Fantasy Football Today - Jonathan Taylor Round 2? Value-based Drafting and NFL Player Props (08/04 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Bid on our Draft-A-Thon items right now to benefit St. Jude! http://cbssports.com/ebay We've got a lot to cover on today's show starting with "One Good Stat, One Bad Stat" for D.J. Chark. Is anyone excited to draft him? Then we get into the big news (8:00) as we update you on some QB injuries and discuss Jonathan Taylor's draft stock now that Quenton Nelson had foot surgery. Is he still a first round pick? We also discuss the workloads for Darrell Henderson and Travis Etienne ... If you're not familiar with Value-based Drafting, Heath is going to give you an awesome tutorial (15:35)! This could be very helpful for you on draft day ... R.J. White joins the show to talk about some NFL odds (28:00). Who are the favorites to lead the NFL in passing, rushing and receiving yards? Who are our favorite dark horses? What about MVP odds and win totals? ... 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

This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll 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 Ben. Hey, what's going on?

One episode left until our position previews start. We've got quarterback previews for you on Thursday, tight end on Friday. I'm Adam Azer. I got Dave Richard and Heath Cummings here with me on this Wednesday show of Fantasy Football Today. We are going to talk about value-based drafting. It is an interesting concept. Heath is going to give us a primer and we're going to react to it. We're also going to look at some NFL futures

and really props and who's the odds for who could lead the NFL in passing, rushing, receiving. RJ White's going to join us later. Full disclosure, not feeling very well today. Doctor's appointment coming up, so I might be a little low energy today. Dave, also

not feeling great. So Heath, you're going to have to bring it. I will bring the energy. Remember the NRG from the baseball podcast like eight years ago or something? Have you been here eight years? I think it was six. I've been here seven. This is almost seven. I just had my 12-year work anniversary and LinkedIn, I got like six messages. I don't know why people care, but I'm happy to be here. Yeah, anyway, Dave and I are a little under the weather, but let's get started here. We have a lot of news and notes to get to.

Another bad injury for the Indianapolis Colts. Is Jonathan Taylor going to be out of the first round? We'll talk about that. I wanted to start with one good stat, one bad stat, and it's for DJ Chark. I had a hard time coming up with a good stat for DJ Chark. Maybe you guys can help me, but basically he gets a lot of targets.

That's good. I mean, he's gotten targets. He was on pace for 114 targets last year. 114 targets is not a lot of targets. That's pretty good. That's a fantasy relevant player. If that's the best you can do with DJ Chark, then I think that's a little troubling. The bad stat is... Because the good stat is always

supposed to be like the amazing. He came up with this brilliant segment. You can't expect him to do all the work. The good stat is... The bad stat, he has 14 or more PPR fantasy points in six of his last

23 games. First five games of 2019 were terrific. Since then, really pretty bad. 14 PPR points in six of his last 23 games. So that's my DJ Chark stat. There you go. Discuss. I would say his bad stat is also his ADPs. I believe he's still going ahead of LaVisca, Chenault and Marvin Jones.

I like the value of Chenault and Jones better than I do shark at this point. Although I did read that he had a good practice on Tuesday. So maybe that's a step in the right direction. And he certainly profiles as their best downfield pass catcher. We'll, we'll,

we'll see what happens, but I'm, I'm not as excited about DJ Chark as I might have been at one point. That's the thing is I keep thinking like I have this idea in my head and it's generally accepted that DJ Chark is the most likely

Jaguars wide receiver to be the number one or has the most upside if he does hit. And Dave said he's their best downfield wide receiver. I don't know why said he's their best downfield wide receiver. I don't know why he'd be a better downfield wide receiver than Marvin Jones. That's the one thing Marvin Jones has been really good at.

I don't really know why I think he has more upside than LaVisca Chenault. He's played three years in the NFL and he has one kind of good year. Yeah. And really, in that year, it was five good games at the start and then he didn't really do that much after.

Right. He slowed down. And then last year, I think there was definitely an issue between him and Minshew in terms of being on the same page and being in rhythm. And that can easily change

with a quarterback like Trevor Lawrence. But I suspect that Lawrence is going to have a lot of quick passing. I think this offense is going to have a lot of quick passing. I think this offense is going to be a lot of, you know, get the snap, throw it. That type of thing. So we could see a lot of short targets from Lawrence and a lot of completions from Lawrence.

That's a good thing, too. But I don't know if that necessarily helps Chark. I don't know if they're going to feed Chark targets. You guys know college football much better than I do. So just bail me out if I say something stupid here. But haven't there been quite a few wide receivers come out of Ohio State who didn't necessarily have the numbers that would have made you think they'd be really good NFL wide receivers and then they got to the NFL

and had the good numbers? Yeah, so what happened at Ohio State is that they had specific roles for their receivers. And maybe this is something that we need to figure out. Uh, if, if this is what urban Meyer's going to do, like McLaurin, I thought wasn't used to his max when he was with the Buckeyes. It seemed like he was more of a downfield threat than anything else. Samuel was the gadget player when he was there. Um, there there's probably some other examples that I'm just not thinking of, but you think about the prospects from Urban Meyer's passing game,

and you might be able to do it from Florida too. There were guys that were good. Their statistics were good, but they didn't necessarily show everything that they could possibly do. And McLaurin and Samuel are two very clear examples of that. Those guys are doing way more in the pros as far as like a do-it-all type of pass catcher or player in the case of samuel uh then then they kind of sort of did it oh i'll say i guess it's not fair to say for samuel

let me bring it back to dj charke right uh charke is going since july 1st 33rd and then look at the three names ahead of him i mean mean, Devontae Smith, obviously things have changed, but Jerry, Judy, Devontae, or I'm sorry, the three names right behind him just after Chark. Jerry, Judy, Devontae Smith, Tyler Boyd. My point is I don't really get excited to draft DJ Chark.

And I'd rather be excited about someone. And I could make a much more exciting case for Judy or even still Devontae Smith or Tyler Boyd. I don't know how you guys feel. And then it's Debo Samuel and then it's LaVisca Chenault. I mean, Boyd easily should be ahead of him.

If catches count, there's no question about it. Judy should be ahead of him because he's got more upside. And I think you can make the case for Devante Smith. Just like you said, Smith was ahead of him for me at one point here, but drafting rookie receivers with sprained MCLs and quarterbacks who haven't necessarily ascended as a passer,

it's kind of making me nervous about Mr. Smith. Okay. I don't know why I said it like that. I'll blame it on feeling sick. Anything to add? Adam, you were right. All right, thank you, Heath. All right.

We can move on now. Yes. I cut that clip from a previous show. Adam, you were right. And I'm going to use it over and over again. Go to CBSSports.com

slash eBay for our charity auctions supporting St. Jude. CBSSports.com slash eBay. Very cool things to bid on there. Now it is the start of August.

It is time for fantasy football draft prep season, which actually for us, January is time for fantasy football draft prep season. But for most of you, it's August. No better source of daily information than Fantasy Football Today on CBS Sports HQ. I'm not talking about the podcast. For those of you who don't know, we have a live video show, one hour long, Monday through Friday, noon Eastern on HQ. You can go on CBSSports.com.

You can watch it on the CBS Sports mobile app. You can watch it on the CBS Sports app on your Roku, your Fire TV, Apple TV, or nearly any connected TV device. And if you miss a show, well, you can actually watch them on demand on the CBS Sports app on your connected TV. So dominate your league with fantasy football today on CBS Sports HQ. Now, Jamie is the host of that show. Jamie's actually calling me right now.

Shame on you, Jamie. You should know I'm on the air. Jamie is the host of that show, and he talks to all our CBS guys, other reporters that follow teams. He gets some great info. I'm going to try to drop some sound bites in our shows. I got one on the Jaguars running backs for today's show. All right, news and notes.

Matthew Stafford has a swollen thumb. Hit his thumb on a helmet. He'll be fine. He's going to miss a few days. Dak Prescott won't throw until next week because they don't want this to turn into something bigger. Quarterback preview coming up tomorrow. So I don't even know who's on the show,

but whoever's on the show, you can tell me how you feel about Dak Prescott, if you're concerned. Deshaun Watson was not at Houston's first padded practice on Tuesday, Heath. So what do you make of that? Deshaun Watson not at practice. I get the impression that Houston doesn't really want Deshaun Watson to be there, and Deshaun Watson doesn't really want to be there,

but he needs to go there or make himself available to be there so that he doesn't get fined. As someone once said, I'm just here so I don't get fined. Do you think that our next note is about Trey Lance? San Francisco does not have plans to give Trey Lance first team reps at this point. That was Kyle Shanahan saying that. So who should you draft first, Deshaun Watson or Trey Lance? I wouldn't draft either in the first 12 rounds, and neither one's a priority. Most drafts I go through, I don't even consider drafting either in a one-quarterback league. But if I was taking one, it would be Watson,

only because I don't think either one's very likely to play in the first month of the season. And if Watson plays, I have great confidence that he's a top-six quarterback. I don't have quite the same confidence in Lance. But when it comes to Watson, think about the number of hoops that have to be jumped through in order for him to actually get on the field. The Texans seemingly don't want him to play for their team, so they'd have to trade him.

The team that gets him would have to be comfortable putting him on the field without, you know, straight up cold, without training camp, without practices, without anything. There's also the issue about whether or not he would be suspended for any issues outstanding off the field. So it feels like there's a lot of hoops for him. Whereas Trey Lance just has to wow his coaching staff at some point before the season, or Jimmy Garoppolo gets hurt slash stinks early on in the season and the 49ers are left with with no choice but to move to Trey Lance. I would rather take Lance in round 15 than take Deshaun Watson in round 13 or 14.

We also have a tweet, which is funny, because the news did come out yesterday, and Adam, you were correct in what you read. Chris Biderman, the senior sports reporter and 49ers columnist for the Sacramento Bee, just said Trey Lance just got his first rep with the starters and team girls. Okay, there you go.

It's happening. All right. Let's talk about Jonathan Taylor now. By the way, Denver's quarterback competition is still even Steven, according to Vic Fangio. So we know Carson Wentz is out five to 12 weeks with this weird foot injury. Well, it's so it's contagious because Quinton Nelson has basically the same exact foot injury. Nelson, you could argue,

is their best offensive player. He's arguably the best guard in football. He's an all pro. He's out five to 12 weeks. So combine that with their center. Ryan Kelly is currently out and should be fine for the start of the season, but he's got an elbow injury. And then their left tackle that they're bringing in to replace Costanzo, Eric Fisher, Torres Achilles late last year, as we know that in the playoffs just before the Super Bowl. And we don't know when he's going to be ready. So now with this Nelson news, is Jonathan Taylor still a first round pick? I don't think so.

Oh, wow. That's tough for you. I mean, it's so I was totally fine with him in the first round, really before Quentin Nelson got hurt. Because I don't care who's replacing Quentin Nelson. It's a huge step down. Nelson might be the best pulling guard in football. And he's part of the reason why the Colts' run game with Taylor

at the end of last year was so good. And so now it's a depleted team. You're going to have Jacob Eason starting with a couple of starting linemen missing. Taylor's good, man. I would take him in round two, but I think he could at the very least get off to a rough start and at the very most, man, how long is he going to be playing

without Nelson, Kelly, Fisher, Wentz? start and at the very most man how long is he going to be playing without nelson kelly fisher wentz and honestly wentz is last on that list for me if that offensive line isn't good to go it's a completely different situation and i'm not feeling as good about jonathan taylor heath are you going second round saquon or or turn taylor currently I'm turn Taylor. They're both in the second round, and neither of them are in my top 15 in full PPR. I moved my top five wide receivers ahead of them. Oh. But assuming Saquon's off the pup in the next week,

it's probably going to be Saquon. All right, we're going real quick, guys. Mixon or Taylor? Mixon over both. It's Barkley, Mixon, Taylor for me. All right. We have RJ coming on shortly, so let's fly through the rest of these notes here.

Travis, ETN has been uncoverable in training camp, according to Sports Illustrated's Josh Shipley. I wanted to play what Pete Prisco had to say about that on HQ. I'll play a snippet of it. This is edited here, so you'll hear a little jump cut. Well, ETN is going to be used mostly, I think, as a third down back early in the season. I think James Robinson will be the number one running back at least for a couple of weeks. And James Robinson looks good. His body's changed. He's quicker. He

looks more explosive. But you have a guy like Etienne who can provide that big play. I think you have to get him on the field and get him on the field a lot. I think eventually that'll play out that way. Early on, it might be James Robinson and ETN in the passing game. So, yeah, there's a follow-up there. But really what you should take away from that, don't discount James Robinson, but eventually Pete thinks they're going to have to start giving ETN carries in between the tackles, but it might take a little while. I would be nervous about ETN in that role, like a heavy between the

tackles role, because the one thing that he's not is like physically dominant. He's unbelievably quick. He's got great lateral agility, but he's not, he tries to be physical, but anytime a defender got him above the waist, it was a wrap. He wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't pushing for yardage. He's also not a good pass blocker. I would imagine that the majority of this season you'll see ETN being used as an airback, like Pete said. A passing down his back. I think his floor

is what Chase Edmonds did last year, which was 850 total yards, five touchdowns, 53 catches. His ceiling could be Alvin Kamara's worst year. That's a good ceiling. Would you take ETN or Josh Jacobs? Jacobs. I have ETN and full PPR one spot ahead of Jacobs.

The Rams are going to use a running back by committee of sorts, according to Jordan Roderick of The Athletic. It's just to make sure they don't overwork Daryl Henderson. I still wonder if they add somebody. Alright, we'll see. Tyreek Hill mispracticed with knee tendinitis. Doesn't seem too serious, but Kenny Galladay left with a leg injury, and that one could

be more serious. We'll have to keep an eye on that. Remember, hamstring cost him the start of last season. Right. And Daniel Jones could have been hurt, everybody. It was a brawl at practice, and Daniel Jones was in the pile. What are you doing? I think we need a Twitter poll from you,

because we've got pretty full reporting on what happened. Somebody got hit hard. Somebody else took offense to it. Someone else pushed him. I want to know whose fault was the fight. Was it Evan Ingram's fault? Was it Joe Judge's fault? Was it Logan Ryan's fault?

Whose fault was it? It was Pat Shermer's fault. They seem to blame everything on Pat Shermer. Not Ben McAdoo? It was Ben McAdoo's fault. Jerry Reese's fault. Let's talk about value-based drafting, okay? Heath, give me what I need to know about value-based drafting.

And again, I want to give credit where credit is due. I believe it was 1996 when Joe Bryant came up with this concept. And basically what it is, is determining what the replacement cost is a good way that we talk about a lot of times at a certain position is, and how much better is a player than that replacement cost at his position, and then ranking players based on that difference. Does that make sense? Yeah. So just define replacement costs. Well, that's what you have to do.

Okay. That's right. There's several steps to this. I don't want to do anything, Heath. You've got to have projections or projections that you trust. You could use anyone's projections for this. When I go through the process, I use my own. And then the easiest way to determine it, and the way I think that Football Guys suggests, is look at the top 100, how many players at each position will be chosen in the top 100 in your league. And so they figure anyone below pick 100 is replacement cost. And so in a standard using the easiest way to figure that is just look

at adp for the type of league you're in now if it's a wild league that gets more difficult but in a you can look at cbs adp if it's a standard cbs league you can look at nfc for a half point ppr you can find ppr adp um the most recent time that i do it because about every time i do a major rankings overhaul i will re-look at what ADP suggests now. And that will change a lot in August, like the top 100 rankings. That's why you'll see some pretty major shifts sometimes. Because there can be a pretty big eight tight ends, 39 running backs, and 42 wide receivers going in the top 100,

then each running back will be compared to the number 39 running back. Each quarterback will be compared to the number 13 quarterback, and so on and so forth. Hold on, the number 13 or the number four? The guy just outside the top 100 or the last one in? No, the guy, the number of picks. The last one in the top 100? Right. Okay. Okay, the guy, the number of picks. The last one in the top 100.

Right. Okay. Okay, so that would be Mahomes versus Burrow, who is QB 13. Yep. Okay. Well, that's the thing. It's not the guy that is currently the 13th quarterback.

It would be your 13th quarterback. Okay. Because you're saying there are going to be 13 guys taken, so zero is my 13th quarterback okay because you're saying there are going to be 13 guys taken so zero is my 13th quarterback however many more points mahomes is going to score to him that is his you could call it the vbd number i believe the way football guys has described it as the x um you're trying to solve an equation um and then like i will start my top 200 by going through this and then sorting exactly by that number and then i think there should be modifications made and and they give examples of where they use modifications where i find you run into a problem is when you get

outside of the top 30 running backs or you get outside of the top 40 wide receivers and at that point your draft preference depends more on potential upside than what a player's actual projection is you know a lot of times like we talked about it maybe earlier but Giovanni Bernard projects as my best Tampa Bay running back in PPR right now I'm not drafting him first amongst Buccaneers running backs because he doesn't have near as much upside as Jones and Fournette. But if you told me Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette and Giovanni Bernard are all three going to play 17 games this season, I would guess Gio is going to score the most PPR fantasy points

because he's going to do his role and the other guys are going to split the less prosperous role. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I do adjust once you get outside a certain number within my rankings, but the concept is rock solid and it helps us determine just how valuable is Patrick Mahomes if you think he's this much better. Now, I'll go back to the very first thing. The key is having a set of projections that you trust. Right. So does it turn out though that Mahomes ends up being, you know, a first round pick basically? How does, you know, where does he come out in this?

Well, and that it, it would be different in my projections than it would be in Dave's projections than it would be in Chris's than it would be in. And projections, than it would be in Chris's, than it would be in... And that's one thing we've talked about with Mahomes specifically. Yes, by my projections, he comes out as a first-round pick. But the next thing, because it's called value-based drafting, you should, if you're in a draft, in an analyst draft, you should not take Patrick Mahomes in the first round.

You know you can get Patrick Mahomes in the the second round there's no reason to do that now if you look at cbs adp right now patrick mahomes and josh allen are both have a first round adp yeah um right he's going to be drafted first in leagues that don't involve us he's going to be drafted in the first round in the first round yes yeah someone will just take them that they it happens in all types of and standard home leagues if if my projections are close to accurate that is not a giant reach if he is three and a half points better than everyone else as he has been per game over the past three seasons he's worth it so in this scenario he would be like a 10, and Josh Allen or whoever QB2 is, Lamar Jackson would be 6.5, basically, and it's comparing them to the last quarterback in the top 100?

Right, except the difference is it's a much bigger number. Okay. Because I have Mahomes projected to outscore my number 13 quarterback by like 75. Oh, I'm sorry. I was doing it on a per game basis and it wouldn't be 10 per game, but it's total points you use. Correct. Why couldn't you use points per game?

You could. At this point, it's no different. Right. So what I was going to suggest, and this is just spitballing off the top of my head because I'm sitting here listening to it, Heath, and I understand the concept of value-based drafting, but what if you were to take the fantasy point per game number that you think the 13th quarterback, the 39th running back, what that would be? For example, the average fantasy point total in PPR of a number three running back last year based on total finish, so the running backs ranked 25th through 36th, was 8.9 PPR points per game.

What if you took that number and you compared it to Christian McCaffrey's projected PPR points per game that's got to be north of 20? That would be a difference of 11 or so PPR points per game. And as long as there wasn't anybody else that had that type of difference, you're, you're taking that player that's got the highest difference from the, the player, their position. I'm basically using points per game of,

of a certain range from last year versus the projected fantasy point, overall total of the guy you've got 39th at running back or 13th at quarterback you you could you can definitely and that's one of the things suggested um in in the original article that joe bryant wrote is you can definitely use last year's finish in a per game basis don't though use last year's production on a total points basis and the best way to explain that is like i have somebody projected as running back 20 if they play 17 games and put it the exact numbers that i have projected they'll probably finish top 12 because seven or eight guys are gonna get hurt right okay so do you have any all right so to me the biggest drawback of this would be it's not as fun.

You're just kind of following what the math says. To me, it would feel like it sort of takes some of the fun out of it a little bit. Do you find that? Well, the fun for me, honestly, the most fun time of year for me is coming up with the projections. Right. That's the fun part. The fun was in building the math in the first place. If you don't enjoy that process, especially if you're using someone else's projections, I can see I still think there's great value in this. And the value is that you now have tiers, which are more valuable than rankings. We've talked about that a lot, of what value is. You might have 16 guys when you come up to pick that are within 140 or 100 and 110

points better than replacement cost in the first round. And you know, like, those are the guys you should be choosing from. I would say if you wanted to, Heath, and tell me if I'm wrong on this, Heath, but if you wanted to do the cheap value-based drafting way, which is what I'm basically suggesting is you take what that average is for a number three running back, a number three receiver, maybe figure it's somewhere between eight or nine PPR points for those positions. And for quarterback figure, it's right around maybe 17 or 18 points in the six point for passing touchdown league. And you come up with your own per game average for the players who you like.

So McCaffrey easily over 20. Cook is going to be over 20. Kamara should be right around 20. Henry might be below 20. And you just go on and on. And then once you've got that order all set up, you go into your draft, and then you'll be able to recognize, okay, this receiver has a much bigger, say that the best receiver on the board at a certain round is Jamar Chase, and you've got him projected for 14.5. And the average receiver that you'd find at number three,

as a number three receiver would be around eight points. So that's a difference of six and a half points. There isn't a running back that's got that type of a difference left that's available. There's a tight end with that type of difference. Same thing with quarterback, you know who you're taking. And it's based on a number that you arbitrarily put out. You can even scribble it in your own magazine or print out rankings and put the number right there. And it's just, I think it would be just the easy, simpler way to do your own version of VBD. Yeah. The only thing I would say about that is if you're just like you use the word arbitrarily a couple of times, I think you should probably base it on something or I don't like your chances of having very much success.

Isn't it based on what you think or what the, the fantasy manager thinks a player's points per game average will be? What is he using to come up with whatever he wants or she, if he thinks he's coming to projections are the best in the world, then he uses, he or she uses that. Yeah, put some thought into it, right? Right, right, right.

That's what Heath is saying. But okay, so we're going to wrap up now because we have RJ coming on. This is actually very helpful. Heath, if somebody said, oh, okay, I'm interested in value-based drafting, you know, what should I do? Where should I start? What would you tell them? Unless you've already answered that.

Well, I think you should probably use my projections since I've never got a player wrong yet. No, you should, again, I think first off, I would highly suggest that you just go to Football Guys and read the original article. And so you understand the concept better than my dumb self explained it. And then find a set of projections that you believe in or trust or build your own. There's tools out there to help you do that very easily um determine find a set of adp or last year's results that reflect your league's reality because it would not be very beneficial to use non-ppr abd adp and do it in a ppr draft gotcha and then and there's also more information

depending on how many starters you need and that type of stuff too. But yeah. Cool. That's where I'd go. All right. Thank you to Heath and Dave for explaining that. Hope it was very helpful for everybody.

RJ White joins us on the other side of the break on Fantasy Football today. Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance

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Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. Welcome back, everybody. Oh, there's RJ. Yay. Yeah. What's up, RJ? Hey, guys. How you doing?

What's up, RJ? We're happy to see you. Good to see you. Quite a greeting. RJ is going to help us out with some props and odds for who's going to lead the league in receiving and passing and rushing and all those things. Where do you want to start, RJ? We can start with the passing yards leader.

I know you guys want to talk about the yardage leaders on the season. I don't think if you go for a passing yards leader, you don't have to necessarily take a winning quarterback. You know, Deshaun Watson was second in pass yards per game last year, and that team was terrible. Herbert was fourth, and Matt Ryan was fifth. So if you want to go to the well with, like, a Justin Herbert, I think he's a solid play at 12-1.

Even if you don't think the Chargers are going to win 11, 12, 13 games, he could still, you know, be up there by the time all's said and done. Mahomes is the favorite. He averaged about 15 more yards per game than Watson. So it makes sense that he's the favorite. I think he probably does have the best shot of winning, but there's no value with betting him at four to one, five to one, the type of numbers you're going to find for him. Dak is another good name. He's on that tear before the injury. We're not sure how that injury looks going into the season. I don't know if I play him. My long shot though,

in the passing yards leader is a Lawrence at 50 to one. Defense is terrible. And Lawrence is going to have to throw a ton week in and week out, racking up a lot of garbage time production. Joe Burrow averaged about 269 yards as a rookie. That ranks seventh among qualified quarterbacks. And I think Lawrence probably has an easier schedule playing in that AFC South. So I could see him in the top five of passing yards per game. And at 50-1, I mean, that's a nice little lottery ticket to have if he's in the mix

and they're just throwing, you just throwing a ton every single game. Just to hammer the point home about not necessarily being on a winning team, Jameis Winston led the NFL in passing in 2019, 5,109 yards. And the Tampa Bay was 7-9. That was his last year there. And I had him that year.

I cashed that ticket. What was it? Do you remember 12-1 you said? I think 12-1, yeah. I have three quarterbacks projected over 5,000 yards, and so I want to know what their odds are. I have Mahomes, Dak, and Tom Brady. Let's see. Mahomes is going to be plus 400. Dak is plus 600.

He's the second favorite. Josh Allen is third at plus 800, and then Brady is next at plus 1,000. So where's Matthew Stafford on this list? I think I like Brady the most. I like Brady the most, too, from that. Where's Stafford, RJ? Stafford comes in fifth at plus 1,200, tied with Matt Ryan, Justin Herbert, Aaron Rodgers.

So, by the way, I should say, RJ, where are these odds from? These odds are from Caesars Sportsbook. You go to Caesars and check out all their odds. If you're in a legal gambling state, you can do more with them besides look at them. But for those of us that live in states where gambling isn't legal yet, all we can do is look and plan our trips to Vegas and figure out what we're going to do. Or our trips to Jersey. So where's Daniel Jones, by the way?

Oh, stop. Okay, fine. Stop, stop, stop. No, I'm saying Daniel Jones to lead way you didn't oh stop okay fine stop stop stop no I'm saying Daniel Jones to lead the league in rushing in rushing RJ let's go to the rushing leaders what are some of the

ones you're looking at yeah Derrick Henry is obviously the favorite at 4-1 he averaged 15 yards a game more than the second place Dalvin Cook and he was one of only two

backs to start all 16 games so if you do that then of course you're going to lead your elite league pretty easily. Cook was firmly number two. He could be decent value at 6-1 with a similar season, but you worry about his health. I think a good value play for me is Zeke at 20-1. I'm not

buying this talk about save him for the playoffs talk because I expect him to be fighting for a playoff spot all year, so I don't necessarily think that you can save him for anything. If Jerry Jones is looking at a 3-6 team and he's like, go give the ball to Zeke, you know? So we know he can lead the league in yardage. He's had the most rush yards per game in each of his first three years. That Cowboys offensive line is going to be healthier, should give him a much better chance to shine. And if that deck injury lingers

into the regular season, then, you know, they want to lean more on the running game there. So even with Tony Pollard mixing in, I think Zeke could have a high workload in the regular season, especially if the Cowboys aren't just running away with the division, and I don't think they will be. It's funny how you think that it would help Zeke if Dak missed time to start the year, because we remember what happened when Dak missed time last year and Zeke ended up, I mean, the offensive line was terrible too, but Zeke ended up not being anywhere close to what we're used to seeing. What I was going to say was as soon as it's clear that Dak is back at practice, I would race to plug down Andrew Jackson on 20-1 on Ezekiel Elliott. I love that. I think that's fantastic. It might not even be missing time. It might be Dak playing, but not as 100%. He's just

trying to play through that injury. You've still got to respect him, considering what he did in the first five games last year. I don't think defenses are just going to load up the box if Dak is playing. And then if he's less than 100%, you know Jason Garrett's going to want to just feed the ball to Zeke in that sense. Or not Jason Garrett. They moved on from that dude.

Offense didn't look any better last year. Thank goodness they don't have Jason Garrett anymore. In case anyone's curious, Saquon Barkley is plus 1,200. look any better last year. Thank goodness I don't have Daniel Jones and I had him out of mind. In case anyone's curious, Saquon Barkley is plus 1200. Zeke plus 2000. So interesting. I got one more super sleeper there.

Go keep scrolling, keep scrolling. You're going to find Miles Gaskin at 101. That's the same odds as James Conner and Trey Sermon. The offense did nothing to replace him as a lead back

in the offseason. I know there's some sleeper appeal there. You guys talk about in the fourth, fifth round for him. Miami probably doesn't want Tua airing it out 40 times a game, so paired with Luka would be a great defense. There's at least a chance Gaskin sees a lot of value, and he's

in the mix for most of the season there. He's in that top five, six range as you get toward the stretch, and he might be able to pull it out. I kind of like Najee. I think it was plus 2,500 for Najee Harris. Let's see. Yeah, plus 25.

Yeah, I like that too. I like that. I'm surprised it's that high. I figured there'd be more sentiment for Harris. That offensive line is not going to be good. I know. I just think also, looking at my – I don't have anybody particularly close to Henry and Dalvin Cook. It seems like if Dalvin's 6-1, I might just go with him

because everybody else probably needs both Henry and Cook to miss a couple games, right? Probably, yeah. If I'm going to take one of those top two, I would take Cook as well. Just get that little bit of value and think that maybe Henry misses one or two games. Plus, that defense is better in Minnesota. They might not air it out quite as much as they did last year.

What about Chubb? Chubb plus 1,000, Heath. I mean, compared to Cook plus 600 and Henry plus 400. Yeah, my brain is having a hard time putting my projections into that type of value, but I have Cook projected for 300 more rushing yards than Nick Chubb, so that difference doesn't seem big enough to me.

Okay. All right, let's go to receivers. What about Joe Mixon? Do we know where Joe Mixon's at? I think it was 1,800. Oh, 2,000. Plus 2,000 for Mixon, same as Zeke. Yeah. I mean, I'd rather take Zeke, but I can get them both. The one I don't like is Aaron Jones at plus 1,800.

There's no indication they would give him that work that he would need. Right. All right. Let's go to receiving. Receiving totals, RJ. What's the headliner here? Yeah, so the favorites are Stefan Diggs at plus 1,000 and DeAndre Hopkins at plus 1,000.

I mean, I love taking Devontae Adams at 12-1, but beyond Bolo, those guys, slightly behind the favorites. Led the league in yards per game last year. Rodgers is going to do everything he can to pump up his stats and get them paid if they don't have an extension by the time the season rolls around. So I think he's the headliner there for me that I would go with. I also like Calvin Ridley a little at 14-1, fourth in yards per game last year. I know Julio's gone, but he had some big games at the end of last year with Julio out, and we expect Pitts to draw some defensive attention, too. So I think Ridley's going to have a ton of volume,

and they're going to be throwing a ton with that terrible defense that they have and not expected to win a ton of games. So I think those two are the key guys for me, if you're talking about the top of the odds. Love the Ridley call. Tyreek Hill figures to be a popular guy. What are his odds at? Tyreek is at 12 to one also with Mike, Michael Thomas. Of course that isn't updated yet. You know,

they'll as people bet that Thomas will drop because nobody's taking Thomas. I just bet Thomas 12 to one. Is that a mistake? We need to scroll down to find Terry McLaurin. McLaurin is 30 to one. I believe. I like that. That's juicy.

That's good. He's juicy. The one, the one I like, if you're scrolling down a little bit, it's DJ more at 50 to one. He's been close to 1200 yards in each of the last two years. Great offensive scheme,

which I were Joe Brady learning the show. Maybe it's a quarterback upgrade. I don't know. I mean, we haven't seen anything from Donald, but if he's ends up being quarterback upgrade, I mean, we haven't seen anything from Donald. But if he ends up being a quarterback upgrade, you know, Moore could be 1,400, 1,500 yards. And then you're looking at a guy that's competing for the lead there.

Yeah, now I'm looking at this list here. And, Ben, if you could scroll down a little bit. Henry Ruggs is 60-1. So he's got the same odds as Deontay Johnson, Chase Claypool. And I just want, like, does Vegas know something about Henry Ruggs? Yeah, he plays in Vegas, and there's a lot of fans in Las Vegas that can make that.

You think that's what it is? I mean, because he's in between George Kittle. He's right behind George Kittle. He's got the same odds as Deontay Johnson and Chase Claypool, and obviously Ruggs did nothing to deserve that. You know, should we be looking at that, or is it just that he plays in Vegas? I think it's just the locals want to bet him. They put a little bit on for a lottery ticket play,

and they're going to go with the guy they think is their top guy in Ruggs. So that adjusts the odds. If the Bucs get enough money on these lower guys, they're going to adjust them accordingly and move them up. If they're looking at a super sleeper, though, what about Antonio Brown at 200-1? We know Brady loves throwing to him. He showed his upside in the offense.

Week 17, he had a huge game. Full offseason, great into the offseason, into their offensive plans. So what if he passes one of those top guys and emerges as one of the top weapons of the offense? I don't think he's going to win it, but at 200-1, I mean, throw 10 bucks on that. I like it.

Then that's something fun to root for through the first half of the season, at least. Yeah. What about the fact that Ruggs is on? Where's John Brown? Who cares, right? Probably in a... So should we be drafting... Do you guys think

we should be drafting Ruggs ahead of Brown? Or is it just he's not the name recognition? I've saw Brown ahead of Rugg is it just he's got the name recognition i'm i've saw brown ahead of rugs is john brown at training camp i'm not sure i think he's in vegas betting i and i've seen multiple things the last couple days about how the the uh the first team wide receivers most days have been brian edwards henry rugs and hunter renfro and i just haven't heard anything at all about john brown most days have been Brian Edwards, Henry Ruggs, and Hunter Renfro. And I just haven't heard anything at all about John Brown.

I don't know. I'll have to go look and see. I haven't seen anything on that. I think he's there. Brown says Derek Carr reminds him of Carson Palmer. There's that. He did a media session yesterday. Boost his odds. There you go.

And there he is warming up. Oh, he says he's no match for Henry Ruggs. I don't know what context that is. I assume racing. Yeah, probably. John Brown says Henry Ruggs' route running is a lot better than it was last season. Interesting that Brown would know that

when he wasn't even on the Raiders last season. Maybe everybody watched Henry Ruggs and laughed at him running routes last year. It can't be worse. Not the Jets. Let's talk about your MVP odds here. Who do you like for MVP, RJ?

I think Josh Allen has a great shot. He played up to MVP level last year but didn't get it. If he has enough of those type of seasons and the Bills win 12 or 13 games, there's definitely going to be buzz there. Value-wise. I like Stafford. I know you guys mentioned him earlier. He's at 18 to one golf average, 263 pass yards a game last year, but the two years prior was around two 90, which would have been third among qualified quarterbacks this year.

No acres means potential for more passing touchdowns near the goal line. Stafford benefits from having one of the best outfits of minds in football calling those plays. So I think the Rams are going to be one of the best teams in the NFC, too. I think they're going to win, you know, upwards of 11, 12 games. So I think the win will be there.

I think the stats probably are going to be there. And as long as he stays healthy, I like him at 18 to one. Shorter odds, though, than Wilson and Murray. Not by much, but that's interesting to me.

You know, I mean, those guys are better, I think most people would say. Well, in fantasy, they're better. In real life. I think most people would say, well, in fantasy, they're better in real life. I think people would certainly say about Wilson, maybe not. Not Murray,

but Wilson. I, I'm, I like, man, I, I, I'm surprised there's that little separation between Lamar and Dak and those guys.

I like Dak quite a bit at 1600, just because if they, and they win the division and he sets the passing yards record, I think that gives him a decent chance. If he's healthy. I like Lamar at 16-1 too. We know what he can do. Last year was just a weird year for the Ravens in terms of COVID absences

and the offense never really got on track. And we know he's an MVP level upside. So if he has another one of those seasons, the Ravens have a chance to be the best team in the AFC if everything comes together and they stay healthy. So I think he could be in the mix too. I would put his odds a little shorter than 16-1, so I think that's a decent value also.

Who's the top non-quarterback? And I would assume it's McCaffrey, but you've got to figure you probably need to make the playoffs. There's McCaffrey. Has anyone ever made the— Henry would be probably my favorite non-quarterback. Has anyone won the MVP without making the playoffs? Anybody know that?

I wonder. I don't know it offhand. Don't mess with anything but quarterbacks. I think if you're looking for a long shot, how about Jalen Hurts at 60-1? NFC East is the most wide-open division of football. It's the only one that has no teams with a win total above nine. And the Eagles projected to finish last.

So any success they have, you know, is going to make the second year quarterback a sexy pick of, of, oh, you know, they, they won 10 games, 11 games and they weren't expected to, and they won the division. So at 60 to one, you could see that the narrative building for him late in the season, if they're doing. Cool. All right. So that's a look at MVP.

Do you have another favorite bet that you would like to share with the audience? If you're looking at player props, there's a few that stick out to me. You talk about, say, Quan Barkley. His is 1,200.5 rushing yards. If he plays 17 games, he probably gets there, but we know the injury risk with him. We know that offensive line isn't great. I think his situation is probably similar to Joe Mixon,

and his number isn't even at 1,000. So I I think there's value taking the under on Barkley there. I mentioned Lawrence as a passing yards leader, 40, 4050.5 is his passing yards over under. I think he goes over that. So that would be one on the quarterback side, Baker Mayfield under 39, 25 and a half passing yards. 17 game pace last year was 37 85 and they've made defensive improvements that shouldn't mean he's pressed to pass more so i don't know that they're going to open up the offense anymore this year so those are kind of the player props that stick out to me from those guys maybe some under on adam thielen if he's getting a little old and i think if he gets phased out of the offense a little he might not hit his uh his over there um and then

if you want to correlate something with the Stafford positive plays, Robert Woods going over 1025.5 would be a good one. Do you know what Mike Evans' yardage prop is? Does anybody know that off the top of their head? I can do a search for it. Looks like it is 1025.5. Okay, so it's right there with Robert Woods. I was hoping it would be a little bit higher because I'm going to take the

under on it. I'm going to 1,000 yards every year of his career. I know, but this is going to be the first year or at least when the season starts where he's going to be out there with Godwin and Brown and Gronk and OJ Howard. And there's just, there are a lot of mouths to feed his fantasy total.

Nearly a third of his PPR points last season came from touchdowns. That's it. And I still think he'll catch a decent amount of touchdowns. But I wonder if the injuries are going to start to pile up for him like they did last year. Maybe it costs him some games. He's one that I'm worried about keeping that 1,000-yard streak alive. It's an incredible streak.

He's flirted with that streak. And he had 1,001 yards in 2017. He had 1,006 last year. But, of course, 17 games this year will help if he, of course, can play 17 games. Cool. All right, RJ. Anything else? You're free to go. We can hang around.

Yeah, we want to talk win totals a little bit. We can talk win totals. I mean, hammer the Titans overs now with all these Colts injuries. The win of the division, it was minus 115. Now it's up to minus 150. I mean, it's going to

just keep going up. So if you want to get it on that, get it now. Win the Super Bowl, they're 30 to 1. If they're running away with that division, they could have a high seed.

And, you know, they've had success in the playoffs before. So kind of like Titans over 9.5 for sure. But win the division seems like a good value too. I like going under on the Broncos at eight and a half wins that,

that got adjusted in the, in the off season when it looked like Aaron Ross could go there and it hasn't come down yet. So it's at eight and a half. I don't know that they're a better than 500 team, the way they're constructed with those quarterbacks. So I like going under on them. If you want to another positive play Washington to win the division at plus two 60, I think they're, they're a lot closer to Dallas than those odds

imply, you know, that are plus one. Oh, absolutely. Um, so I would take Washington there, maybe even a little bit to win the NFC, maybe, uh, Ryan Fitzpatrick goes crazy and, and, and, uh, Ron Rivera, you know, with his coaching background can put them together. And that's a nice little flyer to have. I'm going to tell you guys, who's going to win the NF the nfc is just so you know it's gonna be either the giants or the eagles that's where you should put your money that'll be washington cowboys in washington it's gonna be one of those two a lot i just want to remind everyone that rj is the expert here and so you should not be putting real money on those things what's the Giants over under for wins? I believe that right now is seven with a little juice

on the over. Yeah. I like them, actually. I think they're going to be good. Well, we'll see what happens. No, I'm not like that usually, but I actually believe in them. If Gallaudet is not seriously hurt. Seven's pretty low. Yeah. Adam, you were right.

Thank you, Heath. If you're looking at a positive bet to make on those guys, you go to the Coach of the Year Awards because if they unexpectedly win the division, then there's going to be talk about Coach of the Year for Judge or Sirianni. Judge is 25-1. Sirianni is, I think, a little bit longer, or maybe he's around the same place.

Look, if you're interested in Jalen Hurts' MVP odds, then you should probably be a little bit interested in Sirianni coach of the year, Eagles winning the division. Because the NFC is just very unpredictable year after year. And the Eagles were so depleted last year. How many games did they miss the playoffs by? Like one, two?

It's not like they were... I mean, technically, everybody in that division missed a game by one or two. They were all bunched together. So I know we're depending on Dak coming back, but they shouldn't be the mean technically everybody in that division missed the game by one or two they were all bunched together that you know so i know we're depending on that coming back but they shouldn't be the runaway favorites in the division sure but if you're going to win the division with nine or ten wins this year then it i don't think you've got an mvp candidate on your team i mean yes that's true or coach 61 though 61 right right 60 to 1 you're just playing the value i don't think they get to 11 or 12 though like you know 10 is 10 the ceiling for them if he's good like we're talking about like these uh obviously assuming he's good but they had a good core besides that

you know they had great offensive line that just was decimated last year defensive line should be healthier um defense i think is going to be better so i, I mean, if they're at 11 or 12 wins instead of 9 or 10, then maybe you're talking about it. Yeah, there you go. Adam, you were right. Who's the Super Bowl favorite? The Bucs or the Chiefs? I think it depends on where you look.

The Chiefs are slight favorites over the Bucs, but I've seen places where the Bucs are the favorites too. I'm kind of into a rematch. I'd like to see a rematch. Better showing. Well, the first game was so good. They got revenge on their minds. It'll be a better game.

RJ, thanks for swinging by. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. That is RJ White at RJWhite1 one on twitter at rj white one uh we've got some emails to finish the show gonna go he's gonna go exploring the inbox again well first scott wants to know why talking about jonathan taylor why a carson wentz injury would really matter for him when we weren't super high on

Carson Wentz to begin with. You want to address that? Jacob Eason projects as the worst starting quarterback in the NFL. And like, honestly, he's probably, but, and this doesn't mean anything because we haven't seen him play in the NFL,

but I would guess if you did a poll of the league, he would be amongst the worst second string quarterbacks in the NFL. The offense could just be disastrously bad. Yeah, right. Exactly. You got to consider that. Okay, Ryan says

Ryan says we're too low on or the industry is too low on Julio Jones. Why do you assume that A.J aj brown is going to be better than julio jones well we've already seen aj brown put up huge numbers on a highly efficient basis without necessarily getting a huge target share we've seen julio jones put up huge numbers but we've seen him do that on a very high volume and i'm i'm of the belief that the titans will throw more than they have in the

past, but it's not going to be like what the Falcons have done. And so Julio won't Julio's offense won't throw nearly as much as it has in the past. And Julio himself has to share targets with this other excellent receiver. And I think it kind of, it pushes Julio into the number two receiver world. And I think it's almost generous if you've got him ranked as a top 15 receiver

given his track record for injuries. He must practice today. I think it's because A.J. Brown is entering his prime and Julio is exiting his. That's a triple way to say it too. This is from Bila. I don't know what his real name is. He says,

I'm struggling with this one. I listened to nearly all of your episodes, but I still stink. I've missed the playoffs for the last five years, and I'm looking to mix it up this year. So he's in a PPR super flex league, 12 teams. He's got the third pick. He would give up the third overall pick

and a 12th rounder and get a second and third round pick from the guy who's picking fourth. So he would give up his first rounder and his 12th and he would then have two seconds and two thirds. No thanks. You know what? I don't like that either.

Now, if that second round pick was like 13th overall, then I'd be interested. Now, that was my thought, though. I was like, no. But when you factor in that it's super flex, if you're willing to be a little bit weaker at quarterback, those picks in the set, those four picks

kind of late round two and kind of early round three, I'm going to look at a super flex draft that we have because I think they'd be a really great way to start. No, he's a good pick. He's getting Patrick Mahomes, Christian McCaffrey, or Delvin Cook. If you could tell me he was getting McCaffrey think they'd be a really great way to start. No, he's a good point. So he's getting Patrick Mahomes, Christian McCaffrey, or Delvin Cook.

Well, if you could tell me he was getting McCaffrey, that'd be one thing, but, you know, okay, hold on. The odds are he won't get McCaffrey or Mahomes.

Here's our June. He might get Cook, or if he wanted to, Josh Allen, or, you know, name your favorite second quarterback. But it's possible it goes,

it goes Mahomes, Allen, or Mahomesomes Lamar. That wouldn't be that weird in a Superflex league. I'm looking at our preseason draft from June. Superflex. I don't know about Superflex. It went McCaffrey, Cook, Mahomes.

So here's what he would have. He would have Eckler, Cam Akers. That's awesome. Alright, let's say that's Mixon. Eckler and Mixon. And then Waller and Kittle went with the next picks. But that could be Waller and Rogers, maybe, or Waller and Burrow.

So you could have two top 12 running backs. You could have also Devante Adams, but that was because we didn't know about Roger. You could have DeAndre Hopkins, Stefan Diggs. You could have a top five wide receiver, two top 12 running backs, and a top 12 quarterback, kind of like a Brady-Rogers-Burrow range at quarterback.

Sure, but you can still have half of those players that you just named, plus one of the top three players in fantasy. So the difference is, do you take whoever that third player is or the other two players that are going to be there you know say it's eckler and rogers so you're not taking this guys you're going to keep the third pick yeah but i'd really like to find a way that we can help this guy not

be so bad at fantasy football well i've been trying for five years it hasn't worked so we gotta i know we're to try something new. Well, bid on something in St. Jude. We can help you out. Go to, what is it, Ben? What's the URL? St. Jude on eBay? eBay.com slash CBS?

Something like that? Hold on. CBSsports.com slash eBay. There you go. And we can help you out. CBSsports.com slash eBay. That is going to do it for our show today. For Heath, for Ben, for RJ, I'm Adam.

We'll talk to you tomorrow with the quarterback preview on Fantasy Football Today.