Fantasy Football Today - FFT Dynasty - Wide Receiver and Tight End Battles to Watch with Jacob Gibbs! (06/04 Dynasty Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Jacob Gibbs joins Heath Cummings on Fantasy Football Today Dynasty to dive into the most ambiguous wide receiver and tight end rooms in the NFL. Which players will emerge as the clear-cut leaders on teams like the Packers (13:20), Texans (24:20), Chargers (35:02), and Chiefs? (40:30) Get ahead of the competition with Jacob and Heath's expert analysis and projections. Don't miss out on this crucial dynasty fantasy football discussion! Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Miller Lite. The light beer brewed for people who love the taste of beer and the perfect pairing

for your game time. When Miller Lite set out to brew a light beer, they had to choose great taste or 90 calories per can. They chose both because they knew the best part of beer is the beer. Your game time tastes like Miller time. Learn more at MillerLite.ca. Must be legal drinking age. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings, joined today by Jacob Gibbs. We've got a great show for you, Jacob. Welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me back.

Always a pleasure. I saw that you were in Harrisonville where we both grew up crazy enough. I think most of your list is not at this point, but that's exciting. We miss each other this time, but you got the plate full of nachos, the helmet full of nachos at the K. I was at the Royals game the very next day. So it was a good weekend. Good time to be a Royals baseball fan. And just a month from now, we're going to be able to hang out in kansas city so i'm just so excited so i do want to talk about the nachos because i got more of a negative more of a negative response than i was expecting i need to explain to people like this was uh almost a full size i would say i i could fit it on my head um helmet with nacho chips. And then on top of that was pulled pork and baked beans

and coleslaw and pickles and cheesy corn. And it was delicious, a complete meal. And it was only $16. The nachos with cheese and no helmet, eight bucks. Like it was just an incredible deal and it tasted delicious and i had no regrets yeah man i paid 27 for a margarita and a baseball bat

decay so i think 16 is a steal honestly i mean a margarita in a baseball bat sounds pretty fantastic before we go any further why don't you tell everybody what you've been working on for Sportsline? What's coming up? So I'm really getting in the weeds over at Sportsline, looking at the per route data and breaking that down with all the different use cases for that information. There's a lot of cool stuff you can do with it. I'm looking at per route data against different coverage types and you know some of the ramifications of those results and then also just kind of looking at some on and off splits and all that kind of stuff as well so just kind of contextualizing what we have what we saw from

last year's receivers what we have for the incoming rookie receivers and trying to help people understand better how to use this information. Because I saw you had Ryan Heath on, that was an awesome, awesome episode. Love the work that he does. He's been really pushing first downs per outrun. There's all this per out data that people have heard about, and it's easy to get a bit lost in it. And so just trying to help people understand better what it all means how to use it um and what we um you know should be how we should be thinking about players heading into 2024 given this information we are i mean i appreciate joe joe knows how to get his comment up on the screen heath and jacob the dynasty dream team it's a great name that's what we should call the podcast dynasty dream team um no i we are going to get in the weeds.

I don't like to say we're going to get lost in the weeds because we're going to find some really – we're going to get found in the weeds. We're going to find all kinds of good information. We'll talk about some ambiguous wide receiver and tight end rooms, the Packers, the Texans, the Chiefs, the Chargers. We'll talk about some of those on off splits but first i want to have just a short discussion about advanced stats because i know that like a lot of these terms that we use are getting more popular and people mostly understand them but we still got a long ways to go before everybody understands what we're talking about when we get into yards per route run targets per route run all on off splits all stuff. So let's just start with three questions for Gibbs.

And I want you to talk about targets per route run and how it relates to target rate. Because the understanding around target rate is pretty easy. Like the number of targets I get is a percentage of the number of passes that are thrown. Super simple. Pretty easy to work into projections as well. How does targets per route run, which we're going to talk about a lot on this show, kind of relate to that? I think so. The first place to start with per route data, the primary value of per route data to me is when it comes to injuries or any circumstances that cause a player to not be able to fill a full-time role. So maybe that's just where she writes last year.

And this happens a lot with rookies where they're not, they're kind of eased into their role, but the per route data suggests that they're capable of putting up huge numbers if they were able to get a full-time role. And then, yeah, again, with injuries last year, we've got two just like prime use cases of players who went a bit overlooked because their baseline stats weren't overly impressive because their route run totals were suppressed by injuries.

And so one of them is Pukanukuwa. We talk about him all the time, but his career at BYU really was sort of underwhelming as a whole, but that had to do with a lot of circumstances that were outside his control. But his Barad data suggested there was really exciting upside if you were able to get a bigger role. And then obviously he fit perfectly in McVay's system there. Nico Collins is the other one. Another huge breakout last year, whereas Barad Data in his first couple of seasons was really

pretty strong, at least strong enough in a bad situation that I thought it was premature to be giving up on him the way that a lot of people were. And then we see when he comes into a mostly healthy season in a better situation, he just goes nuts. And so that's the main use for Parade data and how it can really provide value relative to target share because target rate, target share only captures a part of the whole, whereas Parade data really does granularize it and make it more accessible, I think, to get an understanding of what a player could do. So that's really important. And then the other thing to understand is that formation and personnel really affect

all this per route data. And that is also not necessarily reflected in a player's target share. So a good example is Jaden Reed. Anybody who is playing a part-time role because their team uses two receiver sets a lot, and so that player comes off of the field in two receiver sets, their Perot data might look really strong and might suggest that if they were put into a larger role, they could be really, really productive productive and so it's just important to understand how it all works together um another way that like personnel affects it is that when there's fewer wide receivers on the field naturally per route data is going to look better because you're competing with fewer wide receivers for targets just generally speaking wide receivers draw

targets at a higher rate than tight ends and running backs and so there's one wide receiver on the field your yard per hour it's going to be higher than if there's two wide receivers draw targets at a higher rate than tight ends and running backs. And so there's one wide receiver on the field, your yard per hour, and it's going to be higher than if there's two wide receivers on the field, or if there's three or four wide receivers on the field. And some offenses are run completely different. The Miami dolphins only had three or more receivers on the field, 39% of the time last year, the league average is 62%.

The Rams were up at like 75%. And so just understanding all of that and how it all works together really helps paint a bigger picture and allows us to use this information better than just kind of looking at it and comparing. Sometimes you really are comparing apples and oranges. And we are going to get much deeper into the Packers situation. We see a comment in the chat, Reed and Wicks, two wide receiver ones. Dontay Dillick's week is over. We did that like a week and a half ago. You're a little bit late for Dontay, but I will say I'm not sure that we're going to agree with that assessment,

but we will break down Wicks and Watson and Reed and Dobbs and see what Jacob says, the data says about them. What type of sample size do we need? Because you talked about for injury situations. And a lot of times we're looking at when this guy's off the field, this guy does, has done this, but if it's 10, 15 routes, I know we don't care. I would assume if it's 300 routes we do where where's the cutoff, where should we start carrying and where does it become pretty close to fixed? So you can, you can start to at least, I think, form hypotheses when you have like a few games worth of data. So like 10 or 15 is not enough. But generally speaking, most offenses, a wide receiver is going to run 30-ish routes per game. And so maybe if you're getting around the 100 route mark, you can start to form informed guesses, at least. And for some use cases, you have to. We're

not going to get a larger sample size. So for example, like when a wider through performs well on a per route basis against man coverage early in the career, that's a really, really exciting signal. If you look back at some of the best performers versus man coverage early in the career, they've all gone on to be studs. But unfortunately, the way that NFL defenses are using more and more zone coverage, we truly might only get 100 or so routes, like roughly three games worth of routes for the incoming rookies against man coverage.

And so that's the bare minimum. Anything below that is really... So for example, I looked at Dalton Kincaid's splits And so like, that's, that's the bare minimum. Anything below that is, is really, you know, so like, for example, I looked at Dalton Kincaid's splits on the routes that he ran with Stefan Diggs off the field and they were nuts. They're really exciting, but it was like 46 routes. And so you can extrapolate that over a full season if you want, but like, honestly, it's, it's not in any way predictive. For me, 350 routes is the number that is tested well when it comes to normalizing target per route run data. And target per route run data does become sticky and predictive a little bit more quickly than yards per route run. Ryan Heath did a great job talking about this.

Yards per route run can be influenced so heavily by big plays um you know just one 80 yard touchdown catch where a defender falls down um is going to balloon the yard per out run rate and that's where targets and first downs per route can come in handy because that that's only going to be registered as one target and one first step you know um so yeah i really don't believe in a player's yard correct run rate until they've actually shown it on like a year over year basis um but 350 is is a good starting point and that's that's most players are going to get that even and run for a stop most players going to get that in one season okay so i'm changing your third question. We're going on the fly. Matt is a great, he's always in the chat, always participating, always getting at me on Twitter, helping us out. We really appreciate him. And so he used the trade calculator, sent Derek Carr in Superflex for Chase Brown, getting ripped on X for doing it i am the most anti derrick carr person you've ever met jacob and so i i'm i don't i'm

not mad at this at all and he has three other quarterbacks i think there's a decent chance that derrick carr's dynasty trade value is zero in like six months um derrick carr for chase brown how much do you hate it i don't love it um i'm not a fan of chase brown personally i'm a little bit worried that this is like the only time he's going to have value is like this hypothetical version of what he could be if you look at his big plays last year most of them he didn't really have to do anything um he's fast so he can run in a straight line and beat nobody down the field and score touchdown um i don't want to hit on chase brown, but there's opportunity there. So I guess from an upside standpoint, it makes sense if you don't need Carr. But to me, I'm just trying to maximize my assets. And in Superflex, you're going to

probably be able to find someone who is going to be desperate at quarterback and will give you more than that for Carr, I think. Yeah. And that could be one of the problems with my approach to trade calculators is I'm more giving you my opinion of what people are worth. There are places out there that are also giving you the general consensus of trades that are being made. those two things because I do think that there's, I don't know. I don't like for the most part, I view a super flex, a bad super flex quarterback that we think is going to start all year as like one 12 is the starting point for discussions. And I think that's what car is, but for me, I wouldn't give up one 12 for Derek card. Yeah. He's going to score 15 or 16 fantasy points a game, and I'm going to have to keep starting him.

So I think you did okay, Matt. Everybody else thinks you did terrible. We will laugh at them later. Let's take our first break, and we will get into some ambiguous wide receiver rooms. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now.

For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there.

Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself.

So as you can see, I am not in my normal location. I have received a lot of tweets saying, Heath, what did you think of episode one of season three of Mayor of Kingstown? And I've not seen it yet because I'm not in my home and I've not been in a place where I can watch it. I think I'm going to get back on Saturday. I may just watch season episode one and episode two, like to back i cannot wait please no spoilers in the chat let's talk about the packers wide receivers and i i want to start kind of just for the framework of how i view these guys which will maybe have some people either leave immediately because they're mad at me about don tavian wicks or start screaming in the chat and then kind of what the data says about those guys, Jacob, and how that relates to whether I'm too high or too low on some of these guys. I have Jaden Reed at wide receiver 32, Christian Watson at wide receiver 36. Zero confidence between those two and which one should be higher.

If you promised me that they were both going to have good health the rest of their careers, I would take Watson, but I'm not sure I'm buying completely into him fixing it by fixing the distribution of his hamstrings. Romeo Dobbs at wide receiver 64, Dontavian Wicks at wide receiver 73. Should there be that big a gap between the top two and the next two i think that there is that big of a gap between dubs and the top two um i'm higher on wicks than you okay i don't know if i'm quite there with all the hype that's been blown lately on social media um but i do think wicks is a really intriguing player um i i think you and i are on the same page on watson and our and that's that we're significantly above consensus i've been very surprised to see where he's drafted my brother and i just this past week decided to start up uh we did seven super flex drafts together

um startup drafts and so that's been super fun and we're landing watson more than almost any player which is of course uh you're doing ffpc or or where are you where are you doing this we're landing Watson more than almost any player, which is, of course. You're doing FFPC or where are you doing those? We're drafting on Sleeper. Okay. Okay. So that's a risk. That's a thrill. We'll see how that turns out.

I love Jayden Reed as a player. I worry that this might be the peak of his perceived value, at least in the immediate short term here. I don't know what his role is going to be because I think wicks is really good and they want to get him on the field and i think dobbs and watson are going to be the two receiver set guys um and they don't use three receivers a ton and so like we saw wicks is we saw reed's role shrink when everybody was healthy um and so i i do struggle a bit to buy him as like the top guy here, even though I think he's probably the most talented player. We'll get into his on-offs, but with Christian Watson on and off the field later, but spoiler alert, they're really,

really good when Watson's off the field. He looks like a true difference maker, which I don't know if we're getting that from any of these other guys. I think as a whole, this entire group is talented and works together cohesively and the packers office is gonna be really good um but to me reed and watson are the two that like bring true upside so i we're on the same page basically on watson hire or do you have reed at the top 40 wide receiver or are you considerably lower on him i think top 40 is about right for dynasty. Because if Watson gets hurt or anything, it could just be like what we saw last year, but even better. And then his value is only going to go up.

Let's talk a little bit. We're going to do on-off splits after our next break for some of these teams we're not talking about. But for the Packers specifically, why don't you go ahead and break down the information you found on what these guys look like in terms of on-off splits. Okay, yeah. So with Christianatson off of the

field last year jane reed had a 29 target per route run rate and a 2.55 yard per route run rate um for reference like that is basically identical to cd lamb and hunter st brown last year and it came on a you know decent sample size it didn't hit that 350 route qualifier that i want um i don't think that we can necessarily expect this to be this high going forward but like it's not just big plays inflating the yards per outrun um ryan heath did bring up the fact that um reed's first downs per outrun maybe suggest that it's your per night is inflated a bit by big plays um 29 target per run rate though is like super super solid that is not a fluke um and that to me is really exciting they really um like to design things

for him especially when watson is off the field he's more of the first read kind of guy a lot more whereas um wicks and and dobs are kind of doing the dirty work on the outside and so to me like this isn't necessarily what we can expect from as a player but it shows that there's there's a there's a ceiling here that is unique to him i think um and really all it takes is watson to continue to struggle with injuries in the way that we've seen, which is not something I'm rooting for by any means, but it is definitely a realistic possibility. But with Watson on the field, this is 174 route sample size during Reed's rookie season, 18% target per hour run rate, 1.45 yards per hour run. That's kind of like Josh Downs, Curtis Samuel, Jackson Smith, and Jigba territory. I think he's the most electric player of that group, has the most juice in terms of creating with the ball in his hands

and really getting open in the intermediate area. But that just goes to show that I think if Watson's on the field, I'm pretty worried about Reid's projection for this year. He's somebody that for just season-long leagues, I'm going to have almost none of. The top end of the range of outcomes is high enough that I think you have to get some exposure if you play multiple dynasty leagues.

But he was really impacted by Watson. And really, Watson is on the field. He got a ton of volume last year. And I think it's entirely possible that with a full off season of health and working together with Jordan Love, we could see that come to more efficient production than it did last year. We saw him really put together in two games before he got hurt in the middle of the season. You remember him dominating the Chiefs, the Lions.

Like he really looked like the guy we saw during his rookie season. So I just want to bring up that in 159 rounds, when Watson, Dobbs and Reed were all in the Lions, like he really looked like the guy we saw during his rookie season. So I just want to bring up that in 159 routes, when Watson, Dobbs, and Reed were all in the field, Watson led the team in targets and receiving yards. And it really wasn't very close. 335 receiving yards for him, 200 for Reed, 150 for Dobbs. 547 air yards for Watson. The next closest was Reed at 278.

I just think he's a great fit with Love. Love really is willing to air it out and make anticipation throws down the field that very few quarterbacks are capable of making. And so if we're just talking about upside for this year, it's Watson to me all day. It's not even close. Okay.

Yeah. Well, okay, so you say it's not even close. It's not even close if Watson stays healthy yeah but Reed's upside if Watson goes down week one is is also very very high for sure okay so we you know we kind of talked a lot about Reed if maybe being in trouble if Watson stays healthy another comment from the chat and I think this was right Dobbs may outproduce W trouble if Watson stays healthy. Another comment from the chat, and I think this was right, Dobbs may outproduce Wicks if Watson figures out his health. It seems to me, and I know why nobody wants to, especially in best ball season, nobody wants to draft Romeo Dobbs, but he's probably going to play the most.

It doesn't matter if Christian Watts is healthy or not healthy. He's going to be out there. And so Reed and Wicks are really the guys who have to figure out their place. And Wicks is probably a wide receiver for on this team. If there's no injury. Yeah, absolutely. I think that is the case. That's how I'm projecting it as well.

Romeo Dodds. I went back and watched a ton of Packers. I watched like six or seven games just because I was so curious about Jordan Love. Dodds shows up all the time making big plays towards the perimeter in the end zone. Like he is absolutely the wide receiver one, the X receiver that they trust. It's not a role that translates to fantasy production all that often just because it's hard to draw targets consistently in that role. But he's going to be on the field and he's going to be in the way of wigs. But I play in like a 14 team dynasty league where you start three wide receivers and two regular two flexes, not super flexes.

Those types of leagues. I think Romeo Dobbs is probably a little bit underrated because if you need, like, if you just need guys to score fantasy points, he's going to play every week and he's probably going to give you something pretty much every week and he's probably going to give you something pretty much every week yeah no it just has to be a has to be a deeper league for him to matter probably in terms of a starting role i think that's fair and there might be upside if you remember the playoffs last year he like really balled out for them he had 240 yards in two games um i don't know i just think that's interesting i think he's a pretty decent player like more than i think

because of the perot data and all of the emphasis that we have created around like fantasy stats um somebody like dobbs gets a little bit underrated when he's actually a pretty solid player it is is it is it fair to say like when we had deandre swift and jamal williams together that romeo dobbs is jamal williams and christian watson's deandre swift something like that something like that like Watson's the guy that we're all going to like more and Dobbs is the guy that the coaches are going to really want to have on the field all the time he's a very good football player let's I want to talk for just a second about the tight ends because I think I'm probably lower on both

of these guys than everyone else because I don't I truly don't know who's better um I think Luke Musgrave is the starter and that he functioned or and he's going to see the most targets especially downfield when they're both on the field but I do think Tucker Kraft showed enough that he's going to impact Musgrave in a way that maybe neither one of them get enough targets to matter I don't have Musgrave or Kraft as a top 20 tight end. Do you feel confident in either one of these guys? No, we see it the same way. I think they're completely different players.

Musgrave is the guy who has the fantasy skill set. I think he played a lot better as the season went on. Injuries ended up being a problem for him and keeping him from playing a big role in the playoffs. He cleaned up some of the stuff that we saw early in the season where he was struggling and just looked young I think he has the potential to develop into something for dynasty leagues he's a great stash to me Kraft is not really ever someone I'm that interested in dynasty I think he kind of gets put in the same range as Musgrave when really I don't see them that way at all I think he kind of gets put in the same range as Musgrave when really I don't see them that way at all. I think he's a great blocker and is going to be a big piece of what the Packers do in real life.

And because of that, he is going to kind of get in the way for Musgrave when it comes to Musgrave's route, participation and things like that. Yeah, I think what people see is, well, what if Luke Musgrave gets hurt again? Tucker Kraft looked like he could be a tight end. It looks like they want to have a tight end that matters in this offense. I don't know how with playing seven wide receivers and three tight ends, and they all get 40% of the snaps or something.

Yeah, if Musgrave's hurt, then I think he could maybe get there with touchdowns. But I still think it's going to be really hard for him to get targets in this offense. I want to switch to another team. It might be hard to get targets in their offense and that is the houston texans because uh everybody knows on this show how much i love tank dell he's my wide receiver 16 in dynasty which is i think a little bit heavy um compared to consensus nico collins is everyone else's favorite. He's wide

receiver 21 for me in dynasty. So they've got two top 24 wide receivers and oh yeah, they just went and added Stefan Diggs who except for like half a season last year has been so much better than either one of these guys. He's my wide receiver 47 in dynasty because he's approaching 30 years old and on a one-year contract and i'm really not sure with the rapport that tank dell and nico already have with cj stroud how digs is going to come in and function as a wide receiver one and it seems like both those guys are going to be a lot more efficient with the targets they receive yeah i see it the same way i have almost no uh stefan digs and drafts this summer. I think it would probably take an injury to Tank Dell for him to make me regret that. Just given H-curves, a wide receiver, and what we've seen in terms of his per route rates falling off, I think he's going to probably fill a slot role for the Texans. And there's just not going to be a ton of air yards or upside in that role is my guess.

Nico is the guy I want to talk about. Tank Dale is awesome. I can't quite get there with your ranking on Tank, but I love it. I love him as a player so much that I appreciate the optimism and think that it's possible that you're right. I mean, anytime C.J. Stroud has an opportunity, he mentions Tank Dale this offseason. He loves him um and rightfully so nico's the guy i want to talk about because i think people maybe um have some preconceived notions about who nico collins might be um because of his production in michigan his draft capital being a bit underwhelming and his first couple years also being a bit underwhelming um i want to do this through the lens of the personnel um the way that it affects yards per hour run, like we talked about at the top of the show. So with one receiver on the field, this is the wide receiver positional average of the past three years.

With one wide receiver on the field, 2.26 yards per hour run is the average. With two receivers on the field, it drops to 1.93. With three or more receivers on the field, it drops all the way to 1.39 so that's a huge drop from one to two to three this is important for players like Nico Collins, Tyree Kill, Brandon Ayuk basically anyone in these Kyle Shanahan coaching tree offenses we see pretty inflated per route data and so both Brandon Ayuk and Nico Collins averaged over three yards per route run last year, which puts them in just insane company. Over the past 10 years, the only other receivers to run 300 or more routes and average three or more yards per run

are Tyree Kill, Julio Jones, and Cooper Cupp. Brandon Ayuk and Nico Collins joined that group this year. So Brandon Ayuk, I went and filtered out any plays where there were two or fewer receivers on the field. And it really, really influenced Brandon Ayuk. His yard per hour run rate with two or fewer receivers on the field was 4.1. That dropped all the way to two with three or more receivers on the field, which is still good. 16th overall out of 105 receivers. Nico Collins did not see his rate drop hardly at all with three or more receivers on the field nico collins averaged 2.9 yards per

out run and so i went and compared that to um receivers over the past five seasons it's truly like all elite top five fantasy wide receivers tyreeree Kill, Cooper Cup, Devonta Adams, Tyree Kill again, and then Nico Collins in 2023, above Michael Thomas' 2019 season, above Devonta Adams in 2021, above CeeDee Lamb last year, above Jamar Chase's 2021 season, above anything that Justin Jefferson

or A.J. Brown have ever given us. That's how good, how productive Nico Collins was on a per round basis in these situations last year and that to me is just like mind-blowing i i really expected his rate to be heavily influenced in the way that iukes was um but it was every everything from an analytic standpoint suggests that nico collins is like the man like he's the receiver in this room that brings the upside to be a year over year, like elite wide receiver for fantasy purposes. So when it,

when it comes to like parts in between these guys and deciding who to take for dynasty, it's like clearly, clearly Nico, in my opinion, I have, I've got him up above IU. I think he's a top 12 guy. Like I've been landing a ton of address. So we talked about sample size earlier that was that was a really compelling case um what i think it's easy to look at some of the things he did and say well he's not going to do that again and look right like if you're looking at it from a per target basis, it was almost 12 yards per target.

You've mentioned Tyree Kill several times, and Tyree Kill has been amongst, he and Tyler Lockett for most of their careers have been the two best yards per, in terms of yards per target, and it's been right around 10. Like, it's about 20%. And some players have seasons like that, where they do, He had an incredible combination in terms of an ADOT and still deeper ADOT and still having a ton of yak.

He made a lot happen after the catch. And we don't see that year over year happen very often. Do you think that he just sees the increase in targets next year? Because it was a pretty low target total for a guy that produced like he did. And that completely covers up any regression in the efficiency. Is that going to H&N argument? Yeah, I think Jamar Chase is the good comparison. So Jamar Chase is the only player on that list that I just mentioned that has a target

for route run rate below 25%. Nico Collins was right at 25%. Jamar's was 22%. Basically, everyone else was 27% or higher. And we saw with Jamar Chase that in the years following, his targets rose enough to offset some of the regression that just naturally had to come with the huge plays that he busted. Okay.

How was Nico's production last year influenced by tank dell on the field or off the field so with with tank dell off the field nico collins had some just really really silly rates like it's again stuff that just suggests in an ideal situation where he was like a clear de facto wide receiver one he would be someone who might break fantasy because like you mentioned he has the ability to get open down the field draw targets at a high rate on those downfield routes and then also create yards after the catch and now you just that puts you into the julio jones stratosphere of just creating yards at an absurd rate

with tank off the field he was targeted on 30 of his routes and averaged 3.3 yards per route run. That was a 258 route sample size. So not insignificant. Those per route run rates are like Tyree kill and no one else, basically. Like that is crazy stuff. With Tank on the field, his target per route run rate fell to 23% and his yard per routerun rate was 2.88. 2.88 is still really, really strong. This is 210 routes. I think it's more important to recognize that his targets and his first downs per outrun did drop a bit with Tank on the field. That yard per outrun rate, if I had to guess, is a bit fluky on the high side,

influenced by big plays a little bit. So yeah, with Tank or with Nico, I'm not projecting him to come anywhere near this top end of his range of outcomes. I just bring it up to illustrate the point that it's possible that he could be that kind of a player at some point in his career. I didn't ask you this, and so it would be a bad job on me if you don't,

but do you have tanks numbers with nico on the field there too and they were sharing the field together um no i don't have that i can look it up if you want i can bring it up later and i because adam azer talks a lot about the games that they play together and it was it was relatively close in terms of production but i think it's also like you do a better job of breaking it down to on a per route basis. This is what Nico did when tank Dell was on the field also. And then we have to try to in some way figure out, well,

how does Stefan digs at this stage of his career impact that? I would assume that Nico Collins and tank Dell, whatever they did when they were on the field to get together last year, in terms of targets per route run, we'll let the yards and the yak and all that stuff figure itself out. But in terms of targets per route run, in terms of target share, that's going to be at least a little bit lower with digs on the field than it was last year when they were on the field together,

because the guy that was on the field with them last year was Noah Brown or Robert Woods or John Mechie right yeah no i definitely think so i agree with that i think that feels inevitable um so with nico collins off of the field tank was targeted on 29 of his rounds that dropped to 21% with Nico on the field. His first down per outrun rate was 12% with Nico off the field that dropped to 10%. 10% is still really, really good. Right.

So it's really, it was about 30% for Nico and 29% for Tank when they were by themselves, and 23% for Nico and 21% for tank when they were on the field together. And that's, I, where I get lost is, well, one of them was in year one. One of them was in year three. Does, does, does year two and year four make up that difference? And that's the fun part of what we're going to find out this year the main point is we are big nico collins and tank dell backers this year we are not very excited about stefan diggs i would be selling diggs to anyone who thought that he was going to give you even a high-end wide receiver two season this year and i'd be acknowledging that stefan diggs is probably one injury away

from seeing his dynasty value go to almost zero. Yeah. Let's let's get, let's get to a team that we have maybe less information on, but I'm wondering if you have any, any thoughts on it all, because I pretty much gone into lad. McConkie is the wide receiver one for the chargers. Just almost immediately after he was drafted.

He's my wide receiver 27 and dynasty right there with xavier worthy who we're going to talk about next but there are other guys on the team quentin johnston is in year two he's my wide receiver 51 it's possible that this regime could just use quentin johnston like he should be used and not like he's mike williams because he's shown us last year. He's not Mike Williams. And then I've got Josh Palmer at wide receiver 55. Probably if you were just going to place a bet on who gets 800 yards, Josh Palmer is the best bet. Cause I think kind of like Romeo Dobbs,

Josh Palmer is going to play. We'll figure out the rest of the guys. Do you have any thoughts on how this receiving core is going to work out? And am I too high or too low on one of these guys? I, I prefer Palmer to QJ, even in, in dynasty. Yeah. It's, you know, it's possible that I'm, you know, jumping the gun. I'm giving up on Johnson. He was a developmental receiver who was asked to do something he wasn't ready to do.

I feel like everybody kind of knew that going in. So I don't, you know, I don't want to just give up on him, but if you look at his per route data and compare it to wide receivers that we've had as rookies, like it's bad. There's really like no example of a wide receiver being so unproductive with his routes and then going on to do much in their NFL career.

Matt Harmon's work kind of showed the same thing. It was just really, really bad last year, about as bad as it can get. Josh Palmer, I'm actually intrigued by. We'll get to McConkie in a second, but I want to bring up Palmer here and talk about him for a second because I don't feel like he's somebody that gets talked about hardly at all. So Palmer has a 239 route sample size in his career with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams off the field.

That's not a huge sample size. It's not quite the 350 full season's worth of data that we want, but it's not insignificant either. And he was started on 22% of his routes within that sample and averaged 1.9 yards per route run 10 percent first down per outrun rate for reference those rates would have sat just below DK Metcalf and just above Devante Smith in 2023 it's basically it's basically identical to the crowd data from everybody's favorite sleeper Devante uh Dante and Wicks so I I think there's honestly more juice here than people realize.

Palmer's per round data was much, much better in year three than it had been in previous years. And I think he's clearly the guy who's most likely to get 100 yards, like you mentioned. And I wonder if he just outright is like the guy we should be projecting for the most production here. That sounds crazy. I know everyone loves Ladd McConkie, but Ladd McConkie is not someone who ever dominated targets or really came close. His per ed data at the collegiate level is pretty concerning. He definitely had some target competition. Brock Bowers is, you know, he was the offensive centerpiece for a reason.

He's really, really good. But McConkie only had more than seven targets in two games. He topped out at nine targets for a reason. He's really, really good. But McConkie only had more than seven targets in two games. He topped out at nine targets for his career. He only had more than six targets in four games. I don't know that he's going to come in as a rookie and be an offensive centerpiece. That feels unlikely. He's somebody who struggled against press coverage and only drew targets on 24.6% of his routes at the collegiate level throughout his career. So like I projecting that type of data profile to like come into the NFL and like put up better target rates or even similar is like really takes a leap of

faith. I know that like when you watch McConkey on film, he's just breaking off awesome routes and getting open all the time. So maybe this stuff doesn't matter. But at least when it comes to Palmer, I think it's worth noting that there really is upside for him to like be the clear top target in this offense and the guy that's trusted. Whereas the other two guys are young and haven't proven that they can handle that type of a target share at the NFL level. I do appreciate the reminder from Mr. Scampers that DJ Chark is in LA. Yeah. DJ Chark is there. He doesn't matter at all. So you're buying Josh Palmer at a wide receiver 45, wide receiver 50 cost

and thinking he could be a number three wide receiver. That's the other thing is when you talk about an offensive centerpiece or leading this team in targets, that might be 110 targets this year. It might be a 19-20% target share because they're splitting up 20 percent of the targets between a couple of tight ends and hayden hurst and will disley i think those are the guys who are on the team um and we've got but so i'm not necessarily expecting lad mcconkey to come have like a tank dell type season um even what tank dell did when he was healthy um just because i don't think it takes that. But Palmer is definitely cheaper.

You can get him easily for a late second in Dynasty and maybe even for a third. Yeah, that's basically where I'm at. Palmer's free. I mentioned we're doing a bunch of startups, and so he's somebody that we get pretty often, and it's just like no one wants him. More so, I'm worried about McConkie. I haven't landed him really anywhere um i prefer a lot of the rookies that go around him let's do one more team here and you know we get

we got to talk about the chiefs when jacob is on we still don't really know anything about rushy rice except maybe not in quite as much trouble as we thought the last time that we talked but i have these guys right now in dynasty lined up as Xavier Worthy at wide receiver 26, Rushie Rice at wide receiver 31, Marquise Brown at wide receiver 42, Travis Kelsey at tight end eight. You had some interesting data on Kelsey when Rice was on the field last year.

I think it really gets framed as the Chiefs just didn't use Travis Kelsey as much in the second half of the season because they were saving him for the playoffs. And when I saw what you had posted, it kind of looked like, well, that might be a little bit more to the story. Yeah, I think it's interesting to note that his target per hour and rate did drop from 28% with Rice off of the field to 21% with Rice on the field. I think it makes sense given the type of role that they each fill as short intermediate area of the field workers for Kansas City. And so depending on what the suspension looks like for Rice, we could see

Kelsey take on a larger role than he did last year. I think that's interesting. Really, Marquise Brown is the guy who I'm curious what you think about him. You had him at wide receiver 42 and worthy 26. How do you project them for this year? They are almost exactly the same. I was moved a little bit by Brown sitting at the Mavericks game with Mahomes and Kelsey. I think that's

not quite having breakfast with or rooming with in the summer, but it's not nothing either, especially I think they were in Rice's hometown. So, yeah, I think the most likely outcome is that Marquise Brown is in Worthy's way

early this season. And we find out if Worthy can take the job. Cause I have a hard time imagining a lot of snaps with both Brown and Rice on the field, both Brown and Worthy on the field. Which of the two do you think is more likely to be like really pushing down the field into the like super high average route depth, average depth of target kind of role that we've seen guys like Justin Watson and Mark Isvaldo scaling.

So I could see either one of them doing that. Right. Right. The difference is the other thing that those two guys did is block. And I don't know if i see either one of them blocking so it kind of seems like they they are two guys for one role yes that's kind of where i'm at with it is like i think they're more redundant than people realize i think both receivers people think of them as like pure downfield guys and so they're like oh they'll

just fill that role better than the guys that the Chiefs had last year. But really, that hasn't been. I think they're both pretty good working the middle area of the field. And, you know, Marquise Brown's average depth of target has topped out at 12.9. It's been somewhere between 11 and 12.9 in all five of his seasons. He's never been like anywhere near the MVS kind of stuff, even though his average route depth is typically right around nine, which is really, really high, nine yards. Brown, I'm a little bit concerned.

His yards per run has dropped for five straight seasons, and part of that has to do with circumstance, of course. His target per run, though, has been right around 22% every single year as he really hasn't had significant target competition. He's just kind of had a role carved out for him. And I don't know what to expect from him in this offense. As I projected, I think that there's like real upside for Worthy to step into a large target role. If he's really, really good.

If he comes in and has like clearly more juice than Brown, we've seen Worthy actually, I don't know if people realize like how much of a target honky was at Texas, but that is what he was like when he came in his first year, his target for rivalry was elite as a true freshman and across his career. When he was on the field his target rate was the second highest of all the incoming rookies I think people think of him just because his 40 time was so high as like just this downfield guy but like he's somebody who can

win in a lot of different areas and I think the Chiefs are really really excited about him and so like if he realizes that potential like I just don't know what kind of role is really left for Brown well and I I would be a little bit more concerned if Xavier Worthy was able to participate in OTAs, but he got a small hamstring injury and he's just been watching on the side. And so I know that it's a week and it's May, but I don't like that for a rookie

learning Andy Reid's offense. So, yeah, I think we're in the same place, is that we're both worried that only one of these guys is really going to be able to be on the field very often. We did have a comment that somebody said these two are going to be on the field together a lot, according to what Moe said recently. You've got to be really careful with what he said. You should really instead watch who he's sitting by at basketball games that's going to tell you the

true story um do you have any concern that kelsey is is not going to be still elite or do you think that is like whenever they decide they're going to go to kelsey he's still going to be the same guy he's been yeah i don't i don't have much concern especially if rice does start the season suspended i think that kelsey is going to continue to be like the office centerpiece for as long as he's healthy. So, like, I think last year the injury really affected him more than people realize. I think he was kind of playing through that.

I actually, yeah, I think Kelsey, I've seen, I believe I've seen Dan Schneier take him a tight end one in a few drafts. And I think you can justify that for this year alone. I know this is a dynasty show. But yeah, I think to me, he's, I have him over in La Porta. To me, the discussion is actually between him and Trevin Bride for this year. Well, and I, I think it does matter for dynasty though, if Travis Kelsey's tight end one, or if he's tight in four and further fading.

Because if I'm a true contender and Kelsey starts off the season as tied in one through September and looks like his old self, then I'm probably okay with giving up that 20-25 first. And let's go win the league. But you don't really want to make that decision in May. Because let's see how many games Brushy Rice is going to be there. Let's see what they look like on the field and let's make sure it was

the injury or resting Kelsey and not just that he's starting to finally ride off into the sunset. Let's take one more break and then we'll talk about a few more on-off splits. With Smartwater's pure crisp taste, there's nothing to overthink. So while you may be spiraling over double texting your crush, whether your skincare routine is working because you look the same or is doing nothing because you

look the same and whatever the heck red light therapy is, it's definitely not that. Don't overthink how you hydrate. Life's full of choices. Smart water is a simple one. Metrolinx and Crosslinx are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. So definitely a guy that I'm a little bit higher on the end consensus and dynasty is George Pickens and his splits when Deontay Johnson was not on the field or a big part, I think of the reason why,

because Deontay Johnson now in Carolina looks like maybe Roman Wilson's the number two wide receivers. Is that right? Like that's the number two wide receiver. Pat Fryer is number two wide receiver. Jalen Warren's the number two wide receiver. Let's talk about what number two wide receiver. Jalen Warren's the number two wide receiver. Let's talk about what George Pickens did when Deontay Johnson was not on the field.

Yeah, with Deontay Johnson off the field, George Pickens went nuts. And it was really encouraging because we had never seen him do that. We'd never seen him, we've seen him be really efficient. So like Ryan Heath brought him up as like one of the clearest examples

of like a big play merchant. Whereas first downs per run indicate that his yard per round run rate is maybe a bit fraudulent. And that's that's kind of the player he's been is like he can dominate down the field and make huge plays. Everybody knows that everybody sees that, like, clearly he's good, but he never had shown an ability to draw targets like a wide receiver one but with Deontay Johnson up the field last year that's exactly what we saw and we saw for a deep like an extended two or three game sample size where it's like wide receiver one wide receiver one wide receiver one like love to see it um 18 percent target per round rate for Pickens with Johnson on the field that rose to 24 percent with Johnson off of the field that's a really healthy target per route run rate that puts him up into like you know the a true wide receiver one in an offense um type of territory and then of course as you

guys probably were insane um i i don't want to give too much um you know credence there because it is you know small sample size but we saw his first read rate um first retarget rate skyrocket as well. And I just think it's exciting. I don't know what to expect from this offense, obviously, but I do think like we've seen Drake London, we've seen AJ Brown put up like insane per route data where the offense really, really concentrates on one wide receiver because they are like we talked about doing a lot of one and two wide receiver sets where it's like you mentioned who is it going to be pat fryer move like it's mostly

going to be pickens just the offense running through the ground game and then running through play action targets to pickens that i think will probably be pretty dang efficient that is george pickens my number 17 wide receiver in dynasty and I wouldn't be surprised if we get like, what happens if the first five weeks of the season, those numbers you just gave just for the targets, not even for the yards because they're outlandish. What if he has a 24% targets or per route run rate? Like he's going to be a top 12 dynasty wide receiver.

I consensus in my opinion, but he's going to be a top 12 dynasty wide receiver. I consensus in my opinion. But he's got to do it first. Zay flowers on off the field with Mark Andrews, not quite as encouraging. Honestly, I, this might be weird, but I was kind of encouraged by this.

I thought I, well, I thought that it would be a more drastic change. Okay. Just, just from the way I remembered it during the season it felt like when andrews went down they implemented flowers as like the clear first read guy designed all these touches to him but really his rates didn't fall off that much his target

runner with andrews on the field was 19 percent down from 20 down from 22 percent with him on the field. 19% we can work with if he's still making plays down the field. Overall, if we project him for just that and no improvement in year two, then he's probably going to disappoint people at his ADP. But if that's the baseline, that's not bad. And that leaves room for upside. His yard per outrun rate with Andrews on the field. It was 1.7. It was 1.75 with Andrews off. So really like kind of minimal change. So that that's pretty exciting to me.

Cause I would assume that he's only going to become a bigger and bigger part of the offense and, you know, be more efficient with opportunities. Yeah. I think, I think what the hope is is that he can convince them that he's's their number one wide receiver by the time that Mark Andrews is fading. And that it doesn't turn into a situation where Mark Andrews fades and then somebody else takes over Mark Andrews' role. And Zay Flowers is still the number two. I do think that there's a lot of room for growth for him. He is my number 15 wide receiver in Dynasty.

Again, I'm pretty high on him. So I chose the guys that you were tweeting about that again i'm pretty high on him so i just i chose the guys that you were tweeting about that i'm also pretty high on it seems like um but i want to get to another one here because you had several and i don't want to leave any out and this one is the guy not in dynasty so much but in redraft where i find myself like three and a half rounds ahead of everyone else on courtland sutton. And nobody wants to draft him. And I'm kind of okay with it. And you made me feel a little better about it.

Yeah, I've always been out on Sutton and been more of a Judy guy because when they're both on the field, Judy has like completely dominated the targets. And Sutton has been more of an afterthought like barely even usable for fantasy but judy's been on and off the field like persistently throughout his career and so we have a pretty large sample size at this point sudden running routes with judy off the field and he's a like really relevant fantasy wide receiver within that split um and so here we are again, where there's like, it's just Sutton, like maybe

Marvin Mims steps into a larger role. But it seems like he's, he's probably going to be the clear cut top first read on almost every play that the Broncos drop back to pass on. So the splits with Judy off of the field last year, 24% target ground rate, 2.2 yards per route run for Sutton. That is really strong stuff. It was only 100 routes, though. But we do have a larger sample size over the past two seasons. It's basically the same, 24%, 2.19. And so for reference, just looking at last year's series, that's the same range as like Amari Cooper, DJ Moore, Cooper cup,

even like Debo Samuel, Stefan Diggs. Like there's some good guys there that the, you know, you're not going to be drafting quote and set around any of those guys. And part of that, part of that has to do with Denver's offensive course, but that to me, like he's, he's one of the clearest values for, for season long leagues. And he's somebody who I'm fine taking to Dynasty because there's – I mean, unless Troy Franklin really, really surprises us,

he's going to be the right receiver one for at least the next year or two, I would think. Yeah, I think the next year he's not happy with his contract now, and I'm not sure Sean Payton likes him. So I think that's the risk is that they find somebody else that will trade for Cortland Sutton, and that they already have a number one wide receiver that's a lot better than him. I want you to, if you have a second, to just kind of compare your feelings on Mims and Franklin.

Mims is a year older. We've already seen him not really do anything in the NFL, which is a mark against him. But the same regime drafted both and spent more draft capital on Mims than they did Franklin. And I liked Mims a little more as a prospect coming out than I did Franklin. I have them back to back at wide receiver 44 and 45. How do you view Mims and Franklin? I prefer Franklin because, like you said, we don't have we haven't seen him fail the NFL level yet. And also, he's got the great fit with his college quarterback.

Both of them had really really strong um perot data at the collegiate level you have to be a little more careful with collegiate perot data it doesn't always translate because there's a lot of stuff that goes into that um circumstantially but i i wanted to bring mims's perot data up because i'd kind of given up on him after his jerking season to me he just looked like he was somebody i was excited for but he looked like okay this is only going to be a deep thread who's not going to be very relevant for fantasy his target rates were just really really low um and we see a lot of guys come in and fill that kind of a role and then it's unless

unless you're like truly truly elite at it it's really hard for those players to matter in fantasy filling that role um but tiny grain of you know salt here maybe we have some hope it was only 69 routes with judy off the field but it's harder for ronald was 20 on those routes up from 11 with judy on the field um so if you're not a troy franklin believer then i think you could you know maybe pick up mims late in some drafts, maybe trade for him, whatever you got to do there. I think it might make sense. But honestly, I just think that it's possible, too, that Sean Payton rotates receivers so much that neither Mims or Franklin are going to matter for fantasy.

There's the really optimistic view. Let's just continue that trend because we need to talk about Evan Ingram with Christian Kirk on the field, with Christian Kirk off the field I it's hard to look at what Ingram did last year and not think he's a top five tight end this year but he's probably not a top five tight end this year yeah there's two um two guys two tight ends here that um people are pretty sold on because they had big years last year but I'm a little bit worried about. Ingram's target per hour rate dropped from 27% with Kirk off of the field to 21% with Kirk on the field. And 21%, you can still get by with.

But I don't think that you should be drafting him, just expecting to see what we've seen the past couple of years here, because there have been a lot of things that have really helped inflate his numbers. Christian Kirk has been really good these last two years um everybody doubted him and then he came in and really crushed in his first year in Jacksonville and was even better last year on a per route basis he improved across the board targets first downs yard spread run all were better um he just you know struggled with with health um but when I watched Jacksonville it was like palpable that

like Kirk was the only thing that was really working in the offense. Ingram it felt like they were just kind of going there because they had to. And I don't think they're going to have to as much with Kirk back. And then you said there were two tight ends. Just go right to Dave and a joke. Cause this is one of the best points. And I've, I'll preface this by saying I've talked about this in the kevin stefanski on

offense and we've heard a lot of talk about it with alex van pellet going to new england like stefanski's run a very tight end centric offense there's been times where there's been two guys that have split it too much and so it's not been as obvious but he's always been in the upper third upper really probably the upper quadrant in terms of tight end target percentage at 24 25 percent or higher what did we see those nojoko those nojoku though specifically with what would deshaun watson yeah joku's uh splits here are even more concerning he was like wholly reliant on that time where he got to to run routes for joe flago, and I think it makes stylist makes sense stylistically, just given the way that Watson, um, has, has played quarterback. He is like really, really targeting, um, downfield guys and not so much with a joker, um, on the shorter stuff.

So in joke, who scored 79% of his PPR points without Deshaun Watson on the field last year, his target for rat run rate dropped from 27% without Watson to 17% with Watson on the field last year, his target per run rate dropped from 27% without Watson to 17% with Watson on the field. We saw Amari Cooper, on the other hand, really be the clear focal point of the offense with Watson on the field, and that's just because he loves pushing the ball down the field to him. And so that does concern me about Njoku going forward. He's somebody who I'm not getting into any drafts.

What concerns me is how many games is Deshaun Watson going to play this year? Yeah. But they don't have Joe Flacco to take over, so it probably still doesn't matter for Njoku. I was going to say, I think Jameis Winston is probably a lot closer to Watson than Flacco stylistically, the way he likes to play. Right, right. That was awesome, awesome stuff.

As always, Jacob Gibbs, I really appreciate the information, the data. Go follow him on Twitter at JAGibbs underscore 23. The whole idea for this show came from one of his Twitter threads. I basically just hit retweet, retweet, retweet, retweet. You need to be following this guy so you can get good information. So you can go get these guys before they break out or before they bust. In the case of a couple of those tight ends programming note, I will be traveling on Friday.

There will not be a Friday edition of FNF Dynasty, but we will talk to you next time.