Fantasy Football Today - Early Breakouts! (06/14 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Justin Fields (1:25) and Garrett Wilson (11:04) seem like layups but they must be discussed on this breakouts episode! Just how good can they be? We'll also talk about the pros and cons of Rachaad White (16:35) in a potential breakout season for him ... News and notes (21:45) on Stefon Diggs, Mike Williams, C.J. Stroud and more. Then we'll talk about Chris's breakouts including Chris Olave (27:50), J.K. Dobbins (34:25), David Montgomery (38:05) and Kyle Pitts (46:24) ... On to Heath's breakouts (51:00) including Tony Pollard, Alexander Mattison, Travis Etienne and a bunch of Year 2 wide receivers ... Email us at [e-mail] 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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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Today, we'll talk about our favorite breakouts for the 2023 season. Justin Fields, Tony Pollard, Garrett Wilson. These are going to be popular ones. We will discuss them. But also we've got a David Montgomery breakout call. We've got a Kyle Pitts breakout call. We've got a George Pickens breakout call.

Those are not going to show up on a lot of breakout lists. We will see. Pitts certainly will be an interesting one. I'm Adam Azer. I'm joined by Heath Cummings. You know him. And Chris Towers is here today. What's up, Chris? What's going on? Yay!

How's fantasy baseball going? You're on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast all the time. All good. Yeah. Everything we record late at night. So, you know, I'm like a six-hour turnaround here since I fell asleep. But all good. I'm ready to go. Cool. How about those Mets? What's up with them? Did Chris fall asleep before or after I woke up today?

What time did you wake up? 5.45. Oh, it was well before that. At least an hour before that. All right. You know what? Let's get right into it, guys. Who's your favorite breakout for 2023? And Chris, why don't you go first? So we have a bit on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast where we talk about the best player of the day, and we always talk about the Olive Garden breadstick of the day. And what I mean by that is when you go to Olive Garden,

you get the free breadsticks. They always give you one extra breadstick than there are people at the table. It's a psychological ploy to make it so that they have to give you fewer refills. And so that's like, I'm just going to take that breadstick and go with it. And I think the Olive Garden breadstick breakout player this year is Justin Fields. I think that's the guy that any breakout article that you read this year is going to have Justin Fields at the QB spot. Jalen Hurts was that guy last year.

Trey Lance was also that guy last year. And we won't talk about that one because Jalen Hurts actually figured it out. But Justin Fields is an incredibly exciting player. We don't really need to spend too much time talking about why. But he's an 1,100-yard rusher who just added one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. I think he's going to take a big step forward this year. Yeah. An 1,100-yard rusher in 15 games.

In his last nine games, he was on pace for over 1,600 yards rushing. They said he's going to throw more, but could easily lead all quarterbacks in rushing. I know, Heath, he's also on your breakout list. Anything you'd like to add about Justin Fields? I think he is the free space of a breakout. I don't think Chris said the names. And every time I talk about the Justin Fields breakout, I'm supposed to say what DeAndre Hopkins did for

Kyler Murray, what Stefan Diggs did for Josh Allen, what AJ Brown did for Jalen Hurts, I do believe DJ Moore can do for Justin Fields. Okay. And Burrow, Fields. I know he's not going to be a top three quarterback. Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Justin Fields. Who's QB4 for you guys? It's Jackson for me, but I think... We did a mock draft for the magazine

yesterday, and it was weird. Seven quarterbacks went in the first 45 picks, so there was basically no tiers there. It was just like one long tier from like, I think the first one got taken 17th, and the last one was 43rd. I think there's a clear top three and then a clear next four. Any of Jackson, Burrow, Herbert, or Fields, I think, are very close to one another, but I do have Jackson at the top of that list. I just think Burrow's upside is probably like 27 points per game. Jackson's, I think, is 30. That's where I come down. Yeah, I think it really has varied. I currently have Jackson in the rankings, Burrow in the projections. I have taken Fields as the number

four quarterback. I think he has as much upside as Lamar Jackson. But in our, I think our most recent mock, I took Jamar Chase in the first round and Joe Burrow was there in the fourth. And I liked that. So I just paired up Burrow and Chase and left Fields out. So yeah, I think any of those three, I don't have Herbert in the same group, and that's maybe not fair to Justin Herbert, but he's the top of the next tier for me. Of those four quarterbacks,

this will be the last thing I ask about Fields. Fields, Jackson, Burrow, Herbert, who has the most downside? Not taking into account injuries because obviously Jackson's missed time the last couple of years with that. I would say probably Fields just because I do think he's

clearly the worst passer of the group. And I don't think that was just because of the limited receiving core that he had i i do think just he's not on the same level as the other guys and so if he's an 800 yard rusher next season you know i think there's a a path to a pretty disappointing fantasy season i think it's for me it's herbert or burrow because they don't have the floor provided by the rushing the 800 yards rushing like we saw with justin herbert last year what a bad year looked like for him and it was what 20 right at

20 fantasy points per game i i think that's lower than what i think the reasonable floor is for fields and jackson and the reason i would say herbert over burrow is because if herbert like mike williams keenan allen are much more of a concern for me in terms of both production and health than Chase and Higgins. And Chase and Higgins can carry an offense as a number one wide receiver. I'm not sure the other two can. Okay. You know, I always reference ADP and consensus rankings and all that. What do you think about?

I think I'm going to reference our listener-only mock draft from May and see where these guys went. How do you feel about that? Today, it's fine. Don't ever do it again. Oh, come on. No. All right, fine.

No, I mean, if you want to do another listener-only mock in late June and reference that, yes. But I think a listener-only mock from a month ago is fine today. It was two weeks ago. Oh, yeah. It was May 25th. Yeah, it was published on May 29th. Today, it's fine. Don't ever do weeks ago. Oh, yeah. It was May 25th. Yeah, it was published on May 29th. Today, it's fine.

Don't ever do it again. Okay, fine. Oh, I just feel you're just changing up a little bit. Anyway, Justin Fields went a round and a half after Burrow.

He went two picks after Herbert in this draft. And let me see where Lamar Jackson went in this draft. Lamar Jackson went. Oh, sorry. It was round round.

The end of round three was Burrow. Then round five was Lamar Jackson,. Oh, sorry. It was round round. The end of round three was Burrow. Then round five was Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Terry McLaurin, Justin Fields. So they all went Jackson, Herbert and Fields went within four picks. And then I think a bad pick. Personally, Anthony Richardson went five picks later. So that's the way it's going to work.

It's going to be those seven. And then Richardson's probably going to be like the mid, the bridge between those four and the next year. The only reason I can't get there yet is because I do think that Richardson's passing statistics were bad enough in college that the window is open that they see him in training camp. There is a certain level of play that you can live with as a rookie, and he's going to get better by playing. And there's a certain level historically that coaches have thought, okay, he needs to sit. And I think there's a chance that they see Richardson throw the ball in live action and read the defense in live action and say, no, we need to wait. If you told me guaranteed Anthony Richardson starting week one,

he should be right there. I would definitely take him before Trevor Lawrence. I'm not saying what I would do. I mean, if you want me to, I would take Lawrence ahead of him. But I understand why you would say that. But what I see is that Anthony Richardson on Fantasy Pros, both average draft position and consensus rankings, Richardson's is QB 18. That's not accurate at all.

That's not happening. I don't know where those numbers are coming from, but it's not. Well, I mean, it might be if those are only coming from best ball leagues where there's no waiver ads, there's no roster moves. People are afraid to draft him as the number one quarterback because they don't know if he's starting and they can't just drop him. Maybe, but that doesn't – I don't believe it. Okay.

I think that Trevor Lawrence in a six point for passing touchdown league will have a higher ADP than Anthony Richardson. I agree. He, he might, he currently has a higher rate AP than Justin Fields in NFC drafts since the start of may, which that's a mistake. I think that's an obvious mistake. I, yeah, but I'm also,

I'm just going to be down on the Jaguars offense relative to everyone else, I think, this year. I'm just not quite as convinced that they're going to be an elite offense as everyone. This is always, and I like this, so we can talk about Jacksonville now in a positive light, and I can be the positive guy. Because, Chris, when it comes to Adam and Jamie and Dave, I'm usually the guy on the Jacksonville offense that's saying, well, wait, we don't know for sure that Trevor Lawrence is going to make that leap. He had a really, really good five-game stretch. It's a great month. Where we were

just like, okay, this is it. Trevor Lawrence has arrived. If that had been the last five games he played, I feel like I'd be a lot more confident. But he took a... I think he still played five more games and really wasn't very good. He was like 80% of two in those five games. It was fantastic.

I will, I will be the pro Trevor Lawrence guy on this show. I think Dave and Jamie would, would be more on my side than on your side. For sure. Um, but yeah, that's not the topic of, although I do think Trevor Lawrence would fit a breakout. In fact, a hundred percent, he would fit the breakout show. If Dave or Jamie was on this show, he would be on the breakout list. So you should probably just talk about him as a breakout. Well, fine.

I mean I think they probably like Calvin Ridley more than you do right now because I know you want to see a little bit out of him. Look, I just – I believe in Trevor Lawrence as a player. He did have a good year. It was not a great year last year. But I think this is the year that he puts it all together. And I think Ridley will absolutely help. I think they've got a lot of really good weapons offensively and do think he has the potential to be the next great quarterback in the NFL. So I'm not really going to give you a whole bunch of statistics. It's really just a pedigree. Right. It's a vibes case. Right. It's a what? It's a vibes case. It's

Trevor Lawrence hasn't been a great fantasy quarterback but sure feels like he could be yeah and i i get it i think it's it's fine i just like i'm not so sure he's better than geno smith you know and and geno smith has pretty fantastic weapons i think they're better than trevor lawrence's so like i'm not i get the trevor lawrence hype but we've seen geno smith play at that level as a passer already and i'm not sure that the gap in adp certainly makes much sense heath you want to give a favorite breakout or should we just keep going i mean it's it's Garrett Wilson. That's the other breadstick. Yeah.

They gave us like three extra breadsticks. I think there might be one more. But yes, I just think – I mean, I've been writing a piece about the rise of the receiver for the magazine. And just like we talk about all these numbers that rookie-wide receivers can put up. The idea of earning 147 targets in your rookie year, the idea of producing an 1100 yard season with that absolute, I'm trying to think of a word that would not be disrespectful to those guys as humans, but just quarterbacks. But the quarterbacks that he played with last year, like it's stunning. And now he's playing with Aaron Rodgers. And we've seen Rodgers when he has one wide receiver receiver who's obviously better than everyone else, just throws it to them constantly. And all the guys who have played with Devontae Adams and are now seeing Garrett Wilson can say is how much he reminds them. Now, part of it's because he wears 17, but we'll take that psychological advantage. That's a fantastic thing. It's working in our favor as well. I love it at camp and stuff when I hear players talking about guys who have not necessarily

performed yet to the level they are saying they are. I remember it happened with Michael Thomas. DeAndre Hopkins was talking about Michael Thomas saying, like, I see me when I watch him. And they had a joint practice. I have really enjoyed the last couple of weeks of Rogers and everybody else talking about the star turn that Wilson's about to make. The one thing I would say is just,

I don't know if the Aaron Rogers peppering Devante Adams with targets thing is an Aaron Rogers thing because Devante Adams just did that with Derek Carr and Trevor Simeon. Like Devante Adams, just that dude just gets open and demands 30% of your targets it doesn't matter who the quarterback is but I like I agree with everything else Gary Wilson my only thing is Aaron Rodgers not telling any tales out of school Aaron Rodgers is kind of a weird dude and he's got some idiosyncrasies about him and he's the

kind of guy where I feel like he really, more than most quarterbacks, he really needs to trust the players that he's playing with. When he trusts the players that he's playing with, he plays fluid. He plays inside the offense. He makes quick decisions. Last year, it didn't seem like he was that guy. And I don't know how much of that was. He didn't trust the players he was playing with. I don't know how much of that was the thumb injury. I don't know how much of it was he didn't trust the players he was playing with. I don't know how much of that was the thumb injury. I don't know how much of it was just I don't want to be here anymore. But that trust level, he's got to establish that very, very quickly, I think.

And hopefully that's what we're seeing with Garrett Wilson. Yeah. When he just said last week, you know, Garrett Wilson could be the best receiver in football at some point. That's a great sign. I think he said that about Jeff Janis, too, at one point. Maybe. I've gone over how he peppers guys with targets inside the red zone and inside the green zone year after year.

I honestly cannot think of anything not to like about Garrett Wilson. If he happens to fall to the third round, I will do the wave. I'll be so happy. No, that's not happening ever again. Well, maybe, maybe, maybe in a super flex league. Maybe. Yeah, the question is just, you know, am I going to have to take him with a top 15 pick?

Then I might be a little bit nervous, I think. But God, what's not to like about him? It's just there's so many good things. All right, Justin Fields and Garrett Wilson, two, yes, we'll call them obvious breakouts, I guess, but they need to be discussed and you need to get them. Also, you need to watch the ultimate international soccer rivalry as it is renewed Thursday night when USA takes on Mexico

in the CONCACAF Nations League semifinals. The U.S. is two wins from defending their title and it's once again Mexico standing in their way looking for revenge. This is more than just a match. This is a battle for regional bragging rights. USA versus Mexico this Thursday, 10 p.m. Eastern, streaming live exclusively on Paramount Plus. Try it free at ParamountPlus.com slash live sports. Okay, I want to, let's take a quick break here. There's one guy that's on your breakouts list. I think it was Heath's breakout list that I thought was so interesting. I struggle. We actually did a real draft, my first real draft of the year yesterday. And I saw him there and I

couldn't pull the trigger. I want to get your thoughts on Rashad White. When we come back. Did you know that across Ontario utility damage happens 19 times a day? That's over 4,222 incidents a year. Don't let your next dig be one that causes costly delays or safety risks. Before you break ground, make it a point to request a locate. It's not just the law. It's a step to keep your team and community safe. Visit OntarioOneCall.ca and avoid unnecessary damages to get the job done right. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. Okay, a lot more breakouts to talk about

and a lot of news, by the way. News on Stephon Diggs. Some drama there in Bills camp. Some of the rookie quarterbacks. Jonathan Taylor, Mike Williams, etc. But let me ask you, Heath, about Rashad White. You put him on your breakout list, and if he's a sixth-round pick, great. What is the case against Rashad White?

I think it's weird. It's like, I'm not fully buying in, but why am I not fully buying in? Horrible offense, and he wasn't very good last year. Okay, okay. He was bad last year. Most of the metrics, not just yards per carry and yards per target, but rush yards over expectation, the next-gen stats. He was one of the 10 worst in the NFL among qualifiers

in rush yards over expectation, percentage of carries that went over expected. Now, it's tough to separate that from the offense he plays in but he's also you know the 91st pick in the draft that's marginal enough draft capital that a bad rookie season should definitely tilt us towards this guy's not that good yeah and i i should i should just say this on air because i've said it on Twitter a couple of times and I have for the most part just discounted most of the advanced rushing stats like rush yards over expectation because they produce some of the wonkiest results that the NFL does not seem to agree with at all um and case in point is this year's free agency class. Based on last year, like Jamal

Williams and David Montgomery and Miles Sanders were not as good as Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson and Deontay Foreman by most of the advanced rushing stats. Nobody in the NFL wanted to give the last three more money than the first three or even like more money for one year than the first three well they're all older well two of them i don't know what they mean two of them are old that's an age thing at least for williams and most are right jamal williams one of the guys who got the big contract maybe i missed the the names you said there for no it was the older guys were much much better okay my my point is I am. I could just be discounting.

I'm sorry. I flipped what you said. Apologize. I think it's tough to separate context from player. And I think that's true in traditional stats. And I think it's true in these advanced stats, which are ostensibly attempting to separate those things. But in this case, the problem with Rashad White is his context is also likely to be very, very bad in 2023. I think with Rashad White, there's two different categories for breakouts.

Like Adam would say, they're league winners. I don't think Rashad White fits that one. They're young players who are going to have the best year of their career and massively outperform what they did last year. I think he fits perfectly into that category. For all this discussion about how can we figure out which running backs were actually good, we all know for fantasy football purposes,

the thing that makes them good most often is just getting the ball on. And I do think that it's, barring an injury, I think he's very unlikely to touch the ball fewer than 250 times this year. I think that's going to make him most likely, unless he gets hurt, a top 20 to top 22-ish type running back. And if you can find that guy in round six, which it seems like we can,

he's not just a breakout candidate. He's also a good value. Right, right. And in the past six seasons, you look at PPR scoring past six seasons, 72 running backs have finished in the top 12, obviously, 12 times six. 24% of them have been on teams that rank 20th or lower in scoring. So this is, and that's a higher number than wide receiver. And how many of them are Christian McCaffrey?

I don't think ever. But guys like David Montgomery and Jordan Howard on terrible, terrible Bears teams. Mike Davis? Anyway, I'm going to have to throw that one out there just because I know Chris enjoys it every time I say his name. That's kind of the thing with Rashad White is Mike Davis is, for me, the year everybody was drafting Mike Davis, kind of the classic dead zone running back. I was talking about the year that he finished top 12. Yeah. And then the year after.

Yeah, I'm talking about the next year where that's what Rashad White reminds me of because the dead zone running back is like, well, we don't think he's good and we don't like the situation very much, but he has no competition. That's kind of the Mike davis of it and sometimes that works out you know james connor i think has kind of been that guy like three years in a row

but the only if the if the biggest case is well nobody else is going to get the ball on his team that just means that like two fumbles in week one could blow up the entire thing right and that's why he's not like most backs entering their second year who caught 50 passes the year before who don't have any real significant challenges for volume would be drafted in the first three rounds. That's why he's in round six. I do think it's interesting to think about and somebody had put in the chat he had 50 catches last year and they say they want to throw it to him more. Is that possible? I started the off season off thinking, well,

Tom Brady's gone. We should not be too excited about running back targets in Tampa Bay this year, which I think is a problem for White because the offense is not going to be good. He's not going to have great rushing stats. The flip side of that is Baker Mayfield actually led the NFL in check down rate last year. So it might be that running back targets are not going to disappear from Tampa Bay quite as much as I thought they were. Right. And don't forget, he had 50 catches. Rashad White, Leonard Fournette had 73 in 16 games. All right. So that's Rashad White.

And I think Mike Davis and Miles Gaskin are the reason why Rashad White is the sixth round pick. Like Heath said, not a third round pick or a fourth round pick. And that's not fair to him either. Correct. Mike Davis and Miles Gaskin had both. I don't remember about Gaskin. But Davis was a career backup who had one good year after he got to start because someone got hurt. And I think Miles Gaskin was a fifth or sixth round pick as opposed to a third round pick.

Yeah, if not a seventh round pick. Seventh, yeah. Seventh. So yeah, he does have better pedigree than those guys, and we have seen him. His mediocre sample is smaller. Let's take a look at our news and notes here. A lot of teams are practicing,

and a lot of players are not there. Stephon Diggs. Heath, what do you make of this whole situation? Sean McDermott was not happy that Stefan Diggs was not at OTAs. Josh Allen kind of downplaying it. I love the guy. I bleeping love the guy, all that. What do you think? Is this a problem here for Diggs? It's a problem for us to understand what's going on because like 30 minutes after Adam Schefter tweeted that Sean McDermott was very concerned that Stefan Diggs was not there, Adam Schefter tweeted that Stefan Diggs' agent said he's been there the last two days. He met with the coach yesterday. He will be there for all.

So it seems like he is in Buffalo. He has been in the building, but he is trying to make some sort of point by not practicing. And Josh Allen went so far as to say it wasn't a football-related thing. I don't – there's something going on here, but I really – if there's a dip, I'm buying it. Okay. Houston head coach D'Amico Ryan said he's going to have an open competition between C.J. Stroud and Davis Mills at quarterback. We'll see. It's true. That's fair. I mean, good. You should.

Sure. There's no chance Davis Mills wins that competition as long as the competition has something to do with throwing footballs. Yeah, and it seems like less of a competition in Carolina where it seems like a foregone conclusion Bryce Young will be the week one starter. Jonathan Taylor did not practice as he continues to recover from an ankle injury. You may not see him until training camp. Mike Williams did participate fully in practice

yesterday for the Chargers. Heath, I know we talked about that on the Dynasty show. I don't know if you had any lingering concerns about Mike Williams' health, but it was good to see him back out there. I think you should always have concerns about Mike Williams' health. Even when he plays 16 games, he usually has multiple games where we say, yeah, but he wasn't healthy that game.

But I feel much better about the fact that he's practicing now. It's good. Jets safety Chuck Clark hurt his knee in practice. Could be a significant injury. They signed safety Adrian Amos. The Patriots waived James Robinson, and according to the athletic, injuries were a part of this. He just wasn't able to stay on the field. James Robinson. Colts second-year tight end a part of this, he just wasn't able to stay on the field. James Robinson. Colts second-year tight end Jelani Woods is the most likely to fill the Dallas Goddard role in Shane Styshon's offense, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Chris, any sleeper appeal for Jelani Woods? There have been some stretches where he's looked pretty interesting. I don't necessarily think he's a super talented player, certainly not on the Dallas Goddard level, but the bar is so relatively low at tight end that, sure, late round flyer in deeper leagues.

ESPN had an article about how young the Falcons offense is going to be this year. This is what they said. Based on projected starters for week one, the Falcons' average offensive age would be 24 point nine years old, making it younger than any week one offense in the league in twenty twenty two or twenty twenty one based on numbers provided by Elias Sports Bureau. And then, you know, I looked at some of the other like super young teams like Pittsburgh last year and the Dolphins from two years ago. And those teams were not good offensively. Does the youth, the general youth of this, the two youths of the Atlanta offense,

the youngest in football potentially in the last three years, give you any hesitation on, you know, putting Drake London on your breakout list or Kyle Pitts on your breakout list or Bijan Rabi and anything like that. It helps that the fact that the young guys are all top 10 picks. It makes me feel a lot better. Not all of them. But yeah, the only one that I'm concerned about and the guy who could sink the whole ship is Desmond Ritter. If he could just be, man, if he could be Andy Dalton, this could be a great, great offense. If he's like the 18th best quarterback in the NFL in 2023 and the Falcons are 20th in pass rate, this is going to be a really, really exciting offense. But unfortunately, both of those are fairly significant ifs. Last note for now is Sterling Shepard

recovering from a torn ACL. He's on schedule, hopes to be ready for week one. So let's go back to the breakouts here and let's go to Chris's. He's got a shorter list here and we talked about two of them already. Justin. Yeah, I didn't realize I could pick 15 guys like Heath did.

Chris picked an entire class of wide receiver. He's just, all right, sorry, Heath. You know what? You know what happened? You know what happened? I did the sleepers show with jamie on monday and i sent in a list about as long as yours chris and jamie sent in a list about twice as long as my breakouts list and so it's great you're gonna have you're gonna have a lot to victory lap about you know you you picked half the nfl, he's picked basically

every second year receiver. I don't see Jamison Williams on there, but Garrett Wilson, Christian Watson. Jamison Williams is certainly not on there. Where's Chris Olave? He's not on there? I don't think Chris Olave is going to be significantly better

than he was last year. Well, let's start right with that. Chris Olave is on Chris's breakout breakout list and i don't know what i'm allowed to say about the draft we did yesterday so i won't say much because it's our magazine draft but i was one pick away from getting chris olave i was really mad that i did not get chris olave but i i love him chris you have him on your breakout list uh do you think he will be significantly better than last year? He was something like wide receiver 20 last year. Yeah, and I... Man, there's a big part of me that thinks he might just be a better player

than Garrett Wilson based on their rookie seasons. Now, that's tough because, you know, Wilson was much more productive in college than Chris Olave. But the biggest thing for me is just, I think the offensive environment that he's going to be in in New Orleans is going to be a lot more promising for passing production. I think the decision to trade for Derek Carr, it's not I don't necessarily believe Derek Carr is going to be this massive upgrade over what they got because they averaged 7.8 yards per pass attempt last season. They had a 4.7% touchdown rate for their quarterbacks last year.

That was actually pretty good. I think the biggest thing is the decision. The fact that they went out and traded for Derek Carr, or no, sorry, they signed Derek Carr. But the fact that they went out and decided to get that upgrade at quarterback, or at least potential upgrade, indicates that they want to throw the ball more. This is a team

that only threw the ball 512 times last season. I think you probably add 50 to 60 pass attempts on top of that for 2023. Chris Alave was one of the few guys who was able to earn a high target share on a lot of downfield targets, which is always a really good combination. And so I think this is a situation where even if his target share doesn't grow from last season, he's going to improve on the 119 targets. And I just think he's a super talented player. And that's the thing is like both of these teams went out and I would say the Jets paid more to get Aaron Rodgers.

And the upgrade of Aaron Rodgers versus whatever that was for the Jets last year I think is much larger than the upgrade of Derek Carr over Andy Dalton if there even is one. The one distinction there though, the Jets already threw 627 passes last year. Olave's target share was higher than Garrett Wilson's. I think the volume portion of it is the only thing. I think the quality of targets are going to increase much more for Wilson than Olave. I do think the total team volume could, although the Saints have been really low in pass attempts three years in a row.

I believe every year that they've had, is it Pete Carmichael calling plays? Basically, since Drew Brees started losing it. But the other thing is they throw 60 more passes this year, which is very possible. I think it takes 60 exactly to get them to league median. Their number two wide receiver last year had 39 targets. Right. If Michael Thomas is playing their number two wide receiver is going to have no fewer than 120 targets.

Sure. By the way, I undersold crystal or I oversold crystal lobby because he was actually number 27 per game. So in that respect, I definitely think he can be a lot better than he was last year. By the way, the Jets threw for more yards than the Saints last year. That might surprise people.

And gross passing yards. 115 more attempts. Yeah, but if you just think about the environment that Garrett Wilson was in, there were more attempts. There were more yards. Statistically, I don't know how you feel about this, Heath, but Garrett Wilson versus Chris Olave. Olave had a higher yards per catch, higher yards per target,

higher yards per route run, more fantasy points per target, higher catch rate, and a higher ADOT. Why the big... That's the thing. 26% target share for Chris Olave on a 14.2 yard ADOT. That is legitimate number one alpha wide receiver kind of stuff.

It's, you know, if we're going to comp Garrett Wilson to Devante Adams, it's the kind of thing you see from a Devante Adams type. I don't think Chris Olave is that good. He's certainly a different type of player, more of a burner. But that to me just suggests an incredibly high baseline level of talent and skills in an offense that didn't really throw the ball down the field very much last season.

He was basically the only guy they were willing to throw the ball downfield to. Well, I guess until Rashid Shahid got going at the end of the year and averaged 17 yards a catch. But I don't, I'm not trying to argue against chris olave i just think comparing chris olave's rate stats and efficiency stats last year to garrett wilson's i don't think you can use that as an argument that olave is better like because like the the quarterbacks they were catching passes from were completely different. Sure.

Garrett Wilson probably had a better quarterback in college than he had last year. Chris Olave had an NFL starting quarterback. Yeah, I don't think anybody feels that way about Andy Dalton except for you, but fine. I mean, you love Dalton. I know you say that, and it's a good laugh line, but he did average 7.6 yards per attempt and had a QB rating of 95 and had a 2-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. He was every advanced metric you can find, I think.

Maybe there's one or two that'll disagree. Say that Andy Dalton was a much better passer than Daniel Jones last year. Okay, he had the second- second highest passer rating of his career. So the year before he had a 76.9 passer rating. He had the highest yards, second highest yards. 162 passes in the NFL. He's an NFL quarterback.

He's not that good. He's not that good. Either way. I feel comfortable saying Dalton's not that good. You think Dalton's good? Either way. He's not that good. Either way, the Saints had an opportunity to just bring back Andy Dalton, and they decided to pay a lot more for Derek Carr.

Whether we think Derek Carr is an upgrade on Andy Dalton, the Saints certainly do. They may have gone from 25th to 18th. Sure. Or 27th to 19th. I don't think Chris Olave should be ranked ahead of Garrett Wills. There's a significant gap in the way they're perceived, and I think that makes sense. But I'm just saying I like Chris Olave a lot.

I like what he showed as a rookie, and I think the opportunity for like, yes, if Michael Thomas stays healthy, well, okay. Yeah, it could be 2019 again, but I don't have a time machine, and I don't know about you guys. So it's possible Michael Thomas stays healthy, but we're on year four of saying that. Yeah, mine's in the shop, so I can't really help. All right, let's go to another breakout here from Chris.

J.K. Dobbins and David Montgomery. Interesting picks here. All right, let's start with Dobbins. Go ahead. Yeah, I've been relatively lower on Dobbins in the time that that he's been the NFL mostly just because I don't I I think the situation has been overrated the way that offense has operated under Greg Greg Roman in particular has been we're basically never going to give anyone more than 15 carries per game it's happened in like 15 percent of their games since Lamar Jackson took over as

quarterback or something. I'm hoping with the change at offensive coordinator, a different offense. Yes, they're going to throw more. Hopefully that'll be good for Lamar Jackson, but hopefully that also means that they're not going to cycle their running backs out as much. I don't think there's much pass catching upside for JK Dobbins, but if he can get to averaging around 15 carries per game rather than max to averaging around 15 carries per game rather than maxing out around 15 carries per game, which is mostly where he's been, the fact that he's been such a hyper-efficient runner in that offense, I think is going to make him a potential 1,300-yard rusher with 10 touchdowns. I think it's probably low-end RB1 upside, but he can absolutely get

there. So he went in the amazing draft that should be used for the rest of the summer. He went 46th, and he went three picks after David Montgomery. So this was a run of James Conner in this round, which is surprising. But Jameer Gibbs, James Conner, Miles Sanders, Travis Etienne, David Montgomery, J.K. Dobbins, DeAndre Swift, Damian Pierce. This round four, Aaron Jones is in there too. I think that's ten, that's nine running backs. Anyway, sorry, Chris, real quick, I'll throw it to you.

Who do you like better, real quick, Montgomery or Dobbins? I believe I have Dobbins ranked ahead. All right, Heath, the floor is yours. I was just laughing because I think that round of running backs that you just read through is like a five-round range for me in fantasy drafts where I would take those guys. Definitely a four-round. I think there are both third-rounders and seventh-rounders

that all went in the fourth round of this very accurate draft that will definitely be determinative um that's good i i love jk dobbins the player i'm hopeful i've don't have any sort of grasp at all as to what they're going to do in terms of sharing running back touches throwing two running backs, or even total rush attempts. Like, it seems strange to me if – it seems like Lamar is going to throw more. Are all of those pass attempts coming out of his rush attempts? Or are we going to have even fewer running back rush attempts than we've had the past

couple of years? I don't know. So I'm not out on Dobbins, and I think he's the type of player that if – I think if he had had Nick Chubb's health and touches the last few years, he may have done exactly what Nick Chubb did. I think he's almost that good. How many catches for Dobbins? Oh, that's one that I don't think think you could tell me in the we're gonna get

training camp reports all they're using jk dom as more as receiver i'm not gonna buy it i think 25 to 30 is the ceiling i have my 21 projected yeah uh i have a note here let's see i think it was davante freeman a few years ago had 34 catches in 16 games. In that year, Baltimore was actually ninth in pass attempts, but they did at least show that they were willing to throw to the running back that year. All right, but there's a lot of unknowns. All right, as far as Montgomery, this is a guy who's been a top 12 running back before, so explain the breakout call on Montgomery. Yeah, these terms are all fluid.

If you want to call it a bounce back or something like that, but I just I think he's going from what was not really a particularly good situation for fantasy because we saw Jamal Williams get 260 carries, 17 touchdowns, was it? Basically no role in the passing game. I don't think David Montgomery is likely to have anything close to this. How many touchdowns was it? 17? 17, I believe. I don't think he's going to get anywhere close to that, but I think 10 is a pretty realistic number. This is a team that clearly wants to run the ball. That's a big part of their identity in Detroit. And if he can just do what Jamal Williams did as a rusher and be twice as effective, three times as effective as a pass catcher, which I think is reasonable, I think there's a lot of room for David Montgomery to have a big season. I think there's RB1 upside

here, not the RB1, but top 12. I have got him at RB19 in my projections, one spot ahead of Najee Harris. I did want to say, Chris, that you should have done a little more research before bringing him as a breakout because the disparity in Adam and I's opinion on Andy Dalton is only rivaled by the disparity in Adam and I's opinion on David Montgomery. Adam thinks David Montgomery is the second worst running back in the NFL ahead of only Jamal Williams. So it's an upgrade is what you're saying. Right. Yes.

He's never had blocking like he's going to have this season. What we're going to find out, he had a lot of times where he had to break a couple of tackles before he even got to the line of scrimmage. And the problem with Dave Montgomery was he doesn't ever actually get going. And so there's no big plays. Well, I always gave him credit for the fact, well, that's because he has to dodge two guys in the backfield on his way. I think he will have more targets than Jamal Williams. I think he'll definitely have more carries than Jameer Gibbs. I like him better

than Gibbs. Yeah. I think there's room for Gibbs to get 175 carries and 65 targets and for Montgomery to still get 240 carries and 50 targets. So I've got it. Yeah. I've got two6 and 40 for Montgomery. I've got 122 and 76 for Gibbs. By the way, for what it's worth, according to pro football focus, the Bears had the fifth highest run blocking grade in the NFL last year. The Lions had the ninth best. So, again, we can sit here and talk about this narrative that everything about the Bears was bad, but going into the year, all I heard was,

he's got a mobile quarterback. His efficiency is going to go up. Well, it didn't. And Khalil Herbert was so much better than him two years in a row in terms of efficiency. His offensive line stinks. Well, according to Pro Football Focus, which, again, especially with the individual player grades,

I don't really put much stock into those. But you know, they, they, they watch all these. We don't, they said they were the fifth best run blocking team, which to me means they were good. You know, it may not mean they were the fifth best, but it means they were good. And his efficiency stunk. He's he's slow and he can't, he can't make big plays.

It's a problem. I don't, I don't really expect him to make big plays. I think the thing is, in this Detroit offense, the way they run their offense, Dan Campbell wants to bite your kneecaps off and all that stuff, which is all just proxy for we want to run the ball a lot. I don't really think he has to be that good. Jamal Williams averaged 4.1 yards per carry

and rushed for 1,100 yards last season. There's going to be a lot of opportunities there. I would guess he's going to be a lot of opportunities there. I would guess he's going to be the primary goal line option there. It's possible Jameer Gibbs supersedes him, but I don't expect that to happen. Even if Gibbs is healthier and better than DeAndre Swift, I think there's still an opportunity here for David Montgomery to get to 1,300, 1,400 total yards and double-digit touchdowns at a

price that is very reasonable. I mean, you're talking about a fourth-round pick in most drafts. Also, and like, we can't, we've either got to say, well, I guess you can just do both, but we do this, and I did it too. Like, I think Andy Dalton's almost as good as Derek Carr. Well, the Saints went and paid $100 million for Derek Carr. Right. They could have had Andy Dalton. Well, Khalil Herbert was obviously much better than David Montgomery each of the past two seasons,

but the Bears never would give Khalil Herbert as much work as David Montgomery. We'll find out. Right. Well, they didn't when both were on the team, at least. I'm just saying that Montgomery may be better at other things like pass protection and just understanding the offense. He might be more reliable. But I feel like he should have rushed for more yards and certainly more yards per carry.

Well, and catching the ball, too. He has almost double Cleo Herbert in yards per target. He was good at that. My concern with Montgomery would be if Jameer Gibbs is an elite talent in the second half of the season, and maybe it's even earlier than that, then he'll start losing carries to Jameer Gibbs is an elite talent in the second half of the season, and maybe it's even earlier than that, then he'll start losing carries to Jameer Gibbs. And Gibbs would be the primary running back, not in a 16 to 18 carry, but like a 13 for Gibbs, 10 for Montgomery.

I don't think so. Well, no, I just... I look at it like Alvin Kamara. Like Alvin Kamara is a 99th percentile outcome for Jameer Gibbs. If he's even close to as good as Alvin Kamara is, that's absolutely worth the 12th overall pick. Well, I don't know, but probably. And there was still a lot of room for other running backs in the Saints offense.

And the Saints offense is different from Detroit's, but Detroit's last season in particular was very, very good for fantasy running back. But Ingram was great. I think it was top three. Ingram was great. That's what I'm saying. If Montgomery's not getting the job done, that would be my concern.

By the way, you said fourth round. He's going to go in the sixth round, I think, in a lot of drafts, Montgomery. I think the industry consensus, the fantasy drafters, are going to favor Gibbs over Montgomery. So for the people like you two, this is a great player to pick.

And I wouldn't mind picking Montgomery in round six for sure. I don't think I'd take him in round four, but I wouldn't mind it in round six at all. And that's where, I mean, even on NFC, you know, these high stakes leagues, he's like RB28. So let me see where Gibbs is. Gibbs is RB14 and Montgomery is RB28. And I think Gibbs can make that work by catching a bunch of passes. But I don't think he makes it work by doing anything close to it. Alan Kamara, as a rookie, did not have one game with more than 12 rush attempts.

Yeah, but I'm saying Ingram was so good that year. He did average 4.9 yards per carry. That doesn't mean that Gibbs can't. But yeah. Well, he was a really good player back then. You know that, right? He was a 28-year-old running back. He was really good.

He was good. He did average 4.9 yards per carry. He backed it up. It was a really, really great offense for running backs. That Saints offense at its best was one of the best offenses of all time for fantasy production at the running back position. I don't know. I think you're being a little hard on Mark Ingram. He was a good player. I'm not saying anything hard

about him. No, I'm just saying I don't He was a good player. I'm just concerned he was a good football player. I don't care that he was 28. He was running the ball really well. Right. Yeah. He was averaging 4.9 yards I don't care that he was 28. He was running the ball really well. Yeah. He was averaging 4.9 yards per carry. That is one thing we can look back on and say for sure. That is – all right. People are going to – what else do you want me to say?

You want me to go back and like pull up scouting reports? No. I think that goes all the way back to the first thing we were talking about with rush yards over expectation and EPA per play and all that stuff. We're really bad at distinguishing what part of a running back is what he has done and what part is the offensive system. I mean that same year, Alvin Camara averaged 6.1 yards per carry. It wasn't just that year with Ingram though.

I mean, he was good every year and then he went to the Ravens and he was really good. So I just, you know, I don't, I don't think we should draft mark ingram this year i don't either it is my takeaway but you do think we should draft kyle pitts kyle pitts is another breakout yes uh look i i get it what's that shared oh he's on yours yeah look i get it we we all had him as a breakout last season and i had had him as a third-round pick, and he was one of the biggest busts in fantasy. We all understand that. To some people, that's just going to be impossible to overcome.

Kyle Pitts will never be good in their eyes. He is younger than three of the six tight ends who were drafted in the first two rounds of this year's NFL draft. He's going into his third NFL season. He has a 1,000-yard season under his belt already, and the per-snap and per-target metrics are very, very good. I think his air-yard share was like 40%. Last season, his target share was 28%.

There was a good piece by Jacob Gibbs on CBSSports.com a few weeks ago talking about the very rare air that Kyle Pitts occupied in terms of his target share, yards per route run, and average depth of target. I think he was one of six players over the last five seasons to have a target share over 25% and an average depth of target over 10 yards down the field. It was like Devonta Adams, Tyreek Hill, Devonta Adams twice, a couple other elite players.

Now, obviously, the situation has to improve from last season. I think it will. Marcus Mariota, the Falcons stuck with him for a lot longer than I thought they should have. They should have given Desmond Ritter more time to see what he could do, but they looked more like a normal offense with Desmond Ritter at quarterback. It was like 31 dropbacks, 31 pass attempts per game. It's never going to be a high volume pass offense. That's not what Arthur Smith wants,

but if it's just 23rd, 25th, even 27th in pass attempts this season. That would be a massive improvement and would give both Kyle Pitts and Drake London room to break out. So I really, I'm going to keep betting on an elite player, especially at a position where if he's even 80% as good as I think he can be, he's a no doubt aboutit difference maker at the position. Okay, yeah. Kyle Pitts, hopefully you can get some good value on him.

The tight ends, three through eight, are going to be jumbled up in a lot of different drafts. Chris, do you know anybody who does good graphic arts work? I was wondering if somebody could get me the Charlie Brown Lucy football meme. I mean, look, the difference is that was happening for 40 years. This is only year two. With Kyle Pitts as the football.

Like just his face on the football. Yeah, I could probably do that for you. That'd be fantastic. I'm sure it would be. I've seen some of your Photoshop work and it has been spectacular. So please put as little effort into as possible. I would like it just

if the football could be football shaped. All right. So I figured we'd spend more time on Chris's breakouts today because we don't have Chris on very much and we've heard we've heard about these breakouts, I guess. Well, I mean, I think everybody knows that normally when I'm on with other people, I talk about 70 percent of the show. And so it was nice for me to get to listen a little

bit today. Well, these were good. I mean, we just don't really, David Montgomery and JK Dobbins is breakouts. We haven't, um, we haven't heard that before the rest of the show will be Heath's breakouts. We'll group all those second year wide receivers to, uh, we'll group all those second year wide receivers together. And we'll do that right after this break all right so if you look at heat's breakout list you'll see justin fields and you'll see tony pollard are you cool with him in the first round um no are you cool with him in the top 20 yeah why wouldn't you be cool with him in the first round, Tony Pollard? I do not believe that he's going to see a significant increase in rush attempts. Okay. I do not totally believe that he is going to be the goal linebacker.

And so I think you should expect some, most likely you should expect some touchdown regression from last year. He scored a lot of longer touchdowns, and very few players do that back-to-back years okay so uh would you take tony pollard or nick chubb i would take tony pollard over nick chubb okay alexander madison alexander madison as a as a breakout for you very much in the rashad white mold of um like he's going to be a top 20 running back and not going to be as good as Dalvin Cook.

Probably by the time ADP adjusts, I'll update my list. Now Alexander will be on the bust list. But for now, I'd like to put him in there as a breakout as someone who's going to have a top 20 season, probably touch the ball 280 times. He could score 10 touchdowns.

He could be right in that David Montgomery range. Yeah, the thing that's tough with Madison is when he's had the opportunity, it's only been six times in his career, but when Dalvin Cook's been out, he's missed six games that Alexander Madison's played. Madison's averaged 20 PPR points per game. The thing is, it's a very, very different offense. This team went from extremely run heavy to one of the past heaviest teams in the NFL last season. And it's different doing it for one or two weeks than 17 weeks in a row. We don't know if he can hold up to that kind of work. Yeah.

Travis ETN. All right. Your thoughts on ETN. Do you think he's worth a third round pick? I, yes, I do. I was surprised how far he fell in a recent mock.

I thought at the beginning of the offseason that he would be a second round pick. I'm not as concerned about Tank Bigsby as everybody else seems to be. I think ETN takes a pretty big step forward probably in touchdowns this year. And he's got that big play ability that if he does the little things right this year, he could be worthy of a first-round pick.

I don't think it would be that surprising if Travis Etienne outscores Tony Pollard this year. Yeah, so I got this stat here. I want people to think about this with Tank Bigsby, who they drafted in the third round in Jacksonville. Last year, Travis Etienne had 10 carries from inside the five-yard line. He scored on two of them. That's a very bad rate. Last year in college, Tank Bigsby had five carries from inside the five-yard line. He scored on all five of them. If we look at the college careers, Bigsby scored a touchdown on 15 of 21 carries from inside the five, 71.4%. ETN was at 51%, 33 of 65 carries from inside the five-yard line. So that's four years in college,

plus one year in the NFL, where he's converting, if you include the year in the NFL, at less than 50% of his carries from inside the five-yard becoming touchdowns. Now, look, I didn't dive into it. Maybe Tank Bigsby was at the one in the two yard line more and ETM was at the four and the five. But I do see that. I don't know if people are really talking about that. If there's a role for Bigsby, I could see that. I mean, it's kind of a stretch for me to think this rookie is going to come in and just take him off the field there. But that stat does jump out to me. Bigs in his college career much better than etn was from inside the five thoughts if that matters to doug peterson then it will matter would be my thoughts like i think those numbers because they're such small sample sizes can get blown out of proportion but

if it catches a coach's eye if he if we thought we saw, we've seen, we saw that with Clyde Edwards, Hilaire, like it took, I think it was basically one game where he had struggles inside the two yard line and Andy Reed never really gave him that chance again. So that I do think it's a possibility that matters. I also think Travis ETN could not be the guy inside the five yard line and he could still be better than Tony Pollard this year. I, it probably has to come from growth in the passing game. And that's the question I have. I just, I don't think he's a perk. He's a good playmaker. He's not a good pass catcher. And those are, you got to get the ball in your hands before you can make the plays. And that was the struggle for him last season, you know, early on, especially they,

they gave him some opportunities. He didn't really earn much more. And once they traded James Robinson, he averaged right at two catches per game, including the playoffs. It's 13 games. If there's room for growth in the passing game, then I think he has RB1 upside. But other than that, if there's not, if he's just going to be a 30-35 catch guy, I'm not sure there's that much difference between him and jk dobbins well i think a lot of it too would be just not having the month that he had before james robinson left and then not having the two games that he left early last year sure yeah he uh he also had in the games after james robinson was traded and removing week 12 when he played like five snaps or something,

he had 82% of the running back carries. What kind of split do you think this year for ETN? I think he gets close to that. True workhorse. 70-30. Okay. That's about what I'm projecting. I like ETN because he's a good player on a good offense.

You don't have those same types of Mike Davis, Miles Gaskin concerns. You obviously have to take him a little bit earlier. But do you feel like that gives a player a floor? How could he stink? That would surprise me, really, if Travis Etienne just stopped. They give the passing game work and the short yardage work to Tank Bixby. Boom. I don't know why they give short yardage work to Tank Bixby. Boom. I don't know why they'd give the passing game work to Tank Bixby.

Because, I mean, Etienne makes huge plays in the passing game from time to time. He's got bad hands. Well, I don't think he uses them the correct way. They did not teach him the right way to catch the football. He's always trying to, like, I don't know what's going on there. His hands are always in the wrong place. Yeah. What I think, and I maybe lean on this too much, but I don't think that Trevor Lawrence's good friend is getting benched.

So in that regard, like I think going to college with Trevor Lawrence probably keeps him on the field in passing downs. Okay. So he's provided. No, I mean, well, he's good. He's just a good player. You need to get the ball in his hands. Alright, Heath provided a bunch of second-year wide receivers. Garrett Wilson, he didn't put Olave on there, just not expecting him to have a huge leap, but we talked about Olave earlier as Chris's breakout. Christian Watson, Traylon Burks, Jahan Dotson, Drake London, George Pickens. So, Wilson, Watson, Burks, Jahan Dotson, Drake London, George Pickens.

So Wilson, Watson, Burks, Dotson, London, Pickens. I'm retracting George Pickens. It's too many names. I'm retracting George Pickens. That was the one. If you were going to ask

which one I don't like, it would be George Pickens. I think he's Devontae Parker. I don't know yet. I wouldn't put that on him. And Devontae Parker had a breakout year. He did have one good season.

I looked it up today. 38% of George Pickens' routes last year were go routes. It's possible in the second year the Steelers teach him a second route. That could change everything. Yeah, there was another Jacob Gibbs tweet about Pickens. It wasn't a good one though yeah i struggle with like he's a highlight reel player and he makes contested catches and that's really good but like quarterbacks throw to guys who are open that's not always true contested

catch players get more targets than they otherwise would but like he just didn't get open very much last season and the thing i struggle with was like he was already playing 80 to 90 percent of the past snaps last season so the jump can't come from well he's gonna play more the jump's gotta come from he's gotta earn a lot more targets and i just i don't know maybe they just stopped throwing to deontay johnson that's certainly possible but you could stop throwing to deontay johnson 17 times a game yeah but the the problem is these these are two like polar opposite ends of the spectrum all deontay johnson does is get open that dude is open every play that's why he earns so many targets he just

doesn't do anything with those targets it's a very whereas george pickens you throw the ball to him he's got a pretty good chance to come up with it even if he's tightly covered it's just the degree of difficulty on every target is so high because they're all down the field a lot of them are contested he's got to make outstanding plays to turn targets into production and those are are, I don't know, all Deontay Johnson has done for like five years and what, four different quarterbacks, if we take the guys who have stepped in, has just earned a ton of targets. And I don't really expect that to change.

Here's the Gibbs tweet. Qualified rookie wide receivers who finished with a target per route run rate below 15% since 2014. Devontae Adams is on this list. The other players are George Pickens, Gabe Davis, Mecole Hardman, Terrace Marshall, Traquan Smith, Tyquan Thornton, Nelson Aguilar, James Washington, and David Bell.

Those are qualified rookie wide receivers who finished with a target per route run rate below 15%. I think Gabe Davis is a really, really good name to have on that list, too. That's an interesting comp in a lot of ways. Good and bad. Let me give you

a stat that I wanted to bring up. I researched it specifically for this show. Arthur Smith, he's been a coordinator or a coach for four seasons. His teams have been bottom three in past attempts in three of those four seasons. I counted only three receivers in the last 10 years who finished top 12 in PPR on an offense that was bottom five in pass attempts. Des Bryant, Doug Baldwin, and Debo Samuel. And Debo Samuel had 365 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns that year.

So those are top three wide receivers in the last 10 seasons that finished top 12 in PPR on an offense that was bottom five in pass attempts. Now, Drake London is not being drafted as a top 12 wide receiver. Doesn't have to finish as a top 12 wide receiver. Not being drafted as a top 24 wide receiver. And he's not destined to be on a team that's bottom five in pass attempts. But when I read you that stat, do you feel like it's limiting the upside of Drake London? I think it would limit,

that tells me that it would limit the upside of Drake London if they were bottom five in pass attempts, yes. I would agree with that. And they might be. I think they'll be bottom half for sure. But if Desmond Ritter is passable, I would guess that they finished somewhere between 20th and 25th. I think they were 16th the year that Arthur Smith had Matt Ryan. And two of the other four years, he had Derrick Henry,

which maybe he'll view B. John Robinson as Derrick Henry, but he's already said he wouldn't do that to B. John, what he did to derrick henry so i don't think that i i expect and i don't really expect anybody to finish bottom five and five times teams will um but also like london sometimes is falling into the wide receiver 30 range i think he could easily be a top 20 wide receiver on a team that throws the ball 525 times he was elite in both targets per route run and yards per route run over two yards per route run over 28 percent um targets per route run and and there's room for like they could be a bottom five pass offense and throw the ball 80 times more than they did last year 100 times more than they did last year, 100 times more than they did last year. Like the bottom, the 28th pass offense in 2021

threw the ball 520 times. In 2022, the Falcons threw the ball 415 times. Now there's been more outlier low volume passing offense seasons, especially in 2022 than we've gotten used to. But if they're more normal, if they're 500 pass attempts, that would still be a very low number for the league as a whole.

And it could still mean that Drake London and Kyle Pitts both got 120 targets. And Drake London, in the best draft that's ever been drafted from our listeners two weeks ago, went in the fifth round in between Terry McLaurin and DJ Moore.

Thoughts? I think that's reasonable. Yeah, I would go Moore, London, McLaurin, but they're all in the same range. And Heath had said, I don't know, a couple months ago, just drafts a number of year two wide receivers. They're not all necessarily going to break out. Give yourself as many chances as possible to get those breakouts. Is that fair? And I think you can

do that almost like you might be able to go Garrett Wilson round two, Chris Olave round three, Drake London round four. There's not a round five. Traylon Burks, round six. Jahan Dotson, round seven. And I would feel pretty good about my receiving core. Okay. And then your tight ends, Kyle Pitts, we talked about. Pat Fryermuth,

old prediction you gave us last week was that he'd be tight end three, but you can go ahead and give us your take on farm youth and Chigo Conquo. Yeah, I mean, the Chig one is another one where you're just like he's the second person on the team and targets, I would say almost certainly. I'm not sure he's a full time player still, and they're not going to throw the ball a lot. But he had a chance to be if he gets to the top 12. That was a breakout season for Chigo Conquo. Fryer, I think he could legitimately be a top five guy. I think there's a, he should, the odds are that he's number two in targets on this offense. He had 14 more targets than George Pickens last year, and he played one fewer game than Pickens did. He showed the ability both years really to be a red zone threat. It was just that Kenny Pickett had a 1.8% touchdown rate.

And I meant to do some research from this because Dave kind of challenged me on it and I need, I will have it in the next couple of weeks. But rookie quarterback touchdown rates and the progression they make to year two, I think statistically, as far as the statistics I predict, that is the biggest jump. There's a bigger jump in touchdown rate than there is in like yards per attempt or lowering interceptions um we've seen a lot of rookies be okay and then terrible and even like even if pickett was a bad quarterback the bad veteran

quarterbacks are three and a half percent yeah like twice as many touchdowns as he threw last year so i think fryer muth could have a 900-yard, seven-touchdown season and finish his tight end three or four. And Fryermuth left a couple of games early with injuries. I know you said he missed one week five before he missed week six. He left that game early. I think it was a concussion. He had another concussion later on in the season

that he didn't miss a game for, but I think his playing time was reduced as a result of that, which is a little bit of a concern that a guy, I think he's had three concussions since he got to the NFL. So that's a little bit of a concern. Okay. Thank you guys very much. Great stuff. Breakouts from Heath and Chris. We've got busts tomorrow and a mailbag on Friday.

Get your questions in fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Also, leave us an Apple Podcast five-star review with a question, and I'll read it on the air. Mailbag show coming up on Friday. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Everybody, we'll talk to you tomorrow.