Fantasy Football Today - Player Outlooks (AFC)! Fun Notes on Eight Key Players (06/02 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

We're giving you stats you need to know about eight AFC players today after we tackle the news and notes (5:50) as Jonnu Smith could get traded and every Chiefs player is looking great! ... Player outlooks for David Njoku (15:55) and Justin Fields (21:45). What could Njoku do with Joe Flacco at quarterback? Is Fields the most underrated quarterback in Fantasy? Then we jump to outlooks for Anthony Richardson (28:15) and Brian Thomas Jr. (33:15) and discuss the target competition in Jacksonville ... We highlight Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman's history with running backs (41:50) and debate how worried you should be about Omarion Hampton, plus what Xavier Worthy excelled at in 2024 (52:45). And we finish with stats on Jonnu Smith (1:01:30) and Khalil Shakir (1:03:40). Are we drafting Shakir at his ceiling? ... Email us at [e-mail] Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shop our store: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shop.cbssports.com/fantasy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  SUBSCRIBE to FFT Express on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-express/id1528634304⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow FFT Express on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/6qyGWfETSBFaciPrtvoWCC?si=6529cbee20634da8⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW FFT DFS on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/5zU7pBvGK3KPhfb69Q1hNr?si=1c5030a3b1a64be2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FFT team on Twitter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @FFToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @AdamAizer⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @JameyEisenberg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @daverichard⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @heathcummingssr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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 Fan 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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Can you believe this? No, I can't. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. This is gonna go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath. Welcome everybody to Fantasy Football today. It is Monday, June 2nd. It is June.

It is really almost football season. It's getting there. We welcome you to the show. We're gonna talk about player outlooks. We all had to write some player outlooks. They were due today. And I don't know guys, for me, I've this first time I've ever done it.

Putting pen to paper as the expression goes, but fingers to keyboard and writing something out was actually helpful for me to put my thoughts out there, organize it a little bit and really hone in on how I feel about these players. Did you guys feel that way when you do these player outlets? Very much so. And it's also like, maybe it's a key point for people

to help them with their fantasy strategies and figure out what it is that they really want to accomplish in their drafts, making a list by hand, writing down thoughts by hand. I know we're living in the digital era. There are people that don't even know cursive anymore. But if you write things down, maybe you could actually like, or type things out. We're not literally writing it out. I can't make it like, this is 1965 and we've got yellow legal pads or anything like that. Typing it out might be

able to just be enough to help you realize and flesh out the points that can help you. Or you can just listen to us. Maybe you can just write down the points that you really like when you hear our shows every day and the points that really stand out to you are the ones that you'll refer to in your drafts in two months. I think that's a really good point, Dave. And I feel like one of my,

the biggest parts of my job is to help other people be better at fantasy football. So I just like to put the offer out there. If somebody wants to try that next May, just let me know. Try what? Outlooks for you. Writing out player outlooks to see if it helps them with fantasy football. Yeah, I actually, Dave, I used to tell the legal pads.

I actually use like a jar of ink and a feather to write down my thoughts. I had a question for you, Adam. It was not player outlook related. Okay. Oh, I know where you, Adam. It was not player outlook related. Okay. Oh, well, I know where you're going. June 2nd is, um, in a part of the first week of June. I, we could do the draft tomorrow. I don't care. Okay. Like we're going to do our dynasty draft suit.

Adam, Adam a month ago told us we were doing the rookie draft the first week of June and he's now scheduled it for June the 9th, which like 1130 is in the afternoon. But let's start the rookie draft already, man. And he's now scheduled it for June the 9th, which like 1130 is in the afternoon, but let's start the rookie draft already, man. Oh man, is it summer yet? Like it is summer, right? Like it's June, it's hot, it's summer. To be fair, I don't know exactly how time zones work, but there's a few people in this

league in England. It might be June 9th already. It's true. It might be. June 20th is the official start of summer. I know, but like it's kind of summer. Okay. So anyway, let's get, it might be. June 20th is the official start of summer. I know, but like it's kind of summer. Okay, so anyway, let's get to it here. Jamie had an idea of writing an article

about like kind of the most interesting things we discovered while doing the player outlook. So I said, let's turn that into a podcast. So we're gonna do AFC today, we'll do NFC tomorrow. Just two notes per division. Sorry, to Dave's point about doing these exercises yourself. So part of the reason why we're putting some of this information out now in stories is so,

when you're on the clock in a draft, especially live draft, you will have already read some of these things, hopefully, if you're preparing now. So like, for example, the NFC South is one division I did already. The story is already up. And so what I did was I did, and I think this is going to be the format for everyone, but five, just basically repeating the key points of the outlook or the key statistics of the outlook and something

that will tell you about the player that can help you now. And so when you're on the on the clock, for example, so like Alvin Kamara versus Kenneth Walker, right? So you could have read this already weeks in advance and these will be updated. I don't think the stories will be updated. So I apologize about that. But the outlooks will be updated. But you already have the information at your fingertips so that when you're on the clock and you have 60 seconds to pick, you've read why we like Alvin Kamara or don't, why we like Kenneth Walker or don't, and you've already formulated your own opinion so you don't have to worry about in round three or round four when you're making that

decision. So that's the goal by this is that you already have this stuff in June and you don't have to worry about it in August when it's 19, 18, 17 clock ticking down and you're determining which player you want the most. And if this first news item comes to fruition, I'm going to have to rewrite a lot of Miami Dolphins outlooks here because the Dolphins and the Steelers are apparently talking about a John who Smith trade where he would be reunited with offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who coached him in Tennessee and Atlanta. Would this be Heath a big, big deal for you if Arthur Smith, if sorry, if John who Smith went to the Steelers? It would stink for John Smith. In my opinion,

I would not be very excited about this move for him. It would be like the one guy that I would probably significantly and back from you'll be Jalen Waddle because his role did just almost disappear last year at times. And I would be more hopeful for a bounce back season from model. Yeah. Waddle had one of the lowest target per out run rates, you know, not quite toward the bottom of wide receivers, but pretty close. It was like 17.5%, something like that.

And you really want to be above 20, 21% to be a relevant fantasy option target per outrun rate. The 11 games that Tua Tonga Bailoa played, weeks one, two, and eight through 16, Johnna Smith was second on the team in targets with 76 behind Tyree Kill, who had 87. So Johnna Smith, that's 117 target pace. For Tyree killer was 134 target pace. This is just with two for

a Chan. It was 113 target pace. And for wattle a 96 target pace in his nine healthy games. Maybe it would be good for Tyree kill because maybe trading John Smith away would signal that the Dolphins are done with their trying to eliminate big plays offense. Or they just think that they could find somebody else who can replicate what John who did. Let's be honest. How many times did you watch a John Smith play go, wow, only John Smith could have made that play. Only John Smith could have caught a ball two yards off the line of scrimmage and

maybe broke a tackle. Then I should give him more credit. Yeah. But it's not like he was a difference maker. He had volume. He was great for fantasy because of volume more than anything else. I think the nice thing is that we've continued our Tyree kill streak. Yeah. It's not going away. He's going to be part of every single show we do. I hope so. Patrick Mahomes talking about Rishi Rice says Rishi Rice looks like Rishi. And he's he's healthy. He has no limitations. He also said Travis Kelce looks good and his body

feels good, maybe even better than Kelce felt at the beginning of or before the season last year. And Andy Reid said Isaiah Pacheco looks tremendous. So everything is great. Yeah. Yeah, I know. But right. I mean, everything is great right now for the chiefs. I will say for, for Kelsey, you've heard me mention this a few times throughout the years. He went back to training in South Florida with the guy that helped him get ready for the combine, Tony Bellani and XP sports.

And he spent a lot of time in South Florida. I think he may still be here. I'm going to find out this week. But he's clearly trying to get back to something. And I don't know if he got away from it. I know he wasn't training at that particular gym for the last couple of years, but at least to my knowledge. But I think that's a great sign whenever you go back, try and get yourself in some better shape and pick up some speed, which that's what that place is known for. It could be a step in the right direction. And the last time he was there, at least to my knowledge,

was right before he had, what was the year, Adam, where he had a little bit of down year then bounced back? Oh, I honestly, 2021 maybe? It was definitely that that correlation. You know, I should say that's not why it happened, but he definitely after down year went back there and I remember talking to him there and you know, things obviously worked out in a good way for him. Yeah. I'd say 2021 probably average 69 yards per game.

The next year, 72 yards per game, and three more touchdowns. Maybe it's 2019, 2019 and 20, but whatever, who cares? Okay, that's Travis Kelsey we're talking about. Another tight end is Isaiah Leichli. And John Harbaugh said that he wants Isaiah Leichli to be an all-pro this season. That wouldn't be good for Mark Andrews. Kyle Shanahan said that Christian McCaffrey

is as healthy as can be. Also, Ricky Pearsall has a hamstring injury. He could be out, he could be limited until training camp according to the Athletic. The Patriots, now, I mean, this is wild, a little bit of a wild report. They could consider cutting Stefan Diggs according to Scott Zolak of 98.5, the sports hub.

I feel like they must have like a radio thing that says, this is 98.5, the sports hub. They all have that. You don't know how close you are. Yeah, they all have that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I go on a show on that station every Thursday morning.

I've been doing it for over a decade. And they're very proud, prideful station in the Boston area. Yeah. Shout out to Tutter and Hardy. It wasn't just, it may not have been, according to the report, it may not have been just the crystal light, pink lemonade incident from that we saw last week.

Oh, I forgot to get that. Yeah. Russell Wilson was on the 7 PM in Brooklyn podcast raving about Malik neighbors calling him a superstar. Zach Jackson of the Athletic thinks Joe Flacco is the favorite to win the quarterback competition. Yes, 49ers. More on that later. The 49ers are finalizing a trade for Eagles edge rusher Bryce Huff. Bryce Huff was really good for the Jets under head coach Robert Sala, but kind of limited snaps. And then with the Eagles, it just didn't really work. He just two and a half sacks in 12 games,

but it looks like he's on his way to San Francisco to be reunited with Robert Sala, who's the defensive coordinator there. Lions center Frank Ragnau has been missing OTAs. This looks like it could be contract related. And CJ Stroud dealing with a minor shoulder injury that they are not concerned about. I wanna tell you real quick about Paramount Plus.

We watch it every day in my house for SpongeBob. Oh, hi SpongeBob. I do a Patrick impression, the kids love it. And, but for adults out there listening. Wait, wait, wait. Did you say you do an impression of who? Patrick on SpongeBob. Yeah, thank you, it was Patrick.

Oh, hey, Patrick. I do a decent SpongeBob and I do kind of a decent Squidward. But anyway, I also watched- Stick with Patrick. Mayor of Kingstown is amazing, Land Man, like there's so many good shows on Paramount Plus. So please check it out.

It's pretty damn cool. Adam, I saw a great movie this weekend. Oh, what'd you see? What do you think? I don't know. An old movie or you went to the theater? Theater. I don't have any idea what's out right now.

I know. Of course you know, because you're smart. Lilo and Stitch. I did see that last week. Oh, okay. Damn, darn it. What is, oh, Superman?'re smart. Lilo and Stitch. I did see that last week. Oh, okay. Damn, darn it. What is, oh, Superman? No, Mission Impossible, come on.

You're talking about Paramount Plus. Yeah, oh right, all the Mission Impossibles. Yes. Yeah, yeah, there you go. All right, I got a tweet of the day real quick here. Is he doing the rowing thing again? Wah, wah, no, that's super botched a bit. From at mnsportsfan5, mnsportsfan5.

I remember we did the whole thing like comparing movie characters to football players. So we had really not much to offer. He said Marvin Harrison Jr. is comparable to Tommy Boy. Dad was the man, he didn't do much right away but he comes through in the end. Marvin Harrison Jr. will be a beast. Okay. I like that. But the reason I bring this up, did you know, I had no idea. Did you know Marvin Harrison Jr. because Jamie, you've

mentioned several times, Marvin Harrison Jr. very similar rookie season, Marvin Harrison senior. Do you know that Marvin Harrison senior did not break out until his fourth year? It's fourth year. Fourth year. Yeah. And that was the card. The careers will be the same. They'll take it.

I know. Frustrating. Yeah. But that was interesting to me. That was Peyton's second year if I if I'm remembering correctly? I'm not sure. I'll double check. By the way, so gamer Eric is the one that sent us the GIF of you doing your little move. Yeah. And so I said, What do you think Adam Mazer was doing here? I sent that out.

The best response is you don't check your notifications was this is a classic guy dance move known as paddling the canoe very popular at wedding receptions. I did anyone get it? I don't think I doubt anyone got it. Yeah, somebody wanted to get it. Yeah. Okay, we're gonna take a break when we come back. Outlooks, AFC outlooks for one, two for each. And just some stats to kind of get the conversation rolling. We'll be right back on fantasy football today. Oh, welcome back everybody. Okay, so Heath, you responded to the text message first.

That means you get to go first. You know how it works. So just some things that caught your eye while you were writing your outlooks. Give me the David Najoku stat. David Najoku. You know, we talk, I think with Jerry Judy about how he was so good

with Jamis Winston, but Jamis isn't there. And we hope that maybe Joe Flacco can get the job and be Jamis Winston. We don't have to have that hope with David Njoku because we saw him play with Joe Flacco five games in 2023, 18.6 PPR fantasy points per game. You just heard that Joe Flacco is considered the favorites to be the starting quarterback week one. I think as long as like they may decide late in the year that they want to go to one of the rookies because they're terrible, but Flacco is pretty clearly the

best quarterback on the team and Nijoku could absolutely be a top three tight end. And I don't know that that really surprises anybody But when you look at where these guys go in our drafts Especially like the difference between a Sam Laporta and a David Njoku a lot of times the Porter goes a couple of rounds Maybe three rounds ahead of Njoku. I think it flat goes the quarterback for 15 games 12 games Maybe even Njoku is going to be better in full PPR than Sam Laporta where's the sliding scale for you though, as someone who does projections, like for, for the Brown's quarterbacks, because like 13 sounds amazing.

10 sounds great. Six sounds a little nervous, you know, I'm talking for the receivers. Right. I think the diff, the only thing is like, it's like, if you place 15, then I'd, I'd bet on the joke of finishing tight in three. If he plays 12, I mean, if he plays 12 games, then I'd probably drop it to tight in five or six. And less than that, you'd be concerned. But there's also the nice thing about Cleveland having three other

quarterbacks who are at least borderline NFL players. Um, one of those guys could be just serviceable. I think the, the, the other quarterback, whoever it is worried me a lot more for Jerry Judy than Joku, because the way this offense is set up a lot of times, like Dave talked about John who Smith catching a ball two yards from the line of scrimmage. I think he broke more than one tackle. I think he broke a few, but Joku, a lot of his targets like the

Shrae McBride targets, because it's a similar offensive system, where the tight ends the check down. And so I still think we could see in a joke who have a top eight production with any of the quarterbacks in this roster. Yeah. Njoku has been number six per game in PPR two straight years. He has a tendency to, to get injured, miss some games, leave some games early.

And I do think a Popinski, Mr. Popinski, thank you always in the chat, but he says should do her probably wouldn't be any worse for the weapons. I think that the thing that's special about Flacco is that when he starts, they throw a bunch of passes. He's a guy who's a veteran with the ability to get in the huddle and say, okay, we're not doing that. We're going to throw a pass this time. If Chidor starts, I'd expect a much more run heavy offense.

Well, I think it also comes down to how well Judkins is playing because this offense, when Stefanski initially got there, had a dominant Nick Chubb and then Flacco's success which got them to the playoffs was without Nick Chubb and without a strong run game and last year they did not have a run game basically at all and so now you have the potential of a run game right so does that sort of take away I mean look, look, Flacco that season, those six games, he was over 300 yards in five of them. You know, so he led them to the playoffs.

Could he have similar success? Obviously, you know, there's the chance for it. But I would think that his numbers come, I don't know, drastically down, but they come down and it's going to have a trickle down effect to all these guys. Again, if the run game is working, because this defense is still going to be good, you know, whether they're great, we'll see, but they have a chance to be still really good. And so how much does the offense have to have Flacco throwing the ball over the face? Because yes, he does have that ability and certainly more so than one of the younger quarterbacks, but will this offense need him to do that? Because I think

at that point in the season, when it was happening, when he was there, they needed him to do it. And, and they're probably probably gonna start 0-4, but they've got a lot of winnable games after that. Joe Flacco in those five games to end the season in 2023, he was on pace for 5,494 yards and 44 touchdowns and 27 interceptions. He threw 41 passes per game. So he will not be on a 5,500 yard, 44 touchdown base.

But David Njoku has had a stretch of at least five games in three consecutive seasons, where he has averaged 14.2 to 15.8 PPR fantasy points per game. In 2022, it was only five games, then he got injured and struggled coming back. In 2023, it was only five games. Then he got injured and struggled coming back. In 2023, it was his last 11 games. Half of those with Flacco, half of them were six without Flacco, five with Flacco. So that's 11 games in 2023. Average 15.4 PPR points per game.

Last eight games last year, he averaged 15.8 PPR points per game. It was a lot of Jameis, but also one Watson game, I think, and one Dorian Thompson Robinson game. It was a lot of Jamus, but also one Watson game, I think in one Dorian Thompson Robinson game. Okay, so that's our Nijoku stat. By the way, the 18.6 PPR fantasy points per game that Heath mentioned that was a five games of flack on 2023. I'm going to talk about John who Smith, that's exactly what John who Smith averaged in his last eight games last year, but that'll be later in the show. Heath, your other stat is on Justin Fields, who,

so Heath did the AFC North outlooks. The way we do it, it's the guys who were on the AFC North teams last year. So, but anyway, tell me about Justin Fields. Fields has been a guy who's bothered me all off season because I haven't been able to get my projection high enough to where I want to rank him. And as I was going through and Azerstading his career, I recognized that

it's a really easy argument to say Justin Fields has top 10 floor. If you look at what he did back in 2022, he was basically a QB nine from the time he became the starter. If you look at what he did, um, the following year in 2023, and I'm pulling this up, so I have exact information here. He was a top six quarterback on a per game basis. You look at what he did last year. He was QB nine before the team went to Russell Wilson, like QB, seven, QB, nine, QB, nine in three years.

If you count the games that he started and finished. Yeah. And they're backup quarterbacks to Rod Taylor. A six point passing touchdown, right? Right. And even better in four. Right. And like, I think there's risk with Flacco who we think is the best quarterback

there and we'll start the season, but they fall out of contention and they want to go to Chador Sanders or they want to go to Dylan Gabriel and see what they've got in the young guys. Cause they're not contending. The jets don't have anybody that you would want to start. If you fall out of contention, I think the only risk for Justin field's not being a starting quarterback this year is that he gets hurt. I'm going to give you his 17 game pace rushing totals, just yards and touchdowns in his last

three games, the last three seasons, games with a 90% snap share or higher. Cause remember last year he got in a few games with Pittsburgh or whatever, like barely played. So this is what he's been on pace rushing wise in his last three seasons, 2022, 1300 yards, nine touchdowns, 2023, 866 yards yards nine touchdowns. 2023 866 yards six touchdowns. That was his best passing season by the way. 2024 only 655 rushing yards 14 rushing touchdowns. I think his yards per carry was a little low last year. So yeah, I mean, he just runs so effectively that I yeah, it's a great point you make just he's actually got a floor.

Like you look at his passing efficiency, and it hasn't been good. But the last three years are really every year 6.9 is the worst year he's had in terms of yards per attempt. He's at 7.0 yards per attempt for his career. That's really close to average. Okay. Dave, you wanted to his career. That's really close to average. Okay. Dave, you wanted to add onto that with you wanted to talk about the Jets passing game, I believe.

Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, I remember being at bears mini camp before the 23 season and fields told the media he didn't want to run for a thousand yards every year. It wasn't a goal of his to use his legs. He wanted to be a better thrower. That year in 2023, I just, I happen to have the numbers right here. His completion rate was 61.4%. That's not great. He attempted 30 passes per game. His A-dot was 8.1. His yards per attempt was 7.0. So a little bit better, incrementally better than 6.9%. His touchdown rate passing, 4.4%. That's OK. 82%

catchable pass rate, that's not good. Still average 21 fantasy points per game, 5 games with 25+. That was pretty close to what Aaron Rodgers' numbers were like and what his efficiency metrics were like last year. So just as a passer, he had the same type of efficiency that Roger's had in 2024 when he was throwing a lot in 2023. He didn't throw that much with the, with the Steelers last season, but his efficiency was about the same, probably a little bit better. His completion rate was actually 66%. So as a thrower, the baseline and Heath, I think you'd agree with this is that he's average and he can do enough to help one receiver. We saw that in

2023, where one receiver had a really good fantasy year. And that was DJ Moore, bunch of games with seven plus targets. He did great. Pickens didn't do as well last year. Almost every game that Pickens played with Fields, he had at least seven targets in those games. Only once did he really come through. I just wonder how good of a receiver Pickens is. You can make the argument that he's not as good as DJ Moore, certainly. And I think that Garrett Wilson, you can make the argument, is a better receiver than Pickens is. And so it's kind of made me a little more encouraged to draft Garrett Wilson at his current ADP. And I, at one point, I was the guy poo-pooing Justin Fields, saying there's no way he should be a Top 12 quarterback. I have him as a Top 12 quarterback now. I want to draft him to be my starter, at least to begin the year. I don't want him to be my only fantasy quarterback. But I think, I think we're going to see it from the Lions this year, where they try and reel in Justin Fields and not have him throw as much as they had Rogers throw last year. Rogers attempted 34 passes per game. I don't think Fields is going to do that. But I think he'll throw enough to get you decent passing numbers and some good rushing numbers, and especially those rushing touchdowns that he's

worthy of being a top 12 fantasy quarterback on draft day. You said the Lions, you meant the Jets, but they have the Lions system coming in here. They have the Lions offensive coordinator and basically like a bunch of Lions coaches now. I mean, Aaron Glenn was the defensive coordinator for the Lions and now he's on the Jets. Yes, I meant to say that. Yeah, no, it's important to note, Tanner Engstrand, the new offensive coordinator for the Jets coming over from Detroit. Garrett Wilson will just wrap up on this.

Garrett Wilson is wide receiver 14 in the CBS early average draft position. I'm surprised by that. That's 30 second overall before Tyree kill Devante Adams, Rashid Rice, Marvin Harrison, Jr. I guess I'm not surprised to see him going like top 15, but I'm surprised he's ahead of Hill. I'm surprised he's 30 second overall. That's what surprises me the most.

Jamie, quick thought on Garrett Wilson's ADP, wide receiver 14, 30 second overall. That's our ADP? Yeah, just from the OnlyFans drafts. Oh yeah, I wouldn't put too much stock in that then. No, but I mean, there's not a lot of ADP going on. But is that also including the mock drafts that we have done or is it just those fan mock drafts, Dave?

I believe it's just the fans. Okay. What's he on fantasy pros? I'll look right at it. In the rankings? No, they're ADP. No, what is ADP is. Garrett Wilson.

Why are we always in a fight? You know, I can do this. He's wide receiver 13 going 24th overall. Yeah, way too soon in both. Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't do that. I can't do 24th. All right, let's go to Jamie's outlooks here on the AFC South Colts note on Anthony Richardson.

And did you did you come away, you know, writing up your Richardson outlook, looking back at what he did last year, encouraged or discouraged? Discouraged. Okay, go on. I mean, again, this is really all about what improvements he hopefully will have made this off season with, you know, working out with a, you know, I guess noted quarterback guru, the guy who helped Josh Allen with his mechanics, and staying healthy, being more dedicated to his craft. These are all knocks on him that I think have been documented and certainly impacted him last year. The best part about it is, and we just

got finished talking about Justin Fields, is Anthony Richardson's running, potentially. So you can give the numbers. What he did over his 10 game healthy game pace and how he would have done in a full season, that's what you're drafting. He's got to improve as a passer. He had more interceptions than touchdowns, which is never going to be good. And it's not going to keep him on the field, especially when they paid Daniel Jones what they paid him. But there's an opportunity for him to take hold of this offense.

I mean, if you pick a quarterback that you trust as a thrower, put them in Indianapolis with the weapons that they have, with the addition of Tyler Warren and what Josh Down showed, and we know what Michael Pittman's been capable of with a good quarterback, or at least a competent quarterback, I mean, they'd be one of the best receiving quarters in the league or in the conversation, if Warren's as legitimate as his draft stock is. So he's got everything in front of him to be successful. If he takes advantage of it, he's going to be a top 10 quarterback. But you can't look at what he did last year and say,

okay, yeah, he's good. I mean, clearly Colts don't feel that way. And I can't imagine fantasy managers do. He has averaged in two seasons, Anthony Richardson, in the games that he's played more than 90% of the snaps, he's averaged 19.3 fantasy points per game and six point per passing touchdown leagues, which is not really good enough. But obviously, there's just so much potential there. I would think that that number would surprise people though. It not if you

think back to what he did in 2023. It was very was only three games, I think maybe. Right. Yeah, I guess he was insane. But the last year was a struggle. And the problem is partially that he's not had very many games at all in two seasons that he's played 90% of the snaps because of injuries and because of his own poor play. And we only saw him really what played 12 games at Florida. And we only saw him really what played 12 games at Florida as a starter. And so that is both a problem for evaluating the floor and it's reason to give you hope as a 23 year old with very little experience that he could take a leap.

Okay. And I think what encourages me is something that people might just laugh at. So feel free. So he got benched and he came back weeks 11 through 16. He made five final starts, scored 31 points, 30 points against the Jets. You know, great game. He scored 13 points against the Lions the next week.

But we've talked about this. I can't remember the details. That was the game where one of their tight ends dropped a wide open touchdown. Or maybe that was the Denver, one of the two games. He had his wide receivers, like his wide receivers and his tight ends really stunk for him. They dropped a lot of balls.

Then he scored 25 points against the Patriots. Then at Denver, one of the hardest matchups in football, 14 points, and then 22 points against Tennessee. He was pretty damn usable. I mean, that's three of five games where he's scoring 22.2 or more fantasy points. One bad game at Denver, one bad game where I think he was a victim of a really bad drop touchdown.

I think he came back and actually did pretty good job. You know, good job, not necessarily in football sense, but in fantasy sense. All right, but that's obviously like a very optimistic spin on Anthony Richardson. Jamie. Yeah. I think the optimism will come is if he looks good in camp,

Daniel Jones has no sniff of being the snarding quarterback. And he comes out week one, you're hearing a lot of buzz about Tyler Warren and how he's performing. You're seeing, you know, Pittman with the back, Pittman played through a back injury last year. I mean, that's part of it too. You know, he obviously wasn't good, but he was not at a hundred percent. And he's connecting well with Josh down.

Look, they have again, good pieces in place. And if he's a competent passer, which we know has been the knock on him, clearly is, you know, and, and a lot of it is an experience as he alluded to. So if he comes in looking better, performing better, and doesn't have to be. The it's not going to be Lamar Jackson. You know, I mean, that that's, you know, someone who's going to run in and throw at a high level, but he could still be in that Justin Fields range. And you're getting him at such a great price.

Like he's the perfect type of player to draft late that could be a league winner. All right, let's talk about Brian Thomas Jr. who you can draft early and could be a league winner here. And just talk about the, you want me to read the stat or you want to read it? Yes please, I don't have it in front of me. Yeah, he scored at least 17.3 PPR points in five of his last six games,

including three outings with at least 23.9 points over that span. During that six game stretch, Brian Thomas Jr. had at least 10 targets and 76 yards in each game while averaging 7.5 receptions for 99.8 yards and just under one touchdown per game. He was just, he was just so good. Do you think he carries that into 2025? I mean, I hope he does. You know, the positive I think is Liam Cohen stepping in as the head coach

because I think the offense will be more creative. He did all of that with Mac Jones. So is this going to be Trevor Lawrence, you know, following a similar game plan or is it going to be Trevor Lawrence, following a similar game plan, or is it going to be now the addition of Travis Hunter taking things away from what I heard from OTAs, they're moving everybody around and giving guys an opportunity to play different spots

in the offense and the receiving core, which hopefully would be a plus for all of these guys. Also could be a negative, where there's some targets going different directions because he was dominating targets, understandably. So there was no Evan Ingram. There was no Christian Kirk at this point on the team. So I think there's pros and cons to it both ways, but this is another player who you see, if you're watching on the screen, if you recall, you know,

we were talking about him coming out of the NFL draft is somewhat raw 22 years old, you know, did all this in, in in what was I think a little bit of a surprise rookie season because just again the Expectations were not that he was going to be this dynamic And so hopefully there's still room to grow as he you know Understands the route tree more gets more in in tune with the offense and more in tune with Trevor Lawrence But again how much of a target crunch will be there so with the other guys. So I think there's just a lot to love about the upside of what Brian Thomas can be based on that six game stretch based on what we saw

last year. So late round one early round two, I'd be very surprised as you know, you'll read in the outlook if he's past the top 15 overall picks in anything that resembles a PPR league. So I have this spreadsheet here of wide receivers since 2000 who had 900 or more yards as rookies. Obviously Brian Thomas Jr crushed that 1,282 yards. And you've heard it many times in the show,

the 900 yard receiving club as a rookie, it's a pretty damn good group. Most of these guys end up having, I don't know, at worst, like a Terry McLaurin, not at worst, there have been much worse players. But like, I guess I'd be surprised if a guy who had 900 yards, maybe we should up it a little bit more now that we have a 17 game season, had a worse career than like a Terry McLaurin. But you do have guys like Michael Clayton, Kelvin Benjamin who tours ACL in his second season, Eddie Royal, Mike Williams of Tampa Bay.

One of the things that hurts these guys in their second year, and I would throw Anquam Bolden in there, he had a terrible second year. Well, they drafted Larry Fitzgerald. One of the things is added target competition that they didn't necessarily have in their rookie seasons. I know you've brought that up, Dave, that the Travis Hunter signing has gave you maybe added target competition that they didn't necessarily have in their rookie seasons. I know you've brought that up, Dave, that the Travis Hunter signing has gave you maybe a little pause at first on Brian Thomas Jr.

You still feel that way? How do you feel about that? I want to buy the talent and I want to buy the offense. And that's why Brian Thomas Jr. He's a round two pick. I don't want to take him in round one, but round two for sure. If I can get them, I'll take them. Here's, here's, here's what I'm worried about. It's just, there is some sort of a target crunch. Jamie talked about how much volume

BTJ had in those games with Mack Jones. What's the reality of that repeating? Certainly over 17 games, I think it's low. And so my first thought was, all right, well, Liam Cohen had some really good receivers and pass catchers just overall in Tampa last year. How many times in the same game did multiple bucks have 8-plus targets? So forget about 11. Let's just make it 8. Because I think BTJ could be pretty damn good on just 8 targets per game. And it only happened 4 times. And obviously part of it is Chris Godwin got hurt, but even when Godwin got hurt, K-Dot and stepped up one of those times, Rashad White randomly had 8 targets in a game. That's, if there's a thing to worry about, and I think it's just more of a nitpick than anything else, I'm worried about BTJ having double-digit targets every single game. Plus, if the run game just happens to get going for the Jaguars, that could cut into both Hunter and BTJ. I don't see that happening. I don't think that's a real reason to be

worried. But when I'm lining up Brian Thomas Jr. versus a lot of those other wide receivers in late round one and early round two, I think his target volume works against him compared to those other guys. And so BTJ falls off just a little bit. Still somebody I want, but he's more of like a top 15 overall player than a top 10 or a top 12. You know, I just bring this up. I'm on the same Brown at 142 targets in 17 games. Justin Jefferson was down to 153 targets in 17 games. You know, these guys are not averaging last year. And last year they weren't. We've seen it before for Jefferson, but they didn't average. And those are two great cops because they're in crowded receiving course.

Yeah. But I don't think, I don't think Brian Thomas Jr. is in a crowded receiving core. I think they've got two players worth a damn and nothing else basically. I mean, certainly by comparison to those other teams. I mean, they're not Minnesota and they're not Detroit, but I do think that you're going to see Dianne Brown get some opportunities that we probably didn't expect. And Breton Strange will get some opportunities we probably didn't expect. But yes, it's less diverse than even Tampa, and certainly less diverse than those two teams. But I think it's still worth bringing up that you are talking about guys that were still very good that did have not necessarily 10 targets per game.

And I think Travis Hunter could be better than the number two wide receiver there either of those places. Like it's the, the, the receiving the targets aren't as there aren't as many of them in Jacksonville, but the the number two or one B might be better than Jameson Williams and Jordan Addison. In fact, I think he will be Jacksonville averaged only 218.6 yards per game last year passing. So that's the other angle is like, let's get to like 235 would be a big boost. All right. Well, that's not that far. That's average.

Sorry, go ahead. We talked about Baker last week and the regression. And I brought this up on FFT Express to Adam that these conversations about the Liam Cohen offense and the weapon, like, just makes me excited about Trevor Lawrence. I know that's not something we say a lot, or at least have said last year.

There's a lot to like about a situation based on where you can draft him. Yeah. Now, look, I mean, after being so loyal to Trevor Lawrence for so long, I finally traded him away in our super flex dynasty league and I, I hate it was before the draft pick and I hate myself for it. But all right, let's,'s, it was part of the Jane Daniels deal. It was like Lawrence and McConk, I think it was Lawrence and McConkie and next year's first for Daniels and 1.7 this year. Now we'll see. All right, we'll take a break.

Come back. Dave's gonna talk about Greg Roman's track record with Running Backs. That's Chargers coordinator, Greg Roman and Xavier Worthy versus Man Coverage. We'll be right back on FFT. Dave's gonna talk about Greg Roman's track record with running backs. That's Chargers coordinator, Greg Roman and Xavier Worthy versus Man Coverage. We'll be right back on FFT. The new Mitsubishi Outlander brings out another side of you.

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The new Outlander, bring out your adventurous side. Mitsubishi Motors, drive your ambition. Welcome back. All right, Dave, so you wrote the AFC West Outlooks and you looked at the track record for Greg Roman with running backs. What'd you find out? And how concerned are you? Greg Roman's been an offensive play caller in the NFL for a long time. Let's go all the way back. I think his earliest year as a play caller was 2011.

How many times has a running back, any running back veteran rookie, whatever average 15 or more PPR points in a fantasy season? I'm going to say, I think I know you told me the answer, but I forgot. I'm going to say, Oh, okay. I'm going to say three times. I will say two and I'm just going to say Mark Ingram is one of them. The Sean McCoy definitely did it at least once.

If not twice, I'm going to say two McCoys and one Ingram and now Jamie, you can answer. No, he doesn't even have to because he nailed it. It's two, Mark Ingram was one of them. 2019, that's the last time it happened. And then the Sean McCoy 15 on the dot in. 2019, that's the last time it happened. And then LaShawn McCoy, 15, on the dot in 2016. But that's it. And he's been, I don't have the exact number of years. We can ballpark it at 10. But 2 out of 10 ain't great. Now, same question, but only rookies. How many times has a rookie running back averaged 15? Well, obviously the answer is zero. How many times is rookie running back average 12 PPR

points? Yeah, look at me a genius 12 PPR points in a season under Greg Roman. None. Yeah, zero. I'm Yeah. What do you mean? Jamie's right. Yeah, even answer the first time. Jamie always being right. I said, you're all right. Congratulations. Everybody wins. I

feel like Acer is the host of a game show now. Carlos Williams is the all time leader in PPR points per game under Greg Roman as a rookie. 11.3, 11 games. That's it. JK Dobbins had 11.2 in his rookie year. That makes me worried about Omarion Hampton. And just to double check, guys, Harbaugh, I mean, his play caller in San Francisco was Roman. So there was never a running back as a rookie that had even double digit PPR points and never did a running back in under Harbaugh have 15 PPR points. Dobbins was the closest last year he got to 14.8. Gore had a year where he was at 14.4. How many games, Jim Harbaugh was the head coach at Michigan from 2015 till 2023. How many games did a freshman running back have 15 carries?

The answer is not that. That's a real stretch to make that comment. Yeah, now we're getting a little bit in the weeds a little bit here. He's never had a first round running back, right? Hyde was round two, Dobbins was round two. He had Zach Charbonnet who was round two. Well, who had Zach Charbonnet? Not in the NFL.

He went on to be around Tupac. No, no, we're talking, he's talking about in the NFL. They've never. Right, right. So if you're going to play the draft capital game, that's fair. He's never had a first round running back on his team. I have faked Hampton's ranking for most of the summer because the projections are very much aligned with what Dave's saying. Like I think Najee Harris is the type of guy that

annoys us by how much he plays early on. And Romans always wanted to have two running backs. Yep. The only thing is, the optimistic cases. Yeah, one of them is good and one of them isn't. That's just kind of true. So many games as Najee missed. He's missed zero games. And as Jamie always says, he never fumbles, but also he never makes a big play like ever. And he coaches like guys who just do their job. Yeah, that's not their job is not to average like 3.9 yards per carry and never make an explosive play. If you have a running back who can do a lot better than that and be good in the passing game, he'll play over nausea Harris, especially the nausea is not a one year five ish million dollar

deal or something. I think it was seven. There's no commitment there. And you know, you don't, you shouldn't draft a running back in the first round to not use them a lot. But most of the time running backs to go in the first round get 15 touches per game. Sometimes they don't. And I think you could look at Rashad Penny was one of the guys who didn't. Christian McCaffrey didn't. Both of them had established veteran running backs on their teams already.

So you could draw that comparison. Jamie, are you more optimistic? Oh, sorry, Heath, I cut you off. That's okay. I was going to say I've got Hampton at 12.8 right now. Touches per game? That'd be awful. That'd be horrible.

I'm optimistic for the scenario you paint, Adam, that he's going to be the more talented running back, but I don't think it's going to happen early in the season. That's the problem. You know, so you're going to have to be patient with Hampton and kind of wait for, Oh, wow, look at these big plays. Oh, how are we keeping this off the field? Oh, how are we not giving him more chances? And you know, then he's either going to succumb to the pressure or he's not of what either the fan base is saying or maybe people in the locker room are saying because they're seeing that Ampton is that good.

So look, Najee could benefit from a change of scenery. I think as we saw last year, Dobbins had been good in Baltimore. And then he kind of, I don't know if he got better in Los Angeles with the Chargers, but he just stayed healthy. Maybe that's just the, the bottom line of it. But there's, there is a lot of reason for optimism with Hampton because of the short-term investment in Harris and what he's shown. But still, I think, you know, I, I, I come out on the same side that

Heath and Dave are like, you know, coaches see things in practice and games and, you know, are like, you know, coaches see things in practice and games and, you know, while he, he may not have the explosive, but he's also not going to run backwards or maybe not fumble, or maybe not drop a pass, you know, like, now, he's also a first round running back himself. And while he hasn't lived up to the billing, he's still a pretty talented guy. And Adam, you brought up the passing game. I, I'll be surprised if Hampton's the primary pass protector week one, or maybe even week four, like Harris, again, a professional running back and in the Greg Roman offense, the last three seasons, this isn't the top running back target. This is all of the running back targets for the entire running back room.

55, 6363 83. That's like, maybe you get four targets per game for all of the running backs combined. But they they seemed more willing. Okay. The 55 was last year. I've heard people say like Dobbins did more in the passing game. He did a through 553 targets per game to the running back position last year. But he had 32 catches in 13 games, J.K. Dobbins. So I don't expect like a 50 catch season, but I'm hopeful for a 35 to 40 catch season for Hampton. But it could be much less than that. I'm

just hopeful for more playing time for Hampton. But I just want to point out that all of this Greg Roman research, he's been 11 seasons as an offensive coordinator, he's produced one wide receiver that's finished top 12 per game in PPR, one, and it was Sammy Watkins. So if you guys are gonna do all this, if anyone's gonna do all this, you better do it to Lad McConkie too.

But I just think that we saw a willingness last year in the second half of the season to throw the ball more than we've ever seen from a Greg Roman or Jim Harbaugh offense in the NFL. And that's because they didn't have- And why was that? They didn't have Colin Kaepernick and Sirad Taylor and Lamar Jackson.

Okay, that's half of it. The other half was they couldn't run the ball. That's not true that they couldn't run the ball. It was not only when J.K. Dobbins was hurt, half was they couldn't run the ball. That's not true that they couldn't run the ball that it did not It was not only when JK Dobbins was hurt It was also when Dobbins was healthy they put the ball in the hands of their best player Because they had this is the best passing quarterback that they've had at least the version of Lamar Jackson that that Greg Roman had this is the I don't know what did Jim Harbaugh have in high school with his running back

Yeah, go ahead. I also think like that they were 28th in pass attempts last year. They were 28th in pass attempts as last year in Baltimore. They were ninth one year in Baltimore. They were 29th or worse every other year of Greg Roman's career in pass attempts. Yeah. And so like a six game stretch at the end of the year, when their only

good running back was hurt. More than no, but more than that. And it wasn't just when he was hurt. And it was still 31 pass attempts per game, which is way lower than what we're hoping for. Like, honestly, I don't even know why I'm making this argument because I'm talking about Hampton. So you know what?

I'm with you. Like they are going to run the ball a lot and there can be plenty of opportunities. And I guess my final thought, I will not have the last word here. My final thought is last year they went in with a committee and J.K. Dobbins outplayed Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins became basically a feature back and a must start guy. And then he got hurt, unfortunately. But why can't it be the same?

They go, it takes three to four weeks. Hampton is outperforming Najee Harris and then rocket ship emoji. Three. That's the, that's the hope. I think the thing would be two things of this, you know, first does, does Hampton get those chances early in the season? Because I don't think, I don't think it's fair to call Hampton right now, the best of JK Dobbins, which we may have seen last year because he's got to work up to that. Even though he may be more explosive, all those things, Dobbins has been pretty good running back when healthy.

And I don't think Najee's gonna be as bad as Gus Edward was, so that's part of the thing. The other thing would be, and you should know this as a Knicks fan watching Tom DiBidot enough to know that sometimes coaches just don't change their approach no matter how many times it should happen. He did that. No, he didn't. Yes, he did.

No, he didn't. That Greg Roman may have stretches of changing things. Can he commit to doing it over a full season? And so, yes, this is the best quarterback he's ever had from a throwing perspective. Yes, there's a lot to like about still lad McConkey and him building off of what he did last year to, you know, go back to the passing game and clearly the more explosive running back and player but these guys are who

they are. And so they've he's had a lot of success. The ultimate success No, but you know, they've gotten to Super Bowl. They've been you know, in competitive seasons, year in year out. I think the strength of this team is still going to be or the mantra of this team is still going to be or the mantra of this team is still going to be to run the ball. So it should benefit Hampton and Harris. It's a matter of will Hampton ever be the lead running back consistently if Najee is healthy. And again, Najee never gets hurt. I'll give you this. I will have the last word. A lot of success. Greg Roman

gets criticized a lot. 11 years as an offensive coordinator, he's been top 12 in scoring eight times. They're probably going to have a good offense. All right. We're out of time, basically. But Dave, go ahead. Give me your Xavier worthy note. He had target shares of 16% and 21% against zone coverage in the regular season and playoffs, respectively. Those are pretty low

target shares. But when it was man coverage that the Chiefs were facing, his target shares were 22% and 37% in the playoffs. The Chiefs saw zone coverage, this won't surprise Heath at all, on two-thirds of their regular season snaps and 70% in the playoffs. It does make me wonder a little bit if I've gone too far on Xavier Worthy, because I don't think teams are going to change their approach against Kansas City. They don't want to give up the big play. And yeah, some of Worthy's best plays were against long coverage. But if the target volume is going to shrink, especially with Kelsey getting in shape and Rashid Rice looking like his old self. Maybe they run the ball a little bit better. Maybe I'm a little too, the term they use in the stock market is overweight. Maybe I'm too into Xavier Worthy calling him a top 20 type of fantasy wide receiver. Preston Pysh Because the chiefs will see more zone coverage and he doesn't get, he hasn't gotten the same

type of target share against zone coverage than he does against man coverage for obvious reasons. It's because he's fast. Very interesting. Yeah. Heath, what are your thoughts on that? I've got him wide receiver 31 and the projections just a little bit higher in the rankings. I think if we get to July and the chief's open training camp and Rice has no restrictions, which it sounds like he won't, and there's just complete silence still on any potential

legal problems, then it's really hard to rank worthy as a top 30 wide receiver. Cause if rice is 100% right and Kelsey is okay. And rice is not suspended. I think worthy is probably more of a best ball wide receiver three. Ouch. I don't know. I, I, I look, we have no idea how this is going to look right. If everybody's healthy and playing at their best because this may be the most diverse group that Mahomes has ever had. And maybe Reid's ever had. You're talking about

Rice, Worthy, Marquise Brown, Travis Kelce. And you've talked about this quite a bit, Adam, in terms of the Chief's success and Mahomes' correlation to some of his drop in statistics. Maybe the defense isn't as good as it has been in the last couple of years. I don't think it's going to drop off significantly because of spags, but maybe it's just not as good. They all may be good. So it could be that Rice has never had this type of competition also. Worthy did a lot of what he did last year.

And so to Dave's research, which is great, it's also we're talking about a rookie wide receiver growing into his role and understanding how to use him better and him understanding how to get open in zone and man coverage and those type of things that go with the maturation process. So I don't have a problem drafting him as a number two receiver right now. I think again, he's in that group that we talk about a lot, you know, 20 through

40, you know, he's, he could be, he could be an easy number two receiver. We can week out. He could be, you know, just a consistent wide receiver three. And if you're in a two receiver league, he's going to frustrate you. So it's, it's somewhat of a guessing game, but again, you're banking on the talent that he showed. And, you know, I, I know I brought this up. I think it's not the first time anybody said it is like, he feels like he could be Tyree

Kill, you know, I mean, based on how they used him and use Hill in his rookie season. Again, Hill didn't have the same type of competition, but I mean, speed for days, creative coach, amazing quarterback. Like there's a lot to love about what this kid could become and maybe better than Rice who's coming off a significant injury and we did not see the best of Rice until 2026, even if he's healthy. So I have no problem taking a chance on him as number two. Just where we'll do it. I'm sorry.

Is his AD, his, his fan mock draft ADP is 47.8. Earlier or later or just- I think somewhere depending on how quickly receivers come off the board, round four, round five. I mean, I've taken him, I did a magazine draft, I've taken him a couple of best ball drafts. Like, he's an easy target, you know, if you get past the top, you know, 20-ish wide receivers, because that's where he goes between 20 and 25.

To Jamie's point about the, we'll update this as the off season goes on, but the 20 through 40 is almost perfect. When I look at my projections, the difference for me between wide receiver 20 and wide receiver 38 in the projections is one fantasy point per game. So like, if you just want to pick the guy

you think has the most upside in that, in that huge blob of wide receiver two slash threes, worthy has the upside. It's just a lot of guys in that range do. I looked at a few wide receivers yards per out run against zone as rookies. So Tyra kill was one that I looked at he was insane. He was so good against zone. One guy who was bad against not bad but not good against zone as a rookie. And

then great the next two years was Jalen wattle. I don't know where I'm going with this. But just to say that I don't know I don't know how predictable rookie year stats are when it comes to the just splitting it up zone versus man. If you're good at football, you're going to beat both coverages. No questions asked. It's also just you know, talking to enough coaches, you know, the, the playbook for these guys grows tremendously, you know, year one, year two. And you know, for him, it was probably mid season. Okay. Oh, holy bleep. We just lost rice. We don't have Brown.

Like, here's the next chapter kid. And here's the next six chapters and here's the next chapter, kid, and here's the next six chapters, and here's, you know, the next 58 plays that you got to learn quickly. And, you know, again, I think there's room to grow, which could be scary based on what we saw in those final, you know, five or six games. Man, that's what keeps him at 20 for me and my receiver, right? Yes. And I'm sure, you know, there's... It could be top five good. The flip side of it, top five will be probably with rice not being there. I get it. But you know, the flip side of that is rice is back to being himself. Kelsey

has a bounce back season. Marquis Brown is just, you know, serviceable enough and, and there's a loss. Talk about chapters. Just think about when you were in high school, you get a book to read. The next chapter is like super long, no pictures. I hated that. You'd scan, you'd flip through to see how long is this chapter going to be?

It's super long. Every page is just like a bunch of words. Sorry, you gave me like PTSD of reading. Some adults still read at them. Yeah, but if you're doing that, you're doing it for fun. So you don't care how long the chapters are. Back in high school, man. Did I ever tell you my theory?

I think it's really, I think I said this on the, I'm sorry if I did. I've had this conversation in person with people as I truly believe this. I think it is a bad idea to make kids read these, you know, old classics, Jane Eyre and David Copperfield and stuff like that. Because that is not going to get most kids excited about reading. What classic is David Copperfield?

I have not read any of David Copperfield's works. That's a book. It's a classic? Yeah. Are you kidding? Isn't that a Charles Dickens book? It's a Dickens. No, it's a character. It's a character in a book. No, it's a book called David Copperfield. Is it the name of it? Yes, yes.

Yeah, I never read that. I only read it with a magician. It's a big long one. No, before the magician, there was the Dickens novel. That's the kind of stuff that made me hate reading. Having to read these extremely long, heavy, boring ass books. You can throw those in there,

but I think they should let kids pick their own books or at least give them like new murder mysteries, things like that are gonna actually make them enjoy reading. I'm dead serious about this by the way. They should choose Dirty Dancing over the Cradle. Yes, yes, absolutely. But just think about it, cause it makes sense.

We're out of time to talk about the guys that you have to talk about. But we got David Copper. This is a really important message. I believe very firmly what I'm saying. I'm not joking. Let kids read books that they have actually have a chance to read. Look, some of the you know, we're gonna love those books, but a lot of people are gonna hate those books, myself included. I understand your point. But a lot of the point of school is to teach kids that if they do things

they don't want to do, then they get things that they want. If all you do is read things you want to read, you don't learn the habit. It's not all you do, but it should be at least part of what you do. And there's almost all of school is doing things that you don't want to do. Like we can give kids a little bit of a break here. Okay, I just have two points to make my AFC East outlooks. John Smith averaged 18.6 PPR points per game in his last eight games. It is a stretch that was so good, so impressive that it is hard to overlook. Eighth year breakout, very unusual, very hard to bank on it. If he goes to Pittsburgh, he'll be basically undraftable. But that number, 18.6 points per game. That's what you said he did with that. The joke you did with Flacco in five

games in 2023. This was eight games for Smith. And the best part is Smith's not getting a quarterback downgrade, you know, like it might be that for a joke, but it's the same quarterback. In fact, two of those games were without two. So huge number there for John who, and he was, he was a league winner down the stretch. So just want to bring that up. He's, he's like consensus ranking something like tight end 10 to give him some credit after Dave pooh poohed him earlier. He has been over five yards after the catch per reception every year of his career. He is a very good. He had nine explosive catches out of 88 last year.

A very good Yak player. He was seventh among qualifying tight ends in yards after catch per reception. He was 27th out of 31 qualifying tight ends in explosive play rate. Yeah, no, Joku like the joke that doesn't that so I do like that stat for wide receivers. I don't really care as much for tight ends because low a dot tight ends are going to have low

explosive play rates, but they also could have a ton of catches. So you see guys like no Joku, Evan Ingram be at the bottom of the explosive playlist like the joke, the joke who the Joku had the lowest yards per target among tight ends last year with 50 or more targets, 31 target, 31 tight ends, I think. So really they just rack up the catches though. And it just goes a really long way at that position. Trey Lockerbie Remember that yards after catch include yards behind the line of scrimmage.

Okay. So when he catches a ball three yards behind the line of scrimmage and Okay. So when he catches a ball three yards behind the line of scrimmage and then he gains two yards, that's five yards after. That's pretty rare though. He's not catching the ball three yards behind the line of scrimmage often. All right, my last note is on Khalil Shakir.

Khalil Shakir, you know, had this breakout year, 76 catches, 821 yards, four touchdowns on a hundred targets in 15 games. He was wide receiver 37 per game in full PPR, 44th per game and half PPR, 50th per game in non PPR. And I looked at his ADP in the fan mock drafts, wide receiver 39. So I can't really argue with that. There's an obvious, you know, upside case, he has to catch more touchdowns and maybe he could four touchdowns on 100 targets. But I just really like I wonder Khalil Shakir like being drafted around the same time as

Roma doonsay and who else? Let's see real quick. Joanne Jennings, Jaylen Waddle, Ricky Pearsall, Jaden Reed. Does he have any upside? Could he really be a big contributor to a fantasy championship team? Khalil Shakir? I'm a little skeptical of it. I don't see myself drafting a lot of Shakir. I think he's a good fourth receiver. Like he's just outside the 20 to 40 range for me. I would definitely take

Jennings over him. He's comparable outside the 20 to 40 range for me. I would definitely take Jennings over him. He's comparable to some of these other guys just based on what we've seen either last year or the last couple of years. But I think, again, tying it into, we spoke about Keon Coleman recently. Coleman, if he hits, probably has more upside just based on what his potential could be. The thing about Shakir is they didn't really bring in a lot of significant competition, at least for me. Josh Palmer and Elijah Moore, we know these guys have been good at times, but not great.

Shakir, they just made a huge investment in by paying him this off season. I think he's going to be one of these guys that's a reliable safe target for Josh Allen. I agree with you. I think the touchdowns have to go up maybe double to be a consistent starter in fantasy. But he'll be in that number three receiver mix. He certainly is a good guy to have on your team. He'll have some weeks where if he's getting those targets you'll feel comfortable starting him.

But huge difference maker, I don't know if he profiles like that with what he's shown so far. I mean, there's again, just a good type of four fantasy option to have on your roster. I'm sure Jacob would disagree with me because I know Jacob is very high on him, but I mean, he was one of my favorite sleepers last year and I think he gave you kind of what you would expect, you know, good solid production, just not league winning production. So he missed two games and still had a 21% target share on throws from Josh Allen. So the path to Khalil Shukri are being a true difference maker is that Josh Allen threw 483 passes last year.

He threw five 79 the year before that. Yeah, but he missed one game. So let's let's have like five 10. Didn't he didn't he do something to keep some street? Yeah, so but still like they could throw they throw two more passes a game three more passes a game. Then Shakira is probably a top 30 wide receiver. Yeah, actually one of the biggest takeaways I had from writing the Bills outlooks is that since Joe Brady took over, they've been a very run heavy team. One of the more. Yeah, and slow and slow. I ran 1025 plays last year. It was like 40 fewer than league average.

Oh, wow. Yeah, they were second fewest plays in football, I believe. Right. Yeah. The five fewer than the year before. All right. I just want to bring that up on Khalil Shaker. What I do like about Shakir, he catches everything and he's actually I think probably pretty underrated player. He does a lot after the catch. He's kind of like a worst version of Rishi Rice, but not as many targets, but he catches everything and he can do stuff after the catch. All right. Just some comments here from the chat about my take on on books. Adam is 100% right on this. That was probably a tough one for Mike D to say. Classic Adam, Adam in fifth grade. And now for my report on Superman volume 32. Adam Azer school for

kids who can read good. Yes. Library ruined my life. Adam probably that's school for kids who can't read good. Yes. Library ruined my life. Adam probably, that's a quote attributed to me. So there you go. And then we got one that says, I tried to do a book report on Stephen King's It in fourth grade and my dad was legitimately concerned. But good for you. I bet you loved reading books after that.

That's a good stuff. And that's a long one. I think I read that in sixth grade and it was like one of the longest books I ever read. That book is so long that it was two, it was a two-part made for TV movie with John Ritter. That's how I know Stephen King's it. Great book. No paperback for me. All right folks, thanks so much for listening to me ramble. And we got NFC outlooks tomorrow. And luckily for you, I didn't do any NFC teams.

So I'm just gonna let Dave Jamie speak. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football.

We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football.

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