Fantasy Football Today - Jonnu Smith TRADED to Steelers! What It Means for Tyreek Hill, De'Von Achane, Tua Tagovailoa, and 2025 Tight Ends, & More! (06/30 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 We interrupt this regularly scheduled programming and my lunch to talk about John U. Smith going to the Steelers. Heath, this better be good because this chicken parm that I left behind was really good and kind of missing it right now. Well I appreciate your real commitment to John U. Smith and Steelers and the Dolphins and fantasy football in general. So John U Smith was a top five tight end last year. He was fourth per game in full PPR. And he's going to the Steelers where he will now be

Starting point is 00:00:36 in two tight end sets and probably a team that's going to run the ball more than the Dolphins will. And the Dolphins meanwhile, maybe more targets for Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle, maybe more targets for H.Han, although that would be tough. But what changed in your projections? What was the biggest change in your projections? The biggest change is John-Ou.

Starting point is 00:00:54 Well, no, the biggest change is Pat Fryermuth. He goes from maybe relevant to not relevant in my projections. John-Ou was the second biggest change. I did have nine tight ends projected to score more than 10 PPR fantasy points per game this year. Now I have eight. He fell to tight end 13 in my projections, right? In the Jake Ferguson, Dallas Goddard, Brenton strange range of the projections. Still think there's a chance for John Smith to matter. He did not impact my Steelers projections, but certainly a, a potentially

Starting point is 00:01:29 big impact on the dolphins. So nothing on DK Metcalf. No. Okay. Oh baby. Tyreek Hill. I'm almost disappointed because I wanted to draft a lot of Tyreek Hill and now I think he'll be a second round pick.

Starting point is 00:01:44 Uh, and he's always a third round pick. Actually, let me check ADP to see where Tyree kill is going at the moment on fantasy pros PPR Tyree kill is the 29th pick. He's wide receiver 17. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I'm not going to get in your way of drafting Tyree kill still. Um, he was around four pick for me.

Starting point is 00:02:06 He is a round three pick for me. Jalen Waddle I had in round eight, I now have in round seven. H&N got a little boost to the projections, but I can't rank them any higher. But what I think the real mystery box of this situation is that almost immediately we hear from Tom Palacero that the Dolphins are now in the tight end trade market. And there's a surprising number of tight ends who could be available and interesting in this role who might fill most of what John who Smith did.

Starting point is 00:02:39 Cole commit could certainly be available. Noah Fant, I think has been on the trade block. And I know you look at what John who did last year and you think, well, okay, Cole commit, Noah Fant aren't doing what John who did last year, but look who John who Smith was before last year. Yeah. I think Michael Mayer could be available in Las Vegas.

Starting point is 00:02:59 That's a guy we were excited about before Brock Bowers got there. So I have made a partial adjustment to the projections. Tyreke's now my wide receiver 13. I could make a bigger adjustment in the future. Yeah, for me, it would come into question, I think, at wide receiver 10 or 11. Because let's see, AJ Brown nine for in our consensus. Yeah, he's higher for me. But I think what you're talking about is the T Higgins, Drake London,

Starting point is 00:03:30 Lad McConkey trio. Exactly. That's those are the three guys that I would still prefer to take over Tyreek Hill. I'd be, I think Lad is the only one that Tyreek might pass if the dolphins don't make a significant addition at tight end. So you, okay. If they don't make a significant addition to tight end, do you still think Tyreek Hill

Starting point is 00:03:52 has wide receiver one upside, which he obviously had in both 2022 and 23 with the Dolphins? I think my question is Mike McDaniel's earlier statements about getting the ball out of Tua's hands even faster. Was that dependent on having a tight end in that John O. Smith role to dump the ball off to? I think there's a real possibility. I mean, if you look at last year's Dolphins targets, the real loser was Jalen Waddle. Yes. And we've seen a season where Jalen Waddle played that lower A-dot role and saw 140 targets. Well, last year Tyreek had 123, John who had 111, A-chan had 87 and Waddle had 83 in 15 games.

Starting point is 00:04:41 So I think there's a lot more room for increasing Waddle's projection even more. And I think there's a decent chance that HN sees a hundred targets this year. Well, the Dolphins had 11 games with Tua, weeks one, two, and eight through 16. The 17 game paces for the wide receivers in those 11 games was 130. Not just the wide receivers, everyone. 134 targets for Hill, 117 for John who 113 for a Chan and 96 for wattle. And he did miss one game and left another early. I think he missed two games and left one early. He missed week 16 and 17 and left week 15 early.

Starting point is 00:05:28 But Tua did not play week 17. So, Oh, okay. Um, so yeah, he left one game early, had only two targets and he missed one game. The missed game doesn't really factor into the 17 game pace. The one he left early did, but yeah, I mean, still you had Tyree kill leading the way with 134 target pace there, which is a far cry from the 170-ish target pace he was at the previous two years. But also, I bring this up a lot,

Starting point is 00:05:50 Tua, I believe three years in a row has been top three in fastest release. That's not necessarily anything new for the Dolphins. They just have to be willing to have a offense that gets rid of the ball quickly, but also at the appropriate times takes deep shots because that was really missing. They just didn't throw the ball downfield enough last year. All right. So HN, you already are super high on not going to change much. It's Hill and Waddle are the

Starting point is 00:06:19 big ones here. What about Tua? Is he in this discussion? Yeah, I've not adjusted to it yet. Again, I think there's an opportunity for the dolphins to acquire somebody at a pretty low cost and not lose much for in regards to Tua. And it might be better for Tua if he was throwing the ball to Hill and Waddlemore and Smithless. Right. That's I think that's right. You could make this case, right? In 2022 and 2023, we've seen the Dolphins offense

Starting point is 00:06:49 with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle and nothing from the tight ends. It was a pretty damn good offense. You know, Tua was on pace for 4,871 yards, 35 touchdowns in 2022, 4,624 yards and 29 touchdowns in 2023. And then believe it or not, actually better than that in 2022, 4,624 yards and 29 touchdowns in 2023. And then believe it or not actually better than that in 2024, 4006, 27 and 31 touchdowns, a little bit better than 2023, but

Starting point is 00:07:14 not even close to 2022. When to ahead his best season. I mean, the obvious real question in connection with that is Tyree kill the same guy at 31 years old that he was at 28 and 29. Uh, yeah, I just, it's a great question. It's one question that we cannot answer. We will not know until the season unfolds. Uh, but all right. That's where we're at on all these guys. I think that's it. Nothing for Aaron Rogers or anything. I'll just go ahead and say it like in the projections. I'm not ranking it this way yet, but I might gain the courage at some point. HN is my highest projected running back right now. I just, how many targets did he have last year? Well 83 or 87. He was, what did I say? He was

Starting point is 00:08:03 on pace for more than a hundred with Tua. He was on pace for more than 100 with Tua. He was on pace for 113 targets with Tua and he averaged almost 23 fantasy points per game with Tua. Right. I don't really know what the explanation was for that. That difference in target share, target per outrun and all that. It felt like that was going to come down regardless. I think, well, I think the explanation for it is the fact that they're not throwing the ball on the field. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd rather, as much as Tyree Kill has been an incredible player at this stage in their careers, if I'm going to give the ball to somebody within five yards of the line of scrimmage, I would rather it be A-chan than Tyree Kill. And I think Mike McDaniel would too.

Starting point is 00:08:42 All right. Well, I'd like to give Tyree. I'd like to give Tyree kill the ball 20 yards past the line of scrimmage. Let's get that going here. Um, all right. That's it. I think for this show, except one, one last aspect that this obviously weakens the tight end group. So does this make Bowers, McBride and Kittle even more valuable. I am not going to bump them up because it doesn't really change replacement costs that much at the position. I still think John O. Smith's going to get drafted. He's just going to get drafted later.

Starting point is 00:09:15 It probably makes the great Jamie Eisenberg strategy of great or late at tight end a little bit more appealing because there's one less guy. I mean, you get past those first three or four tight ends and now you got to decide when do you want to take David Najoku? When do you want to take Travis Kelsey? When do you want to take TJ Hawkinson? And then you're done.

Starting point is 00:09:37 It's slate. Yeah. You know, you made a comment on the show we did earlier today on Monday morning you made a joke about Dave's only fans drafts and then you said fans only and Someone in the in the comments that already laughed about it like oh he's hilarious little only fans joke And I've been making that joke since last year so you stole greater late for me, and you gave it to Jamie If you if you start getting credit for only fans, it's gonna we're gonna have a problem here I think you might it to Jamie. If you start getting credit for OnlyFans, we're going to have a problem here.

Starting point is 00:10:06 I think you might want to work on your delivery. I don't think so. I think the delivery's been really good. I'm very happy with the delivery. All right. Well, thank you very much, Heath, and we'll talk to everybody tomorrow on Fantasy Football Today. Paramount Podcast.

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Fantasy Football Today - Jonnu Smith TRADED to Steelers! What It Means for Tyreek Hill, De'Von Achane, Tua Tagovailoa, and 2025 Tight Ends, & More! (06/30 Fantasy Football Podcast)

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