Fantasy Football Today - "If ____ Happens, Then ____ " (07/19 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Nominate us on PodcastAwards.com! https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup We discuss our favorite if/then scenarios including what would happen if Damien Harris has better TD luck (1:40) and if Amari Rodgers somehow finishes in the Top 24. And we've got a lot of news and notes (9:45) to cover in case. you missed anything over the weekend ... If Ryan Fitzpatrick throws downfield, then Curtis Samuel is going to break out (15:15). If A.J. Green's 2020 was an anomaly, then DeAndre Hopkins could be a bust (21:05). What will happen to Allen Robinson when Justin Fields takes over (25:10)? What would happen to James Robinson if Travis Etienne isn't NFL-ready (31:00)? ... If Jared Goff stinks, will D'Andre Swift and T.J. Hockenson disappoint Fantasy managers (38:40)? If Trey Lance takes over early in the season, will George Kittle benefit (46:00)? And what if/then scenarios did our listeners come up with (49:50)? ... Your emails at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. Tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Beck. Must be football season, everybody. We got three teams reporting for training camp this week. The Pittsburgh Steelers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Super Bowl champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's exciting. It's getting closer and closer. And here to talk about it and today's topic, if blank happens, then blank,

are the two analysts that somebody dubbed double Ds before the show, which I thought was very inappropriate, but we're going to throw it out there anyway. Dave and Dan, good morning, guys. Happy football season. It's not inappropriate. When I think of double D, I think of the logo for Double Dare, the old school Nickelodeon game show hosted by Mark Summers. It's only inappropriate if you're an Acer and you have those kind of jokes. Right, like where's your mind at, Adam?

Come on. My mind is almost always on Nickelodeon shows. I have the guts to make inappropriate jokes at the top of the show. Yeah, so anyway, today we're doing If Blank Happens, Then Blank. So if Trey Lance takes over a quarterback early, if Justin Fields takes over a quarterback early, then Alan Robinson will blank. George Kittle, blah, blah,

blah. We'll get into that. If Travis Etienne isn't as good as we think he is, then blank. I wanted to start with one from the listeners. Rick says, if Damian Harris scores eight touchdowns, he's a top 12 running back. If Damian Harris scores eight touchdowns, he's a top 12 running back. If Damian Harris scores eight touchdowns, he's a top 12 running back. My thought was, that's it? Just eight? So I didn't agree with that one, Dan Schneier. What did you think? Yeah, you're spot on because it doesn't factor in that he will likely still have no role in the passing game.

So he doesn't have those points coming to him. And we had a situation last season where todd girley scored nine touchdowns and he finished what adam i think you dug this he was the rb 29 uh right around there he was outside the top 24 29 and jk scored nine touchdowns and he was 28 yeah so i don't think these are a guarantee here and i'm not so sure the patriots are going to be in too many game scripts where they're going to be milking the clock and running a lot of Damian Harris down the stretch. I don't see the volume there as well.

So I think the eight touchdowns might be most of his points. They only had five games last year where a running back had 15 plus carries. But the thing is, Harris was that running back in four of the five games. So I think they like him. I'm going back to what i've said before and what everybody says is that if cam newton's the quarterback it's going to be hard for damian harris to rack up short yardage touchdowns cam's good at that still so if he's getting eight touchdowns are are we talking about a lot of runs from like seven yards out 12 yards out 20 yards out is he still going to

be in a position to get 15 plus carries a game can't say touches as much because he's like you said dan what's his role in passing downs there could be a way where he now i was going to say i was going to say there could be a way that he could score eight touchdowns and still finish outside the top 12 but i actually think it's it's more like if he gets eight touchdowns that means he's playing a lot and there's probably not a lot of Cam Newton on the field. And yeah, Damian Harris would be in a position to be a top 12 running back then. Yeah, eight doesn't seem like a lot to me, but there was one running back. So in full PPR, I feel like it's going to be hard for anyone to think of him with top 12 upside.

But in non-PPR, just straight up non-PPR, old school fantasy football, there was one running back who scored eight on the nose last year, eight touchdowns and not rushing touchdowns, total touchdowns and finished in the top 12. That running back was any guesses? He had six rushing and two receiving touchdowns.

He was RB 11 in non-PPR and RB 9 in full PPPR and RB9 in full PPR he is in the NFC East he is reporting to training camp this week reporting to training camp

this week ZKL yes this is like Fantasy Jeopardy all over again dad I got comments on how bad I was T.K. Elliott, yes. This is like Fantasy Jeopardy all over again, Dan. I was so bad at Fantasy Jeopardy. I got comments on how bad I was. People were worried about you.

Fantasy Jeopardy. Don't ever play again. But Zeke had 338 receiving yards and 52 catches, so that certainly helped his cause. Harris isn't getting that. We had one from Schrager. If Amari Rogers finishes as a top 24 wide receiver, I will order 10 pounds of raisins for Adam Azer.

I already had an ounce of raisins today. Why are you a big raisins guy? Raisins are not that good, and they're not that good for you either. They're fine. They're grapes. Yeah, grapes are not that good for you. They're high in for you either. They're fine. They're grapes. Grapes are not that good for you. They're high in sugar. There's nothing great with grapes. It's natural sugar. It's fine. They're good carbs.

Ten pounds of it won't hurt you, Adam. They're okay in trail mix, at best. They're great. They make trail mix. They're good in cookies. Put them in cookies. Don't ruin your cookies. I put them in cereal today. Cheerios and raisins today was excellent. Thank him in cookies. I'll put him in. Don't ruin your cookies. I put him in cereal today. Cheerios and raisins today. It was excellent.

Thank you, Ben. You're on. 10 pounds of raisins. And I've got another bet after your promo read. So hit your promo read and I'll make a little bet. Very, very important. If you're not nominating raisins for some type of food category, please help us on Podcast Awards.

We are nominated. We are finalists in the sports category of the people's choice podcast awards so you've helped us out in so many ways throughout the years help us out again and nominate us and make us a finalist or we are finalists sorry to but get like you know what's the right way to say this ben the final round of finalists the final round exactly yeah there you go so go nominate fft podcast awards.com slash app slash sign up and then toggle down to sports and we've got a link to that at the top of the episode description and if you don't ever read the episode description by the way i put time codes in that'll

help you navigate if you just want to skip around to some of the content it doesn't have all of the content but has kind of the main subjects but podcastawards.com slash app slash sign up. Nominate Fantasy Football today. We want to win the podcast awards in the sports category this year, and we need your help. Adam, if we win, everyone who goes on this podcast, I'll order them a pizza. Adam's choice from whatever place we want,

but also three listeners. Full pie. Really? Three listeners, pizza. let's win this but it's going to be from adam's choice adam's choice dave can have some input but it'll be adam's choice most of these listeners are going to be states where they don't know how to make pizzas so then what are we going to do about that there's some websites that aren't our sponsors, so I won't mention them. I'll tell you. That is the most snobby, elitist New York,

New Jersey thing. You know it, Adam. It's 100% true, but I'm not the one who's going to say it. You said it. I'll say that one. Listen, your email is at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. I got a great fantasy football idea. I'm calling it an awesome fantasy football idea from Michael.

Michael, his league, they play against the field for as many weeks as they need to, so they never have one opponent play another one twice. So if there are 12 teams and they have a 14 regular season weeks, that's 11 games. And then you'd need three weeks where you play the field. And when you play the field, the top six scores go one and Oh,

the bottom six scores go. Oh, and one. It's a very simple way. What'd you say? Apex scoring, correct? It's essentially apex.

Yes, sure. Okay. Yes, Apex. That's what I meant. So there are leagues that do this every week. There are leagues that do this every week, and they have head-to-head matchups every week. Don't do it every week.

This is a great way. Do it for three weeks. If you have a 14-week regular season schedule, that means 11 games where everybody's playing one opponent once. This makes it so that you don't have the unbalanced schedule where you might play one team twice, and that team might be the best in the league, or might be the worst in the league, or might be like Will Brinson's fantasy

baseball team. He hasn't set his lineup since week one, and he's 3-25. You don't want to... That's not a joke. No, I know that's not a joke. When it comes to Will, that sounds... I'm doing this in the podcast league. However many weeks it takes to do all play, basically,

where the top half gets a win, the bottom half gets lost, so that we only play each other once, I think it's a great idea. I've had some great ideas from the listeners. It's time to stop talking about them and put them into action. Great playoff ideas. This is a regular season idea. I love it.

Apex. Why not take it a step further, though, and do it every week like Dave mentioned? I did that once. It was my least favorite. I hated it. There's nothing personal. No, no, no. You have two matches.

You have to match it. No, no, no. Match it every week. I hated this. It was too much for every week, but I love it when it's only a couple of weeks. Yeah. You have to match it plus that. So you couple of weeks. You have magic plus that, so you go either 2-0, 1-1, or 0-2.

You never want to know. Yeah, you could do that. That's fine. Apex. Just don't do a cool Brent in your league. No. All right, let's do some news and notes. Most people aren't listening to the podcast.

Tom Brady. We got diehards listening to our pod. Tom Brady played the entire season with a torn MCL and he still threw 40 touchdowns and finished his QB7 we've talked about this a lot but pretty impressive New Orleans is going to be without defensive tackle

David Onyemata for the first 6 games of the season they did miss him for one game last year and it didn't really affect them much but this was the team that gave up the second fewest fantasy points to running backs. Their first six games are Green Bay, who, ironically, that was the one team

that Onyemata missed last year. And Aaron Jones had an okay game. Green Bay, Carolina, New England, the Giants, Washington, and Seattle. So that's a big deal. He's a very good player. They don't have Sheldon Rankins anymore. So we'll see what their run defense looks like.

It's year after year. It's one of the best. We'll see what it looks like for the first six games. I was reading Bill Barnwell's story over the weekend on ESPN.com, and he noted that the Packers scored a touchdown on 80% of their red zone trips last year. That was the highest since 2001, according to ESPN. And I think that's just when they started, you know, tracking it.

That's not even, it could be the highest in longer than that. But basically 20 years, you know, the Packers had the most successful season inside the red zone. Last year was just a very successful red zone season to begin with. From 2001 to 2019, only 12 teams had a red zone touchdown rate higher than 70% from 2001 to 2019. Last year, six teams did it. Green Bay, Tennessee, Cleveland, Seattle, New Orleans, and Minnesota.

And what I thought, Dave, you might find this interesting. What Bill Barnwell noted was that four of the six teams that scored a touchdown 70% or more of the time in the red zone, four of the six teams operated out of the same Kubiak slash Shanahan style attack. I'm just reading here from Bill Barnwell. Isn't that just basically West Coast offense? It's a wide zone based offense.

It's a little different. Sure. It's funny how Shanahan's offense isn't in this list yeah right um and the seahawks are now getting the seahawks were one of those six teams but now they are also going to have that same style of offense at least based on their coordinator rams assistant shane waldron taking over as their offensive coordinator so yes we'll have that too. Right. Yes. There you go. Alright. So I don't know. I just thought it was interesting. It's a good read. Check it out. Not a lot of

really interesting notes this week, I guess. That's about to change. With training camps opening, Houston rookie wide receiver Nico Collins should have a chance for a lot of early snaps, according to the Athletics' Aaron Reese. Is he on anyone's radar anyway drafting uh nico collins he was on my radar with one of my last few picks in the fishbowl

and obviously he's a probably in that late second to third round range and rookie only drafts big dude not necessarily a burner but a guy who can win some 50 50 balls in houston yeah he's someone i did a draft profile on. He's actually an interesting prospect because he cut a lot of weight before the Senior Bowl. I just kind of tried to reinvent himself because he opted out of the 2020 season. He looked a lot different at the Senior Bowl than he looked at Michigan. He was quicker. He was faster.

So he might be someone that can be a lot different now that he has taken 10 pounds off his frame so he's someone i'm keeping an eye on but i think it could take time and i'm not expecting too much from a passing game led by tyra taylor anyway who was your last pick in the scott fishbowl do you remember yes chad henney really my first pick was patrick mahomes okay that makes sense dwayne Eskridge, I believe. Oh. Mine was Tutu Atwell. Similar type idea there.

Yeah. Malcolm Brown. He might start. Yeah, that's good. That's a good one. He wasn't available. He was gone way before my last pick. Schrager for the win.

Nice one, Ben. Actually, Eskridge was second last. I took Le'Veon Bell with the last pick. All right. I'd rather have Henny. I'm going to sign Bell when an injury happens. That's true. You're going to drop him for a kicker at some point.

Did you guys take kickers in the fishbowl? I didn't. You did? I took one. One kicker. But I took a kicker. I took two really early. I figured there would be kickers on the waiver wire if I need one.

It will be. To give me my solid 10 points. Round 15. 10's a lot for a kicker. Round 15, you took a kicker? First kicker off the board. Oh, my gosh. Who do you project to be the best kicker?

Youngway Koo. Youngway Koo. You think he's going to repeat? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh think he's going to repeat? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

All right. A couple more notes, guys. Adam Schefter says the Eagles are in the best position to trade for Deshaun Watson, but he's not sure when Houston might be ready to trade Deshaun Watson. And JD McKissick bulked up. He wants more of a role. He wants to at least prove that he's capable of more of a role. He was the number 17 running back

in full PPR, number 32 in PPR, and he had 80 catches. So, obviously a huge difference there. He had 85 carries and 80 catches. He was tied for second on the team with, I believe, 110 targets. By the way, 24 of his 85 carries came

without Antonio Gibson. Alright. So, I have to apologize 185 carries came without Antonio Gibson. All right. So I have to apologize for something I did in Fantasy Jeopardy last week. I'll do that later in the show. Let's get to the reason why we're here. If blank happens, then blank. Four of these are from Dan. Three are from Dave.

One is from me. If blank happens, then blank. Dan, your first one about the Washington football team. Go ahead. Do you need me to read it? I need you to Washington football team. Go ahead. Do you need me to read it? I need you to read this one. No problem. If Ryan Fitzpatrick proves more willing to create big passing plays than Alex Smith,

then the Curtis Samuel breakout arrives in 2021. Yeah, I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. It goes into a little bit of what you just talked about with McKissick, why I'm really down on him. A lot of what he generated from a fantasy standpoint was due to Alex Smith. That whole offense was not how Scott Turner, the offensive coordinator, wants to operate that offense. He doesn't want constant checkdowns to the running back. He wants an offense that will be a little bit more vertically attacking at times.

And Ryan Fitzpatrick in his past has proven willing to throw the ball into tight windows and take chances in the intermediate and downfield area. What did we see from Curtis Samuel two years ago? Not as much last year, obviously, with Teddy Bridgewater running that offense. But two years ago, we saw a player who could get open vertically often, and he just didn't have the quarterback to get him the ball there. I'm not saying Ryan Fitzpatrick is some beast in the vertical passing game at this stage of his career,

but he can get, he's willing and he can get the ball out there and Samuel can create vertical separation in addition to everything else he can do underneath. So I think that they're going to make inserted effort to get him the football anyway, after signing him to that contract. And I really think he's going to have a really underrated season this year for Scott Turner and help open up that offense. I think it's definitely possible because that's what the current coaching staff

remembers from Curtis Samuel, and they just couldn't connect with him and Cam back two years ago, but they have to take notice of what he did last year. And I wonder just, do they take enough notice to say, okay, not only can we use this guy in the short area passing game, can we give him carries? Can we give him a couple of jet sweeps every week? And then can we also have him play downfield a little bit more? I don't know off the top of my head how much he played last year in Carolina, like what his snap percentage was from game to game. But I would imagine that if his snap percentage is closer to 100 this year, then he's going to see those opportunities. I still have a hard time believing he's going to match the 13 point,

whatever PPR points he had last year, but it'll be better than the 10.1 he had in 2019. Good number three PPR receiver and maybe like a high end one in non PPR. About 70% roughly, snapshot. I'd love to see that go a little higher. You're not going to see him on the field when they go to jumbo packages or 22 personnel, something like that, but he should play a lot.

They know what they're getting with him, and they probably like what they saw in film last year. Put it all together and give this guy a lot of opportunities in the offense. Let's look at the last two years of this offense. That's 2020 with Washington and 2019 with Carolina. The bad news is 20th and 25th and scoring 20th for the Panthers in 2019, 25th and 2020

with Washington. The good news is fifth in plays with Carolina ran the fifth most plays last year. Washington ran the fifth most plays. Last year, Washington ran the eighth most plays. And the better news is, very pass heavy. Despite having Antonio Gibson, despite having Christian McCaffrey, they were second in pass attempts. They had a horrible defense in 2019. Second in pass attempts with Carolina.

Ninth in pass attempts and 25th in rush attempts last year with a good defense in Washington. And they throw a ton of the money. You can count on Allen as your quarterbacks both years. I mean, that's the big one here. Right. All right. And if you want to hear more about Curtis Samuel,

we did a profile with him on FFT in five with Jacob Gibbs, who was also pretty optimistic about Curtis Samuel. I think for me, guys, you don't have to pay up for him. I mean, he's going 97th overall. But we'll see if there's some helium attached to that, as the fantasy industry likes to say. I just don't know... I thought you said that because Ryan Fitzpatrick,

we've nicknamed him, or Persco nicknamed him the helium balloon. Right. For his lofty deep balls that seem to hang in the air for a couple extra seconds. And he does not have a high pitch voice, but yeah, I just,

I don't know how much faith I have in the Washington offense and I don't really have a ton of faith in Ryan Fitzpatrick keeping his job because he just rarely does. So that's kind of why I mean, I just don't know how much to invest in this offense. The good news is there are only two players that you have to take early in McLaurin and Gibson. Right.

All right. Next up. Next up. As much as we can talk up Samuel, McLaurin's the one who's going to definitely play close to 100% of the snaps and definitely be the number one target. And that's the other thing. Definitely get downfield throws. That's the other thing.

It's like all I ever hear about is how Ryan Fitzpatrick just peppers his number one receiver and and how he doesn't throw to running backs and yet i'm supposed to buy into a breakout for antonio gibson because he's going to get more work in the passing game even with jd mckissick who had 80 catches last year i'm supposed to buy into a curtis samuel breakout and i just don't know how it's all going to happen i don't know how it's all going to happen well it definitely starts by having you know top, good pace of play, which you said they have, and good pass-heavy games.

Not game scripts, but game plans. That's a good start. Because those passes have to go somewhere, and they're not going to go to the running backs. I'm with you. So they've got to go somewhere else. I don't know. Some of them are going to go to the running backs.

You don't have Gibson and McKissick and not throw to the running backs, right? I just don't see Fitz as a huge, like you mentioned, he has no history of throwing a lot to the running backs and checking down in those spots. Last year he did. He made nine plays for the running backs in the passing game, of course. But a lot of those receptions last year for McKissick were just truly Alex Smith just quickly going to that check down. Right. It's not going to be that frequent. But Fitzpatrick threw to Gask did a decent amount of the time last year all right next up dave aj green what you got an aj green one if aj green's 2020 was an anomaly

then kyler murray could very easily be the qb1 in fantasy and deandre hopkins based on his adp could be a bust the second part is really much more interesting to me. So let's say AJ Green is good, and he was very good in 2018. He missed 2019, but... Yeah, the ankle. Yeah. He just hasn't been the same since. Yeah, and he hasn't really been the same since he got hurt midway through 2018,

but his first eight games, he was on pace for nearly 1,400 yards and 12 touchdowns. He was a star. Yeah, so let's say he bounces back. I mean, he's the same draft class as Julio Jones, right? We still think Julio's great. Let's say he bounces back. Why can't Hopkins still give you a second-round value? I think Hopkins is being drafted

for his volume and the target share that he's going to have and the hope that he has well over 100 receptions, especially since they're going to play one more game this year but if aj green is good then i he's certainly going to take volume away from hopkins not to mention rondell moore and everybody else in that offense and i think it would hurt hopkins he could be a number two receiver for sure like i'm talking like top 15 is, but we're drafting him to be a top five guy. If A.J. Green is on fire, then Hopkins won't get there. Are you actively concerned about this, though?

No, not really. I'm just giving you an if. Just a what if. I'm also thinking, I'm less so sure that A.J. Green has enough left in the tank after all those lower bound body injuries to be that. But I think the second part of Dave's, what if there is, is interesting to me because a lot of the reason why Deandre Hopkins was so good in fantasy last year was that first half volume. I mean,

they were just targeting him so much in the short passing game. And I'm still waiting for the reason why I don't buy into the Kyler Murray number QB one overall as much as I'm still waiting to see this cliff Kingsbury offense impress me. Cause right now it looks like he doesn't know exactly what to do with the players he has in Kyler Murray and all of those receivers. Cause that offense was a lot of quick hitting stuff, a lot of short passing game, really based up. It was at its best in the running game, which people don't think of using, you know, Murray to kind of get an extra edge in the running game, get an extra blocker there with the defense force to commit players in different spots. So I'm still waiting for that passing game to have more of a vertical

presence at all before I buy into Kyler Murray's potential QB one overall. And I don't know if they're going to dial that up. Like you, you, you, you watched Rondell Moore play at Purdue. How often was he running deep? He was a catch-and-run guy in short and intermediate routes. And AJ Green's not a burner anymore, and Hopkins can do it. I just don't think it's the number one thing he can do. That's Christian Kirk, no?

I mean, Kirk could do it, but there's a chance he's not even on the roster, to be honest. If someone comes looking for a trade, they might deal him. They trade him. Okay, next up, we got several more here, if-thens. But first, I want to tell you about tomorrow night, big night. We'll be live on the Fantasy Football Today YouTube channel at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday night with a mock draft. And we're giving away a spot in our next mock draft.

So join us at youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday. We've got some great industry guests coming on, youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday. And again, we're giving away a spot in our next mock draft so you can draft against our experts. Hit the subscribe button on the channel, and we will see you tomorrow, youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday, 7 p will see you tomorrow. YouTube.com slash FantasyFootballToday,

7 p.m. Eastern. That is Tuesday night. We had to take a Tuesday night off from you getting beat down in poker, Adam. Actually, I'm taking the entire Tuesday night off. I will not be on the mock draft tomorrow, but yes. I will not be losing in poker either. That's the good news.

So your next one, Dan, is about the Bears passing game. And it's not an if, it's a when. When, not if, the Bears turn to Justin Fields, then Allen Robinson is a top six wide receiver, similar to the Herbert Keenan Allen effect. Yeah. Yeah. My thoughts on the first part, when, not if, is just everybody goes through this every season. Like, oh, this team wants to let this rookie come into his own maybe during the bye week maybe week eight week 11 i remember when the giants drafted daniel jones and phil de la manning on the roster everyone told me and that i was crazy

to say that daniel jones is going to play in the first half of the season everyone's like it's going to happen after the bye week in week 10 trust me i know this and i'm like well after the bye week i believe they had like three straight road games against really tough opponents. I don't really think they're going to throw him in against the tough defense on the road for his first start. And little do we know, he comes in right away within the first three weeks of the season. So it seems to happen more often than people think that these rookie quarterbacks come in early, especially if the team is struggling or even in the Giants case, I believe they weren't even totally struggling at the time. They just wanted to get their rookie quarterback going they believed he was ready

everything that I've seen in Justin Fields profile says he's going to be ready and so that takes me to the second part which is rookie quarterbacks like to lock on to one target and Allen Robinson especially a target who can get open in the intermediate and quick passing game and Allen Robinson is one of the best route runners in the NFL and is one of the best receivers at creating quick separation with his feet and with his footwork. So I think he'll immediately be a quick and easy target for Justin Fields in that offense, somebody who he goes to over and over again. And we saw last year what that kind of volume can do for a player in Keenan Allen.

So I think we'll see a similar effect when Fields comes on the field. I think once it's clear that uh that fields looks like he knows what he's doing and that's maybe we read about that from training camp reports maybe we see it in the preseason probably both of those things then you can start to make the you can move forward with the assumption that robinson will get fields as his quarterback for the majority of the year and that fields will do a great job with rob. We've seen Robinson, what is it now, the past couple of years, what have his numbers been when he's in Chicago? 16.1 PPR points per game last year.

That's with Trubisky and Foles. The year before that, it was 15.5 PPR points per game. More importantly, over nine targets per game each of those past two seasons. Chicago likes to dial him up. Fields, and honestly, maybe dalton too dalton isn't worse than trubisky well we've had that debate before i think we can agree that fields has potential to be better than both of those quarterbacks but you look at the bear schedule where do you fit in justin fields because week one is at la that's tough like i can kind of understand why they wouldn't want to rush him out there

unless he was just wunderkind. He's just unbelievable. After that, it's Cincinnati at home. That would be a great time. Week two, put him in there. At Cleveland in week three, I think that's going to be a tough game. And then Detroit, Vegas, Green Bay. There are matchups down the line they could put him in.

That's it. Yeah. Week four, Detroit. That Detroit game looks very promising. A home game against Detroit. If the Bears are 1-2 or 0-3 going into that game, that's where Fields jumps in. So Robinson can still be around 15 PPR points per game

for those first three games, even week one against LA, even against Jalen Ramsey. You drafted him early, you're going to start him. But maybe that number creeps up a little bit. Maybe he'll have an all-time high in Chicago in PPR points per game with Fields at quarterback. Why? This is the thing. You're saying, oh, Justin Fields is going to lock on

to his number one receiver. He already has that. He's got 150-plus targets two straight seasons. The question is, is Justin Fields going to be better than the crappy quarterbacks that Allen Robinson has played with in each of his last four, well, every year of his career? It's exactly what you're hoping for.

That's the combo. I mean, it's not just that Keenan Allen got so much more volume. It's also that Justin Herbert was able to move the offense and get into scoring position more, so Keenan Allen had an all-time red zone role. But you're saying he was better than Phillip Rivers? At the end of Phillip Rivers' career? Without a doubt, Justin Herbert was more efficient as a passer.

Maybe at the end of Phillip Rivers' career, but not for, Justin Herbert was more efficient as a passer. Maybe at the end of Philip Rivers' career, but not for much of Keenan Allen's career with Philip Rivers, but I'm just saying, how good is Justin Fields going to be as a rookie? He can be a Hall of Fame quarterback and be a bad rookie. That happens all the time.

And it's a big question that we have to answer in fantasy because the rookie quarterbacks have been much better recently than ever before. I mean, Andrew Luck struggled as a rookie. Peyton Manning was terrible. You know, that's what happens. But Baker Mayfield wasn't,

and obviously Justin Herbert wasn't, and Joe Burrow was good enough. So can Fields come out and do that? Can he be better than... Can he throw for 4,000 yards, or at least can he be on a 16 Can he throw for 4,000 yards? Or at least, can he be on a 16-game pace of 4,000 yards? Because Allen Robinson has not had that since

2015. But I don't know that he can. He's a guy who's going to run the ball. And if you told me right now he's starting week one of a 16-game season, I would probably take the under on 4,000 passing yards. No Bears quarterback has ever thrown for 4,000 passing yards in a season.

Like in the history of the franchise. Yeah. Go look it up. Cutler never did it. No one's ever done it in Chicago. I think either one quarterback did with the Jets or no quarterback did with the Jets. Like those are the two teams that just don't have 4,000 yard passers. And now that they're adding a game to the season, I think it's possible that it happens.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just talking about the pace, right? Right, right, right. So are the touchdowns going to go up? That's the thing with Robinson. He's like a seven touchdown guy. Look, everything could go up. Last year, 69% of Robinson's targets were catchable.

So that means that 30% of them were either over his head or lawn darts, a foot in front of him. He couldn't do anything with them. The year before, it was even worse than that. So we're banking on more catchable passes. Even if it gets to 75%, Robinson's got great hands. He doesn't drop very many passes. Four drops the last two seasons. He's going to catch

all that stuff. He's going to be great. So any upgrade there helps. And the volume, we already talked about it. You've already mentioned it. It should still be there for him. The whole conversation is making me kind of more encouraged about drafting alan robinson in general to be honest with you all right all right next up mic drop uh let's go to our next one dave if we're wrong about travis etn

being a stud we think he's going to be great you know but we're drafting him conservatively but if we're wrong about him you know being an impact player in year one then then james robinson is being massively underrated and i think we might be able to say the same thing about the other pass catchers in jacksonville you know we're talking about lavisca chanel especially like short area guys chanel it's that guy marvin jones can do anything chart can do anything so maybe it's more about Chenault and Robinson than it is about the other receivers there. But yeah, ETN, fun talent at Clemson, all-time leader in yards in the ACC, all that stuff. But what if he gets to the next level and he's just not quite as good? We know he's not going to be a finished product as a pass protector because he wasn't that

at Clemson. I doubt he does that in the NFL. What if he's only getting three or four targets per game and only three or four carries per game? There's some uncertainty still with him. Yes, he's a playmaker. He's got great speed. He can juke defenders out of their cleats. All that stuff is true. But if he can't, we're coming off a year where a bunch of rookies had a hard time turning the page and getting to the NFL level and playing successfully right away at the NFL level. What if ETN is like that? And Robinson's got a nice schedule to begin the season.

Week one against Houston, I think he's going to be a top 15. He's a startable running back for sure in that game. But he might be able to not only fend off Etienne, but take a little bit of that passing down roll away from Etienne because he's a better blocker and he's not a bad receiver and the Jaguars don't have to rush the rookie on the field. And if the rookie isn't ready, they definitely won't rush him on the field. Robinson's one of those guys that had started to make sense to me as a good running back target, maybe even as early as late round six. I'm completely in agreement with Dave on this one. For starters, I think in general, when you have these uncertain backfields where it could be one guy, it could be another guy, you take the guy who has the lower ADP,

you take the value there. But also, I mean, something that I wanted to touch on, and I know Dave did most of the running back draft profiles, and you can correct me if I'm wrong Dave but we have similar vision on these rookie running backs we both felt I believe that Javante Williams and Najee Harris were in a tier above Travis Etienne or at least that's how I felt and I'm pretty sure based on reading your profile Dave you were in a similar boat there Etienne is not a prospect who I think was you know as good as where he was drafted he's a one cut and go guy which is a nice fit for this system but i don't think he's great at making uh defenders miss in space i don't think he's great at creating yards after contact so i'm a little concerned with his profile there and then i'll also say this i mean urban meyer has a history with carlos hyde i'm not so sure carlos hyde is a

complete nothing in this offense i can see a weird scenario where we're in week six or seven we're like why is carlos hyde getting eight to ten carries a game why is he even five touches a game why is he on the field and all those times where he's on the field it's just another snap where btn may not be on the field there well that would be a crusher for everybody if carlos hyde ends up playing a lot i mean not a lot let's say it's just four to ten that's too much a little a little too much let's say if he's playing eight to ten then both running backs aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. I thought you were going to say that we've seen Carlos Hyde succeed in this offense, and Zeke has done great in this offense.

When he's had that type of running back who can be physical and make guys miss and certainly have great vision, and that's Robinson's best strength of all, they get work. Urban meyers talked about it you know he took a year off of coaching or a couple years off coaching and he's talked about how important it is to be able to run the football and run behind a well-blocking offensive line and robinson could do that and i i said that you could take him as early as late round six man nfc adp has him in early round six right now like through the month of july so people are starting to catch on to robinson and saying you know what if you're looking for a running back that's got some upside that's either in the rb dead

zone or just after the rb dead zone ends here's one that can do it for you this he's he's going to be a running back that I start targeting, whether as my second running back because I've loaded up at other positions or as my third running back because I've already got two running backs with my first five picks already. Would you take James Robinson over Javante Williams? I would for now.

I would as well. Would you take him over Chase Edmonds? Yes. Yep. Mike Davis? Yes. Yep. Mike Davis? No. Nope. All right.

Okay. And I'm souring on Mike Davis, but I'm still not at that point. Let's take a break. We'll take a break. When we come back, we've got Jared Goff. Well, it's not really about Goff. It's about the good players on Detroit. Trey Lance and your suggestions on

Twitter for this fun game. We'll see if we have time for your emails and we have a Jeopardy apology, as I mentioned. So we'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters. Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations. Or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada. Insurance designed for life. Let avoidable damage cost you time and money. Click before you dig. Ensure your next project is safe. Visit OntarioOneCall.ca.

It's free. It's easy. It's the law. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. All right, Dan, let me apologize to you in Fantasy Jeopardy. Really not. To everybody. The integrity of the game matters so much.

So, Dave, we had a category, players you may see at the zoo. And it didn't go well. But the $200 answer was, of all the players whose name might have something to do with animals, he had the most catches in 2020. Do you know who it is? Of all the players whose names might have something to do with animals? He had the most catches in 2020.

Okay. I don't know who that is. It's CeeDee Lamb. Who is CeeDee Lamb? Okay. But an emailer, Ben, wrote, Adam, I hate to be that guy, but DK Metcalf is definitely the animal-related receptions leader. I'd have to agree with that. The whole game is moot.

So everything that happened is void. Nolan void. Right. I'll have to do it for him, Heath. This is Dan's way of getting out of losing Fantasy Jeopardy because no one wants to lose in Fantasy Jeopardy. It's over. It's over.

I'm going to text Heath. He's out this week. But hey, dude, you didn't win Fantasy Jeopardy. His Fantasy Jeopardy win has been vacated. All right. Let's talk about the Lions. My performance has been vacated. That's what's more important. Yes, very good.

Congratulations, Schneier. All right, let's talk about the Lions. If Jared Goff collapses without Sean McVay in his ear, then... No one will be surprised. Oh, you need me to read the rest of it, Dan? You still haven't gotten it. Uh, no,

I got it up then. People will regret drafting TJ Hawkinson and Deandre Swift at their ADP. Yeah. So, okay. People will regret drafting Hawkinson and Swift if golf collapses. I'm not even sure who their backup is.

Yeah. I mean, I'm looking right now. Oh, is it still, who is, David Blau? That's what I was thinking, but I think we might be one season.

Blau is still on the roster. They've got Tim Boyle. I do not care. Let's talk about, let's talk about the crux of this here. I, you know, he's not, he's probably not going to play that well,

but he's still going to throw the ball to his good players, and that's what people are banking on with Hawkinson and Swift. I just don't know. If an offense is as bad as I think this offense could be with Jared Goff at the helm, I know they have a good offense. They've improved

their offensive line, though. They're still banking on a rookie who's converting positions and going from the left to right side, which I always think could lead to a bigger disaster than people foresee. But if this offense is as bad as it could be with Jared Goff, I just don't see too many scoring opportunities. I still am skeptical on if TJ Hawkinson, I know he's one of the Lions' better players,

but how good he is in general. I remain the same about DeAndre Swift, who I was never high on as a prospect to begin with. And so I just feel like you're buying into a bad offense, and you're just saying these are the guys who are going to definitely get the volume. And when we bank completely on volume that we don't know for sure in a new offense that we haven't seen at all, like we haven't seen Anthony Lynn run this offense yet, we're projecting it based on what he's done in the past.

I don't know. It seems like a lot of ifs there. There's a lot of ifs with everybody in fantasy though. There's the, there are no guarantees when it comes to fantasy football, which is. Offenses we've seen is all I'm saying. The offense that I'm expecting to see.

So, I mean, this is, you know, we're just spitballing here, but Anthony Lynn definitely leans on his run game and likes to throw to his running backs. We've seen that element in L.A.,

not that Anthony Lynn was calling the plays there, but former NFL running back, former NFL running backs coach, not a lot of experience calling plays, but I think his bread and butter is going to be trying to take pressure off of Goff and utilizing that beefy offensive line. It makes perfect sense. I just don't know how often that game script will be available to them once you get to the middle of the third quarter, because I think their defense is really going to be rough this year. I think that you will see Swift and

Hawkinson be regular targets for Jared Goff. We saw Goff's average depth of throw drop each of the past three seasons. It was under five yards per throw this past year. That was in L.A. I have a hard time believing that Jared Goff is going to turn into the bravest quarterback ever going from L.A. to Detroit. I'm pretty sure the Rams coaching staff didn't have a lot of confidence in golf and obviously they didn't like them. Otherwise they wouldn't have traded him after they signed him to such a huge deal.

But the lions, my guess is that they're just going to try and get through the season with golf and hopefully he doesn't burn them too many times and he keeps them competitive in as many games as possible. I think you could see hockinson rack up targets you're drafting him in ppr for the volume for the catches not because he's this amazing playmaker after the catch he's a big guy in the red zone a big target in the red zone i expect that to be a factor but i do think swift is a playmaker and i think swift with the ball in his hands in space and we will will see that, that helps his profile.

And I like him as a sturdy number two fantasy running back, especially in PPR. Yeah, the running back discussion is one thing, but for the tight ends, I just, this is a PPR thing with Hawkinson. I really don't get very excited about him at all in non-PPR and much less in half PPR, much less than I do in full PPR. I just think it's going to be about targets. And I think that is by far the most important thing

for tight ends because it's such a crappy position. And so I went back and I looked at the top five tight ends each of the last five years. There are 25 of them, obviously. In full PPR, of the 25 tight ends that finished in the top five last five seasons, 10 of them were on top six offenses. Nine of them were on offenses that ranked 10th through 20th in scoring. And six of them were on offenses that ranked outside the top 20. So yeah, look, it's always better to be on a good offense. No question. I don't think Hawkinson has any chance really, of course, to be tight end two. You know, I don't think he's

going to be Waller. I don't think he's going to make that jump, but I definitely see a path to top five just on targets alone. And I thought that was kind of striking to me that quality of offense didn't really matter that much. It hasn't really mattered that much. Like there were two tight ends last year that finished top five on, on offenses that ranked 25th and 20th in scoring. So just a trend I noticed with I don't think that I don't, for me, it's not about like, is there a path to top five? I think there's clearly a path to top five. I'm just saying for the tight end position specifically, I'm not really worried about getting somebody who's going to finish tight end five, six, seven. I want to make sure they're going to be a difference maker at that position. That is a difference maker though, because there's only five, six, seven good ones every year.

So I agree with you. If they're not going to get to that wall or kiddo range where they're a difference maker in your lineup every week, if they're just giving you two or three fantasy points, more fantasy points per week, is that worth, you know, potentially getting that wide receiver or running back in that same round who could ultimately be a bigger difference maker at, you know, overall. That's a fair point, but I think fantasy managers value with a tight end that they don't have to think about making a start set decision with. And I think Hawkinson qualifies as that guy. I think Mark Andrews and Kyle Pitts qualify as those guys as well, which is why they're

all in that same tier for me. But I think everybody who drafts Hawkinson is assuming that he will be a reliable starter week in and week out. Last year, 10.4 PPR points per game. We're looking for 11 PPR points per game from a tight end. So we disappointed a little bit there. But he did have at least nine PPR points in 12 of 16 games. So he was really close to being even more solid than he was, a point away here and there. And his target share last year was at 17%.

I think that goes up this year. I've said this before. I think he's one of the four to six tight ends that have a shot at getting 120 targets this year. All right, guys. That's a lot. We got a lot to get to here. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to save a couple of these for FFT and five.

No, we can't do that. You want to save mine? No, we'll save one of each. So Dan had an Antonio Brown one. Dave had a Sam Darnold one. It was really more of a DJ Moore, Robbie Anderson one. We'll save those for another time. Let's finish with this.

We talked about the Justin Fields to Allen Robinson effect. You fill in the blank. If Trey Lance takes over early in the season, then George Kittle, blank. Remains a top three fantasy tight end. Mine will be Ceasar. I go on the other route. I think he'll be a little less valuable

with Trey Lance as the quarterback. Why? I think that, and Shannon has talked about this in the past, what he really wants is a quarterback who can give him the opportunity to run a little bit more zone read and a little bit more RPO game and running zone read and RPO, because that's what he did in Washington. He's not going to make it the staple of the offense like he did with RG3, but he's going to want to mix it in and use it as a package that will keep defenses on their heels, et cetera. And when you're running RPO or zone read, when you're running RPO, the read is the

X. So you're either going to keep the balls, the quarterback, run it, hand it off or throw it to that quick slant, that quick in breaking routes, the X receivers. That's not kill. And then if you're keeping the ball or you're handing it to your running back, if you're reading the defenses, dropping into coverage, then that's just another rushing attempt. So I just think overall, the offense will look a lot different with him at quarterback and it will be a lot more X receiver or running back or quarterback carrying the ball. Couldn't they line up Kittle as the X receiver and have him run that route? They could, but I think they're probably feeling comfortable with Iuke in that role, but you're right. They could definitely move Kittle out there, flex him out there and have

him run that role. They could honestly do that with anybody. They can do that with Kittle, Ayuk, Samuel. The only thing you lose there, though, is in the zonery game, you're banking on having that extra blocker in the run game for one less defender. And Kittle's one of the best run blockers at tight end in the game. So you're taking him out of that role if you flex him out. So the first thing I think about with Lance is that I think he'll take touchdowns away from everybody just in general because of his rushing prowess.

He'll run for some scores, but Kittle's never been a huge touchdown scorer to begin with. And the other question is just how many more targets would he get? I think he'd see a drop in targets on a per-game basis with Lance under center than what we've seen in the past, but I still think he'd be really good for fantasy. Yeah, and if you just want to take it from the approach of will their passing game be better or

worse with Trey Lance, you do the same exercise that we did with Allen Robinson. The last four quarterbacks that Allen Robinson, or team quarterbacks that Allen Robinson has had, none of them have thrown for 4,000 yards, like the team. Now that you have to raise the bar, because

that happens every year for San Francisco. Three of the last four years under Shanahan, it's been 4,200 or more yards. The one exception was the Super Bowl year where they were so run heavy. They only threw for 4,029 yards, but that was the only year they've had a really great defense in that stretch.

So can Trey Lance be a 40, and this is all based on 16 games. I just, that's what I'm still using because I think it's the easiest conceptually. Can he be a 42 to 4 is all based on 16 games i just that's what i'm still using because i think it's the easiest conceptually can he be a 42 to 4300 yard passer trey lance a guy who's got that better rushing ability than justin fields i seriously doubt that and the touchdowns are higher for san francisco than they are for chicago they've been 25 to 28 passing touchdowns three straight seasons only 15 passing touchdowns four years ago, but three straight seasons of 25,

28. So I think if you just, I think it's a bigger downgrade offensively for the Niners. And just in terms of the passing game numbers, the raw numbers, if they go to the rookie quarterback, then for the bears, does that make sense?

Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent in that Niners defense. Let's not forget. They're getting back. A lot of players who were placed on IR early in the season. So if that defense returns to anywhere close to where they were in their Super Bowl season,

they're going to run the ball a lot more in general. Right. Okay, and that is it for the analyst version of this game. Let's see what we said on Twitter. If blank happens, then blank. We've got 27 responses. That's good. Okay, let's see.

If Matt Ryan has another season with 45 plus 100 yards and 25 plus touchdowns, then Kyle Pitts and Calvin Ridley will finish top three at their positions. Sure. Sounds about right. No. Again, that's not enough. 4,500 yards and 25 touchdowns?

That's not enough. How much was it? 45 and what? 25 plus. 4,500 yards and 25 touchdowns? That's not enough. How much was it? 45 and what? 25 plus. Well, 20, yeah. You'd say 30 plus, I think, to get that going.

He's always been a guy who's really spread it around if you think about the touchdowns. You know? Especially because Julio Jones has never really been a great

red zone receiver, so he hasn't dominated those. Well, defense has tried to take him away. Matt Ryan didn't throw quite as often as we would have liked. Okay.

Here we go from Daniel. A different Daniel with a different opinion. If Ryan Fitzpatrick tosses enough picks and gets benched, then none of the Washington players will meet their current draft value. I'm not so sure. yeah, to an extent, but I just don't think they were getting much better of a quarterback play

last year from Alex Smith and Kyle Allen. I just didn't, I didn't see it. I watched a lot of those games and I saw a few of those on all 22 and that offense was really held back by Alex Smith. It was not, they were forced to play Alex Smith. They thought, I mean, Aniki should have played a lot earlier, clearly. And I think if he comes in, if Fitzpatrick gets benched, I thought he showed a little bit during that playoff game. He moved the offense better than what Alex Smith did or Kyle Allen.

And in the regular season game, I don't remember if it was week 16 or 17, but when he came in, he actually did some good stuff. So I actually, I'm going to disagree with this. And it might sound like I'm saying what I was completely, you know, saying the complete opposite of earlier. I was like, I don't know how I can buy in all these players. But I think personally, the CBS people like Curtis Samuel more than the drafters do. that his ADP at 97 overall, even for someone I'm not really that high on Curtis Sim, I still really like that ADP. And McLaurin is a mid-third round pick, and he's awesome. He's been great, you know,

so far in his career with bad quarterback play. So I do think that even if Fitzpatrick gets benched, these guys could meet their ADP. I just think it probably hurts their upside. Yeah. All right. From Fady Dizzle, if the Jets' offensive system hype is real,

they will have three wide receivers usable in PPR formats in 12-team leagues. No, I have a hard time seeing that. Yeah, that's a little too crazy there i mean i i like the general premise here that if that's working at its best especially with the jets defense still probably a year away there's going to be a lot of pass heavy game scripts coming but that seems like a lot for especially for a rookie quarterback you'd get one per week with some weeks getting two i don't think every week you're going to see davis crowder and

elijah moore just you know go off but one of them each week should get you at least 10 ppr points i mean it might be consistently davis we've seen it from him earlier in his career where he's just got that safe floor of 10 to 12 it's so weird if if zach wilson had been drafted by a different franchise do you think people would be more would be more excited about him i think they should be if he were i mean he was my favorite quarterback prospect in this draft i thought lawrence was the best player you should take but wilson was the one i saw with the most upside and at the and you know i was high on him all the way back in september that kind of arm talent you don't have, you don't see often. But when he got drafted to the Jets, I soured a bit because I've just –

growing up in this area and living here most of my life, it's just – I think he's going to struggle with the New York media. I'm going to start by saying that. I don't want to go too deep into that narrative. Yeah. But when you start to struggle, they're going to get on you hard, and there's going to be articles. There's going to be all sorts of things thrown right at you.

We'll see what happens there, but it wasn't the landing spot I was hoping for. From David Russell, if Cam Akers wins the lottery and retires, Daryl Henderson becomes an RB1? No, I can't say that that's going to happen. I just have the hunch that that coaching staff doesn't want to lean on Henderson unless they have to. So if Akers wins the lottery and retires, Henderson will still share.

He'd be like a middle-of-the-pack number two fantasy running back as long as he's on the field. But he wouldn't get the type of work that i think they're hoping to give acres but you guys can direct me if i'm wrong on this because it might just be a bad memory i have it's been a while since the fantasy season but wasn't anderson a little bit hurt down the stretch when acres so henderson was hurt down the stretch when acres took over that workhorse role and what we do know is before that earlier in the season mcveigh spent a lot of time last offseason talking up how he learned a lot from Shanahan. And we know they're good buddies because they've been on podcasts.

They're clearly like friends off the field. They worked together for years. Yeah, they worked together for years. He learned a lot about using multiple backs. And so Henderson was hurt down the stretch when they did decide to lean more heavily on Akers. I still just can't get out of my head that he's going to use Henderson this season a little a little bit more than people expect he's a talented running back and they drafted him not as high i mean they didn't use as much draft capital but he looked good last year when he was healthy henderson so i'm not as old as everyone else that he's just going to be a nothing in this offense

it's an interesting question um he did play pretty well and uh heard Emery Hunt, who's a former running back and scouts all the time for a living. He thinks that Henderson's a more explosive player. I don't feel like he really buys into Cam Akers. You've heard Chris talk about the advanced metrics aren't super kind to Cam Akers. It's true. So it's an interesting take.

All right, let's do one more. They gave him at least 15 carries in each of the last six games last year. Henderson was around for some of them. From Mark, if Taysom Hill wins the starting job, Michael Thomas will not be a top 20 receiver in non-PPR. So, for me, top 20, it's still the same offense. They're still running that Sean Payton offense that's going to funnel through Michael Thomas in the passing game

yeah that'd be pretty big he can throw a 7-10 yard slant come on and out routes too I would say he'd finish somewhere between 15th and 20th and not BPR I agree I'm not saying he's going to be a wide receiver 1

but top 20 let's read some emails real quick here guys from from from Tyler at fantasy football at CBS I.com

12 team full PPR league to Keeper League which two should I keep

Dalvin Cook in the first Hopkins in the second Ridley in the

fourth Waller in the fifth full PPR and do we know where he's picking

because that matters for cook if he's got because that matters for cook if he's got a late first round pick no no it has not been set it has not been set to know where he's picking in general with these like i want to lean toward ridley and waller for the value but i feel like do that and you don't take one keep one of these running backs it's one of those drafts where every running back good running back is

capped and now you're like in round one and two and you're running back that is going to be awful now you're in round one and two, and your running back depth is going to be awful, and you're going to be chasing all season there. Based on all that, without us knowing where this pick is and everything like that, I'm going to go Cook and Waller here. Waller's a must. If the pick is going to be a top three or four pick, then you can throw Cook back and figure to get a running back close to him,

and then you can keep Ridley. But if that first-round pick is five, six, seven back and figure to get a running back close to him. Then you can keep Ridley. But if that first round pick is 5, 6, 7, and on down the line, I think you've got to keep Dalvin. Throw back Ridley. From Jeff in Topeka, subject line, Daniel Jones for Heisman. Dear Tyler, Jordy, Darren, and Bill.

Tyler, Jordy, Darren, and Bill. Backers, receivers. Kansas State football greats oh yes jordy went to kansas city kansas state uh darren sproles went there it's gotta be tyler lockett bill snyder tyler lockett yep good call and the coach bill snyder yeah it's gotta be all right i'm considering doing something i've never heard discussed before, probably because it's stupid. I have the 10th pick in a half PPR league.

I am considering taking Kelsey and Waller back to back. And his argument is that Waller basically performed. They both performed well enough to be drafted there last year. Then you've got, you know, you're depleting the tight end pool. So we get this question every single year about taking two elite tight ends and every year i hate the idea what do you guys think about kelsey especially in half ppr kelsey and waller um 10th and then uh 15th yeah i hate it unless you can fall into it on draft day where one of the tight ends is just an insanely good value doing it with back-to-back

picks is it's hurting yourself more than helping yourself be different if it's a tight end premium be different if it was a smaller league but i i just if you're getting waller in round four for some miraculous reason then don't sure that's fine. But not back-to-back picks. No, no, no, no. Okay. Yeah, Dave nailed it. Even if you're getting Waller on the comeback in round three, that's still good value, I think, at the end of round three.

But early round two, no. Real quick, guys, who do you like better, Noah Fant or Dallas Goddard? Dozier wants to know. Goddard. I'm on Goddard for sure there. And then we're definitely going to end with this one from Dominico.

Subject line, Danny Dimes, top five. But this one's actually about Daniel Jones. That's how you get your email opened. But I believe that

Daniel Jones and Kenny Galladay are going to be this year's Josh Allen and Stefan Diggs. I'm calling it now. Giants 2021-2022 Super Bowl champs.

Offense and defense are going to turn it on. This email you sent was from Danny? It's not from me. Is this from you, Dan? No, it's not from me. You're going to hear a completely different take from me. I don't think they have a chance of being Diggs and Allen.

I guess I'll jump in. There would be nothing better for me in life than if this came true. But unfortunately, and this has been a common thread on Giants Twitter all offseason, this idea that Daniel Jones can take a Josh Allen-esque jump as if no one is at all thinking about their arm talent whatsoever and the passes that Josh Allen can complete versus what Daniel Jones can. But I just don't see it and a lot of the thing the reason why that will never happen fantasy wise is because of the coordinators there jason garrett wants to go through a run first offense he wants this offense

to be conservative slow in pace running the ball early and often with a lot of two uh 12 personnel two tight ends on the field the The bills offense coordinator, Brian Davis, the complete opposite. They asked him this off season. Do you want to be more balanced? And cause he was one of the most pass heavy, uh, coordinators in the NFL.

He's like, no, I don't want to be more balanced. I just want to be more efficient when I do decide to run the ball because he's well aware that the end on the NFL average, you average what almost two times as many yards passing the ball is running the ball. So the op,

it's always better to pass the ball. So just the offenses, Daniel Jones versus Josh Allen, this, this is not happening. Two times as many yards passing the ball as running the ball. So it's always better to pass the ball. So just the offenses, Daniel Jones versus Josh Allen, this is not happening. If there were stats out there to help this case, it would be that when he was in Dallas calling plays, this isn't the entire time that Jason Garrett was in Dallas, but only when he was calling plays. He had at least one 1,000-yard receiver and one wideout with at least eight touchdowns in five of six seasons. The one year they didn't have a 1,000-yard receiver and one wideout with at least eight touchdowns

in five of six seasons. The one year they didn't have a 1,000-yard guy, they had two receivers with 850 yards. The one year they didn't have an eight-score guy, they had two receivers with at least six touchdowns. I think if he were more comfortable with the passing game, we'd see more downfield shots. And say what you will about Jonesones but last year his adjusted completion rate on deep throws was 51.2 percent better than 50 percent eighth best among quarterbacks in the nfl last year on short throws these shallow tosses that he had his adjusted completion rate was 77.7 percent that was 37th best among quarterbacks so but he's on dropped half. He's done on longer throws, but on shorter throws, that's where he needs to really...

Evan Ingram dropped half of those short throws, just to be fair. No, it's adjusted completion rate, so dropped passes don't count against short throws. Dave nailed something there that is important, as far as his offense goes. Jason Garrett's offense, traditionally, and he showed in 2021,

he's not willing to change too much with the times. It was mostly the system we saw in Dallas back in the early 2010s. It runs through a big X receiver, and that's why they got Galladay. That's why they went out and got him. There's going to be a ton of targets falling through him, but as Dave said, Daniel Jones is going to have to get a lot better in the short area

from an accuracy standpoint for that to matter. Yeah. He wasn't great on intermediate throws either. It was a two-thirds percentage adjusted completion rate. Not two-thirds. Two-thirds of the throws were connected. And that was, I think, right around the middle of the pack. We hit our Daniel Jones quota.

Thank you, everybody. Okay, for Dan Schneier, Dave Richard, Ben Schrager, I'm Adam Azer. We'll talk to you tomorrow with the crazy eight, the eight toughest players to rank in fantasy football with Liz Loza joining us. Always a great guest. That should be an awesome episode. Talk to you then.

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