Fantasy Football Today - Projections Show! Projecting Total Plays, Pass Attempts and Touchdowns (07/02 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Bid on Draft-A-Thon items here! ⁠https://tiltify.com/@cbs-sports/fft-draftathon-2025 When you're evaluating players, it's important to consider how many plays his team will run and how pass heavy the team will be. And of course, we need to think about how many touchdowns the team will score. Heath's biggest projection surprise involves the Lions offense (4:55) as they should see a big dip in their touchdown total from 2024. Then he reveals the teams he projects to run the most plays in the league (8:40). The Raiders are on top of the list! What does Chip Kelly's history tell us? ... We like teams that run a lot of plays, but what about the teams that are projected to run the fewest plays (16:05)? And how about the teams that will be toward the bottom in pass attempts (23:30)? What does it mean for Zay Flowers and Garrett Wilson, in particular? ... We finish the projections discussion with a look at teams that Heath expects to score the fewest touchdowns in the NFL (35:45). The Falcons are on this list, so can we really justify Bijan Robinson as RB1? And then we get into the Ravens (43:05) and some crazy outlier stats, plus other teams with great offenses. And finally, updated thoughts on Darren Waller (48:00) and if he has anything left in the tank ... 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

This episode is brought to you by Dazon. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on Dazon, starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dazonone.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. Get unlimited grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Meal prep, delivered.

Snacks, delivered. Fresh fruit, delivered. Grocery delivery on repeat for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at pcexpress.ca. This is fantasy football today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? No, I can't.

It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races! And he stays at his feet! This is gonna go the distance! Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath. Turn up the volume. We're talking about volume heavy offenses. Maybe those that aren't going to run a lot of plays on the other end of the spectrum here. And what it means for fantasy.

Welcome to the show on Wednesday, July 2nd. If you're getting ready for a very fun weekend, July 4th is on Friday. No show on Friday, but we'll be back, we have a show tomorrow, a mailbag tomorrow. Email us at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. That is the letter I, fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. You can also leave an Apple podcast question. I do have some of those to read as well.

Leave a five star of you on Apple podcasts. I am Adam Azer with Dave, Richard and Heath Cummings. What a fun conversation we had before the show. Here's the gist of it. What was the best decade of your life? Was it, you can't, like, it's not gonna be your first 10 years. Was it 10, you know, was it 11 through 20?

21 through, or no, I guess it would be 10 through 19? 20 through 29? Your 30s? Your 40s? What was the best decade of your life? Leave a comment. But Heath, what's give me the overall theme of today's show and why it matters.

Wait, I was getting ready to answer the best decade of my life. So the overall theme of today is looking at team volume, whether that is past attempts, whether it's rush attempts, whether it is total touchdown, whether it's rush attempts, whether it is total touchdowns or total plays. There was an old, I think it was, I think it might've been Joe Bryant that wrote it, but it might've been somebody else back at football guys more than a decade ago that had a theory of fantasy football that was just eliminate the suck.

Yeah. Like don't draft those. Well, I'm out of here then. See you guys. On those teams that are going to score 31 touchdowns, like I might project one team this year to do, or the teams are going to run 950 plays, just draft high volume, high, good football team players. I think it's a great idea. players. I think it's a great idea. Um,

but the volume thing, I spent, I didn't really find a super strong correlation necessarily between high volume and high points. Um, last year, more of a PPR discussion. Yeah. Just can't volume creates a lot of PPR opportunities. I think what you'll look through, especially when you look at the teams that have run a lot of plays, is it's not always teams that score a lot of points. A lot of times it's teams that just go five yards at a time over and over and over and over again and don't have the big plays. I wouldn't say that there was

no correlation. I looked at the last six years and I would say in three of the six years, there was a pretty strong correlation between teams that ran a lot of plays and teams that scored a lot of points. Last year being one of them, but ironically, the team that ran the most plays last year was the Cleveland Browns and they scored the fewest points. But after that it was Detroit. They were number one in points. Philadelphia, they were sixth. Dallas was 25th. Washington, fifth. Tampa Bay, fourth. So that's four of the top six teams in plays finished top six in scoring. I would call that a pretty strong correlation. All right.

So we'll get into that. And are the Ravens the most interesting team in terms of volume and what it means for fantasy? Are they up there at least? They'd be up there. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think the lions are probably more interesting because of the Ben Johnson discussion and how, I mean, maybe we should just start with this.

Probably the most surprising thing I found, um, from going through some research for this show. I ha I've talked a lot about the step back that I'm afraid the lions are going to take without Ben Johnson and Ragnar. I have them projected for the second most touchdowns in the NFL this year. I have them projected for 16 fewer touchdowns than they scored last year. They had 68. I don't predict, project anybody for more than 53 this year.

And so that just kind of shows it. It's possible to say they're going to be worse without saying they're going to be bad. Well how many do you know how many they scored in 2023? It was in the 50s. And they still had the number one ish top three tight end. St. Brown had a huge year, but they didn't have much from Jameson Williams that year, if I recall, right? That was St. Brown had a huge year, but they didn't have much from James and Williams that year, if I recall, right? That was St. Brown was wide receiver three overall.

He was wide receiver seven per oh no, sorry. I'm looking at last year. He was even better that he was wide receiver, silver three overall in 2023 as well. And he was wide receiver four per game at 20, almost 21 points per game. But yeah, James and Williams didn't contribute much that year. I think that was kind of the difference. And- Well, and I think Jameer Gibbs was five points per game worse.

Right. Gibbs, yeah, well, yeah. Montgomery, that was Gibbs. Montgomery was even worse per game, I think. He was still top 15, but he was 14.8. Yeah. All right. I mean, yeah, it's a pretty, it's an interesting theory you've got.

You're the low guy on the Lions. It's gonna be a constant thing that we bring up, I think throughout the course of the next couple of months as we get into Draft Talk. All right, so Dave, you wanna stay on that? You wanna add anything to this? No, I want to keep going. But as we move along, I've got my data portal open, and would love to see if we can find some stats from last year to help support the projections that Heath gives,

or maybe even if not provide context, maybe a counterpoint. or maybe even if not provide context, maybe a counterpoint. Yeah, that would be, yes. And I told Dave this also, like going through this process as something in past off seasons I've done probably a little bit earlier, but I've been a little more dynasty focused this summer. And so I haven't as much. So I was just glad to go through this and see like,

are there some places in my projections where I can't justify what I've done. Right. Okay, so I'm gonna, I wanna talk about Darren Waller actually and just give a little bit of context and what he might be able to bring to the table for the Dolphins.

He's actually good article on cbsports.com. He is the third star tight end in the last, I don't know, let's say 10 years to unretire. Can you name the other two? Rob Gronkowski. Yeah, Gronk, yep. Who unretired, he retired at the age of 29, I believe. Darren Waller is gonna be 33 in week one.

And the other who unretired, he retired at like, I think he retired after his age 34 or five season. Jimmy Graham? I hope I didn't miss Jimmy Graham. Jason Whitten. Jason Whitten. Oh, yeah. When did he come back?

Yes, I remember you liked him a lot more as an announcer than I thought you would. Yes, after one wildly successful season at the Monday Night Football Booth, Jason Whitten decided to come back for two more NFL seasons. All right, but let's stay on this topic. Why don't we just talk about volume here and what else did you find Heath as you did this exercise with your projections and volume?

Yeah. I mean, I went through and gave you way more information I think than we're going to be able to use on this show. When you're talking about total plays, I think an interesting thing that Dave has some context on as well was like how many plays do I project for various offenses and why, and the three highest offenses I had in terms of projected total volume, in terms of total plays were the Raiders, which might sound a little bit strange, but Chip Kelly's in four seasons, his team, now they were all 16 game seasons, so you've got to use a 17 game pace, but at 1136 offensive plays. Second is Cleveland.

Kevin Stefanski, over the last three years, their offenses have averaged 1140 offensive plays. And that's with some pretty bad quarterback play, even when Deshaun Watson was healthy. And then third, the Eagles have kind of been the gold standard really since Nick Sirianni got there of being over 11100 plays per game. And just to put that in context,

the league median last year was 1061. And so that's four more plays, four to five more plays per game than league median. I love the Raiders aspect of this year. They were 12th, I think in plays last year. So yeah, good. I think at the very least it helps to explain why I'm probably higher on Bowers and Gentie than Dave and Jamie are and why I'm less concerned with Chip Kelly, maybe being more run heavy than they were last year, because.

55% pass rate on 1120 plays is a lot more is just maybe just as appealing as 58% if you're only running 1060. Dave, any thoughts? And I would also add that Chip Kelly was a pretty successful coach in terms of just points per game. You know, for the four seasons, I believe he was a coach. Anything to add, Dave? So he's saying that the Raiders, Browns, who are always up there in the most place and Eagles, who are again, always up there will will run the most plays. That's his projection. Well, as far as Chip Kelly goes, I think it's a little dangerous to assume that chips going to

be the exact same type of play caller that he was in his first stint in the NFL, he got fired from two jobs doing what he was doing. He went back to college after that. I went and looked and saw what he did at UCLA. His pace was not fast at all. He was never higher than 22nd in the FBS in offensive snaps. He was as low as 78th. So that's not necessarily great. And his time of possession per play was always outside of the top 90. So I think he, he realized that he could still slow things down, maybe when he needed to. I mean, it's not like UCLA was a haven for, for offense, and even like the last three years that he was there, 21, 22, 23. But he did step it up in 2024 when he went to Ohio State. It was for just one year. He obviously had better talent around him, guys that knew what they were doing. Ohio State was ninth in the FBS in total plays last year

with 988, 23rd in time of possession per play. So maybe he put his foot on the gas just a little bit more in that season. And they played a lot more than the typical FBS team because of the college football playoffs. I think that Chip Kelly has definitely modified his offense and also his philosophies as he went back to college and he's probably going to apply a lot of that to the NFL. If he feels like the Raiders would benefit from a slower pace, I think

you can expect him to do that. Whereas when he got to Philadelphia, it was, nope, we're doing it this way. All gas, no breaks. You're gonna play a ton of snaps, and we're gonna try and run the defense off the field on every single possession. I think he's learned to kind of harness that a little bit. And we just have to wait and see what type of team the Raiders have and how confident Chip Kelly is in Geno Smith running an up-tempo offense, or if Ashton Gentry can handle getting 2 carries within the span of 25 seconds of game clock. I mean, these are the types of things that we just have to wait and see on. And so that's why I would be a little hesitant to assume that the Raiders are going to run more plays than anybody else in the National Football League, especially since some teams have basically gone unchanged. And they're

going to, they're going to be easy to predict. Philadelphia is a great example. I know that they just changed offensive coordinators. And Kellen Moore, he's known for running a ton of plays, so maybe that's going to happen in New Orleans. But as long as Sirianni has been there, Heath, you mentioned it. I think that's a team that's probably a safer bet. I think Detroit is fairly safer as well than Las Vegas running a ton of plays, but it does help the point that the Raiders were 12th in overall plays last year. They were tied for 12th and that means that they probably have a shot to be top 10, maybe top five. That's pretty good. Yeah. We should talk about teams that we don't expect to run a lot of plays and we'll do that in a moment.

First, I have a couple things I wanna promote. The draft-a-thon season has begun. We have already had two purchases of mailbag questions. So we're gonna do a mailbag next week and we'll read 10 of your questions. $50 donation to St. Jude. You can, you know, that's, sorry, let me give you the URL before I keep going here.

It's tinyurl.com slash 2025 FFT, tinyurl.com slash 2025 FFT. Go there and you'll see you can bid on mailbag questions, having your mailbag question answered on the air. So it's $50 for each question, and we will read it on the air. So that's what's going on right now. May I give some trivia before the break? Yes, but there's one other thing I wanted to promote real quick. Okay, go ahead. Go Monday afternoon 1pm Eastern, we are

having a special show on CBS Sports Network. So we will see you there. 1pm Eastern Monday afternoon, CBS Sports Network, one hour of fantasy football today. Go ahead, Dave. This team finished bottom five in plays, total offensive plays and top three in offensive touchdowns. Baltimore Buffalo Buffalo. You got it. I was going to say name that team after the break, but you guys beat me to it and you

answered correctly. I'm very proud of both of you. Thank you. Yeah. We talked about that a lot. The Bills running with the second fewest plays or the third fewest plays last year. Whenever it was. Fifth fewest plays. Oh, fifth fewest plays. Third most touchdowns, fifth fewest plays. Oh, such an idiot. All right. We'll be right back

on fantasy football today. Got a good question in the chat from Popinski. Are Aaron Rodgers teams consistently at the bottom of this metric? We're talking about plays run. They are consistently, I think that highlights one of many conflicts between the history of Arthur Smith and the history of Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers likes to throw the ball 10 times a game to his top wide receiver. Arthur Smith likes to throw to his wide receivers as little as possible. Aaron Rodgers would like to take the entire play clock on every single snap to see exactly what everyone in the stadium is doing before he chooses

what he wants to do. Arthur Smith has been very, the past two years above average in terms of pace and the number of plays he runs. So I have the Steelers projected pretty much league average in terms of total plays because I really have no idea how those two are interact, but it will probably be entertaining if nothing else. The three teams I had for the lowest total plays are the Panthers, the Packers and the Rams.

And what's behind those projections? Uh, mostly, I mean, for the Panthers, it's a combination of what happened last year and what has, and the fact that I don't think there are very good offense, um, the Packers and the Rams, I think Stafford's just a little bit slower and Lafleur may be influenced by Rogers at the beginning of his coaching career, but Lafleur has been a little slower as well, or lower play total at least. Does it matter to you with the Packers and the Rams? They should be pretty damn good offenses.

I don't think it matters with the Rams as long as they stay as concentrated as they've been. It's always been almost all their targets go to two guys and Kyron Williams handles all the rush attempts and you don't have to worry about running a low number of place. Um, I think it matters with the Packers in total in terms of what we've talked about a bunch and that is the fact that in the past, nobody's gotten a lot of targets. Backers were tied for seventh fewest in total plays per game.

Um, they were fifth in rushes per game at 30.9. And a lot of that was obviously the running backs. It's not like Jordan Love used his legs a lot last year when he had that knee injury on week one. I think they took that card out of his hand, but that does concern me a little bit for the receivers. That's a good example of slow pace team that likes to run the ball a lot, especially, I mean, they succeeded running the ball out last year, so they just kept doing it. I would assume that they will be competitive when they run the ball. I don't know if they'll be quite as good, but they'll still be good.

But that does make me a little bit nervous about the overall target volume opportunities for their wide receivers. And yes, tied on to. And the Packers, well, that last year was lower than the two prior years in terms of plays run. But I said 1061 was a league median last year. They've not been above 1052 in the last three years. Do you think that that number was lower because of the

games that Malik Willis started? Well, he just said two years at three years in a row, three years in a row. They'd been below league median. So maybe, maybe low league median isn't that big of a deal compared to being like bottom five bottom 10. And they're right in between those two areas. Were they lower last year than they were the year prior? Yes.

Okay. So I wonder if that was, well, Malik will has played a little bit the year before too. I don't know. Maybe I'm just making stuff up. That doesn't make sense for this particular argument, but ultimately it does. This is an idea of the type of thing that does make me nervous about Packers wide receivers and thus Packers quarterback. Yeah.

I remember they've got super run heavy last year, but that doesn't necessarily mean fewer plays. The Jets, for example, ran the third fewest plays in the NFL and they were basically the most pass heavy team. They had the fewest running back. They had the fewest carries in the league. And just to kind of show how I normalize this, like I, I didn't project chip Kelly's offense to run as many places that were, or

Kevin Stefanski's to money. There are such outliers over their last three years that I, I drew it back a little bit, maybe to Dave's point, not far enough, a lot of people asking in the chat why the Panthers are so low. They ran nine, they ran 993 offensive plays last year. I think a lot of that had to do with their defense being terrible. Like their defense stopped in the second half of games. They lost time of possession in the second half frequently.

I'm giving them a lot. Somebody is definitely going to, I've had them last at 1040. Somebody is definitely going to run fewer plays than that, but this is not predictive enough to where you don't want to normalize it some. Yeah. Defense is another thing that I don't know how big of an influence it has. The Jaguars and the Panthers ran the fewest plays in football last year. They did not have good defenses. The jets were third fewest. I mean, they didn't have a horrible defense or anything like they were bad chargers. They had Rogers. Yeah.

Chargers fourth fewest chargers had a good defense for most of the year. Uh, Bill's fifth fewest. I have a feeling offensive tempo kind of matters more than defense. Um, the bills are an example of something. And I guess the Chargers had a little bit of this with Quentin Johnston, but I remember there was a time, I think maybe my home's best year or second best year, the chiefs were kind of like the bills last year.

They scored a lot of points and didn't run a lot of plays. And that's because they scored from 50 or 60 yards away a lot of the time. Yeah. Uh, now they, now they're the opposite and they throw 600 passes that go four yards a piece. To the point that I tried to make, the Panthers were 31st in the league in offensive plays, the Jaguars were 32nd. Those two teams were also first and second respectively in opponent plays per game. Anthur 67.9 opponent plays per game. Jaguar 66.2 opponent per game. So Heath, last let's wrap this segment up here. When it comes to Chuba Hubbard and Tedaro and McMillan, are you lower on them because

of the projected play volume? You have Carolina with the third fewest fewest, fewest place, fewest place, sorry. Yeah, probably to Yeah, because I have him at a 21% target share, but that would be worth more if they were projected to run more place. As goes back to the grandma's apple pie discussion. And we're not probably quite as much as Chuba. Cause I'm not really worried about somebody cutting into his workload at running back unless he's injured.

Like I think if he stays healthy, he'll have a high enough percentage of the running back touches that he can overcome that. Well, I think Carolina will probably be closer to the league average and offensive plays. Their defense definitely got better. I've got them off. So if their office is asc their audience is ascending, I don't mind saying that Carolina won't be toward the bottom of this list. I've got them running. I've got them running four more plays per game than they did last year. Yeah, there you go. But still last. Right. Yeah, by the way, you said you're not worried about Chuba Hubbard's splitting,

neither is Alex Zytlow, I apologize, of the Charlotte Observer. He thinks Chuba's carries will decrease a bit, but he'll still see the overwhelming majority of the touches. Of course. That's one news item for you there. All right, one thing, Heath, that I note

is that it's hard for wide receivers in full PPR and in half PPR to finish in the top 12 overall if their offense is bottom five in pass attempts. It has happened six times over the last 12 seasons where we've had a wide receiver finish top 12 overall in half or full PPR on an offense that's bottom five in pass attempts. Now, if you expand that to bottom six in pass attempts, you actually get nine wide receivers in the last 12 years. Bottom five in pass

attempts, six wide receivers in the last 12 years have finished top 12. So that's especially relevant for Garrett Wilson, I think, Zay Flowers, your thoughts on, on this discussion here, what this means for wide receivers, if their offense is not going to throw a lot, bottom five and pass attempts. Well, I would assume, assume the, I've only got the bottom three in my projections,

but I would assume at least like two of the exceptions to that rule are the AJ Brown, whose Eagles once again project for the third fewest pass attempts. I've got the Ravens at 486, which shouldn't surprise anybody. The Jets at 499, that one I think you have to be a little bit less certain about because it is a new offensive system.

And it's Justin Fields who has had a hard time putting 17 games together. And then the Eagles at five oh five, not surprising, but the other thing that's in common is all three of these quarterbacks may be in the top five in quarterback rush attempts. AJ Brown is not one of them from what I see, because he was not top 12 last year.

And the other two years, I don't think the Eagles were bottom five in pass attempts, but I will double check this. This does show though why, why I'm lower on Garrett Wilson. And as I said yesterday, I'm not comfortable with it. I've got AJ 13th in PPR points per game, not per game. This is total points though. And he was, um, well cause you have to do that when you're talking about overall pass volume here. He was, he was wide receiver 19 overall last year because he only played 13 games. Um, the year before that Philadelphia was 21st in past attempts and the year before that

they were saying with making it the total points discussion is did he finish 19th because he only played 13 games or because the Eagles didn't throw the ball as much as the rest of the league? Well, he finished 13th per game. It was a doubt. So they've gone from 19th and total points. Yeah. 19.

Okay. So listen, so the Eagles were 21st and 23rd in past attempts per game or 23rd and 21st. I did it out of order in AJ A.J. Brown's first two seasons with the team. Last year, I think they were last. If they weren't last, they were close to last. They were, yeah, last in the NFL. And he had his worst season as an eagle, right?

So, double check on that. 16.7 PPR points is still pretty good. Yeah, it was, it was. But pass volume mattered for him. It can't act like it didn't. So that was the first time that they were bottom five. Again, it was pretty drastic going from basically 20 second in pass attempts per game in the first two years to 30 second.

That's a big drop. Now, we have heard that they are going to be different this year. They're going to throw the ball more basically. But I think this is worth noting. I mean, we saw this is proof right here that it did hurt AJ Brown, that they did not throw nearly as much. Not, didn't hurt him that much,

but he lost about a six tenths of a point per game and was not a top 12 wide receiver per game. So if he's gonna live up to being a top 15, 16 overall pick, I do think they're gonna have to throw more than they did last year. And I think they will. But yeah, but we talked about Garrett Wilson, but I think Zay Flowers is another guy.

Cause I was just watching some Zay Flowers tape this morning. He's good. So good. Yes, he is. Yes. But I don't know. I mean, could he be, he scored, they threw 41 touchdowns last year.

He caught four of them. That's amazing. But I went and I looked and like, if you, if you kept Zay threw 41 touchdowns last year, he caught four of them. That's amazing. But I went and I looked and like, if you kept Zay Flowers catches and yards from last year, if somebody wants to, actually I have it right here. So it was 74 catches, 1059 yards, four touchdowns. If you kept his catches and yards and gave him eight touchdowns last year,

and you gave him only 16 games instead of 17 games because he got hurt early in week 18. And then you take Zay Flowers' points per game. You still don't have a top 20 wide receiver in any format. So I love Zay Flowers. He's Stavante Smith, right? Like he's so Right. The pass volume and the pass volume is even worse usually for Baltimore than it is for Philadelphia. So Dave, where you at on Zay Flowers? Like I think like Jacob Gibbs loves him. We all love him as a talent,

but where you at on Zay Flowers? This is yet another example of a player who is super talented. There's no debating it, but he's just in a spot that stinks for fantasy football because he's on a team that usually doesn't throw the ball very much. And for whatever it's worth, they kept Mark Andrews and they brought in Deandre Hopkins, Rashad Bateman, they signed to an extension.

There's a lot of people there who can catch the ball and really keep the lid on Zay Flowers, getting to even like seven touchdowns, much less more than that. I think what he did last year is a fair expectation. But I don't think anybody's drafting him with the hope that he becomes a Top 12 fantasy wide receiver. I think if you're drafting him, you're drafting him as a No. 3 wide receiver because of the situation, not because of the talent. And if he finishes Top 24, then that's kind of a bonus, but I wouldn't take him as one of the first 24, maybe even top 30 wide receivers off the board. I think that the thing with Flowers is probably like the conversation gets even more interesting in dynasty because he's a 24 year old wide receiver who we all agree is really, really good at football. And so do you want to speculate that and hope that at some point in his career, he ends up in a better situation than this one?

And it's hard to say a better situation this one because the Ravens are one of the best offenses in the NFL, but the way they run their offense is not conducive to elite wide receiver production. He really just needs more red zone, green zone, end zone targets. He does not get targeted there. He had a 25.4% target share, which was, I want to say,

eighth or ninth best among wide receivers, but it only translated to 117 targets. But when they get near the end zone, that target share just plummets. So again, four touchdowns out of 41 for the team is crazy low. You got to figure that'll improve. Well, that's the big risk. The percentage will improve, but the touchdowns will come down. They're not gonna throw 41 touchdowns again, yeah. It might come down 10. Yeah, exactly.

He's wide receiver 31 in the OnlyFans ADP right now. Ha ha ha ha on CBS. Here are some guys going ahead of Zay Flowers. Would you take them ahead of Zay Flowers? Devontae Smith. Yes. Yes. Teterow and McMillan. As of now, no, but once we see McMillan clearly the lead guy in Carolina, I would say yes. I'll say Zay over. Cortland Sutton. Sutton. Easily'm sure Jameson Williams.

Yeah, I'll take Williams. I'll take Williams, but it's basically a coin flip and George Pickens. I'll take Pickens. I'll take Zay. Look at this, he's. Look at that. Got a little credit for the joke. Thank you.

Thank you, Portic. If they flowers is really wide receiver 31 and ADP and on CBS he is right now on fantasy pros, I think I saw him as wide receiver 29. I would love that. What I don't want is him to get closer to 24. I do want to have some Zay Flowers on my team. He might be an injury away from having, you know, Mark Andrews injury or something like that away from having a huge- Mark Andrews didn't get any targets last year. I think it's gotta to be a Derek Henry injury. He did in the end. That's the guy who has to leave. But even, but even before they had Derek Henry, there, there's only one season

where Lamar Jackson's throwing more than 29 ish passes per game. You know, they're still so run heavy. Right. I don't know if they'll be as run heavy with justice Hill and Keaton Mitchell at running back. Am I forgetting somebody who's in that backfield that's got some power to them? Uh, they have a rookie they drafted last year. Um, so he's a second year player, not a rookie anymore. I'll Lee. Yes. But yeah, he's a small guy too.

So they might just rotate three smaller guys and that would absolutely mean more passing volume. I think it's Derek Henry. I think he's the contingency guy. I don't want it to happen. And he's also the reason why almost nobody other than Mark Andrews gets red zone and end zone targets in Baltimore. Because when they're inside the five, it's it's Derek Henry a couple of times, and they score almost every time. You want to hear a kind of a quirky stat on Lamar Jackson?

I have some more Lamar Jackson. You, we, I was inspired yesterday to just dig into to Lamar Jackson. In the last six seasons, that's the Lamar Jackson era, basically not counting his rookie year. Baltimore has been seventh, 13th, 30th, 20th, 15th, and 7th in running back carries. The two years they were 7th in running back carries, right? The other years they were 13th or lower. The two years they were 7th in running back carries were 2019 and 2024.

And those were the two years that Lamar Jackson averaged 30 fantasy points per game and threw 30. Both years they threw 41 touchdown passes. It was just kind of a weird, almost oxymoronic stat that the two years that they were the highest in running back carries per game were Jackson's best years. Okay, anyway, am I wrong about that?

I feel like they didn't throw 41 touchdowns in 2019. I know they did last year. I think it was 36. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It was his two best touchdown rate seasons. And listen, I just finished up my bus column and got to put the best one of the best quarterbacks in football on it and Lamar Jackson, because he's got around two ADP and he's the first quarterback being drafted. He's got, like that's, he's worth that and more if he scores 30 fantasy points per game. But as Dave indicated yesterday,

that's not going to happen again, probably. So don't draft quarterback that early, even Lamar Jackson. Sorry, what the stat I had was he was on pace for 41 touchdowns both years, because he threw 36 touchdowns in 15 games in 2019. All right, back to the show here. I think is anything else you want to talk about in terms of past volume? No, I don't think so. All right, so let's take a break one more time and we'll wrap up the discussion on volume and talk about a little maybe a little strength of schedule, talk about

Darren Waller, some more quirky Lamar Jackson stats, and we'll be right back after this. All right, Heath, I'm going to throw it to you. Anything else you want to discuss on this topic? I think that the touchdowns are probably good because like if we're, if we're really talking about avoiding those teams that are not going to score a lot, and one of these will be controversial and one of these will be instructive. those teams that are not going to score a lot. And one of these will be controversial and one of these will be instructive. So the fewest touchdowns projected in my projections, the Saints are, like there's a lot of teams close to the Falcons and Titans at 35. The Saints are four touchdowns

fewer than any other team. And I don't even feel bad about that. I, it's like, I generally, I don't like to project outliers like that, but it probably applies more to Alvin Camara and anything other than full PPR and Chris Olavi, who's never scored more than five touchdowns in a season. Who do you think scores more touchdowns? These two wide receivers are very close in ADP, Zay Flowers or Chris Olavi? Zay Flowers scores Chris Olavi. Zay flowers. Scores more touchdowns. I'll say Olavi.

Can you justify taking a lot of a over flowers? Yes. I don't have them, um, very close. So no, I can't. I, I, I strongly prefer flowers. You're not asking me if I would do that. You're asking me if I could justify it, justify it, Dave. Yeah.

Justify it. And before you do that, you have flowers 31st and you have a lot of a 36th. Go ahead. So even I'm not going to buy into what I'm about to say. You're just asking me to justify it, but it's food for thought. Kellen Moore's offenses are typically high paced. They're probably going to be playing from behind a lot. This is a team with a defense that I think is fading quite a bit and they do have a good

offensive line. I think Tyler Shuck is at least capable as a thrower, and Olavi figures to lead this team of targets. I don't think they'll be quite as run-heavy like ever. So there is an opportunity here for Olavi, provided that he stays healthy, to see a solid dose of targets. Could be in the neighborhood of 7 per game, could have some weeks with double digits. And I still think he's a very talented player. It's just he's been saddled with mediocre quarterback play for the entirety of his career that's going to continue here. But maybe some garbage points will help him get over the hump and certainly find

the end zone more than what Zay, Zay Flowers, I almost said Zay Jones. He will score more touchdowns than Zay Jones. But I think he can outscore Zay Flowers as well, based on volume and, you know, just a lot of passing and an up tempo, maybe by necessity up tempo offense in New Orleans. All right. Let's talk about the Falcons being on this list of fewest touchdowns. You have the Saints with the fewest touchdowns at 31 and the Falcons and Titans 35, 35 and a half touchdowns. Yeah.

So the controversial one was the Falcons. Yeah. And I think the common denominator you see between these three teams is they basically all are going to have first-year starters. We got a couple of games out of Michael Pinnix last year, but I've talked about this a lot. Young quarterbacks, rookie quarterbacks in particular, often second-year quarterbacks as well, struggle with touchdown rate generally. The good ones move past that. Trevor Lawrence hasn't yet, but still could. But we're talking about three, three and a half percent touchdown rates for quarterbacks,

and that makes a huge difference in a projection. So maybe Bijan scores 15 or 20 and then this looks silly, but Penix, even when he looked good last year, didn't throw touchdown passes. Cam Ward's a rookie. Don't have high expectations for him in that regard. And whoever the saints start, same thing. So this is really about if you think Michael Penix is going to be better than the average first year starter, maybe you think that year on the bench means you don't have to worry about it and he's

going to be like my homes and just be great and it's in year two, then you would want to go against this. But I'm, I'm pretty pessimistic about the total past touchdowns for the Falcons this year. And just for those of us that might be mathematically challenged, when you say a three and a half percent touchdown rate, that basically means 3.5 touchdowns every 100 pass attempts, correct? Right. If you want to use 500 pass attempts, which I probably have them for a few more than that, that's 17 and a half passing touchdowns, which is awful. Yeah.

Gosh, it's really hard. I think the analytics can be better than that, but not a lot better. It's really hard to justify Bijon Robinson as the number one running back, which we all have, if we think the Falcons are going to score the second fewest touchdowns in the NFL. Well, I mean, they didn't score a lot more than that last year. And Bijon just scored 40% of their touchdowns. But he wasn't, you know, he was wasn't number one. He was what, two or three points worse than Gibbs and Barkley per game. So they were 20th in scoring, I think, last year. No, 17th in points per game, 17th in offensive points.

Yeah, 39 total offensive touchdowns. It's a pretty far cry from what the Lions did at number one, but it's much closer to league average. Oh man. Just one more thing, Adam, Bijan got off to a slowish start to the season and it wasn't really until week six when the Falcons said, we should probably just give this guy the ball a lot. And they did.

Yeah. He had 20 or more touches in all but two games from week six on. He averaged almost 23 PPR points per game. That's the guy we're trying. That's the guy we're hoping for when we take them one on one or one on two. And just to kind of put the touchdown rate into context, cause I know Kirk Cousins wasn't very good last year. Kirk Cousins has a career 5.1% touchdown rate and at a 4% rate last year, which

a 4% rate for a rookie would be very good or at least above average. I think Cousins was a little better than he gets credit for because the first week of the season, he was horrible. Looked like he should retire. He started playing better. Now two games against the bucks helped, but he hurt his shoulder and he played, I think three games with an injured shoulder and was awful. And then he got pulled, but he, you know and he played I think three games with an injured shoulder and was awful and then he got pulled But he you know, he mentioned that after the season that he was playing with the hurt shoulder So I don't know how much of a difference that made. I think it made a big difference Um, and just just in case he gets traded keep it in mind. He might not be as washed up as we think

Uh, so there have only been two running backs in the last Uh at least 10 years, I think nine years I did, who have finished as RB1 overall on an offense that was 13th, that was lower than 13th in scoring. And that was Saquon Barkley as a rookie in 2018 and Christian McCaffrey the year after in 2019.

Their offenses finished 16th and 20th in scoring, respectively, and they both had at least 91 catches. So they are the only RB ones on below average offenses since 2016. It can be done. It can be done. All right. All right. I think we wrap it up. We're good. I'm good if you're good. Dave, do you want to save strength of schedule for a different show or?

That's fine with me. All right, cool. Let me give you some news and notes, but also a couple of Lamar Jackson stats that I found very interesting. Lamar Jackson had a 50% touchdown rate in the red zone. So if you're over 30, that's insane. 50%, I went back

to and looked through the year 2000. And this was by far the highest red zone touchdown rate I've seen Lamar Jackson 50% of his red zone passes for touchdowns. And then I saw this stat this morning on ESPN. Jackson target last season, Jackson targeted players who averaged 4.26 yards of separation, the highest in the league. And I thought that was really interesting. You know, he's thrown to wide open receivers a lot. I think that their scheme in the last two years might just be really good because his two best

yards per attempt seasons have been in the last two years. Now I think Zay Flowers helps that with his yak ability. Shaw Bateman had a really good year last year, but the Ravens are just creating wide open receivers and super efficient in the red zone. I don't even know if there's any fantasy analysis here. I just thought it was really interesting to see what the Ravens did last year. Related note, they're my projection for the most touchdowns in the NFL in my projections this year. Yeah, it makes sense.

I'm curious how many of the touchdowns came on play action because if you're Looking like you're giving the ball to Derek Henry I'm pretty sure the defenses will key in on that and then you pull it out of his belly and you drop back and look Over the field. Yeah, there's gonna be some spaces wide open for these guys to catch a ball and make a play after you had I wish the receivers did more with it. Like it's it's a great great stat and obviously Lamar was amazing last year, but where were the receivers that finished in the top 15? It's just weird. And maybe that's just an example of why volume matters because he did all these great things throwing the football. Just imagine if he had thrown it as much as Joe some, anybody like that, that throws the ball 600 times a season. And Thomas put up the, uh, the most touchdowns here.

Just a good time for anybody who wasn't here at the start lions. I'm not totally the low guy on the lions because I'm the high guy on Jared golf, I think he's QB 19 by ADP QB 12 in my rankings, They're still, you're higher. So I think I have 11. If 52 touchdowns is awesome. And the second best in the NFL in terms of my projections, it's also 16 lost touchdowns from last year. So by the way, Dave, I don't know how many of the touchdowns came on play

action, but since Todd Monkin became the offensive coordinator, Lamar Jackson has actually had a huge drop in his play action percentage. He's gone from a guy who's been about 28, 29% to 24% with Monkin. Thought that was interesting because a lot of times people just think it's so simple. Just put men in motion more and just do more play action. Those are the things that just create so many more points. Uh, but it has not been the case for, uh, for the Ravens the last two years.

He also had the most yak per completion. We had an interesting volume question in the chat. Oh, hit it. Who can bench press more Adam Heath or Dave and Johnny was quick with the answer. Dave easy, didn't use the commercial. Yeah. And by the way, have you, did I not share my bench press philosophy with everybody? When I go, when I bench press my, that was really the main point of me bringing that up is I wanted to know when was the last time that you did bench press? High school.

No, a few times in my early 20s. But Heath, my bench press philosophy is a simple quote that I try to live my life by, raise the bar. That's it, you know, just always trying to raise the bar. That's all, that's the, just getting better and better every day. No, I don't know what I would bench press. I don't know.

The bar is what 45 pounds. I think you could do that. I can do that. I don't know if I could double that. I bet you could put some tens on there. I hope so. I would say Heath could bench press more than Dave. I would guess Dave.

I don't know. Dave, when was the last time you did bench press? I always try and do a max out bench press on my birthday. And I think last year my max out was, this is embarrassing, but 165. I did one rep of 165. It's way down from where I was when I was in high school, obviously.

Yeah. So hopefully I can do that again this year. I would guess if we did like a 145 as many times as you can, I can do that again this year. I wouldn't need to, I would guess if we did like a one 45, as many times as you can, I would win that one just because I do bench press semi regularly with my 15 year old, but he's a 15 year old. So he's not bench pressing a lot of weight. Okay. Well, um, 15 play action touchdowns last year for Lamar Jackson. So less than half of his touchdowns,

three of the four touchdowns that Zay Flowers had last year came on play action. Oh man, he's so good. Okay, some news and notes, really not much, but the Dolphins getting Darren Waller for a 2027 conditional seventh round pick from the Giants and the Dolphins gave up a sixth round pick in 2026. pick from the Giants and the Dolphins gave up a sixth round pick in 2026. So, Darren Waller, I mean, can he not do what John Oosmith did last year? I guess that's my question. Smith had a terrific finish to the season, but I don't think he can do that. But can he just do the overall numbers of John Oosmith, which I would say they were fairly attainable. Heath, what do you think? You didn't seem when we first talked,

when the news first broke, you didn't seem too into this idea of Darren Waller having much of an impact for the Dolphins. I think that you might be minimizing what John Ousmith did last year. Just the raw, 88 catches, 884 yards. Now the eight touchdowns, I would say no chance basically, but 88 catches, 884 yards and 17 games on 111 targets.

That's a 52 yards per game. You think Darren Waller can sniff it? I think the touchdowns seem the most possible. Oh, maybe he just happens to fall into the end zone eight times. Um, I, I am moving more and more towards the dolphins are going back to their old tight end philosophy, which is mostly ignore them. The other thing that that john Smith did last year is be an

extremely low a dot guy 4.9 yard a dot Dave, you talk about this all the time. I want to say I give this that last month or whatever, but something he had the most receptions behind the line of scrimmage by a tight end in a really long time. I feel like anyone could do that basically. But yeah, what do you think about 50 yards per game for Darren Waller? Do you think that is attainable? I don't think the Dolphins want that to be attainable. I think this is to Heath's point that he just made. I think the dolphins are trying to get away from that and use their explosive playmakers a little bit more.

And if circumstances arise where they don't feel as comfortable throwing to their wide receivers and excuse me, and Devon H-Han a lot more than, yeah, they can always fall back on let's just throw a little dink and dink passes to our tight end and have them make a play after the catch. I'd feel a lot better about it if it was John who, because Darren Waller is going to be 33 years old soon after the season, didn't play last year, has an average double digit PPR points per game since 2021 and has all kinds of injury concerns. So he, he might take a couple of screens.

He'll get clobbered a couple of times and who knows if he'll be as, as into it as he once was. And if he'll even be healthy enough, I'm not going to fault anybody for taking him with a late round pick, but I don't think it's going to be me. I think I can find other tight ends and other players in general. I'd rather have late. I'm just about ready to put H chain ahead of Bijon honestly. Um, but like Darren Waller's last 21 games, which stretches all the way back to the beginning of the 2022 season,

he has not scored as many fantasy points as John Smith scored last year. Uh, yeah, he's always hurt. He's He's always hurt. He's just like always hurt. He was on the really bad teams. I mean, the Dolphins, that Giants team, he stunk. They stunk. So he'll be 33 through his age 32 season though. Darren Waller has run 2,201 routes.

Travis Kelsey through his age 32 season ran 4723 routes. This is including playoffs for both of them. So he's run half the amount of routes that Travis Kelsey did through their age 32 seasons. I just bring that up because of, you know, he's 30, going to be 33, which is kind of old. He's 13 months older than George Kittle. We have no issues with Kittle. He's got very little tread on the tires. His career's obviously been- Part of the reason is because he's always hurt. Yeah, but the other part of the reason is,

one, he retired and missed a year. Two, he was suspended for more than one season, or like one full season and I think four games. He dealt with substance abuse problems when he was younger. So he really hasn't been on the field that much for a guy who's 33 years old. I'm just trying to make the case here for Darren Waller. I don't know that age is the biggest issue here as well. He's a young 33 in my eyes anyway, because he doesn't have a lot of wear and tear. But we haven't seen him be all that good. It's an interesting thought about, are you younger

if you've played a lot more football but stayed healthier or are you younger if you've suffered a bunch of injuries? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I feel like you're younger if you if you got a late start to your career and your your odometer is low. Oh I'm sorry let me let me make one last point this is where I was going. All right. So let's compare what John who Smith did in 17 games with the dolphins last year to the 17 game pace for Darren Waller with the giants in 2023. No, this will be interesting. And I removed one game where he played like 12% of the snaps. Okay. For John who it was 111 targets for Waller. It was 111 targets for John who it was 88 catches for Waller 79 for John who 884 yards for Waller 847 for John who eight

touchdowns for Waller to touchdowns. So that's what I was saying. I don't know why he can't do that if they choose to throw the ball to the tight end. I think you're taking the he's a young 32 a little bit too far. But his 33 old, if he's a great tight end, which he was, is 33 even old. It wasn't old for Kelsey. It wasn't over Tony Gonzalez. There's not a lot of tight ends that get to this age. Those are great ones though. I don't think Waller qualifies as being even close to that universe. He doesn't. It's hard to see him staying healthy, but it's hard to see him staying healthy. There's no guarantee he's going to have the type of volume that John who had last year, John, who almost had that volume out of necessity because of the hand, the dolphins were dealt.

Yeah. Did you add Waller and baked burger at him? Oh, I forgot about that. No, I don't think anyone did. I'll put in a bit. Like in any of these leagues that are tied in premium, of course it makes sense. It makes sense even in the non-tied in premium league to take the shot on Waller. I wanted to, but I have Trey McBride and Isaiah likely, and I wouldn't drop Zach Ertz for Darren Waller. I'm not dropping. What am I? No, I wouldn't either. No, I might.

I am going to drop. You have a lot of bad players. You can easily do it. Hmm. Should I drop Khalil Herbert for him, I would be okay with that. I don't know. I mean, there's really no point. I'm not gonna win the league this year. Can you give us like your top five potential drops? Because I think it'd be a fantastic way to end the show. Yeah, sure.

I'm not gonna drop Mike Gassicki or Gunnar Helm for him. So that would leave us with Damien Martinez, Jalen Coker, Khalil Herbert, Sean Tucker, Marshawn Lloyd, Deshaun Watson. Oh, well there you go. No, these guys are all like, and I want to tell people the baked burger league is a kind of deep league,

but it's not one of those deep dynasty leagues where all of these guys should be rostered. Well, Coker was dropped for Waller in my sports line dynasty league. I'm gonna drop Khalil Herbert. There you go. Is he even on it? Oh, he's on the Colts.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think I want to drop him. You know, I'm fine. My starting tight end is Jake Ferguson. We're good. All right. Actually, it's Elijah Royale. We're good. We'll talk to you tomorrow with a mailbag on fantasy football today.

Thanks so much for watching and listening. See you then.