Fantasy Football Today - Buy or Sell Second Half Performances (02/15 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

We highlight some of the best and some of the worst second half performances. Dave and Jamey start with a second half they are buying (1:30) and selling (5:00). Dave is buying Elijah Moore's second half production while Jamey is hoping Devin Singletary can continue to be Buffalo's lead RB. Meanwhile, Jamey thinks CeeDee Lamb is much better than what he showed in the second half and Dave is not even close to being sold on Rashaad Penny ... Quick news and notes (18:15) and then more good second half performers with Amon-Ra St. Brown leading the way (21:00). What an amazing finish he had, but can he live up to the hype in 2022? We also touch on Hunter Renfrow (28:00) and Russell Gage ... Bad finishers include D.K. Metcalf (34:30), Ezekiel Elliott (39:30), DeVonta Smith (45:10) and Michael Carter (49:30). Is Metcalf too reliant on big plays? Is Smith doomed because of the offense he plays in? ... Email us at [e-mail] 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is touchdown! Oh, he's done it again! Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Beck. Welcome to Fantasy Football today on Tuesday morning. Did you know that in the last six games of the regular season, Amandra St. Brown was a top three wide receiver? Rashad Penny was a top two running back. You might not be too surprised to know that. Meanwhile, how about the bad?

Ezekiel Elliott in his last 12 games, including the postseason, his last 12 games, he had one carry that went longer than 13 yards. It was in week 18 against the Eagles backups. And also in Dallas, CeeDee Lamb finished the season with eight straight games without a touchdown that included the postseason and six straight games with 66 or fewer receiving yards. So some good and some bad. We're going to talk about it right now. The title is second half. It's not necessarily second half.

It's stretches broken down one way or the other. Adam, Dave, and Jamie here. I'm going to stop talking. I'm going to throw it over to Jamie Eisenberg. Jamie, give me one second half, quote unquote, second half performance that you're buying. One that actually resonates with you as you look to do some early rankings in 2022. one second half, quote unquote, second half performance that you're buying, one that actually resonates with you as you look to do some early rankings in 2022?

I'm buying, hopefully, Devin Singletary, that what we saw from him down the stretch and in the playoffs is a sign of things to come, that Buffalo found their guy and that they're not going to address the position this offseason, that they're going to make Zach Moss the backup and they're just going to bring in another veteran,

sort of retread guy to be the emergency running back there like we saw with Matt Brita so hopefully what we saw from Singletary basically from like week 14 on through the playoffs is what we're going to get in 2022 and he could be a solid number two running back for the majority of the season. Hi Dave. Hi I am buying the way that moore played when he came back from his first injury love the way that he was able to get open downfield and also in the short area did well with the backup quarterbacks with the jets started to get some positives going with zach wilson i would imagine that as wilson gets better as a quarterback he'll help more get better as a wide receiver both of them obviously going into their second year.

And I'm kind of banking on the fact that the Jets fortify that offensive line just a little bit more. That'll be a strength. Wilson, Moore, they're going to be able to be excellent, and they take that step forward in their second season. And the Jets passing game actually helps fantasy managers for once in the franchise's history, I guess. He's somebody that I'm very excited about for next year.

When was the second half, from week six to week 10? I mean, it wasn't the whole second half, obviously, but when he came back from the injury from the beginning of the year, I thought he played great. And then once he got hurt again, obviously, he can't do anything with that. So his second half, not exactly the last eight weeks of the season or whatever. The second half of his season. Someone who I'm buying who had a great second

half of the year. Second half of his season. Right, right. Yeah. So it's basically from you start with six catches for 67 yards in week eight against the Bengals. That's not bad. And from that point on, he was really good. He scored five touchdowns in the next five games. He had an 84 yard game against the Colts,

141 yards against the Dolphins, 77 yards against the Eagles. This is Elijah Moore we're talking about. And remember watching, he's beating Xavier Howard. He's beating Byron Jones. He's beating Darius Slay. He really had a great finish to his season, but he missed the last five games with a quadriceps injury.

Okay, how was Valentine's Day, guys? Lovely? It was pretty good. Baseball practice. It was fun. Okay, how was Valentine's Day, guys? Lovely? It was pretty good. Baseball practice. It was fun. Oh, right, right. I just told you. Baseball practice.

We brought in Greek food. I tried some Greek food that I've never had before. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right. Kafte or kefte. They're like meatballs, but not necessarily like meatballs. Oh, good description. Ground meat with, there's like mint in there, like a hint of mint.

And the one that I had was in like this tomato stew with some feta cheese. It was really good. Yeah, it's hard to find bad Greek food. Almost every dish is delicious. You like moussaka? Never had it. That might be next on the hit list.

That's your next. It's like an eggplant, ground beef, kind of macaroni type of thing. It's so good. How eggplant-y is it? Because I'm not a big fan of eggplant. I guess it's fairly eggplant-y, but I think you can get past it. I really do. Try it.

My kids laugh every time they text an eggplant emoji. I don't know why. I mean, it's just a vegetable. They're asking for moussaka. My kids laugh every time they text an eggplant emoji. I don't know why. I mean, it's just a vegetable. They're asking for moussaka. They want you to get them some green food. I guess so. I don't know what's up with that. All right, so Jamie's buying Devin Singletary.

Well, hoping to buy Devin Singletary. He really was the lead back, which we just had not seen in Buffalo. In his last five games, he was top three running back, actually. Not as good as Rashad Penny, but he was quite good. And Dave said Elijah Moore. Okay, so a second half performance that you're selling, Jamie. I'm selling that CeeDee Lamb is bad.

I think you're going to see a much better performance from him in 2022, his third year in the NFL. I think what Troy Aikman said, they're going to take to heart when you know, when he really was frustrated, and I think a lot of fantasy managers as well, from the playoffs basically through the final three games of the season. So, you know, if you backtrack, where they just weren't throwing the ball.

You know, and as Aikman said, when you have a great player, you've got to get him going. And I think Kellen Moore will listen to that type of philosophy. I think Dak Prescott will listen to that type of philosophy. I think Dak Prescott will listen to that type of philosophy. I think they'll go in knowing, you know, whatever their receiving core is going to look like because Michael Gallup's a free agent. If he does come back, he's coming off an ACL.

Dalton Schultz is a free agent. We'll see if he comes back. So, you know, two important pieces that they may have to replace. But in any event, I think C.D. Lamb is going to take that step forward that we had hoped to see in his sophomore campaign. I think they'll realize their mistakes. And I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with what CD Lamb will do in his third year in the NFL. Yeah.

So when you look at Lamb versus, I think we've had this debate before, but let's do it again now that we're fresh off the Super Bowl. Lamb or Higgins? I think I have Higgins higher. I'll probably go back to Lamb, but I think it's close. And how much does Michael Gallup's presence matter? I just gave Dave a quick assignment to look up. CeeDee Lamb splits yards per target in the slot and out wide, which I thought was pretty dramatic last year, as I recall.

So as he looks that up, Jamie, how much would a Michael Gallup return affect him if we assume right now that Gallup won't be back? I think you'd actually like to see Michael Gallup back as opposed to them making a big move there, you know, and it'd be a surprise. But, you know, we didn't expect him to draft CeeDee Lamb after they signed Amari Cooper to his deal. So they're not opposed to, you know, going big on the offensive side of the ball, the skill position spots. If it's more like, you know, said Wilson, and again, Wilson was a problem for CeeDee Lamb down the stretch and certainly in the playoffs or the final games of the season

when Scal up towards ACL, then I think, you know, you're not as concerned about it. But, you know, if it's a big time signing, then I think you're a little bit more worried about where CeeDee Lamb comes out. I just think it's, you know, you can put him inside, you can put him outside. It's more just a matter of getting him going early, featuring him in the offense. You know, it's not a matter of where he lines up. It's a matter of just getting him the ball because he's going to win wherever he is. They just have to give him the opportunities to have that success once he does win.

He really did win wherever he was. I'm looking at the splits that you asked for, Adam. His catch rate was 64.8 percent when he was out wide 66.7 percent when he was in the slot so very good in both situations yards per target out wide 9.9 in the slot 8.2 that's a big part of the course that's a big i don't think that that's what's up that's a pretty big difference it is has more targeted. I don't think there's one that I don't think it necessarily means that he's worse at one than the other. Well, he was much worse when Gallup played. You know, except the last two games, week 18, when he had Dak Prescott through for five touchdowns and he had almost nothing.

And then the playoffs again, almost nothing. But I mean, that that was what was so frustrating to me. So I had this beautiful, beautiful narrative. What's wrong with CeeDee Lamb? Well, he's playing in the slot. And when Gallup was out, he wasn't playing in the slot that much. And he was much, much better.

And then Gallup got hurt. And I thought, all right, the problem's going to be solved. And it just wasn't. So that ruined my narrative a little bit. But I will tell you that the numbers were much better problem is going to be solved and it just wasn't so that ruined my narrative a little bit but i will tell you that that the numbers were much better when gallop was out for those seven games and his numbers lambs numbers were great when he did line up wide he's just more explosive more explosive plays 10 more explosive plays when he was out wide compared to in the slot and he ran

more routes from out wide than in the slot but still just a huge comparison higher air yards per target higher yards per route yards per catch route depth all the yards after catch per reception all the metrics suggest that he was more explosive when he was out wide versus the slot yeah and i don't think that if i recall i don't know if you could look this up i don't know that that was the case in his rookie year. So it doesn't necessarily mean that would carry over. We got it. Yeah, I don't know that would carry over. But that is what happened.

At least that's what the numbers would say. And then Dave's going to tell us the second half performance. He's not buying real quick, though. I'll tell you, now's the time. Football's over. We got a lot of sports that are going on right now. It's a great time in sports. Hopefully baseball can get its act together and get going.

But you need to get that CBS Sports app. It is a great app, by the way. Scores are right in front of you when you open it up. And you can stream anything that's on CBS, for example, right from your app. It's not just the best scoring app on your phone, but it's also where you get breaking news alerts and stories by us, by Dave and Jamie and Heath and Chris and Prisco and et cetera. Standing schedules, team pages, and all the sportsy digital stuff you're used to. Of course, if a game is airing on CBS, you can stream

it on the CBS Sports app. So download it, re-download it if it's got that little cloud logo next to it on your phone. And you know we love those five star ratings so don't hesitate to drop one of those for the cbs sports app adam do you know how many routes cd lamb ran from lining up out wide as a rookie probably not that many take a guess uh one through one thousand jimmy can guess 58 58 for adam jamie you gotta guess 75 no i'm gonna go 103 you're both too high in both your guesses too high 31 so the data that we've got from his rookie year he ran 483 routes from the slot he was their slot guy last year and they moved him out wide or two years ago he was their slot guy last year when they moved him out wide more explosive it'll be interesting to see how they move forward with him but the door is definitely open for CeeDee Lamb

to take that next big step. Okay, Dave, give me a second-hand performance that you're selling. I hate to say this because he was so good, but it was the first time in his entire career that he was this good and that's Rashad Penny. Finally was able to get over being hurt, got an opportunity to play for Seattle, and

finally, finally, after what, four years? He took advantage and looked like a first-round pick at running back. Now he's a free agent. We don't know where he's going to play. We think it's going to be Seattle. It might just be a short-term deal there. But even if it's Seattle, that's a team that's probably not going to give him

every single touch and turn him into a workhorse. With Carson coming back, it just makes sense that they could just mix and match those two guys. He was fun to watch, and he was good while he lasted, but I'm going to have a hard time being excited to draft Rashad Penny no matter where he plays because I can't imagine that he's going to stay healthy for a long time or that he'll be a workhorse running back getting 70% of the snaps, something like that.

So give me an approximate round that you're thinking if they re-sign him, if he's back on Seattle, what do you think for Penny? I can tell you that in my non-PPR rankings, I've got him as a late round seven. Oh, that's really late. Really late. I don't want him. Okay, Jamie.

Listen, hold on, hold on. I don't want him as of now. I got to preface it, because what if he stays in Seattle and Seattle lets go of Chris Carson and they don't really have a good alternative and they just put all their faith and trust in Penny, then the only downside to Penny is what we all know, which is the injuries. There's still going to be that injury risk with him. It's the same type of injury risk that you might assign to Christian McCaffrey or to Saquon Barkley, but it's not going to be at the price

tag that those two guys are going to bring on draft day. So maybe he can move up if he gets through training camp in the preseason and just looks like he's going to be an absolute monster. I can buy into him in an earlier price tag than round seven. Okay, Jamie, what are your thoughts on Penny?

And I'll just... Last six games, he was number one running back in non-PPR, number two in full PPR. And that included the first game of that stretch was with 10 carries for 35 yards and one catch for 27 yards against the Niners. He also really struggled at the Rams. Not coincidentally, those are two of the best run defenses in football, but for the six game stretch, he averaged 6.9 yards per carry. He was on a 17 game pace of exactly 2000 rushing yards and 17 rushing touchdowns and only 17 catches. So give me your thoughts on Penny. Penny, for your thoughts.

You know, last night with FFT and five, I think, like I said, his best case scenario is if he stays in Seattle, because I think if it's him competing with Chris Carson, they've almost been begging Rashad Penny to take that job from Chris Carson when he was supposed to be healthy and supposed to be on the field and supposed to be the better of the two running backs. And I think that's the way that they feel about him. And you saw the stretch last year that he finally delivered on that promise, but he didn't do it with Chris Carson in competition.

So if it comes back to where it's those two guys again for the same job or if it's Rashad Penny and somebody else you know we've seen them bring in many many guys that just have been of this retread scenario um you know even going back to Adrian Peterson last year I think you look at Penny's in a good spot so the earliest I would buy in if he's back with Seattle and it's just Chris Carson at the second spot or the 1A spot on the depth chart then I think round five is the earliest I would consider it. I would prefer to do it in round six, round seven,

obviously I think is good value if, if you're going to get them there, but I don't think you will. I think people would start buying into him in round four. If he comes back to Seattle and it's just Chris Carson. So he'll get a little overhyped. I think probably safer to consider him more of a bust than a, you know,

full breakout. You know, if you're looking at, you know, taking the sample size and saying it's going to be extrapolated over a full season, full breakout if you're looking at taking the sample size and saying he's going to be extrapolated over a full season. But Seattle, I think, is the best spot for him, and Chris Carson's the best competition for him

because I think that's what Seattle would like to see is him being the lead guy. Adam, you actually got Penny in late round seven in our half PPR mock draft. I was actually just looking that up right now. And then Shraggy B got him at 79th overall in the full PPR draft. Boy, I'm very happy to have gotten him in round seven. But remember, that was a draft where we didn't have rankings. So that's the kind of guy that could slip through the cracks a little bit. What really strikes me about Penny is there were only –

this is a guy who had 102 carries in those last six games. And that may have been basically it for the season. I don't know. He had like 110 carries, something like that. There were only two running backs in the entire league that had more 20 yard, 20 or more yard carries than him. And they were Jonathan Taylor and Nick Chubb. And they both had significantly more carries than Rashad Penny. He was breaking huge runs. So on a, on a hundred running against the Texans, right? What's that? I think he's still running against it. Right? Huge game. 119 carries for Penny. And he had 11 carries that went for 20 or more yards. That is ridiculous. He was the only running back with fewer than 130 carries who had more than four big runs. If you want to call a 20-yard run a big run, he had 11.

And he's the only running back with fewer than 130 carries who had more than four. And that really jumped out at me. Does that move the needle? You know I love big plays. And unless I see a guy stack them two years in a row, I don't know that they're coming back. Because Devin Singletary in his rookie year, he had a lot of big plays and those went away. But that did jump out at me.

I mean, the guy was insanely good. And just making big plays. The schedule broke right for him. Fresh legs at the right time. You know, late in the season, you have a guy like this who's certainly got the explosiveness. I mean, this is what he did in college. You know, he was a big play guy in college.

And so can he do that, you know, over, you know, 13 plus games, 14 plus games? That's the biggest question because he just has a hard time staying healthy. So where he ends up, who he ends up competing with, the offense that he plays in if he leaves, those are all things that you have to, you know, kind of wait and see on. So, you know, I think, again, for me, I'd like to see him stay there, not have a lot of competition because I do think that this front office, this coaching staff, really is backing him. They've stuck with him despite all of the injuries, and we'll see if they stick with him with a contract that kind of reflects paying him to the level of what a starting running back, not at the superstar level, gets right now.

If that's the case, then I think that kind of tells you what his role will be going into 2022. Okay. And if you want to buy a different non-football narrative or non-stat narrative or something, he actually credited his success, some of it anyway, to Adrian Peterson being there. He said just in the brief time Peterson was there, Rashad Penny was able to learn some stuff. He also said, you know, I mean, which is telling and kind of speaks to where we are as, you know,

critics of football players and, you know, talking about how the stuff on social media got to him and you know he was obviously a bust in the nfl draft and you know the comments certainly reflected that uh directed at him uh about him you know we've been critical of him um because we had high expectations you know where he was drafted and the role he was playing so you know kudos to him to overcome all those things. And hopefully he's a more mature person and, and, you know, it's, it's reflective of his play.

All right. I'm going to take a look at a few news and notes, and then we'll get back to the good and the bad from the last half ish of 2021. The dolphins have hired an offensive coordinator. It is Frank Smith. He is the chargers run game coach. And I think we're going to be just

one of those situations where we're just focusing on the head coach rather than the coordinator, right? Yeah. Everything you read about this guy, though, he's just gotten rave reviews about what he's done, where the places he's been, mostly for his offensive line coaching and what he's gotten out of the tight end

play. So two areas of concern for the Dolphins if Mike Gusecki leaves. So we'll see how things go there, what they do in terms of addressing the offensive line and addressing their tight end spot. But those two things, I think, are noteworthy to see what Miami does. You're talking about Frank Smith or Mike McDaniel? Frank Smith. Okay. Frank Smith is their new coordinator.

Odell Beckham, unfortunately, tore his ACL, and that stinks, but those can be speedy recoveries at this point. So we'll see if he can make it back. What round now for OBJ? Where is he playing? Rams. LA.

Is Woods back? Yes. Is McVay back? Yes. Yes. Is Whitworth back? No. LA. Is Woods back? Yes. Is McVay back? Yes. Is Whitworth back? No. No. That doesn't matter. I mean, if he's with the Rams and Woods is back,

he's a double-digit round guy. Yeah. 9-10. You can draft him. He might end up starting the year on the pup list, so you could probably stash him. Then you can pick up a guy off waivers after your draft if you want to. Okay. Late pick.

And DK Metcalf said... Based on how the Rams get guys back healthy, he might be back by minicamp. Right, right. He'll be running by mid-March. DK Metcalf said he played through a foot injury, but he said it did not affect him much. And yes, DK Metcalf is on today's show.

DK Metcalf had surgery yesterday to remove a screw from his foot. Right. He was in a walking boot. He said that he, well, that's why, yeah. He said he played through a foot injury, but he didn't make a big deal about it. And he said it didn't really limit him. I have a feeling if it really did limit him, he probably wouldn't say that it did. And I have a feeling if you want to believe in DK Metcalf, you're going to take this news and you're going to literally run with it

or figuratively run with it. I don't know. Metaphorically run with it and be like, see, it was the foot injury. But we'll get into him a little bit. I get practice every week. So, yeah. All right. Some of the best of the second half.

We talked about Rashad Penny. Amonra St. Brown was on pace in his last six games. His 17-game pace was 190 targets, 144 catches, 1,587 yards, and 14 touchdowns. This is a guy who had double-digit targets in six straight games and was a fantasy MVP, Amandra St. Brown. We also wanted to highlight Penny Singletary. You know, I have Hunter Renfro and Russell Gage here, but St. Brown deserves the spotlight, Dave.

Who do you buy more, St. Brown or Penny, when you look at those finishes? St. Brown. Why? No hesitation. Well, because first of all, he's a receiver and not a running back which means that he's probably got a better chance to stay healthy just off the top of my head it's it's what i'm

going to go to with penny every time it's just reliability and the the chance he's out there playing for the majority of a season i think saint brown showed this coaching staff what he's capable of doing not that they're going to lean on him as much uh what his targets per game down the stretch do we know what that is 11.2 there's no way like i i you heard lions receiver coach antoine randall said at the senior bowl he wants to add like two or three more receivers to this offense but i don't think they're going to do it to take saint brown off the field i think they like what he can do they just want to get more weapons in the passing game, spread that ball around a little bit more. They're going to get TJ Hawkinson back. Hawk wasn't there for much of any of this run by St. Brown. So I think that target volume is going

to come back quite a bit, but even if it's coming back quite a bit, he proved that he's a good route runner. He proved that he can have a good catch rate. He can make plays after the catch. He even showed that he can make some deep plays if asked to. There's a lot of weapons in his bag, and he could end up being a really useful player, especially in PPR leagues because of all those receptions that he gets. I'm buying. I think that he can continue to be—I'm not buying at the level that he finished at, where top three receiver in fantasy. He's not going there.

But as a number two fantasy receiver, I'm drafting him as such. I think that, especially in PPR, he's got the there but as a number two fantasy receiver i'm drafting him as such i think that especially in ppr he's got the shot to come right back you know put him at seven eight maybe some games with nine targets per game i could see that happening even with all the additions and returns that the lions will get in that passing game and even with jared goff a quarterback remember that's a team that's already got a good offensive line so once they get that offensive line healthy and ready to go they're going to be be able to do what they want to before games get out of hand, depending on how their defense is next year. St. Brown should have some good opportunities.

So let me give you this stat, Jamie. Tell me what you think. This little laser stat. 11.2 targets per game and a 32% target share in those last six games during which he was per game third best in PPR, fifth best in non-PPR. Overall, he was top three in both formats, but per game he was top five. Let's just give him eight targets per game. That is a lot. I don't know if he's going to get that. That's 136 targets in 17 games. But if you just took his rates in those six games on 11.2 targets and you gave him eight targets per game, he would have been,

on a per-game basis, wide receiver 17 in non-PPR and wide receiver 12 in PPR. Because doing what he did, if he had gotten eight targets per game, he still would have had 103 catches per 17 games, 1,134 yards, 10 touchdowns.

So just to put it in a bit of perspective, in his non-PPR pace would have been Adam Thielen. His full PPR pace would have been Mike Evans. But yeah, I don't know if he's gotten eight targets per game, but still, it wasn't just the targets. He was really good, and he scored the touchdowns, too, five and six games. What do you think about that projection? 103 catches,

1,134 yards, 10 touchdowns on 136 targets. As it stands right now for the Lions, I think that's doable, but I think if we do see them add two significant pieces at the receiver's spot, with Hawkinson back, with DeAndre Swift healthy, remember, almost all of receiver spot with Hawkinson back with DeAndre Swift's healthy member.

Almost all of this came with Hawkinson not there and Swift banged up for a good portion of it. And so do they love him? Obviously. I mean, you know how I felt about him coming out of the draft. I thought this was going to be the under-the-radar guy that we talked about. At least I talked about, based on the opportunity going to Detroit without the significant pieces there. Well, now they're going to probably add some significant pieces, and that's going to be the thing you have to keep an eye on for.

So there is a chance that he will be in the bust category because replicating this is so hard to do, given that they're going to upgrade around him and get healthy around him. But there's a lot to like. Like Dave said, they're not taking him off the field. They're not finding replacements for Amonra St. Brown. He's clearly proven that he's a valuable commodity to this team. He's clearly proven that he's a go-to guy for Jared Goff.

This offense showed definite signs of life as the season went on and as they started to get comfortable with each other and as the guys started falling apart, whether it was somebody like a Tyrell Williams and then Hawkinson and then Swift. But you're getting guys back in additions, and so free agency will matter. The draft will matter. Thankfully, it seems like every mock draft you see, at least at the top of the draft,

they're not addressing offense. They're addressing defense, and that's a big need for them is they have to fix that defense. But here's the company that he kept, if you're just looking at it. This was something that Mike Clay of ESPN just tweeted earlier this morning, and I think it's pretty noteworthy. You tell me, great receiver, not great receiver, and this is the company he's in. Michael Thomas?

Which one? The Michael Thomas? Yeah. Antonio Brown? Sure. I only know one Antonio Brown. Yeah, great receiver. Travis Kelsey? Yeah. Jason or Travis? Pretty good. Paul Bolden? He was amazing. Jason or Travis? Yeah. Pretty good.

Paul Bolden? Yeah. He was amazing. Wes Walker? He was very good. All great. Andre Johnson? Should be in the Hall of Fame. Marvin Harrison?

Hall of Fame. Isaac Bruce? Isaac Bruce, two first names. Only second best guy with two first names that I know. Larry Fitzgerald? Yes, decent. He was not bad. Calvin Johnson?

Yeah. What does Amon Ross St. Brown have in common with all these guys? That's what I want to know. All these guys, eight plus catches in five straight games. Wow. He's in that category. Now, there's three other guys that you might say, okay, good, but you'd like to see in the other side

as opposed to these three, TJ Houshmanzadeh, Eric Moulds, and Moussa Mohamed. So very good players. That's good. Right, right, right. Good fantasy contributors. Very good, very good, but not legendary like some of these other guys.

All right, let's move on. Real quick, though. Give me Amonra St. Brown or Michael Pittman. St. Brown. I believe I have St. Brown a little bit higher. Barring a quarterback change for the Colts. Amonra St. Brown or Amari Cooper. Is Cooper still in Dallas?

Yes. Cooper. I have Cooper a little bit higher. Okay. As far as Hunter Renfro and Russell Gage. No, I don't. I've got Cooper lower. Sorry.

St. Brown. Okay. As far as Renfro and Gage, you know, Renfro, he had three games all year with more than, I don't know. He had 300-yard games.

And they were all without Waller. Is there a reason to think Renfro is a different player than what he's been, coming off a season where he was top 14 receiver overall, number 10 in PPR, basically very similar to the projection I gave for Monterey St. Brown, not quite as good. 103 catches for Renfro last year,

1,038 yards, nine touchdowns. A ton of red zone and green zone targets. That was good. But Dave, I mean, is there anything to what we saw from Renfro after Ruggs' unfortunate incident? I think he's going to continue to be a factor in the offense. The one thing that I love, there's two things I love. The first thing is that something we saw,

which is Derek Carr had no problem targeting Renffro like crazy especially when waller was out and even when waller came back renfro had some good games so reliable option derrick carr believes in him perfect type of slot receiver the thing that we haven't seen but i'm going to buy into is that with josh mcdaniel's calling plays he's the the track record of how slot receivers have done with Josh McDaniels and the inside-out type of offense that he's typically ran with the Patriots, it leads me to believe that Renfro's got the upside of Wes Welker and all the other slot receivers, Julian Edelman, that we've seen in New England that just continually find ways to get open

and be the number one read in this type of an offense. And if it's Carr, who's the quarterback still in Las Vegas, then we've got the quarterback who trusts the receiver, and we've got the play caller who's going to draw plays for this specific type of wide receiver. So I'm definitely a fan of Hunter Renfro in PPR leagues. Okay. And Jamie, Russell Gage, his last seven games, he was on a 17-game pace of much better than Renfro. 109 catches, 1,365 yards, seven touchdowns.

That was his 17-game pace for Russell Gage in his last seven games. And, yeah, I mean, that was really without a lot of pass attempts. Matt Ryan threw more than 33 passes in only one of those seven games. Obviously no Calvin Ridley in that stretch, but what did you make of that finish for Gage? I don't really have much interest in Russell Gage. I think, you know, you look at what he, what role he filled, it was admirable. He did a great job, you know, stepping up for without Ridley there with, you know, Ryan being a little bit more comfortable, I think with his offensive line,

with his new offense, uh, you know, being forced to, you know, lean on him. Uh, he's a free agent.

You know, I think wherever he lands, you know, he could be a good third receiver, maybe in some cases, a good second receiver for whatever respective team he's on. But Russell gauge is still just a late round fantasy pick at all. I don't really buy what he did last year.

Is any indication of him doing anything of significance moving forward. I kind of dig him. Oh, really? Okay. We won't take a break. I dig him in the context of when you get past the midway point of your fantasy draft and you're looking for quality depth, assuming that he lands in a place where he's going to be able to play, looking up the exact same splits that we looked at for CeeDee Lamb, he had a better catch rate he

caught at least 65 of his passes out wide 75 in the slot we knew him coming into last year as a really solid slot receiver option he proved last season that he can also play out wide so he's got that versatility he's not an explosive player he only had 16 explosive plays all year long but i i think that he can be a good contributor for fantasy managers not someone that you're going to race up the board to get but when you're in round nine round 10 and you're looking and this is for right now once we had rookies he might fall down to round 11 around 12 and i think that's kind of the area that jamie was thinking about with russell gage a good type of depth piece at wide receiver that you could plug in your lineup

as a number three option or at least a receiver with number three expectations but i think he proved that he can play and be more than just a key backup role player type in the nfl i think he'll end up being a starter somewhere in the nfl and i'll end up being a bench piece for fantasy and a name to keep in mind again once you get to pick 100 he's going to be in that range. Yeah, not for me. For Renfro, I just did his numbers quickly. His first 10 games before, I don't know exactly what the timeline was, but it was the Dallas game, so it was the Waller injury. I don't know when exactly Ruggs was. The Giants game was the first without Ruggs.

Okay, so this includes a couple games without Ruggs. So we just do his numbers over 10 games. He was on pace for 83 catches, 890 yards, and he had four touchdowns in those first 10 games. So hopefully the Josh McDaniels impact is a little bit better. Okay. I thought what was really interesting about Renfro for me, well, first of all,

the Raiders just threw the ball a lot more than they usually did. And Carr had a much better year than he usually has, about 20 to 30 more passing yards per game than the previous two seasons. But Renfro, he had more red zone targets and more green zone targets this year, this past year, than he had in his first two seasons combined.

And you did see the touchdowns, but he just became a reliable guy for Carr near the end zone. That's a position that is of significant need, though, for them, because Zay Jones is a free agent. Obviously, they have to replace Ruggs. So, again, we have to see what they do.

Okay, we're going to take a break now, and when we come back, we'll talk about Ezekiel Elliott, actually, and how good he was before his knee injury and how bad he was after. Plus, Michael Carter did not have a great finish and a few other players who were bad down the stretch. Do we buy it? Do we sell it?

We'll tell you after this on Fantasy Football today. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days. And the ability to reach further with access to over 1 over 1400 airport lounges

worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Welcome back, everybody. We got one more show this week. We're going to look at some crazy stats from 2021 and what they mean for 2022. But right now, let's talk about DK Metcalf. He headlines the bad down the stretch list or bad second half. Listen, you know,

he kind of had a bad year. He had three games all season with more than 65 yards. That is shocking. And he had one catch of more than 41 yards. Does anybody remember the catch? Yes. Garbage.

Should have been pass interference. He pushed off on Marshawn Lattimore, ended up with an 84-yard touchdown. If not for that play, he doesn't have a catch all year of more than 41 yards. In 2020, he had five catches that went for 41 or more yards and three more that went for 37 to 39 yards. So when you look at Metcalf, what is your diagnosis here?

And is there any thought that maybe he's just so reliant on big plays that he's riskier than we thought? Dave, I'll give you the first word. I think he should be more of a big play receiver because he's got that size-speed combination that we love, but he's also on a team that wants to be balanced and lean on the run. The thing that stands out to me about last year,

first eight games, and this happened to him in 2020 as well, right, where he started off the year going crazy, and then the second half of the year, changes were made. This is in 2020. Changes right? Where he started off the year going crazy. And then the second half of the year changes were made. Uh, this is in 2020 changes were made to the offense. He wasn't nearly as good. He averaged over 17 PPR points per game in 2021, first eight games of the year. Then the Seahawks had their buy. And then he only had one game with more than 15 fantasy points the rest of the way. What scares me is that Russell Wilson in the second

half of the year was pretty good. He had a lot of games north of 20 and 22 fantasy points per game in six point per passing touchdown leagues. He wasn't amazing, but he was a startable fantasy quarterback and he was getting it done without DK Metcalf having a huge role. Metcalf ended up being a very touchdown reliant. we talked about the yardage already, type of wide receiver. I'd love for him to become more than that. The fact that he hasn't yet does scare me off of him a little bit,

but it's obvious upside with him because if he can put it all together, we already know that he's a great red zone threat, great end zone threat. He's just got to get more of those big plays and more of those big play opportunities for him to come through and be potentially a top five fantasy wide receiver it's going to be a little bit hard to do as long as tyler lockett's there because lockett can do the exact same thing and he's proven it he was the guy that russell wilson connected with the most

really over the course of the season and i'm there's some trepidation in drafting dk meccaf i don't really don't want to do it as a top 12 type of fantasy receiver. You know, Jamie, he's still got a lot more targets than Tyler Lockett. He was so much worse on a per target basis, but he still was the number one guy in terms of targets for Russell Wilson, I think pretty clearly. And that was a trend that started in the second half of 2020 and continued into 2021. So, yeah, well, give me your overall thoughts on, on DK Metcalf,

who in his last nine games, that was when Russell Wilson came back from the injury. He averaged 5.3 yards per target. That is awful. In those same nine games, Lockett only actually played eight of them, Averaged 12.16 yards per target. More than double DK Metcalf. So the targets were there. He just was not coming up with the production. Yeah. I'm just thinking about

a down season for a 24, you know, will be 25 at the end of the 2022 season that had 75 catches, 967 yards, and 12 touchdowns. If that's down, I'm buying all day. You saw what the upside was in his sophomore season, another double-digit touchdown campaign, over 1,300 yards.

Is he going to be a 100-catch guy? Probably not. You'd like to see that, but easy top-10 wide receiver. Love the upside, what he brings. Hopefully the foot injury was what was slowing him down. He has to get better. He has to develop his route tree. He has to, you know, do some different things as a player. But obviously with this quarterback, hopefully still the same and what Russell Wilson does in terms of how he throws the ball down the field, those big plays will start to come back.

They'll start to come back a little bit more consistently. If somebody's selling in Dynasty, you should be buying all day long because this guy's still got such superstar potential. And again, hopefully this foot problem that he's seemingly corrected, corrected early enough, will be the cause of, or the reason why he bounces back to the level

that he's capable of because he's a star. Lockett or Lamb? Sorry, Metcalf or Lamb? Metcalf. I believe I have Metcalf higher. Okay, Lockett or Lamb? I have Lockett higher. Lockett, Metcalf, Lamb, and PPR.

You have Lockett ahead of Metcalf? Yeah, just because I love the connection with Russ. Okay. Still gets a lot of yards. Yeah, just because I love the connection with Russ. Okay. Still gets a lot of yards. Jamie, how about you? You have Metcalf ahead of Lockett, I assume? No, I like both, but Metcalf's ceiling is certainly much higher,

so I'll take Metcalf. Okay. All right, tell me if you guys care about this. Ezekiel Elliott, first five games, averaged 5.3 yards per carry. He was on pace for 289 carries, 1,537 yards rushing, not to mention 31 catches,

and 17 rushing touchdowns in his first five games. He was terrific. He was certainly deserving of a top five pick. I think a lot of us settled on him at number five by the end of the season, by the end of the draft process. Last 12 games, 3.6 yards per carry, down from 5.3. I gave that

stat at the start of the show. He had one carry in his last 12. It's a little deceiving. So hold on his last 12, including the postseason. What I told you, the 3.6 yards per carry, that was the last 12 of the regular season. The first game of that stretch, he had a 20 yard carry. After that, he had one carry rest of season of more than 13 yards. It doesn't matter. We saw it with our own eyes. He wasn't right. He wasn't himself. How much can we look at the injury, Jamie, and say, Ezekiel Elliott,

hey, if he's right, he could be that top five running back that he was in the first five games of the season. But when he's not right, obviously, which has been two years in a row and he's played through injuries, he kind of sucks. What do you think? I think he's getting to the point of breaking down. That's, you know, just the sad part about it, that the workload that he had early in his career

is catching up to him a little bit. The body's not the same. You know, he was in great shape. You know, we saw it in hard knocks. You know, he looked awesome compared to what he was maybe last year. And, you know, I know I said this going into the season that, you know, when you go to work knowing that Dak Prescott's not there, offensive line was falling apart, you know, everything that happened to him in 2020,

that he was going to be hopefully rejuvenated with his best friend back and, you know, things seemingly on track for this Cowboys team. And it started to play itself out early in the season, but he just couldn't handle it for whatever reason, whether it was the knee, whether it was just, you know, the burst is gone. This field, very Todd Gurley-esque, you know,

of a superstar player that just is crashing very, you know, I don't want to say early in his career, but, you know, he's only going to be 27 by the time the season starts. And so you got to start to be a little bit concerned that maybe we have to adjust our thinking on 30 is not the point when these running backs start to break down. In some cases, it could be, you know, 26, 27, 28. And maybe Ezekiel, it's just in that category. So he's not going to be a first round pick ever again.

I doubt you'll see him go in the second round. I think the third round is probably where you're going to see him go because people are going to look and say still the lead running back for the Cowboys. But how much longer will he be the lead running back for the Cowboys if Tony Pollard continues to look more explosive? So this feels like a dead zone running back, and somebody that I think if he falls to the right spot, depending on how you build your team and what he looks like this offseason, then maybe you'll buy back in.

But for the most part, I think it's a guy you want to avoid until you're at that cutoff point of, okay, now I'll take a chance, but taking a chance hesitantly as opposed to optimistically. He went similarly to Aaron Jones, I believe, in a recent draft. Dave, who would you prefer, Zeke or Jones? Jones. Because I can believe that Jones can still be an effective and explosive 1A running back in his offense,

particularly an offense that might go very run heavy if Aaron Rodgers doesn't end up staying in Green Bay. At this point, we're expecting Rodgers to be there. I think that's going to be just fine for Aaron Jones, and I still think he's the better running back between him and A.J. Dillon. When I look at Zeke, you think about the body of work and the age, I look at the total touches that he had. And just in the regular season, he's over 1,900 career touches. I know that he's been dialed back in terms of touches over the last few seasons.

His yards per game has dropped really a large amount. 2019, 84.8 rushing yards per game. That fell to 65.3 in 2020. That fell to 58.9, not even 60 rush yards per game in 2021. If he comes to training camp and he doesn't look like the Zeke of old, old, meaning 2019 or before, then this coaching staff is going to say, and this is assuming that Tony Pollard comes to camp and he looks good.

They're going to start to think about using these guys and even more of a split than what we saw toward the end of last season. So I'm kind of, I'm more excited to draft Pollard a few rounds later than where we're going to see Ezekiel Elliott go. And there was a part of me that wanted to really be bold in my rankings and put Pollard ahead of Zeke thinking that Pollard will end up being the better running back in Dallas.

But I don't think I have to draft it that way But I don't think I have to draft it that way. I don't think I have to rank it that way. But I can certainly target Pollard and bet on Zeke not being effective or lasting long in this Cowboys run game. And that Pollard eventually does take over and gets a little bit more work than what we saw last year. And Zeke's work comes down. I assume Pollard would

still be behind AJ Dillon though yes okay this is as of now so Dillon in this scenario Dillon would still be the highest drafted maybe Kareem Hunt I don't know if he's back with the Browns uh you know number two running back who's the first tandem running back that gets drafted? Dylan? That's Pollard for me. Oh, really? It's Dylan for me. Interesting. Yeah, and that's obviously depending on what happens

there in Rogers. Okay, I have two more players on the list. Devontae Smith and Michael Carter. Now, Devontae Smith is really just a targets thing. They changed their offense, went very run heavy,

started with the Lions game, and they were one of the better teams in football just record wise in that stretch when they just basically became the Ravens of the NFC East and that was nine games for Smith, not including week 18 where he played 19% of the snaps

because they were just playing their backups. In his last nine games, he was on pace for 89 targets in 17 games. So I don't think we have a problem with Smith's talent here or anything like that. It's simply the targets and the offense. What, you know, can he overcome this? Dave, you can have the first word on Devante Smith. When would you draft him? And there's a lot of questions here, but do you still think he has elite upside, Devontae Smith? I think he's got the talent.

I'm worried about the quarterback, and I'm now worried about the offense because the Eagles, after what they experienced this year, I think they know that they need to make improvements in their passing game, but they've got to be so confident in their ability to run the football, and I think they're going to stick with that for as long as they can. And it might end up being for a while because they're pretty good at running

the football and they're pretty good at identifying running backs that can help them run the football. And I am worried about the target share and targets overall for Devante Smith. Great talent as a wide receiver, still love him, but it's not just the fact that he's not a candidate for 120 targets. How many of the targets that he will get are going to be catchable?

And I think that's going to be an issue where if he were playing with a great quarterback and someone that was just a great thrower, I don't think we'd think about it at all. But because Jalen Hurts has been inconsistent as a thrower, it is a concern. And so I've got him as a round six pick right now in PPR. I don't love it. I really don't.

I'm nervous that that might be even a little too high for a guy as talented as Smith is. Jamie, I assume Amonra St. Brown's ahead of Devontae Smith. Yes. But this is such an offseason to follow because they're in the Deshaun Watson conversation. They just lost Brandon Books. They might lose Jason Kelsey.

So what's this offensive line going to look like? Well, they have as much success running the ball. And do they need to throw the ball a little bit more and be a little bit more balanced? That's the next evolution of what, obviously, they're going to have to get from Jalen Hurts if he stays there. Do they invest in their skill positions with those three picks in the first round?

Do they go out and get another wide receiver after drafting one each of the last two seasons? And you can say potentially that they whiffed on both those guys, not necessarily putting it on Devontae Smith per se, but when you're not getting the production from that spot after Jalen Rager was a flop and then Smith just did not have that type of season. You know,

are they a little gun shy to, to go out and invest there? Or do they go maybe the more veteran route, maybe get it, you know, a proven commodity and that impacts Smith as well. So there's just so much, I think to keep an eye on here with this team.

Now, every mock draft you see is they're investing on either defense or their offensive line, which makes a lot of sense. But in any event, you know, if they, if they do decide to change the quarterback, which I think Watson's the only really significant upgrade out there, barring a Rodgers or Russell Wilson, or do they add other pieces there?

So I think it's a wait-and-see approach for Devontae Smith. If things stay the same, it's a defensive-heavy draft for them, it's an offensive line, slanted draft in some capacities, and it's Jalen Hurts and Smith as the lead guy. I think you should still consider him a very high-end number three wide receiver with the chance to take a step forward in his second season. I don't know how you guys quantify catchable targets, but without going back and looking at every single target, one of the things that I'll do is I'll find how many catches a receiver has,

how many drops a receiver has. I'll add those two numbers together. I'll divide that by the number of targets. And that gives me the type of rate that I'll believe a receiver had catchable targets. For Devontae Smith this past season, it was 64.5%. That's low. You expect that number to be significantly higher for pretty much any receiver in the NFL. Yeah.

Definitely needs better quarterback play. But also needs more targets. It's a bad double whammy. I don't want him to be Marquise Brown. There's just not enough volume there for Brown to ever really broken out until this year. And then he just did it for about half the season. He was almost on this list, by the way.

Michael Carter was the last guy I wanted to talk about here. I think it was just more, I think we were disappointed in his role when he came back from the injury, because Robert Sala was talking like Michael Carter was going to get right back into being a feature back with a heavy workload, and it did not really happen. He was trending that way before his injury, which happened in week 11.

And then last four games, he had eight, 16, three, and nine carries. So, Jamie, where are you drafting Michael Carter right now? Round three, four range, depending on how the running

backs come off the board. Round, what'd you say they're on three round four pretty that's pretty aggressive i'd say i think he's a good player i think this is a team that's going to take a step forward as well you know i i like the uh the way that the offensive line i think is going to take shape again you know this is a good unit that we saw some signs of last year. I think Zach Wilson gets better. Yes, the play from Zach Wilson needs to improve. Relying on his backs as weapons

needs to improve. I think we saw some of that toward the end of the season. I'm not going to penalize Carter so much for coming back from the injury, especially those final two games when he's playing Tampa Bay and Buffalo following the Jacksonville game. You look at those two run defenses and just the, I'm sure the game plan going into it was not necessarily to, you know, let's try and run it down their throats.

Now, you'd like to see more than three carries against Tampa Bay. But in any event, you know, I think Michael Carter certainly showed flashes of being a very good player, very good number two running back coming into the season. So, again, I'd prefer to get him in round four, but if we do see a very good player, a very good number to running back coming into the season. So again, I prefer to get around four, but if we do see a very heavy running back draft, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes around three, I would probably not.

I I'll, I'll take that back. I'm not going to draft until around four. Okay. I thought it was going to be more like around five, six guy, a guy for you, Dallas,

Dave, how about you? I've got him in round five for now. I'm excited about him. It's a double edged sword being a running back on the Jets. The positive is that we've seen Carter play well. As of now, he's the best talent in that backfield, and we've seen the coaches give him,

especially late in the year when he was healthy, they gave him a game or two, I believe, with 70-plus percent of the snaps. We've talked about the Jets' offensive line already a lot on this pod. I think that he's got the chance to prove that again, that he can be a really good lead back for the Jets. But we also know that as good of a, of a focal point,

the run game is for this Jets brain trust. They also come from San Francisco. They like to use multiple backs. So I don't know how often he's going to be in a situation where he's getting 70% of the snaps, 75% of the snaps, 20 touches per game. That holds me back just a little bit. Love the talent. I know that he can be a good three-down player. I wish he was a better pass blocker in his rookie year because I think that would have earned him even more run for next season.

But I'm happy to take him in round five. I'm not ready to take him even more run for next season but I'm happy to take him in round five I'm not ready to take him in round four at least not in full PPR one one other thing 36 catches for Michael Carter in 14 games and 21 of the 36 came in three games with Mike White there was in one more game that Mike White played, but only threw 11 passes at Indianapolis. He came out, and Carter only had one catch in that game, but he just did not catch passes from Zach Wilson. Certainly not saying that would continue, but it is worth noting.

21 of his 36 catches came in three games, and in those three games, Mike White threw almost all the passes. Zach Wilson threw something like 10 before getting hurt in the first of those games. But that was fun. That was fun. Is Mike White starting this week? Fire up Ty Johnson and Michael Carter in your PPR leagues.

All right, that's it for today's show, guys. Good stuff. Good stuff. Great second half of the show. So hopefully we'll carry that momentum into our Thursday episode with Chris and Heath, I believe. We'll talk about who's on that show, Shrag? Yeah, Chris and Heath.

Chris and Heath. We'll talk about some wacky stats from 2021. I always love those types of shows. Going to borrow some stats from Dave. He's got wacky stats coming out his ears. All right. We'll be back on Thursday. Check out Fantasy Football today at 5.

And download the CBS Sports app. And have a great day, everybody. See you later.