Fantasy Football Today - 🚨Michael Thomas Injury Reaction (07/23 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Nominate us on PodcastAwards.com! https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup We react to the latest news on Michael Thomas who could miss more than a month after June ankle surgery. Is he still the first Saints WR we're drafting? How interested are we in Tre'Quan Smith? Does Alvin Kamara move ahead of Derrick Henry in all formats, and does Adam Trautman have a case to be TE7 in drafts? We also discuss the QB situation and the offense in general.  '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

We'll be right back. Kings. We're expecting an extended absence as of right now, as of Friday, July 23rd. Jamie, is Michael Thomas still the first Saints wide receiver you are drafting? It's a great question. Yes, he still will be the first Saints wide receiver I'm drafting. First off, when you tweet out the link for this, don't sound excited because you got some flack for sounding too happy, apparently, about Cam Akers being injured, which was totally crap. I think, look, it sucks, obviously. It sucks that it sounds like he's going to be out. So the surgery was in June,

and there's a four-month timetable according to the NFL Network. So if you look at it, their bye is week six. They play the Seahawks in week seven, and then they have two game turnaround against the Bucks and the Falcons in weeks eight and nine. So two huge divisional games. So that seems to be the window where he's probably going to return, which puts us near the end of October, beginning of November. If we don't have, you know, any definitive answers until then, you know, this is a guy

that you're going to have to draft with significant risk because we have the quarterback situation and the concerns there, not knowing exactly how we'll do a full season without Drew Brees. We clearly have some small sample sizes, 2019 with Teddy Bridgewater, 2020 with Taysom Hill, but there's obviously risk involved now. Now you have the potential of what if there's a re-injury? What if there's a setback in his recovery and he's out until the end of November and you're not getting a player that you have to carry on your roster

until the end of the season? So you have to sort of take this with, okay, am I getting a player that's going to be a difference maker or am I getting a player that's going to be an albatross on my fantasy team? Is this a matter of, I think, how you sort of have your roster built

and what your bench spaces are and how long you can carry somebody? Certainly if you have an IR spot, he's worth picking up. Yes, I think, how you sort of have your roster built and what your bench spaces are and how long you can carry somebody? Certainly, if you have an IR spot, he's worth picking up. Yes, I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, last year, I think a lot of teams added IR spots, and sometimes they just used them

for players who went on the COVID IR list. But I had never played with IR spots before, and, you know, in some of our leagues, I was allowed to put just injured players, players who were on IR, not players who were, you know, in some of our leagues, I was allowed to put just injured players, players who were on IR, not players who were, you know, short term IR in my IR spot. And I thought it was great. I really liked it. So I recommend it. And if you have an IR spot, then you could put Michael Thomas on it. Then then I think, you know, he goes up a few rounds, probably, possibly,

depending on how many bench spots you have. But where are you going to end up with Michael Thomas in your rankings? And by the way, we're going to talk about the rest of the Saints and how it's going to impact them. Alvin Kamara played eight games without Michael Thomas last year, and he averaged seven catches per game. He was on pace for 112 catches. Now, it was broken down a little bit differently. It was

the first six games that Thomas missed early in the season. He had eight or more catches in five of those six games. Then he played two more games, weeks 15 and 16 without Michael Thomas. Kamara had only three catches in two of those games, in both of those games, but one of those games was the six touchdown rushing game.

So he didn't need to catch the ball in that game. Right, exactly. But on the huge part of the passing game, all of those games were with Drew Brees at quarterback, I believe. So you can't just say the numbers are going to translate, but it was a huge, huge boost in the passing game for Alvin Kamara. Let's start with Thomas. Where are you ranking him? You know, I haven't done it yet.

So I apologize for anybody that's listening to this because we have to react to the news and our various platforms. So, um, I'm thinking somewhere in the Odell Beckham range, you know, which is late thirties, you know,

because it kind of feels something similar, you know, with a player that you, you know, if you get the right performance out of him, it could be significant. It'd probably be a couple of spots lower than that, to be honest with you.

But, um, you know, I, I think you just have to understand that, you know, he's in the range now of guys that are iffy and that's what sucks. You know, so if he if he's able to, you know, we get closer to the season, you know, we get through training camp and Sean Payton's going to talk and, you know, you get some updates.

And hopefully, you know, here he's trending in the right direction. And they were just being cautious with the four month timetable that maybe he's back by the bye week. Then then you're a little bit more comfortable with it. But it's just the uncertainty right now that you have to sort of bake into it and realize that if he's out till the end of November, maybe into December, especially if their team is playing well and they want to be cautious with him to have him back for the playoffs, then that's where it's going to become frustrating. So I think somewhere late 30s, early 40s, you know,

so round seven, round eight is where I think you'll start to consider him. Like you said, if there's a, you know, IR spot and you want to take a gamble on him ahead of some other younger receivers that you may want to take some flyers on, you can certainly go that route. Jerry Judy or Michael Thomas. I'd rather have Judy. Marquise Brown.

That's the spot, you know, so I'd probably take a chance on Michael Thomas over Marquise Brown. Okay. Uh, let's talk about the rest of the saints here. So there were two games that, well, there were a bunch of games that Trey Kwan Smith played without Michael

Thomas, but really it was Emmanuel Sanders who was pretty good. In fact, if he were still on the saints, I'd be pretty interested in drafting him, but he's not. So there were two games that Trey Kwan Smith played without both Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, and he was fine.

He was around 50 yards, didn't score in either game, got like seven-ish targets in both games. I'm just looking at Drew Brees' numbers in those games. He was good, not great. He threw for 287-2 and 280-2 in those games. And Traquan Smith, I don't know. He's a lot of hype, or has been, not a ton of production.

So it was 11 targets in the two games, four and one and seven in the other. Anyway, um, is he your highest, is he your next Saints wide receivers? He the one you're looking at? And when would you draft Trey Kwan Smith? He's the one I'm looking at. He's going to go after Thomas. He's still a late round pick. Uh, because again, we just don't know when Thomas is going to return and, um, they're going to bring somebody else in. This isn't like the ram saying that they're not going to bring a running back yet you know you've already seen reports that the saints are going to start to you know look at wide receivers um kenny stills who played with the saints played for sean payton is out there uh golden tate you know somebody they can look at these are obviously not names that are

difference makers but they're guys that could command targets alshon jeffrey if he's right you know i've seen some people suggesting that uh dd westbrook is is a guy who's out there who obviously has played some in the league there's going to be guys who are going to get cut you know or potential trade targets you know that you're going to hear some names that are out there you know could be um you know like a sterling shepherd for example the giants want to open up a spot for cadareous tony you know if he's if he's a hundred hundred percent you know i'm just you know again spitballing some names out there um so there'll be some guys that that'll come in uh and and that they'll look at and consider so you have to sort of wait to see what happens there the guy that i'm still the most excited about would be adam trotman because you know

his targets his route should still be the same um you know you don't you don't know what the saints are going to do are they going to force a guy like trae kwan smith to play michael thomas's role it's going to be marcus calloway Callaway who steps into doing those type of things? Do they put Kamara in some more wide receiver spots to get him out and maybe put Latavius Murray in some situations? I still take a late-run flyer on Traquan Smith. He's obviously going to be bumped up a few spots, but I wouldn't be overly excited to draft him ahead of Thomas, for example,

as your question was earlier, you know, who's the first Saints wide receiver that'll come off the board. So how about say like Elijah Moore or Rondale Moore, you know, these, these rookies that were taking a shot on late, would you take Trey Kwan Smith ahead of them? I was already doing that to begin with. So yes. So, uh, Trey Kwan for me is, you know, in the, uh, like I would take him over Corey Davis, for example, you know, so they were close to begin with, um, you know, just a veteran guy who is, you know, I'm not excited about, I still take Mike Williams over Trey Kwan Smith, you know, if we're talking about some guys that have some more upside.

Marvin Jones. I take Marvin Jones out of him, you know, just cause Jones could potentially be the number one receiver for the Jaguars just based on his history with Darrell Bevel. Okay. And any like 16 team or 14 team deep wide receivers for the Saints? Callaway would be the one. You know, I think he's going to be the second receiver. I think he was going to have an opportunity to be the third receiver there.

But again, they're going to bring somebody in. You know, they may have a reunion with Des Bryant too. You know, so Sean Payton is not afraid to go get a veteran guy. And look, uh, we, we thought, you know, I'll go back to Ben Gretsch last year and this is no fault of Ben's, but if you recall, when Michael Thomas was healthy going into the season, these conversations last year, we're talking about bus. Remember Ben said you shouldn't draft Emmanuel Sanders. And I wasn't necessarily co-signing that, but I agreed with him to a certain extent because what did you expect from Emmanuel Sanders? Everybody was healthy. And then we saw Michael Thomas goomas go down and sanders played a

significant role so uh sean will will get creative with somebody sean payne will get creative with somebody whoever he brings in and we'll see who that receiver is which could impact you know have a trickle-down effect because again thomas is not out for the season as of now right so if they bring in somebody else to sort of you know put a bandaid on this, that receiver could still have a role. So again, I don't think you want to go overly, uh, get over excited or get, you know, uh, too crazy with Drake, Juan Smith and your drafts. He definitely gets a boost, but to what extent we'll have to find out when Thomas is out. Yeah. And as far as Thomas goes, you also have to ask, is he going to be just back to being Michael Thomas when he comes back? We don't know the answer. Maybe it takes a week or two to shake some rust off.

All right, so let's talk about Adam Troutman then. And will he, actually, I don't know where you have him ranked. Is he going to crack your top 12 if he's not there already? I'm sure he's not too far. He's been a top 12 tight end for me for a long time. Very excited about him. Stepping into Jared Cook's role, he fits the pedigree of a guy that you look at with a good college career,

second-year breakout type of guy because there's an opportunity. The Saints tight ends over the last two seasons, 21 touchdowns. Obviously, the most of that has come from Drew Brees. And if it's Jameis Winston as the starter, that's a benefit because as we've talked about a lot on this podcast, Jameis Winston's history with his tight ends going back to Florida State, you can certainly see what he's capable of doing. But Troutman, I think, is locked into his role. Targets should certainly be a boost for him now.

Middle of the field is going to be something I think that's going to be important for him and the routes that he runs and the quarterback and whoever that's going to be leaning on him. So Troutman is still a very good late-round flyer. If we're going great or late, he's one of the guys you should put at the top of the late category. Certainly, if we get past the Ursmus and the Noah Fance, for me, he's in that next group and leading that next group. Okay, right. So you say great or late.

Is he still going to be a late round picker? Can I make a case for him right after Dallas Goddard, who's the tight end seven or eight for everybody on this list, for everybody if you're looking at the rankings on our website? You know, obviously Troutman's not going to go ahead of Kelsey Waller, Kittle, Hawkinson, Andrews, and Pitts. No chance. Goddard, I doubt it.

But then after that, it's Fant, it's Irv Smith, it's Tanyan, it's Higby, it's Logan Thomas. Can I make a case? I can make a case for Troutman ahead of Smith, ahead of all these guys, because he could have the, gosh, he could have the most targets on the team. I see a path to it. I don't think it'll will happen but at least for the first however long thomas is out yeah i mean

i guess as we're talking about this i i could see myself ranking him ahead of those guys it's just you know you always get a little concerned when you haven't seen a guy do anything yet and i know that's hard to say when we're talking about pits as well but um you know trotman's got quarterback concerns still he's got you know still another pretty significant player on the field to share the ball with in Kamara. But like you said, the path to targets are there. If Thomas misses significant time, then he may be their best pass catcher. He could be the same type of player that we're talking about with TJ Hawkinson.

I don't know if Goddard's the right person to compare him to because we might be dropping Goddard if Hurts stays on the roster, as reports have sort of indicated recently. So if Hurts is still on the Eagles, I don't think you could say Dallas Goddard's locked into the seventh spot. Once you get past the top six guys with Pitts and Hawkinson being the tail end of that group, then I think you could make a case for Troutman to be that next guy off the board. I think most people would still take Noah Fant, but Troutman's going to definitely be in that conversation for sure. Hearing the way we're talking about this, if you're doing a draft anytime soon and you can get

Troutman four rounds later, or even two or three rounds later than Irv Smith or Dallas Scott or Noah Fant, that group, maybe it makes sense. Maybe you just take the round value here because we're going to have to see what the reports are. Oh, Adam Troutman's looking great.

That's going to boost him up if you get one of those. Adam Troutman could lead the team in targets. Some weird fantasy guy might say something like that. That could boost his value. All right, so then let's talk about Kamara real quick. Is this a boost for him? And what about Latavius Murray? Do they just need to be more run-heavy now?

And maybe Murray is more valuable. Maybe they changed their offense a little bit. They do not have a good passing game. I can't see them having a good passing game without Michael Thomas and Drew Brees. So this is probably a two-part question because based on what you said, which I agree with, if I'm the Saints, I'm probably starting Taysom Hill. I know Jameis is going to come in and try and win the job. And if he looks great, it's hard to say don't start him. But you got to sort of be unorthodox, right? Because you're down Michael Thomas and Taysom Hill was successful last year. You know, he gives them a different

element to the run game overall. And so if you don't have to necessarily say we have to make the passing game the priority of our offense, which sounds weird to say in 2021 for any NFL team, but you know, you could sort of take a Ravens approach. You could take a Titans approach. You know, you could say the run game is going to be what carries us until Michael Thomas is back on the field. And so maybe Taysom is the better quarterback to sort of, you know, lead this team. So it'll be interesting to see how that impacts that decision. But yeah, I think, you know, you heard the reports this off season after Drew Brees retired that they were going to become a little bit more run heavy. And so Alvin Kamara is the number three running back in PPR for sure. You can still make a case that he's number four in non PPR because of

Derek Henry. And we're talking about Christian McCaffrey and Dalvin cook being the top two guys. I think I'm going to put Kamara three in both formats, just because I think he's going to be this offense. He's going to be their best player. You know, he may have already been their best player to begin with,

but you know, I don't want to slight Michael Thomas. So I think Kamara is, is locked in and yes, Latavious Murray does get a boost because I think he'll get more carries, get more opportunities, get more opportunities to pass the game as well

because they can't just put everything on Kamara's plate. So Murray gets bumped up a few spots. Kamara's locked into the top three or top four. And I will see who is the starting quarterback for New Orleans now. So just real quick, would you take Latavius Murray or Zach Moss? That's a great question because I'm a Zach Moss guy.

I think I'd probably still take Zach Moss because I think there's a clearer path to him being the guy as opposed to Murray needing an injury. But Murray now is probably the head of the number two running backs not named Kareem Hunt. So a head of Jamal Williams, Williams ahead of Devin Singletary you know ahead of Tony Pollard you know ahead of those guys that you were drafting as as potential lottery tickets like I know I had a tough call just in the in the Scott Fishbowl which ended up hurting me for example because I took Cam Akers I had a choice of Daryl Henderson Jamal Williams Latavius Murray those are three guys I was debating and I was like okay if I get a chance to get one of those guys in their respective backfields or who has the best chance to be a contributor

in their backfields? I took Jamal Williams just because it's a half PPR league, and I thought he was going to have a bigger role in the passing game than those other two guys, so I failed in that regard. But Murray is now somebody that I think you should consider ahead of that group for sure, and somebody with a mid-round pick.

I guess we can talk about this on another show, but let's talk about it now. All right, just real, real quick. Whoever's drafted, whoever's named the starting quarterback, are you still interested in them? I think, you know... That was a Heath Love slide.

I think... I'll go back to what I've said from the beginning. If it's Jameis, they're both playing. If it's Taysom, how long is he going to be the starter so you know i i had originally tasem ranked in the top 15 when i first did my rankings for 2021 i since went to jamis uh the reports last week about tasem being you know the

potential front runner i just dropped both guys outside of the top 24 you know so i still have jamis ranked the highest at 25 uh he's definitely somebody you want to consider into quarterback and super flex leagues, but I don't really want to trust either one in a one court. Like I'd rather take a chance on Roethlisberger. I'd rather take a chance on Fitzpatrick. I'd rather go with Kirk Cousins, who I know at least I'm going to know what I'm getting. And at this point, I'd rather take flyers on Trey Lance and Justin Fields. It just feels messy all the way around, especially if Thomas is going to miss half the season. So it's probably hands off across the board for the Saints quarterback. We got a

question. Kamara, Zeke, or Henry? And Jamie just said he's going to put Kamara third, at least certainly in PPR. He's already there. Yeah, yeah. And in non-PPR, he might do it too. So that means in half PPR, you would take Kamara over Henry. Yes. Any PPR format, I would take

Kamara over Henry. And, you know, format, I would take Kamara over Henry. And, you know, that's one I'll debate is Henry versus Kamara in non-PPR. Yeah, I just wonder if Kamara's hurt by being in what's probably, what's certainly going to be the worst offense he's ever been in. You know, that's another, like he might benefit in the game

and have more catches because they need him to. He might have more carries because they need him to have more carries. But this is going to be a potentially bad offense or maybe average, but it will be worse than what he's used to. Right. And look, let's be fair.

If Jameis is the starter physically, from a physical standpoint, forget about the mental aspect of it. He's going to be a physically better quarterback than Drew Brees was last year. Drew Brees was obviously very accurate. He knows the game better than Jameis probably will ever will. And he knows how to get guys open, you know, with anticipation and those things and using his accuracy in his mind. But Jameis is going to be a different quarterback. And so if he's not making

mistakes, maybe this offense, and I'm talking about the offense that they saw last year without Michael Thomas, maybe the offense could be better, you know, in terms of what they have. Now they don't have Emmanuel Sanders, but I know where you're going, but you know, just from a standpoint of if Jameis is making different throws or Taysom is doing different things, maybe the offense could still be better. Personnel wise, it's obviously worse. And again, I'm just talking about the Michael Thomas less games that Camara played in last year where he was the focal point of the offense.

Right. All right. So a lot to unpack here here luckily we don't have most people are in drafting now we have plenty of time to see what happens i mean you know think think about this adam we haven't gotten to august yet and we've already lost two top 24 picks it sucks yeah and now you have saquon barkley on the pop list which we expected or at least you know thought it was possibility amari cooper's on the pop list Is this a precursor of another frustrating season of injuries? Yeah, I'm not willing to go there yet, but... Aaron Rodgers may not play. Devontae Adams is pissed off as well.

I mean, what's going on? It's Friday, okay? Enough of this. Could you imagine? Because that's the week one game, by the way, is Saints-Packers. Could you imagine a situation where no Aaron Rodgers, maybe no Devontae Adams now,

no Michael Thomas now? How depressing. That could have been one of the best games of the season. Is it a primetime game? I don't know. It probably is. But yeah, all right, great. Hey, Giants-Broncos, everybody.

Week one, flex it. We'll talk to you on Monday, unless there's more breaking news. Check out Fantasy Football today and five for some player profiles over the weekend of Travis Etienne and the Sunday one, Elijah Moore.

A couple of rookies that we can break down and tell you what the advanced stats say and what their roles might be on their respective teams. There's really good stuff on Fantasy Football Today in 5. If you like these bonus podcasts, please show us some love by going to podcastawards.com slash app slash sign up. The link is in the episode description.

Nominate Fantasy Football today. We want to win this thing in the sports category. Podcastawards.com. Nominate Fantasy Football today in the sports category. Thanks to Jamie. Thanks to Ben Schrager for setting this up. Thanks to all of you for watching and listening. I'm Adam Azer.

We'll talk to you Monday.