Fantasy Football Today - FFT in 5: Five Post-Draft Busts: D.J. Moore, CeeDee Lamb, Mike Evans, & more! (05/20 Fantasy Football podcast)

Episode Date: May 20, 2023

The FFT Crew discusses busts for the 2023 season, including D.J. Moore, Ceedee Lamb, Mike Evans, and more! 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 bus for the 2023 fantasy football season. 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 be negative Nellies today.

We're going to talk about the problem with the bust conversation, right? I always want to be wrong about my bust picks every single time. This is one of the things where it's like, oh, you guys are haters. And it's like, no, I would like my bust pick. We'll start it off with my pick, and then Dan will give us three of his. And mine is a player I love. I think DJ Moore is a top 12 wide receiver in the NFL. I love the fact that with really poor quarterback play over the course of his career, he has shown the ability to be a move the chains possession type receiver.

He's been a high volume alpha number one wide receiver. And there was that one weird year where the Panthers used Robbie Anderson in short area and intermediate stuff. And DJ Moore was more of a downfield specialist. And he was awesome in that role too. I think he had 1100 yards primarily as a downfield specialist. And so that ability that that's like what Stefan Diggs was doing in Minneapolis and the Minnesota,

the, the comp that people will make is DJ Moore getting traded to Chicago. It's going to have an effect on Josh Allen or on Justin Fields the same way Stefan Diggs did with Josh Allen. The thing is, Josh Allen threw about 100 more passes in his first year with Stefan Diggs than he did his last year without him. If Justin Fields throws 100 more passes next season, he's going to throw about 480,

which would still be a bottom five pass volume offense in the NFL. I think that's a realistic goal, but Justin Fields, I think he either scrambled or was sacked on 25% of his dropbacks last year. It's just the way he plays, even if they do dial up a bunch more pass plays, this is still going to be one of the lowest volume pass offenses in the league. Let's say DJ Moore gets 25% target share on 480 passes. That's about 120 pass targets. You have to be really, really good to be a high end number two wide receiver on that low volume. And he's certainly talented enough to do it, but it's just, you know, he's like wide receiver 15, 16 in the consensus rankings for Dave, Jamie and Heath.

He's like a fourth round pick in a lot of drafts right now. And I, I just can't justify that. I think if you want to bet on DJ more, having that kind of impact on the Chicago offense, just bet on Justin Fields, make him your number four quarterback or your number five quarterback. I think that's a better bet than DJ Moore becoming a borderline wide receiver one in this offense. I'm right there with you when it comes to DJ Moore. He will be on my bus list as well. Neither of us have taken him yet in the mocks

and I don't see either of us doing that at his break. He's more like wide receiver 25 for me. Who's a bus pick for you this year? I have a few. I'm going to start with one that's a little. I'll try to do the more high profile ones, too. Sure. It's fun and more fun.

And I'll say this about bust, too. I want to make my little preamble as well. Real quick, Chris. Calling someone a bust is more so saying we don't like them at their current value. Exactly. So like doesn't mean this guy is going to be like not worth anything. So for me, one of the more high level ones for we're sticking with receiver is it's going to be cd lamb because i just feel like without kellen moore going more to that mike mccarthy style offense which is the

same 11 personnel with the two outside receivers and the slot guy always lined up the same way it's not good for passing game and i think brandon cook's going to have a much bigger role than people are expecting right now he's's a player I'm higher on. But as we get further down the board, I have some just total avoids. Like last year, one of my big plays. Let me add one thing. I talked about this with Dave yesterday. But another big thing, the Cowboys, the last three seasons under Kellen Moore as offensive coordinator, were first, second, and second in neutral offensive play rate.

So how fast they ran their offense. With McCarthy, his last three seasons in Green Bay, he was never higher than 19th. So there's going to be a big drop in volume in this offense as well. So it's just, if CeeDee Lamb's as good as he was last year and nothing else changes except the pie is smaller, he's going to be a worse fantasy player.

And Brandon Cooks is obviously, I think, a much better player than anyone that the Cowboys had alongside him last year all right sorry i interrupted you give me your next bus pick that's okay last year i made a lot of you know i i don't want to say i picked up a lot of value i should say by just totally avoiding the stealers pass game every single player in that pass game that's going to be the bucks for me this year i can make a little bit more of a case for chris godwin because he'll get those layup throws. And I guess you can grind out some yards there. But Mike Evans is a total bust for me this season.

I look at that team and I'm just like, there is no point for them not to turn to Kyle Trask once and if, and I'll say once and if because the when and if situation, they're not winning with Baker Mayfield. And once they turn to Trask, because it's almost like a tank type set, like who's going to give up the opportunity for Caleb Williams? You know, a generational type quarterback prospect just to grind out more games with Baker Mayfield if he gives you a better chance to win. It's not the Bucs. They're not going to do that.

They haven't shown any signs of wanting to do that this offseason. I mean, they're going with Rashad White basically only at running back. So I look at the Evans situation, and once we get those Kyle Trask games, we're going to start to see these 135, 160, 180-type passing yards box scores, which we start to see from these really bad quarterbacks. And there's just no way to get production out of Mike Evans or really anyone with those types of box scores. So he's a total avoid for me.

Yeah, the other thing that I would add there is I saw this stat actually just before we were recording. I can't remember who put it out on Twitter, but sorry, it was tom brady's sack slash scramble rate was like 3.5 percent last season baker mayfield was almost 11 so you're also just losing they're going to pass a lot less than they have the last couple seasons no matter what and then you're losing a bunch of pass attempts with the change from tom brady who's always going to get the ball out to Baker Mayfield. Do you have another bus pick you want to give us? Yeah, we'll go, we'll go to the running back position here. And there's a few guys I just can't understand. I'm going to start with Travis ETN who's a close. I think I saw him. I don't now have it up,

but cause I have the receivers up, but I, I think he was consensus 10 or 11 in our rankings. And I just don't understand the Travis ETN etn case uh me and adam and i just went over this on beyond the box course adam's really high on tank bixby i am as well the rookie they drafted in the third round that's pretty good capital he was a complete running back at auburn and this stat was pretty interesting last season travis etn was one of the least efficient red zone running backs and tank bixby had five carries inside the three and he scored on every single one of them at aub against SEC-level defenses. ETN offers almost nothing in the passing game.

That's only going to get worse, in my opinion, with Calvin Ridley in the mix. If you're Trevor Lawrence, are you really going to throw to your running back when you have Calvin Ridley, Christian Kirk, Evan Ingram out there? I just don't see it. It didn't happen last year. I don't see it happening this year.

So if he loses red zone, doesn't have much of a passing game role, is a really poor processor as a running back, still fast, still super athletic, still an interesting player, not someone I would have any ranked anywhere near my top 10 though at running back. All right.

That's going to do it for FFT and five. And I promise next time you hear for us, we'll be a little more optimistic. That's going to do it for the bust episode of FFT and five. We'll see you next time.