Fantasy Football Today - Covid News and "Do These Stats Matter?" (07/29 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

Nominate us on PodcastAwards for the Sports category https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup/ We've got several players who may have been exposed to the virus and even more players opting out. We'll... start the show with this big news before getting into our key stats ... From Ronald Jones' big plays to how the targets were distributed in DAL to Darrell Henderson's disappointing carries, we've got so many stats to go over and we tell you which ones matter ... We also touch on Matt Ryan's TD rate, Jarvis Landry's red zone presence, the MIA WRs and more ... Email us at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow 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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Starting point is 00:00:59 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, it's a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.
Starting point is 00:01:16 Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. Do stats matter? Which stats matter? Of course they matter. It's fantasy football, for crying out loud. You need stats in order to do well.
Starting point is 00:01:32 You don't get style points. Oh, I got 10 points in my fantasy league because my guy did a really cool touchdown dance. It doesn't happen. Stats matter. We're going to go over which stats mean the most to us, what interesting stats stood out to us from our hours and hours of research during the offseason.
Starting point is 00:01:49 And the offseason is kind of a thing of the past now because training camp is open and players are opting out and testing positive for coronavirus. I'm Dave. I'm joined by Ben Gretsch. I'm joined by Heath Cummings and Shraggy B producing the show as per usual. Gentlemen, a couple of rookies that we've got to talk about that have tested positive for COVID-19. Keyshawn Vaughn, Justin Jefferson.
Starting point is 00:02:15 We don't know that they've actually tested positive, right? That's right. It's fair to say. May have been around someone that had it. And a third rookie joins them, and it's the new titans right tackle isaiah wilson so we don't know for sure if they've tested positive just like he said my mistake for saying that but does does this kind of sting a little bit in the case of wilson because derrick
Starting point is 00:02:38 henry that offensive line is part of the reason why he was so good last year. Jack Conklin left. He was their right tackle last year. He gone. And now their current right tackle, the guy they drafted to replace Conklin, isn't going to be there for the start of camp. Does it hurt your sense of drafting Derrick Henry early? A little bit, yeah. I mean, I think Wilson is hopefully the long-term upside play at right tackle.
Starting point is 00:03:03 I think Dennis Kelly, their veteran kind of swing tackle last year, was going to compete to start at right tackle as well. So, you know, as long as he's still there. But, yeah, it's still going to be a downgrade from Conklin. Conklin's a very, you know, good. I don't know that he's an elite type of tackle, but he's a very good tackle. And, yeah, so it's definitely a little bit of a downgrade. He's getting paid like he's an elite type of tackle but he's a very good tackle and and yeah so it's definitely a little bit of a downgrade he's getting paid like he's an elite type of tackle yeah i made i made minor adjustments to justin jefferson and quichon vaughn i have not adjusted derrick henry yet i'm not sure that i
Starting point is 00:03:37 would expect the rookie to be better than his competition or significantly better in his rookie year but maybe i'm wrong on that. Maybe he steps up in the second half of the year. So maybe they just kind of get by with Dennis Kelly at right tackle, which isn't a bad swinging tackle, to be honest. He's probably one of the better ones in the league. And then Isaiah Wilson feels better, gets into the swing of things, gets some snaps along the way, and he's on his way to being a, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:04:02 six-time pro bowler. We're already not expecting derrick henry to be quite as efficient as he was last year i mean the dude was scoring touchdowns like crazy it was something like a touchdown every 18 carries that would be a good stat for the show yeah well we're gonna get to that stat and a lot of stats like that so i'll ask the question does that type of a stat matter does that make you want to draft somebody or is it kind of just noise and it doesn't really matter when you see a running back scores a touchdown
Starting point is 00:04:29 every X amount of carries or X amount of touches? With Henry and Aaron Jones specifically, what does, like most of the time, if that's a one-year thing, I would tell you, well, there's your regression candidate. And they still probably are, Henry and Jones, but they both also have done it for more than one year. And I would just say that you should probably expect, unless something goes wrong with Aaron Jones, which I guess it could,
Starting point is 00:04:55 but you should probably expect them to be amongst the league leaders in terms of rushing touchdowns. Last year, 16 games for Derrick Henry, he averaged a touchdown every 18.9 carries. In 2018, when he really broke out, it started in week seven and went all the way through the end of the season. He averaged a touchdown every,
Starting point is 00:05:16 are you ready for this, 11.9 carries. That's insane. So hopefully he ends up, obviously closer to the 11.9 number than than the other one but i i i still see him i i jamie is the one who's really the lowest on derrick henry sees him regressing because of the workload that he had last year but heath you also brought up a really good point i think it was last week that because these teams aren't going to get a lot of practices and pads before the start of the season maybe
Starting point is 00:05:45 they're not going to really have their tackling technique refined maybe they're not really going to know exactly what they're doing on defense and that just makes it easier for you know a crusher like derrick henry to just roll right through them right i mean i would it's going to be good for all running backs it's probably going to be better for a running back like Derek Henry, I suppose early in the year. I just, he's so, I don't really see how anything goes terribly wrong for him.
Starting point is 00:06:18 Unless he gets, I mean, he can get hurt obviously. Right. Or the Titans could just have like, it was a couple of years ago, the Falcons had half of their defense get hurt in the first half of the season, and they were just absolutely terrible.
Starting point is 00:06:30 That could, in theory, happen as well. But I think the Titans are a team that's going to be down seven and is still probably going to run a lot more than the average team would. I think they would do it if they were down 14. So Derek Henry's right tackle is on the COVID list. We'll see what happens with that. There are a lot of players who have opted out already. Now, they've got until August 3rd, everybody does,
Starting point is 00:06:52 to have the option to opt out from the season, not play any football at all. They can't opt out and then come back later. That's a no-go. You can't do that. And there's not really a name on the list that stands out big time for fantasy. Maybe you can make the case for Marquise Goodwin being that guy. I mean, that's the biggest high-profile offensive player
Starting point is 00:07:11 that is opting out, deciding not to play. He's got a young child. He doesn't want to risk his health. Ben Gretsch, have you looked over the list? I know Adam sent it in the notes for today's show. A lot of interesting defensive players, a lot of defensive tackles, a lot of big dudes who aren't going to play in 2020. Yeah, definitely some higher-profile defenders. I mean, New England losing Donta Hightower and Patrick Chung is pretty substantial for their defense.
Starting point is 00:07:40 Buffalo star Luda Lele, is it? Luda Lele. Nailed it. Big dude. He is also going to sit out. Very good defensive tackle. So those two defenses who we expected to be among the probably top five fantasy defenses are going to take a hit,
Starting point is 00:07:56 and that's going to be a pretty big impact on New England. I guess we'll just kind of have to wait and see with a lot of this because this is just the start of it, and we're going to get a lot of names for the next few days. Yeah, unfortunately, that's the way this is going to go. You might have heard me say something about the Vikings defense earlier this offseason. They lost four starters.
Starting point is 00:08:18 They lost another four players that were good contributors on defense. The biggest name that they got back in free agency to try and replace some of those starters was Michael Pierce, a defensive tackle, and he's opted out. So this Vikings defense, which we were already a little nervous about, now they've lost another big run stopper. So I'm real curious to see what that defensive line looks like and whether or not that hurts Minnesota's chances of having a year where they make a
Starting point is 00:08:44 playoff push. And I think that could potentially hurt Dalvin Cook, who has reported to training camp. There will not be a holdout. Heath, you can relax. Big sigh of relief, Heath, because you don't have to worry about downgrading Dalvin Cook. Now that he's back at camp,
Starting point is 00:08:57 we're taking him with the top five overall pick now, right? Yeah, I think he's right right there top five or six i actually um there have been a few minor adjustments to like pace and stuff the patriots i pulled back significantly on their total number of plays with half of their defense deciding not to play um but i actually changed the vikings um run pass split just a little bit more. They threw like 440 or 450 passes or something last year. League median was 575. I had Kirk Cousins at 509 attempts, which is still amongst the lowest.
Starting point is 00:09:37 And today I just bumped it up to 519 because I really do have concerns about their defense just flat out being bad. But what was funny was the wide receivers and we've talked about this before from like number six or seven in my projections down to like number 13 or 14 in terms of ppr were separated by maybe three fantasy points right and so i added 10 pass attempts to the vikings offense to get kirk cousins to 519 attempts still very low volume yeah adam theelin went from wide receiver 13 to wide receiver 7 in ppr wow so it really just did not take much maybe that just means that you've got more of a belief
Starting point is 00:10:19 in theelin getting those targets i mean you combine the combine the Justin Jefferson news, because that's going to slow his progress, with the defensive news, that their defense isn't going to be as good. They've got a lot of new faces in that secondary. I think the biggest takeaway from that is not so much that now Adam Thielen is a much better draft pick than he was. It's that of that tier of wide receivers, it's okay if there's five of them or six of them left
Starting point is 00:10:43 to wait around and take the one that's left because they've all got very very similar projections and it's not like dalvin cook doesn't catch the ball out of the backfield either he did a lot of that in fact he ranked second let's get into more stats 8.2 yards per target that was second best among running backs who had at least 50 targets in 2019 he's just got to. I mean, it's almost the same argument that we're talking about with Derrick Henry, except Henry has managed to stay healthy through most of his career,
Starting point is 00:11:11 whereas Dalvin Cook has not managed to stay healthy through most of his career. Ben, very quickly, could you imagine a scenario where you would take Henry ahead of Dalvin Cook? No. Is that quick? Not enough. You can't imagine it in non-PPR either. Henry ahead of Dalvin Cook? No. Was that quick?
Starting point is 00:11:27 Not in non-play. You can't imagine it in non-PPR either. I guess I can imagine it more in non-PPR. I still have Cook projected for substantially more points in non-PPR, and I have Henry two yards away from the league lead in rushing yards and two full touchdowns higher than anyone else in rushing touchdowns. But Cook is going to have probably 300 more receiving yards. And even
Starting point is 00:11:54 in non-PPR, those receiving yards matter for a total yardage in a number. So I still have Cook projected quite a bit higher in non-PPR, personally. I have Henry. Because I have Henry, like, they are very, very close.
Starting point is 00:12:10 I have Henry just ahead of him. I've got Henry at 270 more rushing yards, but Dalvin Cook at almost 400 more receiving yards. It's just touchdowns that's the big difference for me. I only have Cook at 100 fewer rushing yards. I got Cook at 1,200 rushing yards. I don't – yeah. I got Cook at 1,200 rushing yards. That's where I'm at too.
Starting point is 00:12:30 So I have Henry at 1,316. I don't have anyone projected for much more than 1,300. And you guys don't project injuries, right? So you're just – you're working on the assumption that these guys are both going to play 16 games. And if they're both going to play 16 games, I would agree with you. I think total yardage would favor Dalvin cook. I'm not sure touchdowns would favor Dalvin cook,
Starting point is 00:12:48 but I think believe it or not, even though Derek Henry had 60 more touches than Dalvin cook last year, I actually think health favors him and he might be the safer non PPR running back to get right now. I don't like when we had this argument earlier in the off season, I don't really think that there's a very good argument that Derrick Henry is more likely to get hurt this year than Delvin cook. Yeah. I'm not going to disagree with that.
Starting point is 00:13:12 Like just because he's had a ton of touches when the other guys actually been getting hurt and not getting touched because he's been hurt. Like that's a pretty thin argument. But if you had to, if you had to guess one of these guys was more likely to miss time because of a small injury. It doesn't have to be something that knocks him out for the season. I don't think it's Dalvin Cook.
Starting point is 00:13:32 Yeah, we're all in agreement. Okay, one last piece of news. Let's go to Philadelphia. We've talked a lot about these Eagles wide receivers, and we mentioned Marquise Goodwin not going to play this year. He's opted out. The Eagles have placed Alshon Jeffery on the active pup list. That means he can't actually practice with the team,
Starting point is 00:13:48 but he could potentially come off the pup list before the start of the season and be on the active roster. It's like something along the lines of maybe a few days before the start of the regular season. I don't know the effective date, but if he's still on the list at that date, he's forced out through the first six weeks of the NFL season. Something to keep in mind. I don't think anybody's drafting Alshon Jeffrey to be anything more
Starting point is 00:14:07 than a bench-wide receiver at this point. Okay. A quick other thing to promote is our YouTube page. Watch us on YouTube, youtube.com, slash fantasyfootballtoday, all one word. You see our faces and you get our reactions and how they come out here in real time on the podcast. Just a different way to consume the podcast.
Starting point is 00:14:29 What is it? You see Heath's V-neck. Yeah, yeah. Let me see what that looks like. There it is. That is a good looking V-neck today. Big draw. I'm going to leave that there.
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Starting point is 00:15:16 Shraggy B, can we tell them anything more about this, or have I already spilled the beans too much? More details coming Monday, but 75-inch TV tv and 55 inch tv giving away to our listeners on monday august 3rd the giveaway begins we'll have a link for you in the description and on cbssports.com but we are very excited to be able to give away two tvs to our loyal listeners i i don't think we've given away we've been doing this podcast for over a decade i don't think we've given away a tv ever we used to give away koozies and now we're giving away gigantic televisions, bigger than televisions than I have here in my
Starting point is 00:15:51 house. Okay. Let's get to the stats. Do they matter? Do they not matter? I'm going to read off a player. I'm going to read off the stat about that player. And then you guys tell me whether or not you believe that that means something or it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change how you view that player. Let's go really quick because there's a lot of players to get to. Let's start with Ronald Jones. It feels like we're talking about him every show now. It looks like he's going to be the buck starting running back.
Starting point is 00:16:13 Here's the stat. In week four against the Rams alone, he had 54 and 25-yard runs negated by penalties, one of which was an illegal shift that presumably didn't affect the play. His stat line shows more explosive plays in the passing game than on the ground last year, but he had a few long runs called back. Yeah, I think especially the passing game part. I mean, he looked explosive in the passing game. He averaged, I think, over 12 yards per catch. Obviously, these plays were called back, and the long one was a holding,
Starting point is 00:16:46 and maybe that sparked him, but he didn't make a good move in the second level. But if they were on a stat line, just the throw, you know, I mean, this is not really fair, but if they were, his 4.2 yards per carry for the season would have bumped all the way up to 4.6 yards per carry.
Starting point is 00:17:01 It would have looked a lot more explosive on the ground game, and with his explosiveness in the pass game, maybe we would have a completely different perception of him if these plays weren't called back by Palantir. Maybe the refs just missed the hold. I think it's pretty interesting. We've talked a lot about him
Starting point is 00:17:15 having a lot of yardage loss to Palantir. That was just in one game alone that I remember I went back and checked on, but I think it matters. I think he was a lot more explosive last year than he gets credit for. Right. You don't actually see those explosive numbers show up, Heath,
Starting point is 00:17:31 in secondary data metrics like on pro football focus because those plays didn't count. Yeah. I would not say that this doesn't matter. How's that for a double negative? I struggle with these things because what i really wish and maybe shraggy b can just do this this year i would like a database of all of these because we do this with players that we have a memory and we probably remember it
Starting point is 00:17:59 because we really liked the guy and we played him in dfs that week or like the Will Fuller dropped three touchdowns game and if he just caught the you know I think this happens with players that we totally miss and I don't know how that is in comparison to other players how many long runs other players had called back
Starting point is 00:18:21 but sure I'm not saying it doesn't matter we agree with the season about when a player has a touchdown called back, but sure, I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I agree with you. We bring up all the time during the season about when a player has a touchdown called back. Yeah. And they would have had a huge game if that touchdown hadn't been called back. I think it happened to Ryan Griffin at one point during the year when he was a streaming title. Austin Safarian almost touchdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:40 I think I agree with you, Heath. There's plenty that we miss. I also think that there are certainly cases where more yardage or bigger plays are lost on this type of thing for certain players than others. Definitely. I would almost certainly say that no one else, not no one else, but very few people had 50-yard runs, not no one else obviously, but 50-yard runs and a 25-yard run in the same game, both called back by penalty.
Starting point is 00:19:10 That might have not happened anywhere else in the league last year. Let's move on to Dallas' wide receivers. All three of Dallas' main receivers, plus Jason Witten, saw at least 83 targets last season. There were three teams whose top target getter didn't exceed 85. That was in Indianapolis, Tennessee. I think you probably could have predicted Tennessee and New York with the Giants. That's interesting that the Giants didn't have a top target getter get even 85.
Starting point is 00:19:37 So does this mean that the Cowboys passing game, it might be just too spread out to have one guy be amazing or even two guys be amazing because we're drafting amari cooper top 20 type of wide receiver maybe even close to top 12 and michael gallup is going to be a popular pick because of how he did last year and cd lamb is an exciting rookie that they added too many mouths to feed i look at this the exact opposite way i think this is a great stat for their passing game because it shows how concentrated they were um 80 plus targets for four different guys because
Starting point is 00:20:12 they mostly just ran their 11 personnel and didn't really throw to a lot of depth guys and i don't think we think about that enough in fantasy but if you look down the rest of their roster uh blake jarwin had somewhere in the 40s they had a you know zeke had 70 something targets blake jarwin had somewhere in the 40s they had a couple guys in the 20s and that was basically it no one else really had um any targets at all the guys just wanted to like tayvon austin and that's like 1.5 targets per game or something at that point so the vast majority of their targets were going to these main guys in the, in their typical 11 personnel, which I think is actually a really positive sign for Blake Jarwin.
Starting point is 00:20:48 Who's going really late because they have three great receivers and people are worried that he can't get enough targets, but if he plays as much as Witten did last year, he can easily get 80 in an offense that basically didn't rotate. Yeah. I think this is a very, this is the type of consolidated target share like they have in Atlanta that we should absolutely target in fantasy football. I would say like Dave, you asked too many mouths to feed. I might say there's one too many mouths to feed. Like I don't really think it's possible for Cooper, Gallup and Lamb to be starters in fantasy and Blake Jarwin to be a starting tight end and Zekiel Elliott to get 60 plus targets one of those things is not going to happen but I absolutely believe that Cooper and
Starting point is 00:21:31 Gallup and Lamb can all be good or Cooper and Gallup and Jarwin and Zeke can all get enough work in the passing game there's maybe some people view this as there's two too many mouths to be maybe just one there's one guy that's going to end up on the outs. So what's a fair round to take CeeDee Lamb in this year? I'm looking up his ADP on NFFC. It's at 101. So that's round nine. Perfect.
Starting point is 00:21:56 I was going to say that as well. Okay. I think, and to his point, I love this point. For me, it's been, and I've said this a lot this offseason, it's been Amari. As much as I like him as a player. He's the guy that he's the most expensive. I would like to play this passing game through Gallup, who had just as many targets as Amari last year,
Starting point is 00:22:14 or through Lamb or Jarwin as even a little bit later picks, because I think they're going to at least run as many routes as Cooper. They're going to all be on the field in these 11 personnel. Cooper might draw more targets, but is enough targets to pay that many more rounds of a draft pick? I don't know. Is this a friendship strategy team? Could you draft Amari Cooper in round four or five,
Starting point is 00:22:35 Michael Gallup in round six, seven, maybe eight if he's there? Get one of those guys and CeeDee Lamb in round nine and lock up a nice chunk of concentrated passing game. Sure. Love the Gallup lamb combo. That's one I've done multiple times. Next stat is about Kenyon Drake. Keith,
Starting point is 00:22:54 I'll get your opinion on this first 54 games with the dolphins. Kenyon Drake had three with 15 plus carries 11 games with 15 plus touches three games with 15 carries 11 games with 15 plus touches. He has played eight games with 15-plus touches. Three games with 15 carries, 11 games with 15-plus touches. He has played eight games with Arizona. Kenyon Drake already has four games with 15 or more carries, and seven of the eight games he had 15 or more touches. Does this cement Kenyon Drake as an every-down type of running back and one that has potential to get over, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:23:24 310 touches over the balance of the season, provided he stays healthy. I think it matters in two different ways. One, it matters because it shows you that Arizona believes Kenyon Drake is a feature back, and they are going to use him as a feature back. And yes, if he plays 16 games, he's going to be a top 12 running back in fantasy no matter, regardless of format. It also serves as a good reminder when you're at the end of the first round and you're comparing Kenyon Drake to the elite top three or four wide receivers and the Travis Kelsey's in that group. It's a good reminder that we've never seen Kenyon Drake
Starting point is 00:23:59 manage a workhorse role for an entire season. And that's something that we talked about with Damian Williams going into last year. It's something that we've talked about with, like, that is a, in my opinion, at least a skill to be able to handle 275, 280 touches over a 16 game season. And we haven't, not to say he can't do it, but that should, in my opinion, give you a little pause when discussing Drake versus those wide receivers and what the floor is, I guess. Okay, fine.
Starting point is 00:24:31 We've got a lot more interesting stats for running backs. I figured we could take a break from that position and look at some other ones if you guys are cool with that. Let's go with Matt Ryan, who, you know, he's a great passer. We know that he's going to put up a lot of yards. Doesn't quite get the same type of respect on draft day as a lot of other quarterbacks, probably because he doesn't run as
Starting point is 00:24:52 much. And that seems to be the trend that we're heading in, is quarterbacks that can run. For example, I'll ask each of you one word answer. Josh Allen, Matt Ryan, who are you drafting first if you have the chance? Allen, but I have them back-to-back. I don't want to decide.
Starting point is 00:25:10 Allen. Yeah, interesting that you guys are saying Allen, but you sound about as excited as my kid when I tell him that he's got to eat broccoli. So, Matt Ryan, this is an interesting one about inconsistent touchdown numbers. Passing yards the last eight seasons, I already talked about that, huge numbers year after year after year, usually around 4,500 yards, but in two of his last four, he's thrown for more than 4,900 yards.
Starting point is 00:25:34 I think we can all agree that there is potential for him to not only get to 4,900 yards, but let's go crazy, say he gets to 5,000 yards, that would be amazing. Touchdowns the last eight seasons, 32, 21 38 20 35 26 kind of a yo-yo here what what to make of that i don't know it's one of the most bizarre stats for all quarterbacks, is touchdown rate just bouncing up and down. I just kind of assumed that it would be probably pretty good most seasons, but it did kind of level off a little bit last year.
Starting point is 00:26:19 After being really up and down from 2016 to 2018, it was at least within a percentage point of his career average which it hadn't been in any other seasons um so i don't really know what to make of it no i don't like i think it's a good um it's a good point in that like guys like aaron rogers and russell wilson who have been like historically high touchdown rate guys, even those guys have low seasons. And so I don't think you want to put too much into like projecting a high touchdown rate for Matt Ryan. I've, I've got him slightly below average, but he's for his career now been slightly below average in terms of like
Starting point is 00:27:01 touchdown rates. So it's, it's tough if you're not going to be elite in that area and most quarterbacks aren't and you don't run like eight or nine is about your ceiling in terms of unless you happen to have that great touchdown rate season i will note that atlanta running back carries inside the 10. Last year, there were 20 of them. Five years ago, there was 39 of them. So that number seems to be trending in the right direction for Matt Ryan, the wrong direction for Todd Gurley. Todd Gurley is there now.
Starting point is 00:27:36 What's that? But Todd Gurley is there now. Yeah, that's true. But I don't know if that's necessarily a great thing for the Falcons. I don't think there's anything for Gurley. You will, I would say, like of all the quarterback stats, and I don't know if, I think Ben would agree with this, and it's basically true at every position in my mind.
Starting point is 00:27:57 If you wanted to bet on volume, either pass attempts, targets, rush attempts, whatever, if you wanted to bet on yards or if you wanted to bet on touchdowns you're going to lose a lot of money betting on touchdowns we can do a much better job betting on yards and betting on volume yeah i was just sitting here thinking about ryan's td numbers i remember last year he had several drop touchdowns i remember justin hardy had had some troubles in a couple of games late like early in the season they had some games that were decided because of dropped touchdowns that he was putting right on the money. And that's just a small part of Heath's point.
Starting point is 00:28:33 But touchdowns are just a small set of the overall plays, yards and those types of things. That's every play that you run over the course of the season. The touchdowns can be made or broken with just a couple of plays. In case you were wondering, it is the even-numbered years where Matt Ryan has had at least 28 passing touchdowns. He had 35 of them in 2018. Last year was one of those down years, only 26 touchdowns.
Starting point is 00:28:58 So maybe the yo-yo works in his favor this year. And we can kind of see it, right? We've kind of been making the case for something like that. could be a real good value there with matt ryan uh even with those inconsistent numbers all right another receiver set jarvis landry had 18 or more red zone targets in four of his last five seasons and he has finished as a top three in inside the 10 yard line targets in three of his past five seasons. Does that matter? Yeah. I think so. You just reminded me to look up and see if Jarvis Landry is starting on the
Starting point is 00:29:30 pup. We'll find that out real soon. He is, you know, we say this all the time, but this guy has beaten his ADP every year of his career, except I believe once. And he was only slightly below it that one year. It was after his best season and and people actually finally bought in, and it was his highest ADP ever. I actually have the numbers here.
Starting point is 00:29:52 He was wide receiver 15 in 2018. He finished wide receiver 19. And because of that, he went back down to wide receiver 26 last year, and then he finished wide receiver 12. And now he's wide receiver 32 this year because he always has to go i don't know way later than where he's going to wind up finishing he always has a really good value part of that because he is also kind of like the anti ben gritch wide receiver yeah um and part of it is that like he has beat his adp a few times by playing 16 games and been much closer to his
Starting point is 00:30:24 adp on a per game basis. Lack of upside for sure. That's part of why he gets pushed down. But he's just a really good, well-refined route runner. He has good hands. And as the case was last year, the team really did a good job of scheming him up in the red zone. And he managed to have a couple of extra touchdowns that way.
Starting point is 00:30:43 It worked out for him. And hopefully it works out for him again this year. Hopefully he's fine. Hopefully he avoids the puff list, and he's on the field week one for the Cleveland Browns. The next stat will be about Chris Godwin or Mark Ingram. Which one will it be? You're going to have to wait until after the break
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Starting point is 00:31:56 Securian Canada, insurance designed for life. Chris Godwin, 120 targets last year. We talked about him being a breakout player last year. He sure did come through. Top five fantasy receiver, and I think he's going to get drafted as such. He's the only wide receiver in the last five seasons to finish top five in PPR with less than 130 targets. Oh, no.
Starting point is 00:32:21 Less than. Fewer than. I'm an editor. Sorry. It's Less than. Fewer than. I'm an editor. Sorry. It's fewer than. But he also didn't play. Like, he only played 14 games. That's a fact, Jack.
Starting point is 00:32:34 This is more, for me, of a last year was a weirdly bad year for wide receiver scoring at the top than a Chris Godwin can't do what he did last year again because he didn't get enough targets um he would have had more well over 130 targets if he had played 16 games but it doesn't change the fact that he did finish that high I mean he only played 14 meetings but he finished that high with that few targets. He wouldn't have been top five in 2018. I believe he would have been in 2017, but it gets back to something we don't talk about with Chris Godwin for some reason, but he was extremely efficient and is a major regression candidate that no
Starting point is 00:33:17 one wants to talk about. I mean, we talked about with AJ Brown and he goes in the fourth round because of it. Godwin was very, very efficient last year on his opportunity. He's got a new quarterback this year i know he loves his slot for his slot receivers but godwin is not really the same type of slot receiver as a julian edelman or a west welker he's not really an option route
Starting point is 00:33:35 type five yard catch guy he had a 10 a dot these other guys were much lower uh up in new england that brady was targeting so heavily in terms of where they were catching their passes. So especially that and then 11 yards per target and a massive touchdown rate, there's a reason why I compared him to DJ Moore, and they're going way apart in ADP. Yeah, I will agree that I've not talked about Chris Godwin's regression enough. It's mostly because Chris Godwin is not, unlike A.J. Brown,
Starting point is 00:34:07 he's not being drafted to be better than he was last year. Godwin's being drafted probably a little bit higher than he should, but still not as a top two wide receiver, which is where he finished in 14 games last year. I wasn't talking about just you. I was talking about the market, because Godwin is going at the end of the first or end of the second, typically in the second round.
Starting point is 00:34:25 But I will say with Brown, Brown was wide receiver eight after becoming the full-time player in week 10. He wasn't a starter the whole season. And we know that. And he's still going significantly behind that. And that's the whole market too. It's not just you. But I think we could see that target share being better,
Starting point is 00:34:42 or at least the target volume being better for Godwin than it will be for aj brown just by the nature of the offenses that they're in in the roles that they play and couldn't chris godwin become this this this sounds a little funny but couldn't he become a slightly better version of the edelman welker slot receiver type that brady can throw to because i think he's a good route runner I think he's really quick I don't know if he's necessarily a burner down the field but I think he's got good hands on top of it and if he can learn option routes I don't think it's I think he's probably done some of that already he can just keep doing what he's doing we know that Brady likes to work inside out in his offenses I doubt that they're going to try and reprogram Tom Brady's brain at
Starting point is 00:35:24 this point especially without an offseason program I think that they're going to try and reprogram Tom Brady's brain at this point, especially without an offseason program. I think that could lead to really good volume for Chris Godwin. I'm not ready to rule him out having a better year than last year because of Brady being there. I can give a good stat that will explain my take there. I agree with you. He has a lot more skill and could be more explosive than those guys.
Starting point is 00:35:43 But I've been digging into the yards per outrun stat which is a lot of people's favorite stat this offseason it seems to be getting cited everywhere and particularly recognizing with some work that i've done over over this past weekend that um you know the major difference between yards per outrun and yards per target is targets per wrap that's the only difference and people hate on yards per target, but they love yards per route run. But that targets per route part is really the whole signal with yards per route run. And it's really an interesting stat. Edelman, for his last six healthy seasons, I built a little database. I can just pull it up quick. He had over 24% targets per route. Anything over about 20% was really good. Welker and his heyday went up over 30% at times,
Starting point is 00:36:27 but was definitely over 25% several times, meaning of all their routes, they're getting targeted more than a quarter of the time. Godwin last year was at 19.1% in an offense in a year where he was a top five receiver and was very, very good. Maybe that spikes up to 24%, 25%,
Starting point is 00:36:42 but I kind of think it's, he's not going to be the kind of guy that will draw that type of high, high percent of targets per route. He doesn't have to if he averages three or four more yards per reception than those guys. Sure. That's true, and I also think it's going to be harder for defenses to really try and slow him down when they've also got to account for Evans. And now Gronk, it's a different ballgame for this Tampa Bay offense as far as defenses are concerned because there was no Gronk there last year. So a lot of that addition is going to make it harder for defenses
Starting point is 00:37:16 to key in on Godwin. That means he's going to be a more desirable target for Brady to throw to. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he got a target 24% of the time that he ran a route this year. I think he's going to have a more desirable target for Brady to throw to, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he got a target 24% of the time that he ran a route this year. I think he's going to have a lot of good volume. Just to wrap up my take on him, I have him in the top 10. I have him wide receiver six in PPR. I'm taking him in the second round too, but just a little bit later.
Starting point is 00:37:37 And I never draft him because he goes way, way high. All right. Last non-running back stat that we'll talk about, and then the rest of the show will be running backs. Ryan Fitzpatrick, I believe Heath gave us this stat. This is a very, very, like I had to go to great lengths to put this stat together. Some of my best Acer work.
Starting point is 00:37:56 Would you like to give the stat? Sure, yeah. Ryan Fitzpatrick, we talk about the numbers before Preston Williams went out, but then we say, yeah, but some of that was with Josh Rosen. So it doesn't really count. Um, Ryan Fitzpatrick through 175 passes the first nine weeks of the season when Preston Williams was, um, still a part of the team. Okay. And we've got the stat line for Preston Williams, Devontae Parker, and Mike Gusecki over that period of time. Preston Williams caught 24 passes for 322 yards and three scores.
Starting point is 00:38:37 Devontae Parker, 19 for 257 and three scores. Mike Gusecki, 15 for 213 and no scores. The Gesicki, 15 for two, 13 and no scores. The no scores, who cares? The interesting thing was like when I had looked at the numbers for the first nine weeks and not separated out Fitzpatrick and Parker, Preston Williams had a pretty decent-sized target edge on Parker, and he had caught a couple more passes, but Parker was actually better in terms of yards and touchdowns
Starting point is 00:39:09 because Preston Williams was so terribly bad whenever Josh Rosen threw him the football. He threw it to Preston Williams more than anyone, and it was awful. Well, in these 175 passes, 37 of those targets, about 21% of the targets, went to Preston Williams. 36, 20% of the targets, went to Devontae Parker. And 21 targets went to Mike Gusecki. It's just, it doesn't really fit with the narrative that we got in the second half with Fitzpatrick of,
Starting point is 00:39:40 we love him because he's going to heavily target his number one wide receiver. He really spread the ball around a little bit more when he had more options. It was just after Williams went down with the ACL that he really started peppering just Parker and Gasicki. Fair enough. We'll see if Preston Williams is ready to go. I don't know if the Dolphins have a receiver that would take targets away from Parker and Gesicki if Preston Williams, let's just say he starts the year on the pup list.
Starting point is 00:40:10 I mean, he is coming back from an ACL. It takes players a lot of time to come back from those types of injuries. Often players come back in nine months. It wouldn't be surprising if he is. Are they the same guy when they come back in nine months, or are they a little less sure of themselves and maybe that shows up in their stats like i think this is one of the reasons why i'm not rushing right back to preston williams i'll never fault you for taking him with a late pick but i don't know i don't know if preston williams
Starting point is 00:40:38 can come back and be better than he was last year. He does well. And again, the difference is Devontae Parker is currently a round five pick. Mike Gesicki is currently a round nine pick. And Preston Williams is going at the 12-13 turn. So it's a value play more than anything else. I get it. And that's not a bad value play. And you could theoretically, let's just say you end up with Devontae Parker on your team.
Starting point is 00:41:01 Maybe you get him in round six and it's a good value. You get Parker then. You get Preston Williams later. You know the Dolphins are going to throw a lot. And, look, I don't think it's going to be quite as good when Tua takes over, but who knows when that will happen, if that will happen. Jamie said that a lot, and I just don't know. Like, with rookie quarterbacks, a lot of times it's because they're going
Starting point is 00:41:21 to scramble more. Fitzpatrick might run more than Tua. He might play more than Tua this year too I'm I don't know if the Dolphins rush Tua to the field anytime but Ben do you like do you have a strong degree of confidence that Ryan Fitzpatrick is going to be a better passer this year than Tua I don't and I have been kind of internally questioning our thoughts on that I think Fitzpatrick's good for his weapons because he's willing to chuck it and throw picks. And then the other side of it is just as good as we think Tua will be long term, how good are rookies typically, right?
Starting point is 00:41:54 We said that with Burrow. Like is it wrong to expect Burrow to just be great right away? So probably it's not really fair to expect Tua to be as good as Fitzpatrick, who's been at least serviceable. But it would not surprise me if he came in and was better than Fitzpatrick this year at all. I think if they had a normal offseason and a normal preseason, I would totally agree with you, but I think quarterback is maybe the toughest position to learn going from college to the pros, and it takes some time. I've cooled my jets on Joe Burrow for this year.
Starting point is 00:42:24 I don't know if he'll be that good. I'm not taking Tua unless it's a two-quarterback league or a deep super flex league, obviously, not even a typical super flex league. I think Fitzpatrick could have some staying power. I think he could be really good. Can we go back real quick? I just saw a tweet, and we forgot a major news item.
Starting point is 00:42:41 We did. Patrick Mahomes bought part of the Royals. That's why we forgot it. How awesome is that? Wasn't he like a Major League Baseball prospect? Well, his dad was a Major League Baseball prospect. Right, right, right. I remember I had
Starting point is 00:42:59 Patrick Mahomes' baseball prospect. I believe Patrick Mahomes was drafted by the Tigers. And now he owns part of a baseball team. Now he owns part of the Royals. It's going to be messy if he ends up going to another team at some point here. He's really kind of locked himself in. He's never going to another team, obviously, Dave. Well, probably not any time in the next 10 years.
Starting point is 00:43:17 Okay, let's move on to running back stats. Mark Ingram was the man last year. Had a bunch of touchdowns. Really came through for fantasy owners managers rather especially in non-ppr leagues here's the number i caught on to he only had six games with 15 or more carries and i don't know if he missed any games he might have missed one or two missed one toward the end did he he missed one right yeah yeah i didn't think he missed two i don't know why i said that but only six games with 15 or more carries. Does that bug you a little bit that
Starting point is 00:43:47 the Ravens are probably still going to be in this position, especially after drafting Dobbins, that they can just mix and match their running backs and just keep running the ball like crazy? Yes. Does it make you not want to draft Mark Ingram? I do not want to draft Mark Ingram? I do not want to draft Mark Ingram. Would you take him if he – are you comfortable calling him the last best number two fantasy running back? No. You think they're meaning that he's still better than that or worse than that?
Starting point is 00:44:17 I'm not 100% sure that I would rather draft Mark Ingram than Damian Williams. Wow. I'm taking Ingram over Damian Williams at this point. Ben Gretch? I have Damian Williams ranked higher. Boom! Sell me on it. Sell me on it.
Starting point is 00:44:37 Why would I take a veteran who's never gotten it done during the regular season over a veteran who has gotten it done? And let me tie in this other set about Ingram. He's played 15 or 16 games, three of the last four seasons in those three seasons with 15 or 16 games played. He's finished top eight in non PPR top 11 in PPR. He's done that with 205,
Starting point is 00:44:57 230, 202 carries. And he's had at least 46 catches. Two of those three years at 26 had 26 catches one of those years. That wasn't so good. But that was last year when he was with the Ravens. And he still managed to catch. He caught five touchdowns.
Starting point is 00:45:12 That's pretty preposterous. I don't think we can count on him doing that again. But I do think he's going to be the best running back in Baltimore, and this is a team that loves to run the football. Yeah, I have him ranked running back 28. I have Damian Williams running back 26. It's not like I'm shoving Ingram way down my list, and I probably am pretty high on Williams.
Starting point is 00:45:30 I think it's more about Williams. I mean, he's a pass catcher. He was very good in the playoffs again, and again, it was a small sample. And, yes, he's still never done in the postseason, but there was a lot of reasons to like him going into last year. And then, yes, he got hurt a bunch, and he wasn't ever the guy for fantasy. And I'm just not mentioning Clyde Edwards-Hilaire right now. But if he is able to start over Clyde Edwards-Hilaire,
Starting point is 00:45:51 his workload would be the reception from the touchdowns that I love, the high-value touches that I love. Mark Ingrams will probably never have that type of upside. But I don't have them very far apart at all. And, like, this is not something that because of who they were drafted by and the last three months of hype anyone will want to hear, but J.K. Dobbins is a better prospect than Clyde Edwards either. I agree.
Starting point is 00:46:18 Edwards earlier just landed in the right spot. Right? Like, if J.K. Dobbins had gone to kansas city let's say right but and they weren't separated like but we're everyone is behaving as if clyde edwards e-lair is just going to dispatch of damian williams with these and jk dobbins needs an injury for mark ingram to have a shot and i think the the reality for those two backs is probably much closer. Like they may have, it's not the same. I don't think Dobbin's path is quite as easy as Clyde's, but I don't think it's near as far apart
Starting point is 00:46:51 as people are acting like. I struggle with this a lot when we have these discussions because we're always trying to pinpoint what we think will happen. But I think that's a perfect example of something where I think exactly those things. I think Clyde Edwards-Solaire will eventually be the lead back in Kansas City.
Starting point is 00:47:05 They took him first running back off the board, first round. And I think that Ingram, because of what he means to their culture and everything, will be the lead back in Baltimore. But both of those things are very uncertain, and Heath just put it perfectly correctly. It might be 60-40 one way and 60-40 the other way on those two, and they're only a 20% probability difference. It's not a huge like certainty on
Starting point is 00:47:26 either of these so it's not crazy to be a little you know a little uneasy about which is the smarter smarter move i think there's a better chance of edwards e lair being in every down back in kansas city than there is of dobbins being in every down back in baltimore because i think the ravens and and the stats about about Mark Ingram kind of prove it, that they don't like to have just one guy all the time. They like to split it up. It was Ingram sharing last year with Gus Edwards and a little bit of Justice Hill.
Starting point is 00:47:54 This year Dobbins is going to get in there, and Gus Edwards is probably going to have a role too if he's not traded. I mean, maybe he's somebody that the Ravens look at trading along the way. I think there will always be multiple backs in Baltimore's backfield. And I think back in Kansas City, only averaged 13.5 touches last year. That was last year, but what about in the years prior? Reed has really
Starting point is 00:48:14 preferred one guy. In Kansas City, it's really been one year where he's used one guy. Well, I mean, you've got Kareem Hunt his rookie year. He had a ton of it and then when hunt was on the team in his second year he had a lot of games with a lot of touches too so i it's probably like every other situation where once a coach realizes he's got that guy he rides that
Starting point is 00:48:40 guy and until he realizes that he's got that guy he's going to use multiple backs. Detroit is one of the teams that uses multiple backs all the time. I got a stat on the Lions running backs. Heath's not drafting DeAndre Swift or Kerryon Johnson. And maybe this is part of the reason why. Only in half of the games coached by Matt Patricia so far in Detroit, that's 16 of 32, has a running back in Detroit had at least 15 touches in a game. Not 15 carries, 15 touches to one guy half the time under Matt Patricia and his pencil in Detroit. There was one game where two running backs had 15 or more touches in the
Starting point is 00:49:15 same game. Only eight times in two years has a running back had 20 plus touches in Detroit. And four of them came after Kerryon Johnson got hurt. So that's probably a strike against DeAndre Swift, unless DeAndre Swift proves to the coaching staff that he can be that main guy for them. So if you're drafting DeAndre Swift,
Starting point is 00:49:36 that's something that you've got to keep in mind. I don't know if there's anything either of you gentlemen would like to add to that, but I'll give you three seconds to pop in if you do. Moving right along to Le'Veon Bell. We have breaking news. Give it to me. Greg Williams.
Starting point is 00:49:54 That's the face I was just making when he was talking about Ingram, and I didn't know if we – is that a source that we're certain of? It's not a source we're certain of. He writes for the Bears Wire. He writes for a couple other places. Speculating that Nick Foles will be opting out. Interesting. It's not officially breaking news, but it's breaking rumors.
Starting point is 00:50:17 I saw in the replies, someone said, are you serious? He said, I heard a rumor about it in the morning, then saw a tweet that there's a player on the Bears offense that will be opting out, and the source that works closely with the Bears said on Nick Foles, I can only say he is by far and away the most likely. So that's his follow-up to that. I don't know that that's the same thing as what he said, where he said that he's going to opt out. We'll see. I mean, it sounds like it's a strong possibility.
Starting point is 00:50:43 Breaking rumor. Breaking rumor. You interrupted Le'Veon Bell's stat time for that? We were an hour into the show. I thought it was a good No, no, no. I'm messing around. You're talking about Patrick Mahomes buying the Royals. Yeah, come on. Let's keep an eye on that. Listen, the Bears made a big
Starting point is 00:51:00 move to trade for Nick Foles, and then Nick Foles is going to say, eh, I'm good. Go ahead with Mitchell Trubisky for the year. If that does end up happening, does that make you like Allen Robinson less? Anthony Miller less? It does. A little bit. I've been projecting Trubisky to start 16 games all summer long.
Starting point is 00:51:22 And he's been wrong all summer long, but now he's right. Seems like I'm the best girl. He's on the roof. No, the thing about Foles is that he doesn't scramble. So the pass attempt upside is a lot higher. And then I just think he's more accurate. So I did like him a lot. Not because he's a way better all-around quarterback than Trubisky,
Starting point is 00:51:40 just for attempts and a little bit more accuracy. That would be a lot better for the weapons than Trubisky. And I think Foles is a dinker dunker too. I think we've seen him leaning on that slot receiver a lot. We were counting on that last year with D.D. Westbrook. It really didn't happen because Foles got hurt, and Minshew is the opposite of that. But it would have been okay for Anthony Miller.
Starting point is 00:51:59 I think it would have been good for Tariq Cohen also because of the reason you mentioned, because he's not as mobile as Mitch Trubisky. Maybe the door's open here for Mitch Trubisky to have that breakout year. He's got to play fearlessly, though. That was a problem. He did not do that last year. Le'Veon Bell, he has played fearlessly in the past.
Starting point is 00:52:16 He's been an amazing fantasy running back. But Adam Gase doesn't quite see it that way. Last year, 20.7 touches per game. There are running backs in Detroit that would kill for something like that levy on bell 20.7 touches per game or a career low he had more than that in pittsburgh and now he's got frank gore joining him and say what you will about frank gore but each of the last two seasons he's averaged 10.7 attempts per game are we looking at fewer touches for levion bell in 2020 i would assume it's hard to expect more um i go back and forth on levion bell but what i'll say is if like on cbs adp he has a third early third round adp that's a boom um but in a lot of our drafts, he's available
Starting point is 00:53:06 at the end of the fourth or early fifth round, and I do think that there's a lot more upside than downside at that cost. He had just 12 touches inside the 10-yard line last year, Ben. At the very least, if his touches are going to come down, at least can he get
Starting point is 00:53:22 more work inside the 10 this year? The Jets would have to be able to move the ball towards the end zone for that to happen. I don't know if we're going to see that. They still don't have a good offensive line. They still got Adam Gase. I mean, maybe, but I'm not really buying it. Well, their defense is going to stink too,
Starting point is 00:53:36 so that might help for Le'Veon Bell's catches because they'll be trailing. Maybe that gives them 10 to 15 extra catches by the end of the year. It's just a matter of just whether or not they're going to give them all that work. And the science telling me they add Frank Gore, they draft Michael P Ryan P Ryan can do some of the same things that Le'Veon
Starting point is 00:53:55 can, I'll be at not to the same level. They can mix and match running backs there and really, really hurt Le'Veon's chances to get close to 250 touches this year. I think his numbers could go down after averaging 20.7 last year. I got two more stats for you. They're both about running backs. One's one that we're going to draft with a top 24 pick,
Starting point is 00:54:15 and another one's a guy that will never come near the top 24 this year in drafts, but it's about Daryl Henderson in L.A. Cam Akers is there now. Malcolm Brown was there. He had five plays total last year of 10 plus yards, 19 rushes for two yards or less. So kind of a feast or famine type year for Henderson. I remember watching him just consistently run into the backs of his offensive
Starting point is 00:54:40 line. So I wonder if he worked on his vision this year, but his explosiveness came out in those five plays. I don't know if that's necessarily a stat that makes you want to buy into him at all, but. Or maybe they should work on getting him in space more. Like they said, they were going to last preseason and then they never really threw him the ball. I mean,
Starting point is 00:54:57 they were comparing him to Alvin Kamara last preseason sounds like a guy that they should be comparing his usage to Alvin Kamara, but they didn't really do it. And so maybe that's what they can do with him, and he just didn't really know what he was doing last year. Maybe it's as simple as that. And this year the light switch is flipped on for him. It would be great.
Starting point is 00:55:15 It would be great. Heath, you gave us the last stat. It's about Austin Eckler. It's a great stat. Hit us with it. Acer stats. Without Melvin Gordon last year, Austin Eckler had 80 touches for 490 yards and six touchdowns in four games.
Starting point is 00:55:37 Now, we all recognize he's not going to do that. So cut his touchdowns in half. Cut his targets in half. And give him a 16-game pace. Okay, okay. That's 1,400 yards, 48 receptions, 12 touchdowns, RB9 and non-PPR, RB7 and PPR. You just took a four-game sample, cut part of it in half, paste it to 16 games. Paste it to 16.
Starting point is 00:56:03 The point is… The ultimate Azers stat. Thank you. paste it to 16 games paste it to 16 the point is the ultimate azure step thank you i don't really think there's as much risk with austin eckler as everyone is acting like there is joshua kelly was not someone like maybe the chargers were excited about him i don't think joshua kelly is someone anyone was excited about coming into this draft he is a guy to compete with Justin Jackson. Justin Jackson and Joshua Kelly are not competition for Austin Eckler. If he does see a huge reduction in his targets, he's going to see more carries. He should see 250 touches. He's one of the most efficient backs in NFL history. He's going to be very, very good. Maybe he has a terrible year and he's only like
Starting point is 00:56:46 RB 12 or something, but that's not like there's this. I don't think this is a disclaimer. I don't think there's really a risk that Kelly or Jackson takes the entire Melvin Gordon role, including the targets that he was getting, including the red zone work that he was getting. And Eckler just goes back to what he was in 2018. I think it would be the dumbest thing ever if that's what happens because Eckler has proven to be efficient all the time but he was really good in the four games without Melvin Gordon at the beginning of last year and I think that the way that the Chargers have paid him and the way that they've worked their running backs this offseason I think it tells you that Austin Eckler is going to be that lead guy now you mentioned Josh Kelly and he kind of had the Keyshawn Vaughn treatment when we were
Starting point is 00:57:28 going through running backs back in March and April leading up to the draft. We didn't really talk about him that much, but at the senior bowl, he was pretty good. He actually ended up impressing me. He was my favorite running back there. He's, he might be, he might actually be a little bit better than Keyshawn Vaughn, but I don't think that means that he's plopping into 15 touches week after week as a rookie. He'd have to have an amazing training camp in order for that to happen. So I'm with you. I think Austin Eckler does have that potential
Starting point is 00:57:52 to be really, really good in PPR and definitely not bad in non-PPR. Could be top 12 in both. Could be top five in PPR. A good pick to take for sure. He could be Alvin Kamara, really. be awesome he can be alvin camara really like and he may just be alvin camara he could be awesome eckler some people compare him to alvin camara before he even did that i mean i don't know who but some people tweeted about that last year
Starting point is 00:58:17 and then got a bunch of flack for thinking that austin eckler was really near alvin camara really thank you for highlighting my tweets. What was your favorite stat from today's show? Do you guys have a favorite stat from today's show? Was there one stat that just resonated the most with you? It was one. The one. We have one minute until our mock draft starts. Ah, that's your favorite step in the show?
Starting point is 00:58:50 No, yeah, for sure the Ryan Fitzpatrick, because I could just see Ben seething over the Mike Kosicki disrespect. Oh, no, that's what I was reading about, Nick Foles. I didn't even hear you talk about Kosicki. The Nick Foles numbers were good. I like the Kenyon Drake one. It helps me make the case for Kenyon Drake. Ben, do you have a favorite one
Starting point is 00:59:09 or should we just wrap this thing up? I mean, probably the Dallas one, I think is really interesting. I think offenses like that, it's always good to leave your draft with at least some piece of that type of an offense. Heath said it. We've got a mock draft to go to. We'll tell you about it on the next edition of that type of an offense. He said it, we've got a mock draft to go to.
Starting point is 00:59:26 We'll tell you about it on the next edition of the fantasy football today podcast. We appreciate you listening. Tell your friends to subscribe along with you, wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll tell you more about this TV's in the coming weeks for Ben Gretsch, for Heath Cummings.
Starting point is 00:59:39 I'm Dave.

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