Fantasy Football Today - 🚨Drew Brees Retires ... Who Do We Want to be the Saints QB? (03/14 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

We reflect on the amazing legacy of Drew Brees and spin it ahead to 2021 and discuss who we want to see replace Brees. What would Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston do to the values of Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara? Subscribe to the FFT in 5 podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to FFT. 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/ Want winning picks each morning in under 10 minutes? Subscribe to 'The Early Edge: A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast' on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to 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

Man, Aaron Jones could not have one hour in the spotlight. We just got done doing our Aaron Jones bonus pod and Drew Brees retires today. So here's bonus pod number six since last week. And let's talk about the Saints quarterback situation. All right, Dave, you love to talk NFL fantasy, both NFL and fantasy history and perspective. Let's put Drew Brees in perspective. This guy was so damn good. He almost finished as QB1 three years in a row,

which is just ridiculous. It was earlier in the day, about a decade ago. Man, if you drafted him in a dynasty league or you acquired him when he went to New Orleans, what a fantasy gem he was. Absolutely. And as we sit here today on the podcast, Drew Brees retires

as the all-time leader in NFL passing yards, 80,358. That's going to get broken pretty soon because Tom Brady's behind him by about 1,000 yards. So it's not going to last.

But he had an interesting career. He was drafted by the Chargers top pick in round two, I believe, the same year that LaDainian Tomlinson went to the Chargers, if I recall correctly, and had a good run out there. Then they drafted Phillip Rivers, and he became a free agent. There was serious discussion about him going to Miami, and then when the Dolphins tried to sign him, he didn't pass his physical. That's according to Nick Saban. That came out recently, I believe, on the All Things Covered pod.

And he went to New Orleans. And at the time, everybody was like, well, okay, it's not a bad signing. He'll be with Sean Payton. We'll see what they do. Oh, boy, they did a lot. I believe he had, one of you will tell me if I'm wrong on this, but 10 or 11 straight years where he was a top six fantasy quarterback, he was insanely consistent.

That made him just a cherished part of the fantasy football universe. And toward the end of his career, a guy who was kind of overlooked in drafts, and he still came through a good percentage of the time. He was number one in 2011 and 12. He was number two behind Peyton Manning in 2013. I can tell you that. In 2014, he was number three.

We could keep going. But, Jamie, let's. We could keep going. But, Jamie, let's spin it forward to 2021. Wait, what year are we in? 2021. And who do you want to see? Let's spin it forward to 2040. Tom Brady has won his 15th Super Bowl. All-time passing leader with 212,000 yards.

Who do you want to see as the quarterback for the Saints in 2021? Deshaun Watson. You have two options. You have two options right now. The guys who were on the team last year. I would like to see Jameis Winston get the full-time job. That would be nice. But I think, unfortunately, we're not going to get Jameis

getting the full-time job. So it's probably going to be a combination with whoever it is in Taysom Hill. So let's just make Taysom Hill the only guy there because when he was the quarterback of the Saints

for those four games that Drew Brees missed with the rib injury, he was a good fantasy quarterback. So I would just like to see Taysom Hill and only Taysom Hill with maybe a rookie to come in eventually

and replace Taysom Hill in a year. Who do you want, Dave? I think I'd like to see Jameis in that offense. Maybe I'm just a masochist here, and I just want to see a bunch of interceptions all over again. But I think there's better fantasy potential for the pass catchers there if Jameis is there, and we saw that in Tampa Bay in 2019. And I think they'd be a lot

more conservative offensively if it's Taysom Hill. So I think I'd like to see Jameis. I think they'd score more points and get more yards with him. Taysom Hill was very good for fantasy. He scored 23 points. Then he scored 17 points. That was the game at Denver

where Denver had their fourth string quarterback. They didn't have a wide receiver starting and he only threw 16 passes. We scored 17 points. Then he scored 27 at Atlanta. Then he scored 22. So 22 or more fantasy points and six point per passing touchdown, at least for Taysom Hill in three of the four starts,

we barely saw Jameis Winston. And I just want to look up Michael Thomas. Actually, I think he had 84 or more yards in three of the four games with Taysom Hill. He had at least 16 PPR points in three of the four. Yeah. And of course, the Denver game that I just mentioned was the exception and he had 37 targets. So I'm just doing this math right now because the news just broke. But I wanted to see Jamie just think dropped out. I wanted to see what Michael Thomas' target share was in those games, Dave. So Taysom Hill threw 82 passes, and Michael Thomas had 37 targets.

So I don't know, what, 45% or something nuts? And as it should be. He's the number one receiver in the offense. He's going to get the targets. But he's not going to get those targets. So if it's Taysom Hill, and Jamie had to pop onto HQ, so it's going to be me and you finishing up here. But if it's Taysom Hill and Jamie had to pop onto HQ, so it's going to be me and you finishing

up here, but if it's Taysom Hill, what does that mean for Alvin Kamara? What does that mean for Michael Thomas? You know, I think that some people might overreact and say, well, Alvin Kamara is not going to be any good because only in two

of those games did he have good PPR points. He had 16 PPR points in one game. He had 22 in another. He had 10 in the first game with him. And then the game against Denver, you almost want to throw it out. He only had six PPR points. That was kind of ugly. But look, I think that if the Saints go with Taysom Hill, they know that they've got to try and be a little bit more explosive. And they've got to try to get Alvin Kamara more involved. Just because Taysom Hill is the quarterback doesn't mean you're just going to shut everything down and make it the Taysom Hill show.

So I think that Alvin Kamara will still be a top four fantasy pick. There could be a league here and there where people get squeamish about him if Taysom Hill is the only quarterback. But here's the other thing I'll tell you. If they move on from Jameis, say they don't re-sign him, and Taysom Hill is the quarterback to start the year, do not put it past this Saints team to move up and draft another quarterback. Because even if they go with Taysom Hill and they let Jameis walk, Taysom Hill's old. He's older than 30. He can't be their long-term solution at quarterback.

They will draft somebody. So I was wrong, by the way, with my Michael Thomas stat. I looked at Taysom Hill's completions, not his attempts. I was going to say. Yeah, he had 114 attempts. He had 82 completions, which, by the way, is 72%. It's pretty good. Well, he threw a lot of short passes,

and a lot of them were slants to Michael Thomas, a lot of the 30. So, so the target show was 32.5%, which is still unbelievably high, but you do see some number one wide receivers in that range in the 30% in the 30% range, something like that. So, uh, you know, okay. So that makes you feel a little bit better about Thomas. Now I'm going to ask you some rankings questions. If it's Hill, would you go Camara or Henry in half PPR?

In half PPR, I think I could be convinced to go with Derek Henry. Would you go Camara or Barkley? I would probably consider I think I'd still consider Camara over Barkley, but that's just me not being confident in what the Giants are doing. Now, if it's Jameis Winston,

Kamara you currently have as your number two running back in PPR behind McCaffrey. That's where he is with Jameis as the quarterback. Okay. So now let's talk quarterbacks here. Or any competent quarterback. Maybe they go, maybe they, you know, get Mac Jones and he's the starter and Taysom Hill fills in. I'd be comfortable with Kamara at that height. But it's not to say that Taysom Hill isn't competent.

It's that he's not competent. It's that he doesn't throw as much. He runs a lot and that's bad for him. Part of his game is running with the football and that takes away opportunities from everybody, including Kamara. Right. Okay. So then who would you rank higher in your quarterback rankings, Jameis or Taysom Hill? If they're both in New Orleans,

and well, one of them is going to be the starter. As the starting quarterback. I'm saying in World A, Taysom Hill is the starting quarterback for New Orleans. In World B, Jameis is the starting quarterback for New Orleans. Who would you rank higher? Honestly, I might end up ranking them exactly the same like i'm looking at my rankings now i have jamis 14th he's behind joe burrow ryan tannahill tom brady would i really put tasem hill ahead of tom brady or ryan tannahill yeah maybe i would do it if jamis was gone and

they did not draft a quarterback and it's's literally Taysom Hill is the starter and then Mitchell Trubisky is the backup, something like that. Maybe in that instance, I would consider moving Taysom Hill up. Because he was on pace for 836 rushing yards. So he might not get there, but he's going to obviously crush it with rushing yards.

How many touchdowns was he on pace for? He was on pace for 16 passing and 16 rushing. Okay. That would be pretty good. He faced the Falcons twice. We can't forget that. We can't forget that. I'm pretty sure he's going to face the Falcons twice again this year. He's the starting quarterback for the Saints. That's true, but he's going to face them twice in 16 games, not twice in four games. So his numbers will be a little bit different. All right, Michael Thomas then. Let's talk about Michael Thomas

without Drew Brees. He was very great with Teddy Bridgewater. He wasn't quite as consistent as he was with Brees, but he was great with Bridgewater. We just told you about his four games on pace for 120 catches, 1,372 yards, but zero touchdowns in four games with Taysom Hill.

148 targets. So anyway, he's shown that he's QB-proof to a degree. Touchdowns might be a little bit different, but where are you ranking Michael Thomas coming off a bad year? He's going to be a top 12 wide receiver either way. Right now, I have him eighth. That's with the assumption that Jameis is the quarterback, and that is in full PPR. If it's Taysom Hill, I would probably move

him down to a point where I might not even get him. He'd be behind Keenan Allen, Allen Robinson, DK Metcalf. I think I'd still keep him ahead of Julio Jones and Amari Cooper. I would still view him as a number one fantasy receiver, but lots changed from this time last year to now. And I can't quite view him as the high reception mega stud with lots of yardage and touchdowns to go with it that I did 365 days ago. And how would you compare him to two awesome players who don't catch as many passes in A.J. Brown and D.K. Metcalf? Brown, I think, can get more receptions this year in Tennessee. I'm excited for him.

And DK would be ahead of him, too, if it's Taysom Hill. Okay. All right. So that's our Drew Brees pod. Did anybody retire while we were having this discussion? Not that I know of. Not that I know of. All right.

Thanks so much to Dave and to Jamie and to all of you for listening. I wish I could tell you when our next show would be. Might be in five minutes. It'll probably be tonight or Monday. I got to do some fantasy baseball prep, so I need them to chill out. I got a draft on Tuesday, Dave. You had a week to do that. Free agency is about to kick off.

This is a fun, fun time of the year, Adam. So put your little baseball away. I've been listening to the podcast. I've been listening to the fantasy baseball today, so I'm fairly prepared. Is it helping you? Do you have some strategies ready for your league? Strategies?

Not quite, because I haven't heard the starting pitcher previews yet, but I've got guys that I like now and guys that I don't. So I recommend it to everyone. Listen to that show. We've got an AL draft coming up. I'm telling you to put the baseball away.

I haven't done a lick's worth of research. Draft all the White Sox. Dude, their lineup is going to be amazing. Their rotation should be good too, but I don't know, boo, about anything else. They got a young manager who's ready to guide them to the championship.

I know. If you're going to hire somebody with World Series experience, age shouldn't really matter, should it? No, it's it. Listen, if you're going to hire somebody with World Series experience, age shouldn't really matter, should it? No, it should not. Thank you. Goodbye, everybody. I'm going to miss Drew Brees.

Talk to you soon. He was awesome. Yes, agreed. Well, we'll hear him on the airwaves. See ya.