Fantasy Football Today - Rankings Disputes! Waddle, Wilson, Kamara and More (02/21 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

We'll take you through the news and notes (3:00) and then the rankings disputes! Let's start with Dalvin Cook (9:15) and Alvin Kamara (13:40). Are they still among the Fantasy elites or are we looking at the second round for them? ... How much upside does Russell Wilson have (20:15)? Heath and Jamey see things differently for Wilson. Then we'll get into some wide receivers starting with Brandin Cooks (24:00) who made Heath's Top 12. We'll also discuss Terry McLaurin (28:15) and Jaylen Waddle (33:40). Who has more upside? ... Dan Arnold was really good with Jacksonville last season, but can he repeat his success (39:15)? He's a Top 10 tight end right now for one of our analysts ... Your emails at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is touchdown! Oh, he's done it again! Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. Welcome to the show. It is February 22nd and time for some rankings disputes. Heath, this was all your idea. Why are we doing rankings disputes this year? You know, I always really enjoy rankings disputes. It's my favorite thing that we do every week during the season. But what I enjoy more than that is disputing rankings six months before anybody drafts. Because we've pretty much set these in stone.

Jamie's not going to change his rankings in the next six months, except for that he'll add the rookies during the draft. And mine, projections are locked in. This is exactly the way I'll be drafting when we get to draft season. Obviously, a lot of sarcasm there and I liked it. I appreciate that. But what about, do you really, do you not like the in-season ranking disputes, the weekly ones?

I don't really, but that's a different type. It's the same type of situation really. When we are in season and this is not like, I'm not trying to be complaining, but when we're in season, our rankings are either constantly changing or we've been so busy over a 24-hour period that we've not thought about them and something's changed in the last 24 hours so it's just it's hard to do a rankings dispute on wednesday or thursday when we're still trying to get to the point to where we're going to be on Sunday. Okay. All right. That's just how I feel.

Okay. What's up, Jamie? How are you, man? How was your long weekend? I hate rankings. I love them. It was great. Thank you.

I was in your neck of the woods. I was in New Jersey. Got some snow. It was fun. Oh, we had a squall. I had never heard of a squall before. It was awesome. Yeah, it was. oh we had a squall i'd never heard of a squall before it's no yeah it was my kids were in heaven were they outside for it or just watching it no they ran outside they couldn't get out there fast enough oh i was terrified i thought my house

was gonna blow away i didn't know i didn't know what the hell is this the mountains in the background have disappeared i have these hills in my backyard. They've disappeared, and it's coming for us. Anyway. It couldn't have been better because it was like two hours of just snowfall. It didn't stay on the ground, and they loved it. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Okay, so ranking disputes today.

Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara. Jamie Haseman in his top seven. Heath, not even close, especially for Kamara. That is a lot of it, the legal situation, so we'll talk about that. Russell Wilson, three wide receivers, Brandon Cooks, Jalen Waddell, Terry McLaurin. We're going to talk about them. And Dan Arnold, actually. Dan Arnold is a top ten tight end for someone.

Find out who. We'll read a few emails, fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. I'll give you a music review going back to our last show. And let's do some quick news and notes. Pittsburgh GM Kevin Colbert said that Mason Rudolph would be the starter if the season started today. If Mason Rudolph were the starter, Deontay Johnson would be ranked where, Jamie? Probably somewhere between 18 and 25. Heath?

Yeah, that sounds about right. I think I I've got him between right around 15 right now. And if it was Rudolph, I think he'd be a low-end number two running back, and I probably still wouldn't draft very much of him. Maybe a wide receiver.

Is dual eligible now? If he was dual eligible, he'd be more valuable i don't i don't understand obviously mason rudolph is the quarterback now clearly but like what what is he trying to do like yeah well they just and i don't know this but they kind of have to they need it they need a one-year um salary cap reset don't they but I mean, you can still draft a guy, and that could be your starter. And they really like Malik Willis,

according to the scouting, the senior bowl, the reports out of there. So, like, what are you saying? Just, I mean, yes, okay, Mason Rudolph will be your quarterback. That means you're not going to be aggressive in, let's say, Jameis Winston or Marks Mariota or Mitchell Trubisky. Like, None of these

guys are going to cost a significant amount. Winston might, but... There's a lot to be determined here. There's a lot of rumors right now, and that's kind of what most of the news is, but this I thought was interesting. Sports Illustrated's Mike Fisher said that the Cowboys are expected to prioritize re-signing Michael Gallup.

I heard some type of noise from Heath. We don't like this. Michael Gallup. I heard some type of noise from Heath. We don't like this. Michael Gallup should be gone. Go. I wonder if it's more Amari Cooper is going to be gone because I don't think it costs them very much at all to move on from him. And there's been some questions about how fond Jerry Jones

has been of him over the last couple of years. I wonder if they bring Gallup back and use that money to go get a third wide receiver. The sound that I made was in response to your text message, which was not English. I don't know how you strung those words together. But no, I kind of think it makes sense for Gallup because I don't know how big his market's going to be

coming off an injury. Well, I was typing, I was texting while trying to podcast. That was, yeah, that was... I figured it out. Okay, thank you. Alright, so there's some buzz, I guess, about Tom Brady maybe going to San Francisco. I don't even know if I want to call it

buzz, but some media members have said, hey, it could happen. And we always, yeah, that's who we grew up rooting for. Has there been a surprising amount of continued negativity towards Trey Lance? I haven't heard it.

I saw the booger clip about how he doesn't know if he's an NFL quarterback and he's not proven that he can stay healthy anyway. There's a talk about Brady possibly going to San Francisco. Like, is this – I don't know. It just makes me – I had the concern about how much Shanahan actually likes Trey Lance.

And these types of little things that keep popping up make me wonder if it's coming from somewhere. Well, the speculation was that Shanahan did not want Trey Lance and that John Lynch did. Yeah, well, all right. I would like to see Tom Brady in San Francisco. I like when Tom Brady plays quarterback. I'll just throw that out there.

Aaron Rodgers posted a picture on Instagram, and people are freaking out. So was that text message about Aaron Rogers or that, uh, sorry, was that noise about Aaron Rogers or another text message? I said, no,

that was, that was Aaron Rogers. People are freaking out. Aaron Rogers likes, likes to, uh, have people talking about him and they are talking about him again. It worked.

Then we'll stop. Catherine Terrell of the athletics says there are a lot of signs indicating that the Saints do not intend to trade Michael Thomas. And Travis Etienne expects to be ready for offseason workouts. And... What did Michael Thomas post last week?

Demon mode or something? I don't know. I gotta get on social media. I don't know. He posted something on Instagram about like, I think it's the demon mode and it was a Kobe Bryant quote or video clip. And this was all in conjunction with the reports of him staying there. So hopefully, hopefully they get a good quarterback in place that can maximize him.

Okay. Demon mode. Demon is devil. New Jersey devils are a hockey team. Two teams play in New Jersey. Michael Thomas going to the Giants or the Jets. I decoded the social media post. Demon mode.

You can listen to the Fantasy Football Today podcast on your smart speakers. Just 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. Right on your smart speakers. Very easy stuff. You can do it. Heath, I listened to crazy love by van morrison which you said was the best song that had the word crazy in the title uh-huh it's fine yeah let's do some rankings disputes um andrew brant who was in the front office with the packers uh just tweeted after consistently saying

aaron would be back last year and consistently saying Aaron would be gone this year, I am honestly torn now. Knowing him, I am now thinking his cryptic post suggests goodbyes and looking back means he will return to the Packers. But who knows? Okay. It is kind of like, can we guess the opposite of what Aaron Rodgers is trying to tell us because that's what he's going to do. Okay. Scott Fish is asking us for 20 minutes of what Aaron Rodgers is trying to tell us because that's what he's going to do. Scott Fish

is asking us for 20 minutes of our analysis of the Aaron Rodgers post. That'll be on our bonus podcast. Fantasy Football Today Plus. We're launching a new one. It's all about... Scott Fish is the best person alive. Confirmed.

No rankings dispute there. Alright, let's start with Dalvin Cook. So, Heath, you have him 15th overall. This is in full PPR. Not at running back overall. 15th. Jamie, you have him 6th. Heath, he is not a first-round pick for you.

That would obviously be a departure from what we've seen the previous few years. I'm going to give you just one. Every time we bring somebody up, I'm going to give you just one stat on them. You can ignore it or talk about it, whatever you want. He had six rushing touchdowns, Dalvin cook inside the five yard line. Dalvin cook had 12 carries for two yards and three touchdowns. His three touchdown runs were the fewest for any running back with 10 or more

carries inside the five yard line. That was 18 running backs had 10 or more carries inside the five. And Dalvin cook had the fewest rushing touchdowns. He also had the second highest percentage of his team's carries inside the five yard line behind only Jonathan Taylor. That was despite missing three games, I believe. So very unlucky year for him finishing with just six rushing touchdowns, six touchdowns overall.

That's Mike Dalvin Cook's that, but Heath, you've got him 15th overall. Yeah. And this, I think like there's a couple of things that probably go hand in hand with him 15th overall. Yeah, and I think there's a couple things that probably go hand-in-hand with him and Kamara, and it's just a back that has had some injuries and is now approaching the age where any moment could be the end of their relevance as a number one fantasy running back.

The difference for Cook is that he's had some injuries every single year. He's played five years in the NFL. He's never played more than 14 games. And I don't necessarily think that Kevin O'Connell is necessarily going to be a good thing for him. The Minnesota Vikings have been as running back centric as just about any offense in football over the last four seasons. Rams offenses haven't historically thrown to the running backs a lot, except for the one year with Gurley. And they don't run the ball quite as heavy as Minnesota has. So I just don't

know that when he's playing, his role is quite as big. It's been enormous the last two years, 22 carries a game in 2020, 19 carries a game last year. I'm not sure there's quite as many targets and then there's just significant injury risk. Okay. And Jamie, you still view him as one of the true elites, I guess, sixth overall. 100%. I can't imagine Kevin O'Connell's taking this job to say that he's not going to feature the best weapon in his backfield and arguably the best weapon on his team, Justin Jefferson notwithstanding. But those two guys clearly are 1 and 1 a, however you want to look at them. I don't see Kevin O'Connell necessarily departing from, you know,

what Sean McVay's offense looked like initially when he was with the Rams and he referenced it with Todd Gurley. They haven't had that guy, you know, so whether it's been Daryl Henderson or Cam Akers at the combination of the two, but when they have featured a guy, they've given him plenty of work. And that certainly has played itself out. So whether it's in the passing game or more likely in the carries, Dalvin Cook is still, I think, healthy enough when he's there.

You're obviously going to have to deal with that injury risk. But again, when we're talking about any of these guys, I think at this point, in that position, you have to factor that in from McCaffrey on down. Derek Henry as well. So I think you just have to understand that you know david cook might miss some time but when he's on the field he's going to produce like one of the best players that position i don't think he's at that point yet in his career where the the breakdown is coming barring a significant injury so uh i still will gladly take him in in the top 10 you know that might change you know from 6 to 10 but he still will be a first-round pick, and I would be very shocked if his ADP is not in the first round.

Yeah, he had fairly modest numbers this year, mostly because of the touchdowns. Still great on a per-carry basis, but the catches are coming down. This was a bad year for him. He had the fewest catches since his rookie season, and he also was really bad in terms of yards per catch. Not really sure what to make of that. Maybe that's just fluky, but only two games with more than three catches. And also, unfortunately, two of the three games he missed were against Detroit. So you've got to figure he probably would have had a huge...

Because Madison had two huge games in those games. But I think when you look at the rankings, Jamie, you've got Cook ahead of all of the wide receivers. You've got him ahead of all of the wide receivers. You've got him ahead of your number one wide receiver, whereas Heath, you have Adams, Kopp, Jefferson, Hill, Chase, and then two tight ends,

and then Swift ahead of Cook. But, you know, that's a huge difference there, Jamie. So do you see, since he doesn't play 17 games, as he said, he doesn't play more than 14 games, he's injured, a little banged up.

Do you see yourself maybe moving toward putting Kup and Adams or, you know, obviously we'll pay attention to the Rodgers Instagram situation, but maybe putting some wide receivers ahead of Dalvin Cook

by the end of the process? For sure. Yeah. I mean, but I still think he's in that upper echelon of players at the position that we covet the most, and I'm not going to be scared of drafting him that high. Okay.

All right, so let's go to Kamara. And he's telling me, because for Kamara, you have him 34th overall, and Jimmy has him 7th. So let's just explain. This is full PPR, 34th overall for Kamara. Right, and I made the joke about when we're going to draft but it's worth saying that there are people drafting today and yesterday and tomorrow there's best ball drafts happening every day hundreds of them and i just i kind of with him and trying to

look at it from that perspective i i don't know how bad the suspension is going to be and it's possible that he doesn't get suspended at all. But from the information that I have, it sounds like there's video of him and his entourage beating somebody up, and the police chose to arrest him after they saw that video. And so it seems really unlikely to me that we're probably eventually going to see the video, and he's probably going to be suspended this year. Now, I could be wrong about that, but that's just the way I'm drafting. I'm not drafting him as if he's going to play a full season. I'm drafting him as if he's going to be suspended somewhere between four and eight games. Okay.

And, Jamie, what about you having Kamara seventh overall right now? I mean, until he's suspended, I'm not going to back off of where I would take him if he's playing a full season. And we've obviously gone through a lot of different legal situations throughout the course of our time doing this. And sometimes it doesn't necessarily factor into the immediate scenario. The one example I could give you is Melvin Gordon when he got the reported DUI and we thought he was going to face a suspension. Totally different scenario. You know, the one example I could give you is Melvin Gordon when he got the reported DUI.

We thought he was going to face a suspension, you know, totally different scenario. But, you know, until we have it and I can't rank him missing time, you know, I mean, you can't can't expect him to do it until until it actually happens. So once once he's suspended, if he's suspended, then clearly I'll move him down. But I'm not going to be drafting him right now as if I'm expecting him to be suspended until I hear otherwise. So let's talk about then. Let's just say Heath, he were not suspended. Where would you have Kamara? Jamie has him seventh overall. How about you? Full PPR.

In full PPR, I think I'd probably have him just a spot or two ahead of Delvin Cook. But it would be in that end of round one, beginning of round two range. He'd be behind Cup and Adams for me. And I don't know. It'd be right there in the Jefferson Chase discussion with Tyreek. I do think, again, he's another guy who's going to be 27 at the start of the season. If Jameis was the quarterback,

I'd feel a little bit better about it, but I don't think he has quite the same receiving upside that he had when he was playing with Drew Brees. And I think, and I said this on FFT and Five, and Jamie might know better, but I think that Mark Ingram's part of their plans for this year. They gave him an extension, I believe, when they traded for him. And so I don't know that we're going to get quite the same rush volume

that we got from Kamara before they brought Ingram in. Yeah, I mean, he might be, but for a team that's in cap hell to carry a guy that's 32, and Tony Jones, who knows what his role will be coming back after missing most of the season last year due to injury. I love the fact that P. Carmichael is going to be calling plays there for them because that continues what they've been doing, and it's obviously been fantastic for Alvin Kamara.

So, again, if he's suspended, I get it, But, you know, I'm not worried about Mark Ingram. It's not even a concern if it takes some hill, you know, because I think we saw, you know, toward the, we saw last season, you know, those two guys can work well together. So, yeah, actually, I struggle with Kamara and Cook because I think both have the chance to still be special for at least one or two more seasons.

Yeah, I think they're great players to talk about because they've been staples of your top five, basically, in drafts. And they've got some question marks now. Both of them have injury concerns. And if you want to just talk about Mark Ingram, whether it's him or someone else, Alvin Kamara played only four games with Mark Ingram.

And he averaged 14 carries and 2.75 catches per game in those four games. He averaged, I think, 19 carries. Yeah, he averaged 19 carries per game in the first six games of the season before Mark Ingram got there. And then 14 carries per game in the four games he played with Mark Ingram. He had a game against the Jets after Kamara came back from injury, but Ingram was out that game and Kamara had over 20 carries in that game. So huge, huge difference in the carries. And really in the catches, too, there was, I think, a pretty big difference there. I have to look a little bit more into that.

But just the snap percentages. Alvin Kamara played four games all year in which he played fewer than 70% of the snaps. And those were the only four games he played with Mark Ingram. So I guess we just have to see what they do. If they trust him to be an 80% snap guy, which he was before the Ingram trade. I wouldn't say trust, but if they want him to be the 80-85% snap guy or the 65-ish to 70-ish

that he was basically when Ingram was there. Also, they had a top five offense every year since 2015 until last year when they were 19th. And the touchdowns were obviously way down for Kamara. So those are really interesting guys. And I think a lot of people

will be debating between them and some of the top wide receivers. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about Russell Wilson. Jamie has Wilson 14th. Heath has him 9th. He has him ahead.

Heath has him ahead of Trey Lance and Justin Fields, for example. Jamie's got him behind. I still think probably in a big group, but we'll talk about it. Russell Wilson is still a top 10 guy. That's coming up after the break, along with some wide receivers and Dan Arnold. Stay tuned for that. We'll be right back on Fantasy

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conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. First four games of the season, Russell Wilson had a 129.9 passer rating. He was on pace for 38 touchdowns and no interceptions. He scored 25 or more points

in six-point for passing touchdown leagues in three of those four games. He was awesome. Then he had the thumb injury and things changed. Jamie, I'll give you the first word on Russell Wilson. Outside your top 12, 14th overall. Heath has him ninth. So you're a little bit lower.

Yeah, and he could certainly go ahead by the time we get to the summer of both Trey Lance and Justin Fields. I just think that the Russell Wilson that we've seen is very safe. He's very reliable when he's on the field. I just don't know where the upside lies with him anymore at this point because of Pete Carroll still getting in the way of allowing him to be the guy that he should be about

whatever this backfield is going to look like. I think that'll be a certainly important factor in all this. I love Russell Wilson. I think he's a very good number one quarterback. This isn't saying he's a number two guy or he's a bust. I'm just hoping that those other two guys, it's really Lance and Fields because he won't get past those guys for me, most likely, barring Aaron Rodgers.

But I just don't know what Russell Wilson we're going to get for the course of the season because there's so many ebbs and flows with him all the time. And I, again, it's more about the, the, the potential upside of what Lance can be and what fields can be more so

than Russell Wilson's just steadiness. So by the end of the season, Russell Wilson's, you know, overall stats might be better because of what he typically gives you. And he typically avoids getting hurt. I, again,

it's more just hope for the other two youngsters. This I did. Um, like there more just hope for the other two youngsters. There's going to be a couple of guys we get to after Russell Wilson where I'm just going to admit that I probably need to change them a little bit. This one, actually, after researching it, I thought maybe I was too low on Russell Wilson and maybe one of my better Acer stats. If you don't hold week 5, 10, or 11 against Russell Wilson, because he got hurt in week 5, and 10 and 11,

his finger still wasn't healed. He averaged 24.9 fantasy points per game, which would have tied him with Kyler Murray for QB 6. He was QB 6 also on a per-game basis in 2020. He was QB 6 also on a per-game basis in 2021. If you look

week 1 through 4 of last year, you mentioned to Adam, he was QB 7 in that stretch. Weeks 12 through 18, he was QB seven in that stretch. Weeks 12 through 18, he was QB seven in that stretch. Wow. 24 touchdowns and three interceptions in those 11 games. I couldn't have done that any better than myself. That was amazing. I'm going to clip that.

All right. Yeah. That was amazing. I'm going to clip that. All right, yeah. It's hard to move my head, I think, of some of the people that you have in front of him. But he's – Is that a good case for his upside, Jamie? Because you were just talking about you don't really know his upside. Is that a good case right there? Well, I mean, if you take out everybody's bad games,

I'm sure everybody else would be QB6 or QB7. It wasn't just his bad games. It was the game he got hurt. So obviously we take that one out. And then the first two games back, it's hard to know when he got healthy, but he did admit to coming back too early. Can I take out the games that Kyler got hurt?

Can I take out the games that Joe Burrow got sacked too much? No. No. What are we doing? Russell Wilson's great. He's fantastic. He's fantastic. He's not going to run very much anymore. I don't want to necessarily rely on him as a top 10 fantasy quarterback.

Wow. So Heath just became me, and Jamie just became Heath there for that last segment. That was fun. Let's talk wide receivers. Let's go to Brandon Cooks. Jamie's got Brandon Cooks as a number two, borderline number two receiver, 22nd in non-PPR, 25th in PPR.

Heath has him 12th in non-PPR, 11th in full PPR. And here are his points per game finishes in full PPR in his last seven seasons. 20th, 12th, 19th, 18 18th outside the top 50 in that really bad 2019 with the rams 17th and 23rd he was 23rd last year per game it was last year was actually one of his worst seasons and he was still 23rd per game that he's usually in the 18 to 20 ish range per game okay heath make the case Cooks, a top 12 wide receiver, by the way, I think you're nuts.

Yeah, I probably will drop him into the 15 to 18 range, but I think he and Waddle, who are next, and I'm too low on Waddle, I'm going to move him up a little bit, are good windows into my process because it's really regression for Cooks, positive regression.

I love that term. That is propelling him to where he is. He dominated targets. I think he's still going to be the clear alpha in Houston. I do expect that either Davis Mills is going to be slightly more efficient or they're going to have a better quarterback playing in 2022. And the reason that matters is because last year, Cooks had his lowest yards per target ever. He had his second lowest yards per reception ever and his third lowest touchdown rate ever. If he gets targeted at the same rate next year and is even marginally better, he was one point per game behind wide receiver 13 for the season. So it's not a huge difference in efficiency, assuming that he is the target hog on this team

that he was last year. He was 23rd, and he was only a point behind. T. Higgins was 13th, right? Let's see. Per game, T. Higgins, I have, yeah, 13. If you remove Christian Wilkerson. Yeah, we can't count Christian Wilkerson. 15.7 for higgins

cooks was yeah 14.5 so i have a 1.2 behind higgins i were using i yeah i had it at 14.5 and 15.5 but you know we always have slightly different decimal points sure okay one to 1.2 points per game behind that's it tells you something separating number 13 and number 242 points per game behind. That tells you something. Separating number 13 and number 24. One point per game. Okay. All right. So he just thinks the passing offense will get better and it can't be much worse.

This team was, I think, 30th in scoring. 32nd in total yards. And also not just that, but plays. They were right there. And I think that's something probably happened with Wilson too. If you compare what he did last year, what did they run? 53 plays a game or something? And Houston wasn't far from that.

I always regress that back a little bit towards league media, and they'll be bad again, though. 30th in plays, 30th in points, 32nd in yards. And Jamie, Brandon Cooks, still like him, but closer to 24th. Yeah, I struggle with my PPR rankings of basically 20 through 24, 25-ish, which is Amari Cooper,

DJ Moore, Michael Thomas, McCorn, and Brandon Cooks. And Cooks can easily be better and might be drafted ahead of those guys. It's just a matter of, I can't imagine that they're not going to have a better run game than they had last year, which could either help or hurt Brandon Cooks,

depending on what Lovey Smith wants to do. I think Eagle Collins take a step forward. I think Brevin Jordan takes a step forward. I think they add something to that receiving core as well. And we'll see about Davis Mills. Like he said, either he's going to be better. He could also be worse. He had a very strong end to his rookie season,

despite everything falling apart around him because that team was so bad. Their defense should be better also. So Brandon Cooks is a very good number two receiver. It's just a matter of how good you think he'll be, and you referenced the numbers, Adam. There's been some number one finishes in there, and there's been some, you know, borderline top 20 finishes in there. And I think he's closer to somewhere in the, you know,

the Deontay Johnson question you asked, you know, 18 to 25. You know, so I'd be very surprised if he gets drafted before the fourth round. And I don't know if he's a fourth round receiver based on what the expectations should be on this team. Davis Mills, his last five games, he was on pace for 4,277 yards, 31 touchdowns, seven interceptions. He finished very strong, 102.4 passer rating. Cooks only played in four of those games, and he actually left I completely forgot about this. He left week 18 early with an injury. Only played, I think, 32% of the

snaps. So, great finish for Davis Mills. Alright, so Cooks, we can compare him to Terry McLaurin, and McLaurin, we'll do this, we'll do next, and then we'll do Waddle. But McLaurin is around the same so basically the same in non-PPR. You guys aren't so far apart, eight spots apart in full PPR.

Jamie has McLaurin and Cooks back-to-back. He's got McLaurin 24th. Heath, you're higher on McLaurin, too. You have him 16th in full PPR, still behind where you have Cooks at 12. But yeah, you're higher on McLaurin than Jamie is. You have him 16th, and Jamie, you have him at 24. So Heath, go ahead. I mean, this is a team that's doing everything.

It may not happen, but this is a team that's saying in every way that they can that they are not going to be as bad a quarterback this year as they were last year. And as good as Terry McLaurin's been his first three years, it's been mostly with pretty terrible quarterback play. I still think he has top 10 upside if they could go get a really good quarterback, but he is someone who I think is ranking and everybody's ranking is going to change.

Once we find out who that is. Is that where you're at, Jamie? You're just waiting for the quarterback. Well, totally agree. You know, he's,

he's got so much upside. I mean, you know, I loved him last year with the hope of Ryan Fitzpatrick being his quarterback, you know. So I'm just waiting to see who it's going to be, you know. And, you know, like he said,

you know, we keep hearing they're doing everything they can. The Broncos were doing everything they could last year to get a quarterback and they ended up with Teddy Bridgewater. You're hearing about the Steelers now maybe settling for Mason Rudolph. You know, it's not easy to find

the answer at that position, unfortunately. Otherwise, all these receivers would be superstar caliber players that have the potential to play like Terry McLaurin plays. He could easily move up five or six spots for sure. Actually, I'm 23rd.

I love Terry McLaurin. He's a guy that I think is going to fall victim to high expectations last year, disappointed. People are going to want to avoid him. And then you're going to end up probably with a pretty good bargain, barring the significant quarterback upgrade, you know? So if it is a Russell Wilson or an Aaron Rogers or, you know,

Deshaun Watson, Jameis Winston, you know, the top guys that may or may not be available, you know, if it's Jimmy Garoppolo, if it's, you know, Trubisky, you know, one of these guys that you're just not excited about, then McCorn may still be very good, but just might not get drafted with the expectations of where he was drafted last season. So we'll see, we'll see how this all plays out, but there's, there's a lot to love about Tony McCorn's game.

And I think, you know, for dynasty purposes, he's a definite buy if you're looking at somebody who has tremendous upside still. I will just say, Jamie brought up a good point with all of these teams who say they are doing everything they can to go upgrade their quarterback position and there's really not very much available that we think is going to help this year in the draft probably there's not very much available in free agency we don't know if these quarterbacks will actually get traded jamis

winston should be a very rich man once he signs a contract like the demand for it I don't know if it will be like the projections I'm seeing on the deal he's going to get aren't very high but somebody ought to give him a lot of money I think if he had not torn his ACL and just played out the season as he was playing you're 100 right you know somebody's going to get him most likely at a bargain like the Saints did and he could still be be, you know, amazing, you know. So, you know, we keep hoping if Aaron Rodgers leaves at the Packers, he goes to the Broncos, you know, some of these other destinations that, you know, the Bucs obviously as well, you know, some of the premier spots.

If I'm Denver, if I'm, you know, Tampa Bay, we've speculated on that one, just the reunion. But he should be the number one priority for a lot of these teams. Now, I want to go back to McLaurin. Do we think that he can be a star at this point? Is it just the quarterback? What is his upside? And who has more upside, McLaurin or Cooks?

I think just based on youth, McLaurin. Yeah, well, McLaurin. Yeah, well, that's fair. And we've seen Brandon Cooks play with Tom Brady. We've seen him play with Drew Brees. We've seen him play with Deshaun Watson. We've seen Brandon Cooks with a very good wide receiver.

And that's a top 12 guy. But I think, like, I think McLaurin, if he's an alpha wide receiver with a very good quarterback, the sky's the limit. Okay. I,

I do things differently than he does in terms of our rankings process so like i rank the players and i go into our tool and i i manually move them around and so when i went in to our yearly rankings tool and saw where i had to that was one that jumped out to me i had terry mcclaren top eight last year you know i mean i was so excited about him with ryan fitzpatrickpatrick. I'm very hopeful that he gets some significant quarterback upgrade just to maximize his potential. The first two years of his career was really building towards something special. Can he be a star, Adam? I don't know if you're asking that from an NFL wide receiver perspective or

fantasy receiver perspective, maybe both. I think he could be a superstar fantasy receiver. He's got that type think he could be a superstar fantasy receiver. He's got that type of upside. He reminds me of DJ Moore, and the touchdowns have been very low the last two years. Actually, I think he had seven as a rookie, but the last two years has been very low, but he's had 25% of his team's touchdowns.

They threw 16 touchdowns in 2020 and 21 last year. He had four and five. So if they can get to 30 touchdowns, you could be looking at seven or eight touchdowns for McLaurin. I don't know if he can be top five with that, but he could certainly be a top 10 receiver if he gets to eight touchdowns. They need to throw more touchdowns. Exactly what we're seeing with DJ Moore.

All right, let's go to Jalen Waddell. He is 13th for Jamie in non-PPR, 10th in full PPR. For Heath, he's 36th in non-PPR. I think he's supposed to be non-PPR and 23rd... I think he's supposed to be 31st, but... Okay. All right. Sorry about that.

And 23rd in full PPR. Is that right? That's where it was. I've moved him already. This was one... Man, there's too much uncertainty here and I'm uncomfortable with it. But the inefficiency

with both Tua and him last year, I think the offense is going to be better. I'm probably going to be low on Waddle, but I was too low out of the gates. It's just when you see how volume dependent he was last year, and volume's awesome, but you'd like a little bit something positive with it. Okay, I'll give you a couple of positives. He had some really bad numbers with Brissett. His 17-game pace with Tua was 117 catches,

1,192 yards, still very low there, and 10 touchdowns on 162 targets. Would have given him the third most catches in the NFL if he had kept that pace for 17 games. There was only 11 games in which Tua started and finished. So I did not count I think Bill's game when Tua played four passes or whatever, and the Ravens game in which he came in in the second half.

So that's one. And two, got some more big plays later in the year. In his first nine games, Jalen Waddell had only one catch that went longer than 21 yards. In his last seven games, he had five of those catches. So that went for at least 24 yards, at least five, maybe six. So you did see a little bit more. And this is one of the crazy stats we had. He was a big, a huge play guy at Alabama. And then they turned him into Jarvis Landry with the Dolphins. So I don't know where he's going to end up on Waddle, probably around 20th in PPR.

Right? Fair to say? Yeah. And Jamie's got him 10th. So go for it, Jamie. Well, it's a couple of things. I mean, obviously it's the ability to play, hopefully a full season with Tua. You know, we'll see what the rest of this receiving court looks like because Devante

Parker could be on the move and Will Fuller almost certainly is on the move. Mike Gusecki could be on the move. But I love Mike McDaniel for Jalen Waddell. I think, you know, what we, what we saw from his influence, I expect on the offense, but certainly taking from what Kyle Shanahan's influence on the offense is. And you reference this all the time, Adam, is yards after catch. And I'm sure he's going to get Jalen Waddell in space.

He's already mentioned draft him in fantasy. You know, I mean, Mike McDowell's going to have just a ton of fun quotes, especially if you saw the Kiss, Marry, Kill quote, Adam. I don't know if you see how that went yet. No, I didn't. Oh, this is fantastic. He was asked of your former coaching protégés that you were with, kiss, marry, kill Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, and Michael Flohr. Matt LaFleur?

Matt LaFleur. Matt. He said he would kiss Matt LaFleur, he would marry Kyle Shanahan, and he would kill Matt LaFleur, he would marry Kyle Shanahan, and he would kill Sean McVay. The fact that he answered the question is just unbelievable. I forgot what he said about LaFleur, why he would kiss him. But he said he would marry Kyle Shanahan because he spent the most time with him,

and he would kill Sean McVay because he's the last coach to beat him. That's good. But the fact that he's just, I think, realizing what the, the potential is for Jalen Waddle. And it's a, it's a big building block of what this offense could be. So I think he's got top time outside in PPR. You know, I don't know if the touchdowns will get him to that point in non PPR, but he can, he can be a hundred cash guy again. He could certainly be, you know, a 1200 or more yard yard receiver and i think he could score eight plus touchdowns so i i love the opportunity for him in this offense with this

coach two top 12 wide receivers in ppr last year were rookies jason waddle that's pretty rare to get one i'd say but very rare to get two and waddle was 14th per game in full PPR. Just don't know what kind of receiver he's going to be. So you think, like I said, in Alabama, I don't know how his A-dot in Alabama, but he obviously made plays after the catch, but he also made plays downfield. His A-dot with Miami

was very low. So do you think, Jamie, with the Shanahan offense, you still think it's kind of like a Debo Samuel kind of role and a lot of yards after catch? I don't think he's going to play a running back position. No, not at all. But yeah, I think he's going to increase his yards per catch. I think he's going to still be a 100-catch guy.

Again, depending on what this receiving core looks like. He's a special talent you know and and kudos to the dolphins for passing on davante smith um and and recognizing that jalen waddles got that type of upside and there was some talk you know prior to the the draft that he might have been better than chase you know and and that clearly did not prove itself but it wasn't like he was that far off in terms of with the quarterback situation that he played with in the offense that he played with and who knows what happens you know going into their sophomore campaigns i would take chase i think most people would but uh jaylen waddle has that type of season you know it might make that conversation a little bit more uh a little bit more relevant okay he's that final word on waddle

are we good i'm good okay by the way this is one of my favorite stats. I don't know if anybody cares, but Jalen Waddell averaged, well, Devontae Smith averaged 1.5 more yards per target than Jalen Waddell. Just some food for thought. All right, Dan Arnold. Jamie's got him 15th in PPR. Heath's got him ninth. Heath, you want to give the stat on this, or do you want me to?

No, you give the stat, and then I'll go with something else. He had a five-game stretch. First game with the Jacksonville Jaguars, he played about a third of the snaps. The next five games, he had a 20.1% target share. He had 25.8% of Trevor Lawrence's passing yards. They went to Dan Arnold. And was on pace for 85 catches, 972 yards and zero touchdowns.

Of course, Trevor Lawrence only threw three touchdowns in those five games, but still he was on pace for nearly a thousand yards and 17 games and 85 catches. That was a great stretch from Dan Arnold and you have him ninth overall at a tight end and full PPR. And what is your contribution, statistical contribution here? My contribution is the fact that his new head coach,

Doug Peterson, over his three prior years as a head coach, their teams had a 34% tight end target share, which is like 15% higher than any other team. And yes, they had Zach Ertz and Dallas Goddard. There have been a lot of pretty smart NFL people who have thought Dan Arnold was going to be a difference maker as a receiving tight end I think he was tied for Jacksonville's team lead

in targets during that five game stretch that you referenced he got a little bit of a Mike Gasicki type he can be a wide receiver in a tight ends body and they've got a lot of things to fix. Now this is, I think, you get past the top seven or eight tight ends in the rankings and it's a whole bunch of unknowns because it's the most robust tight end free agent class I can ever remember. And there's a handful of guys,

including Zach Ertz, that Doug Peterson could go get and crush this. But Jacksonville prioritized getting Arnold in that deal last year. I don't know if the guy who liked him is still there or not, but it's quite possible he is. And I think there's a chance that if he goes in as their number one tight end, this is where he's going to be ranked for me.

Okay, how about that, Jamie? 15th, not so low, but not top 10. I would be surprised if he's not their number one tight end. But who are those people, Heath, that thought he was going to be a significant difference maker? I think Sean Payton. And somebody on, maybe Trent Baalke. Trent Baalke.

Yeah, Trent Baalke should still be there, barring something significant. But he's bounced around the league a little bit for a reason. I'd be very, very, very surprised if this is not the area of significant need, not tight end, but just receiving core for Jacksonville, because you can't say to Trevor Lawrence, like, hey, we're going to fix you and make you a superstar because we drafted you number one overall, and then give you Marvin Jones, LaVisca Chenault,

who knows what would have happened with DJ shark. If that would have been better, but Dan Arlen's in a great spot. He really is because he showed last year that he could play finally, you know, finally getting, you know, a little bit more of the focus as opposed to where he was in Arizona, when there was a lot of hype for, for fantasy managers in Carolina where there was some hype and just getting the chance to showcase his ability and upside.

But I think we'll see maybe in the draft. You asked this question, Adam, about free agent possibilities. I mentioned Chris Godwin. I don't know how realistic something like that is, but they have to go get players at that position to help Trevor Lawrence. So will he get the same target share? I doubt it. Will he have the same type of, you know,

weekend consistency that he showed? I doubt it. I do think he's going to find the end zone. That's something I would bank on because he didn't do that. But there's a lot to like about Darren Arnold. So once, you know, at least for me, once you get past uh you know the the top 12 tight ends um i think if you are inclined to take somebody with upside he is definitely a second tight end we're taking with upside but i would not feel comfortable drafting that starter okay some guys that heath has arnold ahead of

higby herb smith pat frymuth noah fant dawson knox et cetera. I guess the only two for me would be Knox and Fryman. I think there's more upside with those guys. Do you think Trent Baalke gets a lot of perfect strangers references? I think Trent Baalke would like a lot of people to be perfect strangers to him because he does not have the best reputation, and that played itself out with their coaching search. Yeah, yeah. Heath, what do you think about that perfect strangers joke?

It was not perfect, but it was fine. Okay. All right, let's read some emails. Fantasyfootball at cbsi.com. This is from

Dylan in Chicago. I was given a dynasty team and a friend's family eight team. Oh, can I pause real quick? Hold on. I just want to remind, I just want to tell everybody

we have a rookie quarterback show that we're doing that's going to publish on Wednesday. But if you're a YouTuber, if you watched our video, it's actually going to be recorded Tuesday afternoon at 2.15 p.m. ish Eastern. So just the programming announcement.

On that show, we're also going to talk Dynasty later in the show. But we're going to have Chris Trapasso joining us. He's a CBSSports.com writer. He watched every snap that these quarterbacks these rookie quarterbacks took and he's also an nfl draft guy so he's gonna help us evaluate lawrence and mac jones etc fields lance yeah and and even zach wilson and probably davis mills so we'll uh we'll talk about all those guys with

chris trapasso now Now, Dylan in Chicago was given a dynasty team in an eight-team league a few years ago. Last year, I placed seventh. So this year, my plan was to tank. When he says last year, he means 2020, he was seventh. 2021, my plan was to tank in order to get a higher draft pick. However, I realized that I could barely make it into the playoffs this year, and I did. And then I won. So now I'm looking at next year's incoming rookies and wondering if this year's draft class is worth trading any of my current players for a higher pick. Also, I have Christian McCaffrey.

What should I do with him? So he has Aaron Rodgers and Trevor Lawrence. He has McCaffrey, Dobbins, Jacobs, Ronald Jones. How did he win? Ronald Jones, Patterson, Madison, Hubbard, Herbert. There's some filler. Justin Jefferson. Oh, here's how he won.

Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, Marquise Brown, Van Jefferson, Elijah Moore, Kadarius Toney, Mark Andrews at tight end. So it's a good team. I would say he could use some running backs, but do you think he should be trading for a draft pick here? He wants to trade current players for a draft pick? Yeah. I mean, it never hurts if you can make the right type of deal.

So if you want to try and get out of Aaron Rodgers before something happens, you can do that, or you can wait to see where he ends up playing. He's obviously older. Yeah, he's only got Trevor Lawrence though as a backup. Well, I mean, he could address quarterback in the rookie draft, right?

Or still make a secondary move if he wants to. But, you know, let me look. His probably most his best asset might be McCaffrey if he wants to get rid of him and get rid of that headache. Yeah, what would you do here, Heath, looking at this roster? I think the quarterback position is probably where I would attack. I just don't know that you have players.

The one I might trade would be Marquise Brown. He might retire and be a video game Twitch player. That's not true. It was just a rumor that was on social media. Maybe Marquise Brown. Because I do think Elijah Moore is going to be a good number three wide receiver, and you're so young there. If you could use Brown to get maybe and your first-round pick to get into the top two and go get a...

But then you're still... That's still solving the running back problem, not the quarterback problem. Would you trade Kadarius Toney for a... Well, it's only an eight-team league. So, okay, when you look at Elijah Moore and Kadarius Toney, do you think either of them are worth giving up to get a top eight pick in the rookie draft?

And he's eighth, so it's going to be a top seven pick. I would definitely give up Kadarius Toney for a top seven pick. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, he's not getting a first-round pick for Marquise Brown. He's not getting a first-round pick, most likely, for Aaron Rodgers. He's potentially getting a first-round pick for McCaffrey,gers. He's potentially getting a first round pick from McCaffrey, but you know, what are you getting in return for that in an 18 league? You know, I think the place you almost want to be in this rookie draft is where he's sitting because you know, the backend of it,

you know, until we see where these guys end up, there's just not, at least it feels like, and Heath can disagree with me, I'm sure, but this isn't like the slam dunks like we saw the last couple of seasons. You know, there's some really good players. And if they end up in the right spots, you're going to be really thrilled about it. But there's not just the slam dunks of Najee Harris, Jamar Chase, you know, Kyle Pitts, those type of guys that you were just, you know, clamoring for. You know, they're, again, good players. But you might be in a good spot just staying where you are,

especially if you want to get a quarterback. You know, the round two, maybe even round three picks might help him as well. Yeah, I've got Elijah Moore slotted in right around pick four in this draft. I've got Tony closer to pick 15. And Marquise, I think you could possibly trade for a first-round pick, except it'd be your own. He's like right around eight or nine for me with this class. So if you could do better than your pick for Marquise Brown,

or if you could combine Marquise Brown with your pick and get in the top three, I would do that. All right, this one's from Andrew. I made this trade the day before Thanksgiving. Did I win or lose? People are still dogging me for it. I'm in a PPR semi-keeper league. You can keep an extra player every year until

year four when it goes back to zero keepers. This year, we kept two players. Next year, we keep three. Year after that, it goes back to zero. Okay, I traded Clyde Edwards-Elair and Terry McLaurin for Javante Williams and Calvin Ridley. I was pretty much out of the playoff race

and my other two great players are Tyree Kill and Mixon. Who in the world would be criticizing him for that? You crushed it. I mean, maybe at that point. No. Yeah. You crushed it, right?

Getting Javante and Ridley? I mean, that's when Clyde Edwards-Hilaire was hurt, and Terry McLaurin wasn't doing much of anything. Yeah, I don't. I mean, I'd probably rather have Terry and and clyde than giovante i think your only risk is if ridley just doesn't play football anymore okay rob s in bellingham washington you flamed out on the best song with the word crazy in it as chris said it's crazy on you by heart and it's not even that close isn't it crazy train that's what i said that's chris and i went

with crazy train oh look i guess chris said the heart thing but i i think he originally said crazy close. Isn't it Crazy Train? That's what I said. That's Chris and I went with Crazy Train. I guess Chris said the heart thing, but I think he originally said Crazy Train. A lot of songs have crazy in it, Jamie. A lot. I'm in a $200 salary cap PPR Keeper League. You can keep up to four players.

It is only a two receiver league, but there are two flexes. Alright, so it's $200. It's PPR. His choices are Devante Adams at $41. Cooper Krupp, as he writes, at 22, Calvin Ridley at zero, Michael Thomas zero, Robert Woods zero. So which four are you keeping? Up to four. Adams at 41. This is as easy as you get.

Throwback Woods? No, you throwback Adams. You'd rather have Woods at zero than Adams at 41. I mean, the value is just amazing. You could probably get Adams for the same price. I don't know. 41 out of 200. What do you think he goes for? Okay, so you spend 10 more, but you have

those other three guys at zero? Heath? Yeah, so you spend 10 more, but you have those other three guys at zero? Heath? Yeah, I think it's probably – I don't know, though. I mean, I don't know how much players – did Devontae Adams go for 41 five years ago and you've just been keeping him, or four years ago? Or if he went for 41 last year, then I definitely agree with Jamie. Because if he went for 41 last year, he I definitely agree with Jamie. Cause if he went for 41 last year,

he shouldn't go for much more than that this year. I mean, there's so much to be determined. Woods might be on a different team. Thomas might have the worst quarterback ever really might not play again. You know? So depending on when you have to make this decision, there's and Adams could clearly be either without Rogers or on a different team.

So yeah. Okay. Cooper cups, the slam dunk. I mean, I'm if, if, if we get Ridley back in Atlanta and just playing again, Thomas stays in New Orleans, and it's worst case, it's Taysom Hill. Those are easy. And then it just comes down to Woods versus Adams. But if Robert Woods is the number two receiver for the Rams again

without Odell Beckham there, I'm taking him for no money. This email's from Charles. He says, Patsy Cline crazy for the win. I would just like to clarify that Patsy Cline crazy is Willie Nelson's crazy. Is that right? He wrote that song. He sang it first. He had a really hard time when he first started singing.

They told him that he couldn't sing, and he should just write his songs and sell them to other artists. So he did that for a while. Wow. Hers was more popular, but that is his. That's great. That's a good story. I definitely would not put that at the top of the crazy song list. Maybe the William Nelson version is better. And then Daniel said, Crazy Love by Van Morrison was my thought too.

Heath has good taste. And then he said, Let's Go Crazy by Prince was a glaring omission. I don't like Prince, but I can accept that. That's a very good song. People like it. Let's go home. Let's go edit a podcast right now, and we'll see you on YouTube later today at 2.15

to talk about quarterbacks, or you'll hear this on whichever podcast app you're listening to on Wednesday morning. Thanks a lot to Heath and Jamie. I am Adam. We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football. Today!