Fantasy Football Today - 🚨Pats Re-sign Cam; Ingram to the Texans (03/12 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: March 12, 2021

What needs to happen for Cam Newton to be Fantasy relevant in 2021? What do his statistics tell us about what kind of season we can expect? And how much does the Mark Ingram signing affect David Johnson? Would we rather have Johnson or Kareem Hunt as of now? Subscribe to the FFT in 5 podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to FFT. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @CTowersCBS, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos 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/ Want winning picks each morning in under 10 minutes? Subscribe to 'The Early Edge: A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast' on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to 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

A bit of mildly big news for you here. Bonus pod number four. Happy Friday, everybody. Adam, Dave, and Jamie breaking down Cam Newton and Mark Ingram. Get right into it. Cam Newton signs a one-year deal. He was number 19 in four-point, number 27 in six-point for passing touchdown leagues per game. He did lead all quarterbacks in rushing.

Dave, quick thought on Cam Newton. What needs to happen for him to get drafted in one quarterback leagues? I'd like to see the Patriots add talent at wide receiver. I'd like to make sure their offensive line stays of strength, and I want to see Cam Newton healthy and ready to go. I think with an off-season program and a full training camp, he should be a better passer than he was last year. Jamie, what do you think?

Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, you're already seeing the offensive line starting to get better with the addition of Trent Brown. Um, he, he, he led all quarterbacks in rushing touchdowns. He wasn't the leader in rushing. I thought I said that. I'm sorry. I thought I heard you say rushing.

I apologize. Um, yeah, so he was top five in rushing yards. He led them in rushing touchdowns, led the position in rushing touchdowns. Uh, you heard him say it on, on a recent podcast that the absence for COVID-19 when he started, when he missed after week three, how much it impacted him. He said, you know, he was catching up on the offense already. And then he felt like he was so far behind. So to Dave's point of a full off season, you know, year two in the same system, they have to improve the skill players. It's such a disaster right now. And that's what the healthy Julian Edelman, if Edelman's not there, you know, Nikhil Harry's

clearly been a bust. Jacoby Myers is a nice player, but he's not a number one receiver. They have the opportunity now with all the cap space that they have to go out and spend to maybe get a Kenny Galladay, to get a Will Fuller, to get a Corey Davis, maybe get two of those guys, you know, to help this receiving core. They need to go get a tight end because while maybe one of the two young guys that they drafted last year has a chance to step up, clearly there's two guys on the market that could be difference makers, whether it's Hunter Henry or John New Smith. So there's an opportunity here to reset this offense. They've already again started with the offensive line, but, you know, adding skill players

is a huge, huge priority. Now, I also think that they're not done at the quarterback position. I think they could still draft a guy because they have to address the future. So this may not be a long-term answer for what the Patriots are for 2021. Cam Newton may not start all 16 games.

If they're struggling, they may turn to another guy. Hopefully it is the quarterback of the future there because they have to find that person to make this franchise get back on track after the success they had with Tom Brady. What does this mean to you guys for Cam Newton? He had his second best completion rate and his fourth best yards per attempt in 2020. He barely

threw. The Patriots were extremely run heavy. He also had a career low touchdown rate, an unbelievably low touchdown rate of 2.2 percent, and he only threw eight touchdowns. But when you watched him, it really didn't look like he was playing very well. He looked bad. I feel like everybody thought that, right? I'm not going out on a limb here. As a passer. How dare you?

I don't know. But the fact that the stats aren't so bad. Let's see you go out there and throw at him. Yeah, I don't know. What do you make of that? That he did have a good completion rate and yards per attempt, which are two important stats that people look at a lot? Well, Adam, put it this way, just to bring it home. You're great at your job, right?

I think a lot of people would agree with that. YouTube comments say no. We've done a lot of these emergency podcasts, and you're preparing on the fly. And so it's like Cam is still a capable NFL quarterback, but being thrown into a system that he's not familiar with, being thrown into a situation of guys he's not used to throwing to, losing his top guy.

You know, if you're going to try and make the positive out of Cam Newton, everybody's going to point to that Seattle game because he threw the ball really well in that game. Julian Edelman was making plays all over the field. You saw what the potential upside could have been. And then Edelman goes down. He has the COVID situation and nothing was the same for Cam throwing the ball until maybe week 17 against the Jets when he threw for three touchdowns. So the gap in between week two and week 17 is kind of the body of work you have to look at. So he wasn't prepared to the level. I think that any player wants to be prepared. He didn't have the

tools to be prepared with because of the players around him. You know, it's, it's, it's not easy to make, uh, have success with those caliber of wide receivers, you know? So if they can improve those things, which is a huge, if then cam has bounced back potential, but you know, for what we do, he's not going to be drafted as a, as a number one quarterback in any league, he's going to be a super flex option. He's going to be a two QB option, but there's going to be some chances that Cam Newton is going to start for you throughout the course of the season. If things go right.

And that's the hope because you still like to see the rushing potential. You still like to see what he might be able to become, but until you see this receiving core shaped and formed and completed, it's hands off Cam Newton. Okay. I won't even know i was taking on the jets in week one i would be tempted to draft him as a streaming quarterback so that's jamie's super bowl pick dave what are you talking about uh yeah you know it's funny i'm sorry you're

disrespectful like that but here i am doing it before before the uh before the cam newton news i was i was scheduled to be on hq uh doing some free agency stuff. And I had to give some destinations for certain players. And I didn't give anybody to the Jets. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, Adam's going to be so disappointed in me because I didn't. You could have given everybody to the Jets. Cam Newton, by the way, averaged 24.5 pass attempts per game. That is ridiculously low.

Would you allow him to throw? The way he looked last year? No. Well, I mean, even the guys he's throwing to. I think that's less than Lamar Jackson though. That's the Lamar Jackson range. That is like crazy low. Okay, so let's go over to the Mark Ingram news. Mark Ingram won your deal with Houston. Was just looking now, as Jamie said,

preparing on the fly. David Johnson scored eight or more non-PPR fantasy points in all but two games. One of those games he left after two carries. So he scored eight or more non-PPR fantasy points in all but two games. One of those games he left after two carries. So he scored eight or more non-PPR fantasy points basically in 10 of 11 games. And in those games, Duke Johnson never had more than five carries in any of David Johnson's healthy games. So, Jamie, how big of a threat to David Johnson is Mark Ingram? I mean, look, he's a threat in the standpoint of

he'll take some carries away. This is more of a David Culley thing, I think, than anything else. The fact that he comes from Baltimore, he's bringing in a guy that he's familiar with. Mark Ingram's going to do all the right things. He's going to be in the right place. He's going to hit the right hole.

He just doesn't have the explosiveness anymore. I don't know if this is the right compliment to David Johnson, because you'd probably want to see a younger, more of a pass catching type of guy. Not that Mark Graham can't do it. He's got, you know, a couple of 50 catch seasons on his resume, but for a guy that's in his early thirties, who clearly was not part of the Ravens game plan last year,

as they were making him a healthy scratch, I think this is more of an insurance situation. So, you know, kind of like how Carlos Hyde has popped up every now and then the last couple of seasons, I think that's where Mark Ingram will come into play. David Johnson, still the featured guy there.

He's still a guy you could take as a low end number two running back. And Mark Ingram, if you want to handcuff him as a guy you take with a late round pick. Dave, where's David Johnson in your rankings? He's 25th. He is behind David Montgomery and Jeff Wilson, cream hunt,

Chris Carson. And he can move up depending on what happens to guys like Carson and other free agents that are out there. But I've got him for now ahead of Myles Gaskin, ahead of Leonard Fournette, ahead of Rojo, Kenyon Drake. We'll see what happens. But I don't look at this as a negative on David Johnson. I agree with Jamie. This is a running back who knows what David Cully is looking for. And I don't even know if he makes the team Mark Ingram. Okay. And Jamie,

would you take David Johnson or Kareem hunt? I would take David Johnson still, you know, I think, uh, I mean, we don't know what it seems to look like, you know,

I mean, the quarterback situation is still the biggest, you know, question mark. So, uh, with Deshaun Watson, um,

then David Johnson is better than Kareem Hunt. Without Deshaun Watson, David Johnson may not be a guy that you want to draft as a starter, but he was good last year. Give him credit. He played really well coming to a new system, coming to a new team, and coaching change, all those things. He did a nice job. Per game, 14th in non-PPR,

16th in PPR, and now he's got Mark Ingram to deal with, but no Duke Johnson. All right. Thanks to Dave and Jamie for hopping on this bonus pod. Thanks everybody for listening. I don't know when we'll be back. We'll be back soon. If we don't talk to you before Monday, have a great weekend.