Fantasy Football Today - Projections Show! Jaylen Waddle, Marvin Harrison Jr., Team Projections, Philosophies and More (07/24 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

If you support the show, please nominate Fantasy Football Today for The People's Choice Podcast Awards in the "Sports" Category: https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup/ Fantasy Football Today is ava...ilable for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts Jacob Gibbs joins us to talk about his projections and compare them to Heath's projections. We talk about projection philosophies, team stats and individual player outlooks. We start with a couple of players that Jacob is high on: Ja'Marr Chase (3:30) and Jaylen Waddle (12:30). And then Jacob brings up his concerns about Marvin Harrison Jr. (18:05) ... Quick news items (27:30) including a weird cereal courtesy of the Kelce brothers. Then we get into a Projections discussion (30:30) about how Jacob and Heath make their projections and how to project play volume (35:35) ... It's time for team projections: Colts (41:10), Bears (45:05), Seahawks (51:45) and Steelers (1:06:30). Will the Seahawks run a lot more plays? Is Jaxon Smith-Njigba ready for a breakout? Is Caleb Williams underrated? Is George Pickens going to have a huge season? ... Email us at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection 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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Starting point is 00:01:23 Can you believe this? No, I can. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races and he stays on his feet. He's just going to go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath.
Starting point is 00:01:39 It is Wednesday. It is hump day. It is projections day. It is Jacob Gibbs day of Sportsline. And you know Jacob. He's part of our FFT family. He's here along with Heath getting a little nerdy today. Fair to say.
Starting point is 00:01:54 And Jacob. If winning your league is nerdy. It is. It is a little nerdy, right? I won my fantasy league this year. Jacob, if you went with the bleach blonde, you would be Joe Burrow right now.
Starting point is 00:02:09 Exactly, yeah. I was wondering how long it would take before I got that comment. 40 seconds. 40 seconds was the answer there. Yeah, you look good. I definitely need a haircut, so you're inspiring me. So we're going to talk about some players that Jacob is pumped about, some players that he's maybe soured on because he's been doing these projections and he's writing our newsletter, our CBS Sport, our Fantasy Football Today newsletter with projections for each team.
Starting point is 00:02:32 It's really fascinating stuff. You're going to learn about run blocking schemes. Really, Jacob's done a great job giving you the additions and the subtractions on the offensive line for each team. So we'll have great information there. And Heath, I expect you to provide great information as well even though you are a little under the weather yeah i woke up this morning i'm a little bit sick and then my air conditioner quit working thankfully i live in south florida where it's only like four million degrees so i am super excited with my ring light on that's also four million
Starting point is 00:03:02 degrees we'll be looking um no i listen i've had a couple of discussions on Twitter with Jacob already about differences in our projections. And it's caused me to make some little tweaks. I made a little tweak this morning. Now, I don't generally get as far as he is, and we'll talk about why. But no, this is a very helpful process for me you should expect there will be a couple of little changes that happen to my projections and rankings through the process maybe somebody else's as well so what'd you tweak this morning you're back i'm trying to give you time to hit the button. You couldn't even find the button. I was on a different page of sound effects.
Starting point is 00:03:47 You're back? Okay, go ahead. Good job. No, I was going through Jamar Chase. I think we're going to talk about him in just a second. Jacob's going to talk about why he loves him so much. And I have him ranked higher than I have him projected. I tweeted about this the other day.
Starting point is 00:04:06 I actually have AJ Brown projected for more PPR fantasy points than Jamar Chase, as well as Amon Roy St. Brown and Tyree Kill and Justin Jefferson and C.D. Lamb. And so I was kind of trying to figure out, why am I so much lower on Gibbs? And so I did bump Chase's target share up a little bit this morning. He's still sixth at wide receiver in my projections, but I'm excited to hear from Jacob about why he's excited about Chase. Right. So let's cut to the Chase. That was good. I did the drums before I said the joke, though.
Starting point is 00:04:39 But actually, wait, you have him sixth in your projections, Heath. Just real quick, where do you have Chase in your rankings? He is fifth. Okay right jacob so i'm going to ask you for two players that you're pumped about and jamar chase is going to be one of them the floor is yours yeah so i think just start on the team level side of things how where do you have cincinnati heath in terms of projected passing touchdowns passing yards because they're second in both for me. Well, we've got them on mute. We've got them on mute.
Starting point is 00:05:12 4,607 passing yards and 34 passing touchdowns. Okay, 34 passing touchdowns. That's right where I'm at, and that's a ton, right? So I want to start there because i think there's massive um potential here in this offense like we you know have known for a while but that was down a bit last year um so with chase when what i'm so interested in is i think he's going to potentially see like significantly more targets than he's ever seen before this year and that's because of the departure of tyler boyd and you might hear that and think like, you know, Boyd is a non-factor. Why, why are we talking about Chase in this regard,
Starting point is 00:05:48 like seeing a significant change, but he's really never played in the slot a whole lot. His slot rate has, Chase's slot rate has increased each year progressively, but it's never been above, you know, one third of his total routes. I think we see with, if, if Jermaine Burton is able to hold down an outside perimeter spot for the Bengals and then T. Higgins is healthy on the other side, that allows Zach Taylor to be a lot more creative with how he uses Chase in a slot catch and roll, maybe even a little bit of pre-snap motion. Taylor doesn't do that a whole lot. But just like get him the ball in the short and intermediate area of the field and catch and run opportunities more often while those other guys do more of the dirty work down the field. And that is exciting just, you know, telling the story and thinking about it, but the data backs it up as well.
Starting point is 00:06:34 Chase's career target per run rate rises from 23% on the perimeter to 29% in the swamp. He's been more efficient with his slot opportunities as well, even though they've been shorter targets um and then last year among receivers with 100 or more slot routes only tyree kill was targeted to higher rate than chase and so i i really think that his career arc has kind of been pushing him into this more of a hybrid role where he's refined his route running and he can now win all over the field in a variety of ways and it's just exciting because up until now with such a deep average depth of target average route depth as well just working down the field so often it's hard for him to really get targets in the way that most of the other elite receivers are so like if you look at
Starting point is 00:07:22 chase's yard per route run rate and then look at all the players above him in yards per run, all of them have higher target per route run rates. Right. Other than like basically Brandon, Iuke, like everybody else on a year over year basis has a higher target rate than him. But like, if he's, if we see him slide into this kind of Rishi Rice type of role, like what could Jamar Chase do with that? That's what I'm so excited about. I think that's kind of the question that I have. Because when you look at Chase's career, it was a 12.6 ADOT as a rookie, fell to nine in his second year.
Starting point is 00:07:59 We all know that they took away the deep ball from Joe Burrow, and so it was a lot of shorter stuff. It was all the way down to 8.4 last year, but it's hard to make too much of last year because when Burrow was playing, Burrow wasn't Burrow, and a lot of times we didn from Joe Burrow. And so it was a lot of shorter stuff. And it was all the way down to 8.4 last year, but it's hard to make too much of last year because when Burrow was playing, Burrow wasn't Burrow. And a lot of times we didn't have Burrow. But we haven't seen like the real, any sort of real efficiency spike and not really even a target spike for
Starting point is 00:08:20 Chase with the lower ADOT the last two years. You mentioned it like it's going to take a big spike. I have him basically tied for third amongst touchdowns at wide receiver this year. The big difference is I think he's seventh or eighth for me in targets. If that giant spike in targets happens, for one, I wonder what happens to the efficiency like are those targets going to be worth quite as much and if they are then he has a chance to be wide receiver one i think from from what i've looked at he's been about 17.7 fantasy points per game when he and t higgins have both and joe burrow have all been playing together and you look at that group of
Starting point is 00:09:02 guys that are at the top like tyree kill and and CeeDee Lamb just gave us a 23-point season. Justin Jefferson's given us a 22-point season. Munro St. Brown, right about where Chase was in the season that he played 12 games. I don't really want to bet against Chase, and I'll probably just force him into a draft or two, but I have a hard time for strictly from a projections method, getting him to the same level as Hill lamb among Ross
Starting point is 00:09:31 Brown and Jefferson. Heath, can I break that down year by year? Because yeah, his numbers with him without Higgins on the field, you know, the yards per out run rate, all that stuff. They're pretty dramatic. I'd say, or if not dramatic, they're noteworthy. But you said about 17 and a half PPR points per game with Higgins and Burrow both being healthy. I did it year by year, 19 points per game in 2021, 19.7 points per game in 2022, 15.3 last year, but that was only five games. That's what I had. You know, it's, and you know what? It's been, it's a little subjective because with Higgins,
Starting point is 00:10:13 you have to decide which games you're going to count. Do you count the games where he played, where he played like 51% of the snaps? So it is a little bit subjective, but, but either way, you're not getting to that. You haven't gotten to that 20 point per game mark yet. He's been close, but there's no question. And I think you've even talked about this, Jacob, in the past. There's no question Jamar Chase has been better when Higgins hasn't played.
Starting point is 00:10:32 So question for you, Jacobs. Does Chase have wide receiver one upside if Burrow, Higgins, and Chase play 17 healthy games this year? I do think so. And I think part of the reason the splitsman pronounces, one, it was early in his career when Higgins was already more established than him and he was establishing himself.
Starting point is 00:10:49 And two, he was kind of competing for the same types of targets that Higgins was in a lot of ways. And I think if his role completely changes this year, then it only helps to have T. Higgins elevating things and taking defenses deeper
Starting point is 00:11:01 down the field, opening things up. OK, your second player that you're going to talk about being pumped about is Jalen Waddle. And we're going to do that after a quick break. But before we take that break, please check out our draft-a-thon page. And it is tinyurl.com slash draft-a-thon 2024.
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Starting point is 00:12:04 I think that slot's gone oh it's gone oh someone took it let's go 10 slots available for $50. There's one slot available for $150. I think that slot's gone. Oh, it's gone. Oh, someone took it. Let's go. All right. Let's go. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:12:14 Yeah, so that's great. That's an extra added bonus. You get your draft analyzed on the website. Anyway, be a part of the draft. Still 10 slots available, $50. tinyurl.com slash draftathon2024. And vote for us or nominate us on podcastawards.com. Go to podcastawards.com.
Starting point is 00:12:31 Nominate Fantasy Football today in the sports podcast and the People's Choice podcast categories. We love you for it. All right, we're going to take a break, come back and talk about Jalen Waddell after this. Fall is almost gone, but have you sipped enough Starbucks fall faves? Enough of the pumpkin spice latte, the cinnamony pumpkin flavored legend,
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Starting point is 00:13:41 who's another player that you're excited about. So I said that the Bengals were second in my projected passing touchdowns in yards. I lied. They're actually sixth in yards and second in touchdowns. The Dolphins are second in passing yards in my projections, and they are sixth in passing touchdowns, which that's going to be the key factor here is where the touchdowns come from. Last year, they obviously came on the ground, but I think there are a lot of circumstantial things going on here that might really change what we see in miami this year the dolphins had to let a ton of defensive talent walk in free agency they lost over almost 4 000 defensive snaps from last year are gone and if you look
Starting point is 00:14:20 at vegas look ahead lines the dolphins are implied for the fourth most points in 2024, but are just 10th in implied win total, which is actually one of the widest discrepancies between like points and projected wins. They generally align pretty closely. To me, that suggests that like the offense is expected to be one of the absolute best, but the defense is not. And I think we could see Miami playing with negative game scripts and potentially getting into back and forth shootouts a lot more than we saw last year. So the Dolphins were really unusual last year. They were playing with a lead on 50% of their offensive drives. Only the 49ers, Ravens and Lions had a higher rate. Miami was also one of four teams to play with a double digit lead on 50 separate drives. And they're one of just teams to play with a double digit lead on 50 separate drives and they're one
Starting point is 00:15:06 of just two to play with a 20 plus point lead on 20 or more different drives um so like as a result we just saw the dolphins run the ball an abnormal amount they ranked 17th in pass rate on the year but their rate when leading or trailing by six or fewer points in neutral situations was the third highest at 63%. So I think all things equal, the way that Mike McDaniel likes to attack with this offense is with the best wide receiver do in the NFL. But just because of the game scripts we saw last year, that wasn't often the case. And another way to look at this, shout out to like Josh Norris and Hayden Winks and Underdog Fantasy. That's where I first saw this. The splits in the first and second half for the Dolphins are very, very pronounced. So in the first half of games,
Starting point is 00:15:55 they had a 63% pass rate in the second half of games that dropped all the way to 50%. And in the first half of games this year, Tyree Kill had 1,100 yards and 10 touchdowns, hit 680 yards and three touchdowns in the second half of games. Jalen Waddell had 700 yards and three touchdowns in the first halves. He had 300 yards and one touchdown in the second halves. And so to me, like if things are even just normal, more equal and not like so heavily, you know, leaning on the ground game and being up by a significant point total every single so often.
Starting point is 00:16:31 That gives us a really exciting projection for Waddell. Just with that, without even projecting more of the shootouts and everything that I think are possible, just the median projection for Waddell is very, very high. It shocked me how high it was he's at 278 points if he plays a healthy like all 17 games which like is not realistic i normally project players for about 15 and a half games but like just for reference that's only like 10 points off of the 17 game projection for garrett wilson and puka nakua which shocks me and the other thing is there's contingent upside. If something were to happen to Tyree kill, then like Jalen Waddle could easily be the top scorer wide
Starting point is 00:17:10 receiver. So we're going to talk about a lot of things that Jacob and I like, why are they different? This is one of those where we're really not different. Like I, I agree with pretty much everything he said. I think it's a reason to be a little bit more cautious maybe about the Dolphins running backs. Um, because about it a lot, specifically with HN. The games where he was awesome is when they beat the Broncos by 50. Literally by 50. That wasn't an exaggeration. They beat the Commanders by 30. They beat the Jets by 30. They lost to
Starting point is 00:17:43 the Ravens by 28. They had these massive blowout games and just more of them than a team normally does. They've got a more difficult schedule. I believe they play the NFC West this year. They have a worse defense. I just think you're going to see more passing than we saw last year from the Dolphins. And we've talked about it.
Starting point is 00:18:01 Even Waddle's just straight-up elementary fantasy points per game, basically the same the last two seasons, if you just look at the games that he didn't leave early with an injury. He had a couple of really weird things happen. And I am not ready, just like I'm not with Higgins, I'm not ready to project T. Higgins or Jalen Waddell for fewer games than the average wide receiver this year. I think if you just project him for the same as everybody else,
Starting point is 00:18:27 he's got to be very, very close to a top 12 wide receiver, if not a top 12 wide receiver, and he's got to be a pick at the round two, three turn. But that's just an Acer stat. I love it, Heath. Diving into the Acer stats on Jalen Waddell. Yeah, he played more than 70% of the snaps in only six of 14 games last year,
Starting point is 00:18:48 and he played more than 70% of the snaps in 13 of 17 games the year before. He just was not on the field enough, and it really hurt his production. 2022, Waddle was the number 14 wide receiver per game in PPR, number 10 per game in non-PPR. Okay, so Jacob, I think the show is getting, I mean, I'm loving it, but I know there's a lot that you wanted to talk about.
Starting point is 00:19:14 So you can skip the next segment if you'd like, which is players you've soured on, if you'd rather get into the whole kind of overview on projections and that, or it's up to you. I'll let you drive the show today. I'm taking the day off. All right, let's just have a quick discussion about Marvin Harrison Jr. So you asked for two players that I've soured on. The easy one that I can just throw out there,
Starting point is 00:19:34 and I think we don't need to get into a ton of nuances, the Titans, Calvin Ridley, Tony Pollard in particular. The projection for the team scares me. If you want to know more, reach out to me on Twitter, and I'll hook you up with that Titans team profile from earlier in the newsletter. Marvin Harrison Jr. I'm very curious to hear how you have him projected Heath. I was very high on him going into the process. And the more that I project this Arizona team, unless their defense like really struggles and they're playing from behind a lot, I think that this team really wants to lean on the run. I really like everything I saw from Drew Petzing,
Starting point is 00:20:08 but I don't think it necessarily is going to be super conducive to wide receiver scoring. I think Marvin Harrison Jr. really is going to help this team from a real life perspective, but just in terms of the role that he's projected to play as the X receiver, who's going to be running deep routes, really stretching defenses, working down the field. I don't know that he's projected to play as the extra receiver who's going to be running deep routes really stretching defenses working down the field i don't know that there's going to be upside for him to necessarily like push his target rates above 24 25 percent and if that's the ceiling then i he's going to have to score a true outlier number of touchdowns because the offense doesn't project for a ton of passing volume in terms of yards and receptions. So where are you at with Marvin?
Starting point is 00:20:48 Because I actually have soured on him a lot, and I'm worried about that because I love him as a player. I think he's another guy I have ranked higher than projected. He's my wide receiver 10, 143 targets, 96 catches, 1,143 yards, and seven touchdowns. It's really difficult to project efficiency numbers, especially for rookie wide receivers. But I've basically got him at just about eight and a half targets per game
Starting point is 00:21:24 and projected as if he's going to come into the NFL and be an efficient, very good wide receiver, but not like Jamar Chase, 11.2 yards per target as a rookie. I think I've got Harrison closer to 8, 67% catch rate. I think he's going to be very good, but probably just a wide receiver one. Yeah. The reason that I worry about his targets
Starting point is 00:21:52 is that I do expect him to be one of the deeper route runners in the NFL. I think he's like truly, he's got to fill that X role. That's why they drafted him and that unlocks their offense. But if you look at receivers who had an average route depth of 10 yards or more so that means the average distance where their initial cut in the route came um was 10 or more yards from the line of scrimmage we've
Starting point is 00:22:14 got the only guys really demanding fantasy relevant targets are justin jefferson nico collins and brandon iuk and even those guys are topping out at like 24 to 27% target per route runner, which is good, but not like going to push you into elite territory, which you kind of need with this offense. If you don't have one of the top offenses in overall passing volume. And then like Devante Smith, I wanted to bring up his name because to me, I think Marvin Harrison is a better overall prospect than Devante Smith, but Devante Smith was a really, really good prospect. And particularly as a target earner, um, that's the kind of player that he is. And of course, AJ Brown affects this, but Devante Smith is running very deep routes. And we've seen as
Starting point is 00:22:54 his route tree has only deepened, his targets have only shrunk to the point where last year, his target per route run rate was like below Romeo Dobbs's. It was like well below Calvin Ridley's. Um, and I just, that is just the nature of the game. If you are filling this role, it's very hard to draw targets at a high rate. And that's kind of where I'm at with MHJ. And I've got them at a 25% target. Sure.
Starting point is 00:23:15 Yeah. I put 25.5 and like, that is as high as I can reasonably push it. And that doesn't get him to the same level as the guys who are being, but how many passes do you have Kyler throwing? Um, I have them at 459 pass attempt no that's rush attempts sorry okay i was gonna say that we have found the big gap in our projections 569 total targets for the offense so i've got 574 so we're we're basically in the same place. Okay, I just want to look at... So, route depth for DeAndre Hopkins in Arizona was 7.5 yards, 8.0 yards, and 8.2 yards in three seasons.
Starting point is 00:24:01 Why do we think Marvin Harrison is going to be running... It's a different offense. Yeah, different offense and coordinators. Right, but do we think marvin harrison is going to be running it's a different offense yeah different offensive coordinators um right but do we know that that that like drew pet six offenses have x receivers who run deeper routes than the what deandre hopkins ran and cliff kingsbury's offense it's hard i think passing is very adaptable and so even looking at last year's x receiver which was primarily um hollywood brown isn't actually going to tell a very true story because I did look into this and Hollywood, they used him on drag routes all the time as the X. And I think that's because like, he's not winning as the X, he's not good at that.
Starting point is 00:24:36 He's not going to get that beating press coverage is that, you know, boundary isolated receiver. And so they were just like, what can we do with them? I think Marvin is just going to be different than anything we've seen. And that's the reason that he's so perfect with his offenses. They really needed that. So I'm just basing it off of players with similar profiles coming into the NFL in terms of the way that they played in college. If they were primarily an X receiver, which Marvin was, he was lined up as the X at almost 70% of his routes and his average route depth was 9.7 yards.
Starting point is 00:25:05 And what Jacob said there, I think is important for understanding kind of the differences in our process and the value to looking at his projections and my projections is it's not often that I'm projecting something different than we've ever seen. I'm usually looking for, and we're going to talk about how do we get into projections in a minute. I'm generally leading pretty heavy on what have we seen in the past from the offensive coordinator, from the quarterback, from the wide receiver,
Starting point is 00:25:37 and so on and so on. And there is definitely value if you can project what's going to be different and be right. And so I think you use those two things together and it can really be beneficial. And then I'll just say, I do pay attention to these projections and all that. But from my standpoint, as someone who's obviously not as in the weeds as these guys, if I'm looking at Marvin Harrison, I am not really considering...
Starting point is 00:26:06 I mean, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to say everything that you guys just said doesn't matter to me. But I'm just being honest. What you guys said doesn't really matter to me just because I feel like the Cardinals are super unpredictable. Yes, we have a second-year coordinator, but we have him with the real Kyler Murray for the first time. You had
Starting point is 00:26:25 a mid-season Kyler Murray after having a Josh Dobbs, a mid-season Kyler Murray coming off a torn ACL with Marquise Brown getting hurt during the Kyler Murray stretch with Trey McBride is more of a tight end threat than what we've seen for the most part. And now you have Marvin Harrison that we don't know how good he's going to be. So for me, this would not be one where I would really look at projections. I would just sort of why I'm very high on Marvin Harrison, why everybody's very high on Marvin Harrison. We've seen Kyler Murray support an elite wide receiver in fantasy multiple times, and we think Marvin Harrison's awesome. So I just, for me, I'm just kind of simplifying it and expecting him to be great, but also drafting Marvin Harrison in the spot at wide receiver
Starting point is 00:27:07 where there's that big teardrop between, you know, Garrett Wilson, Puka Nakua, and Chris Olave, whoever else is in that for you, Drake London, Jalen Waddle, whatever. He's right, he's the bridge for me, and for a lot of people, I think, at wide receiver nine. He's the bridge between the guys I'm very confident in and the guys I'm very hopeful for. And Harrison falls right there on the border.
Starting point is 00:27:30 I'll echo what you said. Yeah, to be clear, I'm still drafting a decent amount of Marvin Harrison. I'm very excited for him, and I think that the upside is there for him to have a massive, massive year. But it will take some surprises in terms of the pass volume in Arizona, the potential target volume, and then also Kyler's efficiency. But I believe that's possible. I was really, really encouraged by what we saw from the regime in Arizona last year. And I think up until last year,
Starting point is 00:27:56 the coaching has been subpar for Kyler and in terms of putting players in situations where they can maximize their talent. And so this could really be a unique opportunity what we're coming into in 2024 with arizona in terms of kyler and what we've ever seen from him in his career we could get something unknown and that's definitely a possibility especially when you're talking about a rookie this talented so definitely don't take this as like don't draft marvin harrison jr if you're convicted about it he's a freaking stud um but like if you do want to just talk about like median projections, the most likely outcome, what's safe in terms of opportunity costs and the players you're going to be passing on to that range, he is probably the riskiest bet
Starting point is 00:28:35 you can make. It's like him or Drake London in that range, in my opinion. Okay, so we have a bunch of news items to get to, but I'm going to skip them. Most of them are just sort of headlines that aren't going to make a difference. It's very good to see Brandon Iuke reporting to camp and the 49ers say they intend to keep him. You're going to get a lamb hold out. I will say Brian Callahan, Tennessee head coach, said that both Tajay Spears and Tony Pollard are starting players to him. Once again, this is the same rhetoric for months now, that they're 1A and 1 B, that they're interchangeable. They're both starting players. That's the two guys in the Titans backfield, Spears and Pollard.
Starting point is 00:29:09 So the only news item I really want to get your opinion on, guys, is that as Chiefs fans. Actually, I think you might want to talk about Kadarius Tony being used in the backfield and what you think about that. But also, Jason and Travis Kelsey are creating a new cereal. It is called the Kelsey Mix. It is a combination of three of their favorite cereals, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, and Reese's Puffs. Oh, my God. And I don't like that last choice.
Starting point is 00:29:37 I don't think that works. Like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, and for me, bam, Golden Grahams, or maybe like a Kugo crispies or something but the reese's puffs i just don't think it's a good choice for this uh this kelsey mix i'm sorry i don't mean to be so down on the chiefs but i think or the eagles but this is this is a mistake to me yeah reese's puffs is a crazy choice there i think wouldn't have projected that no i probably do the same thing i do with the two boxes behind me. I'll buy one and never open it.
Starting point is 00:30:09 So if you guys, would you like to make a cereal trio? I'm out of the cereal game, unfortunately. Don't eat much cereal. I know, but you did when you used to be fun, right? When you were a kid? I like your Golden Grahams here. I would throw in, rather than Golden Grahams, have you ever had Waffle Crisp?
Starting point is 00:30:30 They're very similar, but they're even sweeter. And I think it would complement the others well. I have not. It sounds a little too sweet. So maybe some Fruit Loops and some Fruity Pebbles. Two fruit items? Yes. No!
Starting point is 00:30:43 That's awful. And we've got some of the Team USA Cheerios in the house right now. Those are okay. I think Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms is a really good start. So what do you put with that? I think maybe Golden Grahams is too much flavor. Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms and life.
Starting point is 00:31:03 Honeycombs. Like maybe the protein special K so you could have some value. There you go. It's a little healthy. All right. And somebody wanted to know if that was, I want to say,
Starting point is 00:31:16 Mac Miller on your shirt? It is, yeah. I wore this recently after getting the haircut and someone was like, is that you? No, this is not. I'm not wearing a t-shirt with my face on it.
Starting point is 00:31:29 Yeah, this is Mac Miller. That seems like an Acer move. I do have a t-shirt with my face on it. It was like a joke that somebody made at work, and I have it. I wear it around the house. And now I know who Mac Miller is, so thank you for making me cooler. So let's talk about projections here and let's start with 101.
Starting point is 00:31:49 Jacob, how do you make your projections? Yes, on the team level, I wanted to talk about some trends and stuff. But to me, you're going top down. So you're starting with plays and getting a total play number. And that's based off of a lot of things for me. I look into historical trends in terms of how they relate to projected win totals.
Starting point is 00:32:13 And so you get the win totals from Vegas, look at past teams that have finished within that range. I, this is arbitrary, but I go a four game range, um, on either side of that wind total. Um, you could tighten that up if you wanted to, but like other teams have performed generally close to the expectation start there. Then there's a lot of, um, scheme related stuff, uh, and other notes that go into what specifically influences play volume. And so then that requires a more nuanced understanding of each team and each coach and what we can expect in terms of the things that will go into the play volume. And really, it's kind of a guessing game
Starting point is 00:33:00 because there's randomness season to season, but you can occasionally nail some of these things. So the most recent example is Indianapolisapolis last year and it didn't even like come to full fruition because anthony richardson got hurt um but it still mostly worked because they ran a similar offense with gardner menchu very high pace of play especially in neutral situations and um also a ton of rpo action which like gets the specific target share concentrated on michael pitman um that's just a recent example of like hitting on it um but like i'll throw it to heath and i want to pull up this email that i sent you guys with some of these notes heath do you have
Starting point is 00:33:36 anything on team level play volume yeah i i lean and i i will say i probably spend less time on this than I did five years ago because of what Jacob hinted at there. There's a lot of randomness to it. I don't want to be too far off of league median for most teams. I'm going to need a pretty strong history. I think Kellen Moore is probably a guy who brings with him a strong enough history that we should expect a significant uptick in the Eagles' total play volume. Or Aaron Rodgers, probably going to make the Jets play a lot slower this year than they did last year because he would like to stand at the line of scrimmage for at least 20 seconds and see what everybody's going to do on every play. But for the most part, I'm looking at the history of the coaching staff,
Starting point is 00:34:29 the offensive coordinator, maybe the quarterback a little bit, and then kind of regressing a little bit to get everybody not too far off of league median because there are wild, unexplained swings from year to year. Is Kellen Moore really that big of a play volume bump from what the eagles have all have previously had because they've also been a high play volume
Starting point is 00:34:49 team well i think that that's like probably even more evidence that they should be a high one of the highest projected play they probably are my highest i haven't even looked at the rankings but one of the highest teams but yeah it wasn't a big jump it was just confirmation that they're gonna to be that. Right. All right. I'll get back to Jacob in a second. He's got some really interesting tidbits here on this,
Starting point is 00:35:12 but we're going to take another break here on Fantasy Football today. The second half of our show, we'll talk about Seattle and Chicago and what their new offensive coordinators, the Chicago's used to be on Seattle, what that could mean for their play volume and their projections. He already mentioned the Colts. Will we see a similar offense this year? The Steelers, the Cowboys, the Falcons. We'll try to get to that.
Starting point is 00:35:29 I want to hear about JSN and what you think about Jackson, Smith, and Jigba. And we'll be back after this on FFT. With Smartwater's pure, crisp taste, there's nothing to overthink. So while you may be spiraling over double texting your crush, whether your skincare routine is working because you look the same or is doing nothing because you look the same and whatever the heck red light therapy is, it's definitely not that. Don't overthink how you hydrate. Life's full of choices. Smart water is a simple one.
Starting point is 00:36:10 Metro links and cross links are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. All right, we're back here and looking at some projections. Not necessarily the projections yet, but the process. Let's get into that.
Starting point is 00:36:39 It's fascinating stuff. All right, so continue what we were discussing before, Jacob. Yeah, so pace of play we've hit on pace of play definitely does correlate. I went through and looked at a variety of different stats and how each of them correlates to overall play volume and pace of play specifically in neutral situations when the game is close, um, does correlate. And so like the Colts are a team to bring up last year, they played, um, especially when Anthony Richardson was healthy in the first few games that played very played very very fast and that's something we've seen from shane stecken in the past and i think that's going to continue this year um a few teams that underperformed in
Starting point is 00:37:13 this regard were seattle and this is one that heath and i've been talking about on twitter because it's so hard to figure out this team and so shane waldron is the guy who's been responsible for these really weird seahawks teams over the past few years. He's played at a very high pace, but they continue to be low in overall play volume. And so there's a number of things that go into that. They've struggled to convert on third downs. That's a huge thing. It actually correlates more strongly, third down conversion rate correlates more strongly than pace of play does with overall play volume, which makes sense if you think about it, like it's just being able to sustain the drives. Another thing that was a real problem for Seattle is getting other teams off of the field on third downs. This also correlates more strongly than pace of play and pace of play is a decent
Starting point is 00:37:58 correlation. It's not like these, these other stats are higher because basically it doesn't matter. I think it's just really important that you get other teams off the field when you're on defense. And it's not something we think about very much because we're so focused on like fantasy. So we're thinking about offense, but a team's ability to get other teams off of the field on third down correlates more strongly the pace of play does with overall play volume. And the Seahawks are one of the absolute worst at it. Um, and so in terms of this Seahawks season, um, that's probably going to change because of Mike McDonald coming over from the Ravens. I think their defense has the chance to be significantly better. Um, I don't want to get into all the teams, the specific stuff with Seattle too much. Yeah. I want to, I want to stick with the pace in this discussion here. The Cowboys are another
Starting point is 00:38:42 team to play extremely fast and that really helps their overall play volume um and then the lions the lions the lions are just like this perfect factory made to produce fantasy points and they just keep getting better every single season at like elevating the overall volume in that offense and the main reason for that pace of play is part of it pretty good play is part of it. Pretty good defense is part of it. Um, and a very good offense that converts on third downs at a high rate is part of it. But the biggest thing is that the lions go for it on fourth down so much. And that actually correlates the pace of play or it correlates to overall play volume more than
Starting point is 00:39:19 anything going forward on fourth downs. It's, it's basically the exact same sentiment is going as converting on third downs, you're sustaining drives. that's huge and so like some play callers shane waldron in seattle refused to go forward on fourth down one of the lowest rates of any play caller and so this you know we've had a few things now that are maybe a little bit alarming for kaylee williams and the bears we'll get to them detroit goes forward at the highest rate of any team and also successful at it and lo and behold they produced one of the the only team that had more play volume last year was the cleveland browns they it was just a crazy year in cleveland um so i think if you're projecting any team for like leading the league
Starting point is 00:39:54 in plays detroit should be up there um they also have a really high win total and projected point total which correlates strongly with overall plays um and it's i don't know it's i think thinking about this stuff is interesting because initially i wouldn't have necessarily thought that detroit would be a really high play volume because in my head passing is what's very important in creating a lot of plays and that is borne out in this data as well passing correlates to more play volume more than running does. But not passing too efficiently. Well, that's true. Yeah, you're saying like in the case of Miami where they create a lot of...
Starting point is 00:40:29 Or San Francisco. San Francisco is always well below league medium because they average nine yards of play. Yeah, no, that's a great segue to another point that's extremely interesting to me is that pass success is actually significantly less correlated with overall play volume than rushing success.
Starting point is 00:40:46 Rushing success is really important. When it comes to volume, pass volume is more correlated to total plays. But being able to have a successful run game is really, really important. And that just brings us back to Detroit again. I think Indianapolis, again, is a team that could have a ton of offensive plays because they have a really good run game on top of all the coaching stuff that we've talked about with Steichen. Yeah, this stuff is really interesting to me. I generally think of, you know, the Cowboys, the Chiefs, the passing heavy teams as the ones that can give us these huge outlier types of play volume numbers.
Starting point is 00:41:20 But I really think it kind of, in a lot of cases, might come down to like the old school football mentality of like play defense, run the ball, you know, convert into important situations, and then some new school stuff with going for it on a fourth down. I'll tell you who led the NFL in plays last year, the Cleveland Browns, 50 more plays than the Lions, who were second. Cowboys, Saints, that's it. And, you know, and we were shocked a few weeks ago when we were looking at the highest scoring teams in football and the Saints were like ninth in points scored, offensive points scored.
Starting point is 00:41:52 They ran the fourth most plays. The Bills, the Jaguars, Eagles, Chargers, there's your top eight. Browns, Lions, Cowboys, Saints, Bills, Jaguars, Eagles, and Chargers. Chargers are going to be pretty different this year. I mean, their old coaching staff would go for it on 4th and 18 from inside their 5-yard line.
Starting point is 00:42:12 I don't know. I think they're going to be a little bit more conservative this year, but they should run the ball pretty effectively. You know, I'm not convinced about that because I don't know that they have any good running backs, but they should try to run the ball for the Chargers pretty effectively. Sorry to go on a tangent there. While you mentioned the Colts,
Starting point is 00:42:29 we just talked yesterday about Michael Pittman being one of our least favorite values. Heath was not on that show, so I think he probably would have disagreed, but he was going 26th overall in NFC ADP, and me, Dave, and Jamie didn't really like that value. Do you like that value, Jacob? Do you think Michael Pittman should be an early round three pick?
Starting point is 00:42:47 I have not drafted Pittman very much. And I think this is a decent segue if you just want to get into the Colts projection discussion now. I have them projected for the most rushing touchdowns and the 29th most passing touchdowns. I think that this team, particularly in the red zone, is going to really lean on the ground game. That's what we've seen from Shane Steichen in the past. And then just overall, the play volume, I think, is going to mostly revolve around Jonathan Taylor and the ground game. I think there's a chance for Pittman to be worth it because like we talked about, it's a really RPO heavy offense. He got significantly more RPO opportunities than any player in the NFL last year.
Starting point is 00:43:26 He really is the primary beneficiary of those types of plays, and it really boosts his target rates. And so if this offense ends up leading the league in plays, which is well within reason, he could just, again, see a really high target number. But I think last year's target number did get inflated a little bit by Minshew being the quarterback and doing so much short passing. I think we're going to see more of a, and Jonathan Taylor being out as well, more of a balanced offense that leans on the run game and then does a lot of play action, deeper passing. Yeah, I'm kind of down on Pittman at his price. And to Jacob's point, I have him projected 10th in total targets this year,
Starting point is 00:44:06 7th in total receptions, and 35th in receiving touchdowns. What about yards? That's kind of a thing with Pittman. He doesn't necessarily turn those catches into yards. He is 22nd in yards. Among wide receivers?
Starting point is 00:44:21 Yeah. Okay. It's definitely, he has the biggest split between half PPR and full PPR of just about any wide receiver. Like, I think NFC's a lot of half PPR drafts. I wouldn't like him in half PPR early in third round. In full PPR, I'm okay with it. In full PPR on CBS, he's going, like, 48th or something.
Starting point is 00:44:42 I love it. Yeah, that would be good. Okay, that's the Colts. Do you want to get into the Seahawks and Bears? Yeah, and just real quick on the Colts and the reason that the discrepancy is so wide in their projected touchdowns rushing versus passing, Shane Steichen, his past three seasons
Starting point is 00:44:59 have all resulted in more rushing touchdowns than passing touchdowns. That's unusual. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. including the justin herbert rookie season um he had a 41 pass rate that season only four teams had a rate that low in 2023 and that's just typically been the case for if you look at his offenses when he was in philly his red zone passer is below 40% both seasons. And so he, he really, his offenses have always produced touchdowns on the ground more than through the air, even when he hasn't necessarily had like. And 20.7 is where I'm at with the passing touchdowns. That feels so low because I think Anthony Richardson has the potential to really create some explosive plays,
Starting point is 00:45:49 and a lot of those might turn into touchdowns. But yeah, I think when they get in scoring distance, it's going to be the run game. By the way, Pittman's always had a touchdown issue. If they do throw 20 touchdowns this year, that would be more than either of the previous two seasons. I think the Colts have been at 17 and 18 touchdown passes. That's a good point. Each of the previous two seasons. I think the Colts have been at 17 and 18 touchdown passes. That's a good point.
Starting point is 00:46:06 Either each of the previous two seasons. All right. Yeah. So we got Shane Waldron going from Seattle to Chicago. We've got a new coordinator in Seattle. What do you want to talk about with these two teams? Let's start with Chicago. Heath, where do you have the bears?
Starting point is 00:46:23 Cause we had a huge split here between our projections. Yeah, I've basically moved their total play volume to just about league median. I had them slower. Now, I do have them with a pretty high sack rate. So the total number of pass attempts might be a little lower, but I have 579 passes, 448 rushes. Okay, that sounds about right. I think I have more total plays, and I also have their run rate probably lower than yours.
Starting point is 00:46:54 I do think the sack rate is potentially a problem. That's something I baked into Caleb and Jane Daniel's projections. Both of them were not good at avoiding sacks in college, and that is typically pretty sticky in terms of following players from uh college to the pros um but even with that caleb projects to be a top 10 scorer quarterback for me which really surprised me um because he doesn't have the scramble rates that a lot of like nowhere near jane daniels not even as high as drake may or anthony rich Anthony Richardson or past quarterbacks to come out of college that do have the mobility that he does. He really hasn't
Starting point is 00:47:29 scrambled at a high rate, particularly in the red zone. But I wonder, this is where I think there's upside on his projection that a median might not capture. I wonder if he might run more in the red zone. He was really, really good at extending plays and, and creating touchdowns with his arm in the red zone at college. Um, but now with the bears, it just like, I don't know, to me, I think he's going to be creating a lot of plays and he does have the receiver. So maybe he'll just find him with his arm, but I think he could rush too. And they could even get him designed looks as a rusher, because I don't know who's gonna be finishing drives in on the ground. Like, do you, what's, how do you have the rushing touchdowns being dispersed there because i i just don't have them scoring probably near as many touchdowns as you do
Starting point is 00:48:13 i've got them at 23 pass touchdowns and basically 13 rushing touchdowns i don't have this as a good offense that's super low so do you use uh like implied totals by vegas or do you create your point totals i generally create what's caleb williams past touchdown over under i don't know that i do know that the bears are 16th in projected points and are only 15 points behind like the eagles the rams the packers some of those like really good offenses, the Texans. They're within that range. Because last I looked, actually it's exactly 23.5 is his pass touchdown over under. I am going to have to see it in terms of a good pass touchdown rate from a rookie quarterback to believe it. Because generally speaking, even good rookie quarterbacks for fantasy
Starting point is 00:49:07 don't have good touchdown rates. C.J. Stroud didn't have a good pass touchdown rate last year. I don't expect Caleb Williams to be as successful as a passer as Stroud was last year. And I don't have a positive feeling about Waldron, which I think is probably different from what you have. I just think he's probably okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:28 So, yeah, it's just I'm, I think, expressing a lot more uncertainty over how good Caleb Williams is going to be. I think the rushing touchdown problem is probably real. But, yeah, I do have them as one of the lower scoring teams in the league.
Starting point is 00:49:44 Yeah, so let me just finish up on Caleb real quick. I do think there's rushing upside because DeAndre Swift is truly statistically the worst league runner when it comes to short yardage situations in the NFL. And then on Shane Waldron, he's increased his situation neutral pass rate in each of the past three seasons. So when games are close, when all things are equal, he's choosing to pass one of the highest rates last year, it was the fourth highest in the NFL. Um, he's also ranked top 10 in situation neutral pace of play in terms of the amount of time that's remaining on the clock when
Starting point is 00:50:13 they snap the ball, each of his three seasons as offensive coordinator. And so now I just look at the personnel here. He's got the number one overall pick a quarterback and you can prepare him to Stroud. I think it's touchdown rate could be higher than Stroud I think he from a prospect profile standpoint is better um of course Stroud was amazing last year I'm not saying Caleb's going to be a better player I'm just saying like if you're projecting them coming from the college to the NFL level he's a better prospect um and he has amazing weapons and I don't think the team's going to score a lot of touchdowns on the ground and so where are they coming from? I think they're probably coming through the air.
Starting point is 00:50:47 So I think it's totally reasonable that his touchdown rate could be higher than Stroud's was. Because last year, the Texans and Sloak really tried to kind of lean into the San Francisco style of things and really establish the run, especially early in the season. And in the red zone, particularly, they had a pretty low pass rate. I think that might be different for this Bears team. A couple of things i want to clarify um he did have a good touchdown rate for a rookie quarterback yeah um very good for a rookie quarterback still below five percent so as an example if you're at
Starting point is 00:51:19 570 for pass attempts 28 and a half would be five% touchdown rate. I'm significantly below that. And the other thing I think that was like, you were right, but C.J. Stroud had touchdown passes of 75, 75, 68, and 52 yards. That's four of his touchdowns right there were just monstrous plays. And I'm not sure we get that out of the bears this year. I don't know. I guess DJ more would be the guy scoring them. Or do you say more of definitely both can create this for is a lot to ask
Starting point is 00:51:51 for certainly. And I mean that you go back to Jalen Waddle, what was the big difference between Waddle in 2022 and 2023? I think other than just not playing as much as those, those big plays were not really there. They're hard to rely on. Um, Williams,
Starting point is 00:52:05 I will say he had 21 rushing touchdowns in his last two seasons. So at USC. So obviously that's something that he can do. I didn't get a chance to see all of them, but he can be a factor near the goal line. 21 rushing touchdowns in the last two seasons. I had him in, you know,
Starting point is 00:52:20 they, for some reason, let me or made me write a sleepers column. And Caleb Williams was one of my sleepers. He's QB 15 and CBS ADP. He's not really, in my opinion, being treated like one of the best quarterback prospects in a long time with
Starting point is 00:52:33 the best trio of receivers, maybe in rookie quarterback history. So I, you know, I just think there's a lot to like there. And then what you will, Waldron scared me a little bit more before today because yeah the the seahawks have been i think dead last in plays or close to that in two of his three
Starting point is 00:52:52 seasons as coordinator but now i know it's not because of pace it's because they sucked on third down defensively too not just an offense so hopefully let's talk about that yeah let's talk about the seahawks yeah so they were a huge disappointment last year. This team has a ton of talent on it, but the defense could not get off the field. Pat Thorman is who put me on this. They were just really, really bad on,
Starting point is 00:53:11 on third downs. One of the absolute worst in the NFL. It was just a weird year for the Seahawks. They were the only team in the NFL with under a thousand offensive plays. And there are a number of reasons that go into that. And not all of them are negative. Heath alluded to this earlier. The Seahawks create a lot of explosive plays. And so that lowers the overall number of plays
Starting point is 00:53:28 because you're gaining all those yards with just one play. That's not a bad thing. Um, that shows there's talent on this offense, but all together, it added up to this really small play total, which affects the targets and everything. There's a trickle down effect there with all the players. Um, another thing is Seattle, um, where the the Jets and the Titans were the only offenses that lost more EPA expected points added on pre-snap penalties than Seattle. And that's just drive killer right there. That and sacks were both a problem for Seattle. I think the coaching is going to be much, much better. I'm really, really excited for Mike McDonald. And so I think that even just with regression, those penalties should get better.
Starting point is 00:54:09 But with the coaching, I think it's almost definite that the penalties are going to get better. I think sacks will potentially be better as well. I was pretty excited about the offensive line, the potential for the offensive line to improve when I dug into things. Oh, yeah. They had both tackles get hurt last year.
Starting point is 00:54:24 Right, yeah. And they've got talent. Lucas is currently on pop. I believe they're right. Starting right. Tackle coming off of major surgery, I think. So we'd have to keep an eye on that. Yeah. They've got talent on the offensive line with better health. I think things could be much, much better. And so some of these wonky team level stuff, if they just go to normal, then all of a sudden, like you have one of the most talented offenses in the NFL with a really good, potentially really good coaching staff. I'm very excited for McDonald. I'm pretty excited for Ryan Grubb too. Although I feel a little bit less certain of what we're getting with him. I don't know exactly what his role was in terms of calling plays at
Starting point is 00:54:59 Washington. Um, but for what it's worth, when we saw him at Washington, when we saw him at Fresno state before that his offense is really prioritized deep passing. And that is perfectly paired for Gino, perfectly paired for the receivers here. Gino Smith has been better than I think most people realize. Hayden Winks is the guy who's been pounding the table for this. Since 2021, Gino Smith is number one overall in completion percentage over expectation. So this is just looking at where the throws are coming, the average depth of target, that type type of thing and then like where the completion rate is relative to normal on those types of targets number one ahead of the next guys are joe burrow patrick mahomes and aaron rogers since 2021 so it's pretty real stat and he's number one in it um another thing here
Starting point is 00:55:40 gino smith and trevor lawrence lost four touchdowns to defensive pass interferences in the end zone last year um no other quarterback was even at three uh and then Gino also was fourth in pass interference yards lost yards lost um so like there's just a lot of stuff that went into the actual product that we got in Seattle and I think so much of it projects to be better this year. You like Jason? I do like Jason a lot. Yeah. Um, Jason was the guy who really surprised me in the projections. I'm curious where you're at Heath. Let me pull up Seattle. Um, but I am nowhere close to you. So give the positive take, but you've got to remember, like, I, I'm not ready to murder Tyler Lockett yet. And I and i so i think you you kind of have to be to think jsn is going to be good well i have lockett and jason predicted fairly similarly in
Starting point is 00:56:34 terms of targets i have 123 assuming 17 games of full health for jason 116 for lockett um i think there's upside that if lockett is truly toast which he kind of has given us a decent amount of signals that he might be, that Jason's targets only increase from there. The main thing that I'm excited about is I think Jason showed a lot of signs that he can be a productive downfield receiver. And I think he's going to fit very well with what Grubb did in Washington, what he did with Jalen Polk and Jalen McMillan. I think Jason can do and be only better than those guys. I think he's a more skilled player than them. Um, and he has the ability to like really, really dominate. And when he's isolated, when he has press, um, coverage opportunities, I watched all of his routes from last year, the dude, he's not super
Starting point is 00:57:19 explosive, but he's very, very technical, very, very savvy, very hard for defenders to get their hands on him. I think I will go back to Shane Walden here. I think, and this is kind of a negative note for Keenan Allen. If you think about it, I think that Shane Walden's role for Jason last year was just so vanilla and maybe that had something to do with the injury that in Jigba had going into the season and all that. But like, he truly was just running drags over and over. Like he had one of the highest designed target rates in the NFL. Cause it was just like drags and screens when he was outside of the slot. He was much, much more productive when, than when he was inside of the slot, when he was running downfield routes relative
Starting point is 00:58:00 to the rest of the NFL, he was much, much more productive than when he was running short routes. I think this offense has the potential to unlock him in a way that we really didn't get to see him shine in his rookie season because of the role that he was asked to play by Waldron. Yeah, he had one of the lowest ADOTs and one of the highest slot rates in the NFL among wide receivers with 50 or more targets,
Starting point is 00:58:20 Jackson, Smith, and Jigba, almost identical to Josh Downs. But when JSN was in the slot, 0.8 yards per route run. 5.8 yards per target. It was terrible. It was so boring. On the outside, 2.4 yards per route run. Three times as good. 7.8 yards per target.
Starting point is 00:58:40 And 2.4 yards per route run is really good. So I'm not sure that they're going to use him more on the outside. I have no idea. The point is that the reason I think he was so bad in those slot routes is because of the way that the slot routes were designed. And not all slot routes are going to be
Starting point is 00:58:57 the way that Waldron designed them last year. And so like if he's using more downfield intermediate slot stuff and getting more like towards the sideline, working the deep intermediate area of the field on those slot routes instead of just like running along the line of scrimmage over and over. I think I don't think it's like Jason is bad in the slot necessarily. I think I do have a question. He can succeed on the outside. And we saw that.
Starting point is 00:59:20 And then if he gets a different type of slot role, it'll be really, really cool. Like from a historical comps perspective, a wide receiver who had one good year in college and produces 600 yards in even 16 games as a rookie, the hit rate is extremely low. For sure. low for sure um so i'm thinking more like dynasty now but even i think in redraft like how how many games worth of patience are you going to be willing to show on jsn this year um is it does he pretty much have to come out of the gate producing before we just say okay so that didn't work i think that's a that's a great question the first the first discouraging signal would be if his route participation is lower than expected. If they're not using as many three receiver sets as expected, that's a huge problem. If he's only, if he's coming off the field and two receiver sets and only playing in
Starting point is 01:00:14 the slot, that would be a huge problem. And if you see that right away, it's over for me. I'm not even willing to like give it another few games. Cause like, that's probably the way the offense is going to operate and it's just not going to be enough volume. But if they're using three receiver sets all the time which is what grubb did at washington then i'm willing to be patient with him um for probably a month or two at least um and yeah i think your point is totally valid about like this profile is scary as hell and that's why he's going where he is in drafts.
Starting point is 01:00:45 It's totally baked into his ADP, including a dynasty. He's going really late for a player that people were so excited about last year. Yeah. I take him a lot, JSN. About 100th overall, I think. Because if Tyler Lockett, who's what, 33? I think 32, but yeah.
Starting point is 01:01:02 Going to be 33? Okay, 32. Coming off his worst season. If he is really done, then... He's 31, but he will be 32 this year. He'll be 32, okay. If he's really done, then that's... I mean, there's a big opportunity here for JSN.
Starting point is 01:01:15 But last thing here, I'll give you time to talk about one more team. About 120... About 240 targets for JSN and Lockett. It's not even including Metcalf. That just feels like a lot of targets. Is it Metcalf doesn't have that many or is it you think they'll just throw the ball a lot?
Starting point is 01:01:32 I do think they're going to throw the ball a lot. Yeah, I think Grubb loves to throw the ball. I think they have the personnel to throw the ball. I have them for one of the highest pass. Their passing numbers shocked me. So yeah, I have DK for 13 136 targets so i think that's like that's something we should definitely hit on real quick because we did say when we started talking about seattle like you're really less certain what we're getting with grub um but you came away a
Starting point is 01:01:56 little bit surprised how high you projected that like you're projecting that as a major outlier in terms of past volume and i I'm just wondering like what, what goes into that? Because I've kind of just gone medium with that. And at first, this is another one that I changed. Like I've moved DK Metcalf and JSN up since talking to Jacob about it because,
Starting point is 01:02:19 and this is not always true. Sometimes defensive head coaches will let high past volumes happen. Sometimes coordinators get fired in the middle of the season because they have a defensive head coach and they won't run the ball like was like, you know what? I don't really know that. I pretty much just put them close to league median. What is it that puts you in the super pass heavy camp? That's fair. I should probably nerf their passing projections a little bit. Sometimes I can paint a picture and I get very excited about it, and that might not be necessarily the most realistic thing. Um, no, it's not being realistic wins leagues too. Like I'm not
Starting point is 01:03:09 criticizing. It's not a criticism. We're talking about medium projections here. I think it's, we can leave that the window open for that possibility, but we're talking about media projection. I probably need to be lower. Um, but the reason is Seattle's wind total is only seven and a half. I think that this team for as much as my gridon is going to help the defense a lot and tighten things up. It's still a defense that is probably going to be middle of the pack. This team is going to probably be playing in neutral situations or potentially even behind quite a bit. The other thing is the pass rates from past grub teams. And then I do, I do have a little bit of confidence that McDonald is willing to hand over the reins here, just given
Starting point is 01:03:44 the guys that he brought in, the specific guys that he brought in are kind of forward-thinking guys that really like to lean on the pass. And I think the way that I've heard him talk about Grubb just excites me that he has confidence in him and is willing to kind of give him the reins here. I think he's kind of a forward-thinking guy, potentially, at McDonald. Everything I hear about him is he's just this brilliant guy. And so, to me, he's more like a McVay type of guy. And I know McVay lean really run heavy last year,
Starting point is 01:04:07 but we've seen him be very pass heavy at times too. Okay. Heath, I'm about to give you a stat that it's going to blow your mind. I can't wait. Just need a minute here. Um, the last two times a Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator.
Starting point is 01:04:22 Oh no, the stat is not going to blow your mind. Uh, the last two times the Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator. No, this stat is not going to blow your mind. The last two times the Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator became a head coach in their first season as head coach, their teams ranked sixth in pass attempts
Starting point is 01:04:36 and 32nd in pass attempts. Perfect. Exactly. Chuck Pagano and Rex Ryan. Go ahead. Yeah, Chuck Pagano andx ryan yeah yeah what i'd really like and i've not like i probably just need to spend some time on this is like to kind of dig a little deeper into these college coaches coming to the nfl as offensive coordinators or head coaches i guess if they're offensive minds and like what, what the
Starting point is 01:05:06 net impact is to those teams, what type of success they have earlier in their career. I know I've seen some stuff and done some research that shows that like first year play callers are often a little bit slower pace, but he's not necessarily a first year play caller. Cause we think he may have done a little bit of that in college. And so it it's i think i'd like to do a little bit more research on that but again i've kind of spent a little bit less time on it over the last couple of years just because it does seem like there's some just random stuff i didn't only have a finite amount of time i'll do it for you probably next off fantastic all right uh so give me uh up to five minutes on the Falcons. I want to do the Steelers. Can we do the Steelers?
Starting point is 01:05:47 No. Yes, yes. You go from the Falcons to the Steelers. You're Arthur Smith. All right, give me the Steelers. So real quick on the last two that we didn't get here is Dallas and Atlanta. My projection for B. John Robinson is kind of out of control.
Starting point is 01:05:59 Him and Brees Hall both, really. But the potential for Atlanta is nuts if we see just like a return to normalcy from the past rates and the past success efficiency that we've seen in the past um it's pretty you know pretty intuitive um but like really if you get into the actual projections it's like wow this this could take off in a crazy way and then the other thing is the coaching staff all comes over from la and we don't know for sure that they'll follow the tendencies that sean mcveigh has but those la teams leave their starters on the field so much um and that could just be huge if b john is on the field all the time and
Starting point is 01:06:38 the play volume and everything goes way way up and then he's also using the red zone like he he he could come close to approaching the cmc cd lamb tyree kill range um cd lamb is the next guy i wanted to hit on like it could get so nuts in dallas the passing volume potential there is higher than any team in the nfl we saw them completely give up on the run game as the season went on and everything this offseason signals that like that's kind of where they're at and you know people think of this as like an old jerry jones team but honestly they've been leaning more and more into analytics mike mccarthy like shocking us and evolving as he you know progresses in his career i i really think that we could see them like post some crazy passing numbers and lamb just continues to elevate his game. So like he, he's the clear wide receiver one for me, even though all the stuff I laid out with Miami and thinking that
Starting point is 01:07:28 they could put up way more passing volume than we've seen before. It's still lamb over Tyreek for me on Pittsburgh. I want to start with the touchdowns. Heath, you have them projected for way more passing touchdowns than me. And you talk about Russell Wilson on Twitter all the time. Is that something that you've talked about on the podcast a lot? Is this rehashing that? It's kind of the same reason that I have Aaron Rodgers projected for a lot of touchdowns, is that both of those guys have almost every year of their career, even when they've been bad,
Starting point is 01:07:58 posted a well above average touchdown rate. We saw Wilson last year when some people would say he was horrible, worthy of getting benched with two games left in the season. He still threw more touchdown passes last year than the Steelers have thrown the last two seasons combined. I have more confidence that Wilson's touchdown rate is going to be high than I do that his yards per attempt or anything like that is going to be high. So I don't see it the same way. I get what you're saying. And when I started my projections,
Starting point is 01:08:28 I had the same thing happen with both the Jets and the Steelers because my touchdown rates were influenced heavily by the pass rates that we've seen from those quarterbacks. I think it's totally reasonable that things could change given the play callers and everything. The guys, particularly in Pittsburgh, Tomlin and Arthur Smith love to run the ball in the red zone.sburgh the tomlin and arthur smith love to run the ball in the red zone that's been their mo everywhere they've been um regardless of personnel
Starting point is 01:08:51 um and so i think it's totally reasonable that's what we see i have these dealers projected for just 20.3 passing touchdowns which ranks 30th and even within that projection both george pickens and pat fryer muth are huge values and so that's why I wanted to highlight this team because like if Heath is right and the touchdowns do come more through the air like these guys could smash like absolutely crush expectations for fantasy and it's it's realistic like there are some stats that suggest that russ wasn't as bad last year as he had been a couple years before that and that maybe we're a little bit um too early in saying that he's totally done and he really him and aaron rogers both like they they control the offense and they
Starting point is 01:09:37 control the outcome so often where the touchdowns end up coming from their hand and if that is what we see again here, George Pickens could go absolutely nuclear. And then Pat Frymouth, people have just forgotten about Pat Frymouth, but like he is one of the best tight ends of any young tight ends recently. Um, he has given us a high touchdown total his first year. He's been very involved in the red zone when on the field, he, if you look at tight ends and the percentage of their teams touchdowns that they've accounted for in healthy games, he's like top three. It's like Mark Andrews, David and Joku, and then Friar move since he's into the NFL. And I don't think people realize that. And then he's also shown us that ability to be efficient
Starting point is 01:10:17 at creating yardage. Not every season he's had insanely bad circumstances in Pittsburgh. Um, and he's also been dealing with injuries but like there have been flashes of him being truly like really really strong as a yardage creator and it makes sense he was drafted high he's athletic he's six foot five he's he was productive in college like this is a legit tight end prospect who has very little target competition it's going to be a lot of play action stuff with George Pickens working the deep area of the field and Pat Frymuth being like the primary read in the underneath area. And Arthur Smith loves throwing to tight ends more than like any coordinator in the NFL. We've seen this across several different offenses. 34% rate last year led the NFL. Yeah. And I know people get frustrated with the Kyle
Starting point is 01:11:00 Pitts playing time and all of that. This is a different situation. And I think it's totally reasonable that Frymuth is just going to be like a truly like featured part of this offense. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he pushes well above like Evan Ingram, David Njoku, a lot of those guys and into that top tier. And like, no, you don't have to come close to drafting him at that cost. Two things on the touchdown rate and the passing in the red zone. I just, and this could be wrong, I mostly think that's because Mike Tomlin and Arthur Smith have not trusted their quarterbacks for a very long time. If you look at Ryan Tannehill, his last two seasons, his two seasons with Arthur Smith, insane touchdown rates, 7.7% and 6.9% two years in a row over 28 games. The next two years, he was at a 4% touchdown rate. You look at when Ben Roethlisberger was with Mike Tomlin,
Starting point is 01:11:53 it was above average almost every season until he fell off the cliff, but five, five and a half percent almost every year for Roethlisberger in terms of touchdown rate. You're right. Recently, those guys have not wanted to throw the ball at all in the red zone, but I think it's because they've got Kenny Pickett and Mitchell Trubisky and Desmond Ritter and Taylor Heineke. They'd let anybody else have the ball here. I think there's a 50-50 chance that this time next year we're just adding Russell Wilson's name to the end of that list.
Starting point is 01:12:24 He might be better. He might be better than I'm expecting, but yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with the projections on Pittsburgh. All right. Excellent stuff. And I encourage everyone. This is just a small taste. We've talked about all these teams, all these players talked about really almost nothing because, well, just
Starting point is 01:12:39 I didn't mean like in a bad way. Just there are so many more players that you want the information on. So the best way to do that is in the newsletter. Subscribe to the go to CBS sports.com slash newsletter. Subscribe to the fantasy football today. Newsletter. Jacob will email it right to you.
Starting point is 01:12:54 It's not like a, you know, a list or a list or anything. It's just, he emails everyone individually. He'll even write you a personal, a personal note in each projection. No, or your money back.
Starting point is 01:13:07 And it is free. Yes. So thank you, Jacob. Thanks for coming on, buddy. Absolutely. Yeah, it's been too long. Hope I didn't say too many ums, trying to get back into the flow of the podcast thing. Super excited for the season. Thanks for having us. No, we just want your Schneier impression. I'm still waiting for him to get back to me with his. His was so underwhelming last year. Yeah, I'm excited for freaking beyond the box score, man. That's coming up soon. That's going to be really cool. Who do you think is going to win in a tennis match, me or Dan?
Starting point is 01:13:33 Well, you said you didn't have any backspin, right? Like the technical side of things clearly favors Dan. Topspin. Topspin, yeah, okay. But also Dan seems to be taking you lightly. And so I could see it going either way, really. What's the betting on? I played on Sunday.
Starting point is 01:13:50 I'm playing tomorrow. Dan is literally partying in Las Vegas. This is Apollo Creed versus Rocky in the first half. I would put Dan at like minus 400. No. Wow. I would put him at like minus 150. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:14:06 So even Adam thinks Dan's favored, and that should really tell you something. Like, you know Adam. No, no, no. I'm very – he should be favored, but he's taking me way too lightly, and I've been playing pretty well. So I'm looking forward to this, and it will happen. It's going to happen. All right.
Starting point is 01:14:21 I'm taking Adam as the dark horse. I don't think Dan's focused. I like it. We'll figure out your projections we'll talk to you all tomorrow on Fantasy Football thanks again to Jacob and Heath see you tomorrow

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