Fantasy Football Today - Everyone is a Bust (Part Two)! Saquon, Chubb, Diggs and More (08/03 FantasyFootball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

Bid on our Draft-A-Thon items right now to benefit St. Jude! https://www.ebay.com/itm/373665808741?hash=item570037c165:g:4T4AAOSwgNNhAvaE It's not that hard to make a bust case for Saquon Barkley, and that's where we start (1:40) as we look at players 9-16 in ADP plus your news and notes (8:00). More on Carson Wentz and Devonta Smith as we get some clarity on their timelines ... Bust cases for Barkley (16:00), Tyreek Hill (20:30), Nick Chubb (24:00) and Davante Adams (29:30). It's pretty hard to make cases against the WRs, but we'll try! ... What could go wrong for Stefon Diggs (33:00), Aaron Jones (36:50), Antonio Gibson (40:48) and Najee Harris (45:45)? Is Gibson the next Jeremy Hill!? How much of a factor will A.J. Dillon be? ... Your emails at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday 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

This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races. Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. Well, yesterday we were making bust cases for Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin Cook.

It was a little bit uncomfortable. Today, more in our comfort zone because we're going through picks 9 through 16 in ADP. This is what they were last year in full PPR. Josh Jacobs, Devontae Adams, Austin Eckler, Miles Sanders, Joe Mixon, Julio Jones, Kenyon Drake, and Tyreek Hill. Five and a half busts, I'm going to say. Five and a half busts in that group. So hopefully this year it's going to be a little bit better. It's Barkley, Tyreek Hill, Chubb, Adams, Diggs, Aaron Jones, Gibson, and Harris. That's what it looks like right now on nfc over the last month

welcome to the show adam azar with chris towers and heath cummings hey guys hi adam i i think i could make a an impassioned bust case for like three to four of these guys there's also two to three of them that i think should be drafted higher than they're being drafted right now so it'll be uh it'll be a fun discussion. Yeah. There are some guys here who I probably won't draft. There's one guy in particular that there's basically no chance I'm going to draft him in any leagues this year.

And I also can't really make a bus case against him. So that's fine. That we'll see. Maybe you should draft him then. Yeah, maybe you should. I don't think I should. I think I know who he's talking about.

All right. Who has the most bus potential in this group of eight? Barkley, Tyreek Hill, Chubb, Adams, Diggs, Aaron Jones, Antonio Gibson, and Najee Harris. It's Barkley by a long shot, I think. What could go wrong? Saquon Bustley. But if we're, I mean, we always,

we typically like to not include injury risk in these kind of discussions. And so I guess outside of him, it's Gibson or Harris. Yeah, the thing with Saquon, and I've written these words like 17 times in the last month. I've had him well rehearsed. I've probably said him here multiple times. But there's downside in almost every aspect of his game. Because to have the top three or four upside that we want,

he needs to have elite efficiency as a rusher. He needs to have a big role in the passing game. And he needs to score touchdowns. At least two of those three. Define big role in the passing game. Well, Jason Garrett. Or just define big, if you will. Much bigger than he's had with Daniel Jones.

Because I think his 16-game pace in the games that he's played with Daniel Jones is like 60 targets or 55 targets or something. It's really low. Jason Garrett has averaged about 90 targets to running backs over the past three seasons. Those are two Zeke seasons and last year. There was the one good Zeke. Right.

And that's factored into that. It's one of those. One of the three seasons, he went over 100 targets. If you assume he's going to get around 75% of the targets for running backs, which I think is a little higher than you should project at this point, that would put him around 70 targets. He's caught about 70% of his passes from Daniel Jones,

which is pretty bad for a running back, but it's probably a Daniel Jones stat and not a Saquon Barkley stat. That would put him right at 50 catches. If he's 50 catches, 400 receiving yards, and scores two or three touchdowns through the air, then he has to be a monster on the ground to have top five upside.

Why? The numbers with Daniel Jones aren't quite as bad as I thought, by the way. A 16-game pace is 64 catches, 584 yards, three touchdowns. But when we talk about him having Christian McCaffrey upside, we're talking about the 19 games he's played without Daniel Jones, where he's been on pace for 115 targets and 85 catches.

Okay, we shouldn't be talking about anyone having McCaffrey upside, right? No. McCaffrey's into his own world. He was better than McCaffrey in 2018. Yeah, he was. They were basically tied. But I just don't think you should approach it that way. I don't think anyone's approaching it that way.

He left two games early with Daniel Jones, right? So that factor, that hurts his pace. And I've talked about this. After his first eight games of his career, they stopped using him like that, even with Eli Manning. So you shouldn't expect 80 catches from Saquon Barlow. His first eight games of his career, he was on pace for like 110 catches.

After that, he hasn't really been that. 50, 60 catches with 400 yards and two touchdowns. That's great. I'd be very happy with that. That's top five worthy. That would get him. Probably can be top five worthy that that would get you know probably probably can be top five worthy but if we're talking about you know it's kind of like the nick chubb thing where i you know nick chubb's the guy who i probably won't draft even though i can't really make a bus case against him it's it's more about the fact that it's just harder to see that 22 plus point per game upside you know the the legitimate

difference makers when you talk about like the very best every year are usually in that 21 to 25 if you're christian mccaffrey 30 point per game upside um it's harder to get barkley there if he's a 60 catch guy well and that that's the. Well, that's only part of the equation for me. I mean, I think the combination of Jones and Garrett limits the receiving upside a little bit for me. The other thing that limits that is the fact they went and added Kenny Galladay. Yeah. So, and then you look at the rushing.

He averaged, what, five yards per carry as a rookie. He's averaged 4.4 yards per carry since. This is not a good offensive line. I don't really know that you should expect him to average much more thanaged 4.4 yards per carry since. This is not a good offensive line. I don't really know that you should expect him to average much more than 4.5 yards per carry, if that. And we expect he's going to share the rushing workload at least early in the

season with Devontae Booker. And we don't think this offense is going to score that many touchdowns. There's a lot of working against Saquon Barkley. He's the obvious pick for the most bust potential, and he's probably not going first in this group now.

This ADP is a month old, but Joe Judge did say he's making progress. There are going to be a lot of Barkley believers out there. I mean, I see it in the comments. I see it in the emails. You know, you're too low on Saquon Barkley. I think people recognize the talent, but we don't know what he's going to be like

coming off this very serious knee injury, and we'll keep track of him. He's going to be an interesting one to track. He could get as high as, I would say, fifth, sixth, or he could fall out of the first round. All right, we'll continue that discussion in a bit. We've got some news and notes for you. We also have a mock draft tonight on YouTube, youtube.com slash fantasyfootball fantasy football today. We'll see you there at 7 p.m. Eastern. We've got a value-based drafting episode tomorrow. We're putting Heath to work to help us explain it. Give us some examples of how you could use value-based drafting to get a leg up. and most importantly today we're kicking off the draft prepping for charity month supporting

saint jude throughout the month we are having various ebay auctions supporting saint jude culminating in our draft-a-thon event on september 1st so to start the month of august everything in the ebay store right now is listed at 50 the zoom calls with our experts the team grades the mock draft strategy reviews custom smack talk videos. Those are always fun. I'm going to put the link to the items in the episode description. But this is an opportunity to give, first of all, to St. Jude and to get something back, get some fantasy advice, get some interaction with our experts, those types of things. We are really looking forward to raising a ton of money this year.

Okay, guys, Carson Wentz is going to have foot surgery. He's out five to 12 weeks. It's Monday afternoon right now. We talked about this on the Monday morning show, but for the Tuesday audience, Chris and Heath, your thoughts on the Colts situation and really Jonathan Taylor. So right now, Jonathan Taylor or Saquon Barkley?

Barkley. Barkley was my stopper. That was the point where I was able to stop dropping Jonathan Taylor in both formats. I have both Barkley and Taylor in round two in full PPR now. Taylor ahead of Barkley in both. This is an unusually wide potential range of outcomes for Carson Wentz and as a result the Colts offense

because if it's five weeks he's back in week one and you know generally speaking there's no concerns I mean it's a foot injury so there's always the concern the risk of a setback but if he's back by week one we just we operate as as we were before it if it's 12 weeks you're talking about potentially november like you're potentially talking about missing the first two months of the season and so the worst thing it you would almost rather it be 12 weeks than 5 to 12 weeks just because at least for me uncertainty is worse than just outright bad news because at least with bad unit news you know how to you move forward you could say well i can't take jonathan taylor in the first round this might be one of the worst offenses in the

nfl for the first seven weeks if it's i mean if it's jacob eason starting i believe before they signed brett hunley zach hun uh zach pascal had more pass attempts than all of the quarterbacks I mean, if it's Jacob Eason starting, I believe before they signed Brett Hundley, Zach Pascal had more pass attempts than all of the quarterbacks on the roster combined besides Carson Wentz. So I would almost rather get that confirmed bad news than have to try to figure out how to value Jonathan Taylor with this hanging over him.

Because I think he'll still be good, but I think it's more like a high-end number two as long as Wentz is out. Okay. And you already heard from Heath. In full PPR, he's got him in the second round, Jonathan Taylor. What about in half PPR? Probably 12th.

Best form. Approximately. Okay. Half PPR, would you take Eckler or Taylor? Check the old projections. I was going to say, it's pretty easily Eckler for me in full PPR. In half PPR, I have them tied to the tenth of a decimal point in full season fantasy points.

I'll go with Eckler. Okay. I have Eck with Eckler. Okay. I have Eckler five points ahead, so clearly it's obviously Eckler. Lance Lyon. Devontae Smith out two to three weeks with a sprained MCL. Jalen Rager has also missed time in camp, and it's been an uneven camp for the quarterback, for Jalen Hurts. So, Chris, what do you think about the Eagles right now?

Are you dropping Jalen Hurts in your rankings? Not much. It's not like that would be worse than what they had last season. If anything, having a healthy Dallas Goddard and Zach Hurts probably makes it at least a wash if Devontae Smith isn't able to play. Rager, I don't actually think he's dealing with an injury. I think the situation with him is he had something happen off the field and he wasn't able to, he wasn't physically or mentally ready

to pass the conditioning test is the way it's been termed. Yeah, I think he had someone close to him passed. Yeah, so he might be, and cleared to play soon, but it's certainly a concern for Devante Smith. You know, anytime a rookie's missing key parts of training camp, it can be hard to, you know,

we saw it with Jalen Rager. It's hard to know what impact the injuries that he suffered last season had, but he had a shoulder injury in training camp. And then that thumb injury in week two, it makes it really hard to get off to a good start. and this might make it less likely that you can rely on davante smith in that you know wide receiver three wide receiver four conversation to start the season yeah i i uh i dropped smith just right around 50 in ppr um right one spot behind terrence marshall who's had the opposite a very very good start to Kemp.

Okay. They're talking about him playing, potentially being a full-time slot in Carolina. Lamar Jackson won't be back until Friday at the earliest. He's on the COVID list. Kirk Cousins is also on the COVID list. And more bad news for the Baltimore Ravens. Marquise Brown has a hamstring injury. No timeline for his return.

Rashad Bateman, I think, has muscle tightness. That doesn't seem as serious as what Marquise Brown is dealing with right now. But again, now this is on the heels of a report about Sammy Watkins having the best camp. So, you know, Heath, your thoughts on the Ravens. What passing game right now? I don't want to draft anyone except for Lamar Jackson.

I wonder... Mark Andrews. Mark Andrews. Well, yes, they were trying to make some changes this offseason and throwing the ball more and being more aggressive with the passing game. It's obviously not good to miss this much time with your

quarterback and your top two wide receivers, not your top two pass catchers. Mark Andrews is still a pretty easy fourth-round pick for me. I like Mark East Brown slightly more than Bateman right now, but if Bateman got back in a couple of days and started getting good reports and Brown misses a couple weeks, that could change.

I haven't dropped Lamar Jackson at all yet. I've got both Bateman and Brown in the 50 to 60 range, so I'm not particularly enthusiastic about either before all this. We're still basically six weeks away from the season. So there's a lot of time for these guys to get back. And a popular name in dynasty circles and somebody that I've seen questions about,

Kylan Granson for the Colts, rookie tight end. He's having a good camp. It's been a lot of buzz on him. They obviously need a tight end. We don't the Colts rookie tight end. He's having a good camp. It's been a lot of buzz on him. They obviously need a tight end. We don't expect much from rookie tight ends. They need a tight end to step up. We don't expect much from rookies, and now it's even harder to buy into the Colts passing game,

but Kylan Granson having a pretty good camp, according to NFL Network's Albert Breer, and there's just been some buzz around him, so it's a name to know. Another name to know is Lightstream. If you're like most of us, you carry a balance on your credit cards, and if those cards come with high interest rates, you need my friends at Lightstream.

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Terms and conditions apply and offers are subject to change without notice. Visit lightstream.com slash FFT for more information. Well, Lightstream's not a bust, but everyone else is a bust this week. All right, everyone is a bust part two, picks nine through 16. So Saquon Barkley is first up.

We covered him extensively. Is there anything else? Okay, you know what? I'll play a little counter. I'll be pro Barkley. first up. We covered him extensively. Is there anything else? Okay, you know what? I'll play a little counter. I'll be pro-Barkley. You know I like me and you. I know you're uncomfortable with this. I'll try my best.

It's just a good, in terms of Jason Garrett, he's a good offensive coordinator for running backs. He likes to punch it in near the goal line. So we saw a stretch. Hold on. This is a good stat. I think Giants running backs had 22 carries inside the 10 last year, and Giants quarterbacks had 26 pass attempts inside the 10.

So, like, I mean, that's very balanced, and they don't throw a lot there. They run a lot. Zekiel Elliott's been a good touchdown producer. So, yeah, we saw it with Wayne Gallman. Right. Wayne Gallman had that five-game stretch with six touchdowns in five games. Yeah.

So that could compensate for the potentially bad offense. They were horrible last year, but they were like 18th and 19th the two years before that. I guess the thing we didn't really get into, Heath touched on it briefly at the top, but what if he's just not Saquon Barkley? That's also, it's not, like Heath said at the top, it's risk stacked on risk stacked on risk.

It's one, is he healthy and can he stay healthy? Two, can he perform like he was before he was healthy? I'm starting to have real concerns about that. And then three, is this an offense that's good enough to make him an elite running back? I think you have significant questions about all three at this point. And I just like, I don't want to say Jason Garrett's offenses are not good for running backs,

but running backs have averaged 12 total touchdowns per year the past three seasons combined in Jason Garrett's offenses. That's rush plus receiving touchdowns. That's not a very good number. And part of that for two years, I mean, it's two years of Dak scoring six rushing touchdowns and then it's last year of just the Giants being awful. Yeah, but I guess

at least... The running back receiving touchdowns are two, three, and two over the past three seasons. The rushing touchdowns are ten, seven, and twelve. If they had twelve touchdowns, I would think Barkley would probably get ten of them. You know? I don't right now.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's... Man, it's... God, this offense was impossible. Like, I knew it was bad, but then when you actually look at it again, you see they had 12 touchdowns passing and 33,000 yards.

Yeah. Horrible. That's impossible. Well, and you look at how many more points and yards the Cowboys started producing as soon as Kellen Moore took over as offensive coordinator. Yeah. Yeah, but, you know, the Giants, they're not going to have a great offense,

but they were a lot better in 2019, and Daniel Jones was the quarterback for most of those games. I think they were 19th in scoring that year. i mean the problem with the daniel jones thing is like he just has to get better and that's unknowable right now he could but in his two seasons as i started they've basically had like five good offensive games remember he had what the four games with was it four games with four touchdowns as a rookie and outside of that he was pretty terrible in the last season obviously uh very bad so it's just it's hard to get optimistic about this offense i think kenny galladay helps but it's i think you we kind of want to make the

stefan diggs comparison kenny gall is a very very different type of receiver than Stefan Diggs and that's not necessarily a knock against Kenny Galladay I think Stefan Diggs has proven he's one of the five or eight best wide receivers in the NFL but Galladay is not that true number one alpha wide receiver he's a guy who can stretch the field make big plays but, but he's more like a 1A, and I'm not sure they have a 1B. Yeah, so I talked about this with Jonathan Taylor, Ken and Off. Can a running back be great for fantasy,

top five for fantasy on a bad offense? And the simplest answer is yes, if they're involved in the passing game, at least in full PPR. And Taylor, that's a big question mark, and we talked about it already with Barkley. You know what? I think we've covered Barkley enough. Let's go to Tyreek Hill. He is 10th in ADP.

Somebody make a bust case for Tyreek Hill. I am glad that we spent so much time on Saquon Barkley because I cannot imagine that we're going to be able to come up with very many scenarios. I mean, there's obviously the injury to Patrick Mahomes. There's, unfortunately, probably a greater suspension chance.

Than most players. Than most players, but it still seems really pretty low. I could make an argument that him being drafted as the number one wide receiver, he could finish as the number six wide receiver, and then maybe you say he's a bust because that happened. He has some bad touchdown variants this year and misses a game or two. I don't know. Yeah, I think the case against drafting him

as the number one wide receiver is Devontae Adams is better. And because of his style of play, because he's a relatively low target guy for a number one wide receiver, and because he's a relatively low catch rate guy for a number one wide receiver, he's prone to more variance, both week to week and season to season,

than someone like Devontae Adams or, we assume, DeAndre Hopkins when he doesn't have terrible quarterback play. But it's hard to make that case. Like Heath said, I think the floor is really, really high because of that offense, because of his place in it. The concern is maybe that he just doesn't have that like... He's probably not going to have the kind of season Devontae Adams had

last season. That's probably off the table. Yeah, he's a low-catch guy for the elite wide receivers. He's never had 90. His 16-game pace, highest 16-game pace, I think was 93 catches, and that's almost never going to get it going to

get you uh number one wide receiver in full ppr they're just going to be too many guys who have like 105 or more per 16 games but you could get your number two we saw that well and like the the thing is it's if you're going to be a guy who is a lower target guy than average it would be nice if you were arguably the most efficient wide receiver in NFL history yeah and that's basically what he is if you want to count set a set a threshold like 500 targets for a career he's 9.8 yards per target and scores once every eight targets. Nobody, nobody does that. He had, uh, almost 40% of my homes as touchdowns last season.

So, you know, he had 15 receiving. He's not going to be as good as he was last year. Yeah. Uh, okay. You know what?

It is funny because last year he was at 87, 12, 76 and 15. His three year, 16 game pace is 86, 13, 45, and 13. That was 15 games he did in last year. Right. Oh, that's including last season.

Okay, his three years before that were 82, 13, 110. Yeah, there was a leap from 2017 to 2018, for sure. Yeah, that was when Mahomes took over. All right, Tyreek Hill's awesome, and especially in non-PPR. I mean, you talk about safe in over. All right. Tyree kills. Awesome. And especially in non PPR. I mean, you talk about safe and non PPR when the catches don't matter. He's just tremendous. He's a touchdown producer. Okay. Next up is Nick Chubb. So Chris was talking, alluding to a running back who he is probably not going to draft, but he thinks it doesn't can't really make a bus case for, but I find that interesting because I think you can easily make a bust case for Nick Chubb.

He might have 15 catches this year. That's low. 20 catches? That's not good in PPR, and it would come down to touchdowns. But what did you mean when you said that about Chubb earlier? There's no outcome in which Nick Chubb stays healthy, and he's not at least a high end number two running back.

I think he's just, he's going to get too much work. They're going to rely too heavily on him. Um, but like a stat that I, I posted in our Slack channel the other day, uh, over the last two seasons,

Deontay Johnson has as many games with 20 plus PPR points as Nick Chubb. Nick Chubb kind of lives in the 15 to 20 range a lot of the time. And that's really, really good. I think he has a high weekly floor because of the role that he has. He's going to have a high seasonal floor because of the touchdowns. But, you know, that's different from saying he has, you know, number one upside potential, which I don't think he has. But it's hard to see how the season goes too wrong.

What does a realistic worst-case scenario for Nick Chubb look like, assuming health? Well, I think you can start with... Do you remember how... I mean, he was unlucky for part of it. But his final six games of 2019 after Kareem hunt joined the team, that was probably his worst stretch. Now there's like before he became a starter and he was on pace for about 1,288 rushing yards and he's on pace for five touchdowns over a 16 game

season. Yeah. But still, that's almost 1,300 yards rushing. Yeah, and 22 catches he was on pace for in those games. Hunt had a bigger role in the passing game. I mean, he was on pace for 74 catches in those games. That's why we thought Hunt would be, I think, more involved in the passing game last year than he was.

But it's not like last year Hunt was less involved and Chub think, more involved in the passing game last year than he was. But it's not like last year Hunt was less involved and Chubb was more involved. Chubb has one game since Kareem Hunt joined the team with more than three targets. And I think that was the game where all the receivers had COVID. He had four and five in the two playoff games last season as well.

But yeah, I think with this class of running back, and I would throw Derrick Henry, I would throw Josh Jacobs, I would throw JK Dobbins in there all in various levels of, of greatness. Um, the, the argument for them is just that there just aren't that many ways they can go wrong. Like Heath, what you said, his worst stretch was after Kareem hunts joined the team and it was still 1300 yards and it was only five touchdown pace. You said, yeah, he only scored two touchdowns in six games. Yeah. Like I guess he could have a five touchdown season,

but it's hard to see Nick Chubb getting 250 carries and scoring five touchdowns. That, that doesn't just seem like a worst case scenario. That seems well below the worst case scenario. So it's just because he's's he's going to get those 15 carries plus every week it's hard for things to go too wrong that being said like his adp is currently 12th i think 11th and i think in ppr the most likely outcome like if we're if is that

he's not a top 10 running back. Yeah. And so if you're taking a non-top 10 running back, 11th, it's kind of a bust. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I just want to say this. Since Kareem Hunt's arrival, okay, a year and a half ago, basically, a season and a half ago, he's averaged 19 carries per game in wins. This is Nick Chubb, not Kareem Hunt. Nick Chubb has averaged 19 carries per game in wins and 14 carries per game in losses. So that brings up a little downside.

We all expect the Browns to be really good, but what if they're not? You know, that's something to consider. Okay. He has been super safe in non-PPR, but you're not going to get a ton of catches. So he's such a great player. When I talk about that class of players,

it's something I said before the podcast, but Derek Henry last season had basically the best rushing season, really the best rushing season a running back could have. He had the fifth most rushing yards ever, and he had the fourth most rush touchdowns in a season over the last 10 years. It's hard to realistically have a better season than Derrick Henry had,

and he was awesome. Number three running back. It was the 32nd best running back season in PPR points per game over the last decade. That's amazing. That is. When you're talking about that is the very, very, very best version of what a Nick Chubb, a Derrick Henry, a J.K. Dobbins, a Josh Jacobs can do,

I think that highlights what should be the case against them, which is that you need things to go incredibly, incredibly right for them to be truly elite fantasy running backs. And if I'm drafting at the one, two turn, I'm not satisfied with someone who I think probably has like top eight upside. I want someone who could realistically break into that top three. This strictly for full PPR. Obviously he's got bigger or even half PPR. I think that's, it's mostly relevant, but yeah, non PPR it's certainly different.PR. Obviously, he's got bigger upsets. Or even half PPR. I think it's mostly relevant. But yeah, non-PPR, it's certainly different.

Yeah, well, we should all play half PPR. Okay, Devontae Adams is next. If you thought Tyreek Hill was tough, first of all, Devontae Adams is probably not going behind

Tyreek Hill anymore now that Aaron Rodgers is back. He'd be better if he were Adam Rodgers, personally, I think. But this is a tough bus case to make.

Anybody want to give it a shot with Devante Adams? He is really, really reliant on volume in a way that some of the other elite wide receivers aren't. He's usually in the 8 yards per target range. Last season, he was at 9.2. So if he returns to the 8 yards per target range. Last season, he was at 9.2. If he returns to the eight yards per target range, and let's say the Packers only throw the ball to him nine times a game instead of 11, you can probably see a scenario where if there's some bad touchdown regression, maybe he has

1,100 yards and seven touchdowns on 90 catches, and he's just like a good wide receiver, too. That's probably the downside. I don't know how that's good. That would be really bad. But that's still a must-start player. Yeah. And that's with everything going against him. Okay.

All right. That's a worst-case scenario then. Yeah, look. They added Amari Rodgers. They brought back Randall Cobb. Maybe the other young receivers take a step forward. Is target share even a little bit of a concern, Heath? Not really.

It could drop, but it could drop by three points and it still might lead the league in target reach. I think what would have to happen is the Packers' defense plays really well. They go more run heavy, and he sees a drop in target share because Amari Rogers is as good as you think he is, Adam. And Randall Cobb provides a security blanket. And so the target share falls to 28%, and they have one of those weird years where they go 15-2 and only throw 520 passes,

and he has poor touchdown luck. Going 15-2 would be a weird year. It's going to happen in 17 games now. Well, 2019 was not a good year for Devontae Adams. He did miss some time, but even per game, I'm not sure if he cracked the top five or so, which was terrible, right?

But Aaron Rodgers threw for 4,000 yards and 26 touchdowns. He was number five in points per game. 17.7. His pace in 2019 was actually pretty damn stellar except for the touchdowns. It was 170 targets, 111 catches, 1,329 yards, and seven touchdowns. That's a really good year except the touchdowns were low.

So I guess that's the thing. Aaron Rodgers had this massive touchdown season last year. He had 48 and he had a combined 51 in the two previous seasons. Both were full seasons. I guess that's it, right? If the touchdowns go down to 25 for Aaron Rodgers, or I guess give a couple more for 17 games. Devontae Adams had 13 touchdowns when Aaron Rodgers had 25 in 2018.

He's great. Let's move on. Next one here. By the way, would you take Rodgers or Kelsey? Adams or Kelsey, you mean? Sorry. Amari Rodgers or Travis Kelsey? Adams or Kelsey? I would take Kelsey, but I think they're top

six picks now. I think they should be top six overall picks in PPR. I would dig Adams. Would you take Zeke or Adams? Zeke. Zeke. Zeke, okay. All right, Stefan Diggs is up. Stefan Diggs ADP is 13th,

and he was obviously tremendous last year. He led the NFL in receiving. Who's making the bus case against Stefan Diggs? This one's at least easier than Adams or Hill. You could see some, like we all expect at least a little bit of regression in terms of passing efficiency from Josh Allen. And so it wouldn't be all that surprising if Stefan Diggs, who caught 77% of his targets last year, only caught, say, 67%, 68% like he had the three years prior. And if his yards per target dropped a little bit from the 9.2 it was at last year,

and he's never, like he's had one year where he had a really, two, I guess, two years where he had a really good touchdown rate. So it's not hard for me to seize to find Diggs having a season where he's a number two wide receiver instead of a top three guy. Yeah, I think that the downside with him is just that Josh Allen regresses in a big

way, which doesn't seem likely given how good he was last season. But like if Josh Allen does drop from being one of the three best passers in the NFL like like he was last season to like 15 to 18. Given that it seems like Emmanuel Sanders is going to have a pretty healthy role. We expect more of Gabriel Davis this season. Cole Beasley obviously has been a high target share guy for number two slash number three you could see a scenario where he drops to like 140 targets

and ends up with a thousand yards and six touchdowns like that that seems reasonable and i will yeah like i don't think we should discount the possible like i'm not projecting it josh allen's my number three quarterback i think he's going to be very, very good for fantasy. But I have a lot of people on Twitter who seem to think that because Josh Allen made that leap in year three, he's just that good now. And we've seen multiple quarterbacks over the last five years have an outlier year in year two, three, or four, and then just be flat out bad two or three years later jared goff and carson wince had his his leap uh blake portals had the one good statistical season i think josh allen's obviously better than most of those guys but yeah you talk about the weird circumstances last year too we should throw that in there that it was a historic year for passing offense in a way that's likely not sustainable all the way around and so maybe it was the case that a guy who can be sort of scattershot and sort of erratic like josh allen benefited more don't worry chris

towers chris towers said that bill's twitter yeah um a guy who in his career has been scattershot and erratic, which I don't think even the most diehard dive through a table. Bill's fan can disagree with if they're being honest with themselves, that that kind of player could benefit more from a season where defense has had less time to practice, less time to prepare in the preseason and training camp, less time to go over things on film in person. I mean, these are things that could really,

I think we saw benefited offenses last year. And so maybe it's the case that Josh Allen just particularly benefited because of his style of play, which makes him a little harder to game plan for. All right, well, so far, we've talked about a couple of running backs, three wide receivers, and the running backs have had the much easier bus cases to make. Saquon Barkley and Nick Chubb compared to the top three wide receivers. That makes a lot of sense. Tyree Kill, Devante Adams, Stefan Diggs. And the next three are all running backs. So Aaron Jones is next. And Aaron Jones, again, I don't think you're going to get him 13th or 14th overall. I think that this ADP is old enough where there was uncertainty about Aaron Rodgers. So I'll take a look. I'll just see what it is in the last week.

But Aaron Jones, yeah. Is there a bus case for a guy who's been a top five running back two years in a row, but hasn't really had the workload that a lot of the top five running back? He's not a workhorse, you know? So is there a bus case to be made? A convincing one on Aaron Jones? Not in round two. No, he's not going to go in round two.

You might have to take him eighth overall or something like that. I think the case would probably be that among the running backs in this range, he's got the lowest ceiling in terms of rushing yards and probably the lowest floor. I guess maybe Antonio Gibson, you can make a case just because he's so unproven. You can make the same case for Nadja Harris, but among the first round running backs, there aren't a lot of guys who could realistically have an under 1,000 yard

season without an injury. And I could see that happening with Aaron Jones. I could see... Rushing yards, you mean? Yeah. I could see A.J. Dillon taking on a couple extra carries, Aaron Jones dropping to like 13 carries per game, and then him going back to 2019 efficiency where he was 4.6 yards per carry.

And that would probably be enough to get him under 1,000 rushing yards for a full season. Maybe he has last year's touchdown efficiency instead of 2019's. I think that's all possible. But that's leaving out the one thing that I think is likely to be much better for him this year. The receiving. And that's the passing game. Yeah.

But we had nine rushing touchdowns in 14 games. be much better for him this year they're receiving and that's the passing game yeah yeah but he had uh we had nine rushing touchdowns in 14 games that's it i feel like he had more than i felt 11 total touchdowns in 14 yeah it was it was low after 19 and 16 games the past three years the packers have had 50 i just referenced those 12 running back touchdowns for Jason Garrett offenses. The Packers offense has averaged 18 running back touchdowns over. And there's a chance maybe Dillon gets half those. Yeah. That would be a problem for Aaron Jones. But I think it's just so unlikely that we're going to see those 50 targets or 60 targets on a 16 game pace go A.J. Dillon's way.

I don't. I think he probably gets half that, which should mean an extra two to three targets per game for Aaron Jones, which should cover up any real risk that he loses in the running game. I guess it's just, it's not inconceivable that AJ Dillon is just so good. Like he is Derek Henry good. And he just demands 16 carries per game. And, you know, maybe that's possible.

I think that's probably the downside risk for Aaron Jones is, what if, and I don't think this is likely, but what if he's not the best running back in his own backfield? And he gets into a 50-50 split. Well, that's a good thing about Jones. I mean, he's not just a product of the offense. He's awesome. He's proven that.

He's a great player. It's going to be hard for Dillon to unseat him. It's hard to make a bus case against him, especially if you get him in the second round. Looking at ADP since July 30th, so not even a week, he's 11th. He's ahead of Chubb and Barkley. And Devontae Adams

is the first wide receiver off the board, so it's been adjusted a little bit. That should be the case. Adams is 8, then Hill, then Kelsey is 10, then Aaron Jones. He's RB8. Still Eckler and Jonathan Taylor going ahead of him, but Taylor, you know,

still don't know where his ADP is going to settle in. So would you guys take Eckler or Aaron Jones? I would go Eckler. I would go Jones, but I've had Jones as a top five running back all summer, so I'm leaving him there, obviously. Okay, I can't wait for this one. Antonio Gibson.

I'm just surprised that he's going as early as he is. Top 16 pick, 15th in ADP. Make a bus case for Antonio Gibson. JD McKissick. I was going to say, JD McKissick stays involved in the offense and Ryan Fitzpatrick throws the ball downfield like we expect him to and Gibson has touchdown regression from last year like we all expect him to yeah and I think there's also just a chance like he walked onto an NFL field and averaged 4.7 yards per carry, which isn't like... It's not what J.K. Dobbins did last season,

but it's pretty good in a way that may not be entirely sustainable. He definitely had some stretches where his efficiency waned even when he got more work. And so it's possible... This wasn't a can't-miss running back prospect. He's really good. Wasn't even a running back. Yeah, and a lot of the things we liked about him

were the fact that he was a really good receiving prospect. And so what if he's just a guy as a rusher? What if he averages 4.2 yards per carry, which is well within the realm of possibility, and doesn't dominate goal line work like he did last season. Maybe they're just more effective as a passing team and they don't need to rely on him near the goal line as much.

You know, we're talking about 170 carries here at the NFL level with a 4.7 yards per attempt. That's really good, but yeah, it's a very small sample size and there's still a lot of different ways it can go. I think the bus potential for Antonio Gibson is just what if he's not as good

as he looked like last year? You know, there were definitely moments where he looked great and there were also definitely moments where, you know, he was a small part of the offense. He couldn't get JD McKissick off the field even before Alex Smith took over. Yeah.

He beat up on Dallas and Cincinnati. I mean, this is what I said, you know, his, his best games were against these horrible teams. He's going to face bad run defenses. But I don't want him to be just a matchups guy

because he doesn't have this role in the passing game because McKissick is there. And, you know, there are a couple of names that come to mind. And Jordan Howard. Jordan Howard averaged 5.2 yards per carry as a rookie and never even came close to that after that. Jeremy Hill averaged 5.1 yards per carry as a rookie and never even came close to that after that. Jeremy Hill averaged 5.1 yards per carry as a rookie, never averaged more than 3.8 for the rest of his career

except for four carries in 2018. Those are guys that people were very excited about as year two players. And Howard kind of lived up to his draft position because he got so much work, but he wasn't a great running back. I think the thing that makes this... I'm worried about that with Gibson a little bit.

And nobody else seems to be. I thought for sure, Mixon should be going ahead of Gibson. But when I did... My Twitter poll was almost 50-50. Gibson had a slight edge. People really... People hate Joe Mixon for what he did to them last year.

So it's so personal with Nixon. It's so and look, I get it like I get not liking him. But as far as what he is as a football player and what he is as a fantasy option, like he's never had the opportunity. Like this is like, oh, he's burned us too many times. It's like, yeah, he burned you because he was a guy who had a 50 target ceiling and you were drafting him as if he had number one overall upside. This is the first time in Joe Mixon's career

where he legitimately has number one overall running back upside. I guess you can make a case that Antonio Gibson does too. But Antonio Gibson isn't nearly as proven as a rusher as Joe Mixon. And it's not a guarantee that he's going to have a bigger role in the passing game than Joe Mixon.

In fact, I'm projecting him for 18 fewer targets than Joe Mixon. I was really struggling when I was finishing up the running back preview this morning. I needed to have a fourth bust. And I went back and forth over and over between Gibson, and I think who was definitely in the second round of CBS drafts and Clyde Edwards-Alaire. And I ended up choosing Clyde just because the argument felt a little bit more convincing.

But I think either of those guys could be. But isn't the argument basically just that you think Clyde Edwards-Alaire is a worse player? Yeah. Taking the talent out of it. Edwards-Alaire is a worse player? Yeah. Taking the talent out of it. Edwards-Alaire is in a better situation. I don't know that there are as many running back opportunities available to him as there are in a Ron Rivera, Scott Turner offense. That was the McCaffrey role.

And then last year, Gibson and McKissick had a bazillion touches. Yeah. Alex kind of throws it off just because we don't know what that offense would have looked like if they had, I don't want to mean, but a quarterback who was willing to throw the ball more than five yards. And Alex Smith was part of the reason that running back saw so many

targets in the Andy Reed offense early in Kansas city. Like there's a connection there. That hasn't happened since my homes took over. Right. Yeah. That's fair. All right. Last one is Najee Harris. Is the't happened since Mahomes took over. Yeah, that's fair. All right. Last one is Najee Harris.

Is the bus case for Najee Harris just the offensive line? Is that the only thing that would hold him back? We don't know who he is. Well, he's Najee. He's not Najee. That's one thing we know for sure.

But he's never played at the NFL level. We don't know. Like we assume he's very good, but we assumed Clyde Edwards going in the first round meant that he was very good last year and that he was going to be a really good fantasy option. Pittsburgh has been a very good offense for running backs in the past, but this is a very different offense than it was at the peak of Le'Veon Bell's success. All of the talk coming out of Pittsburgh camp is how different this offense is, you know? Yeah.

And so you're, you're not going to have probably the same passing game role for Najee Harris that you did with Le'Veon Bell. And I think that goes without saying, I don't know if anybody's expecting him to be a hundred catch guy, but I have real concerns about this offense. Ben Roethlisberger is going to be playing under center, like significant snaps for the first time in a decade. Probably they're going,

they are asking him to like move around in the pocket more. I just, I feel like this offense with the offensive line issues with Ben Roethlisberger being 39 years old, playing a new offense for the first time in a long time. I think this offense could just be outright bad. Yeah. What do you think, Dave? The other thing I'll add,

and it is going to be a different offense, so this might not matter at all, but last year it was a different offense for running backs. The Steelers' running back target rate last year, 12.3% of their passes went to running backs. That was the lowest mark in the league, even below the Titans. Wow.

So, okay. And that was because a lot of targets that running backs get come when the quarterbacks dropping back, sitting in the pocket, waiting for plays to develop it. They don't develop and he just jumps it off to the running back. Ben Roethlisberger wasn't giving plays time to develop last season because he was using Deontay Johnson and Juju Smith-Schuster as basically extensions of the running game.

There weren't many opportunities for him to dump the ball off. Okay, so rank Gibson, Mixon, Harris. Mixon is my number six running back in PPR. So him, for sure. And then I have Harris ahead of Gibson. Yeah, I've got Mixon, then Harris. I've got Mixon at eight, Harris at 14, Gibson at 16. Mixon eight.

Okay. All right. Good stuff. We'll take a quick break here on Fantasy Football today. When we come back, your emails. FantasyFootball at CBSi.com. Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League.

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Fantasyfootball at cbsi.com. We're just going to pick them at random. Ready? Here we go. I love it when we do this. It always results in such great emails. Mark says, Dear Noah, Lawrence, Story, and Hoffman. Trevor's. Dear Noah, Lawrence, Story, and Hoffman. Trevors.

I always start off slow in my 12-team half PPR league every year, and I want to avoid that. Yeah, let's avoid that. I have the seventh pick. I want to go running back, wide receiver with my first two picks, but the running backs available to me in round one all seem to have a tough schedule to start the season. Can you tell me a running back that I should target,

or should I pivot to Kelsey, Hill, or Adams instead and hope for Eckler, Mixon, C.E.H., or Najee in round two? I don't have an answer to the original question, but don't let early season schedule impact your first round pick. For sure. If a player in the first round is being impacted by an early season schedule, you probably made the wrong pick anyway. And I can tell you something like I would not if my and I don't think it's the bad idea at all to have your goal to be just get off to a fast start and we'll figure the rest out later.

There's so much turnover in fantasy rosters as it is. That kind of makes a little bit of sense. I would be avoiding Saquon in that scenario. I'd be less interested in drafting Jonathan Taylor in that scenario. I'd be less interested in drafting rookies if I wanted to avoid a slow start. I would probably be looking to start with Kelsey or Devante Adams or Tyree Kill personally. I mean, honestly, you could make a case that if you really just want to focus

on getting off to a fast start and worry about everything else later, zero RB is a really good way to do that. Because you can stack your tight end running back or wide receiver and quarterback positions and get Raheem Mostert and Melvin Gordon in the sixth and eighth round. And at least those guys are going to be starters early on in the season. You might not have a starter

between the two of them by week six, but at the very least, you know those guys are going to be there early on. All right, next question is from Cameron from a city in Utah with the same name as a Washington football team player. I like that. That's fun.

I stayed in St. George, Utah, I believe. That's probably not it. No. Hmm. Is there a player on Washington's team named Provo? He is from Fitzpatrick, Utah. He says 12... No, I'm just kidding.

12-team PPR league, IDP league. We start one defensive lineman, one linebacker, one defensive back, and one IDP. When do you start drafting IDPs in a league like this? One of each and one flex basically. Yeah. Four defensive players. Yeah.

Probably not before round eight. Yeah. Okay. And subject line of that was Daniel Jones greater than Kyler Murray. Could be West Jordan. Is there a Sandy on the team? Maybe he got confused and was referring to Baltimore Ravens. Great Jonathan Ogden.

There's not a Gibson Utah. There's a Logan, Logan Thomas. He's from Logan. Okay. All right. So from Travis to start, I know you're really high on Kelsey this year,

but it seems like it's mainly in a PPR league in a 10 team standard scoring league with the ninth pick. Would you go with Kelsey or a running back? Ninth pick, not Kelsey. Ninth pick. I think Kelsey is still in play there. I'm not like, let me see my,

my non PPR rankings. Yeah, I guess you'd probably want, like, I've, I've got a top nine that sort of Peters off after Joe Mixon in non PPR. And so I guess you can make a case that like, if Aaron Jones, Joe Mixon,

Nick Chubb, uh, are there. Ezekiel Elliott, then maybe you just go with one of them. That's probably the right play. My top seven are running backs. Assuming those seven were the first seven picks, which seems unlikely because Taylor and Barkley aren't in that group, I would take Tyreek Hill. And if he wasn't there, then I'd take Kelsey.

Okay. Paul wants to know if he should, Paul from Sarasota, if he should take Cortland Sutton or Jamar Chase. Chase for me. I think the podcast, Cortland Sutton has fallen out of favor with the podcast. Both Dave and Jamie told me when we were off air today that they were getting ready to move

Judy ahead of Sutton. Get the hell out of here. I love Judy and I'm thrilled to get him on my teams, but I still have Sutton ranked quite a bit higher. I'm in the middle of the group. I have Sutton

higher than Judy, but neither of them are my top 30 and it's not that far apart. Like, the biggest thing is that Sutton's not, like, he was not on the pup, but his coach has talked about how he's not all the way back yet, and there have been some videos of him running routes where he doesn't look like an NFL athlete.

And Judy might just be a lot better than him. That's fair. Oh, Judy might be a top five route runner in the NFL. This is not like putting Lamb ahead of Cooper, but no, I get it if it's a health thing, if it's an injury thing. All right, all right, I get it. I get it.

One of my bold predictions for this year is definitely going to be that Jerry Jude is a top 12 wide receiver next year, though. I already know that. Well, that's not a prediction. Aaron Rodgers by then. All right.

Last email is from Dakota from the Music City. I have the fifth pick and a half PPR league. Now that Aaron Rodgers is back, why shouldn't I take Devante Adams

fifth overall? Because catchers only count for half a point and not a full point. In a full PPR, you can definitely take Devontae Adams first overall. Fifth overall. Fifth overall, sorry. Okay, let me just see last year how many points Adams scored in half PPR.

We'll do a little exercise right now to finish the show. I will guarantee you he scored more than the fifth running back. He scored 303, which would have made him... 21.6 per game. That's better than all but three running backs. Okay, yeah, I was getting to that. He scored 303 points. That was better than all but three running backs.

And not only that, he scored 303. RB4 scored 238 points. So he slaughtered RB4. But he's going to have to have that huge season again to justify a top five pick probably. So you could take him I guess but Kelsey or Adams half PPR?

Adams. Aaron Jones. Aaron Jones. Great call. Thanks to Heath and Chris. Thanks to all of you for listening and for emailing at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Tomorrow we tackle value-based drafting and look at some NFL props and futures as well as RJ White will join the show. Keep sending in your emails.

And we've got a quarterback preview on Thursday and a tight end preview on Friday. Oh my goodness, it is starting. All right, we will talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today.