Fantasy Football Today - Derrick Henry, Bad Offensive Lines, Dynasty Tiers (04/20 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

It's a hodgepodge of Fantasy topics on today's show (and exploration of the origin of the word "hodgepodge"). We start with some Derrick Henry analysis (3:36) and what the history of 2,000 yard rushers suggests about Henry's 2021 outlook ... Which teams had the worst run blocking offensive lines in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus (15:00)? The Chargers top the list, but a couple of teams that could draft RBs next week also show up in the Top 5. And how about the worst pass blocking teams (22:46)? Are the Giants going to get better because they are young? And what should we expect from a rookie offensive tackle? ... We take a closer look at the declining TD rate of DeAndre Hopkins and whether he will hit double digits in 2021 (31:31). Then it's time to talk Dynasty! We're checking in on Heath's RB (37:15) and WR (42:40) tiers and predicting where the rookies will slot in ... Email us at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @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 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 Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. A random hodgepodge of fantasy football chatter today on Fantasy Football Today. Welcome to the show. I don't know, not my best intro, but that's no surprise. Adam Azer with Chris Towers and Heath Cummings today.

We'll try to get to some dynasty. We will get to, I'm committed, we will get to dynasty tears at running back and wide receiver later on in the show. But what are we going to talk about today? Derrick Henry rushed for 2,000 yards last year. What does that mean for the following season? We will look at history, the other seven running backs that rushed for 2,000 yards. DeAndre Hopkins touchdowns, the amount of plays that the Chargers are going to run, pro football focus, offensive line grades, all going to be discussed today. Chrisris what are you most looking forward to discussing out of this uh you know random selection of topics the etymology of the phrase hodgepodge is it a food

is it like uh is it just like a like a collection of foods or was it a specific food type at some point well well we will, we will have plenty of time because Adam has been desperately searching for things to talk about to push back the Dynasty content so we don't have to talk about that. I think it was a food.

Hodgepodge? It was a food or it was related to a bunch of different types of foods? Hodgepodge soup is a type of mutton soup. There you go. All right, mystery solved. That is it for today's show. Thank you.

Okay, just some quick news and notes. Jordan Reed retired. Alex Smith retired. Pittsburgh extended Mike Tomlin's contract three years, three-year deal. Seattle defensive end Alden Smith talked about how they signed him yesterday. Well, now he, well, they signed him over the weekend, I believe. He's now being accused of second-degree battery.

And the Dolphins, we were going to talk about their offensive line. It was one of the five worst run-blocking offensive lines, according to Pro Football Focus last year. They signed DJ Fluker. He could compete for a starting spot at guard. He could be a backup tackle. Dolphins are also reportedly interested or considering trading the sixth pick in the

NFL draft. Let me just tell you. Oxford English dictionary definition is a dish made of a mixture of various kinds of meat, vegetables, etc. stewed together, especially in Scottish hodgepodge. That does sound like a hodgepodge of ingredients.

Yeah. This is really interesting and not something we'll be able to talk about once the NFL draft comes. We've got a week and a half now to just talk about whatever the heck we want to talk about, basically. I actually, I started panicking last night

because I thought that the draft was coming up this weekend. No. And I was like, nobody's told me what we're doing. I don't even know what we're doing, Ben. Are we doing a show right after Thursday night? And Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

Okay, good. Perfect, perfect. That's what we did last year. We'll have instant reaction for you Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday. We might air the episodes at 3 a.m. Eastern time. So be on the lookout for that. We'll see. Okay, the Pick 6 podcast.

In addition to this podcast, if you want some NFL draft coverage, go to the pick six podcast, everything you need to know ahead of the NFL draft this week, they're breaking down Ryan Wilson's mock draft 10.0 and releasing five positional rankings episodes. Let's talk about Derek Henry and his 2000 yard season. He is the eighth running back to rush for 2,000 yards. The previous seven, none of them reached 1,500 yards. The most for any running back the following year was Barry Sanders with 1,491. It looks like the second most was Chris Johnson, 1,364. Of the seven running backs, I believe three or four of them. I'll double check.

Missed time. Well, four of them. Four missed some games the following season. Only two of them missed more than two games. So I don't know that injury is a huge concern there. But what about this? The inefficiency. Eric Dickerson went from 5.6 yards per carry in his 2K season to 4.2.

Adrian Peterson, 6.0 to 4.5. Jamal Lewis, 5.3 to 4.3. Barry Sanders, 6.1 to 4.3. Barry Sanders had the lowest yards per carry of his career in the year after his 2,000-yard season, which, by the way, that year after, it was his final year before he retired. Terrell Davis, 5.1 yards per carry to 3.1 yards per carry.

Only four games. I don't know. He had like 60 carries or something like that. Injury-marred season. Chris Johnson, 5.6 yards per carry to 4.3. OJ Simpson, 6.0 to 4.2. A huge drop in yards per carry. So does that concern you guys at all for Derrick Henry?

He's probably, you know, he's got a good chance to get to 1500 considering there's 17 games, but you know, I don't know what this precedent means. Every single one of those running backs lost at least one yard per carry. Most of them were 1.3 or more. Heath, does that mean anything to you as we evaluate Derek Henry and his 378 carries? I really thought we've got killjoy Chris on the program. I don't have to do this. Chris is going to do this for me, so I will do it.

Yes, Adam. Generally, if you have an historically good season, your next season is going to be worse. You will most likely regress more towards your career norms, and running backs do get hurt a lot so it might

not be surprising that guys don't play 16 games two years in a row very often and if you reach 2 000 yards you probably do play 16 games at the same time i had henry projected at five yards per carry uh he was at 5.4 last year if i dropped him to 4.4 to fit in with the theme of losing at least one yard per carry like every running back ever has that would that would drop him uh three spots in the ppr rankings and 5.4 yards per carry would be pretty low on the list of what these guys averaged when they had their 2,000-yard season. So perhaps that means he won't lose as much as the other guys.

And I would say especially, and this would be a difficult... I'm not asking you to do this, but... He was only 0.4 yards better than his career mark. Yeah, I have some context in that. Like Eric Dickerson, like I said, he went 5.6 to 4.2 the following year. That was the lowest mark of his first six seasons of his career. Adrian Peterson went to 4.5 yards per carry. I don't know where that measures up.

But Barry Sanders, like I said, tied for the lowest mark of his career, 4.3 yards per carry the year after. Terrell Davis had a terrible year. Chris Johnson was never really the same after the 2,000-yard season, yet he still managed almost 1,400 rushing yards, just got a lot of work. And yeah, OJ Simpson, 4.2 yards per carry the year after his best year. That was pretty much what he averaged in his first four seasons. So it was kind of a mixed bag of regressing to what they usually were at, and some of them just had pretty bad years for them in terms of efficiency.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting. I do also have him projected for 37 fewer carries, even though he's projected for 17 games and only played 16 last year. The only thing I don't know, because I do think it would be smarter for Tennessee to try to keep him a little bit fresher, except that every year he runs for 250 yards in week 17. So I don't think he's getting worn down by the volume. He's just destroying people late in the year and their margin for error is so, so slim with the way

they're playing with a bad defense and a run-heavy attack and extreme efficiency that, two things. One, it could go terribly wrong and they could just be a bad offense one year. It wouldn't be that surprising, and that would hurt Henry. But the other thing is they can barely afford to take him off the field. Yeah.

Chris, what do you think about this phenomenon of following up a 2,000-yard season with a significantly worse year, but obviously from's a high likelihood that you had let's say an inordinately high number of really long plays right you know Chris Johnson's big big season was that kind of thing where yes he was great but he also had you know a handful of really long plays Derek Henry had a 95 yard 94 yard touchdown last season that was 5% of his yards, roughly. He probably won't rush for another 90-yard touchdown next season, although he did that in 2018 too. I don't know.

Derrick Henry is different. That is the thing that people always say about Derrick Henry when you're trying to like, well, historically, running backs haven't been able to do the things he does, but he's different. And guys who are different tend to be different right up until the point that they are no longer different, whether it's because of injuries, whether it's because of age, whether it's because just regular old statistical regression to the mean.

That's going to happen to Derrick Henry at some point. It happens to everybody. It happened to Barry Sanders, like you mentioned, all these guys who are some of the best running backs of all time. If you look at wide receivers, the five highest single season wide receiving marks of all time, every single one of them went down by at least 450 yards the next season. On average, they went down by about 27 yards per game. They still average 90 yards per game the next season, though. I think Derrick Henry will almost certainly regress

in fairly significant ways, but I still have him as the number three RB in non-PPR and number nine in PPR, so it's not like I'm projecting him to regress to being bad. I still have him projected for 1,600 rushing yards in the 17-game season. I do think that usage is so huge because I was writing Nick Chubb's outlook today,

and I love Nick Chubb, and I think he's awesome, and I always hate where I have him projected, and Chris and I have talked about this. And you look at somebody like Derrick Henry, I don't know that Derrick Henry is definitely a lot better than Nick Chubb. But Derrick Henry averaged 23.6 carries per game last year. Nick Chubb didn't have a game with 23 carries. His usage and the way they lean on him in the running game

makes up for a little bit of the passing game work. Now, in theory, it's going to cause him to break down or get injured at some point. Yeah, I just find it amazing that Derrick Henry had 2,000 yards and 17 touchdowns.

And on a per-game basis, if you count Christian McCaffrey, he only played three games. But I think we all agree he would have averaged more fantasy points per game than Derrick Henry. He was fourth in PPR. Full PPR. He was fourth. He was behind McCaffrey, Kamara, and Cook. And he was three full

fantasy points behind Cook, four behind Kamara, and eight or nine behind McCaffrey. So it's, you know, how much better can it get for Derrick Henry? It can't. It can't, right.

And that's why he scares me a little bit in PPR. Unless, have we even brought up, maybe he catches more passes. We've moved A.J. Brown up because they lost John O. Smith and Corey Davis. Could we get to 30-35? I don't think so. It just doesn't seem like it's part of their game.

But what do you guys think about that possibility of Derrick Henry picking up some of that passing game slack? I think it's possible. I mean, he had 31 targets last season, which was a career high. He caught 19 of them and had his worst efficiency season, but the sample size is really small. I think the problem is,

I don't know how much you can increase Derek Henry's role in the passing game in a. And like a defined way that really helps your passing him, like I think it's like we can add a screen or two here every week, but you're not going to use him like James White. Like you're not going to like have him running curls out of the backfield or anything like that. So I don't know how much more of a role he could have in the passing game in a way that would help the Titans offense. But like you said, they might not have a choice. It might be a situation where Brian Tannehill has fewer options,

so he has to dump the ball to Derrick Henry a couple more times. Okay, to finish it off, Chris, you said you had him third and non and ninth in PPR? Yeah. And Heath, what about you? Yeah, third and non, I believe, is right. In PPR, I think I've got him fifth or sixth.

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But if you want to elevate your look with style that doesn't break the bank, then join the movement and get 15% off today with free shipping and free returns at mvmt.com slash fft mvmt.com slash fft okay let's go to our pro football focus offensive line rankings the five worst run blocking lines and the five worst pass blocking lines and a little bit about what they've done this offseason to address it chris i'm gonna start with you let's go to the the worst run blocking lines and a little bit about what they've done this off season to address it. Chris, I'm going to start with you. Let's go to the worst run blocking lines. The worst one, the Chargers. Last year, they had Trey Turner. They had Brian Bulaga. They were busts for them. Bulaga only played 10 games. They have signed Corey Linsley, really big addition at center, and Matt Filer from Pittsburgh, which was the second worst run-blocking offensive line last year.

So the Chargers, the Steelers, and now they've got three of their starters from last year gone, the Steelers. The Dolphins, as I mentioned, they signed DJ Fluker. They were starting two or three rookies at one point last year. The Cowboys, we know their story. And the Broncos were the fifth worst run-blocking offensive line. But if you read, I was reading about the Broncos offensive line this morning,

and one of the Bronco fan pages said, hey, we've got the best offensive line in the AFC West. They actually might be right. They're getting Jawan James back at right tackle. Garrett Bowles had a great year at left tackle. The interior, not as good as the tackles, and that's why they're one of the worst. They were one of the worst run-blocking units.

But the Raiders' line stinks. The Chargers, we just talked about, they had arguably the worst offensive line of football last year. The Chiefs have a lot of turnover. Anyway, I'm sorry for talking so much, Chris. The Chargers, the Steelers, the Dolphins, the Cowboys, and the Broncos. What stands out here, the Steelers and the Dolphins, the Cowboys, and the Broncos. What stands out here, the Steelers and the Dolphins, heavily rumored to be looking at running backs in the NFL draft.

What do you make of this? Yeah, I think one thing, just as a philosophical note, is you should assume that a team that performs this poorly in any given measure will regress to the mean the following year. So you should expect better play from most of these. poorly in any given measure will regress to the mean the following year. So you should expect better play from most of these. And a team like the Dolphins, a team like the Chargers, who have invested so much in their offensive lines, you should expect more improvement than that. Although it would be surprising if any of these lines became very good. And I think that all matters for sure.

For fantasy, you want your running back to be running behind a good line. But it didn't really hold back Myles Gaskin last year when he was starting for the Dolphins. He was a very good fantasy running back. I think in the games he played, he was a top 10 fantasy running back or something like that in PPR. Same for Austin Eckler, obviously. So it's more about how the players are used and how good the offense is as a whole rather than specifically the offensive lines. But I wouldn't, like if the Dolphins did grab Najee Harris,

I wouldn't discount him because of the line necessarily. I would discount him maybe because we don't know how much of the role he's going to have with Gaskin or stuff like that. But as far as the offensive line, that that's for me, at least it's more of a tiebreaker. Okay. Heath,

what do you, what say you chargers, Steelers, dolphins, Cowboys, Broncos, the five worst run blocking offensive lines last year. I mean,

it's obviously a point in the favor of, we hope Ezekiel Elliott bounces back. And maybe last year wasn't Ezekiel Elliott losing all of his skills. Maybe it was just the fact that they were awful at blocking. The Chargers went so interesting to me because their success running the ball was so much different when it was Austin Eckler or even Justin Jackson.

Yeah. Like, Kalen Balazs and Joshua Kelly had 199 carries at 3.2 yards per carry. Austin Eckler and Justin Jackson had 175 carries at 4.6 yards per carry. Right. And I just, like, I wonder if the, I think the charges will be better than they were last year. I mostly agree with what Chris said, but I wonder if some of the chargers lack of success was Kalen

Balazs and Joshua Kelly, not doing the thing they were supposed to do and making the offensive line look bad. We would talk all the time about how quarterbacks can contribute to sacks more than the offensive line does. I wonder how much of an impact bad running back play has on offensive line grades. I think the one other thing I would probably try to look at there if we wanted to deep dive into this in the future is

what roles were those guys used in? It can be easy if you're the guy who comes in on a third nine and gets a draw. For sure. To look more efficient than the other guys. I don't know if that's, you know, obviously Austin Eckler was playing a lot more than that, but, you know, maybe that was the case with Justin Jackson. But yeah, generally, if you're running behind a bad offensive line,

you're going to struggle more in obvious run situations than otherwise. I think that's where the biggest impact would be. So, you know, I would want to look into that. But all in all, like, yeah, I think, you know, blocking for Kalen Balazs certainly isn't going to make the offensive line look good. I think the fact that Eckler averaged 4.6 yards per carry behind the worst offensive line in football,

run blocking, according to PFF, is pretty cool. The one that really worries me is Pittsburgh. Because the Dolphins are young. And young isn't always a good thing, but it's not a bad thing to think that the three rookies that played last year are going to improve. You can make the same case for the Giants.

When we talk about them, they have the worst pass-blocking offensive line. The Steelers are not. The Steelers are now turning over. Okay, this is according to Warren Sharp at Sharp Football. He's an analytics expert. This is where the Steelers' run blocking has ranked the last five seasons. Fourth, seventh, twelfth, twenty-third, thirty-first.

They've obviously got worse. They just got rid of all those guys. All the bad guys are gone. Well, yeah, it's true in a sense sense but it's also the cupboard is pretty bare but potentially and this is a team that reportedly is is very seems likely to take a running back on the first round so you know i will say like in the in the dolphins versus steelers discussion i think the one thing that um i've heard people talk about, I think Ross Tucker's talked about it,

Matt Batoni has talked about it in an offensive line evaluation, is that continuity is very key. And I believe the Dolphins are going to have most of the same guys they played with each other last year, and the Steelers obviously are not. So I would feel much better about the Dolphins improving over last year than I would the Steelers, even though the Steelers got rid of three of the guys that were a problem or part of the problem.

Broncos as well. Broncos will have all four of their starters plus Jawan James, who opted out last year back next year. All right, let's go to the five. I would say the same thing for Dallas. Dallas seems like an obvious regression, positive know, positive regression candidate. Yeah, but I did point this out last time we talked about them, when we talked about

Zeke anyway, that Smith, Tyron Smith and Zach Martin, they're in their 30s or, you know, they're in their 30s. Tyron Smith has missed time I think four years in a row. So, um... Oh, I think it's very unlikely.

They become like a very good offensive line unit again. You know, I'm not expecting them to be the, the one that, you know, made that the running game, you know, so,

so much more effective, but you know, like if you go from the fifth worst in the NFL to 12th, yeah. Yeah. You're still not great, but that's still very, very good in terms of what it would mean for Ezekiel Elliott

relative to last season. It's pretty obvious what happened with Dallas. All right, five worst pass-blocking offensive lines according to Pro Football Focus. The Giants, just like the Dolphins, they were starting a lot of rookies. They had a rookie left tackle. At one point, they were using a rookie right tackle

and I think a rookie left guard as well. So hopefully they can get better, but they were terrible last year. Also getting Nate Solder back. He opted out. He will be either a starting right tackle or a swing tackle backup. The Jets had the second worst offensive line,

pass blocking. And these were the two worst offenses in football, the Giants and the Jets. Mekhi Becton, though, unlike Andrew Thomas, the Giants left tackle really struggled last year, especially early, got better late. Mekhi Becton had a much better, much more encouraging rookie season

and hopefully is a foundational piece on their offensive line. The Chargers were the third worst pass blocking line. The Vikings, and this is concerning because they haven't addressed it and they lost Riley Reif. They released him.

He was, from what I read, he was their best lineman last year, and they haven't. The Vikings have not drafted a lineman in the first round since 2012, so check that out. They have the 14th pick. Maybe they break that trend. And Tennessee, I thought this was interesting.

Well, their left tackle, Taylor LeJuan, only played five games. Last year, they were dealing with NoJack Conklin, who went to Cleveland in the offseason. But they had the fifth-worst pass-blocking line. I guess it didn't really matter for them, but they should get better with Taylor LeJuan healthy. So, Heath, Giants, Jets, Chargers, Vikings, Tennessee.

Any thoughts on this? Again, it's so interesting. The Chargers had a rookie quarterback that had arguably one of the greatest rookie quarterback seasons ever and they had Austin Eckler when he was healthy averaged 4.6 yards per carry and they had the worst offensive line in football

yeah they ran the most plays in football that helped that does help generally you run plays by picking up first downs and moving down the field it's a great point. I mean, if their line gets better, are we going to talk ourselves into the

17th consecutive year of the Chargers as the favorite Super Bowl sleeper pick by the media? I think they're really interesting because they have hired an offensive coordinator who has only one small track record as a coordinator and it was terrible. And the problem that Joe Lombardi had was that his short

area passing game didn't really work well with Matthew Stafford when Joe Lombardi was the Lions offensive coordinator. And last year, Justin Herbert had his worst performances when he was throwing the ball shorter. So I'm nervous about this. And they ran the most plays in the NFL last year. What if they're 10th or something? I don't know, guys. They make me nervous, the Chargers.

What would make me nervous is having a young quarterback that i'm trying to develop and having one of the worst offensive lines in football um or one of the two worst and not really doing a whole lot to make it that much better well they did the new york teams oh i'm talking about the new york team so got Daniel Jones and presumably Zach Wilson. I don't know that we're going to... I'm not going to be very optimistic about either one of them as long as the offensive lines are this bad. What about the theory that the Giants will grow

into being a good line, basically? And the Giants, by the way, also probably got rid of their best offensive lineman, Kevin Zeitler, who went to the Ravens. But like I said, rookie left tackle, rookie right tackle last year for part of the season, rookie left guard. You know. I would say grow into a good offensive line,

it's pretty unlikely in 2021. But they, you know, you can expect them to get better. Hopefully. But again, it's like, that's kind of a meshed situation with the quarterback right like we're mostly just hoping that he gets better as he gets more mature yeah and we're hoping for the same for the line it's one of them's going to have to actually be good yeah when you're talking about a team like the Giants who's been you know such a bad offense the last couple of

seasons you're gonna need a lot of things to go right. You know, it's not just like, oh, the offensive line plays well. And all of a sudden this offense is pretty good. It's going to be, you know, a combination of factors. It's going to be the receiving core playing better. It's going to be, you know, I have an Ingram actually catching the ball. It's going to be Daniel Jones, not fumbling the ball every three, you know, three times every game,

all these things will need to happen for that offense to get better. And all of them could happen. It's just generally when you're... You could roll three ones in a row. It's just your chances of doing it aren't necessarily all that likely. And the Jets, by the way, another team... I know this is pass blocking, second-worst pass blocking,

but another team that could definitely take a running back. As far as the Giants go, if they draft one of the top three wide receivers with the 11th pick, if one of them falls, it would be really annoying because you would put any quarterback

in that situation, having Saquon Barkley out of the backfield, having Ingram at tight end, having Galladay, having, let's say, Jalen Waddell, hypothetically, and then Sterling Shepard might be your third best receiver, and then Darius Slayton's

not a bad, you know, fourth guy. That's amazing. I would say not every quarterback. No, that's what I'm saying. You wouldn't say that you'd put Gardner Minshew there. No, no, no. Denver's got the same situation. No, that's what I'm saying. You wouldn't say that you'd put Gardner Minshew there. No, no, no. Denver's got the same situation.

Right. It's true. It's true. Yeah. Except they have a good offensive line. Yeah. I mean, look at it and look how much that helped. Do they have a good offensive line?

We don't know. You know, like when you're talking about the Chargers in comparison to a lot of these other teams, but I think you could also put the Dolphins there and Steelers. I don't think they were a particularly good offense, but they scored a lot of points, so who knows what I know. The fact that they were good despite, or at least not terrible despite having bad offense lines,

I think a better sign, although I think there's room for the Chargers offense to probably regress. I would think this will be an unpopular opinion, but I think Justin Herbert is a possible regression candidate. But yeah, I think those are the two, and throw the Steelers in there, three, when you're talking about this group of teams.

You should expect the ones that were competent last year with bad offensive line play. Potentially there's a lot of room for them to grow. Whereas the giants, it's harder to see them, you know, still becoming a, an average offense. Like that would be a big,

I don't know that I agree with that because if you add Saquon Barkley and Kenny Galladay, I think you can be an average offense. Um, maybe it's been a while since either of those two guys. I don't know if either of those two guys has ever been on an average offense, but maybe their powers combined.

Where did they finish? I feel like they were like 17th in scoring two years ago. So I'm going to look that up. I just want to tell you guys, don't be too excited if your team drafts a left tackle or a right tackle in the first round. Here's where the first round offensive tackles ranked according to PFF. I look, PFF is, I'm sure they do a better job than I can do, but it's not gospel, right? But Andrew Thomas was the first one selected,

fourth overall. He was the 59th rated offensive tackle. Jedrick Wills was 58th. Mekhi Becton for the Jets, he was 31st. Thomas on the Giants, Wills on the Browns. Becton for the Jets, 31st. Tristan Wirfs for the Bucs, he was 8th. That's amazing for a rookie. And Austin Jackson for the Dolphins, he was 75th. The other offensive tackle was Isaiah Wilson for Tennessee. We know

about him. Off-field issues, didn't play last year. Becton was playing through a shoulder injury for most of the season. He had, he had, I think a separated shoulder in like week four. So he had pretty encouraging, pretty encouraging season. I'd say it was a good, a good class.

We're some Becton, but so far, but then Thomas wills, Austin Jackson were 58th, 59th, 75th. So it's not a, it's not a quick fix.

All right. Who's ready to find out how many, where did the giants rank in 2019? 95th. So it's not a quick fix. All right, who's ready to find out? Where did the Giants rank in 2019 in scoring? 19th. They were 19th. So not that bad. That was just Barkley. No Galladay, obviously. No Beckham.

Okay, I asked you guys already. I had two random things. One was about the Chargers. We already talked about them enough, so let's go to the second one. Just tell me. I'm going to... You got one minute each to discuss.

Because, Keith, we have to talk dynasty. DeAndre Hopkins. In 31 games in 2017 to 2018, he scored 24 touchdowns. In 31 games in his last two seasons, he has scored 13 touchdowns. Targets are similar enough, 27 more in the first grouping of two years.

And touchdown passes by his quarterbacks have been 28, 26, 27, and 27 the last four seasons. So how about that? The touchdown rate, way down the last two years. And when you start to have the conversation, who should be the third wide receiver off the board? He's obviously in that discussion, but probably needs more than seven touchdowns.

So Heath, what do you think about that? DeAndre Hopkins and his touchdowns. Yeah, I've got him projected for 8.3. So I think there was a point actually, and it was it was a year or two before it actually happened where chris had maybe made the argument that at some point deandre hoppins is going to stop scoring 11 touchdowns every season and it happened um at some point like i think the problem for him now could be that he's on an offense that through two years with cliff kingsbury and kyler murray has not been very good at scoring touchdown passes in terms of a ratio

they are very good at running in the red zone and kyler murray obviously helps with that and is probably better at that right now than he is passing in the end zone. So I don't think you should expect DeAndre Hopkins to, like, it's possible that he will once more, but I don't think you should expect him to bounce back to the 10 to 12 touchdowns per season that he gave you for a while. I think he's going to, but I still have him third, at least in full PPR. Just a lot. He's closer to number four and number five than he is number one or number two.

And Chris, you were on the clock. There's going to be a changing of the guard at wide receiver in fantasy. I presumably this year, certainly within the next two seasons, because you look at, you know, a lot of the guys at the top of the rankings, and for me, it's Adams, Michael Thomas, Stephon Diggs, and DeAndre Hopkins. That's my top four. They're all 27 or 28. I think Hopkins is the oldest. He'll turn 29 this

season, but then you've also got Allen Robinson's 27, and like 27, 28. That's not so old that what's that? You said Adams Hill digs Hopkins Adams Thomas digs not not Tyreek Hill. Tyreek Hill's fifth. He's right there. Okay. Sorry.

No, it's okay. Apologies. No, I just I just found an error in my Chargers projections that like actually changed everybody. And so I thought maybe there was an error in my Chargers projections that actually changed everybody. And so I thought maybe there was an error with Tyreek Hill. It was why he wasn't in your top three. No, I mean, in non-PPR, he's number two. Okay, perfect.

He's really good. Didn't mean to interrupt you. I apologize. Yeah, it's okay. The Chiefs are good. I like the Chiefs. They're pretty good. Yeah, like 27 to 28 is not so old

that you should be worried about any of these guys, but historically wide receivers peak between 27 and 28. Those are typically the two peak seasons for wide receivers, and then they fall off. Why isn't he scoring touchdowns the last two years? It's not because of his quarterback play. Like I said, four straight years where the team QB has thrown 26 to 28 touchdown

passes. His target share is really high. He didn't get a lot of red zone or green zone targets last year, but still the ones he did get, he should have probably scored more, uh, more touchdowns. So, you know, I'm just saying like, why can't he have another, it is a little bit about his quarterback play. Um, like I know that he scored 10 or 12 touchdowns when his quarterback threw 27. That's the weird thing that happened. If your team scored 27 touchdown passes, you should not expect any player to have double-digit touchdowns.

Okay, but I guess what I'm saying, there wasn't a, from a passing touchdown perspective, there was not a drop-off going from Watson to Murray last year. That's all. No, no. And I mean, he had, you know, 28% of their 29% of their targets and only,

you know, 21% of their touchdowns. So yeah, there was probably a little bad luck there. And I would say the same thing for the year before. And, you know, the thing about touchdowns is because they're relatively rare events your your one or two could change the the outlook of a player without necessarily changing how well that player played if deandre hopkins caught eight touchdowns last season it wouldn't necessarily been have have been because he was dramatically better even though he would have been a better

fantasy player so um i would think like i have him projected for 8.8 touchdowns on 168 targets and 166 targets in 17 games. I think that's like nine touchdowns seems like a pretty reasonable place to set the expectations for him, which is mostly in line with where I have all the other high end wide receivers, except for Tyree Killen, Devonta Adams are a little higher. Okay, we're gonna take a break. When we come back, I have all the other high-end wide receivers, except for Tyree Kill and Devonta Adams are a little higher. Okay. We're going to take a break.

When we come back, we're going to look at dynasty running back and wide receiver tiers and where the rookies are slotting in right now, where they could slot in after the NFL draft. We'll be right back on fantasy football today. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows.

Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters. Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations, or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada. Insurance designed for life. rankings, updated tiers. That's what we're talking about now, the running back and wide receiver tiers. And starting with running back, Heath, these rookies, how are you looking at them now before we know where they land in terms of what tier they're putting in, basically, and what kind of potential they have? I think Najee Harris, who I expect to be the first running back taken, will probably slot into to either the very end of Tier 3, which is the same tier that has most of the rookies from last year, or the very top of Tier 4,

which is where you'll find Antonio Gibson and Clyde Edwards-Hilaire. Travis Etienne, I expect to be in Tier 4 with Gibson and Hilaire. I don't think there's another running back who will be in my top 18 or 19 dynasty running backs from this class. And I mean, it's certainly possible, but it's also kind of a cautionary thing because I would have said that there was no way Clyde Edwards-Hilaire would have before the draft last year. And then we all bumped him up to like the number one rookie running back. And now he's back towards the back of the class. So, yeah, I think it's those two.

And then Javante Williams is probably tier five and then nobody else in the top five tiers. And your tiers, it's Christian McCaffrey in his own tier. Yeah, Chris would probably hate the way that I've got three players in my top two tiers, but that's the way it is currently. I think that makes sense. They're given the fungibility of running backs and the attrition rate, the handful of guys who have actually proven they can do it

for more than one season. Like you look at who's in the next few tiers and this is not a criticism at all. This is just the way the position works. There's a lot of guys who have had one good season in the three and four tier, or there's a lot of guys who, you know, like Clyde Edwards-Lair hasn who have had one good season in the in the three and four tier or there's a lot of guys who you know like clad edwards lair hasn't really had one good season um and i don't

disagree with where they're ranked jk dobbins hasn't had one good like one great season yet um that's just the nature of the position like there's a reason there's like three or four guys who every year are at the top of the running back position. And then basically everybody else moves up and down throughout. So I think it makes sense. I think I would just say that if he, if you were doing your tears just by yards per carry, JK Dobbins would be tier one. Well, so would Nick Chubb. And so would Derek Henry.

They could be. No, he wouldn't. Gus Edwards would be the leader. Gus Edwards would be tier one. Henry would have to be tier two or three because, know he's going to lose at least one yard per carry this year based on our earlier discussion he should have only made 1950 yards yeah you can he should he should he should have probably sat out week 17 so that he could have just fell down so it oh true so is there a rookie running back and team combination that would jump into tier two falcons falcons that's the one you want yeah he's the what's that to tier two

no um he would just be like i don't really feel like any of them belong in tier three but I could see that's what would put Najee Harris in tier three tier three is a big one with Jonathan Taylor, Swift, Kamara Aaron Jones, Mixon Jacobs, Zeke Miles Sanders, Derrick Henry

J.K. Dobbins and Cam Akers big one there a lot of concerns in that group I think Jacobs people have to be nervous about Henry, JK Dobbins, and Cam Akers. Big one there. A lot of concerns in that group, I think. Jacobs, people have to be nervous about. Sanders, Zeke. Henry's age. Henry's age.

Henry's the oldest one in there by far, right? Taysom Hill. Henry Farby's the oldest one. Taysom Hill for Kamara, right. Yeah. I don't know. I'd rather be in tier one and two than tier three. Hot take. Well, and again, I said this on FFT in five.

Jonathan Taylor and DeAndre Swift might be in tier two like three games into the season. I just feel like the sample size of when they were so awesome is not quite big enough to put them on that category. But I believe that Jonathan Taylor is going to be there soon. Camara. Camara is so good. So tier one is McCaffrey. Tier two is Barkley and Cook. that Jonathan Taylor is going to be there soon. Kamara. Kamara is so good.

So tier one is McCaffrey. Tier two is Barkley and Cook. Not Kamara? Throw Kamara in there? If you told me that Taysom Hill wasn't going to be allowed to start any more football games for the Saints, I am projecting the Saints right now as if Taysom Hill is going to start 17 games. Okay, okay.

Yeah, because I can't tell you that he's not going to start any. He's probably going to start lots of them just at different positions, but I'd like for him to not start any more at quarterback and be responsible for throwing to Alvin Kamara. How about we take a look at wide receivers? Kamara would be my number two RB if

Winston's starting and he'd probably fall to like five with Hill. Him, Aaron Jones, and Zeke using the way I use age which is whatever their age will be week one they are just one year away from being the same age as Derrick Henry who were wondering if he's almost done so like if Camara has one year with Taysom Hill as his quarterback the next year we're discounting him for age. So wide receiver is more interesting. We're so excited about this wide receiver class.

Tier one right now is seven players deep. Adams, Tyreek Hill, A.J. Brown, Stefan Diggs, D.K. Metcalf, Justin Jefferson, and Calvin Ridley. That's tier one. Where will Jamar Chase, Waddle, Smith factor in? I think probably in tier three, which is where I have CeeDee Lamb, DJ Moore, Tee Higgins, and I'm skipping over Keenan Allen,

who is actually listed there because of the error that I found during the podcast when Chris called Justin Herbert a regression candidate. And yeah, now he's going to need to be a regression candidate. But yeah, I think most likely in that tier three with Lamb, it's possible up to tier two because there's some question marks in that tier as well. And same question.

Is there a destination and a wide receiver that makes you jump into tier two it's definitely chase um i'm trying to think of like because he's going to go we know with harris it's interesting there's a there's a possibility that every team gets a chance to draft harris i don't think that's going to be the case with Chase. So I'm trying to think like with where the teams are drafting, if there's a place that could take Chase. You guys are not helping me out. I mean, it's Jacksonville, the Jets, then the Niners.

They're not going to take him. The Falcons, no, that's not going to help. Well, I mean, look, you don't know how long Julio has, right? That's an interesting, not good for year one, potentially very good long-term. Well, but by the time it's potentially very don't think that would be... I don't see the same type of thing that stands out as a fit. Like Cincinnati wouldn't do it? I don't think so.

He's going to be better than T. Higgins. What about... I think he's going to be better than T. Higgins. T. Higgins is pretty awesome. Probably not Detroit was I would assume the opportunity. I don't mind Detroit. I really don't mind Detroit. I know people hate Jared Goff. I think it's not a great

quarterback, but he's good enough and target he could be a target hog in Detroit. I don't know about in year one, but right. I think that's a possibility if one of them slips Philadelphia, I think would would a possibility. Philadelphia, if one of them slips? Philadelphia, I think, would be very, very interesting

if Jalen Hurts is good at throwing. I'm pretty sure Philadelphia is going to get one of them. Yeah, I think so. I think that would be a little boost because of the big opportunity. I think that the top three guys, for sure,

are better than Rager. I'm just kind of joking about that, by the way, but it sets up nicely for one of the top three to be there at 12. I wasn't joking about anything. Yeah, no, I mean, I can't say I'm pretty confident that the Eagles are going to get one of the top three at 12, top three wide receivers, but it's very...

It kind of makes sense in mock drafts to put a wide receiver, one of those big three, at either 11 or 12. And I don't think the Giants are going to take one. And I do think that Waddle is not that far behind Chase. And really, Devontae Smith, for me, is relatively close to that group. That's kind of a tier, that top six that are going to go in the draft. And Chase, Waddle, and Smith are all three in the top tier. It's really interesting

with the next group of wide receivers and you could rank these guys, I think, in just about any order, the second tier, but Rondell Moore, Terrace Marshall, Kadarius Toney, Elijah Moore, Rashad Bateman, those guys

will vary wildly based on, not necessarily where they land, but where they're taken. Because I would guess a couple of those guys are going to be first-round picks, and one or two of those guys might fall out of the top 50 picks. Just to follow up on that point, when you're talking about dynasty values, draft capital is one of the key things that you know should be determining how your values move forward you know early round picks are going to get more opportunities it doesn't matter like they're Hakeem Butler was a guy that a ton of people liked and he slipped in the draft and everyone's like wow what a steal and you know maybe he breaks out as the Dallas Goddard to Dallas Goddard Zach Ertz. He's in Philadelphia now, right?

Still there? I don't know if he's on the roster. He got cut. He is a tight end. But that's one of those things where when a player falls like that, even if you really liked them pre-draft, you should probably be discounting them because the draft capital does matter so much.

It does. I don't know how to, going back to running backs. I don't know how to going back to running backs. I don't know how to view it relative to the past at running back anymore. And it'd be interesting. Like if Harris and ETN both go in the first round this year, then maybe it's not a big change, but we saw running backs that I think are better than Harris and ETN fall out of the first round last year.

And the chiefs were the only team that took a running back in the first round. I'm not sure we're going to see running backs really get drafted in the first round anymore. Yeah. Well, one of the things it's going to take, it's going to take a pretty good running back prospect to,

to be, to be, I guess a top 20 pick, I would say, or a pretty, pretty bad decision-making. Yeah. But Barkley would have been,

I Barkley is a top, probably a top 10 pick in almost any draft. I would, I would guarantee Saquon Barkley would have been... Barkley's probably a top 10 pick in almost any draft. I would guarantee Saquon Barkley, even in hindsight, is a top 15 pick in any draft. I don't know about two, but he was different. It was different. What were you saying, Heath? Or Chris?

Oh, yeah. One thing I wanted to... Sorry. No, Kreeth. Kreeth, go ahead. Oh. One thing that I wanted to throw out. No, Kreeth. Kreeth, go ahead. Oh, one thing that I wanted to throw out when I was talking about age earlier, Calvin Ridley's not quite there,

but he is 26, which is always weird to think about because he's heading into his fourth season and he'll be 27 by the end of his... He'll finish his age 27 season when he's done with his rookie contract. So he could be someone who, if you're talking about dynasty trades,

maybe next year's the time to start thinking about trading Calvin Ridley because his perceived value will never be higher. Okay, here we go. Here's what you need to know. I've given this before. You've probably forgotten it. Last 11 drafts,

who was the best rookie wide receiver I've given this before. You've probably forgotten it. Last 11 drafts. Who was the best rookie wide receiver? And when was that player selected? Go all the way back to 2010. It's really, I think we should do starting with the Beckham draft. Eh, no, screw it. We'll do all 11. Mike Williams was 15th,

the 15th wide receiver drafted. Victor Cruz in 2011 was an undrafted free agent. T.Y. Hilton was the 15th wide receiver drafted. Victor Cruz in 2011 was an undrafted free agent. T.Y. Hilton was the number one rookie wide receiver in 2012. He was a third round pick. He was the 13th wide receiver drafted. However, in full PPR, Justin Blackman was actually the number one pick. He was the first wide receiver

and he was the number one wide receiver. 2013, Keenan Allen, third round pick, eighth receiver off the board. 2014, Od third round pick, eighth receiver off the board. 2014, Odell Beckham, third receiver off the board. 2015, Amari Cooper, first receiver. 2016, Michael Thomas, sixth receiver off the board, second round pick. 2017, Juju, sixth receiver off the board,

second round pick. 2018, Ridley, number one receiver drafted. 2019, A.J. Brown, fourth receiver drafted. 2020, Justin Jefferson, fifth receiver drafted. So that means it has been, since the Beckham year, third, first, sixth, sixth, first, fourth, fifth. That's been the best rookie wide receiver

and where they were drafted among wide receivers, if that makes sense. So usually it's fourth or fifth. It's not often the number one drafted receiver actually finishes number one as a rookie, which is interesting. I think our money's going to be on the top three this year, but you never know.

You just never know. Michael Thomas, that was a surprise. Michael Thomas, that was a surprise. Juju, that was a surprise. AJ Brown was obviously a big surprise, and Justin Jefferson crushed everyone, and he was like a 10th round pick or something. In fantasy.

I think that, at least with Thomas and Juju, kind of highlights if you go later in the draft, your chances of being drafted by a good team are higher. So if you're like a second round pick on a good team, you probably step into a good opportunity with a good quarterback, which might be better for your immediate fantasy opportunity than, you know,

stepping into a huge role with a bad quarterback. All right. That's going to wrap up today's show. And we are going to have more wide receiver talk, a very important episode on Thursday. Emory Hunt to break down his top wide receivers. We'll see how he ranks Chase and Waddle and Devante Smith and then who comes right after that.

So if you want to hear some previews of that, you can always listen to the FFT and five episodes that we recorded with Emory. They're really, really helpful and they'll get you caught up quickly. But tomorrow we'll do more extensive wide receiver talk and also a little bit of best ball ADP. For those of you who want to do some best ball leagues, we'll get into that. So that's on Thursday, rather not tomorrow. That's on Thursday's episode of Fantasy Football Today. For Chris and Heath and Ben, I am Adam. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you Thursday.