Fantasy Football Today - Daniel Jones or Geno Smith? Plus Lamar Jackson Thoughts! (03/07 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

JOIN OUR BRACKET CHALLENGE! https://picks.cbssports.com/college-basketball/ncaa-tournament/bracket/pools/kbxw63b2hazdeobtgy4a====?pool-join-key=3nwmh3dy803sd203tc593rx2jbex5wvt&invited-by=ivxhi4tzhiytenztgqzdombu&via-medium=copy&ttag=FF23_lk_cbssports_cbb_bpm_copySetupInvite Talking quarterbacks on this special edition of Fantasy Football Today as we react to the latest news. We start with the Giants news as they have signed Daniel Jones and tagged Saquon Barkley. Would the guys rather have Jones or Geno Smith (5:45)? In general, are we buying Geno Smith? Then we spend the rest of the show discussing Lamar Jackson (11:15) as he received the non-exclusive franchise tag. Will he stay in Baltimore? Where do we want him to end up (18:00)?  Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection 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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Off to the races, and he stays on his feet. He's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. And welcome to a special edition of Fantasy Football Today. It's Tuesday afternoon. The franchise tag deadline has come and gone, and we have six players getting the tag, including Saquon Barkley, obviously Josh

Jacobs, who we talked about yesterday, Lamar Jackson getting the non-exclusive franchise tag, also long-term deals for Derek Carr, we talked about yesterday, with the Saints, Daniel Jones back with the Giants, and Geno Smith back with the Seattle Seahawks. I am Adam Azer, back with Dave Richard and Jamie Eisenberg.

We'll hear from Heath tomorrow. All right, guys. Jamie, I'll throw it to you first. Biggest news. What do you think the biggest, most fantasy-relevant news? We also have the DeAndre Hopkins rumors. We got Tom Brady rumors. We got the Jets meeting with Aaron Rodgers.

What are we leading the show with, Jamie? It's got to be the Giants. I mean, come on, man. Danny Dyer's getting paid. Saquon's staying. You know, this was the ideal scenario, I think, if you're hoping for the Giants to run it back and see what these guys can do,

knowing the implications of the positions that they play and what might happen. So Daniel Jones was great for Brian Dayball. He was pretty good for fantasy managers. Always Saquon Barkley was back to being that elite-level running back once again. So for me, it's the Giants news today. Yeah, I mean, it's every day is the Giants news, obviously.

Dave did not like the Giants moves. It was very critical off the air. Or were you just trolling? No, I don't like it. I think they overpaid Daniel Jones. It's the position, though. You got to pay. It's too much.

It's four years, 160. I got to pay. It's too much. It's four years, 160. I haven't seen the guaranteed on it yet. It's 82 million over the first two seasons. I don't know how much of that is actually guaranteed. I'm sure more is guaranteed than just 82 million. It's too much. They must really think that they could not find an alternative to Daniel Jones. Probably not in the draft and probably not in free agency, but now you're, now

you're married to him for the next couple of years at least. And you better hope that you play the Minnesota Vikings a lot because otherwise it's going to be tough. So we'll see, maybe he gets better if they add some more talent around him. We already know that offensive line's moving in the right direction. The running backs are moving in the right direction, obviously, with Saquon staying. But, man, it's a lot of money to pay for a guy

who hasn't won a lot in the first four years. Well, it doesn't sound like you're too enthused about his fantasy prospects. I don't think I'm going to put him in my top 12. No, I don't think that's going to happen. And for now he's top 15, but I mean, he, for me, he's behind Kyler Murray just because I don't know how much I'm willing to trust Daniel Jones as anything more than a good number two fantasy quarterback, a bi-week replacement.

Do I think he's got high upside that he could finish as a top 10 quarterback next year? Nope. I know he runs and that's great. He doesn't throw a lot of touchdowns, doesn't get a ton of yards. Until that changes, I think it's pretty easy to fade Daniel Jones.

Okay, Jamie. Well, I don't want to be a Giants fan anymore after that. Can you? Well, I mean, he's one of nine quarterbacks in NFL history with 3,000 passing yards and 700 rushing yards. And so he did that with Isaiah Hodgins, Richie James. Don't you dare forget Darius Slayton. Don't you forget Wondell Robinson.

I mean, it's extremely frustrating, I'm sure, for anybody to not play with superstar talent at that position. And while they may not be able to land DeAndre Hopkins, they may not be able to draft a guy that's going to step in right away and be a star. It's hopefully going to be an improvement on that group for next season. And so, you know, even if it's just those guys getting a little bit better and then, you know, replacing Slayton or Shepard with, you know, somebody that's just of a little bit better quality. So, you know, Brian Dable was on the Bill staff when they were aggressive enough to go get Stephon Diggs and help Josh Allen. And, you know, I think if they give some better weapons to Daniel Jones,

then there's a little bit more to like. So I'm going to take him over Kyler Murray unless Murray's ready to go week one. But I think he's, you know, probably I'm probably just a little bit more optimistic than Dave. I don't think you want to draft Daniel Jones to be your number one guy, but if I have him in dynasty, I'm excited about that. If I draft him in a super flex to quarterback league, I'm excited about that. These guys that run and he's with a coach that has certainly helped his quarterback run and be a successful fantasy option. Again, I'm not going to compare Daniel Jones to Josh Allen, but you saw some flashes of him being able to do some of those things. And that athleticism

is hard to replicate. That potential is hard to replicate. And so you get this type of player with a late round pick. If it goes from 3,700 to 3,500 and 800 or 4,700. You know, that's a pretty good fantasy quarterback there. So it might be ugly how he gets it done. It might be a big week against Minnesota and a crappy week against Philadelphia. That could certainly come into play. But I liked what Daniel Jones did with the first year with Brian Dable, and I hope he can replicate it once again.

I think you got to believe in Brian Dable if you're going to believe in Daniel Jones. Yep. And that's, you know, we'll see to what degree people will believe in Brian Dable. All right. Saquon Barkley also getting the franchise tag, so he'll stick with the Giants as well. How about this? How about Daniel Jones or Geno

Smith? Who would you guys rather have? I haven't re-ranked Smith after signing, but he was considerably behind Jones in my rankings before. Really? So I doubt he'll be that much. I don't think signing, but he was considerably behind Jones in my rankings before. Really? So I doubt he'll be that much. I don't think he'll be ahead of him. Because he was significantly better than Daniel Jones this year. He was the number

five quarterback in fantasy, which I tweeted yesterday. I think Geno Smith was the number five quarterback in fantasy. Might be the most surprising statement to be made about the 2022 season. I was like, Jamal Williams scored, what, 17 rushing touchdowns. That one's pretty shocking. But Geno Smith was the number five quarterback at fantasy per game. He was number seven and four point number eight and six point,

one of the best surprises of the year. So why then is Daniel Jones, by the way, he rushed for 366 yards. Geno Smith is not Daniel Jones, but that's not bad at all. Why would you guys rank Daniel Jones ahead of Geno Smith. He's not Daniel Jones, but that's not bad at all. Why would you guys rank Daniel Jones ahead of Geno? Again, for me, it's, it's the upside card. You know, I think Geno Smith was fantastic. I like to see Daniel Jones with DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett as well. You know, that's a big part of this. Geno gets that benefit of, of the better receiving core. So if the Giants can add something to Daniel Jones, I think there's more to like about the ceiling for Jones. But again, these are two guys that if you take a shot on Kyler Murray,

if you take a shot on seeing if Deshaun Watson can be Deshaun Watson again, if you are not sold on Trevor Lawrence being that guy that's going to take that leap, Dak Prescott maybe taking a step back, the guys that are going to be somewhere in our rankings, 7 through 10, 12,, the Dak Prescott, maybe taking a step back, you know, the, the, the guys that are going to be somewhere in our rankings seven through, through 10, 12, whatever the case may be, then these are very good. Number two quarterbacks that can certainly help you. Derek off is another one, you know, so just guys that have plenty of upside as, as, as we've alluded to a Jones and as we saw with Gino Smith. And so I think Gino's got, you know, the world of potential. Clearly it was not necessarily all about just Russell Wilson.

It was about those receivers certainly propping up the quarterback there, and hopefully that's the same thing once again. All right. Yeah, so Dave, how much do you buy Geno Smith, I guess, as a top eight quarterback, which is what he finished as per game last year? Honestly, I know you're shaking your head. I just want to give the – he was really, really good. I just remember us – our jaws were dropping all year.

Man, it's not just that he's putting up big numbers like a Carson Wentz or a Ryan Fitzpatrick in previous years. He is playing great. And statistically, he had one of the best seasons of anyone. And he completed almost 70% of his passes, which was insane. So nobody wants to buy it, Dave, I suspect. Where are you on that? I'm not ready to spend a quality draft pick in a one QB league on Gino Smith. If we're talking to two QB league,

then he'll be a prominent pick. Someone will take him to be a number two quarterback. He averaged 21.4 fantasy points for the season. You could say, well, he started off red hot and then he trailed off. He actually averaged 21.8 in his last 10 games, but in his last four regular season games, one of them was against the 49ers. He was pretty bad. 17.1. I'm wondering if teams, especially the NFC West will be better prepared for the Seahawks offense and at least their passing game this coming

year versus last year when at the beginning of the season and maybe even through the midpoint of the season, they didn't really believe in Gino Smith. And so now another year for all these teams to kind of study them a little bit more. I feel like I need to see Seattle make some improvements on the offensive line and maybe add another pass catcher to help them out even more before I start seriously considering Gino Smith as a top 12 type of wide receiver. Should now here's an interesting question. Should he go ahead of Kyler in a fantasy draft,

assuming that Kyler is going to miss half the year. And my answer to that would be, I think I'd say no. I think I'd rather have Kyler draft him, stash him on IR, and then find a quarterback of this ilk, be it with my last pick in a draft or off a free agency, once I make the roster move to put Kyler on my IR, to go ahead and pick up somebody like Geno Smith and use that guy until Kyler's really ready to go,

provided that the offense that Kyler's in is actually good, which we don't know for sure if that will even be the case. And it probably won't have DeAndre Hopkins, it seems. Get to that in one second. Follow-up questions here on Daniel Jones and Geno Smith. Would you take either of them ahead of Deshaun Watson? No. No.

How about T Watson. No. No. How about Tua? No. Not as well. Daniel Jones, yes. Tua, no. Not yet. How about Jared Goff? I would take Jones over Goff and Goff over Geno.

I have it that way, too. Okay. By the way, we have more news items to get to, including an update on the draft. The other thing about, you know, just real quick is the Seahawks have enough draft capital that if they still want to take a quarterback.

And I saw somebody suggest Anthony Richardson, if he's there, that's a, that's something that would obviously be a little bit of a negative for Gino. And, and, and they wouldn't be afraid to do that.

Remember once upon a time, this regime drafted Russell Wilson paid Matt Flynn and they went with the younger player who was better and they have the fifth overall pick uh they have from denver chicago houston arizona indianapolis and seattle and still confirming the saints have the 30th pick so the draft yeah i mean seattle it's the right way they in the draft. Yeah, I mean, Seattle actually plays it the right way. They just keep trading back and acquiring more picks. Yeah. Okay, what else we got here?

So how about Lamar Jackson getting the non-exclusive franchise tag, which means other teams, it's a lower number, about $32 million. Other teams can negotiate with Lamar Jackson. The Ravens would have the right to match any offer. And if they do say, okay, you can go to another team, they get two first-round draft picks. But, Dave, what's your vibe here with Lamar Jackson and the Ravens? I haven't seen a lot of positive reports, I guess, in terms of the relationship there, but it is just reports right now.

It's been reports for like two years, Adam, that there haven't been positive conversations between the two sides. And it makes you wonder, do the Ravens really want Lamar? Does Lamar really want to sign with the Ravens? Like, what's the hang up? Now, I would imagine that Lamar would sign with the Ravens if they were going to give him to Sean Watson type of money. But that's a quarter of a billion guaranteed. I think the Ravens are basically saying to him, all right, look,

we can't come to an agreement on what you're worth, but we now know that you can test the market, see what you get. Remember the Ravens have the right to, to match an offer. So if let's just say he, he signs with Carolina and Carolina offers him 200 million guaranteed, which I would imagine Baltimore's come close to doing just something crazy and better than Daniel Jones type money, but not quite Josh Allen type money called 42 million a year. The Ravens can still match it. They'd say, okay, that's cool. I know that we're turning

down two first round picks, but we're getting the quarterback that we want. He's agreed to this contract. We're just going to pick him up at that contract. So I feel like that that's kind of where Baltimore is at right now. I'm not saying that they're completely letting him go, but if the, if the contract is ridiculous, if a team is going to give him $51 million a year guaranteed or something like that, then I think the Ravens would say okay we'll take your draft picks and now we're not going to have any cap problems for a while we just have to go and find a quarterback I think the next question is what does it mean for fantasy and I just think Lamar is Lamar

you know what the upside is we saw that in his 2019 season we saw that in the year after that he can get to around 25 fantasy points per game. But the downside is what we've seen over the last two years where he's been below that. And there've been injuries along the way. So it's really going to come down to who is he throwing to what's the offense like and how healthy can he be and how happy will he be with a contract?

And now that he is on the verge of getting a long-term contract, what does that do? How does that change his calculus moving forward? Man, we have a great stats crew at CBS Sports, and they sent out, how about this? Since 2018, when the Ravens drafted Lamar Jackson, they have the fewest receiving yards by wide receivers in the NFL in that stretch.

They are 31st in spending money on wide receivers and 31st in spending money on offense. And he is the only quarterback in those five seasons, 2018 to 2022. Jackson is the only quarterback that leads his team in scrimmage yards. So, you know, He's been there often. He hasn't had a lot of help. Jamie, do you view him as an injury risk? Because in his first three seasons he did not miss any games due to injury. He did miss some

due to rest or illness, but he's missed 10 of his last 22 games including the playoffs due to injury. Again, thank you to our CBSSports.com stat crew here for that. But do you view Lamar Jackson as an injury risk? I think anytime you have a quarterback that plays the way he does, you have to consider him an injury risk to some level.

So, you know, he's going to put himself in harm's way because he's such an elite talent and such an elite athlete, and that's just the nature of his game. And so I don't think you have to necessarily view him as somebody to avoid drafting because of injury but that always has to be in the back of your mind so i think if he's you know to go back to some of the quarterbacks that we talked about you know if you want to just make sure you get a high upside number two guy on your roster you might be doing that a little bit sooner than the rest of your league if you

know the rest of your league is taking two quarterbacks so you pair him with the daniel jones you pair him with a jared goff you pair him with a geno smith and then you're covered just in case there is that that injury situation that arises so um but the last two years have told us that you know and again when you you have these contract scenarios at play how much of it was he's covering himself and i don't think he's that type of player but you just have to you know wonder you know the knee injury was he going to come back at 90 was he going to come back unless he's 100 or he's going to say you know what i'm i'm not risking my my family's fortune that's coming and i'm going to just be cautious about my my own health and my own future so again he doesn't strike me as that type of guy and i think

you know his his sentiments that he shared with the injury last year sort of speak to that. But you never know just how much that played into it, why he was missing these last two seasons when he didn't have that guaranteed money. So I hope he gets paid. I hope he gets the right situation. I hope he goes out and plays like Lamar Jackson once again.

And I think Dave hit it on the head. You know, no matter where he goes, I don't think any team is bringing him in to make him a system quarterback. I think they're bringing him in to make him Lamar Jackson. We want you to throw eight yard slants and that's it, please. Right. Uh, you know, one thing that's encouraging about Lamar Jackson, you look at his past attempts per game in the four seasons that he's not the first year, you know, that was, he was kind of a gimmicky player. Uh, no matter how many passes he has thrown, he has always had

the rushing totals. There has never been a season where he hasn't been an elite rusher on a per game basis. I have a couple more Lamar Jackson questions for you. I'm going to ask you on the other side of this real quick break. With Smartwater's pure crisp taste, there's nothing to overthink. So while you may be spiraling over double texting your crush, whether your skincare routine is working because you look the same or is doing nothing because you look the same and whatever the heck red light therapy is. It's definitely not that. Don't overthink how you hydrate.

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That's the team that knows how to use him because they've been doing it i'd like to give him a weapon you're asking me this is from like a fantasy perspective yeah yeah so i i mentioned this to a couple buddies that uh if i'm the dolphins i'm offering two twos and two up and and see what would what that would look like you'll get shut down oh and of course it gets shut down but um you know if if if the Dolphins could find a way to get Lamar Jackson he's a hometown kid you know South Florida and you put him with Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle and Mike McDaniel's system I mean I

I think it would be pretty fun to watch um but I mean now look again you know he's he's he's done this without weapons you know I mean not not to disparage Mark Andrews but that's been his only guy you know so Marquise Brown's a good receiver you know uh the receiving core that's been around those guys just hasn't been to the same level as you illustrated adam so um any situation where it would like if he found his way to the raiders that'd be fun as hell to see him with davante adams and and darren waller and that group there on on on that surface you know and especially in that division where there's going to be a lot of points being scored, that'd be fun too.

Oh, gosh. Would that knock Devontae Adams out of the second round? That's the thing. I like Lamar Jackson, but I do not want any great wide receiver to have Lamar Jackson as his quarterback just because he runs so much. But that's also been in a different system with those receivers. I mean, he's never had that type of guy.

Yeah, I don't really know. I just, you know there's going to be less pass volume than basically any other quarterback in football. But we'll cross that bridge if we ever get there. And finally, where's Jackson in your rankings? He's been oscillating between fifth and seventh for me for a while. He is at seven right now. He's right there for me to the same,

same range. He's behind the top four guys. I have Herbert ahead of him right now. I think he's six. Me too. And I, I did this thought exercise in the last hour. What team would he jump past Joe Burrow on? So Burrow's my QB4. Where would he have to land for him to be my QB4? I can't name a team. There's only one for me that could use him right now just because of their situation. It'd be San Francisco.

Yeah, interesting. All right, that's Lamar Jackson. Let's see, we got... Let's talk about... What do you think? Hopkins, Rodgers? We have a show tomorrow, too, so... There's nothing that's happened with those guys yet.

Yeah, I'm going to let the Rodgers rumors kind of play out. But apparently they've already. It looks like he's moving. The Cardinals have worked out, have set the parameters for a trade for DeAndre Hopkins. And Dallas seems to be a rumored destination. They're going against Mike McCarthy's philosophy, right? Well, maybe they'll turn him into a running back.

Or a running back. Or a defensive back. The six players who got the franchise tag were three running backs, Saquon Barkley, Tony Pollard, Josh Jacobs, Lamar Jackson, a quarterback, Evan Ingram, and Washington defensive tackle, Deron Payne. And that's pretty much it. I shaved my beard.

It was a little itchy. Sorry about that. Tell us about your friend. We had a very nice blind friend date. Nice guy. Good burger. We shared the fig jam and goat cheese flatbread appetizer. It was excellent.

Actually, I meant to ask a question to Dave. Dave, how's your back? How's your back? Oh, it's way better. Oh, good. The back is way better. The calf, ankle, buttock, and rib cage, however, not as good. Not as good. Well, what happened? You just all compensating for the back? Adam, I joined a gym. Oh, you really did? I've been to the gym more than you went to your gym. Oh. And I'm 46 years old.

I'm not the same guy that I was even when I used to go to the gym five years ago. See, Jamie, I sent Dave a picture of a milkshake because I thought he'd be interested in it. It was an epic milkshake. And then he said the next day I joined a gym. So I thought you were joking. Oh, I thought you were going to say what I did, what I immediately said to them. You can sell. I sent back the text. Why did you send this to me? Because I'm fat. And I think I said, I don't really know what to say. Dave said, just say yes. Oh, yeah.

That was the truth. Yep. But you know what? That might have been what pushed me over the top to join a gym. Because someday I want to be able to eat a milkshake like that and not feel guilty about it 10 minutes later. Did you just really say, I think I said while you were reading it? No, I wasn't reading it.

I was pulling it up. I didn't have it in front of me. Thought you might be impressed by this milkshake. The milkshake has a chipwich on it, by the way. Oh, it looks amazing. Yeah, I don't know if you want to see this. Did you send that to Heath? No, just you.

Did you send it to Jamie? Just you. No other people. And he said, why? Because I'm fat? I said, I don't know what to say. He said, say yep. And then the next text was the following morning, I joined a gym

today. I thought you were joking, but you're welcome for the motivation. Honest to God. I mean, I've been meaning to join this gym for a while, but maybe that was what put it over the top. It really might have been. No one gives a damn.

You never know. No one gives a damn. You never know. Okay. No one gives a damn. Enjoy. Have a milkshake. Have a milkshake tonight. Yeah, we do,

but you know what? We'll save it for tomorrow's show. Cause we have a show tomorrow. Probably not a ton of news between now and then. Hopefully we'll get an Aaron Rogers thing going. And we have a show on Thursday as well to get ready for free agency for Dave and Jamie. I'm Adam. Have a great day. Everybody. We'll talk to get ready for free agency. For Dave and Jamie, I'm Adam.

Have a great day, everybody. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today.