Fantasy Football Today - Offseason Winners and Losers; QB News; Fournette (03/22 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

We're joined by Samantha Previte of Action Network as we recap the last couple of weeks of the NFL offseason and give some Fantasy winners and losers. But we've got news to start with as Leonard Fournette is back with the Bucs (2:30)! Will he crack the Top 10 at RB? ... We rank Matt Ryan, Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston (8:00) and talk more about Kyle Pitts with a new QB, plus some more news. And we talk skiing with Samantha as she is a ski instructor out in Colorado (16:50). What is a "Jerry"? ... Fantasy winners (22:00) including the Broncos pass catchers and CeeDee Lamb (30:50) and Fantasy losers (34:45) including Aaron Rodgers and Robert Woods (38:10). Then we have some PPR rankings debates to finish the show (40:00). Would you rather have Derek Carr and Davante Adams or Russell Wilson and Jerry Jeudy? Michael Thomas or DeAndre Hopkins? ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is touchdown! Oh, he's done it again! Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Beck. Welcome to our Tuesday edition of FFT. We've got a special guest who I'll be introducing in just a moment. And she is going to tell us all about skiing, and I'm very excited about that. I'm Adam Azer with Jamie Isenberg and Samantha Praviti of the Action Network, a fantasy football analyst of the Action Network, a fantasy football analyst at the Action Network. And you can follow her on Twitter at Samantha NFL. Welcome to fantasy

football today, Samantha. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. And you're up early. What time do you usually get up? Because you're out in Colorado. So it's 730 right now for you. What time do you usually wake up? Do you wake up early for this? I did. I woke up at five ish, but I would say normally I'm up between six and six 30. So it's not, it's not that crazy. Most of my people that I work with are in the East coast. So I have to wake up a little earlier. All right. Early riser. Jamie, good morning. I don't really care what time you wake up, but good morning, sir. Good morning to both of you. Where's your hat? You always have a hat. No hat today. All right. You wear a ski cap because Samantha is going to tell us in a little bit. We've got a lot to get to here. She's a ski

instructor. We've had the coolest conversation off the air about skiing and snowboarding, all of these things. And I'm blown away and I really want to go skiing now. Jamie, you like skiing. I do. I need instruction. So if you're offering, I'd certainly take some lessons. But yes, the couple of times I put skis on and fell, it was fun. Well, absolutely. I already offered Adam that I would for sure teach him. So if you guys want to like organize a little Fft ski trip that would be really fun and i would absolutely teach you guys we uh yeah we might be on the road and the timing won't work out but we might be on the road for training camp so i obviously not a lot of snow but you know if we if we make it out to denver for one of our trips um we can simulate some snow

and maybe yeah yeah we can do that later sure um all right so we're gonna we're gonna also send some business your way because anybody's's out there in Breckenridge, ask Samantha Bravitti for lessons. She'll help you out. She'll hook you up and get you out on the slopes. All right, the Buccaneers signed Leonard Fournette. By the way, today on the show, we're going to talk winners and losers of NFL free agency slash trades,

mostly trades. But we do have this big Fournette news. We're also going to talk about Matt Ryan, Marcus Mariota, and Jameis Winston. Ryan to the Colts, Mariota to the Falcons, Winston back to the Saints. So we'll talk about those three guys. And Duke Johnson to the Bills, Jameis and Crowder to the Bills.

Do those matter at all? We'll get to it all. But Jamie, Leonard Fournette last year was on a per-game basis 10th best in non-PPR, 4th best in full PPR. In 14 games, he had 69 catches. He scored 10 touchdowns. Average to career high, 4.5 yards per carry. This guy finished 6th overall

and 4th per game in full PPR. Where are you ranking him as he is back with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on a 3-year deal worth $21 million, could be up to $24 million. This is awesome. What do you think for Fournette? I think he's got top 10 upside, like you said. He'll be, you know, right around 15.

I haven't adjusted rankings yet because I was panicked yesterday that he was going to sign with the Patriots after visiting New England. So that was a terrible situation. He would have definitely been a loser. So now he goes back to a great situation. Obviously, offensive line is a little bit of a concern

in Tampa Bay right now because losing the two guards, but you know, the fact that they, you know, Tom Brady gets the bat signal up and everybody comes calling. It's, it's a great situation because you know what he is in this offense. And as of now,

you know, I mean, there was at this point last year, remember we were talking about, Oh no, Giovanni Bernard is going to take some passing down work for him. And maybe Ronald Jones gets more running down work because of what happened the Superbowl run before Lombardi Lenny took off. Um, he's, he's the guy and, and very clearly the guy, I think they'll address the

position in the draft or whatever happens the rest of this off season to add a little bit more depth there, but, uh, you gotta be really excited about this move. What's your read on this Samantha Fournette back to the bucks. I mean, I think I I think I agree that he'd be in that high-end RB2, low-end RB1 sort of tier. And I'm just really happy that he didn't end up on the Patriots because that's where fantasy dreams go to die, especially in running backs. So I'm just happy that he's ending up in what is a pretty positive situation. And yeah, good for him for getting paid. So would you guys rather have Nick Chubb or Leonard Fournette?

Chubb in non-PPR for sure. It's close in full PPR. The one that I'm struggling with, honestly, is James Conner because they're both the same age, obviously coming off huge seasons. Not that they haven't done it before, but there's that point of age and career where you have to start worrying about injuries. We've seen it mostly with Conner,

but Fournette was a little bit banged up last year. And the thing that scares me a little bit about the Bucs, we had this conversation on HQ yesterday with Gronk, is as these guys get a little bit older, not so much Brady because of the position he plays, but if they're a little bit banged up, we know what their goal is.

Their goal is not to stack wins in the regular season because they're probably going to do that just by the nature of their team and the division they play in. Their goal is December, January, February. I know that they obviously have to win those games, but their focus is not the regular season February. I know that they obviously have to win those games, but, you know, it's not their focus. It's not the regular season. So if Fournette's banged up, do they sit him for, you know,

a couple weeks to make sure he's right like they did last season? So I would take Chubb probably in both scenarios, but the Connor-Fournette one is the one I'm struggling with. How about you, Samantha? Connor, Fournette, and Chubb. How do you think you'd rank them i think i would have i would have chubb first i agree and i think he's just been so efficient and yeah they're kind of question marks with how the offense is going to be run with deshaun walton

there if they're going to be running nearly as much as they have in the past um if that was more of like an artifact of baker mayfield's sort of shortcomings. But I would probably put Chubb first there and then probably Fournette, then Connor. But that's pretty close for me. Okay, so Fournette back to the Bucs and coming off a great year, his best year. Like I said, career high yards per carry,

but 14 games played. In his career, he's played 13, 8, 15, 13, and 14 games. So there are always injury concerns with Leonard Fournette. I would say that position, though, is pretty durable. You get 13-plus games, that's pretty good. I mean, I guess. But let's see. He's missed 3, eight, two.

I'm not going to do this math. I don't know. I mean, that's an interesting threshold. Some of that was suspension, too. Don't forget. Oh, in his second year when he played eight? Or was that when he got suspended? I don't remember, but I know he's missed time due to suspension.

Okay. All right. Well, we'll see. I mean, the Bucs need some running back depth, so we'll see what they do there, and we will reassess. Hey, they have Keyshawn Vaughn. Exactly. Okay, so I want to talk about these quarterbacks now.

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The Falcons were 31st ahead of only Miami. So Ryan had a bad receiving core, no run game, and a terrible offensive line. Colts, we know they have a good offensive line, but they were only 23rd in pass blocking, which surprised me. Mariota to the Falcons on a two-year deal. It's more like a one-year deal. And the Saints signed Jameis Winston to a two-year $28 million deal

with $21 million guaranteed. Jamie, rank Ryan, Mariota, Winston. Winston, Mariota, Ryan, barring the NFL draft when the Falcons probably select somebody that's going to compete with Mariota to be the starter. So, um, Ryan benefits, I think going to the Colts because I don't care that they were ranked 23rd.

That's a significant offensive line upgrade that still has the chance to get better if they address left tackle. Um, but you know, Quentin Nelson missed time, you know, Eric Fisher was in and out, you know, they just had a lot of injuries last year. So that's still a really good group. It's a great run game. That Quentin Nelson missed time. Eric Fisher was in and out. They just had a lot of injuries last year. So that's still a really good group. It's a great run game that's going to support him. They need some help with the receiver spot. But I think if Mariota runs, that'll certainly help.

And I'm really excited to see Jameis with what I hope is as close to 17 games of Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara as we can get. Because if those guys stay healthy or avoid suspension in Kamara's case, then you have two premier players to support Jameis. And I think that will help his fantasy value significantly. Yeah, he was actually 14th per game last year, Jameis Winston, and that was leaving a game early, about halfway through with an injury. And I think a lot of, you know, 30, he was on pace for 37 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

His touchdown and interceptions rates were career bests. He also wasn't throwing the ball downfield as much. And, of course, didn't have Michael Thomas, so he's throwing a lot to Kamara. Kamara got about 5.5 targets per game with Jameis. But yesterday on our bonus podcast, we did talk about Matt Ryan. But we spent a lot of time on Kyle Pitts and a little bit on Michael Pittman as well. So with Mariota now, Samantha, do you see Kyle Pitts? Uh, what, where is he? Is he fifth now? What do you think about Pitts in the tight end landscape? This is painful. I mean, initially I felt like it was, well, initially we didn't even know who was going to be quarterbacking

for the Falcons, but initially I certainly thought that it would be a massive downgrade like he'd be in the loser category but I don't know I mean it's like it's really hard to say what we think we're gonna get out of Mariota right it's been like two seasons since we've actually seen him really play he had four passing yards in 2021 so not certainly not a great sample size there but But we have seen him help tight ends produce in the past. We saw Delaney Walker with the tight ends still put up solid numbers. And he certainly does target tight ends a lot. So we'll see. I think that Pitts is still an elite talent.

And he did have that huge target share last year. So certainly in that tight end one, like mid-tier, but I'm not sure that he's making that leap into that elite category yet. And what do you think, Jamie? I think you and I were thinking he might end up as a second round pick, certainly if they had gotten to Sean Watson. But I don't know.

My enthusiasm has been dampened a little bit here. Not a little bit. It's been dampened quite a bit on Kyle Pitts. How about you? Yeah, same. I think it's hard to say. He's clearly the third guy. He's in the conversation still.

It's pretty easy to say Kelsey and Andrews are the top two. And then it's Waller obviously say Kelsey and Andrews are the top two. And then it's, you know, Waller obviously got, you know, dinged a little bit with the addition of Devontae Adams, if not, you know, a lot. And Kittle is a wild card, which is so strange to say because he's amazing. But with Trey Lance, you know, and we just don't know if Trey Lance is going to enhance his game or continue to, you know, help him produce like we've seen when it was C.J. Beathard and Nick Mullins taking over for Jimmy Garoppolo.

It wasn't just Jimmy G propping up George Kittle's numbers. Again, that's strange to say, but it wasn't just the starting quarterback that was helping him. He's done well with every quarterback that they've thrown in there seemingly. I think when you just look at it, those three guys are still in a tier by themselves behind the top two, but I still think Pitts belongs there because the target opportunity is still there. This is still, you know, Arthur Smith who's going to, I think,

lean on him based on his track record. And as we saw last year, you know, five or six more touchdowns for Kyle Pitts. And we'd be talking about, you know, one of the best rookie seasons, you know, for any player, let alone just any tight end, you know, for what he was able to accomplish a thousand yard season. So's an incomplete still you know i don't think mariotta is the only guy that's going to be competing for this job i want to see what this receiving core looks like because calvin ridley and russell gage not being there you know is uh is is somewhat

of a plus for him because the target opportunity so you know i'm going to probably drop in the fifth uh i'm still going to take him over the the dal Schultz, TJ Hawkinson, Dallas Goddard, Rob Gronkowski group, because I think there's still a lot of upside. But yes, he's a loser in this regard, at least as it stands one day after Matt Ryan being traded. Yeah, you know what, Samantha? You were right. I've forgotten how good Delaney Walker was. He's the only guy who had a thousand yard season in the Mariota era. If you look at Mariota's first four years in Tennessee,

not the year he got replaced by Tannehill, but 15, 16, 17, 18, it was actually Mariota's rookie year where he played 12 games. And Delaney Walker had 1,088 yards on 133 targets. Rashard Matthews had about 950 yards and nine touchdowns, I think, the year after that. Those have been the best players, but yeah,

I mean, that's, it's a really good point about Delaney Walker. So, um, if Delaney Walker can get 1100 yards in 15 games, then what can Kyle Pitts do in seven? Just to put one more,

one more stat to what Mariota should hopefully do for Kyle Pitts. Um, Samantha said, we haven't seen him in two years. That week 15 game against the Chargers in 2020 when Derek Carr hurt his hip in the early portion of the game. Darren Waller in that game, 12 targets, nine catches, 150 yards, and a touchdown.

Yeah. So pretty impressive from Mariota. Any thoughts on Michael Thomas, guys? Samantha with Jameis Winston and hopefully Michael Thomas, as Jamie was mentioning, playing a full season. Could he crack your top 12?

Last time we saw him healthy, he was number one at a record-setting season. What do you think about Michael Thomas with Jameis? I would probably not put him, not be that optimistic and put him in the top 12.

There's just so many question marks and he is like 30 years old. So there's certainly age sort of breakdown, maybe related concerns there. So I'm going to be a lot more conservative than top 12, maybe somewhere in the wide receiver two range, though. Jamie, to finish up the news and notes, Giants signed Matt Breida, Bills signed Duke Johnson and Jamison Crowder, Eagles signed Zach Paschal,

Jaguars re-signed Laquan Treadwell. Anything fantasy relevant there? Well, I think Breida certainly is interesting based on Barkley's injury history the last couple of seasons. So, you know, Devontae Booker, Breida, that'll be kind of the two guys you'll look at in case something happens to Barkley's injury history the last couple of seasons. Devontae Booker, Brita, that'll be the two guys you'll look at in case something happens to Barkley.

I think Booker's still on the roster. I think there were some people I know I tweeted new handcuff for Barkley and the replies were Barkley's gone. We'll see if that's the sentiment, if they trade him. Maybe NFL draft night.

Booker got cut. I forgot about that. Yeah, like I said, I wasn't sure. So Barkley and Breida is the depth chart now. And then in terms of, I think one more. I don't know if you mentioned this because it surprised me over the weekend. Boston Scott re-signing with the Eagles. Yeah, we talked about it a little bit yesterday. That's another one just to keep an eye on because we know that Miles Sanders has missed time,

whether it was Jordan Howard and Boston Scott or vice versa. Kenneth Gainwell and Keyshawn Vaughn were two guys I was interested in with late-round picks, and those two guys got a little bit lost a little value, clearly, in the last 48 hours. But in any event, I think you look at Duke Johnson, a little bit of a problem potentially for Devin Singletary, but this is better than JD McKissick going in. Sure. All right, we are going to get to some free agency trades,

free agency slash trades, winners and losers. Talk about the best and the worst fantasy situations from the last couple of weeks based on the Russell Wilson trade, the Devante Adams trade and all the signings and all the things we've talked about here. We'll kind of recap it. But what is a Samantha? What is a Jerry? Oh, yeah. So Adam and I were talking about skiing before we started here. So a Jerry is like a person in generally extreme sports who maybe is in over their head a little bit. And maybe but it's like it's like almost like a culture like they people embrace it. Actually, like they embrace the whole Jerry thing. But it would probably be someone like coming down the whole Jerry thing, but, uh, uh, it would probably

be someone like coming down the mountain as like an absolute meat rocket or, um, in a football Jersey usually, or like with jeans tucked into their ski boots and no helmet. So that's, I'm trying to like paint a very vivid picture of, um, that type of person, but yes, it's, it's a whole thing in ski culture. Like what a Jerry, if that person falls off the chairlift. So if I were in Colorado and I, I dressed up for Halloween, I had ski boots on jeans tucked in at a football Jersey. People would be, Oh, you're a Jerry. Did they get that? So my boyfriend and I, who are both skiing snowboard instructors, both dressed up as Jerry's friends. Oh, okay.

He wore his Baker Mayfield jersey. He's an insufferable Browns fan. So yeah, he wore his jersey and we tucked our jeans into our boots and went skiing. What's he doing with that jersey? He's really sad. He's having this whole like existential crisis because he was definitely one of those people that like chastised any Steelers fan for supporting Ben Roethlisberger. So now he's like, now I can't, I can't support, uh, Deshaun Watson or anything like that. So I think, I think he's pretty sad right now. Yeah. Sports fans have to

be very careful playing the moral high ground, you know, because your team is probably doing some bad stuff, too. But all right. So go out to Breckenridge, get a ski lesson from Samantha. And Jamie, how good of a skier are you? Do you use the poles? Oh, I'm not a skier at all. I, you know, like I said, I put put on skis a couple of times and fell down. What I did was not called skiing. Well, come on. I heard it's pretty easy. It might be.

But the time that I went was in the summer. So we were at the Black Diamonds at the top where it was still not melted. So the pros were still able to go down and do some stuff. When I say pros, people actually know what they're doing. Uh, the, the Samantha's of the world. Um, I found like a little area where I could just kind of push myself and go down a little bit. Um, cause I was with my buddy who had moved out there when we were in high school and, uh, he had just started skiing himself. So he was falling all over the place. Um, but trying to actually go down the slopes, I was just like in a little area by myself, uh, trying not to die.

Gosh, Jerry Eisenberg. Am I right? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Samantha, you were telling me that the poles, you don't really need them when you're starting. No, they really get in people's way. People try to stop with them. It's like a weird mental thing that they have something in their hands. So they feel like they need to use them. And then they'll try to stop with them, trip over the ski and tear their ACL, which is less than ideal. I took a woman's poles away the other day because she was doing that and she started crying. So that was the first time I made someone cry, adult or child, which I thought was a little dramatic. And she was like, my dog died yesterday. Oh my gosh. I don't think it was me necessarily, but I was the trigger for like the tears.

Oh boy. Her dog died and you took her ski poles away? That is messed up. Yeah, really cold. Adam makes us cry all the time here. Well, I can't be the only one. All right, we're going to take a break. I can't believe you didn't see what I did yesterday,

by the way, That was very disappointing. Oh, no. What did you do? Oh, you bashed me on Twitter or something? No, I was running around Dave in the studio. You didn't see me. Oh, no, I didn't see that. I just saw you hop out in the middle of my thought,

and you threw me off completely. All right, we're going to take a quick break here. We'll talk winners and losers when we get back on Fantasy Football today. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit, more cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400 airport lounges worldwide redefined possible with business platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum.

All right, so we've had a really fun offseason. I think I said there have been 16 trades already in the month of March, which is just wild. We didn't used to get this type of stuff in the NFL, but it is a trade league now, and that is wild. We didn't used to get this type of stuff in the NFL, but it is a trade league now. And that is great. We love it. So Samantha, I'll let you start. Give me a, give me a one or two big winners from free agency. Sure. Yeah. I mean, the low hanging fruit here is going to be the Broncos pass catchers that they have never had a good quarterback. And I feel like last year when the Aaron Rogers stuff was kind of swirling around the Broncos were certainly spoken about as the team that was quote-unquote one quarterback

away so we will certainly see if that rings true um they have a lot of the pieces and I hope that you know we can see Jerry Judy reach his potential um that's something that obviously has been a little bit of a sore spot he was taking 15th overall and there have been multiple receivers from that draft class that just far surpassed him in terms of production now like I said it's a it could be just a quarterback thing so we'll see kind of what that ends up looking like um but yeah I think that they are a huge beneficiary of this draftseason so far, which has been really wild. I would also say just Tom Brady in general gets quite the cakewalk of a division right now.

Because the other quarterbacks are James Winston, Marcus Mariota, and Sam Darnold, maybe. I don't even know. That is a sore thing for me because I am a Carolina Panthers fan, so we have the worst quarterback situation in the division. I think we're like plus 10,000 to win the division, so a little painful. We definitely lost out on the Deshaun frenzy, but yeah, feels like feels like the bucks definitely have the division wrapped up. Um, cool of Tom Brady to just come out of retirement. Yeah, it's over. So, uh, this division is who do you like better? Judy or Sutton? Uh, probably Juju, but it's close. I mean, I think, um, though I'm excited to see Sutton too. He dropped off in production a little bit when Jerry Judy came back.

So if they have all three receivers, that's Tim Patrick Sutton and Judy all healthy. I'm not sure how much production we can expect from Sutton, but we'll see. I mean, I think he's a super talented guy that's had a lot of unfortunate sort of things happen in his career jamie judy or sutton uh judy for me but it's close um i uh actually spoke to courtland sutton last week and i finally went through that conversation um and transcribed it yesterday and so uh when samantha was talking about you know the the quarterback situation, he said that Broncos country, to use his words, was upset when Aaron Rodgers decided to stay in Green Bay. And then the next day, you know, just the rejoicing of ending up with Russell Wilson. He was talking about Judy and he said he doesn't know how special he is, and he's expecting Russell Wilson to unlock that.

In terms of himself, he said he's looking forward to the back shoulder fades and the end zone fades, the throws that he's been begging for that the quarterbacks that he's played with weren't necessarily their strong points of doing. So he's hoping those opportunities are there. And he said watching a lot of DK Metcalf, you know, he's hoping as a big physical receiver that can make plays down the field that he's going to have those, those type of chances. So I'm excited for all those guys, you know, and, and we talked about this on, on HQ yesterday, that if you want a piece of the Broncos offense and you miss out on Judy and Sutton and Samantha mentioned his name, you know, Tim Patrick has been very successful in spurts over the last couple of seasons you know clearly two years ago when there

was the injuries before you know Judy really started to do things as a rookie but not necessarily reaching the heights that I think he's capable of as Samantha indicated and then this past season when Judy was hurt and you know Patrick sort of uh took over that that not necessarily lead role but you know ended up being the better of the two in terms of him and Sutton. So there's a lot to like about these guys, clearly with the addition of Russell Wilson, Albert O, you know, should be fun to watch, you know, we'll see, you know, if this is the type of tight end that, you know, Russell Wilson has success with, but, you know,

I think Samantha said, you know, two quarterbacks that I'm thrilled to death about they're five and six for me in my rankings, Brady five and russell six uh adam you know you've you said this a couple of times over the last several years this is the year russell wilson wins the mvp could be the number one fantasy quarterback and i i think he has the opportunity really for the first time because if things go right and there's a lot that has to happen it's you know samantha mentioned the worst division in football from a quarterback standpoint the best division from a quarterback standpoint is clearly the AFC West. And those shootouts, you know, should be awesome if we get them, which I think

we'll get them, you know, so we could see a lot of, you know, 35, 30, 42, 35, you know, you know, games in the forties, maybe the fifties, who knows, you know, how these things can unfold. And Russell's going to have the chance, I think, to have his best statistical season, which says a lot because he's certainly been a Hall of Fame-caliber quarterback in Seattle. Yeah, I think he and Watson are in interesting situations. Both of them have been so great in their careers. They just haven't been on offenses that have let them throw the ball enough to really be the number one quarterback in fantasy.

And I know that Wilson did have a QB1 season. It was one of the lowest-scoring QB one season, but he still had it. But you get the point. I mean, he's been so great. They both have been so great. They both have been consistent top six, basically, options at the position on offenses that don't really throw the ball that much.

And it's a bigger question mark in Cleveland, obviously, than it is in Denver. But I don't know what they're going to do in Denver in terms of... No, they're going to throw it. Yeah, you know. Yeah, but why? But, you know but look, on the

other hand, they've got Javante and they've got last year that arguably the best defense in football. Maybe you beat those teams. Maybe you beat the Chiefs and the Chargers and the Raiders by running the football and using your... I don't think that's in

Nathaniel Hackett's DNA. I asked Cortland about that because he said he was talking about the receiver group he was like you know we we want to be the the the room you know you know obviously players talk about the room uh the receiver room we want to be the group that carries this team and he said you know if if the idea is to throw the ball 50 times a game we want to be the the group that the team looks at and i said is nathaniel hackett the guy that's going to do that and he said in the brief conversations that we've had i get that impression that he wants to have this open offense that allows you know teams allows us to you know be that type of team you know he he kept referencing he's like uh the two guys he said you know because that that's the era

i think that he's sort of leaning toward is demarius thomas and emmanuel sanders he's like we want to be that group you know of uh of offense you know for the Broncos and get the Broncos back to that level of play that they had under Peyton Manning and so you know it's obviously lip service and he said that himself you know it's like it's easy to say these things in in February March as opposed to you know August and into the season but I think if you you know Nathaniel Hackett steps up to the microphone and Russell Wilson's press conference and is like a kid you know cursing in front of the media saying you know we got russell we've been wilson you know like you don't make this type of trade to be conservative and hand the ball off and i know what you're saying obviously you don't want to say i want

to get into a shootout with patrick mahomes or russell wilson and even now their car excuse me or dustin herbert or derrick carr but you don't make the move and give up first round picks to a shootout with Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson, and even now Derek Carr, excuse me, or Justin Herbert or Derek Carr, but you don't make the move and give up first round picks to get Russell Wilson to say, we're going to run this type of offense. And I don't think Russell Wilson waves is no trade clause to go to a place where he's going to do the exact same thing. You know,

it needs your path to the Superbowl in Seattle. Are they going to be 15th in past attempts? They're going to be fifth. You know, are they going to go, are they going to go all bucks on us or are they going to be balanced? I don't think you could see 15 to 10. I don't think they're going to be 25th. I think you could see 15 to 10. I don't think they're going to be in the top five,

but I think 10 to 15 range would make some sense. By the way, check out this stat here. Samantha mentioned Cortland Sutton trailed off when Judy returned. Cortland Sutton played five games, six games, pardon me, without Jerry Judy. He averaged 87.5 receiving yards per game. In his other 11 games, he averaged 87.5 receiving yards per game. In his other 11 games, he averaged 22.8.

From 87.5 without Judy to 22.8 with Jerry Judy. That is crazy. The whole offense really stunk, though, for much of that stretch. But, oh, you know what? There was a Week 17 game in there that I didn't... Oh, it's even worse! Because in Week 17, he had three for 63 catches for 60 yards, which was by far the most yardage he had in any game.

The only game that he played with Judy or he had more than 40. Oh, no, he didn't have more than 40 yards in any game with Judy. That's amazing stuff. OK, anyway, Jamie, were there any other winners or losers you wanted to talk about? I mean, there are obviously a lot. We don't have to talk about everything, but anything else that jumped out from free agency? I mean, I I'll, I'll go back

just cause I got the chance to speak to him yesterday as well. Uh, CD lamb, um, to me is a big winner. And, uh, so last week, uh, the, the trainer that I speak to a lot, you hear me references, uh, XB sports, um, it's Tony Villani and Matt Gates. They do a great job for combine training. They actually had the three fastest times at the combine this year in terms of the 40. So they're coming off a very strong combine training. But a lot of guys go back and work out with them, Sutton and C.D. Lamb being two of them. So I was supposed to speak to C.D. Lamb when I spoke to Sutton last week. But I didn't because he got a phone call from somebody that made him leave, which was Dak Prescott.

And Dak said it was right after the Cooper trade. Let's go throw. And part of that is we got some which was Dak Prescott. And Dak said, it was right after the Cooper trade, let's go throw. And part of that is we got some business to take care of. And I asked CeeDee Lamb about that yesterday. And I've covered the league for a long time. I've spoke to a lot of players for many, many years. You get an impression from somebody like they're ready for something big. I've had this feeling several players over the years.

He has this, I don't know if it's like this aura. I wanted to go and put CeeDee Lamb number one in my rankings yesterday. He just feels like he's going to go nuts. He said he was pissed off about how last year ended. The Troy Aikman comments, I asked him about that following the season about not getting the targets. He basically was like, give how last year ended. You know, the Troy Aikman comments, I asked him about that following the season, about not getting the targets. He basically was like, give me the bleeding ball. Cooper's gone.

Gallup's coming off an ACL. There's all the pressure on the world on him. He's like, I want this. This is what I've been waiting for. You know, so he looks in great shape. He's obviously working out. He came right back to, you know, the place where he did his combine training, which is in Fort Lauderdale.

And it just seems as if he's going to have this monster season. So I think he's a big winner without Cooper there, with Gallup coming off the injury and everything that's sort of unfolding for him this season. All right, let's go to our losers. And before we do that, though, we got a new

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You ever play Halo, Jamie? No. Samantha, You ever play Halo, Jamie? No. Samantha, you ever play Halo? When I was in high school. I'm sorry. That was my Alexa giving me my morning briefing. Ask her if she's ever played Halo. Alexa, have you ever played Halo?

Very self-reformed Halo. Whatever that is. It does not know no no thanks a lot Jeff Bezos that was that was Adam do you have an Alexa I don't

no I don't my kids my kids run around Alexa Alexa I want to throw the thing out the window yeah that's why I don't have one that's why

it literally is weird when you say Alexa and it's confused. Yeah. We're setting it off right now. We're setting it off. My kids, I'll say it one more time. But my kids,

we live in Florida. The weather doesn't change. It's hot. That's all it is. It's just hot. And obviously we get into our, our, our few days of winter.

But my kids, Alexa, what's the temperature? Buddy, it's 85. It's always 85 in the winter. About to find out what it is in Colorado. Hey, Alexa, would you rather have CeeDee Lamb or Mike Evans?

I don't think I heard you. Okay. Well, Samantha, would you rather have CeeDee Lamb or Mike Evans, Samantha? CeeDee Lamb. Yeah. Jamie? Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. No no that's it jamie

uh cd lamb yeah okay all right let's go to our losers now unless you told me godwin was out for half the season then that's a different story okay so our fantasy losers samantha you can kick it off who are some of the losers that you wanted to highlight from the last few weeks i mean i don't know how much of a loser you can be after signing a massive contract, but I'm going to go with Aaron Rodgers from like a fantasy perspective, just because he's lost so many receivers, most notably Devante Adams. I think that's going to be huge for his fantasy production. I don't know. I mean, so I know this has been like three drafts in a row that we've said that the Packers have to take a wide receiver, but like it really does

feel like they have to take a wide receiver at some point or find a wide receiver somewhere because otherwise it's gonna be like Robert Tunyon and Randall Cobb um catching passes and I guess Aaron Jones but yeah I mean that's certainly not the uh star-powered depth chart that you would hope to see for Aaron Rodgers especially from a fantasy perspective so he gets knocked down certainly into that like low end QB one tier which is kind of like the moves and everything um and then I guess DK Metcalf also feels like some low-hanging fruit losing Russell Wilson I just feel like that is going to be a huge loss for him and just question marks at quarterback I mean

yeah I guess they have Drew Locke but I don't think that anyone's excited that they have Drew Locke so um we'll definitely see how that kind of all shakes out I know that there certainly could be some movement like I mean I don't think Jimmy G's gonna go there but maybe maybe Baker Mayfield or something. That would probably be an upgrade from Drew Verloc at this point. But as it stands right now, DK Metcalf feels like a huge loser in free agency. Okay, how about DK Metcalf or Mike Evans? I'm going to probably still go Metcalf, but it's close.

I don't know. That's a toss-up because I just don't know who's playing quarterback for them. How about you, Jamie? Yeah, it's Evans for me by a lot. I agree with Samantha. I think Metcalf and Lockett, if it's Drew Lock, my God, run for the hills. They'll end up being good value picks because you'll get them, you know, much later than you probably would have. But I mean,

you know, Evans might have six games without Godwin or, you know, four games without Godwin, who knows if he's on the pop list. But even if, you know, Godwin's there,

it's it's still Tom Brady back. And, you know, I don't know if Metcalf gets to a thousand and seven or eight, like we typically get from Mike Evans. So the ceiling's higher for Metcalf if the quarterback situation's better, but the floor is definitely in favor of Mike Evans right now. So Metcalf makes me really nervous.

So would you rather have – okay. How about Michael Pittman or DK Metcalf? And then Michael Pittman or Tyler Lockett, how would you rank them? For me, it's still Metcalf over Pittman. I don't know if Pittman's value changes, at least for me, with the quarterback change because while Wentz was bad last year,

Pittman, I don't know if he necessarily gets that much better with Matt Ryan because I don't know where Ryan's at at 36. We know he's kind of allergic to throwing touchdowns to his number one receiver. I'll take Metcalf still, but I'll take Pittman over Lockett. I think Lockett to me is the biggest loser in this

because his connection with Russell Wilson and the deep ball opportunities, I just don't think those are going to be there with, whether it's Baker or Drew Locke or a rookie, whatever route they decide to go. I just think Lockett loses more than Metcalf does. So I'll take Pittman over Lockett. Okay. Jamie, you want to throw out some more losers? One of the biggest ones to me is Robert Woods.

I just hate this scenario for him going to the Titans. I know there'll be some target opportunities for him. Hopefully he doesn't fall off too much, but we're talking about a guy that's going from Sean McVay to Mike Vrabel. As coaches, they're both fantastic, but as offensive play callers you know or offensive you know uh systems for each of their respective teams uh it's clearly a downgrade you know so titans run first offense ryan tan hill doesn't necessarily you know feel like the type

of guy that's going to all of a sudden feature two guys we saw last year with you know julio struggling you know 30 years old for robert woods coming off the acl tear um he's, you know, 30 years old for Robert Woods coming off the ACL tear. He's just, you know, not somebody that I'm excited about going to the Titans. And then it feels, you know, just to, you know, kind of go back to the beginning of the show for anybody that missed it, Kyle Pitts, you know, loses with the quarterback change, you know. So, well, again, I don't think Pittman necessarily changes much with Matt Ryan. I think you got to be a little bit concerned about Pitts, not, you know, take anything away from what Mariota did with Delaney Walker or what he did in the one game with Darren Waller,

but it just feels as if Pitts is in a little bit of a downgraded situation because of everything that's unfolding in Atlanta. Yeah, I also want to bring up with Robert Woods why leaving the Rams is so bad for him, because they let him run so much, and if you just look at his PPR point per game finish the last four seasons, he's finished between 13th and 18th, four straight seasons in full PPR. If you remove his rushing totals, instead of 13th to 18th, it's 20th, 23rd, 32nd,

and 33rd. If you remove his rushing totals in per game scoring. So I don't know. I mean, I just, I don't think he's going to rush for 150 yards with the Titans. I don't know if he's going to rush at all with the Titans. They have another guy who does that quite a bit. Okay. Those are some winners and losers from fantasy free agency and all the incredible trades that we've seen go down. And we will finish our show with some, who would you rather have in a PPR league?

So who would you rather have in a PPR league? Samantha, you can go first here, Derek Carr and Devante Adamsams or russell wilson and jerry judy carr and adams with the raiders or wilson and judy with the broncos which is just weird to say but uh who would you rather have i think car and adams feel like the safer play here um i mean car's not a fan he hasn't been like a fantasy juggernaut or anything but he was QB 12 through 17 games last year partially a function of just him being healthy for

the whole season but with Adams you know you're getting wider super one numbers I mean Judy and to to an extent Sutton of course like obviously just really scare me um I want to believe that Jerry Judy can perform with the right quarterback, but I just, I mean, I don't know. I don't know really what to expect. He was putting up kind of like seven points per game last season. So even if like you expected, you know, if you expected Judy to make that leap and perform as well as, say, Tyler Lockett with Wilson, I still think that that combined is not as good as what you're going to get week in, week out from Carr and Adams. Jamie, Carr and Adams, or Wilson and Judy?

Totally agree with Samantha. I think the gap between Wilson and Carr shouldn't be that significant if both even play their best seasons. So Wilson has just an amazing season, but I think Carr has a chance to do the same. But Judy's going to have to do a lot to catch Devontae Adams, or Adams is going to have to fall off a cliff. So I think the receiver difference is huge here. So I'll side with the Raiders guys over the Broncos guys in terms of the duo.

All right, and for those of you watching on YouTube right now, I'd love to see what you think. I only have one comment. It was for Car and Adams. But we'll go on to our next one here and just weigh in. Let us know what you think. All right, we've got a couple of Cowboys or a couple of Ravens. Would you rather have Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott

or Lamar Jackson and J.K. Dobbins? Jamie, first word to you. Dak and Zeke or Jackson and Dobbins? Yeah, I'll take the Ravens guys here. And that's, you know, taking some blind faith in that J.K. Dobbins is back to, you know, close to 100% and ready to go. I'm just scared of Zeke.

You know, I think as we saw last year, you know, I know he played through a knee injury. Dobbins, you know, missed the season with a knee injury. But Zeke just feels like, you know, he's at that point in his career where you just got to start to worry about can he still produce at a high level and I think Lamar Jackson's in a better spot right now than Dak Prescott because Lamar's running ability so uh the quarterback is is in favor of the Ravens and I think the running back situation is as well

Samantha Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott Lamar Jackson and J.K. Dobbins yeah this one was tough for me but I'm gonna to lean Jackson and Dobbins. I mean, Ravens were top three in rushing attempts two years in a row, and obviously they had quite a messy situation last season when they lost three running backs during training camp, including Dobbins. So yeah, there is some built-in risk there,

but I think that the way he was being drafted last year, I mean, we were pretty excited about him. And hopefully since that injury occurred so quote unquote early that he had a lot of time to recover. And yeah, to Jamie's point, I'm concerned about the Tony Pollard is the Gil Elliott situation that I think that really devalues Elliott in terms of draft capital. And then Dak Prescott, I mean, I think he'll be awesome this year, especially since I'm really high on CeeDee Lamb. But I think there is going to be some sort of attrition and yards and production with the loss of Amari Cooper. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's interesting that Lamar Jackson has finished, I think, 11th and 12th per game, two straight years. Now, one, you know, this, I've got to do the math

if you remove the game that he left super early. Yeah, Samantha, when you do your stats, do you take out everybody's games that they... their worst game? No, not their worst game. The games that they get hurt. No, you take out their worst game. No, I don't do that. We call it the Acer statting it.

I mean, why would I want to know where Lamar Jackson ranks per game when he threw like four passes in one game? You can't do that. That's not fair. I mean, I will throw out games here and there if they're irrelevant. Like if they're going out in the first quarter. If you saw the garbage can next to Adam's desk of games that he's thrown out,

it would be like the biggest mountain of snow that you've ever seen. I did that a lot this morning because I was trying to calculate Mariota's true 17 game paces, but he has left a lot of games early. Mariota is a tough one in that regard. Anyway, it looks like the YouTube audience agrees. They're going with the Ravens

side, Lamar Jackson and J.K. Dobbins, and also Dan Utley says, Alexa, will Jimmy G be traded today? I'm trying to find that out. All right. Next up in a PPR league, would you rather have James Conner or Saquon Barkley? Samantha, James Conner or Saquon Barkley?

YouTube's James Conner or Saquon Barkley? Go ahead. I mean, we're Saquon Barkley playing football this year. I think that that that's going to make a huge difference. If he's still on the Giants, I'm probably going Connor. I mean, Connor did have an awesome season last year, even competing with Edmonds. Edmonds is in Miami.

So at this point, I'd probably lean Connor. But I don't know. If Saquon ends up in a fabulous situation somewhere else with a really awesome offensive line, I think that could certainly bridge the gap there jamie yeah i don't know a situation that fits that description that's the problem you know so you know if he goes somewhere like that he's probably in a committee at this point so i i think he's probably best off with the giants so i i would take connor um with the hope that he stays healthy you know i look i

hope both these guys stay healthy i hope hope it's a fun competition between them. But I think Connor, you look at the way he finished last year, as things stand right now, if you tell me that it's Benjamin as the backup in Arizona or a day three rookie that they're just taking for depth or a Duke Johnson, Matt Breida type of guy that's still out there in free agency. You know, Jordan Howard's in a great spot. So I like that setup for him a little bit more than Barkley.

James Connors is a great spot. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, James Connors. That was a weird. Jordan Howard, I don't know. No, if they bring in, you know, a guy off the street. Oh, okay, okay, gotcha. Sitting out there, you know, for competition. Okay, not a lot of votes here, but two nothing Connor wins on YouTube. Uh, David Montgomery or Aaron Jones is our next one. They're not exactly relevant,

but we haven't talked much about them. David Montgomery or Aaron Jones, Jamie full PPR. I'm going to go Jones. You know, I think you just look at, uh, the numbers that he's put up when Devante Adams has been gone. And last time we checked, Devontae Adams is gone. So this is, I think, you know, Samantha referenced the receiving core. You know, it's Alan Lazard and Randall Cobb and Robert Tunyon and just a bunch of guys right now that aren't very inspiring. You know, and you factor in maybe a rookie or some sort of retread veteran that may end up there as well. So I think Aaron Jones is going to have a big opportunity in the passing game. You know, AJ Dillon's a problem.

You know, something you have to factor in there. Montgomery doesn't necessarily have that right now. But I think, you know, you just look passing game opportunities. I'll take Aaron Jones. Non-PPR, I'll take Montgomery. But PPR, I'll take Aaron Jones. Samantha, how about you? So far we have, oh, we have two to one.

Oh, let's see. It looks pretty three to one. Jones, maybe three to two. Somebody says it's AJ Dillon's season. So it looks pretty three to one jones maybe three to two somebody says it's aj dylan's season so it looks like a little bit split here um aaron jones or david montgomery ppr uh probably going jones i think there's going to be more uh targets to go around without davante adams so uh i'm gonna lean him but i mean montgomery i i could also see him uh jumping in terms of production if we see justin fields also sort of make that leap so um it's closer than it seems but i'm going to

go with jones right now one more to finish the show uh deandre hopkins or michael thomas looking for bounce backs for these older wide receivers deandre hopkins or michael thomas that's our next one here and yeah we had a pretty split audience on the Montgomery versus Jones. So let's see what YouTube thinks about that. DeAndre Hopkins versus Michael Thomas. Jamie, go ahead. I'm going to go with Hopkins right now, but it's close. I hope Hopkins is 100%. I hope that he's back to the guy that we saw two years ago, especially Kirk gone, Green not back,

Ertz is back, but I don't know how much we can count on Rondell Moore at this point. The only thing that makes me a little bit cautious about this right now is you heard a little buzz at the Combine about potential Kyler Murray holdout based on his unhappiness and the social

media stuff and the fact that, you know, he's still kind of complaining about other teams making moves and the Cardinals not really doing very much. So that's something you got to clearly factor in. But if Kyler's there come week one, no issues. I think DeAndre Hopkins feels a little bit safer right now than Michael Thomas. What do you think, Samantha? Yeah, I'm going to go Hopkins here. Obviously, both guys dealing with injuries. Thomas didn't play at all, and Hopkins missed multiple games. They're both sort of on the same age bracket. Thomas is 29, Hopkins is 30. So certainly, we've got some wear and tear and age-related issues, especially for a wide receiver. But I'm going to go with Hopkins. I mean, he had eight touchdowns in 10 games last year. So he's certainly a big target for Kyler Murray. Obviously there's

some risk with the Murray situation, but I think that in general, like that's, that's a better offense that you want a piece of versus the Saints at this point. I mean, Jameis certainly brings a little more life to the Saints offense, but it's not in a way. I don't think anyone's going to argue that the Saints are going to be a better offense than the Cardinals. Well, you did not disagree on any of those. So that was a lame job by me picking these comparisons. They were too easy. They were pretty bad.

Yeah, they were pretty easy. Snowboarding or skiing? Snowboarding or skiing, guys? What do you think? Well, for me, it just depends on the day because powder days are better on a board. But then I think in general, I might like skiing a little better. Jamie, you agree, of course?

I probably would. And Samantha, you can confirm or deny this. I probably would less likely tear my ACL on a board than I went on skis. So I'll probably go with board to avoid the ACL tear. So yeah. Yeah. The most common snowboarding injury is a wrist injury. So I always tell my students to give themselves a hug because self-love is important and wrist injuries are not. So yeah, I think that in my quote unquote older age though, I prefer skiing just because there's less falling involved, like less sitting down, less getting up, stuff like that. That's true. Well, you are definitely

much younger than us. So I think we can end, you just called us old basically. So we can end on that. I'm definitely old. Yeah. Yeah, Jamie's old for sure. Samantha Ravidi, thank you so much. Follow her at Samantha NFL and she's a fantasy football analyst at the Action Network and does an awesome job and it was really great

having you on. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I hope that I see you guys in the snow soon. I hope so. For Samantha and Jerry, I'm Adam.

Talk to you on Thursday on Fantasy Football Today.