Fantasy Football Today - Henry in Round 2!? Mixon in Round 3!? Diontae Trade, RB Rankings and More! (03/13 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts Catching up on the latest in free agency as Derrick Henry is on the Ravens, Joe Mixon is on the Texans and Diontae Johnson is on the Panthers! Is Baltimore a good destination for a running back (4:10)? There are pluses and minuses. And let's get a feel for how the public is reacting to these moves as we look at some Twitter polls: What round for Henry (10:50)? Do we prefer Henry or George Pickens in PPR (15:55)? Do we like Mixon better than D'Andre Swift and Tony Pollard (18:50)? ... We talk a lot about the RBs who have changed teams including ADP predictions (26:40) and rankings. We can agree on who the Top 4 will be in ADP, but who will be fifth? Aaron Jones? Austin Ekeler? Swift? ... Does the Fantasy community prefer Saquon Barkley or Josh Jacobs (36:50)? Who do we like better? Then we go through the rest of the news and notes (40:00) including the Diontae Johnson trade, offensive line upgrades and key defensive signings ... Email us at [e-mail] SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 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

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No, I can't. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races, and he stays on his feet. He's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. A 30-year-old running back going to a team that never throws to running backs, and he's coming off his worst season in six years, and people are pretty excited about it.

Welcome to Fantasy Football today on Wednesday morning. Free agency rolls on, and now it is official. Five of the top seven running backs in last season's ADP are on different teams. Eckler, Barkley, Pollard, Jacobs, and Derrick Henry. And the gang is back together. Jamie, Heath, and Dave are here. So we will talk about mostly Derek Henry,

the Deontay Johnson trade, him going to the Panthers, what it means for him, what it means for George Pickens, etc. Joe Mixon to the Texans. And then, I don't know, we got tight end news. We got Gerald Everett to the Bears. That was interesting. So, yeah, well, good morning, guys. Heath, you said something

I thought very astute. Oh. It was shaping up to be one of our most boring mic checks. I was like, all right, mic check Dave. And Dave's like, let's talk about Derek Henry's value on the Ravens. I was like, mic check Jamie. That sounded just like me. One, two, three,

four, five. And then Heath said something much more interesting. What did you say? I feel like everybody's more excited about the running backs that change teams than I am. Yeah. How do you guys generally feel about all of these running backs who have changed teams? They're nice people.

Maybe. I think I feel like Saquon and Josh Jacobs are going to be fantasy starters. Derek Henry is going to be a fantasy starter too. He is, but I don't want to draft him as a top 20 running back. A 30-year-old guy changing teams? That sounds like a risk for disaster. I'm not drafting much of Derek Henry. Are you saying top

20 draft pick wise or top 20 running back ranking running back i'm out you're not gonna someone's gonna take a minute i'm out on aaron jones i'm i'm out on eckler eckler yeah i'm very lukewarm on mix and pollard and swift derrick henry Why don't you just name the running backs that you do want to draft? That's the thing. Who the heck do we like at running backs? Right. You're going to paint yourself into a corner where you're going to end up taking running backs earlier.

No, I'm saying I would rather take Rashad White and James Cook and Isaiah Pacheco. Sure, but those are going to be round two, three, maybe four picks in the case of Cook. Right. They're not going around to three, two, three, maybe four picks in the case of Cook. Right. They're not going around to three, three, four. I think I bet you'll see some drafts with Pacheco and white in late round two. I'd be very surprised.

You think those guys are going to be drafted over Derek Henry? Well, I think they should be. I agree. I don't think they're going to be though. Then we'll see. I would take those guys over Pollard. I would take those guys over Swift. I would take that guys over swift i would take yes yeah yeah i'm with you on that but you're you're basically going to be down to about i don't know maybe 15 running backs that you'll be happy to

take yeah i agreed dave remember when you took like somebody who's going to go zero rb dave remember when you took four running backs with your first six picks that was i almost i thought about that a lot like forget about like who i took but like conceptually and i've done a couple of other mock drafts away from you guys i kind of like what's left at wide receiver i think the depth of receiver is way way better than the depth of running back once you get past the middle point of the draft not that these guys are going to be great anyway, but I think there's a little bit more upside, promise, younger wide receivers. And we still haven't done a mock draft with the rookies yet,

and that's just going to push so many of these guys down. For me, the fun thing about specifically Henry, Mixon, I guess those two. Barkley and Jacobs are in a different tier right now, but Henry and Mixon, I could make a lot of cases for both of them now and against. Let me give you a good case for Derek Henry. For one thing, if you kind of look at the advanced numbers, one of the areas that he's been worse at in the last few years

is yards before contact per carry. Well, he's going to get a pretty big offensive line upgrade, so that might help. He's still good after contact. He's not as good, but he's still been good. Of course, he's 30. Also, how about this? I was trying to take a look. Is Baltimore a good spot for a running back?

Because it hasn't been since Mark Ingram in 2019. We haven't had a great fantasy running back. But in the last five seasons of the Lamar Jackson era, the Ravens have been top 11 in just running back rushing yards in four of those five seasons.

And they have, in those five years, they have 50 rushing touchdowns from the one to the three yard line or from three yards out or closer, if you want to call that a goal line carry. 50 of them just from running backs. That's the second most in the NFL in that span behind the Detroit Lions. Lamar Jackson, as much as he runs, he doesn't run much near the goal line. They had 13 rushing touchdowns from one to three yards out last year alone. Most of them from Gus Edwards. The problem is they've been bottom four

in running back targets each of the last five years. But I was surprised at how many rushing yards and rushing touchdowns there have been just from Ravens running backs in the Lamar Jackson era. I knew that the touchdowns, I kind of knew the yards I was surprised by. So it's kind of interesting. Here's my question. When comparing the Ravens running backs over the last four years, Gus Edwards says at average five yards per carry every year of his career, Greg Roman left and he averaged 4.1. How much of the rushing efficiency from the Ravens was Greg Roman system? and how much was Lamar I'm sure that's a that's a part of it also you know Gus Edwards coming off an ACL tear too right there you know at 28 right or was he he was 28 last year yeah I think so you know a little older a

little slower you know I think that kind of factors into it too what was Keaton Mitchell at 10.12 you know you want to balance it out from a system standpoint you know for an explosive guy versus uh maybe a little bit more of a plotter more so than he was beforehand i think the thing you just got to look at with with derrick henry and and heath i think if i saw in the story you wrote would you give him like 1100 and 11 touch i saw 11 touchdowns what yards you give him yeah 1100 yards 11 touchdown. I saw 11 touchdowns. What yards you give him? Yeah. 1100 yards, 11 touchdowns. Yeah. I probably would lean slightly over if he stays healthy on,

on both numbers, but it's, it's just a matter of, can he stay healthy at 30 years old? I mean, it's, it's, it's gotta be something, you know,

again, similar to Mike Evans, we have these guys that are sort of, you know, the, the outliers to these situations. And maybe Derek Henry is one of those guys. He did play,

you know, despite some of the flaws last year, and we could talk about, you know, when leading, when trailing, how he performed overall behind a bad offensive line. He still had a very good season for a guy at 29 years old. And so it's a great situation. It's a great upgrade for him all across the board from what he typically does. I don't think anybody is drafting him with the idea of him becoming a significant pass catcher.

It's just not the reason why you look at Derrick Henry. But can he stay successful despite the fact that he's continuing to get older? And so at the right cost, I would be interested in him, but that's probably somewhere middle to the end of round three at the earliest. And most likely round four is where I would start to look at him. And like Dave said earlier, I don't think he's getting that far. I think he's going to still be a second round pick. I mean, we, we set higher last year and said terrible situation,

older running back, and he was still taken in the, in, in the second round, you know, and so better situation for him this year, even though he's older, people are going to get excited. I mean, you, you can't look anywhere right now from analysts to, to fantasy players. Everybody's excited about this situation for the most part. I'm not that excited about it, but that's because... I'm telling you,

we are in the minority here about being down on it. Put the Twitter poll up. I'm going to go to the Twitter polls in a second here. I'd be more excited about it, I guess, if everybody else weren't so excited about it. I just feel like we should be reasonably excited about it, but he was a second round pick, Derrick Henry, last year, and it was a mistake. On a per game basis, he was RB 13 in non-PPR, RB 16.5 PPR, and RB 18 in full PPR. And it was almost entirely game script dependent. I think he probably averaged about 20 points per game when the Titans either won

or lost by four or fewer points. In any other game... Do you think the Ravens are losing many games this year? No, I get it. But he... I think Henry, agree or disagree,

he's going to be... This is what I took away from the stat I gave earlier. He's going to be really touchdown dependent, but he's going to have a lot of opportunities to score touchdowns.

Yes. Yeah. Agreed. But also, I don't think you can talk about Henry's ADP without making it format-specific. He might be the most format-specific player in fantasy. Oh, he might be a round one pick in non-PBR.

When you say that, are you saying you're taking him in round one, or do you think the ADP will be around? And I'll go back to something I said yesterday about the receivers we were talking about. I didn't say that, are you saying you're taking him in round one? Or do you think the ADP will be around? And I'll go back to something I said yesterday about the receivers. I didn't say that. I don't anticipate St. Brown going ahead of Chase. It wasn't about who's going to be better. It was based on ADP. Same thing.

I'm saying right now, I think people are going to draft Derrick Henry in round two. People are going to draft Derrick Henry in round one in non-PPR. I think that's the excitement level that we're going to get. Man, I have so many things to ask you guys about here. There's so much more to say. Well, all right, let's go to the Twitter polls. I just did want to promote, we have a lot of other great podcasts that you should be listening to right now, and it's an awesome time. If you want to hear about the quarterback prospects, check out the With the First Pick podcast, Ryan Wilson and Rick Spielman. And I was just reading about Daniil Hunter yesterday

getting that contract with the Texans. And I wonder, is that Rick Spielman's best draft pick, former GM for the Vikings? Really, that turned out to be a total gem. No, he drafted Justin Jefferson, right? I know, but he drafted him in the first round. Hunter was, what was he, third, fourth round pick? He drafted Stephon Diggs in the first round Hunter was what was he third fourth round pick on digs in the fifth round yeah okay yeah he did he signed Adam Thielen as a free

agent not his best draft pick but up there he's had some real great ones so listen to him break down the quarterback prospects and everything else on with the first pick fantasy baseball today right now we have beyond the arc a podcast. If you want to see it all, go to cbssports.com slash podcast. Okay. Fun with Twitter polls. So this one was Heath's. Full PPR redraft. Where are you drafting Derrick Henry? First three rounds

is winning with 45% of the vote. Round four, about 35% of the vote. Round five or later, 16% of the vote. See results later, 16% of the vote. See results, the cowards 4.5% of the vote. So what would you guys vote for?

Full PPR redraft. Where are you drafting Derek Henry? First three rounds, round four, around five or later. I voted for round four. I'd love to get them. Then I think when you get him in late round three or round four,

you're minimizing the risk. Like when you're taking him around to your drafting, I'm so close to ceiling. You're hoping for like 18 PPR points per game. And I think you have to mitigate that. I think you've got to knock them down a little bit just because of the situation he's in. We're going to talk about his age a hundred times. I kind of feel like, I don't know if I can buy into the age being a negative as much because the dude is just a machine father he didn't play was when his foot broke like i just i i don't think that that's because of old age i think that was just a freak thing and he's a total freak he's a cyborg so i i'm probably looking at somewhere between like 33rd, 43rd.

Round three is where I'd love to take him if I get two receivers to start my draft. And then in round three, I'm looking for a running back. He's the guy I'd go to. But I voted round four. I understand. Heath, Jamie, round three, round four. First three rounds,

round four, round five, or later for Derek Henry in full PPR. Four at the earliest for me. Yeah, I probably would have picked C results. I'm not sure between four and five yet. What a wimp. Yeah, you know, people are going to talk about Henry's age,

and he has over 2,000 carries. But I wonder, I mean, should we really be talking about if he can stay healthy when young guys get hurt all the time? Is it fair to put that label on an older player? Raheem Moser just had his healthiest season. Older players tend to get hurt more often. I don't know. Is that true?

I feel like we say that. I don't know if it's actually true. Well, I mean, I'm sure there's data that suggests players in their first two seasons that get hurt and get hurt early in their careers and never play again. There's not a lot of games played to attach to those type of guys. Yeah, but they count in this.

I have no idea what the data would say. It's not just the injury risk. Right. It's at 30, even starting at 29 or 28 even, but definitely 29 and 30, the chances that all of a sudden you turn into Dalvin Cook and you're just completely, completely dust. Just go right back to the Austin Eckler conversation that we had,

where he looked okay in week one. And by the time you got to his second best run of the year, yeah, he, I mean, he looked like the slowest player alive. Yes. And so, but that's the thing that I worry less about with Henry because we've never known him to be like a four three type of runner. He's a physical bully. He can get he can rack up the acceleration and he can still he can still pick up huge chunks of yards. And on top of that, he's a machine at the goal line on a on a team that gets to the goal line a lot. I haven't asked you about Mixon, but I assume you're drafting Henry ahead of Mixon right now. Yes. I'd probably rather have Mixon. I would lean Henry slightly. You just say see results if you want.

I think that's the topic. Yeah, if you can't decide. All right. Let's take a quick break here. I have two more X polls, two more Twitter polls for you, and we'll get through the rest of the news. I'm on Twix. Another, oh, okay, I like that.

Another Twitter half X, all delicious. Another fun Twix from Heath about running backs who have benefited over the last 24 hours. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. Metro Lynx and Cross Lynx are reminding everyone to be careful over the last 24 hours. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. 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. All right, two more Twix polls.

Derek Henry to the Ravens and Deontay Johnson to the Panthers. In a full PPR league, who are you drafting first? Derek Henry or George Pickens? This is a landslide. 75% saying Derek Henry. I thought it would be closer. I mean, Pickens could have 70 more catches than Derrick Henry. I don't even know.

He could also have 10 fewer touchdowns. I think, yeah, I'm going to take Pickens here. And I like his chances a lot of scoring more touchdowns this year than he has in his career. Why? Because Russell Wilson, even when Russell Wilson's not been good, Russell Wilson's generally produced a high touchdown rate. I think George Pickens can be a better version of Cortland Sutton.

Right. So what's his career high in touchdowns? Five. It's five. So expecting six or seven touchdowns. No, I said he has nine in his career. I think he could score nine plus this year. Okay.

That's a team that also likes to run inside the five. If he becomes his version of Cortland Sutton slash Tyler Lockett, then Pickens is absolutely the right answer. Yeah, just a couple things real quick. We're doing this poll. It's in PPR. Who would you rather have, Derrick Henry or George Pickens? I think we can sit here and say the Steelers are probably going to add someone,

but let's just do it as it is right now. And then, yeah, I mentioned this stat the other day. Russell Wilson threw more touchdown passes last year than the Steelers have thrown as a team in the last two seasons combined. Jamie, who would you vote for here? Oh, let me give you one more stat. He played four games, George Pickens, without Deontay Johnson. And in those four games, he had 127, 75, 25, and 130 yards.

He had huge games against Cleveland and Baltimore. He had a 29% target share and a 26.4% target per out run rate. That is elite or close to it. So with this leading question then, who would you rather have, George Pickens or Derrick Henry in PPR? I'd rather have Pickens. And Dave, who'd you say?

I have Henry right there. All right, but that's interesting that two of the three of you said Pickens and 75% of the respondents said Derek Henry. I think the theme of this offseason might be us being lower on these veteran running backs

that change teams than the consensus. I feel really good about that if that is the thing. Are you also that way with Jacobs and Barkley? Heath, because you didn't talk about them on this show. They are not. No, no.

I mean, I don't know where they're going to be. I think they're both borderline RB ones. Um, I feel good with both of them at the, at the two, three turn. So I might be a little lower, but I think that's right about where they should be.

Okay. Uh, one more Twitter poll, Twix poll, Joe Mixon to the Texans, Tony Pollard to the Titans, DeAndre Swift to the Bears. Who are you drafting first, Mixon, Swift, or Pollard?

And the results are Mixon, again, in a landslide. Heath's Twix poll was a lot closer than mine, too. Mixon, 62%. Pollard, 15%. Swift, second place, actually, with 23%. So Mixon, Crushing, Swift, and then Pollard. How about you guys? Who are you drafting first?

Jamie? Mixon. Dave? Joseph. And Heath? Absolutely Joe Mixon, yes. Pollard would be second for me. All right.

Can Joe Mixon be a top 12 running back again? He's done it five of the last six seasons per game it's a very good offense yeah he could be oh man yeah again you can make cases for him you can make cases against him does damian pierce factor in heath do you think he could be like i don't i hope this is not it and I'll just poke fun at myself. He could also be Miles Sanders. But those are the two range of outcomes. I think he's 28 years old.

There's a chance that he gets there and things don't go well as well. But definitely, it's a good offense, much better offense than I think the Bears or Titans are going to be. Good run scheme that made Devin Singletary look good in the second half, and I still think Joe Mixon's better than Devin Singletary. Yeah, agreed. No offense, Adam. No, Joe. I don't know about that.

I know. I think, you know, Mixon at least has shown that he can. Well, Singletary got a lot better in the last week for sure. Singletary. Let me just tell you what Singletary did for the Texans and we can maybe use it as a baseline for Joe Mixon. If you just give me one moment here. I've got the touches. I'll tell you where he finished.

Okay, so his first seven games, that was Damian Pierce time. Devin Singletary had only 49 carries in those seven games. The next three games were without Damian Pierce, and he scored 4.6 points against the Bucs, and then Singletary scored 23 points against the Bengals and 20 points against the Cardinals in PPR. He had 52 carries and three catches in those two games. Last seven games of the season,

you get a little bit from Damian Pierce. You get about 5 carries per game from Damian Pierce. You get Devin Singletary, who was just inside the top 24 overall, but just inside the top 30 per game. He was on pace for 248 carries, 44 catches, about 1,400 total yards, which is good, but he was only on pace for five touchdowns.

But very solid, and he averaged 4.2 yards per carry, which, by the way, would be one of-touch running back with only five touchdowns. You'd expect that to go up. But I don't know. That's what Devin Singletary was. Let's call him a low-end number two running back. Yeah, I hear 292 touches, and I think high-end number two. Or low-end number one, yeah. Yeah, I hear 292 touches, and I think high end number two. Or low end number one, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

We're also talking about a running back in Mixon who's a much better pass catcher than Singletary. Not that Mixon's going to be – I don't know if they're going to use him on third downs. They didn't with Singletary, and the Bengals didn't use Mixon on third downs. So that's something that has to be played out. Are they going to –

is Houston going to draft another running back or bring back Dario Gumbawale for those third downs? Who the hell knows? But I think that they can call more pass plays and use Mixon in them and feel good about it compared to Devin Singletary. It was just, it's a great landing spot though for what happened to him.

You know what I mean? When you talk about the situation, like this was one of the premier destinations to end up and he ended up in it. Right. Like we were hoping Saquon would go here. Correct. And now it's mixing.

It's going to be mixing for a year, by the way. Yeah. They don't, they don't have to resign them. Resign. You know, they didn't have a great offensive line by metrics last year, but you could see they got some good young pieces.

They could have a good line. I think when you talk about Miles Sanders, and we can look at these three running backs in the poll, Mixon, Pollard, and Swift, and you say you're worried Mixon could be the next Miles Sanders. I think the big difference is Miles Sanders went from an elite offensive line to a terrible one. With a bad quarterback. With a bad coaching staff, bad everything. But Mixon never had a good offensive line.

At best, he had a below-average offensive line in Cincinnati. So perhaps we can excuse him a little bit in that regard. I think he's going to get an upgrade there, at least. On paper, yes. Yes. So who's the most likely to be the next Miles Sanders among those three? Mixon, Pollard, or Swift? Swift.

I would say Pollard. The guy leaving Philadelphia. It's not like leaving Dallas is a good thing. That's true. I'd lean Pollard over Swift, but you can make good thing. That's true. Yeah. I'd, I'd lean Pollard over Swift, but you can make the case for both of them. Right.

I would say for all three with, uh, with Pollard, he's going offensive line, downgrade quarterback, downgrade, um, and maybe the most significant competition,

you know, not that Khalil Herbert and Roshan Johnson are not competition for Deandre Swift, but Tajay Spears might be better than Pollard. I'm not ready to say that that Titans offensive line is going to be bad again. They've got the right coach there. They've already added new pieces.

Definitely upgrade. They could be hold on to your butts middle of the pack as far as offensive line goes next year. Sure. Center upgrades. Gronsky healthy. The Bears say this is where I don't even know what to make of this. PFF has Sure. Center upgrades, Gronsky healthy. The Bears.

See, this is where I don't even know what to make of this. PFF has the Bears last year run blocking 23rd. ESPN run block win rate, they were second. So we'll see. Okay. Anything else you want to say about Mixon here? Do you think he gets 50 catches? I think it's possible.

Yes. I would say 40. I projected 43. I think we should talk about what round we want to draft Joe Mixon in. Yeah. And is there a Twitter poll, Twix poll, X poll,

same round as Henry round four earliest three, four turns. Sounds fine. Yeah. I'm, I'm thinking four, maybe maybe early around five if you're lucky but round four is probably going to be like we talked about this last week with mike evans how he's going to end up in round three and that's the guy i keep kind of comparing these running backs too because it's an old wide receiver and the old run do you want mike evans or do you want

joe mixon you want mike evans or do you want derrick henry you want Joe Mixon? Do you want Mike Evans or do you want Derek Henry? Most of the time I'm saying Mike Evans. Yeah. Yeah. But now take that Mike Evans question and make it the three disappointing young receivers from last year. Jalen, Jalen, Waddle T Higgins and,

uh, Devante Smith. Smith would be behind them, but I I'd rather have the other two. I think I'd have Higgins behind them, but I'd rather have the other two. You said this yesterday in regards to Zach Moss. Is he going to be the third?

I think it's a very fun exercise to predict the ADP of these guys that change teams. We're doing a mark next week, I assume? Yeah, we will. The order. Yeah. All right, tomorrow. Jacob's one. Jacob's one. I agree. Barkley, two. Right behind Jacobs. Henry. All right. Tomorrow. Jacob's one. Jacob's one.

I agree. Barkley two. Right behind Jacob's. Henry will be three. I've got mixed in three, but okay. No, I'm not saying what you have. I'm saying what you're predicting. Henry three.

Yeah. I think so. You don't think there's going to be some people that go so gaga for Henry that they take him first? Casuals. Casuals. Casuals. People that don't listen. We're talking hour mucks right now, aren't we? No, ADP.

ADP. I think Eckler might be four then. Right. Like the same people who take quarterback in round one. I think Mixon will be four because people still draft Mixon high. Yeah. But after this, it gets interesting because then you have Eckler, you have Aaron Jones.

They're still very much name value. You brought up yesterday, Adam, again, Zach Moss' situation. I think it's Swift's is five. You think Swift is five? I don't know. I have no idea how to read that one, but this is ADP. This is not our rankings. I think Swift ends up five.

Or an agreement on the four, no matter the order? I completely agree with you. Jacobs, Barkley, Henry, Mixon, ADP. That would be how I would expect it to be. Heath and Dave, would you sign off on that? What'd you say? Jacobs, Barkley, Henry, Mixon, the ADP. It could be Barkley first, too,

because Philly's a great destination for him. Yeah, I would guess Barkley first. But other than that, I think that's the top four. so then the next group would be of the of the guys that change teams so it'd be and it's not the order i'm just pollard eckler swift jones moss singletary right those are the guys yeah yeah singletary singletary should be third actually i'm sorry it should be it it's a great situation i think it goes for now jones eckler moss swift pollard singletary wow and that's not what you think it should be that's what you think i just again you know you're gonna hear jones starting running back minnesota vikings eckler most likely starting running back,

Washington Commanders. Those names still carry value. Okay, that is tough. What do you guys think? Who's five after Jacobs, Barkley, Henry, Mixon? I think it's Jones. I was surprised to hear Eckler. You think fifth. Jamie thinksler. You think fifth.

He thinks fifth. Jamie thinks sixth. I thought there would be not a lot of Eckler enthusiasm. There's none here. So, Dave, who do you think will be fifth? Again, not how we're going to rank it. I just think Heath is probably going by the name, right? You think the name will carry on.

They all have names, though, technically. I mean, oh, though, technically. I mean, oh, God, this is a tough one. I can't wait to start doing some mocks. Are any of these next group after the big four, are any of them worth a fifth-round pick? No. No. Maybe Moss, if you like him. no maybe Moss

if you like him I'm not sure if he's the best back in Cincinnati I agree but still it's a guy that helped a lot of people last year great situation if he's healthy yeah if things break right he falls into Joe Mixon's workload

I gotta say I'm starting to... You, just by doing this ADP exercise, I'm feeling a little better about Aaron Jones. I feel like he makes sense as the fifth guy. Well, if you're getting him in late round six or round seven, again, like what we talked about with Derek Henry, you're mitigating that risk. This is a guy who has broken down and has –

Do you know they missed the same amount of games in their career? Maybe, but last year – what did I say yesterday? It was Jones missing six games and then parts of three others. Can't argue about the way he played at the end of the year, but he's not going to play that way every week. I don't know if Minnesota is not going to play that way every week. And I'm also, I don't know if Minnesota's, you know,

not going to add another running back. Well, all these, all these teams can still add running backs. I mean, that's where does Raheem most running back? The running backs that they add aren't going to be like, you know,

so good or so promising that it just renders the veteran useless. Heath. I am. I don't have the bandwidth for that right now. I mean, that's the thing. Like, why would I draft Aaron Jones over Riham Moster?

And catches. Oh, Devon HN. That's why. Maybe. Of all these guys, Jacobs, Barkley,

Henry Mixon, Aaron Jones, Eckler, Zach Moss, DeAndre Swift, Tony Pollard, Devin Singletary, I feel like the one that I have the least amount of I mean, it's not going to be Herbert. I know that, but is it going to be Roshan? I don't know what Caleb Williams is. I'm assuming it's going to be him, what he's going to bring to the table. If he's going to be a goal line factor, that's the one that is a, such a wild card to me. I don't know how you guys, what do you think about that? What do you think about it? It's crowded. That's the thing that sucks. If they're going to keep all three guys, um, you know, you wonder what their, what their short-term and long-term plan is.

It doesn't feel like they have a good one based on how they're holding on to Justin Fields right now. It's a very convoluted situation, as we say today, until we get to training camp and hopefully get a little more clarity. Dave keeps saying round six, round seven. I don't think they get there, Dave.

I really think that people just get... Just think about everything that's happened in the last couple of days and how we started this conversation, like what you said to Heath about not being excited about these guys. People are going to see the thinning out of this position, and I think it's going to push up some of these ADVs, whereas for the – not the novice per se, but I think the sort of newbie still, you know, has only been playing this a year or two, that they're going to say, I need to get my running backs. And they're going to take them early because they know the names.

That's why I think Derrick Henry is a round two pick. I think Aaron Jones and Austin Eckler get pushed up a round or two based on their past performances. You know, if you watch the playoffs and you saw that three-touchdown game against Dallas and say, oh my God, he's now the starting running back in Minnesota, I think those guys just get – the value gets too soon. And I think it's a conversation of like which ADP are you looking at too? Because for best ball ADP, for high stakes ADP, I think like that round six,

seven probably is accurate. But when we talk of like just standard six, seven probably is, is accurate of the, but when we talk of like just standard CBS ADP in August, I think, yeah, they're, they're definitely going to creep up. But I gotta say, you know, last year we did see a shift for the first time I think since I've been doing this job of running backs really being pushed down, it was the fewest running backs in the first two rounds that I can remember. And it was a big central theme to all of our previews, right?

Where we were talking about, oh, you can get value at running back this year. People are not taking them so early. So I give the fantasy community credit for that one, right? They were right. And it was the best zero RB year ever for a variety of reasons. And I wonder if that continues. Not all of those guys are going to be available in round six or seven, but some of them will.

I mean, I think Zach Moss could fall there, and I certainly think Tajay Spears could fall there. I know we haven't talked about him. Oh, Spears will be later. That's the problem. That's where the value will lie, in terms of some of these backups you know so spears chase brown um not really i don't think anybody's taking keaton mitchell coming off an acl tear thinking that derrick henry's gonna miss time

but you know the the second tier guys you know and that and that and then the the um the fall out of this you know there's a mere whites of the world you know where these guys i think you know where where the experienced player is going to you know, the Zamir Whites of the world, you know, where these guys, I think, you know, where, where the experienced player is going to, you know, sort of look to get some of these running backs and the value at these running backs. So, you know, like Spears, Ty Chandler, um, you know, the, the second tier guys, I think those guys go closer to around 10. Is this where, okay. I don't think Devin Singletary is going to make it to around 10, but I'm trying to think of other running backs. Chuba Hubbard, if he somehow makes it out of training camp as the Panthers' lead guy.

We're talking about running backs that aren't as well-known, much bigger mystery boxes than some of the other guys with well-known names who are becoming mystery boxes themselves. And if you're comfortable with that group of running backs, and we'll dig into them over the next several months, then that'll encourage you to go zero rb because you're going to be able to pick from a whole slew of them there's going to be a lot of rookie running backs in that mix too because i don't think there's a lot of rookie running backs that are going to be like pushed up into the top 30 top

50 and there's one there's there's two spots available where you can see a rookie running back being over dallas d Dallas and the chargers. Yeah. Okay, guys, I got to take a break here. I have one more Twix poll to talk about when we get back. It is Saquon Barkley versus Josh Jacobs.

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Saquon Barkley or Josh Jacobs? We predicted Jacobs might be ahead of him in ADP. Change everything based on 396 votes. Who are you drafting first? Saquon Barkley has 60%. Josh Jacobs has 40%. Let's read some of the comments. Barkley should be a top five running back,

mid first round pick. Ben. Ed says, this one is way harder than the last poll. Okay, I think I probably agree with that. Greg Harrell, Hertz is going to vulture too many touchdowns unless the tush push goes away with Kelsey gone.

Let's see. Eric says, thank you for not including C results. You're very welcome. But a lot of people are worried about Barkley losing touchdowns. However, at least in the comments, however, the poll results say that they're not

that worried because he's got 60% of the votes. And I did mention the other day that even though, yes, Jalen Hurts is going to steal some touchdowns, the Eagles running backs got a lot more carries inside the five-yard line than Saquon Barkley has been getting over the last three years with the Giants. So, sure, he'll lose some touchdowns, but he might score more touchdowns than he did with the Giants

because the Eagles are so much better than the Giants have been. And Miles Sanders had, what did I say, 11 touchdowns two years ago? 11 rushing touchdowns, I think. So it's possible. Well, he's also just better than Swift. I mean, let's face it. Yes, and Swift got tackled at the one-yard line six times last year, and Jalen Hurts scored on a tush-push every single time.

Yeah. Okay. I think they're going to continue to get tackled one yard short more often than most teams though, because like they get to a third and four or a second and four and they're perfectly happy to get three yards. I was going to read. Yeah. I think they would like to score.

Yeah. I think they would too. I don't know many teams that the goal when they're that close is to get right at the goal line. I don't know of any other teams besides them. That do what? I think he's saying they're setting up the tush push. I'm saying they've got four or five yards to go.

They know they've got two plays to go get it. Just go get it within one yard and we're fine. But they're not intentionally. They might be calling a more conservative play because they know they've got the tush push in their pocket. fine. Well, but they're not intentionally. I mean, they might be calling, they call a more conservative play because they know they've got the

tush push in their pocket. Yeah. I'm not saying they're intentionally aiming for one yard short. No. Yes, Adam.

It's not a terrible strategy. You know you're going to get in on the next play. Go down at the one. Go down at the one. Poor DeAndre Swift. Who do you guys have? Barkley or Jacobs right now?

Jacobs. Both close. Jacobs or Barkley or back-to-back? I'll go Jacobs. Who do you guys have now? Jacobs or Travis Etienne? Jacobs, Barkley, Etienne, back-to-back-to-back. Jack.

Etienne first. Especially with DeAndre Johnson back. I mean, that kills Etienne. It's over. Oh, yeah. All right. I'm going to save Heath's tweet about running backs,

veteran running backs who benefited from free agency for, I assume, we're going to do a show tomorrow. We're still waiting for Calvin Ridley. That's the biggest name. Marquise Brown as well.

Other news. Let's go through some other news right now. There might be some cuts today that are pretty important for the Chargers. Yep. Okay. Yeah, right.

Okay, so we'll keep all this. Let's see, other news. Let's see, we've got the Patriots signing Jacoby Reset to a one-year $8 million deal. They really want to sign a wide receiver. Minnesota signing Sam Darnold. We did talk about that, I think. Drew Locke to the Giants.

Marcus Mariota to the Commanders. Jameis Winston to the Browns. Aaron Rodgers to Vice President. And Terod Taylor to the Jets. I would say that the, certainly the, well, Flacco was good. But it's nice to see the Browns and the Jets upgrading at backup quarterback. Yeah.

Is that an upgrade for the Browns? Well, it is from the other guys. I would think, honestly, yes. I think if I asked you guys, just even based on what you saw, would you rather have Flacco or Winston? Flacco. Yeah. All right.

I don't know if you would have said that a year ago. Of course not. No, we All right. I don't know if you would have said that a year ago. Of course not. No, we would not. I certainly would have. It's Rod Taylor. Definitely an upgrade for the Jets as a backup quarterback. Oh, this is, I thought was an interesting. Oh, Naeem Hines.

Naeem Hines to the Browns. Let's do that. Any thoughts on that? Does that matter at all? None. Okay. According to NextGenStats, this is from ESPN. According to NextGenStats, the average carry by a Giants running back

was expected to gain 3.5 yards. That was the worst in the NFL. The average carry by an Eagles running back was expected to gain 4.7 yards, best in the NFL. I don't know exactly what goes into that, but that's a 1.2-yard difference. No, it's a complex algorithm. But it's useful.

And I think you could tell just by watching those two teams play. Boy, I totally skipped over Deontay Johnson, huh? All right, four wide receiver notes real quick. Texans re-signed Noah Brown. Patriots signed Jalen Rager. Chiefs signed Darnell Mooney. And the Panthers acquired Deontay Johnson for... The Chiefs did not sign Darnell Mooney.

The Falcons had Darnell Mooney. The Chiefs got... The Eagles got Devontae Parker. I said that one. The Chiefs got Irv Smith. Oh, I didn't say that Parker. I said that. Chiefs got Irv Smith. Oh, I didn't say that one. I did write that. Okay, the Falcons got Darnham.

I said the Chiefs. Sorry about that. We can dream. The Falcons got Darnham. Did the Chiefs sign anyone? Or did I just... Irv Smith. Yeah, I don't know.

I guess that's... Was that what I was thinking? I don't know. All right, what about Deontay Johnson? Same guy, you know. Sure. Deontay Johnson, top 30 wide receiver? Yeah.

Close to it. No. Go on. I think he's a round eight pick in PPR. I think he leads the Panthers in targets and catches. I think he bounces back from what he did last year. I think the offense will be better. I love the track record of not just one wide receiver with Dave Canales,

but two over the last two seasons when he's rebuilt these quarterbacks, two wide receivers have had 100-plus targets, maybe even a neighborhood of like 120-plus targets, over 1,000 yards each. In Seattle, two receivers had six touchdowns each or more. Evans had a huge bounce back here. This is going to be a team that's trailing a lot. Their offensive line is going to be better.

And Bryce young will be used properly. Um, I think, I think he's a real good bet in PPR in round eight, even if he's on your bench to start the year. I don't think he'll be available that late. There are some Deontay Johnson truthers. Would you take Kyle Pitts or Deontay Johnson?

Pitts. Pitts. Man, no idea. Pitts, probably. What if you already had two tight ends on your team? Okay, JSN, that's on your team? JSN. Okay, JSN. That's a better question.

JSN or Deontay Johnson? Deontay by a lot for me. Yeah. Yeah. Who has more upside, do you think? JSN. Yeah, I don't agree with that. I think Deontay could catch.

His upside, he could get a 100-catch season. JSN, but it would require an injury. I've never quite seen splits like Adam Thielen where he finished in non-PPR compared to full PPR. Let me just... He was number 41 per game in non-PPR and number 24 per game in full PPR, Adam Thielen. He had 103 catches and only four touchdowns. Okay.

Speaking of Bryce Young, he does get some help on the offensive line. We'll talk about that, but some other tight end notes. You got Seattle signing Noah Fant and then Farrell Brown. Chargers getting Will Disley. Bears giving Gerald Everett a two-year deal that could be worth

up to $14 million. That's obviously the most significant one here. The Patriots signing Hooper. The Chiefs signing Darnell Irv Smith Jr. And the Bengals signing Mike Kosicki. What do you think about, Dave, Gerald

Everett going to the Bears? It stinks, but he's following his offensive coordinator, who he met with LA and then went with to Seattle. And now he's following them along to Chicago. And the reason why it stinks is because this is another mouth that could take away work from Cole commit. We spent time this week,

I think talking about how Cole commit could be a top 12 tight end. I think the, the, the upside is capped a little bit because there's going to be another tight end on the field and one who's been in the system. I don't expect Gerald Everett to be a great fantasy tight end.

He's a bi-week guy at best. I'm not drafting Gerald Everett, but he does bring down the value of Cole Komet, IMO. Anybody else dropping Cole Komet? Nah. No. Okay. Any else dropping Cole Komet? Nah. No. Okay.

Any interest in Mike Kosicki? No. No. Yeah, no. By week, by week tight end, who do the Bengals play in week one? And is T. Higgins there? I liked Tanner Hudson.

I'm a little, I was a little intrigued by Tanner Hudson, but oh well. Did they just re-sign Drew Sample too? Yes. They do have Drew Sample. They do go through a lot of tight ends. Small sample though. Okay. Offensive line. Let's talk

generally about the teams that upgraded the most at offensive line. Jaguars. Getting Mitch Morse. The Rams. I think the Panthers probably upgraded more than the Jags. This is not in order.

Okay. Okay, so you want to take it away? I was just reading from my notes here. But the Panthers definitely upgraded. They signed Robert Hunt and Damian Lewis, both guards. And they had just a dreadful interior offensive line, so that helps. The Rams signing Jonah Jackson is great, and they re-signed Kevin Dotson.

Who else? The Giants, I guess, a little bit. Jaguars, for sure. Tennessee. And Washington. Washington, Nick Allegretti from the Chiefs. He was a backup, but they also signed a center, Tyler Biatish from the Cowboys.

Probably the headliners there. The Rams did the best, followed by the Panthers. Cool. And then on defense, anything big stuff on defense you want to talk about i mean you mentioned daniel hunter basically the vikings and texans swapping pass rushers yeah looked like a kind of a bad off season for houston defensively and then they signed daniel hunter and they signed Aziz Alshayer at linebacker, Danico Autry,

both those guys from Tennessee. They added Foley Fadukasi, Jeff Okuda. So they built out their depth a little bit. Carolina, A'shaun Robinson at nose tackle, and Josie Jewell at linebacker. Not bad there. Vikings had a pretty good

week, defensively. Washington. Raiders might have a good defense. Except they lost to Neil Hunter. They did, but like we said, they got a good pass rusher in Minnesota. Let me just read all of they got. Jonathan Grenard, Blake Cashman, and Andrew Van Ginkle.

Washington had a ton of money, and they've clearly upgraded. Nobody huge, but Jeremy Chin, Cleland Farrell, Dante Fowler on defense. Some offensive line upgrades as well. They got Lou Vu. Oh yeah, right. Frankie Lou Vu from Carolina. So that's a big deal.

There's a lot. Gets overwhelming. Miami is pretty active too actually. Jordan Brooks pretty active, too, actually. Jordan Brooks from Seattle, a linebacker. Anthony Walker, another linebacker from Cleveland. They lost so much, though. They did.

Jordan Poyer from the Bills and Shaq Barrett. They really got a lot of guys who are not in their prime. Reminds me a little bit of the Falcons last year. Getting some older guys didn't really work. Cool. Well, thank you, guys. Didn't really work. Cool. Well, thank you guys. I'm hoping to do another show tomorrow. And then I don't know if I'm hoping to do a show on Friday.

We'll see. But we'll definitely have at least one more show before the end of the season. I've been playing racquetball on Friday mornings. So I'd kind of like to do that again. Yeah. Have you considered live streaming? No. I'm so bad.

I'm terrible at racquetball. I think that would help the viewer numbers, actually. Do you have the goggles? Do you think you'd beat me in racquetball? Do I think I would beat you in racquetball? Yeah. It's minus 350 on the odds.

Are you playing indoor or outdoor? Indoor. I'm in New York. I don't know. I, you playing indoor or outdoor indoor. It's dude. I'm in New York. We don't, we don't do outdoor yet. Uh, okay.

Goodbye, everybody. Have a great day. I promise. I'm remembering the scene in, in big when he would play, when he played racquetball outside. I've only seen that movie once.

You probably hated it. No, it's good. But I've been to the theme park that has the original, what is he, Voltron? Voltron? Yeah, whatever his name is. Voltron?

Yeah, whatever. The five lions that turn into a big dude? All right, we are out of here. Goodbye, everybody. Did you make a wish? Was it, actually, you kind of look like the kid version of Tom Hanks.

Please say I was like Tom Hanks. That would be great. Thank you very much alright there's no crying in racquetball see ya I've never wanted to see a racquetball match more than Adam vs. Steve