Fantasy Football Today - Offseason Stock Watch - FFT in 5 (03/24 Fantasy Football podcast)

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

The arrow is pointing way down for Mike Evans and Chris Godwin after the Buccaneers replaced Tom Brady with Baker Mayfield. Chris Towers and Dave Richard talk about that and other players whose stock is either on the rise or collapsing as a result of free agency.  You can also follow the full-length Fantasy Football Today podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-podcast/id261735167 Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs. You can listen to Fantasy Football Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast." 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 To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to FFT in five. I'm Chris Towers. I'm here with Dave Richard. And we're talking about players whose stock is pointing up, players whose stock is pointing down, coming out of free agency. We're still waiting on a few big names. DeAndre Hopkins rumors. Sounds like he's going to get traded at some point in the coming days.

We learned on Thursday that Ezekiel Elliott has a final list of the Bengals, Jets, and Eagles. He's looking to make a decision on where he'll play next season in the next week. That'll be really interesting to see how much that's going to change the fantasy appeal of any of

the guys there. Do you really think Ezekiel Elliott's going to make a big impact wherever he goes? I'm scared that he's going to take carries away from somebody else. So I don't want him to go to the Jets because that could be bad for Brees Hall. And I don't want him to go to the Bengals because that could be bad for Joe Mixon if Joe Mixon's the guy. So send him to Philadelphia.

That's where all old guys go. He'd be a good goal line option for the Eagles. I think I don't think he'd be a good goal line option for the Eagles, I think. I don't think he'd replicate the 1,200 yards Miles Sanders rushed for, but the touchdowns could be there. If he gets 400 carries, he might. That's fair. Let's talk about some players whose stock is pointing up,

coming out of free agency. And the first one I'm going to talk about, Rashad White. We don't know what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to do. And frankly, I didn't think Rashad White was all that impressive as a rookie. But right now, the Buccaneers have added Chase Edmonds and they've still got Keyshawn Vaughn. And that's it in the running back room. So there's an opportunity for Rashad White moving forward into the 2023 season to be the number one number on option here. I don't think it's going to be a great offense.

But the way the Buccaneers offense has worked over the past couple years has been very good for running backs. I imagine we'll see some changes with no Tom Brady. But if Rashad White is the lead back there, I think he can still be a good fantasy option. Who's some players who have their stock pointing up for you, Dave? The running back for me whose stock went up the most was David Montgomery. And it doesn't have anything to do with Montgomery's talent. It has to do with his opportunity in Detroit. The fact that the Lions, Dan Campbell apparently has been a big fan of David Montgomery

for a long time. The Lions even tweeted out a couple of clips from Dan Campbell's coaching show where he shows clips of the opponents for the upcoming week. A lot of coaches do that. You learn a lot from those, by the way. And if I had been watching them in real time, I would have known months ago that Dan Campbell had a man crush on David Montgomery and his tough style, the way that he picks yards after contact up. And I think that the Lions are going to utilize him

maybe a little bit more than they utilized Jamal Williams. Maybe that's their design. He'll take work off of DeAndre Swift. He'll be the one in short yardage situations. He can catch the ball out of the backfield. We saw him. He was quite adept at that in Chicago, and it's a better situation overall for Montgomery to be in.

So he's the one that I would say whose stock went up the most. Other names on my list, Miles Sanders, Khalil Herbert, Jawan Johnson, Sky Moore in Kansas City. We're going to go back on that bandwagon. Could also sit Kadarius Toney. Kadarius Toney is absolutely in that same bandwagon. So is Jalen Hurts because that Eagles defense, they're not going to be as stout as they were last year.

Might mean more passing for Jalen Hurts or just more opportunities in general to hold the football. And anytime he's holding a football, that's usually very good. All right. I've got the arrow pointing down for the Buccane football, that's usually very good. All right. I've got the arrow pointing down for the Buccaneers wide receivers, Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. I mean, look, it's possible Baker Mayfield goes to Tampa Bay and has a decent season, or maybe Kyle Trask beats him out

and plays better than we expect. But even with a very diminished version of Tom Brady last season, I still think the Buccaneers are likely to get worse quarterback play in 2023 than they did in 2022 and the bigger thing might be they're just going to throw a whole lot less this is a team that they're not going to you know be passing 50 times a game with Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask at least I can't imagine they are we're going to see some changes in the way that offense runs. Tom Brady keeps the offense moving. We saw especially once they started playing with a little faster tempo, that was

good for Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. We're just going to see a lot fewer opportunities and still probably below average per play play from the quarterback position. I think it's bad news for Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. I think it's especially bad news for Mike Evans because Baker just has not been good at connecting with his receivers downfield. It's those short throws that I think will save Godwin and make him a volume-driven receiver, which is really what he's been throughout his entire career. I've got a lot of notes on Baker, and I'll get them out there in the coming days.

But here's the first thing that I realized. This is going to be his fourth team in six seasons chris how many good quarterbacks are on four different teams in six season the answer is none zip zero zilch you might be able to convince me when you include the transfer portal in college maybe bo nix will be that guy once upon a time but it's not going to be Baker Mayfield. So I'm going to agree with you, especially on Evans Stockdown. I moved Evans outside of my top 30 wide receivers in my rankings today. How about Javante Williams? This is a third-year running back.

Man, we hope he'd be great. But we started hearing rumors about the ACL Night Healing, and then they go in Denver and they pick up Samaje Pirine. And no, Samaje Pirine is not the greatest talent in the world, the ACL night healing and then they go in Denver and they pick up Samaj P. Ryan and no Samaj P. Ryan is not the greatest talent in the world but he will do a lot of the value down work that we like our running backs to get he's going to play in passing situations he will get lots of catches we know Sean Payton's track record for running backs who can catch the football that's what P. Ryan is in line to do on top of potentially being the every down back

for the broncos for however long giovante williams is out to start the season we did a mock draft recently where giovante williams went in the second round uh it's way too early yeah oh yeah the person who made that picks asked during the draft if he could have a do-over and now he really i don't think he would take him again in the third round much less the second i don't think i'd take him until the fifth round i've just i think i'm going to be out on Javante Williams. I think a lot of other fantasy managers will too, unless the news really does a 180 for him in the coming weeks. All right. You got any other names? The other names with the stock down? Not as many. Dondre Swift, obviously, because of David Montgomery and also Jamal Williams going to New Orleans. It's not the same thing. He went from

being the touchdown vulture for everybody in Detroit to a team in New Orleans. It's not the same thing. He went from being the, the, the touchdown vulture for everybody in Detroit to a team in New Orleans that already has a touchdown vulture in Taysom Hill also has Alvin Camara for however many games that Camara actually plays this year. And then the quarterback there, Derek Carr could always scramble for a touchdown of a play breaks down. So I don't think he's got a great shot to get even seven touchdowns after he had so many in 2022.

All right. That's going to do it for FFT and five. We'll see you next time.