Fantasy Football Today - FFT in 5: Bust-Proof Players: Why Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce Are So Safe (07/08 Fantasy Football podcast)

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

No player is entirely without risk, but there are a few players with high floors worth targeting. Like Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Dan Schneier gives a few more picks. You can also follow the full-length Fantasy Football Today podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-podcast/id261735167 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 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs. You can listen to Fantasy Football Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast." 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 To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Let's talk some bust-proof players next on Fantasy Football Today in 5. Welcome to FFT in 5. I'm Chris Towers. I'm here with Dan Schneier. And we're going to talk about some players who, look, nobody has zero risk.

All right. We can't perfectly predict the future. Every player has some range of outcomes. Even your number one overall pick has a chance to bust. But what we're talking about today is trying to target three or four players who, at the very least, there are very few ways for them to go wrong. You know, that's one thing that I think is really important in fantasy football is having discussions about the range of possible outcomes for players, because, you know, it's really easy to just focus on the upside or just focus on the downside for players. But a good example of, you know, the range of outcomes thing would be like a player like Josh Jacobs last year.

You know, he was someone a lot of people were out on, didn't think he had a lot of upside. Turns out he ends up being the RB3. So keeping those ranges of outcomes in mind is important. But today, we're going to try to focus on players who have a really safe floor. And a guy that I really like for both upside and safety in the second round range of drafts is Amon Ross St. Brown for Detroit.

He's just, what we've seen from him, basically since he became a full-time player for Detroit, is just a massive volume of targets. And a lot of people will point to, well, he has not a lot of competition for targets, right? And this year, once Jamison Williams is back from his suspension, maybe he can emerge as the number one. I don't buy it.

I think Amon Ross St. Brown, the way this offense runs, Jared Goff being a safe quarterback who doesn't like to push the ball down the field, that's going to lead to a lot of targets for Amon Ross St. Brown, who's just open constantly. It's like Keenan Allen. I think that's the comp for Amon Ross St. Brown. Keenan Allen has been not necessarily like a high upside wide receiver one. He's never been someone who challenges for the top overall spot, but because of the volume,

because of how many targets he earns, he's going to be a safe play every week. And I really like Amon R. St. Brown in his prime. Dan, why don't you give us a couple of a bus proof players? I think the safest player in fantasy by far is Travis Kelsey. I know people look at it and they're like, he's 34 years old. How could you say he's the safest? Well, he hasn't missed a game except for COVID nine years. That's amazing. He has finished as the tight end one or two in every season for the last seven or eight seasons.

This is as safe as it gets. He doesn't miss games. He doesn't finish outside. He has the rapport down with the quarterback. He's playing with the best quarterback in the NFL, and they no longer have a wide receiver one like they did in Tyree Kill. That's the easy one for me. And giving you another one, Chris, Patrick Mahomes. Why not? Last year we saw Patrick Mahomes. They said, oh, you took away Tyree Kill. Oh, you put in all these receivers like Marquez Valdez-Scantling and Sky Moore, a rookie who barely played wide receiver in college,

had to basically learn the position and Andy Reid's offense in one year and didn't do much. None of it mattered because Patrick Mahomes can throw to whoever's on the football field he's actually in this nobody really realized this about my homes because they look at the arm talent they look at the cool plays he makes on the move he's one of the best mental processors at the position in the NFL it's what makes him elite he finds open receivers so my homes and Kelsey are one and two for me yeah go ahead for those two, especially, is just also the way that offense operates. They know where their bread is buttered, so to speak. They have consistently the highest situation neutral pass rates in the NFL.

And over the past couple of seasons, what we've seen is, remember, the mental image you probably have of a Patrick Mahomes touchdown is him flinging it 60 yards down the field for a long touchdown. That hasn't been who Patrick Mahomes has been over the past couple of seasons. His average length of touchdown four years ago was 19 yards. That's how long his average touchdown was. The last couple of seasons, it's been more like 5 to 10 yards. They throw a ton in the red zone they have

those you know the the mesh and veer and all those push passes and all that stuff that like oh it's a gimmick but hey if a gimmick works it works and that's the way that offense operates so i i think you know kelsey a little less safe than mahomes but it's just because at some point he's got to fall off, right? Maybe, but I don't see happening anytime soon. At some point, of course it will.

I mean, you can't play to your forties. Tony Gonzalez played pretty late into his career, obviously though. I think the deal with my homes is look, the reason you're seeing those numbers drop like that from 19 average yards per session is because people defensive said, all right,

we have no way to stop him. We can't blitz him. That never worked. Let's just play two high safeties and like hope for the best by taking away big plays and force them to go matriculate down the field and score in the red zone. But the problem is he's great in the red zone. And so they're so efficient there, but I don't see defenses changing that much on that front. They've kind of thrown their hands up at this point and said, the best we can do is

kind of play two high safety and hope to take away the big play. So those two for sure. And I'm going to a larger point. I think the interesting thing about going over these types of players, Chris is the case that can be made for taking a Kelsey early in round one, the case that can be made for taking my homes in round two. These are the early premium picks where you could go for a Bijon Robinson. You could go for a Saquon Barkley or Christian McCaffrey, but those guys all have either injury histories or injury potential at a position that gets a lot of injuries. If you don't lose your draft by taking a Kelsey or Mahomes early, there's a case to be made that that's a sound strategy too. And a lot of people I play with like that strategy,

specifically in auction leagues. I see people punting running back because of the risk and going for the Mahomes, going for the Kelsey, especially two quarterback leagues. So it's just interesting to think about these players as guys that you might prioritize and say, well, yeah, they don't play the premium position. We want in fantasy running back. They play the position. We have a million players at quarterback and tight end, but they give you an edge at that position and they're safe. Do you have any other, uh, bus proof picks? I know you had one more. Yeah, let's go with one more Jamar chase for me last year was the example of it. They thought here's the deal with Jamar chase. His rapport with Joe Burrow is so sound at this point

that he can run the same route every time. And the defender has no idea if it's going to be a back shoulder stop play where he just stops in the middle of the go route or the go route. Either way, it's against press man coverage. And either way, you can't stop Jamar chase with press man coverage. So to me, I don't see the plan for stopping chase. Now I don't, I don't understand how defense can do it. You can double him. You could throw bracket coverage on him but then now you have t higgins irv smith tyler boyd and you're gonna lose that way so they can't really do that either they're just gonna have to hope to pray press man and a safety over the top can stop chase and it won't yeah the thing with jamar chase we've seen over his two nfl seasons is year one it was all big plays right

it wasn't all downfield a lot of it you know, I specifically remember a couple of touchdowns against the Ravens, who he absolutely destroyed in those two games. A couple of them were quick screens, short passes that he just outran the defense, broke a couple tackles. But then year two, teams like they have with Mahomes made a point of taking away the big play. They rushed four, played two high safeties, and they were just like, look, Joe Burrow, you're going to have to beat us short down the field.

And early on in the season, it slowed them down a little bit, but they figured it out. Jamar Chase found other ways to succeed, and that's what I like to see from wide receivers. It's just, can you beat whatever the defense throws at you? And Jamar Chase can. So I love that one as well, especially given the age, the elite young quarterback, they're just going to keep growing together. So I love that one as well, especially given the age, the elite young quarterback,

they're just going to keep growing together. So love those picks. Obviously, some of them are a little obvious, but that's what we're looking for, right? You're trying to, you know, like you said, not lose your draft early on. So that's going to do it for FFT and 5. We'll be back next week to preview the AFC division.

We'll see you then.