith-Schuster and DeAndre Hopkins and Chris Godwin.

Why not just take Patrick Mahomes? If you're not drafting someone that you think is incredibly safe, why not just take a quarterback there? The players at the other positions, you're not going to feel better about them later in the draft. You're not going to feel better about the position later.

There's a much bigger drop-off at running back and wide receiver than there is at quarterback. This is a discussion I think we get into. A problem we get into with all of our discussions, frankly, is that you just talk about the alternatives at the specific pick and not about how it affects your entire draft.

That's one less elite running back or one less elite wide receiver, no matter how you slice it, not my homes versus those guys. But at the end of the draft, if you went my homes over those guys, you're going to have one less really high end player at one of those other positions, like he said. And then you're replacing it with a later option at those positions that would have been your quarterback pick. Like, it changes your whole roster.

I get that. It's just easier to find quarterbacks. I mean, you know, you're not going to find Mahomes and Jackson, but it's just easier to find those guys. I mean, you go back to last year, and even if you take Lamar, the equation, if Lamar Jackson didn't have the year that he had, what would we be saying about the year?

Jameis Winston had like Jameis was awesome last year for fantasy. And he was, I think the 13th quarterback off the board. Yep. You know, so you're talking, you're talking about a guy that threw for 5,000 yards. And so again,

that's hard to find too, but you have, we've said this time and time again, the throwers of Stafford and Roethlisberger and golf, the runners of Daniel Jones and Cam Newtonethlisberger and golf the runners of daniel jones and cam newton and and minchu and uh maybe tyrod depending on how many games he starts you know so there's so many other other ways to go at that position that you shouldn't have to reach for quarterback which is why i think heath is right to call those guys busts and why it's in your best interest to take those other positions at those spots

okay do you guys ever feel though, like, man, I never get magic Mahomes or Lamar Jackson and that really sucks. They're awesome. I'll give you, I'll give you the scenario. You know, we, the stories are up on the site right now, you know, so we're doing, and we just got finished talking about this a lot, you know, so let's, let's pull back the curtain for a second. So we've been doing a lot of mock drafts and this is not just August. This is, you know, going back to since the end of the NFL draft, you know, we've had to fill a lot of content ons and and this is not just august this is you know going back to uh since

the end of the nfl draft you know we've had to fill a lot of content on our site because of the circumstances surrounding sports around the league sports around the world and we've done more mock drafts we're oversaturated ourselves with mock drafts and ben and i the conversation that we're having was we said we joke about this we know everybody's picks so ben heath myself and dave are doing this pick by pick series. And what are we doing in the pick by pick series? We're drafting three separate teams against each other. So imagine knowing what everybody's going to do. And now everybody has the control over three rosters in the same format. So I take in Lamar Jackson and

Patrick Holmes, I think twice in the two, two times that we've done it and it feels good to do it. It honestly does, but it feels good to do it in the third round, the first round not the second round you know and and that's where i think the difference comes into play you're not going to get those guys in round three in most of your drafts but round two if you're so inclined then take them in round two but just don't take them at six and seven like we're seeing on our adp right okay all right fair enough uh ben who is your biggest bus one that you really want to highlight leon Fournette. 100 targets last year. And just looking at his workload, he would be like the greatest target in drafts this year

because he got a huge receiving workload. He is definitely due, if you look at his workload, for touchdown regression, positive touchdown regression. He only scored three touchdowns. But the problem is the Jaguars try to trade them all offseason. I know there's this talk and this narrative that, oh, they're going to just run them into the ground. Maybe that happens. But at the same time, they've already had to discipline Fournette themselves in the first couple of years of his career.

I can't remember if it was year one or year two. But the team suspended him, not the league, for missing meetings and things. There's been internal strife there. And now they've gone and they've brought in Jay Gruden. He's added Chris Thompson, who is a guy he always uses a pass catching back. And Gruden, going back to his Bengals days, used Giovanni Bernard as a pass catching back. So the 100 targets are going away, almost certainly.

You're going to have a pass catching back in Jacksonville now, especially when you add in LaVisca Chennault, who will probably play some around the short area of the field that might even mix into the backfield. They've talked about using him creatively.

There's just almost no way that Leonard Fournette gets another 100 very low efficiency targets like he got last year. So he's this early down runner now, but also one who the team doesn't like, doesn't want around,

has had problems with in the past. I don't buy that they're going to just run him into the ground. I think this team's going to be out of it by midseason, and they might just deactivate him. They might trade him. They might whatever. They might just move on and see what they have in Ryqual Armstead

and the rest of the group. I don't think anyone – this is a perfect example of August workload expectation, people not recognizing what that means for what can happen in season. This is a team that might just give up on Leonard Fournette halfway through the year. And you have to factor that in. He's not someone I'll draft anywhere. Do you think Ronald Jones will be better than Leonard Fournette this year? I think there's a chance Leonard Fournette gets given up on halfway through the year.

So if you're telling me Fournette's playing 16 games, probably Fournette gets given up on halfway through the year. So like I, if you're telling me Fournette's playing 16 games, probably Fournette will get more, we'll get more work and I would probably take Fournette at that point. I think it would come out higher in my projections, even though I'm very optimistic on Jones. But so I, yeah, it's a tough question to answer directly, but I would still draft, frankly, draft Ronald Jones ahead of him. Before we move on just because Ben brought up the name.

So I was talking to Pete Prisco today, and he said he spoke to somebody in Jacksonville, and they are in love with LaVisca Chenault. Of course they are. In love with Chenault. And somebody told him a young Andre Johnson. Ooh, nice. Now I'm choking because I took a drink because Jamie said Pete Prisco.

And this is what I get for making fun of Jamie. Jamie, who's your biggest bust? It's Derrick Henry. I mean, I'll stick with the same sentiment that I've said all along. It's really, it's kind of like what he said. He's going too high in my opinion. I'm worried about the workload from last year with the 400 touches. When you factor in the playoffs, I'm worried about the offensive line being worse without Jack Conklin there. And now they're rookie, not a hundred percent. I do think we're going to see

them have to throw a little bit more as Ben has talked about based on their pace of play in their amount of times that they have not thrown. So his lack of work in the passing game, it's more a PPR versus non-PPR argument because you can take him in the first round in non-PPR, but I think it's the back end of the first round, not the top end of the first round. But in PPR, I think we saw it last year. The first eight games, he was averaging under 14 PPR points per game. That puts him closer to the number two running back than it does to a top five guy, and that's the concern for me.

So in our two quarterback draft, I actually drafted him for the first time. This was a draft we did on Tuesday, but it's because I got him around three. And so that's what all the quarterbacks getting pushed up. That's never going to happen. I understand that. But you know, if you put them in round two and this is the backend of round two, I would take him there. But I'm just concerned about Derek Henry living up to the lofty expectations based on the eight games that he did, the way that he performed in those eight games,

which were historic last year. So you are going to still take Miles Sanders over Derrick Henry? In PPR, yes. In non-PPR, no. I think Sanders is now behind him, you behind him just based on the potential injury risk. All right. We got more busts coming up later in the show, and we got to get to the news and notes. Remember, we have a mailbag coming up later this week, and we're also, we got another episode on Thursday, so a lot of content coming your way. And hopefully you're listening on Stitcher. Stitcher's a great app, great partner for us.

And if you don't, if you're not happy with your podcast app, check out Stitcher. They're awesome. And it's sports time right now. They have a new collection on their homepage of the app for the return of sports where we've got fantasy baseball today and pick six being promoted.

They're featured there. Stitcher makes it incredibly easy to build playlists of your favorite podcasts. You can download Stitcher for free in the app store today. Let me tell you something else we have coming up this week. We've got an AMA and Ask Me Anything with Jamie. Jamie and I are going to be on that on tomorrow night, Thursday night on Twitch, twitch.com slash FF today, 7 p.m. Eastern. Ask Jamie Eisenberg anything. ask him who his cousin Jesse Eisenberg would play

if they made a fantasy football today movie because he'd probably play me because I have more in common with Jesse than Jamie does

you do I think so I mean one of our listeners said that Jesse Eisenberg should play me and I thought that was a great idea

so you know we can ask him maybe Jesse can Jesse pop on the AMA I can ask yeah that'd be fun okay also you should be playing on CBSSports.com if you're a real fantasy football player We can ask him. Maybe Jesse. Can Jesse pop on the AMA? I can ask. Yeah, that'd be fun.

Okay. Also, you should be playing on CBSSports.com. If you're a real fantasy football player, like you love fantasy football, you want a league that you can customize, you want awesome scoring, you want to play multiple teams each week, something like that,

play on CBSSports.com. Get our commissioner product. It's for serious fantasy football players. To the news and notes, ESPN's Mike Rice thinks that... Reese? Reese. Every time. Every time.

Bowden Bowden. It's okay. Yeah. Mike Reese thinks that the Patriots could use a quarterback rotation early in the season. Drop Cam Newton? Not yet. I actually dealt with this in a reporter's scenario once upon a time. Me and another reporter were going back and forth. No.

The Florida Gators in 1997, after they won their national championship when Danny Werfel left, it was Jesse Palmer of ESPN and the Bachelor of Fame. And Rex Grossman? And Doug Johnson, who was probably the better of the two at the time, rotating in and out every other snap. And that team was good, but it was frustrating because they lost some key games. But the quarterback situation, I think, was awful because you lost some key games. But the quarterback situation I think was awful, you know,

because you don't get anybody in the rhythm, the quarterbacks hated it. And it was, it was bad, but I could see Bill Belichick doing something screwy like that, you know, just to eliminate the huddle and you just have the quarterback running with the play. And it's almost like a, you know, up-tempo offense, but it'd be weird with that personnel. But in any event, I would hate to see that. Absolutely hate to see that. And in a two quarterback league, guys, do you move Cam Newton down your rankings

because he's riskier and you can't just replace him on the waiver wire? A little bit. I have him ahead of Goff by one spot in our two quarterback draft yesterday that we're actually playing out. I took Goff ahead of Newton for that exact reason. I don't think that's true because I'm pretty sure I took Goff in that one. Okay, sorry. Then it was a super flex.

It was the mock, yeah. It was the mock, sorry. But no, I think I had that same decision to make and I did take Goff over at camp. I made that exact decision for that exact reason yesterday. Wrong draft. Right. See, I would maybe take a different, the other side of it,

but I would be more inclined to take a third quarterback sooner. Yeah, that could work too. Heath, Matt Nagy, not really saying that Mitchell Trubisky's gotten better, and he's saying that this quarterback competition's going to play out as long as he can. He's going to play out as long as he can. He's going to stretch it out. Give me a quick read on the Bears.

It's not great. If you have two quarterbacks, you have zero quarterbacks. I still have Trubisky projected. I don't think they were very happy with the fact that Foles hasn't really seen any of his wide receivers until camp opened up. They're probably hoping that Foles will form

some sort of connection, but it's a gross situation. Who's the quarterback's coach for the Bears? It is DeFilippo, right, who used to coach Foles. Who was with Nick Foles and Jacksonville last year. And in Philadelphia. They have a lot of

Foles connections. It's Nick Foles. He's going to be the guy. But they benched Nick Foles for Gardner Minshew last year with DeFilippo coaching too, right? He was coming back from a collarbone injury. Yeah. All right. Dalvin Cook broke off contract talks with Minnesota.

Austin Eckler and Justin Jackson shared first team reps in a scrimmage and Bryce Love got first team reps with Adrian Peterson sitting. So does that give you some insight on the Chargers and the Redskins backfields with Jackson ahead of I mean, it's not a surprise, right? Oh, sorry.

The Washington football team. Justin Jackson sharing. Justin Jackson and Bryce Love getting first team reps in their respective backfields. Part of being ahead of Peyton Barber at this point is really intriguing to me. Like we talked about, we really like him if he's healthy and he's back.

He was second in the Heisman his junior year and then had a really injury riddled senior year at Stanford. A lot of people didn't think he should go back to school. He decided to, and then he tore his AC in the last play of the season on top of the earlier injuries that he dealt with. And they drafted him in the fourth round still, or fifth round or whatever.

I think it was fourth round. Knowing that he was going to sit the whole offseason or the whole last season. So if he's back from that ACL tear and good to go, and the fact that he's getting first-team work behind Adrian Peterson, we can't expect Peterson at 35 to carry 250 times. I mean, maybe he'll carry 150 times, and that will limit Love.

But we don't really know what we're getting out of Antonio Gibson. I think this makes Bryce Love pretty interesting. You have to assume at some point, because they're going to be a bad team, that when they start to really just look at their young guys. And Peterson, I'm sure know Ron Rivera is an old school coach he's going to do all the right things we've said this before Peyton Barber same thing you heard their running backs coach say he's a pros pro so they'll give those guys opportunities but if you're looking at 2021 and beyond Bryce Love and Antonio Gibson should be their backfield you

know unless they just decide to go a different route and find somebody that has a different pedigree but you know I if I'm Washington I'm trying to see what these guys have to offer, especially once the season goes south, which we expect that to happen earlier rather than later, though. So I would much rather draft Bryce Love than draft Adrian Peterson this year. Yeah, so how would you rank these three guys right now?

Josh, Kelly, Justin Jackson, Bryce Love. Love Kelly Jackson for me. I still like Kelly better Justin Jackson, Bryce Love. Love Kelly Jackson for me. I still like Kelly better than Jackson. Part of that report that you're referencing, Adam, is the reporter said that Jackson should get the opportunity to start, but he's going to have a short leash to be that Melvin Gordon replacement. And I use that word loosely, that phrase loosely. Right, right.

But I still think Kelly is the more talented of the two, so I would rather have Kelly. But if you want to get the guy that's going to have the first opportunity, you can take Jackson first. But I'll go love Kelly Jackson. All right, guys. Let's fire through the rest of these notes here. Irv Smith has been lining up outside more, according to The Athletic.

That's Minnesota's tight end. Here are some players who are getting some love, either from their coaches or their teammates or reporters or whatever. Paris Campbell for the Colts, rookie wide receiver Van Jefferson for the Rams, and Josh Allen from Cole Beasley, his teammate. So

that's good. Dante Pettis as well for the San Francisco 49ers. Anything really newsworthy there with Paris Campbell, Van Jefferson, Josh Allen, Dante Pettis, and maybe there's someone I missed, but any preseason hype, Heath, that matters to you? I don't know. I haven't moved any of those guys yet.

I mean, it's interesting, and if it continues to build over a week or two, then it might be something, but I not really know. Campbell is, for me, very interesting. We know Rivers really liked Keenan Allen out of the slot and i think campbell's pretty much locked in there people really like michael pittman i think i've said i think he might have to compete a little bit with zach pascal on the outside uh or pascal that's when i always get wrong but campbell is i think if he keeps getting hype in the slot there i'll be interested it it's funny though because michael

pitman's also getting a lot of hype you know so you wonder who's out hyping who of the two young receivers ty hilton does as well uh yeah and the running backs you know it's uh everything's great a very good situation right now with you know better quarterback play so everybody's starting to look better and uh jonathan taylor as well, so Heath and I were talking before our HQ show today about Marlon Mack is working maybe a little bit more in the passing game. And it could be Naheem Hines is the odd man out if they decide to do that. I know I said that earlier this offseason that maybe that's a route that they go. But we'll see.

I think one that's interesting you didn't mention, Adam, it seems as if this is from our, our former colleague, Matt to be who now works for the Falcons. He had a notebook on the Falcon site that Edo Smith looks like the second back. So I know we've been talking about that. Cause clearly Gurley's knee issue, non-issue, whatever the case may be, that if you are talking about deeper leagues that maybe you, you know, you stash Edo Smith on your bench just to see,

because I think by talent, he's better than Brian Hill and Kadri Allison. It's just a matter of Penn State health. All right, fellas, let's get into some more busts. I'm going to go to Jamie first. He had Derek.

Jamie had a pretty star studded list. Derek Henry, Deandre Hopkins, Amari Cooper, Keenan Allen. Let's talk about Deandre Hopkins. I'm starting to fear that I've gone a little bit too far with Deandre Hopkins. Like who did I took Juju over him? And maybe that's a mistake, Let's talk about DeAndre Hopkins. I'm starting to fear that I've gone a little bit too far with DeAndre Hopkins.

Who did I took Juju over him? And maybe that's a mistake, but he's going 13th overall, wide receiver four on Fantasy Pros, 19th overall, wide receiver five on NFC. Where do you think DeAndre Hopkins should go, Jamie? Back into round two. He's at, last time I checked, which was on Monday, he's 22nd player overall on our site.

So, you know, I think that's a fair spot for him. You know, I think he should be anywhere between wide receiver six and wide receiver 10. You know, if you're if you're looking at it and you can make a case for some other guys ahead of him. I just think they're going to spread the ball out too much. You know, this is a receiving core that they're not going to completely go away from Larry Fitzgerald. Christian Kirk is too talented to not be heavily involved. We've spent a lot of time talking about him. And Ben certainly has been singing his praises, rightfully so.

They're going to throw to their running backs. I don't think they're going to avoid Dan Arnold, too, who showed them something at the end of the season. So if they're not going to have this huge spike in pass attempt, which I don't know if it's necessarily going to be the case. Cause I think their offensive line is going to be better. Their run game is going to be better. I don't think their defense is going to be as bad as it was last year. So I think it's going to be hard for him to get North of 140 targets. I know that's where he hasn't projected for.

I don't know where you come out on it, Ben. Dave keeps saying 150 plus. If he's in the 150 target range, he's going to be a top five receiver again. He's too good. But if he's not getting 150 targets, he's still going to be, you know, 85 catches, you know, 1,100 yards and seven to eight touchdowns. You know, he's a good number two receiver. He's just not, I'm sorry, a low end number one receiver,

just not a top five guy anymore. Well, all right, so DeAndre Hopkins, right? Last year was not a great year for him. Like the rate stats weren't great, I guess. But let's say he does perform like he did in 2018. It was 2000, what was it? 15, 17, and 18, DeAndre Hopkins was elite. So let's give him his 2018 fantasy points per target and then give him 130

targets. Okay. Where would he have finished in 2018? If he had only had 130 targets, he would have been the number 10 wide receiver in fantasy, but that was a tremendous year for wide receivers. So if he, let's see if you can follow this. Based on his 2018 per target, points per target, where would he have finished 2019 with 130 targets? He would have been number five. Would have been basically as good as Julio Jones last year. So what I'm saying is peak DeAndre Hopkins

with 130 targets would have been a number five, would have been the number five wide receiver last year would have been the number 10 wide receiver two years ago in a great, great year for wide receivers. What does that, if anything mean to you that he like, cause if he gets 140 targets, you're probably,

if he's as good as he was in 2018, 17, 15, you're probably talking about a wide top five wide receiver and a great stud. Sure, but I think, I don't know if he's still that guy. I mean, you know, the yards per catch, is it where he was running or is it what he's able to do

now, you know, after he has the ball in his hands? There's some concern that coming out of Houston that maybe there was a little bit of a knee issue. That's part of the reason why they traded him. You have the hamstring issue. That's a problem now. I'll go back to his second year in the NFL

when he had 127 targets. He had 76 catches that year. He had 1,210 yards. So he's basically 16 yards per catch and six touchdowns. I'd bump him up a little bit in terms of the receptions over 76. And let's say he stays in the same yardage range,

the same touchdown range. He's good good he's just not great okay take uh kiddo over him i would yes all right juju i'm not there yet gotcha but the one that i struggle with right now is honestly dj more because i feel like dj more is a higher ceiling i just haven't had i just don't have a rank that way heath and ben you're taking Moore over Hopkins, right? Yep. Yep, and I did in our pick-by-pick, but then I also said that might be the pick I regret, and it was partly because I took him over Hopkins.

All right, let's talk about this big group of running backs that Ben wants to highlight. Heath has Melvin Gordon, who is a round three running back, maybe into round four. He's about RB... He's RB18 on Fantasy Pros, RB15 on NFC.

And Ben submitted this as a bust. At least half of the Bell, Gurley, Gordon, Connor, Carson, David Johnson group. All right. And I put Fournette aside because Fournette is an even bigger bust. Special bust.

Super duper bust. Well, I guess we should start the conversation with Melvin Gordon, but that whole group for Ben of Bell, Gurley, Gordon, Connor, Carson, and David Johnson, at least half will be a bust. But Heath, why don't you kick it off with Melvin Gordon? That's an interesting way to approach it.

Like you just choose six players in a range and say half of them will be a bust, and you're probably going to be right. Didn't you do that with the rookie running backs though? didn't i'd mostly just call them all a bust i think um yeah we'll just i think the problem with melvin gordon is like it's been pretty clear early in camp he's sharing with philip lindsey a lot on early downs and i don't think this is going to be a situation where he gets a chance at having even 250 touches. He'll catch some passes,

but I don't think he's going to be any sort of feature role. I don't think this offense is as good as the one he's been in with the chargers where he could, you know, share with Austin Eckler and still be an awesome fantasy option. So those two things combined, I am out in the third round. Does anybody like Melvin Gordon?

I go back and forth. I think if he's the guy, even in a shared situation, because he's been in a shared situation essentially the last two seasons with Eckler, last year for sure, and for a good portion of 2018. I still think he's their lead guy I still think he's going to be the one that plays on passing downs um I do like the fact that Pat Shermer is the coordinator there because he tends to feature one guy more so than two um and he's been you know very good in the passing game and working at the goal line so I think those two things are in his favor.

It's just a matter of how much work will Lindsey get because Lindsey's a very talented guy as well. So, yeah, Ben, you talk a lot about high-value touches, and that's something that I keep coming back to on Melvin Gordon because, yes, I do think he's going to split, and probably more than he split with Eckler last year because Eckler only had, I think, 76 carries. 76 carries in those 12 games that Gordon played. He was on pace for 101 carries.

I think we'd expect Philip Lindsay to get more than that. But is Gordon going to get those magical 50 catches? That's always a good thing. There's a good chance. Is he going to get the goal line work? Yeah, I would say get a lot of it. So doesn't that help his cause a lot? Well, there's a lot of discussion right now

about them splitting 50-50 in practice so far. But also you have to recognize, I think you're too optimistic that he gets 50 catches. You have to recognize that the Chargers, where he's played for most of his career, from a team level have been very, very good in creating high value touches, which has a lot to do with Phillip Rivers.

It's a big reason I'm on the Colts offense. I'm looking at this stuff in terms of team level stuff. I don't think individual, like I'm probably more in the camp that, not that running backs are completely replaceable, but that a lot of their skill sets are similar. They're all really, really good in the NFL. And it's more about what their offense can do and who the players around them

and how their offense is built and those types of things. Gordon's in a completely new offense right now. Yeah, but it's a good offense. I mean, isn't, isn't it's good, Pat. It's a good offense for pass catching running backs and Pat Shermer. If you want to look at his history has been really good with that. His recent chance to be good offense. There's, there's a lot of variables, but it does have a chance to be good offense. I think it has absolutely has a chance to be good. there's there's a lot of variables but it does have a chance to be good offense i think it has absolutely has a chance to be good i don't think we can call it good i don't think we know anything about drew lock they didn't address backup

quarterback i've talked about this before they brought in jeff driscoll who was fine but he was a scrambling quarterback he wasn't going to be good he's not going to be good for passes uh to the running backs if he plays at all so lock has to be good and he has to throw to his running backs at a high rate those are things we don know. We're just assuming we know when we draft Melvin Gordon in the third round. And I really don't think we can, we can say that he's going to be upper half in terms of like green zone, you know, rush attempts, goal line, rush attempts. If he splits them at all with Lindsay. And I don't think this offense is probably going to be upper half in terms of generating those types of high value touchdown type type

rush attempts really close to the end zone. I don't think this offense is going to be upper half in that, or at least I don't think we can assume that. I think there's a lot more downside there for Gordon. Do you guys think Philip Lindsay is better than Melvin Gordon? No, no. I think he is as a rusher. I absolutely think he is as a rusher right now this season. Okay. So who else from that group? Let me ask you this. Melvin Gordon, Le'Veon Bell. Hold on.

Let me just find it in the notes. Who else was in it? Chris Carson, James Conner, David Johnson. Was that the group? Yeah. Yeah, Bell and Gurley. Oh, and Gurley. Bell and Gurley are tough ones for me. Bell, the best shape of his life stuff,

is starting to make me pay a little bit of attention. I can't, I can't lie. And, and Gurley, I've already talked about his role seems pretty good, but the,

the broader point of this group and he, you know, made his point that I'm saying at least half of a group of six people does, you know, is whatever. Here's what I'll say. Don't draft any of them.

Draft. None of them. One of these guys is probably going to be good. Maybe two. And maybe if you're lucky, three aren't complete bus but i also think if i'm flat out saying six third to fourth round picks uh this group of running backs and i'm including four net in it uh then it's seven and probably four of them are going to be flat out bus that will hurt your team that you will

absolutely regret drafting that's a pretty firm statement and i should i would say the reason that i framed it this way, you should draft none of them because of that. You don't want to just try to get lucky at a guy who's a small hit, but could be a huge miss for your team. I hear that, man. That's,

that's why I like the backend of the first round. Get two studs. Um, well, okay. Yeah. Heath, my go ahead.

You know, go ahead. Like I don't necessarily disagree with the David Johnson side of that, and I obviously agree with the Melvin Gordon side of that. It's just for me that Connor and Carson are in a different group. They are on,

I think, pretty definitively good offenses. Their teams have given them a ton of work in the past. I don't think there's somebody at either roster that's going to take it from them. So they could still get hurt and bust. But I don't think that Carson and Connor are very likely in the third round to play most of the season busts. They could be one of the injury busts and any running back could and i don't but i don't those two are in a different group for me than even levy on bell and johnson and girly and those guys i think the thing about

it is that we see these guys fall to round four then it becomes a different conversation i agree round three like you're passing on some really great wide receiver talent round four there's still good wide receivers on the board but it makes it a little bit safer to take a chance on one of those guys because then you still, the guys you're still able to get round five should be okay, but if they do, if you do hit, like Ben said, if you hit

on the one or two guys that are good or aren't bust, those aren't bad number two running backs considering what you got with your first three picks or hopefully got with your first three picks. James Connor has had more than 16 carries once in his last 15 games. So, look, you can live with 15, 16 carries a game,

but he never gets 20 carries. He did once last year, and then he missed the next two games with an injury. It's highly unlikely that's happening this year. What's happening? Him getting 20 carries a game. Not 20 carries a game, but I mean, it just doesn't happen. I mean, sometimes you'd like a guy to have a 20.

Oh, he had 22 carries today. That just doesn't happen with James Connors. Happened one time in his last 15 games. And then he's had a decent receiving role. Yeah, well, that's I was going to bring that up. I mean, is he going to get all the all the catches? What's Benny Snell's role? How confident are you in the touches

for Connor? It sounds like he's very confident. I'm not. And that's probably the difference between putting him in that group. Look, I think he's fine with what he just said, to think that Connor and Carson are in a different group. I have no real issue with that. Those are guys I've considered.

My approach is based on historical data, based on their ADP, based on what I look at, these types of guys don't typically have a lead upside. And I don't try to pick and choose who I think have the best situation. I just don't take any of them. And I think that's where I get confused on that because like fourth round

ADP outside of the top 16 or 17 running backs, I get that. But I think we're stretching that now into early third round ADP being drafted as a top 15 running back. And I don't think that fits the same group based on the historical, based on my understanding of what you wrote,

was that like most of these have not come from rounds four through nine. Generally, the community will know if a guy has a role and he'll be drafted as a top 16 running back. Yeah. Who among these guys are getting drafted in the top? I think Connor is, isn't he?

I guess, yeah. I guess lately he's been RB 16. That's not... He and Gordon, they're right on the cusp. Let's see. So here's when you get to... If I look at NFC from August on, Josh Jacobs, Clyde Edwards, either Todd Gurley, 15, Melvin Gordon, 16, Fournette, Taylor, Le'Veon Bell, James Connors, RB20.

Okay. So he's lower. Like on our side, I think he's like 22 or something. I think the way I would answer that, just to get into the nuts and bolts of my take a little bit, and you're right about what you just said about where the this dead zone starts but for me i i'm guessing that because it's kind of like either the community and the and the wisdom of the crowds of average draft position is telling us that we like these guys are not for me this year i'm identifying the gap between nick

chubb at rb14 whose adp is 16.7 and and Melvin Gordon at RB15, whose ADP is 28.9. It's more than a full round later. The ADP trends are pretty clear that there's 14 running backs that we like as first and second round running backs. And then there's a whole bunch of other guys that nobody wants to necessarily draft in the second round. They go there sometimes, but they're just the next backs.

And there's a whole round gap there. That's to me where we're like, okay, now we're're just the next backs. And there's a whole round gap there. That's to me where we're like, okay, now we're getting into the uncertain players. And what I mentioned on the running back preview was that in the last three seasons, there have been 18 running backs selected in round three, according to fantasy football calculator, half PPR, 18 running backs, 10 of them finished outside the top 24. 8 of them finished outside the top 30. Only 3 of the 18 finished as top 10 running backs. That was

Fournette and Carlos Hyde in 2017 and Aaron Jones in 2019. That really stood out to me. Now, look, there have been obviously running back some round 4, some round 5, but you don't find a lot of top 10 running backs, it seems, in rounds 3, but you don't find a lot of top 10 running backs, it seems in rounds three, four, and five. So that does sort of support, it does support Ben's theory.

I know I said this previously, though, it just feels like the early push on running backs in the first two rounds is pushing these guys up a little bit based on where they should be going. You know, people are panicking. And so it's, it's like, why do you panic? If you don't like them don't take them yeah i see i think like what would be most equitable is if it went to a lot of receivers in rounds three at least like the middle of around three and on in round four and then these guys

would go on like round five around six and if they went there i would be fine with taking them i think that's where you would start to get into some interesting discussions about levy on bell or uh you know some of the the maybe later on wide receivers that aren't at like they're not the Terry McLaurin's, but they're the Tyler Boyd's. And then you're like, OK, well, I think that's a fair balance. Le'Veon Bell or Tyler Boyd in terms of value. That would be my that's where I would stand. Let's get a couple more here. Sorry, just people look at the workload potential and that's where they got. OK, I could see maybe not top 10 running back, but top 12,

top 14, top 16. And that's where you kind of fall into that trap. Trap. Good word to use there because we got to talk about Raheem Mostert. He's a bus for Ben RB 25 and fantasy pros RB 23 on NFC. Raheem Mostert is a round five pick going before David Montgomery, Devin Singletary, Mark Ingram.

I'm going to throw DeAndre Swift in there. He's going a little bit after that. Round six, he's outside the top 24. RB27 on Fantasy Pros, RB29 on NFC. Heath has DeAndre Swift listed as a bust. Okay, no

Mostert for Ben, no Swift for Heath. Heath, why not DeAndre swift and i did just draft deandre swift yesterday i think but um or in our pick by pick series but that was in the middle around six and his adp doesn't suggest that happens very often i just think like unlike jonathan taylor whereas if he gets 15 touches a game i'm pretty sure he's going to be very good i don't know what the upside is in the Detroit offense for a running back. And I do think Kerryon Johnson is still a talented back. And if he stays healthy, he causes major problems for DeAndre Swift.

We had another conversation about DeAndre Swift on HQ with the report. I don't know if you said this yesterday, Adam, or not, but on the show, I was not, but the Lions, there's i think two separate reports about his role in the passing game i think somebody compared him to alvin kamara right um and and dave said uh 50 catches heath right i believe 50 catches yeah i said he i said i don't think he's gonna be a 40 catch guy you Dave said, like Dave jumped right on Heath and said, 2020, he's catching 50. So I think he's going to need Kerryon Johnson to be hurt for that to

happen for him to get to 50 catches. But if Hawkinson's ankles aren't right, and he's the third guy in the passing game, again, I think Carrion has to be out for that to happen completely. Forty's potential, which would help a lot. He's a good pass catcher. He showed that at Georgia. But he's not going to hit his ceiling if Carrion Johnson is healthy. I just don't see that happening. Taylor can

kick Marlon Mack off the field for extended stretches. I don't know if that's going to be the case with Swift and Johnson. Okay, so Heath, who are some running backs you would take ahead of DeAndre Swift? I would take Raheem Mostert, except for in the situation I was in most recently. I would take all of the guys that we just talked about as potential busts. I would take David Montgomery.

I would even take Ronald Jones over him. All right. Raheem Mostert, Ben? Go ahead. Yeah, I think the case against him is pretty quick and easy. He was just really efficient as a runner last year, but he didn't even necessarily get a lot of the goal line work. I think Tevin Coleman really outshined him there

and probably will continue to outshine him there based on what we saw last year. And they started Tevin Coleman in the super bowl, even when most are had that monster NFC championship game where Coleman got hurt. So he's splitting the early down work. And now we also know that Jarek McKinnon is, is potentially,

you know, is shining and it's potentially going to have a pass catching role. So we know the fact that most are didn't catch really any passes last year. Isn't likely to turn around either. They still use Kyle juice. I can, the past that game, they brought in Jordan Reed as a second tight end for short area targets. any passes last year, isn't likely to turn around either. They still use Kyle Jusek in the passing game.

They brought in Jordan Reed as a second tight end for short area targets. Moser, you're getting only early down work. He's a total trap back, and you're hoping that he's very efficient as a runner. I just can't get there anywhere close to his round 5 ADP. Jamie, you have a couple of wide receivers listed as busts. Amari Cooper and Keenan Allen. Cooper is 33rd overall on Fantasy Pros, 38th overall on NFC. He's wide

receiver 13 on Fantasy Pros. He's wide receiver 18 on NFC, going ahead of Adam Thielen, Calvin Ridley, AJ Brown. That's Amari Cooper. And then Keenan Allen has become a round five pick, just barely inside the top 24 at wide receiver. Go ahead with Cooper and Allen. If that's where Allen's going, then I think it's okay. But I've seen him go a little bit too soon on our site based on the ADP there where he's still a top 18 wide receiver.

And that's just, I don't think realistic given the quarterback change for Cooper. I think we saw a guy last year have the, the tail of two halves. We know he's going to have some big games and some bad games, but he was playing for a contract last year. And I don't know if he's going to have those little aches and pains that maybe cause him to sit more so than not.

They have a clear, you know, not replacement, but another option that they can use in the passing game. And I think you're going to find a, this is no surprise. CD lamb is going to be an upgrade over around the club. So I think it just comes down a little bit.

He's still a number two receiver. You still draft him in round four. I would not take him in round three. I would probably lean toward those other running backs over Mark Cooper, to be honest with you, just because I think, you know, if you're talking about what has the better chance to help your fantasy team, if one of those, you know, the two of the six that, you know, Ben is referencing versus taking Cooper over some of those receivers that are

going behind him, I just don't think that's worth it heath oh sorry uh oh you you covered both of them there you go heath zackerts 41st overall on fantasy pros 56th overall on nfc and on both websites he is tight end four and on both websites he's at least 11 picks ahead of tight end five which is darren waller so i don't know maybe it just depends on where you're drafting. Cause I think you'd probably be okay with him 56 overall, but maybe not 41st, but you can tell me Zach Ertz. I think 56 is about right. And it really depends on format too. On CBS, I believe he was 43rd and he's actually ahead of Mark Andrews. Um, and non PPR, I'm not as excited about him. I worry that the step forward that Dallas Goddard took last year, it didn't hurt Ertz

because all of the Eagles wide receivers got hurt. But you see the games where Alshon Jeffrey played, Ertz's target share wasn't quite as good. He's never been a hyper-efficient like Travis Kelsey, George Kittle, Mark Andrews type tight end where he does a ton on a per target basis. So my concern is that Dallas Goddard's share

of the tight end targets stays the same, but the tight end targets are likely to fall by about 20% because they were 20% higher last year than they even were in prior years. So you could see Earth's target share just fall down. Not, not to a bad place, still over a hundred targets,

but not the elite number that he had last year after the receivers went down. And we saw it with Earth's like, he was not quite that guy until everybody got hurt. Okay, fair enough. Ben, Ben likes to pick on Emmanuel Sanders. Something happened between Emmanuel. Emmanuel Sanders lost Ben a championship one year.

Actually, Emmanuel Sanders' mother responded to me on Twitter one time. I think I said something not very nice about him, and I felt horrible about that. Are you serious? I'm dead serious. I love Emmanuel Sanders, actually. I'm a big fan of his, and drafted him for years, but he's 33 years old now. He's about 18 months removed from that Achilles injury late in 2018. I think everyone thinks that he was very good last year, but he actually didn't even hit 45 receiving yards in 13 of the 20 games he

played across two different teams, including the playoffs. And I don't think he broke like 70 yards in, in like something like 15 of the games. There's really only like five games where he had good games and they were splash games. He had some big plays and big moments, but he was pretty quiet at times. And yes, he was joining new teams throughout the year, all those things, the bigger concern for me. And this is why I just,

I don't even think it should be drafted. I don't understand the round 10 thing since Alvin Kamara has been drafted for the last three years, no Saint other than Kamara and Michael Thomas has gotten 75 targets. Even Jared cook last year, who was good, did it on 65 targets because of huge yards per target and touchdown efficiency. And maybe Emmanuel Sanders can do that, but it's a lot easier to be reasonably good at tight end than it is to be at

receiver for a guy who's 33 and has this injury in his past that I'm not confident. He's the same player he was prior to it. And he's going to a team where it's really rare for a number three option to actually see significant targets. I don't think his floor has seeming anything justifies this pick at all. He's the biggest name value pick in all of fantasy drafts this year. So I just want to keep emphasizing that.

Don't make the mistake of seeing that name and thinking Emmanuel Sanders is still the guy that he used to be. The biggest name value pick. That's interesting. Go ahead, Jamie. We had Larry Holder of the athletic covers the saints on, on CBS sports HQ and asked him about Emmanuel Sanders and what he's going to do. And you referenced the 75 targets. No second receivers had more than 70 targets in those three years. Granted, it's been Ted Ginn and Traequan Smith,

so take that for what it's worth because those guys are different receivers than what Emmanuel Sanders does when Sanders is right. But the average of those three guys is 54 targets a year, and so that just kind of tells you where it is. So let's say he's at 80 targets or maybe he gets to 90 targets. I don't think he's going to be north of a hundred. He's still not going to be productive enough based on what those other guys do in terms of Thomas Kamara and, and cook. One thing Larry said, which is the thing we've been talking about a little bit is that Sanders is based on his name value and his reputation and his resume, because

coaches fall in love with that. Drew Brees, I'm sure is going to fall in love with that. And he's going to do a lot of good things that veteran players do is he's going to take away from michael thomas and so i was reading some stuff today that uh drew breeze in practice he had a couple uh drops and the first thing that he did after having some some drops he went right back to michael thomas that's the guy he's going to go to when he's make a play but now maybe he has somebody else that he can go to, to make a play. And so while his fantasy production is going to be great for him as a person,

as an individual, he's going to maybe hurt the other guys just enough that you might want to consider downgrading Thomas, not as the number one overall receiver, but just as the overall pick and maybe cook and Kamara a little bit in the passing game. Also, I'm not going to do that,

but I could see where it becomes a problem because of what Sanders resume brings to the Saints that they haven't had in the last three seasons. You know who the, I think, just fun exercise that I just did, the biggest, what did you say, name recognition, what was it you called Emmanuel Sanders? I said name value, yeah. Name value pick.

I'm going to say it's Jared Cook. Tied at 980th overall. Yeah, same point. Even Cook didn't get to 75 targets last year, but he was good and he's still there. They're still going to use him. Now you have a legitimate competition for the number three

target spot, right? I don't see how someone out of those two gets anything. I think they're both overdrafted. Jerry Cook typically doesn't get drafted in our drafts when we do our CBS little drafts, unless I take them. So to see him going 80th is a little

wild. Well, I think that's it for our show. I guess we could run through the listener busts. Bust-o-meter, 0-10, Josh Allen. Two. Seven. Woo-hoo!

You think the rushing's going to come way down? two, seven. Ooh. That one. The Russian is going to come way down. I, like, I think there's a chance that he's just, yeah, it doesn't really improve as a passer and the Russian comes down. They try to throw a little bit more.

The Russian is going to come down at some point. Yeah. Can I just ask, I, he, I just want to ask you a question that I know we're going to disagree on. And I just, I'm going to laugh.

Who would you rather have as your team's quarterback? Josh Allen or Tyrod Taylor? Am I... Probably Allen because there's a hope that he becomes a thrower. He's a thrower already.

A passer. Probably Allen. I'd rather have Daniel Jones as my quarterback than Josh Allen. Oh, that's very nice. Nice to hear that. How about Nick Chubb? Zero to ten on the busto meter. Nick Chubb. Four? Yeah, four.

Six. Michael Thomas. One. Two. One. Cly. One. Clyde Edwards-Ziller. Negative 10. Seven. Negative.

Seven for me. Five. Seven. Man, you know what? We got to pick this up. We got to talk about these guys more in depth at the beginning of another show. I'll do one more. Austin Eckler.

Five. Four. the beginning of another show um i'll do one more austin eckler five four thing i'll say at least six maybe seven is what i was thinking but i i'm interested in he's five there i want to hear that take two me too because i thought i thought he loved austin yeah i mean i think most of the running backs in the back half of the first round are in that range. We just talked about how half the picks in the first round busted last year. And running backs are more likely to get hurt than wide receivers. But it's just injury. I think Eckler's less likely to bust than Clyde Edwards-Elair because Eckler's done it. Okay. All right, we're out of here.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Another episode for you tomorrow. Another episode the day after that. Remember, Apple Podcasts, questions, and emails at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Thanks to Ben, Keith, and Jamie.

I always have to think about who was just on the show with me, which is weird. I've been talking to them for an hour. Make sure you're watching Fantasy Football Today on HQ, live noon Eastern,

Monday through Friday. Download the HQ app or watch CBSSportsHQ.com I'm Adam Azar we'll talk to you later