Fantasy Football Today - Early Busts! Derrick Henry? Odell Beckham? (02/25 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

We're analyzing the players you should AVOID in 2020 with our early BUST picks! We make our pick for the player most likely to bust (4:00) before moving position by position. Starting at RB, Joe Mixon is a risky pick, and Leonard Fournette's 2019 might've been a fluke ... For QBs (35:00), we debate whether Kyler Murray will be a bust or a league-winner, and Cam Newton is likely returning to Carolina but will be a risky draft pick ... Moving onto WRs (45:15), can Odell Beckham Jr. bust again? And why Keenan Allen will suffer without Rivers. And we end with TE bust picks (1:02:12), including a top 3 TE who is likely to fall out of the elite tier this season ... Email us at [e-mail] and tweet questions using #AskFFT 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @YardsPerGretch, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos For more fantasy football coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/ 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. This is the Bad News Podcast. This is the podcast where we talk about busts. Early busts for 2020. And I know what you're thinking. You're listening or you're watching and you're saying, why do I care about busts right now? Well, unless you're like a

sick puppy, you're not drafting anytime soon. What do you mean? Best ball. Everybody's probably been over a thousand best ball drafts already. A thousand best ball drafts already? It's a total guess. Yeah, I don't know if that's necessarily something that we can hang the hat on then, but I think that most people that are listening, kudos to you for listening about fantasy football,

especially now in late February with the combine going on and free agency about to kick off, the new year about to start. Why are we delivering a bus list now? Well, the answer is simple. It's just to get you thinking just a little bit about some of the players that you might want to take a pass on when the drafts really start in august september when you get into your fantasy leagues with your buddies and your co-workers or in the case of heath your best ball drafts which are apparently happening now welcome into the fantasy football today podcast

i'm dave richard heath cummings you've already heard from ben gretch is on board as well we're which are apparently happening now. Welcome into the Fantasy Football Today podcast. I'm Dave Richard. Heath Cummings, you've already heard from. Ben Gretsch is on board as well. We're going to be Debbie Downers for the next hour talking about guys that we just don't think you should put on your fantasy team. We'll make arguments for them, against them, just whatever the case may be. Maybe somebody here is actually on board with a guy that Heath doesn't like or Ben doesn't like or that I don't like. We'll get to it.

And we've debated the biggest bust from 2019. Odell's name is going to come up again today. Le'Veon Bell's name, he was a bust last year. Will his name come up today? Baker Mayfield, he was a bust last year. We asked the FFT Facebook group, who will be the biggest bust of 2020? Who do you think the most common answer is?

Heath, I'll ask you, and then I'll go to Ben Gretsch. Biggest bust, according to the Facebook group? Lamar Jackson. Okay, that's not a bad guess. Ben Gretsch, what did the Facebook group say? Who do they think the biggest bust of 2020 would be? Well, I can see the notes, and now all I can think about is the the actual answer but

but i think he's right it should probably be the the number one quarterback the correct the answer the most common answer ben didn't want to say it i'll say it juju smith schuster biggest bust in 2020 and heath you're making that heath face yeah i mean i don't think he's going to be drafted in the first two rounds he's probably going to be going to be a third round pick in our drafts and a fourth round pick in their drafts. And so I disagree with you, FFT Facebook group members. Facebookers, you're wrong. It makes you wonder if some of them are reading it as biggest bust of 2019.

You guys can't even read, Facebookers. That's what Ben says. He's in that discussion, but in 2020, he's probably going to be a pretty good value. What would make him a good value? Just real quick, give me a round. Roethlisberger healthy, so they're going to throw a lot more. I mean, that is like number one A.

That's what has to happen for him to be a value. But then he has you know he has a long track record of success we talked about it all offseason good good prospect profile came into the league at 21 very very productive right away uh actually i think he came in at 20 and he's super super young yeah um so very productive so far in his career this is really the first time that he in 2019 is the first time he struggled and a lot of that was injury to his quarterback and then injury to himself. And so, yeah, a little better health, a little more pass-heavy offense. I think really easy to see him bounce back.

Three. Thank you for answering appropriately. He didn't think correctly. You talked a lot that didn't answer the correct question. Ben, would you take him in round three, yes or no? Please just yes or no. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

I thought he came into the league when he was 15 and mike tomlin was like the driver while he had his permit going to practice every day but maybe i'm a little off on that all right so we are going to talk bus the number one bust pick for you in 2020 personally speaking for me it's todd girley i'm going right back to the girley well we'll talk about why a little bit later on heath the number one guy on your list the guy that you just are going to tell everybody, do not draft him. He's going to be a big bust.

Well, and we have no ADP or anything besides best ball. And so I just had to use your rankings and Jamie's rankings and the guys that I disagreed with the most. And I see that Jamie has Mark Ingram as a fourth-round pick in PPR. You have Mark Ingram as a third-round pick in PPR. I have Mark Ingram at the end of the sixth round in PPR. So I think Mark Ingram is the pretty clear answer. You're talking about a 30-year-old running back

who just posted a career-best touchdown rate. He had five receiving touchdowns on like 17 catches or something. It was completely absurd. No way he's scoring 15 times again. And he's far more likely to get hurt than the younger running backs as well ben gretch if your number one bust of 2020 is a running back we'll go right into the running backs right now we'll talk about all these guys who is it who's the number one bust this year for you well yeah i mean i'm hesitant to even talk about this guy because i feel more questions

about him than almost literally any other player in the league combined and I think that's probably true more than anyone else combined but um you know I I'm I'm here to give you my opinion and based on my analysis and I it's Derrick Henry I mean it's still going to be Derrick Henry this year for me I'm still going to be fading him what he did at the end of the season was remarkable he's a remarkable athlete he's uh an exciting player to watch doesn't catch enough passes um and their offensive efficiency the ridiculous rate of touchdowns that they uh scored relative to field goals late in the season the way that they capped off drives which a big part of that was derrick henry being so effective in the red zone but um this is just not something that i see sustainable is sustainable for this offense

and for this team and again henry's a free agent right so he's probably going to sign some big deal now you have new money it's it's a it's a really hard thing and and then you add in how many carries he had in the in the postseason and over 400 touches on the year really hard thing to imagine him repeating what he did last year and he's almost certainly going to be overvalued it's 409 touches between the regular season and postseason for derrick henry okay so derrick henry has a current best ball adp of ninth overall i think ben still feels really good about that mark ingram has a current best ball adp of 40th overall right in between you and jamie you guys have nailed the public perception there. I still agree with that. Todd Gurley's best ball ADP is 37th overall.

If he's a fourth-round pick, is he really a bust? I mean, that's right around where I would take him. So if that's what the ADP is going to be, then it's going to be hard to call him a bust based on that. I think that that's exactly the type of spot where you can get Gurley and feel okay about him because you're drafting him again as a number two running back. People didn't do that last year. I'm hoping people don't do it this year because last year he had 14 touchdowns.

It was awesome for him. That was 47% of his fantasy point total in non-PPR, 40% in PPR. That's a lot. And he barely had over 1,000 yards. The knee still has to be an issue. We don't know about the offensive line in L.A. We know that L.A. can throw the ball well. And Gurley wasn't a big part of that.

And I wonder if Daryl Henderson takes a step in his second season. So, I mean, those are the highlights. We just went through the highlights for Derek Henry, Mark Ingram, and Todd Gurley as busts. I kind of can't help myself with Henry. If I could just drag us back to Derrick Henry for a second. Where is he playing? Well, let's assume he stays in Tennessee.

Because he has said he wants Zeke money. And there's like 17 free agent running backs and 19 rookie running backs that could probably start in the NFL week one. Okay, technically that's true titan i don't know they can do what derrick henry can do i don't think they're going to give him zeke money i think they give him franchise tag like if you were and i i said this on twitter if like if i'm the titans and the first thing he asks for is zeke money the first call i do make is melvin gordon and say okay what what do you have to have for three years and we'll just take him because melvin gordon can do things that derrick henry can't do now there's things that henry can do that gordon can't as well so like that's the reason i bring that

complicated situation up is my biggest fear is derrick henry goes somewhere besides tennessee if he's back in tennessee i probably won't have him as a first round pick in ppr i'll probably have him as an early second will probably mean that I don't get him but I still will like him I won't be as as stubborn about it as Ben is so I you know I see the touches the 409 touches and I and I get the skeeves just like you do and Jamie isn't a big fan of his either he's got him ranked even lower than you do in PPR at 20 and I I And I think back to how he ended 2018 and how he was just rumbling through defenses, and he comes into 2019, and what does he do? He rumbles through defenses.

They keep giving him the ball. He seems to be healthy. He told us at Super Bowl week that he was ready for another 16-game season already. I don't know if that was just talk, but there's no surgery in his future as far as we know. I think that he's going to be in pretty good shape for the start of the year, and he's talked about how he wants to be a better pass catcher. And that could be whether he stays in Nashville or he moves on to a different team. Who knows? I think Tennessee is going to be where he ends up. I'm nervous to say that he's a first-round pick in any format, especially PPR, because there's no guarantee that he's going to catch more passes.

It would make sense that they get him more involved that way. But I think of all the touchdowns that he scores and the numbers that he puts up and the opportunities that he gets, and there aren't a lot of running backs that get those kinds of opportunities. And I wonder if it's a mistake to just immediately put an x through his name and say i'm not taking them unless it's round two compared to other running backs that are on bus lists they're going to be running backs that we're going to talk about today it makes me it makes me a little hesitant to just automatically slap the bus label on him well and i what's interesting is every i agree with everything that you guys both said i like i personally am not automatically slapping the bus label on him right after the

season i wrote a whole article just about henry and uh trying to break down how he was so successful and how those high value touches and that trap stat that i talk a lot about missed on him and pretty much my conclusion was this guy's kind of an anomaly and physically he is an anomaly if you know we're at combine season if you look at his uh his weight adjusted 40 time I mean it's all that stuff is very very impressive but if he's so undeniable that starting in the end of 2018 and coming through into 2019 no one can stop this guy and he's going to continue to be that good how come it took him three years or four years for that to happen and if he's going to be a better pass catcher how come in four seasons he hasn't

caught 20 passes yet because we've heard that from from him and people around the titans every offseason pretty much that they want to get derrick Henry involved more in the passing game and he was very good in the passing game last year but I just don't understand like how like at the end of the day like I don't feel like stubborn is the right word I feel like I look at his numbers he's talked about how many touchdowns he scores the touchdown percentage he had last season is massively higher than his numbers prior and massively higher than what you would consider sustainable for any running back, even elite running backs. And then you look at his yards per carry being a career high and you look at how effective he was in the past game. All of those efficiency metrics and all the efficiency metrics for Tennessee's offense as a whole.

And it's just really hard to envision a guy with this type of profile, this type of touch distribution doing any better than he did last year. Last year was like the absolute peak season as far as I'm concerned. I agree. It was a 50, I'm sorry, I was about to say a 53% touchdown percentage. That would have been a little high. How about 5?3%? Does that sound better? 5.3% of his rushes resulted in a touchdown in 2019.

I'm doing the math right now. I think in 2018 it was actually 5.6%. Yeah, you're exactly right. So if that's the case, could he continue to score at a 5% clip? Both of you are probably going to say no. I would be hard-pressed to say yes. But I also think that he's got a shot, and there's very few running backs that can do it,

get to 300 carries for a second consecutive season. So even if that percentage looked like a four, it's still nine touchdowns, something like that, eight or nine touchdowns. I'm sure I have him, or I don't actually have him projected because he's not on the team right now. I will project him for double-digit touchdowns, and there's not very many running backs that I would do that for, but it will probably be closer to 10 than 16.

Where are you comfortable drafting Derrick Henry as of now? Late second, mid-second, Ben? Yeah, I mean, I think late second, early third. There are elements of me or parts of me that are like, yeah, I just want to get some exposure to this guy in case he's just a freak right just like so much better than and it will will sustain this so um you know i i'm not saying he's undraftable by any means and i just i i know that there's the injury risk because he's coming off a year with so much work for some reason and maybe it's the freak factor i'm not as worried

about it with him as i've been with other running backs in the past. So I still have him as a first-round pick. I don't know if I'll stick with that, and that's assuming he stays in Tennessee. Let's talk about Mark Ingram. This is another running back that I've got ranked higher than Jamie and Heath and probably Ben as well. And let me just put something out there. When we talk about ranked higher, it might be by position,

but the numbers that we're giving, for example, in PPR, I've got Ingram ranked 40th overall, Jamie's 57th, Heath is 64th. One of my philosophies for 2020 is going to be hammer running backs early. And I'm probably going to devalue wide receiver just a little bit, and that's why the running backs, just in general, they're going to be pushed up higher for me across the board. The argument against Ingram is pretty easy here. He's a 30 year old.

He had 15 total touchdowns last year. So we can play the regression card with him. He was top 10 and non PPR and fantasy points, fancy points per game and consistency in full PPR. He was also 10th in fantasy points per game, but 19th and consistency just didn't catch the ball nearly as much. Is the feeling that he could break down and the Ravens offense could change a little bit, and that's why he would be on your bust list, Heath?

I would expect that Lamar Jackson's pass attempts are more likely to go up than down because he was one of the lowest pass totals in the NFL amongst quarterbacks. When you look at Ingram's share of the rush attempts, and the share of the running back rushes isn't very good, but the share of the rush attempts is what's really telling. He had 202 carries on a team that ran the ball 596 times. They're probably not going to run the ball 596 times again because teams just don't do that.

And so 33.9% is where Ingram was at as a share of the Ravens' carries. That's a lot. Rush attempts. That's really, really low. I would venture to guess it's one of the lowest totals for a top 10 running back. Okay. Oh, okay.

I was saying that I thought that that was a lot. No, he had 33% of their carries. Well, did you include Lamar jackson carries okay so like i when i when i would go through and i would double check not double check but i would go and look at that number again comparing it to other running backs on the team percentage of running back carries i would imagine that that's going to be really high that would be really high but i don't think when you're on a team with lamar jackson that's really that relevant lamar jackson was okay the best runner on their team um and so like he led the team in

rushing yards even though the fact that mark ingram was a top 10 running back so i i think that hurts him if they open the offense up just a little bit i do think his injury risk is higher i think there is more risk of him losing carries to both gus edwards and justice hill because those guys are younger and have fresher legs and i think the touchdown regression is coming Ben what do you see with Mark Ingram I agree with Heath I mean this but he mentioned earlier the five receiving touchdowns on only 26 catches 29 targets that's just not going to happen again this is a guy who was always kind of a big touchdown scorer in New Orleans but his career high in all those years was 12 touchdowns in a season he ended up with 15 I mean he was really high on the rushing touchdown side as well i you know i i still think if he's back and and and

baltimore's offense is still going to be very productive and efficient he's going to still score touchdowns but um all the things that he said he's not going to have a huge share of the offense uh i think that we'll see more of those other backs. He's going to be 30 or just turned 30 in December. So he's in the back stage of his career. This is just a guy that I would not take as a number one back or even number two in fantasy. But I just don't think he is anything close to what he was last year. Did you just say that you wouldn't take him as a number two running back in fantasy

so is he outside of your top 24 he's outside of my top 24 yeah okay he's real close to it in our consensus rankings for sure he's right near the border of a number two fantasy running back in our consensus rankings ben another bus running back melvin gordon now this one's it's got to be team dependent a little bit of that a little bit of him getting paid and maybe regressing a little bit because of that. Cause he can take his foot off the gas. He's finally got his bag. Um, maybe age comes into it as well. What, what do you see with Melvin Gordon? Why is he on your bus list? Yeah. I mean, it's definitely going to be team dependent. That's, that's totally fair, but, uh, similar to Le'Veon Bell is kind of

the comparison I want to make Gordon's going from a situation and I'm assuming that he's leaving the Chargers going from a situation where the the fantasy scoring potential on the team was very high for running backs the Chargers led all teams last year in high value touches they throw to their backs they use their backs in the green zone both in the running game and the passing game in the scoring area and they've been really strong in that category for a lot of years and Gordon's entire career because it's largely been a a part of Philip Rivers game he likes to dump off to the backs and he likes to use them in the red zone so my my concern when I when I compare him to Bell Bell had that same kind of situation in

pittsburgh maybe not as much scoring equity in pittsburgh as gordon had in with the chargers but he had a better receiving role when you change teams the situation changes the player still has those skills but it makes things a lot more challenging we saw that with bell this year still had a decent receiving role but not nearly what it was in pittsburgh obviously didn't get nearly as many scoring opportunities. You know, he was also really poor from an efficiency perspective and should be better in 2020. I don't know that we should expect Gore to just drop off from an efficiency perspective on a new team. But I think outside of maybe one or two locations, he's almost guaranteed to lose some receiving work and some scoring potential so i i think wherever he lands

it's going to be a little bit more challenging for him to be an elite fantasy running back than it was with the chargers except for my dream scenario of derrick henry asked for too much money and melvin gordon goes to the titans sure i mean that then he might be great he might be a top 12 running back he could be but other that, I pretty much agree with everything Vincent. And I get it. And I've got him ranked. I've got him 29th overall. I'm trying to stay optimistic about Melvin Gordon.

I liked how consistent he was last year. He was number 10 in running back consistency in PPR, 12th and non. Still an average 14.2 PPR fantasy points per game. That was top 15 at his position and that's with a couple of games where he had to knock the rust off when he came back from his holdout I'm I agree that where he ends up is going to be huge for for his value and if he ends up sharing somewhere of course he's going to be down to being like a round four round five type of a pick but if he's a lead back like we've seen from him before I still think we can get maybe one or two more good seasons out

of him and he can really give us great value in fantasy melvin gordon uh he if you're looking at him at the end of round four jamie would do something similar i think he's a round three pick as it stands right now uh let's talk early i uh i've got him ranked the lowest of the three of us heath you've got him 27th overall i've got him 38th overall as yards per carry dropped in a major way from 2018 to 2019 same thing with yards per catch uh his explosiveness waned i don't have a stat to back it up but i saw him he was very when he was explosive he was very here or there we all know about the knee issues still finished as as running back 14 in PPR and non-PPR. I talked about how important the touchdowns were for him.

If those touchdowns come down like they can for Derrick Henry and for Mark Ingram, what's left to like about Todd Gurley? Yeah, I think the interesting thing with Gurley is you can look at his touchdowns and say, man, there's no way he scores that many touchdowns again, or you can look at his touchdowns and say that's the worst rate in the last three years he scored touchdowns a lot better than two years before that he's probably gonna score more touchdowns next year now he's probably not but I do think he could still score double digits in that offense assuming that he plays 15 games I was actually kind of encouraged by how the knee

held up and how like they kept saying throughout the year no it's not really a concern no it's not really a concern and they they kind of treated him like that the problem was the offensive line was just terrible and they could not run the ball and they didn't use him the same in the passing game I think because they didn't have the same ability with that offensive line to use the screen game as of right now I'm expecting the offensive line is going to be better than it was last year I think it's's more likely. I think there should be probably some disagreement or agreement, however you want to phrase it, with how you rank Todd Gurley, Brandon Cooks, and Tyler Higby. It's likely that one of those three is not going to be near as good. It's possible that two

of those three aren't near as good. If Higby gets the same target Sherry did in the last six weeks last year he might ruin Cooks and Gurley but I think it's more likely that things normalize to some degree where they were the first two years in this offense in terms of usage he had 15 or more carries in half of his games last year we're used to that number being higher the fact that it was what it was tells me that they were a little bit concerned about how much wear and tear they put on Gurley and how much work that they put on his play. In September alone, he had 14 carries in week one, 16 carries after that, 14 after that, and only five carries in a loss against Tampa Bay.

That was a game with 95 points in it. And Todd Gurley had five carries. He did score twice. He scored on two of the five carries. And he also had seven catches for 54 yards. Those were both season highs for him. That was just a matchup where I guess the Rams took to the air because they had to try and compete with Tampa Bay in that one.

I do think, though, if they were concerned about Todd Gurley's knee, it didn't manifest itself towards the end of the year. Because you look at his carry totals towards the end of the year, and he had one with only six, but he had a 25-carry game in November, a 19, 23, a 20 in December. He had a lot of work at the end of the season. It sounds to me like he was getting stronger and not weaker. 88 carries in his final five games, all of them in December,

the last five games of the season he had five touchdowns rushing in those games he had another one receiving and if you extrapolate that over 16 games we're talking about 19 total touchdowns so he did finish strong and i wonder if that was also just part of the plan with him and i don't know we don't know what the plan is going to be with him going to 2020 other than he's going to be on the Rams, at least in theory, and we'll see how he does. Ben, do you have a take on Todd Gurley? Are you as excited about him bouncing back, or do you think it's just going to be what it is with him

as a number two running back? Yeah, I kind of agree with most of what he said. I have a really hard time with aging backs that we see the efficiency fall off because you don't necessarily know if it's ever going to come back you know there's there's guys that just kind of fall off a cliff now he's not old he was a very young player you know i'm always talking about age he should be just entering his prime i think there's potential for him to bounce back um i think you know we i was just talking about team situation for melvin gordon and he hit on it with the offensive line struggling and the whole Rams offense struggling compared to the two seasons prior he led the NFL in touchdowns each of the two seasons

prior but the whole situation changed for him with the team not being as productive and that is definitely going to impact his ability to to rack up fantasy points um so it's you know if you think the Rams are going to have a big bounce back season there's certainly potential for him to have 12-15 touchdowns. He showed it a couple years in the last three, like you said, but I tend to agree with most of what you guys said, that it's probably not promising. Well, I think that there should be a distinction

because we use the term bounce-back. If I thought Todd Gurley was going to bounce back, I should rank him as a top five back. He was the number one. He finished 12th last year. I've got him ranked 14th at the position. going to bounce back i should rank him as a top five back like he was the number like i he right finished 12th last year i've got him ranked 14th of the position i'm not necessarily projecting any sort of bounce back he's just going to be what he was last year or or maybe a little better maybe a little bit a little better yeah how do you have him compared to a couple of other running backs

i don't know maybe i heard that you've got him on your bus list this year leonard fournette and joe mixon leonard fournette and joe mixon these guys are that you've got him on your bus list this year. Leonard Fournette and Joe Mixon. Leonard Fournette and Joe Mixon. These guys are younger. They've got some appeal. Mixon especially might have some appeal. But you're not feeling them. And our consensus rankings, he's Fournette. We'll start with Fournette.

Fournette's ranked ninth, PPR, non-PPR. I've got him ninth overall. I would take him with a first-round pick. Jamie will take him 16th overall. Keith, you have him at 21st overall, so a late second-round pick on Leonard Fournette. What's the big deal? And I do have Fournette ahead of Gurley. When I first did my rankings, I think I might have had Leonard Fournette close to the top five.

But that was when John DiFilippo was still their offensive coordinator. And that was before the stuff came out about they're probably not going to pick up his fifth-year option, which they probably don't want to give him a big contract, which tells me that this could be his last year. And Rykel Armstead, Pete talked about multiple times last year how much they like him. So listen, Fournette's usage last year, if you told me for sure he was getting that, I would have no problem with him as a first-round pick. I'd be talking about touchdown regression and how he's definitely going to score more.

I'm concerned with the change in offensive coordinator going to Gruden, someone who has definitely used a second pass catching back in the past, and also with the concerns about do they want to start transitioning away from Leonard Fournette. He's still a second-round pick for me, but someone that for me would be more in the Derrick Henry range than in the first round, which I guess you've got both those guys in the first round. I do.

I do, but I'm also a crazy running back guy, so I'm always looking for – And I know that Ben agrees with me on this one because he was actually making the argument back when I was high on Leonard Fournette in January. He finishes RB7 in PPRpr he was 11th in consistency he was rb16 and non-ppr those catches really made a difference for him he was 22nd in consistency and non-ppr only three touchdowns he had 23 carries inside the 10 i don't know exactly where

that ranks but that seems like a pretty good number over the course of 16 games and he had over 1600 total yards a career high 1674 total yards and i would almost i would almost think that he could be motivated by not getting the fifth year option from the jaguars to go out there and play you're right about gruden he has used a second back in in plenty of stops I don't know if he never if he ever really had a great running back in Washington I mean he got he gave Adrian Peterson a thousand yard season and I think Alf had his last thousand yard season with him with Gruden there but he could ask for a third down back to come in and help ease the load on Fournette that would absolutely crush his value and it would send him down my rankings as well. Ben, what do you have on Fournette?

Yeah, the coordinator change is huge, and that's a big concern for me. My other question, you mentioned contract year. Are we sure that Leonard Fournette is that good? Are we sure that a little extra motivation is going to mean a really good season, I kind of hesitate. You know, he was a top five pick. He was very dominant in college, but he's never really showed that dominance at the NFL level other than, you know, being able to hit on some big runs. But I know I've seen stats throughout his career

where if you remove the big runs for every back and you look at, you know, kind of their consistency on a rush-by-rush basis and how good their YPC is, their yards per carry without those big plays, Fournette consistently ranks really low in those types of metrics. Now some of that can be offensive line, but I'm just not sure he's somebody who is much better than a replaceable back other than the fact that he was a top-five pick, which I think we just kind of assume that he's that good.

But I don't know, man. I still am just not sold on the talent. He definitely – I think he's warranted that type of criticism because he hasn't come through the way that other former top-10 NFL-drafted running backs have done. You talked about his efficiency. He's got 25 career runs of 15- plus yards. Half of them came last year. He's got a frustrating injury history. Gruden averages around 22 and a half running back rushes per game. That's over his time with

Cincinnati and Washington. It was lower than that with Washington, higher than that with Cincinnati. I don't know if he's had a running back that is as, quote, good as Fournette is in his previous stop. So I guess I'm still a little bit optimistic about how Fournette can do in this offense. But I think a huge factor will be whether or not Chris Thompson follows Gruden from Washington to Jacksonville. And there's a third down back there that's going to take all these catches that were so crucial to Fournette last year away from him. And it would send his value tanking, and it would make him a pretty clear bust candidate. Joe Mixon is your other bust candidate, Heath? Yeah, I just saw. I think you and Jamie both had him as a top ten pick.

Yep. yeah i just saw i think you and jamie both had him as a top 10 pick yep and uh we it's certainly not out of the ordinary for the way that we viewed joe mixon going into almost every season of his career but i'm not yet convinced that the situation in cincinnati is going to be one that allows him to do that now if they go into the season and say we're going to treat joe mixon like a workhorse three down back and they've made significant improvements to their offensive line then maybe I'll feel differently but as of right now I just like we've seen Joe Mixon be a very solid number two running back and that situation in that situation that means that he is a very good running back I'm not sure

that that gives me reason to like I don't know why i would draft him ahead of those wide receivers that i feel relatively confident are going to be number one wide receivers do i have it right that you would take four net ahead of mixin i have four net currently ahead of mixin okay uh i i love how mixin finished last year and it it goes hand in hand with what the the bengals coaches admitted to they admitted that the first half of the year they weren't using them the right way. They changed some things during their bye week, and he was able to really capitalize on it.

Averaged over 15 non-PPR fantasy points per game in his final eight games. He had six of eight games with 10-plus non-PPR fantasy points, six of his last eight with 15-plus in PPR. He averaged 17.4 in PPR. And I think that he's going to continue to be that lead back for Cincinnati. I think the offensive line will get a little bit stronger. I think adding Burrow at quarterback, and Burrow came out of the combine this week and said,

whoever drafts me, I'm going to play for him. So I think him being in Cincinnati will be a good thing. I think it will be really good for Joe Mixon now that the coaches know what they have in him and how they can use him. I'm actually a little nervous about the schedule for him and obviously playing against Baltimore and Pittsburgh twice a year that's not going to be good for him you know he only has one career touchdown and one 100 yard game in his career against Baltimore and Pittsburgh well he had a good game against Baltimore last year just didn't score but right so that's the one with 100 yards so much of that hot finish was

the browns so much like he had 360 yards and three touchdowns in two games against the browns he still didn't really like he had two games with four targets in those last eight games um none with more than four targets so i don't like he did have very good numbers and he had he had a good rushing total against the Patriots as well, but so much of all those numbers that you gave of how good he was in the last six or eight games were influenced by the fact that he ran over one of the worst run defenses in the NFL twice in four weeks. Okay, so as we talk about these running backs

and guys that are potential busts, you'll remember the names. It's Mixon, it's Fournette for Heath. For me, it's Todd Gurley. I brought up Derrick Henry. I don't think he's going to be a buston. It's Fournette for Heath. For me, it's Todd Gurley. I brought up Derek Henry. I don't think he's going to be a bust, but there's a case to be made. Ben Gretsch has Melvin Gordon and Mark Ingram. Remember these names and think about them in comparison to other wide receivers that you might consider drafting ahead of them in the coming weeks or months.

Those are our bust running backs here on the FF Today, the Fantasy Football Today podcast. I've only been on the show for like 15 years. I should probably get the name of it by now. We've got a newsletter on top of a podcast and a video show and a YouTube stream. We've got it all. The newsletter's part of it. CBSSports.com backslash newsletter is where you can go to stay up to date with fantasy

football content sent straight to your inbox all offseason long. So you don't have to go to the website to find the latest work from Heath Cummings, from Jamie Eisenberg, from Ben Gretsch, from Dave Richard. It's all going to be sent right to you every single day in your inbox. That's what the newsletter is for. You can sign up for it, CBSSports.com backslash newsletter. We've sent out prospect profiles this week. Heath and I have started tackling some of the top draft prospects in the 2020 NFL draft.

Quarterbacks, you did Jacob Eason. You were kind of impressed with him. Kind of. Yeah. He might be okay. I think the comp that I used was Joe Flacco, so I wasn't that impressed. Well, I mean, Flacco's been in the league a long time. I'm sure Eason would take a career like Flacco's right away.

But we're starting to get into that. So if you're a Dynasty player, you can sign up for the newsletter. You'll get information like that sent straight to you. You'll think we're reading your mind because we're helping you get your teams ready to go. Once again, that's cbssports.com backslash newsletter, all one word. Bus quarterbacks. There's only three of them, but one of them's an interesting one,

and that's Ben's. We'll save that one for last. Mine's Cam Newton. I think it's pretty easy to put the bus label on him because he's only three of them, but one of them's an interesting one, and that's Ben's. We'll save that one for last. Mine's Cam Newton. I think it's pretty easy to put the bus label on him because he's coming off of an injury. Well, look, he's coming off of a Liz Franks brain. We don't know how healthy he's going to be. We think now that he's going to be on Carolina.

There's a report from NFL Network saying that the Panthers are moving forward with Cam as their quarterback in 2020. He finished as quarterback 13 in 2018, completed 56% of his throws in 2019. He only played two games. He was quarterback five in 2017. He's got great potential. We know what he can do.

The question is, will he be the same guy? And he's got to learn a new offense, by the way. I just think, like, if you look at, because this was all compared to where we had ranked versus other guys had ranked and jamie and i have him ranked as an 11th round pick and he's been a top five quarterback every year that he's played 15 games and he was the number 13 quarterback as recently as 2018 so i don't like if you are drafting now and don't know about the health of cam newton and want to use an 11th or 12th round

pick on the upside that he's good i don't i don't think busts come from the double digit rounds no but it could be a waste of a pick i think ben rothlisberger has more upside oh i don't know how is that possible cam newton was like the best quarterback in because they're both coming off major injuries and ben r Roethlisberger in 2018. And, yes, he's coming off an injury to his arm, Cam to his foot. I think it's a better opportunity for him to go off. Ben's like 40 years old. He's close to it. He's older than Cam for sure.

I like them both. I think you're both right. Okay. There's other quarterbacks that you're going to be able to find late too. Like Jared Goff. I know that no one's ever excited about Jared Goffff but you look back at his numbers and you think wow he actually did better than expected he's going to be a good late round pick he's going to be a good second quarterback joe burrow is going to be a very popular late round pick people are going

to take him i i would almost guarantee as soon as the draft happens joe burrow is going to be going before cam newton sure yeah i would i would Yeah. But I think he might be a better bus pick. Cam Newton's going to be playing in the offense that Joe Burrow played in last year. He's going to be playing with Joe Brady, the offensive coordinator, and that's going to be pretty promising for his 2020, especially with the weapons that they have. DJ Moore, Curtis Samuel, Christian McCaffrey, Ian Thomas. I mean, that's a really athletic group. So I think Newton could definitely bounce back.

I'm more interested in Heath's bus pick, Kyler Murray. Heath, what is he? You're not drinking the Kool-Aid, are you? Just real quick, because I did look. Joe Burrow already has three rounds higher ADP than Cam Newton. Cam Newton's in the 13th or 14th round. Okay. Yeah, I don't want to call Kyler a bust.

But right now, I'm just looking at where I've got him projected versus where Dave and Jamie have him ranked. I think one of you has him ranked ahead of Dak, maybe even ahead of Deshaun Watson. Is he number four for somebody? He's four for me. He's ahead of Dak for me. Yeah, I hope that he does that.

I agree that he has that upside. I think if we get to a point to where Kyler Murray is being drafted in the fifth round as the fourth or fifth quarterback off the board, that's a mistake based on what we've seen so far. The Cliff Kingsbury experiment in year one did not deliver great results. They were below average in terms of their offensive plays. Their offensive line was every bit as bad as we were concerned. They drafted 17 wide receivers and they all sucked.

And so I would like to see some a little bit more. I still think that Kyler has just as much upside as anyone, but I think drafting him fourth or fifth, that quarterback is a mistake when there are guys like Dak who just gave us the number two quarterback season so we know he has an immense upside as well especially if Murray Cooper and Michael Gallup are there and he's much much his floor is much higher I think Jameis has just as much upside as Kyler Murray and he was better for fantasy last year so that's my only it's not a negative Kyler Murray thing I don't think that he's like an NFL bust I think if he gets surrounded by the right circumstances he could absolutely be a very good NFL quarterback I worry about

drafting him as a top five quarterback yeah I'm banking on those circumstances improving for him and the offensive line I actually went back and checked just where pro football focus had him graded for whatever it's worth and they were in the top half i think they were 16th in run blocking but 13th and pass blocking last year according to pff and that's you know group of people that are watching these guys and evaluating them and listen there are a lot of bad offensive lines in the league so maybe they were just one of the better bad offensive lines in football but that's where they ranked arizona was also 26th in red zone touchdown efficiency. They scored on 15.7% of their red zone trips, touchdowns they scored. And that's according to Pro Football Focus.

That's a number that I think that they can improve on. They should, yes. For a quarterback that had been in the league for a little while with a coordinator that had been in the league for a little while, I would say that screams to me, well, that's probably going to regress next year. I think there's also a chance when we have no other history with these two, but last year, you have to consider the possibility they were bad in the red zone.

They were not good at getting people open in those situations, and maybe that was the receiver's fault. Maybe it was Kingsbury's fault. Maybe it was Kyler's fault. But we need to see them improve before I do. I just love – oh, go oh go ahead ben i'm sorry yeah i i really like calum murray but it does kind of scream what we did with baker mayfield last year where we kind of said there was some you know positive things for last year's number one overall pick and his rookie season and now i want to project forward all this upside in year two and

i did it um with with baker mayfield last year i took him in leagues and you know it's it's kind of taking him higher than where you can really project him but then there's also the lamar jackson side right like we we kind of did the same thing with lamar jackson and there's a lot of excitement around jackson and that that proved to to be valid and and murray definitely has that dual threat ability that he could be more like jackson but i i can definitely see why he's concerned that it's going to be valid. And Murray definitely has that dual threat ability that he could be more like Jackson. But I can definitely see why he's concerned that it's going to be more like Baker. And again, if it was based on ADP

and he was the seventh quarterback going in the seventh or eighth round, there's no way I would have called him a bust. It was just because of what I was comparing him to. Is round six too soon for Kyler Murray? It's too soon for me. Okay, because I think he's okay. If you like him, if you like the potential that he's got, I think that's where you target him is round six.

And if that is before Dak and Russell Wilson, then so be it. There's a lot of things that can change between now and then, but for now, I look at those first 11 games that Kyler Murray played. He was awesome in seven of them. The end of the season was brutal. He definitely hit some sort of a wall there. There's more that can certainly be learned by watching the film, but I think that there is some huge upside for Kyler Murray

to finish as a top five fantasy quarterback. So I disagree with the bus call on Kyler Murray. Okay, Ben, you can't give us a name for your quarterback bust talk about what you're what you're doing here yeah well i mean i i could i could give you a name i could tell you aaron rogers doesn't have the upside he used to or anything but i do think the the clearest bust in 2020 is going to be whoever goes qb3 in every draft because we can talk all day about lamar and patrick patrick my home's going too high but they're still going to go very high and the third quarterback is going to get pulled

up because of that in almost every single draft we saw it last year with the tight ends and we talked about it last year and i still fell victim to it with evan ingram and oj howard um and hunter henry being kind of that second tier tier and thinking that they were probably getting pulled up by Kelsey and Ertz and Kittle. I think Kelsey and Ertz and Kittle deserve to be drafted where they were, and then there should have been an even bigger gap than what we saw into that second tier, and that's going to be the exact same situation at quarterback this year. There's a lot of good names behind Jackson and Mahomes. I do think Jackson Mahomes will be overdrafted, but at least with those guys, you have historic potential upside. Mahomes already has a 5,050

season, one of only two in NFL history. Jackson just broke the NFL rushing record last year. Looks like he could potentially be a fantasy cheat code for his entire career. Beyond that, you have really good quarterbacks and a lot of reasons to like them but if you're taking Deshaun Watson or Dak or Kyler or who or Russell Wilson whoever you think is that third quarterback those guys are all in a tier and you just shouldn't be taking those guys in my opinion in the fifth or sixth round at that point you wait you either pay up for one of the two potentially historic players or you wait i i just haven't given up and i know you were on my side in this discussion last year

i just haven't given up on the idea that deshaun watson is potentially historic player you look at him as a passer compared to past nfl passers in his first three years he's been incredible you look at him for fantasy production his rookie year he was at 29 fantasy points per game for half a season each of the last two years he's been at 24 fantasy points per game there's been there's been reasons we thought that could have been just a little bit better so I I do kind of think that maybe Deshaun Watson deserves to be viewed not as Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes but as someone that has that same type of upside. It comes down to how you feel about that third quarterback relative to the fourth quarterback, fifth quarterback, and sixth quarterback

because I get what Ben's saying. There's a tier there, and if the third quarterback is just as good as the sixth quarterback, why would you go and get that quarterback first when you can wait a little bit? On a snake draft, it could be a little bit different. If it's late round four, you know you're picking again in an early round five so you could always wait you know three or four picks and if all those quarterbacks are there you just take the best one that you like but let's say it's round five and you know by the time you get back in late round six there's

a chance that those quarterbacks could be gone so i think if if one of your favorite quarterbacks not named mahomes or jackson are there in early round five I think it's not wrong to take one of them there I don't think it's going to be that big a mistake but it also comes down to how quarterbacks are drafted in your league let's talk about wide receiver bus Heath Keenan Allen is the top name on yours we talked about him a little bit on a podcast earlier this week 28 years old we now know that he's going to get a new quarterback to play within LA. His yards per catch declined over each of the past three years. I tried to find his yards per route run. Couldn't find that number,

nor could I find how it was related to other receivers in the NFL. But I'm curious if we're looking at him now as a declining player, and it almost doesn't matter who his quarterback is in la and that he's just got to be viewed as target hog who's not as sharp as he once was i don't think that it doesn't matter who his quarterback is i think that like i could maybe be convinced if tom brady went there and keenan allen was going to play that slot role for tom brady that he could have another year or two of that grade of play like on a yards per target basis he was at eight last year that's not that far from where he's been most of his career it's not as good as he was the three years before or the two years

before but it's it's I don't necessarily think like Keenan Allen's skill is deteriorating but you look at what he's been he's always needed a ton of targets because he's not extremely efficient and he also doesn't score a lot of touchdowns. He scored eight touchdowns once in his career, and that was his rookie year, no more than six since then. And I think right now, the way I'm projecting it, there's not much hope the quarterback situation is as good as it was last year. I think they're going with Tyrod to start the year,

and then a rookie's taking over at some point. it makes the most sense that that's what they do because i don't know if they talk about trying to make a splash because they're playing in this new stadium with the rams in la and i just don't think brady's going to end up there sounds like cam's not going to go anywhere so who would that quarterback be well it probably would be a rookie and justin herbert should fall into their lap he could be their guy and when herbert has protection and time to throw he can make all the throws he's right he's he's going to be a good quarterback provided that he's got those things going for him uh ben is it does it matter with quarterback for keenan allen do you feel the same way about

keenan jamie's got keenan now let me just say me just say this. Jamie's got Keenan Allen 38th in his PPR rankings. I'm right behind him at 41. I still view him as a round four type of a pick. And Heath's got him around later than that, 54th. Keenan Allen, quarterback matters a lot, a little. Where do you stand? Yeah, a lot, quite a bit. And I agree with Heath.

I don't think his skills deteriorate at all. I've always been a huge Keenan Allen fan. think he's going to be fantastic um in real life just in terms of earning targets and making plays and catching passes it's just that philip rivers again talked about this with the chargers offense a timing short area the three field thrower and then takes his deep shots he's the kind of guy and he's been Allen's quarterback Allen's entire career now the kind of guy that works really well with the types of routes that Allen runs these option routes uh read routes Allen's a phenomenal route runner and gets open in the short area of the field and Rivers gets the ball to him on time I don't know that Tyra Taylor is the is

the right type of quarterback for that I think he's actually probably the wrong type of quarterback for that and will um um be more of a guy who extends plays right and take shots downfield mike williams i think could potentially actually even have a better season than keenan allen this year if tyrod taylor is their starter i think that works better for his skill set so little concern there but you know you mentioned yards per outrun keenan allen still over two last year one of only 20 players um you 20 qualifying players to be that high. Was still very good last year. Will continue, I think, to be a very good player.

It's just a question of whether he can get the volume he needs to continue to be as productive as he's been. So last year he had over 100 catches. I feel like he's got to be a contender for that to even warrant being a top 50 pick. I think he can be in the offense. The quarterback might be gone, but the system is still there. And I don't think Allen's route running is going down. I don't know if his explosiveness is where it was three or four years ago. You could say that about a ton of wide receivers in the National Football League.

I think he's still a good wide receiver. I'm not sold on him being. I feel like I'm riding the fence on keenan allen i don't think he's one of i don't think we're taking him where we took him last year we were talking about him i believe as a top 30 ish type of player in ppr last year and now it almost feels like a discount is being put in because of the quarterback situation and i would get on board with that i think that he'd be a good wide receiver that i would settle for in round four and i don't like the system is the same as what it was at the end of last year correct because they changed offensive coordinators mid mid-season but it was basically the same type

of system so i don't think there's going to be a major overhaul there it's going to be the quarterback that has to learn the system and keenan allen's been in it for a while so it doesn't concern me quite as much one guy that's been really concerning and someone who, again, Heath, he's on your bus list, Adam Thielen. He's our consensus wide receiver, 17 in PPR, 14 in non. Jamie and I have him as an early fourth round pick. You've got him kind of in that same zone. It's almost the same story as Keenan Allen. We're comfortable taking him in round four. You're going to wait a little bit longer on Thielen. 17 plus PPR points in three of his first six games, he proved that he could still get it done then he got hurt last

year what what makes you nervous about Adam Thielen and then I'll give you my reason why I'm nervous about him feeling maybe it'll be the same thing well to a couple things one Adam Thielen's 30 which I think shocks everyone because it doesn't feel like he's been in the league near long enough to be 30 years old 30 is not historically a good age for wide receivers, and it's a place where you at least start considering that skills might start to deteriorate. Maybe more concerning than that, I'm just going to read off his yardage totals from last year on endgame. 43, 75, 55, 6, and he played 95% of the snaps in that game.

130, 57, 27, 0, and he played 93% of the snaps in that game. I'm terrified, really, of both Thielen and Diggs. I think you guys may have them separated by a little bit more than I do. I've got them in a similar spot. But I just don't, I don't think Mike Zimmer's got him to the playoffs. I know the offensive coordinator is changing, but he's running the offense in terms of how much they're going to run the ball and how much they're going to throw the ball. They have a very, very good defense. I don't think there

are enough targets for both Thielen and Diggs to be great. so I to pile on to that comment is this stat that I recovered today twice in 2019 and only four times in 2018 did Adam Thielen and a running back on the Vikings both have 15 plus PPR fantasy points in the same game so I just think that there's not enough football to go around here based on what minnesota does and of all the players that we've talked about today this is the first one where i look at my rankings and i go you know i've got them too high and there is a good reason to take a step back on him because the volume has to be there especially in ppr for the only to come through i know he got off to a decent start last year, but if we're going to say that Dalvin Cook's going to continue

to do the thing that Dalvin Cook does, and if Alexander Madison is going to pick up any slack that Dalvin Cook leaves behind, it's going to hurt Adam Thielen's chances. His best production has come when the Vikings have not been able to run the football, and it sure looks like the Vikings are going to be able to run the football in 2020 and beyond with Cook and Alexander Madison.

So I certainly have Adam Thielen ranked too high. Ben Gretsch, do you have anything to add here, or do you want to start talking about your bus receiver? Let's jump into my bus. All right. Keenan Allen was one of your bus. We already talked about him. Yeah.

Devontae Parker. Is this as simple as, well, he had one great year let's see him do it again because he had four really sucky years before that or are there other things that just stand out to you about Parker that makes you want to just not have him on your fantasy squad yeah that's definitely part of it first 16 game season of his career as well and he was also injured a senior year in college and and had some injury issues before that so this is a guy who you don't really want to necessarily buy into right away the first time that he gets through a full season healthy and he was still banged up this past year he just you know was able to play through some things um but i think a bigger

issue for me even looking at 2019, breaking it down, he had a 7.7 yards per target in the first half of the season, which was almost identical to Preston Williams. Then Preston Williams goes down. Ryan Fitzpatrick takes over. We know Fitzpatrick was willing to just sling the ball around. That number, 7.7 yards per target, jumped to 11.1 in just the second half of the season. That's all promising

and fitzpatrick could very well be their week one starter but i don't know that he'll be a 16 game starter and when you start to look at what he did last year as a whole in the whole season 9.4 yards per target seven percent touchdown rate compare that to his prior career stats 7.9 yards per target and a 3.2 percent touchdown rate on 280 career targets prior to last year. You see that that bump last year really kind of out of the ordinary. And then you look at those splits, it really was only the second half of the season where they were really willing to just chuck the ball around because this first half yards per target was a lot closer to those career numbers.

So do we really think that this second half of the season has now you know made Devontae Parker a clear uh upper echelon receiver or when Preston Williams is healthy that it might not be that effective so I I'm the high guy on Devontae Parker and I'll just repeat what I said earlier uh this week I don't know when Preston Williams is going to be back and if he'll be as effective as he was earlier in the year. I don't think the Dolphins' defense is going to take steps to be a much stronger unit. I think they're going to allow plenty of points.

I don't have a clue what they're going to do at running back and whether or not that's going to be an effective part of their offense. I think they're going to fall into a lot of similar game scripts as last year. And if Devontae Parker is going to be their number one receiver, I think he's going to get the opportunity to put up good numbers again. And I think whether it's Ryan Fitzpatrick or Tago Vailoa, his name has been linked to the Dolphins, I think that these guys can get the ball to them.

So maybe I'm going to be a sucker over this one, maybe not. I do feel a little suckery saying that he's a round four pick in ppr i think round five is probably uh it feels a little bit safer and if i can get him in round six that would be even better but i i do think there is some potential here for davante parker to keep this up to a degree i don't where did he finish last year as a wide receiver um well he was right around there i don't think he can get back there but i think he can still be a useful part of a fantasy squad and a guy that you'll look at and say all right he's my number two receiver to start the year hopefully he can he can keep some of what

he had last year i i'd love to draft him in round six or seven i i get it i totally and i know there's people out there who feel that way. There are so many good young receivers that are still going to be available in those rounds. I will never take Devontae. I don't think he's a bad value in the sixth or seventh round. I will never take him there. Just because of the options. Okay, so DJ Chark or Devontae Parker.

I will still take Will Fuller over Devontae Parker in every draft. That's bad decision making. I can't do that. And I know that you're a stand for Will Fuller, but I can't do that. What about Jarvis Landry, who we talked about on the show earlier this week? The injury could keep his value low. Would you rather have Landry or Devontae Parker? Yeah, Landry's undervalued every year of his career.

He outproduces his ADP every season, has never been lower than anything, wide receiver 31, never missed a game. No question I would take Jarvis Landry. I've got Parker ahead of Landry. I've got Parker ahead of, there's two guys that are real close for me, McLaurin and Ridley.

I've got him ahead of them. I could see that changing, but he's still going to be a low-end number two receiver for me mclaurin and ridley i've got him ahead of them i could see that changing but he's still going to be a low end number two receiver for me and another player who i have is a low end number two wide receiver is odell beckham and i'm the low guy on the site jamie's got him at 29th overall heath you're right next to him 31st overall i've got him 49th overall i know he played hurt last year but he's dealt with injuries now three straight seasons. And I just wonder how much credit should we keep giving Odell Beckham for his first three years when the past three years

he just kind of hasn't given us what we wanted. And I don't know if that warrants a third-round pick. So what do you see in Odell that I'm missing? Because I'm nervous about him ever going back to being a top-12 fantasy wide receiver. I am just going to adjust Odell Beckham every time I do a projections adjustment. And one week I'm going to be high on him, and the next week I'm going to be low on him because I have absolutely no idea.

I agree with you completely about the injuries. He played 16 games last year. That's fantastic. But it wasn't the same Odell. But it was marred by injury. Yeah, it wasn't the same it was marred by injury yeah that's the excuse he's already had surgery i believe since the season let out it's true um he was not like functionally the number one wide receiver on the team last year jarvis landry was baker mayfield was not good and i know ben believes that was all freddie kitchens fault and maybe it was although

some people might believe that him being good as rookie year was all because Freddie Kitchens. I think people maybe even credited Freddie Kitchens for what Mayfield did. So it's all uncertainty for me. I worry a little bit that Beckham is more likely to have an outburst in year two in Cleveland. Like he made it through all of last year without any sideline problems. And Baker Mayfield is the kind of guy that could make you attack him, not a net. The way that he talked about his teammates last year.

There were reports that Beckham was telling opposing sidelines to come get him, right? Like that started and then. Yeah. So like he terrifies me. I think Odell Beckham could be the number one wide receiver in fantasy next year. And I think he could play like four games. As far as ceiling and floor goes, yeah.

Okay. The biggest thing with all the dysfunction in Cleveland to me that I keep going back to is the the Todd Monken thing which wasn't covered heavily I've referenced it a few times there are reports out there that late in the season prior to games he was talking to coaches on other teams talking about how much of a mess uh things were in-house for Cleveland and when you have a coach a long-time coach talking to other coaches and saying those things like he's the offensive coordinator of the team and he was saying similar things to the media you know he was not happy in a lot of his interviews if you heard him talking about the way that they were implementing things i just really

i really really strongly believe that everything that happened in cleveland last year was and like from a statistical standpoint was influenced by just not a very good year right like just a a little bit of an anomaly in terms of what they could potentially be. And then you add in most receivers do struggle when they go to new teams, right? Like we saw Allen Robinson go to Chicago, and it wasn't even clear if he was there clear number one. And then a year or two, he's discounted in drafts last year and really steps into what Allen Robinson's potential is

now that he's caught passes from Mitchell Trubisky from a year. Yes, they're going to all have to learn a new offense again here in Cleveland, but Odo Beckham now has at least played with Baker Mayfield. They know each other's personalities a little bit. They're both fiery guys. Hopefully they can work together a little bit better in year two and Odo Beckham's talent can shine through a little more. I'm also concerned that this new offense in Cleveland will be more run-focused and more run-based because they've got two really good running backs, and it just makes sense.

Use Nick Chubb, use Kareem Hunt, and I'm assuming that Kareem Hunt's still going to be in Cleveland. He's a restricted free agent. I don't think he's going anywhere. And that'll further hurt Odell. Play action could be in his favor, but this is going to be Kevin Stefanski's now in charge, and although he hasn't said he's going to be the play caller there one would assume

that his offense will be similar to what we saw in minnesota and he learned a lot from gary kubiak and it's going to be a west coast system so odell someone that makes me nervous i don't want to i don't i feel like it's reaching if it's round two i think it's around three i think a lot of people will see his name there and they'll take him. And I think that that's too soon. There's other receivers I think have a little bit more upside. And if Stefanski is playing called, I think we should expect them to be a slow team because a guy in his first year as a head coach that's also handling play calling duties is probably not going to be very quick in terms of how quickly he gets those play calls in.

Assuming he's calling the plays, and if it's not him, it could be one of his assistants. Assuming they just haven't said yet what direction they're going to go in three tight end bus jared cook is one of them hunter henry is one of them zach ertz is one of them i think cook is probably the probably the least sexy name on this list so let's get him out of the way ben that's your bus he's a consensus 11 tight end 11th tight end for us in ppr and non-ppr i almost think that he's like a streaming tight end and that you're just going to draft him late because you like the matchups early on against new orleans but are you saying that you wouldn't even take him no matter who he plays for the start of the season yeah pretty much i mean career high nine touchdowns last year on just 43 catches just 65

targets like you it's really really hard to be that productive on 65 targets uh he did miss a little bit of time here and there but you're talking about an offense that flows through michael thomas and alvin camara he also had a career high yards per target of 10.8 that's by over a yard from his previous career highs so even if his targets bump up a little bit, there's no way he's as effective yards per target or touchdown per target than he was in 2019. So, you know, without the touchdowns, Cook really wasn't anything this year. He was very much a touchdown or bust tight end. And you can bet on that again.

He's old enough now. And, yes, he's in a good offense, but he's just somebody that I wouldn't make that bet on. For me, Hunter Henry is a bust because Jamie and Heath have him as a round six pick. In the case of Jamie, it's at the very tail end of round six. And I'm a little nervous to take him at that point just because we don't know where he's going to be playing. We don't know who his quarterback is going to be.

He was top ten in consistency. He was top ten in fantasy points per game last year. That's inpr and non-ppr for both that's really good for a tight end i think he's going to be one of those first seven tight ends that get drafted i just don't know if he's got the potential to finish as a top three four even top five tight end i think he's good i just don't think he's amazing and the situation will change you know you put him in new england to be the next Gronk, for example, and Tom Brady's still in New England. Yeah, I could probably change my tune on that.

But if he stays in L.A. and it's Tyrod Taylor, I mean, we know what he can and can't do. I think he'll be good. I just don't think he'll be great. Yeah, I don't like he was top, what, seven or eight in consistency? Or did you say top ten? Top ten. I'll get you the exact number.

Hold on. I expect that he's going to be as good or maybe a little bit better than he was last year. I think talent-wise he's one of the top five or six tight ends in the NFL. There is a landing spot that could cause me to drop him just a little bit. I think we all pretty much agree with where Austin Hooper and Hunter Henry are kind of back-to-back in that after the top five guys until we see where they land. But there's also a world in which Hunter Henry ends up in Atlanta with Matt Ryan.

Oh, that would be fun. Right. So right now we just don't really know. I do disagree with the idea that Hunter Henry couldn't be a top three tight end. I think in the right circumstance with the right quarterback and system, he could absolutely be that. He had seven games last year with 11 or more PPR points. It's not bad.

He finished eighth in consistency at the tight end position. All right, the beat ball, Zach Ertz. That's the big one. I still think he's worth it in late round three. Jamie does as well. Heath, you're not taking him until the tail end of round four. He was the number four tight end in PPR last year, number five in non. He was ninth in consistency, both PPR and non.

So technically, Hunter Henry was more consistent on a per-game basis than Zach Ertz was. Is that part of the reason why you're not feeling Ertz, or is there a lot more going on here that we don't know about? His season was saved by all the wide receivers getting Ertz because Dallas Goddard came for a chunk of his targets and got them. And I'm not saying Dallas Goddard's better than Zach Ertz, but they are both going to be used.

They will throw to tight ends more than any other team in the NFL, but they won't throw to tight ends to the extent they did last year, assuming that they have one or two competent wide receivers for 16 games. And so I think you're seeing a target reduction for Zach Ertz, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Goddard gets an even bigger share next year. He's the one whose career is on the upswing. He had 156 targets in 2018, and we knew that that number was going to come down in 2019,

but the number only fell to 135. Right. That's still pretty damn good for a tight end. It is pretty good for a tight end. He is not a Mark Andrews, Travis Kelsey, George Kittle in terms of yards per target. He's going to need to have an elite target number to be one of the top three guys what do you think about touchdowns he had six last year eight before that eight before that so eight eight six his last three years in terms of touchdowns

i would imagine that he might see lighter coverage or looser coverage in the red zone if philadelphia can add some good receiver targets it forces the double team to come off of Ertz. Yeah, it's just like if you're a defense. I don't know what the answer to this question is. If you're a defense in the red zone, Goddard and Ertz are both on the field. Who's the primary tight end you're covering in the red zone? That's a good call. I would imagine Ertz could still be the first one that you'll go with,

and that's why Goddard could end up having a decent year after all. Did you have Goddard in your top 12 at tight end? I've got him number eight. Okay, so maybe that's one of the reasons why you like oh it's completely yeah i've got i've got them five and eight i've got two top eight tight ends on the same team which is wild but yeah ben do you think that zackerts falls below 100 targets this year he's giving you at least that many he's gotten 100 plus targets each of the last five seasons no no i think he'll stay above 100 but i do agree with heath that he's not somebody that i want to take it at the worst price will be i've got him at 130

targets and so he's gonna catch a bunch of those yeah 80 87 catches 900 yards six touchdowns so just about what he had last year no isn't that pretty close to what he had last it's uh it's very close yeah and he was a top five tight end right it's not i've got a fifth right so you've got who do you have higher than him andrews and waller okay so you think that there is a chance that hooper or henry could go ahead i agree because those guys could end up in the perfect situation you can certainly make that case i have a hard time putting waller full ppr i guess it's not that hard but in non-ppr i I have a hard time putting Waller full PPR. I guess it's not that hard, but a non PPR, I would have a harder time to do it. All right, there's your food for thought for today. Everybody. You're

not drafting anytime soon unless you're one of Heath's fantasy best ball leagues or if you're in an Omni fantasy league with the ombudsman of Omni fantasy and that would be Ben Gretsch, but we thank you for listening and hopefully we've given you some players to think about.

If you have a comment or a thought about anybody that we've talked about, drop us a line, fantasyfootball at cbsi, the letter i, dot com, or tweet us at heathcummingssr on Twitter. I'm at DaveRichard on Twitter. Ben has the very cool handle of at yards per Gretsch, right? That's so cool you remembered it. Yeah, yards per Gretsch, right? That's so cool. You remembered it. Yeah, yards per Gretsch. I wasn't sure if it was yards by Gretsch or yards per Gretsch, but I think that it's a

pretty cool handle. Yards per Richard just doesn't have the same type of ring to it. For Ben, for Heath, for producers Andrew Balmer, Van Schrager, and Deb Dealy, I'm Dave Richard. Thanks for coming out.