Fantasy Football Today - RB vs. WR Debates; Training Camp Standouts (08/25 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

We've got news on Todd Gurley's touches (3:30), Darrell Henderson's hamstring (6:55), Devin Singletary's role and more to start the show. Then it's time for some rankings debates! Clyde Edwards-Helaire vs. Michael Thomas (15:25), Miles Sanders vs. Julio Jones (19:45), Aaron Jones vs. DeAndre Hopkins (22:44) and Jones vs. James Conner (26:35) ... How about Leonard Fournette vs. D.J. Chark (30:05) and Courtland Sutton vs. David Johnson (34:10). And after our rankings debates we welcome someone into the Podcast League (40:00)! ... Finishing the show with some NFL training camp risers (44:00) and an interesting quote about what challenges the rookies will face this season (47:10) ... Your emails at [e-mail] Listen to the brand new Fantasy Football Today in 5 podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-in-5/id1528634304 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @YardsPerGretch, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter 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

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for?

Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. I'll tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Ben. All right, everybody. Welcome to another edition of Fantasy Football Today. It's been a busy afternoon for everybody other than me. Dave, Heath, and Ben just wrapped up a salary cap draft. I was not invited.

Okay, well, maybe I'll grade your teams or something like that. Maybe I'll be like Heath and say, oh, I love your team. It's great. B minus. Heath has no idea. I gave you a B. Yeah, well, you still like my team deserved an A in the other draft we're going to talk about today. This is the problem with America today. You're so entitled.

Like you get a B. There were so many times in my life where I was thrilled to see a B or B minus show up in my life. And now you get a B minus and people are like, man, why do you hate me? No,

I would have my, if I would have my parents call you up and be like, Hey, my son deserved an a, that's what I would do. Uh, Ben Gretsch and Dave are here as well. So how did the salary cap draft go?

It was very strange. It was very strange. I think, um, that there were all the elite players, not all, but the the i guess it should be like the top maybe let me start over the top two running backs and maybe four running backs overall went for way more than i thought they were going to go for mccaffrey went for 44 percent of

the budget and there's 15 roster spots so money was flying early and then i'd say there were a couple of steals but by and large it was a pretty decent representation of excuse me of what you could get out of a salary cap draft okay great fun i i agree with everything you said except for the decent representation other than the fact that maybe some people, some drafts look that way, but I thought that was pretty wild to be honest, how much spending went off early. Like it became clear to me early that I didn't even want to get guys for, you know, a couple,

a couple of dollars under under the budget that I had set for them because there was going to be some huge discounts and there, there ended up being quite a few dave does your shirt have like uh coconut brassiere on it underneath the two words no those are fists they're fists yes are you insinuating i'm wearing a man bro well the shirt has bro a man's ear i can't believe i just botched that hurricanes separated into two words and the words are over your your pecs and there are that's being generous thank you kind of like uh coconuts oh hey no yeah heath eyes up here please all right guys we got news and notes to get to.

We got a lot of rankings disputes, but we're going, you know, outside of the positions in terms of rankings disputes. Running backs versus wide receivers. Running backs versus quarterbacks. Or actually, wide receivers versus quarterbacks. May have a tight end in there.

It's going to get wild. But Clyde Edwards-Zehler versus Michael Thomas. Miles Sanders versus Julio Jones. Aaron Jones versus a wide receiver and a running back. Leonard Fournette versus DJ Chark. That kind of stuff. We'll get into that. Some news items to get to.

There's a lot today. Let's start with this. Dirk Cutter, the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, said Todd Gurley is going to get minimum 15 touches a game. On the high end, it could be like 25 touches a game. I believe last year, Devontae Freeman for the season was at about 17.5 touches per game. A believe last year, Devante Freeman for the season was at about 17 and a half touches per game. A lot of them were catches.

Toward the end of the year, after he came back from injury, you look at Devante Freeman's game, I got a ton of carries. And he was at more like 19 and a half touches per game. But I don't know, 15 minimum per game for Gurley up to 25. That would be a lot.

But it seems like a good workload. Really, really helpful. He is either going to lead a committee or be a lot but seems like a good workload really really helpful like he is either going to lead a committee or be a feature back you can rank him anywhere from rb12 to rb30 and that would be appropriate i think i think it's a little rosier than that heath like 240 touches total touches for a team that threw like 110 passes to their running backs last year or something. So if he got 40 catches, then you're looking at 200 carries for the season over a 16 game season. That's a tiny,

that's a minimum workload for a well minimum. It's obviously going to be more than that, but that's part of the range. And then the other end of the range is that he might touch the ball more than anyone named Christian McCaffrey. One of those two. One of the things I love about, or I don't know if we can really read through this at all, but it feels like coaches don't know how many touches there are

to go around sometimes. Because they'll say, like, I want my back to be a 30-touch back. Or they'll say multiple backs are both going to get 15 touches per game. And you can't really average 30 running back touches per game but this one setting the bar at 15 it almost feels like i'm going to lean towards the 15 side i usually think they're over overestimating with the numbers on these remember the tayvon austin thing where they were going to get him like 10 carries and six to eight targets per game. That was fun. You know, Gurley had nine games last year with at least 15 touches.

So 15 to 25 per game, that's going to be an improvement for sure. I'm sure Cutter's just trying to say, Hey, look when, when the game flow is going our way and we've got, you know, some clock to grind down in the fourth quarter.

Yeah. You can see Gurley get a lot of carries and he he did have a 25-carry game last year. It was against Chicago. And he had 133 total yards in the game and a touchdown. So that would be really, really great for Todd. Gurley had, what, 254 touches last year? 223 on the ground, 31 through the air. So that's 254.

Yes. So he averaged 16.9 touches per game. Well within the range. Which is pretty similar to what Devontae Freeman averaged last year. So Todd Gurley right now is 31st overall, RB15 on Fantasy Pros. That's ahead of Chris

Carson. It is after Miles Sanders, Austin Eckler, Aaron Jones, but it's pretty much like we're obviously going to take James Conner over him over Gurley, right? Yep. And Carson as well? For now, yes.

Melvin Gordon? No. Dave? I'm taking Melvin over Gurley for right now. Ben? I want none of them. Don't say that. Which one would you take?

Which one of them today? I want Gurley over Melvin for sure. Absolutely. Okay. All right. Second news item. Daryl Henderson is questionable for week one. They're hopeful.

Hopeful for him. There's obviously no injury report yet, but let's just say his status is in question. This is what the LA Times said about Daryl Henderson and the Rams running backs. Because of Malcolm Brown's experience and trust from coaches, the sixth-year pro is regarded as the front-runner to start against the Cowboys.

But the Rams drafted Akers in the second round with an eye toward him becoming the dominant back. And with Brown in the final year of his contract, Henderson could play a major role this season and beyond. Okay. Thank you for this, for being very,

almost cutter say that. Yeah, exactly. He thought their cutter was bad, but all right. So obviously Daryl Henderson, he might not be ready for week one. We might not see him again before week one.

Does this boost cam acres draft value? Yes. Wait, does that boost all three of them? I'm rereading this. Are they all starting? At some point, they're all going to be huge factors. The biggest boost is for Malcolm Brown.

And this is something we've talked about all offseason that it could happen. And I think he's not that far from the Adrian Peterson category right now. 15 to 25 touches each, every single game. I would expect 15 to 25 touches from Malcolm Brown in week one. Wow.

I mean, we know that Henderson is hurt and they've said like they think he'll be ready for week one. Well, that means he's probably going to miss the majority of the rest of the offseason program as limited as it has been. It would not be surprising to see Brown be the clear lead back in week one

over the rookie Cam Akers, and that Henderson has to kind of get his hamstring right before he really contributes. Yeah, I just, when are you pulling the trigger on Cam Akers? Is he ahead of, let's say, Devin Singletary or Mark Ingram? Yeah, after the Henderson injury, I moved him ahead of those kinds of guys. Yeah.

I could see that too. I think I've got him right behind single Terry. You know what this news makes me want to do? It makes me want to draft Rams pass catchers. Cause now I'm starting to really get the feeling that this run game could get messy and not be nearly as effective on a week to week basis as it once was. Okay.

And final question, would you draft Darrell Henderson or Malcolm Brown? Henderson. Henderson still, but in non-PPR, it's really, really close for me. I moved Henderson all the way down to one spot ahead of Malcolm Brown. In non-PPR, I did too. I've got him a little different.

They just never throw the ball to Malcolm Brown, but yeah, it's pretty close. All right. Tyrell Williams is going to attempt to play through a torn labrum for the Raiders. Is there a fantasy impact here? I don't think anybody was drafting Tyrell Williams.

And if he's not on the field, that could open the door for a couple of legends in the NFL that are now on the Raiders. I'm talking about Nelson Aguilar and Zay Jones. You know, they talked up. And listen, Brian Edwards

is a rookie that they've got who seems to be maturing a little faster than they thought. And Henry Ruggs is obviously going to get his. All right. But yeah, but that's the thing. Like, does it help Henry Ruggs?

Does it help Darren Wall? You know where I'm going with this. It's not going to help. I don't think it's going to move them up draft boards very much. There's too many guys. He didn't even name Hunter Enfro and then Darren Waller and then

Jason Witten. Those nine pass-catching backs. All right, then. Bill's GM Brandon Bean called Devin Singletary the starter on Sunday, but matchups could dictate usage. Is anybody kind of losing

excitement for Devin Singletary? Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah, me too. I'm disappointed in that. I really liked him. I mean, I wouldn't drop him too far personally. He was explosive last year, man. And I think he's an interesting guy if he falls a little bit.

But yeah, I mean, I think Moss being a couple rounds cheaper is the way that I prefer to play that backfield. Would you go Singletary or Mostert? I still have Singletary higher. Singletary. I'll take Mostert in non-PPR, Singletary in full PPR. Singletary or Fournette?

Fournette. I have Fournette ranked higher, but I would probably prefer to draft Singletary at this point. This makes me yearn for Melvin Gordon or Todd Gurley. Give me one of those guys. That many day of the week and twice on

Sunday. I will take Fournette over Singletary. Kenyon Drake says he's fine. Tyreek Hill participated in individual drills on Monday. A.J. Green should be back on Wednesday. And Chargers wide receiver Mike Williams could miss week one with a shoulder

injury. So keep an eye on that. A few things to promote. Podcast League, get your entries in, hopefully by Friday if you can. If you are sending a video or even audio, try to send a YouTube clip. I don't really want to download anything,

so please send me a YouTube clip. Follow us on Twitter. I really never give our Twitter handles out. I'm at Adam Azar, A-I-Z-E-R. Dave is at Dave Richard. Heath is at Heath Cummings Sr. at Heath Cummings S-R. Ben is at Yards Per Gretch.

I don't get it either. At Yards Per Gretch. I don't get it either. At Yards Per Gretch. Jamie Eisenberg is at Jamie Eisenberg. J-A-M-E-Y. Oh, Ben, what's your Twitter? It's at Ben Shrag. CBS? Is it an account you followed like a month ago?

Wow. I think it's interesting that you spell Jamie's first name and not his last name. Yeah. I-Z-N-B-E-I-S-E-N-B-E-R-G. Ben, what is your name? Adam, you should just tell people to follow FF today and they'll be able to find us through that account. Well, listen, you know I'm selfish. You know about me. I have 49.9 thousand followers. Wow. You're almost to 50? Yeah. I really like, come on, let's just get there. Yeah.

So let's be your second or third time crossing over 50,000 followers. I think it's my second, like six years ago, Nando bought me like a hundred thousand Twitter followers. I had to write into Twitter to tell them to remove them. So no, but, uh,

Ben, give me the other Twitter accounts we should follow. FF today. Mm hmm. and all the ones you just listed that's all you need to do what about yours i guess fft what about we have 16 000 so you guys should all follow me all right yards per grudge okay uh find ben schrager ben is a much better follow than adam so oh yeah i don't really I don't really tweet that much, but I do tweet about this show a lot. And one more thing to tell you about, guys. A new podcast. Holy crap.

Now, we've been giving you, hopefully, league-winning analysis for more than a decade as part of the CBS Sports Podcast Network. And now, we're coming at you fast with a brand new podcast. It's called Fantasy Football Today in 5. All right, this podcast that you're listening to now

is not going to change at all. But we are coming out with a five-minute version of it. You're going to hear from all of us. It's going to be two people per night. We're going to release it every morning. So if you don't have time or, you know, whatever, you want to listen to both, you get the five-minute version,

then you can listen to the full version. It's called Fantasy Football Today in 5. You can download it anywhere. You can listen to both, you get the five-minute version, then you can listen to the full version. It's called Fantasy Football Today in five. You can download it anywhere. You can listen on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, your smart speakers, or anywhere else podcasts are found. So we're releasing it August 31st. It's going to be the premiere for Fantasy Football Today in five. That's the name of the podcast.

That does not replace this podcast. Don't stop listening to this one. This is the big, fun one. But if you need a quick fix, Fantasy Football Today in 5. All right. Now, we... Team Name Tuesday? It is Team Name Tuesday. Team Name Tuesday?

Could we try FFT Quickie? It's a really quick, short little FFT. I was thinking 5-Minute Fantasy. 5-Minute Fantasy is not bad either. Yeah. I don't know. What if we just call it...

Team Name Tuesday, by the way, from Hiram. The Fresh Prince of Hilaire. Not bad. Yeah, it's good. Very good. I forgot about Team Name Tuesday. If anybody has a Team Name Tuesday submission, just email us and put Team Name Tuesday in the subject line.

So on the show, we do 60-second ranking disputes during the season. They always end up being about four minutes long. So we'll see what happens. I'm going with 120-second ranking disputes. I'm going to put two minutes on the clock for each of these. I have Twitter polls for three of them. But we're going to start with this one. Clyde Edwards-Elair, Fresh Prince of Elair,

versus Michael Thomas in PPR. You want a little context? Kareem Hunt, in two seasons with the Chiefs, he averaged 18.4 and 20.8 points per game in PPR. Michael Thomas in his last two seasons averaged 19.7, right in between

Kareem Hunt's years. And then last year, 23.4 fantasy points per game. Much better than anything Hunt had done. So who would you rather have in full PPR, Clyde Edwards-Ziller or Michael Thomas? Two minutes on the clock. Ben, you got the first word. Michael Thomas. Yeah, I mean, at this point,

I understand wanting to go running back early. But at this point in the draft, I want to take something with a little bit more floor than Clyde Edwards-Hilaire. I mean, I really like him, but I don't know that he has a huge floor. And Michael Thomas is just such a lock to be a star player in PPR. So it's fairly easy for me, to be honest. Heath? I agree. And the only thing I disagree with, and not disagreeing with Ben,

but like everyone does it, the idea that Michael Thomas is just a floor play at this point in the draft, he's shown more ceiling than we should rightfully expect, even in a 90th percentile outcome for Clyde Edwards-Elair. We talk about Kareem Hunt's rookie year

as Clyde's upside. Kareem Hunt scored 297 points that year. Michael Thomas' worst year out of the last 2018, he scored 319. So I don't think that it's fair to say Clyde is an upside play over Thomas, and floor is clearly in Thomas' favor. I'm glad you mentioned that because I did see that comment on the Twitter poll and I've heard that before. Michael Thomas does have a really high ceiling too. It's not just a floor play. Dave, with your coconuts.

What kind of a podcast is this? Who do you take? I'm taking Edwards-Hilaire, but I'm more of a risk taker. And in the first round, I want a player that might have a shot at 1,700 total yards and double-digit touchdowns. And if you look at what Thomas has done on average over the last few years, it's only been 1,500 yards and like eight touchdowns. Whoop-dee-doo, big yawn.

Now, obviously, he's got a great floor, great ceiling. Everybody's already talked about that. But I know that running backs are going to go quick. I want to have a running back that's going to give me a chance to win my league in round one. He could lose the league too. And if I really feel like there's a better chance that he could lose the league,

then, well, I wouldn't have had him ranked where I have him ranked, but I'd lean toward the wide receiver. And then I'd find a running back that I like in round two. But I like to collect those running backs early. I think Edwards-Alalair does have potential to match, if not exceed, what Kareem Hunt did as a rookie in Kansas City. All right. Twitter poll says Michael Thomas, 68.5%. Clyde Edwards-Elair, 31.5%. I'm going to pause from the two-minute time limit. You guys did pretty well there. At what point in the draft do you care less about total points

when just comparing running backs versus wide receivers, obviously not quarterbacks or tight ends, less about total points and more about position scarcity? You know, because if Clyde Edwards-Elair scores 20 fewer fantasy points than Michael Thomas,

does that make Michael Thomas a better pick? Or is that close enough where you say, all right, well, look, at least I got, you know, he's a running back. I needed that. I think that depends too much on how you feel about the round four and five running backs and wide receivers. I think I think we all like the wide receivers a lot more. Don't we? Absolutely. You can like

the receivers more but 20 points is like it's only a point a week, but that's a pretty big difference a lot. Yeah, and I think the expectation should be that Thomas's ceiling is at least 20 points higher than Clyde's and his floor is probably a hundred points higher.

But that being said, like if it was, and somebody said this when I was talking about today on Twitter, like if you're guaranteeing me 320 points from a running back and from a wide receiver, I'm taking the running back. Well, obviously I agree 100%,

but that's not what we're talking about here at all. Right. Okay. All right. Next2nd ranking debate. Miles Sanders, who averaged 17.8 points per game in the six games that I like to look at, weeks 11 through 16,

versus Julio Jones, who is typically better than 17.8 points per game. Last year, he was at 18.3 points per game in a sort of down year. This is in PPR. Miles Sanders versus Julio Jones. How about we just say who we like? Dave, Heath,

Ben, and then we'll debate it. It's two minutes on the clock. Dave? Sanders. Heath? Julio! Ben! Sanders. Alright, Heath. Make the case for Julio over Miles Sanders. Another situation where I think the expectation should be

that Julio outscores him by 30 points. And it was really close. We're talking about PPR here, I assume. Yes. In non-PPR, I'd take Sanders. But I think the week-to-week leg injury, if nothing else, should be the tiebreaker here. We have one guy who we might not see practice

again before week one, and another guy who's healthy, and at the very least, we think they're going to score a similar number of PPR fantasy points, but I think that Julio probably outscores him by 25-30. Dave? I think this is the exact same argument we just had about Edward Ziller versus Thomas. And I'm not going to fall to anybody for taking Julio, not even Heath eyes here. Heath.

I think that Sanders just, he's got that upside. And we saw last year, he was on pace for pretty much the exact same numbers. I told you, Michael Thomas's average of the last two years, 1500 total yards and eight touchdowns. And that was without him getting a thousand yards rushing.

I think he can get there this year. I think he can be a big part of the passing game in Philadelphia. You can be worried about the week-to-week injury now, but it's not something that's guaranteed to bleed well into the season. Derrick Henry last year had a cap injury that cost him pretty much all of training camp. And then he went off last year. He started strong.

He was awesome. So I think that just because he's hurt now doesn't mean he's going to be hurt forever. He's got more upside, I think, even in PPR than Julio Jones. Yeah, Ben. No, I want to hear his comeback. I just want to say, in 2018 julio jones scored 329 fantasy points and in 2015 he scored 371 like i don't think it's reasonable so he's declining

is what you're saying but miles sanders has a higher ceiling than julia like maybe he's more likely to reach his ceiling i don't really even agree with that though like i think the only argument for sanders over julio is positional scarcity, but maybe I'm wrong. My short answer would be I had Sanders pretty far ahead of Julio, probably about six or eight spots prior to the injury,

and I still think that Sanders has, again, with the upside, this is where positional scarcity matters for me, and I think he has upside to be a top five running back, and I will take that here okay next up aaron jones versus deandre hopkins um aaron jones last year averaged 19.6 fantasy points per game in ppr deandre hopkins was only at 17.9 but you know the 19.6 for aaron jones that's worse worse than what Hopkins has been in his best years. He's usually in between 20 and 21 fantasy points per game.

If he can get back to that level, which we're not sure he can because the target's blah, blah, blah. So Aaron Jones or DeAndre Hopkins, Dave Heath, Ben, go. Hopkins. Heath. Jones. Ben. Ben.

Ben. I don't know. I'm probably not taking either of them. Ben. Ben. Ben. I don't know. I'm probably not taking either. Pass. I honestly, yeah, I'll take Hopkins. Okay. Dave, first word. There is something off about Aaron Jones to me,

based solely on what the Packers did in the draft and the regression that's expected from the touchdowns that he had last year. And look, he can keep scoring a touchdown per game and make a big, silly fool out of me. But I think DeAndre Hopkins is in a great spot to lead the Cardinals and targets, catches, yards, and touchdowns. He's a great red zone threat. He's a dominant receiver in contested catch situations. I think Kyler Murray is going to lean on him quite a bit. And I think the catches here are going to matter a lot.

Last year, we saw Aaron Jones get 49 receptions. Talked about that number a lot. I think you're going to see, I think you're going to see Hopkins at least double that number. So even if he doesn't have as many total yards as Aaron Jones, the touchdowns, I think can be pretty similar and the catches will be better for Hopkins. Okay. So Heath, you said aaron jones right yeah and i don't have like they're within two spots of each other so i don't have a real strong feeling on this either way i just like this for me is probably the more the point where positional scarcity would matter i i am skeptical

of hopkins target upside in Arizona. I could just be totally wrong about that. Based on the offense that I expect Cliff Kingsbury to run and what they did last year, I don't think there's going to be a 160-target guy on this offense. DeAndre Hopkins, four of the past five seasons, has been below

eight yards per target. If you put him at 140 targets, you're looking at an 1100 yard season. I feel pretty confident. Jones is going to have more total yards than that. And I think he has more touchdowns too. Hopkins crushing Jones in the Twitter poll, 75% for Hopkins,

25% for Aaron Jones. I don't think anybody wants to get caught with Aaron Jones on the roster when he only has six touchdowns in the season. The weird thing is that like NFC ADP Jones is crushing Hopkins. So I think it really depends on your audience with this question. Is he? I thought they were both like two of the most overdrafted

players. Jones was 13th. Yeah, I thought Hopkins was right around there as well. Maybe he was. Maybe I was wrong. Let me take a look. Since August 1st on NFC, I just remember these two guys. Jones is 16th now.

Hopkins is 18th. Okay. Yeah, but they were both like one-two turn picks. Yeah, they're followers a little bit. Yeah, and maybe it comes down to the position scarcity question again, and that if you're in a draft and I might fall into this myself, if I'm picking late in round two and there is a crazy run on running backs, and I know that a receiver something close to what Hopkins would be, if not Hopkins would make it back to me in round three, then I will gobble up the scarcity of the running back and take Jones ahead of Hopkins. So in a vacuum, yes, I will take Hopkins ahead of Jones, but in just that rare situation where Connor's gone and,

and Jacobs and Chubb are gone and Aaron Jones is really the last shining gem that's there at running back. I would have to, I would have to go with him and hope that I get a really good receiver coming back in round three. All right, next one, Ben, I'll give you the first word on this after we say who we like better. Aaron Jones versus James Conner, which is, you know,

James Conner's getting some helium, as they say. So who do you like better, Aaron Jones versus James Conner? Let's go Ben, Heath, Dave, Ben, go. I think I'll take Jones. Okay, Dave, or Heath? Conner. Jones one Okay, Heath? Connor.

Jones one spot ahead of Connor. Literally back to back. Okay, so James Connor at his best. 21.5 fantasy points per game in 2018. Last year, that's two points per game better than Aaron Jones last year in PPR. Because he had a ton of catches. So, Ben, you said Aaron Jones. Obviously, it's. Cause he ton of catches. So Ben, you said Aaron Jones,

obviously it's close for you. Go ahead. Yeah. I think we've pushed Jones down a lot. We've talked a lot about the negatives. I still am wary of drafting him. I'm going to be wary of drafting Connor as well. But Jones has been a little healthier,

right? As far as my recollection, Connor's had been banged up a little bit. And Jones is still an explosive player. Like I still think he's in a scenario where at the right price, and particularly when you're talking about him against a guy like Connor,

who I think should probably be a third round running back. I think that's a good price for Jones. You're talking about, the issue with Jones is will they use him enough? But I've talked about the upside of players in what should be a chaotic NFL season this year. And if Jamal Williams misses time, or A.J. Dillon misses time, or whatever happens,

and it frees up some work for Jones, just like it freed it up last year, and he was amazing in those opportunities, I think Jones could still have a pretty solid year that way. Heath rebuttal. I don't feel like, again, this is another one.

It's very close for me. I, what I would say is like, we've all talked about the, at least some regression that's coming for Aaron Jones and James Connor in 2018 was two fantasy points per getter, better per game, better than Jones when he had those inflated touchdowns.

And another thing, and I said this on Twitter yesterday, if there's a player that I like more than the rest of people, it's probably because they were a lot better in 2018 than they were 2019. So I probably lean that way towards bounce backs a little more than it seems like the industry is right now. So that's, that would be my case.

Final word, Dave Jones versus Connor Jones is a little bit healthier. We've seen Kyle Connor get banged up each of the last two seasons. They're, they're both so alike. They can both score a ton of touchdowns, get a lot of yards. Both are in offenses that you want your running back to be in.

Both have running backs that you can draft late if that's an issue for you and you want to get the insurance policy. I like Jones' situation a tad more than Connor, and it really comes down to just fragility. I think that he could probably stay on the field, feel more comfortable with him than I do Connor at this point. Fun stat that I gave out, I don't know, a few months ago. Matt LaFleur, three years as an offensive coordinator or a coach.

The second, a running back has been second on the team in targets all three years. Todd Gurley, Deion Lewis, Aaron Jones. Could happen again this year with Green Bay. Be interesting. All right, Aaron Jones. Could happen again this year with Green Bay. Be interesting. All right, next up. Next debate is... That's brilliant, Adam. Oh, thank you.

Leonard Fournette versus DJ Chark. Leonard Fournette, typically better in PPR than DJ Chark by about two points per game in two of his three seasons. Two and a half points per game. But obviously, Chark by about two points per game in two of his three seasons, two and a half points per game. But obviously, Chark is rising. So who would you take? Dave, Heath, Ben? DJ Chark versus Leonard Fournette?

PPR, it's Chark. Fournette. Chark. All right, Heath. You sound so enthusiastic. Yeah yeah i'm ready to make this argument for sure all right okay so i let me do my best to put on my brave face and make an argument for leonard for next i don't think it's actually that difficult to do i just don't believe that much in it um this is a guy who was like a 300 touch running back last year and yes they

brought in chris thompson but chris th Chris Thompson's generally healthy for four to five games per season. It seems like, um, they just might, like Reichwald Armstead missed the first half of training camp on the COVID list. We're all kind of projecting this thing onto the Jacksonville where they did definitely try to get rid of them.

Unless you believe in that. They didn't. Um, he might just be a 300 touch running back mostly I think this comes down to where you're at in the fifth round and do you need a running back or not if I had two running backs I would absolutely definitely take DJ Chark over Leonard Fournette but I think he's I was all aboard the don't draft Leonard Fournette when it was round three. And then round four, it was kind of icky. But if we're having a round five discussion

about Leonard Fournette, I think at that point, we've gotten a little bit silly. Yeah, he went 60th in the draft that we're going to try to review today. We're definitely going to review tonight on Twitch. So let's see if we can get to that draft review today uh all right ben i know yeah this is this is a wide receiver range for you this is like a round five pick dj charke you're taking over for net yeah i mean i was gonna say

earlier that i don't necessarily think using past points per game is the best way to look at this because you know i talked about with running backs that we don't want to pay for past production. It's not super predictive of the future, frankly, and it is somewhat predictive of ADP and that's where we can find some flaws, but yes, for net has scored more than shark. I don't expect him to get anywhere close to that this year. I don't think he's going to have anywhere close to the receiving role he used to have. I think there's a very real risk that they bench him. I don't buy into the, he's in a contract year. They're going to run him into the ground. They declined his fifth year option. They tried to trade him and they are a young team. That's not going to be very good. They're going to want to see what they have in right. Well, Armstead, they like the divine of Zigbo guy.

I just don't see any real scenario where for net plays 16 games. And is there a lead back? I mean, I just don't even think that's a likely possibility, frankly. I think it's less likely than them turning away from him at some point this season. So it's a pretty clear one for me. I don't think I would take Fournette before the eighth round to his point about him slipping. I just don't want him. Okay, and Dave, this has been a case against Leonard Fournette, really,

but you said Chark. Why don't you make a case for DJ Chark? The case for Chark is that his team profile is to throw a lot this year. They've got a young quarterback who seemed to connect really well with DJ Chark last year, particularly in the deep ball and not enough in the red zone. And I'm looking forward to that changing this year. And it sounds like Chark is going to be the one who could step up and get that garbage time production.

I think Jacksonville is going to lose a lot of games. They're going to play from behind or at least stay competitive. I don't see a lot of games where they're going to have a lead and they're going to say, all right, Leonard, bring it home for us. I don't think that's going to happen. And I think DJ Chark is going to continue to be that number one type of wide receiver. I think he takes a step this year. I wrote about him in players that I think are going to have a career year.

I think he beats what he did last year. And that means more than eight touchdowns and more than a thousand and eight yards. I think he's going to have a fantastic season. All right. We've got a few more here. Let's go to David Johnson versus Cortland Sutton, David Johnson versus Cortland Sutton and PPR Dave Heath,

Ben, who you taken? I believe I have Sutton ranked higher in PPR. Johnson. Sutton ranked higher in PPR. Johnson. Sutton. Ben, you go first. Sutton over Johnson. Same argument.

I don't buy that David Johnson is fully healthy. There's upside here. If he's back to himself, he could be good. But we know that Deshaun Watson isn't thrown to his backs a ton. I don't really buy into the concept of guaranteed touches we think that you know he's going to have a big role um too often those types of roles don't actually materialize for a full season courtland sutton's a young emerging wide receiver i think he's their clear number one i don't think jerry judy's anywhere near on his level yet um and i think sutton's going to probably be a little

bit surprising this year now that we've kind of knocked him down a little bit. I don't love the Denver offense, but certainly would rather choose this emerging young receiver over a declining running back that was hurt last year. Heath? The last three years. Yeah. Heath?

I mean, yeah, we don't know for sure what the touches are going to be for anybody, I suppose. But they traded DeAndre Hopkins for him. We know that Todd Gurley is going to get it. We're locked in. We got that. One down, 31 to go. Did trade DeAndre Hopkins for him.

And Carlos Hyde had 1,000 yards in this offense last year. And I think he's still better than Carlos Hyde. So that would be the case for David Johnson, I suppose. And I agree that we'll start week one with Cortland Sutton well ahead of Jerry Judy. I think Jerry Judy is a lot better talent but I don't know if we're going to necessarily see that right away. The other thing is that, and this is based on film last year, Drew Locke, when he was in need of making a play, it didn't matter who was covering Cortland Sutton. He was firing at him and it paid off several times last year in those five games that Locke started. I think that Sutton is going to be like the, the, the huggy bear, the BFF for drew lock. As for David Johnson, 28 years old, average 3.7 yards per carry. Each of the last two seasons on a team that has bumbled their run game. Each of the last years, they traded for Duke Johnson. They mishandled him. They're going to mishandle David Johnson. He's a good pass catcher out of the backfield.

This team doesn't throw to their running backs very much. They've got a spread offense coming in. It's going to impact theer out of the backfield. This team doesn't throw to their running backs very much. They've got a spread offense coming in. It's going to impact their receivers more than their running backs. Duke Johnson might end up with more catches than David this year. And I think he's just a gets-what's-blocked type of running back. Good offensive line for that here in Houston. I think that they're doing all right, but I don't know if he can stay healthy. I don't know if he's that same effective runner that we saw a couple of years ago

or even the same runner that we saw at the beginning of last year before he got hurt and came back and he was running like he had a 20 pound bag of sand in his pants he was terrible so i just i want to avoid david johnson i'm not excited about him at all okay do you guys think we went over or under two minutes on that one that was over yeah yeah yeah it was par for the course i bet i was under my shirt probably yeah probably uh so that's that'll do it i guess we can finish off by the way david johnson won the twitter poll on this one here david johnson got 57 of the vote 43 for courtland sutton and i'm glad that i'm finally not on Twitter side for one of these makes me feel much better. You know, I, I don't know. I honestly don't know how good Cortland Sutton is. And I think a lot of people don't know how good Cortland Sutton is. I think he's pretty good.

Did you guys watch football last year? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, but I think Jerry Judy might be better, but that doesn't mean that Jerry Judy was a first round pick and he was an awesome player in college, and an incredible recruit, too. He could be great, but that doesn't mean that Cortland Sutton isn't also great. I think Cortland Sutton's better this year. I think we all do, but

I don't want to disparage Cortland Sutton, because I think he's underrated a little bit. We're all so excited about McLaurin and Metcalf in that range. Cortland Sutton might be the guy who... I like Sut mclaurin and metcalf in that range corlin sutton might be the guy who i like sutton a lot better than metcalf so for that that you are not as excited about metcalf that's true uh but yes sutton might have something to prove here but okay uh well you know nine yards per target with a rookie quarterback and a broken joe flacco thousand yards yeah he's

got a lot to prove he didn't do anything last year. I was on his side, Ben. Jeez, you misinterpreted that. By the way, he kind of sucked with Drew Locke. He had one great game with Drew Locke. Yeah, not really kind of. That's because Drew Locke barely threw. They had him, I think he threw 30 passes

out of one out of five games. Yeah, that sounds right. Okay, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to say happy birthday to somebody. We're going to give this guy an awesome birthday present. We are going to talk about some players who are having good camps, which in case you have missed it, is basically everyone in football. They're all looking great.

The coaches love everybody. It is so stupid and so annoying, to be quite honest with you, but we'll try to sort through it and figure out what's real and what's just hype when we come back on Fantasy Football today. Metro Links and Cross Links are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals.

Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Take back your free time with PC Express Online Grocery Delivery and Pickup. Score in-store promos, PC Optimum points, and more free time. And still get groceries. Shop now at pcexpress.ca. It's a very special day for Joey Wright. Joey Wright, I mean, look, today is not only his birthday, but he is in the podcast league and he is co-managing a team with Dave Richard. Triumphant music for Joey Wright.

I can't play happy birthday. I probably could play happy birthday, but I'm not going to. Welcome to the Podcast League. Dave, this guy is a big fan of yours. Oh, I know. I get tweets from Joey all the time. Yes. He says, hey, buddy, it's Joey. That guy on Twitter who was always adding you like we are best friends, which we totally could be, buddy, it's Joey. That guy on Twitter who is always adding you like we are best friends, which we totally could be, but more on that later. I am the perfect partner for the podcast league in 2020. How am I so sure of this?

Well, let me lay it out for you. First, I am a great listener. Every day for the last 10 years, I've been listening. As you joked, as you advise, as you analyze. Podcasts, radio shows, planet fitness, shower solos. Through thick and thin, I've been listening to Dave. Also, you make me strive to be the best Joey I can be. You make me want to be a better man. In 2016, when I sent my annual pro wrestling team names, you seemed less than thrilled.

It crushed me. But I used that as an opportunity to be better. What did I do in 2017? Razor Ramon Kreef and Hunter Hurst Henry. Two graded 10 team names. You make me better, Dave. Sometimes it's tough love, but it's love nonetheless. I'm dedicated to our team, Dave. So dedicated. So much, in fact, that I want you to have Thanksgiving off in 2020.

I've got our team covered. I was smart and scheduled my vasectomy for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I'm taking the bullets out of the gun to stay in bed for four straight days and not miss a thing. Not one inactive will get by me while you spend the holiday with your wonderful family. I'll be watching our team. Let's put the naughty in Nana and make this happen, Big Cane. I'm in it to win it. I'm not buddying up to Jamie just to meet his famous cousin or cheers and craft beers with Heath or giving Adam arm waxing tips. I want a tombstone pile drive the other 13 teams through hell in a cell and have our hands raised in victory together.

That's a dedicated entry. That was the greatest love letter I've ever heard. We have a Ben Gretsch song, by the way, as one of the entries that I plan on playing hopefully tomorrow. Oh my gosh. I'm sharing a team with that guy. Yeah. You were when,

when they're in the draft room and Dave's being nice and said, okay, we'll, we'll go with the guy you want here. And that guy busts. Will he be Joey wrong? That you could do better. He,

after they take their kicker 15, where you Joey, Joey left. We're not taking a kicker in round 15. If Joey's been listening to the podcast for a decade, then he knows the basic do's and don'ts of fantasy drafting. I'm confident of that.

Round 15 is the last round, right? That's when you would take a kicker. Well, do we have kickers in the podcast league? Yes, we have kickers. Yes, they kick their people. Of course we do. I guess that's what we're going to do then. Round 15 it is. But then you'll be done and he'll be Joey left.

Joey left. Yes, he left the draft room. Yes. You're better than that, Heath. Heath, by the way, are we doing a For the People League or what? Yeah. Yeah. I've got to come up with some new rules this year because last year was a little stale.

But yeah, we were definitely doing a For the People League only if Ben Gretch will participate. How does that work? No, don't make him participate. Well, Ben was just saying before the podcast that he didn't have enough leagues this year. He said he didn't have enough low-stakes

leagues. Yeah, he's really looking for some leagues that are just like free entries that he can still make waivers every week and set his lineup every week um and this is exactly that type of league perfect and it's this is literally the opposite of how i feel about this all right these guys are having good camps i'm sure there are a lot of names that you can throw in here too but these are just the ones i came across. Three tight ends. OJ Howard for the Bucs, Dan Arnold for the Cardinals, Logan Thomas for the Redskins.

OJ Howard, Dan Arnold, Logan Thomas. Do any of them deserve to be drafted in a 14-team league? Good question. Say it, Ben. You want to say it? I mean, you know I want to say Logan Thomas. You know where I'm at on this. Logan Thomas is interesting. He converted from quarterback to tight end three years ago at the NFL level.

He was a quarterback at Virginia Tech. He was drafted in the fourth round as a quarterback. Very good athlete. Tall, big guy. They gave him $2.25 million guaranteed this offseason and a signing bonus to bring him to Washington when they probably didn't really need to. I think he's kind of interesting, and they've kind of been talking about him all offseason. I've mentioned him a couple of times this summer on the pod.

I've picked him up in some late, deep dynasty tight end premium leagues. I drafted him in the second to last round in the Scott Fish Bowl. You know, those types of formats. I don't know if he's necessarily draftable in a 14-team league yet, but if you're in a league where, you know, 25 tight ends go, that's where I'd start to look at him for sure.

Okay. So that's O.J. Howard, Dan Arnold, and Logan Thomas. That's who Ben was talking about. I've heard things about two of those tight ends. Hats off to Ben, though. I just want to say,

because Ben was talking about Thomas months ago. But yes, go ahead, Dave. Thomas, I've heard off to Ben, though, I just want to say, because Ben was talking about Thomas months ago. But yes, go ahead, Dave. Thomas, I've heard some things about. Arnold, I've heard some things about. And Arnold, if you watch him play, he didn't play a whole lot with Arizona last year. But, I mean, big dude,

big guy who could be a factor in the red zone, could steal some touchdowns away from everybody in Arizona. But I'm just not sure if he's going to get enough targets to warrant regular fantasy use. And for now, I'm going to say the same thing about Logan Thomas, but we're all reading the same stuff that's out there on Logan Thomas, and maybe there's more to him than what we're reading. And I'll leave it at that for right now. Okay. And more players who have been mentioned recently as having good camps. Chase Claypool, Brandon Ayuk, Tua Tungavailoa

apparently had a great practice on Monday. San Francisco running back, Jim Michael Hasty. Buffalo wide receiver, Gabriel Davis. Gabe Davis was a good prospect. UCF. Definitely a good prospect. UCF. Definitely a good prospect. He's on my Dynasty team.

Buried on the bench, hoping he can come to something in Buffalo. Bills don't have a big physical outside type of wide receiver. And he can do that. And Hasty is like a scat back. If the roster numbers game breaks the right way, he could end up being a special teams player and maybe the backup to Jarek McKinnon.

Maybe. He's small. Not an easy backfield to crack in San Francisco. Or an easy receiving core in Buffalo. Exactly. Frankly. Right. But Davis is going to make the bills. There were a few things that we came across here that I think are worth considering. Both from Denver, actually.

From Pat Shermer. This is a really, really tough year for first-year players. In most years, you would have come into training camp with 10 OTAs and a mini camp. All that extra time we spend with rookies that's off the books in previous years. You come into training camp having watched yourself do it. You've got reps with the starting quarterback. It's going to be a real challenge for rookies this year, in my opinion, because they don't have that foundation that you get in a normal year.

Who's the first round pick for that team? Jerry Judy. Corlin Sutton's better half. Jerry Judy. The only rookie that Ben doesn't think is going to be great in 2020. Well, there's Vic Fangio who said that

that's their head coach, that his team has already had more soft tissue injuries in eight days of practice this year than they had in OTAs, training camp, and preseason games combined last year. And then there's this, which is completely unrelated, but possibly related. Starting pitcher injuries in baseball

are through the roof this year. 98 pitchers on the IL through the first 31 days of the season this year, not including COVID IL, and 51 last year. And people are talking about the shortened spring training. It's different, right? I mean, it was a shortened spring training. This is actually a longer training camp, but the irregularity of the baseball off season has not helped players stay healthy, healthy in terms of sports injuries, not COVID. It's just, I don't know.

It's interesting. We might see just a lot of backups this year, guys. There's that, and then there's the rookie thing, and a lot of question marks. I don't really know how to frame it, but it's going to be a year unlike any other. I think I'm pretty confident in that. And the most opportunity-dependent position is running back.

And guaranteed touches aren't real. And you should load up on late-round running backs. And what about rookie running backs, though? What about the thing that Shermer said about the rookies? It doesn't concern me that much. I think it's his opinion, and it kind of concerns me a little bit for the Broncos. I don't think it'll be the case across the league.

We saw Terry McLaurin start week one last year. His camp was longer. Yes. But there, there are rookies that are good enough and they get on the field pretty quickly and others that take a few weeks. It might take some a little bit longer this year, but it doesn't have me off rookies.

In fact, I think rookies are an incredible value in redraft right now. All right. I hope you're reading our newsletter, the Fantasy Football Today newsletter. Great stuff. Chris Towers compiles it and he's got quotes in there. Really interesting quotes. Patrick Mahomes likes Demarcus Robinson a lot. He's a guy who could be a number one receiver in several different places. We never talk about it. McCall Hardman could be great value if Tyreek Hill was hurt, same with this and that.

But Robinson got a lot more snaps than Hardman last year when Tyreek Hill was out. Yeah, Robinson could absolutely be a number one receiver in the XFL, the CFL, the AAS. You know what? Andy Reid said that he, I think he called him like a rising star or something like that. Something glowing like that.

I think this is a good question. Let's say everybody stays healthy for the Chiefs. What's our projected targets for Demarcus Robinson and Meikle Hartman? Maybe 60 targets for demarcus robinson and miko hardman maybe 60 targets for robinson and maybe 80 to 80 80 to 90 for miko hardman it depends on sammy walkins you're saying that walkins is healthy and playing a bunch yeah yeah walkins and tyreek are play 16 games i'll say

in that scenario robinson gets like 30 to 40, and Hardman gets like 70. Okay. My point is this. If there's an injury to Kelsey or Hill or Waco, don't forget about Demarcus Robinson, okay? And we won't on waiver wire when we give the show. He was productive last year as well. Then there's this quote from Keenan McCardell,

who was the Jaguars receivers coach. Now being up close with LaVisca Chenault, he has that power of Andre Johnson. You know I hold Andre in high regards. That's my guy. We're good friends. But I've also seen him work every day. I see the power that he has. He kind of reminds me a little bit of Andre.

He has that type of power. All right. 30 kind of reminds me a little bit of Andre. He has that type of power. All right. 30 home runs for LaVisca Chenault. Can we just somebody get Ben Gretchen cigarette before Jonathan Taylor? LaVisca Chenault was my favorite prospect in this class. I mean, obviously Taylor was too, but man, it was fun watching him this spring. I was on him big time coming into the draft. I think he's going to be good good he's he's got a lot of aj brown and debo samuel to him and it feels like that's kind of the direction that teams want to go with their wide receiver if they can't get you know a fast giant to to be on their team where you can just put him in space let him go because he can power through arm tackles and pick up a lot of yards after contact.

Plus they could use them as a wildcat quarterback. They can use them as a running back. Colorado did. He just had a lot of injuries when he was in college. And the hope is that he can stay healthy. He's an interesting player for sure. Interesting player. And if you want to start with him on your bench to begin the year in fantasy, why not? Hey, we just got done talking about Jacksonville and how their offense should

throw a lot this year. If he's the number two or even the number three receiver on that team, that should be decent target share. I was going to end the show with fill in the blank, but instead I will save that for tomorrow and I will end the show with our email of the day. And it is from Matt W. Hey, Van, Fleet, Siakam. Oh, Van Vliet. That should say Van Vliet. Siakam and Lowry. I know them.

They're Raptors. Raptors. Yes. I was driving home today and enjoying your podcast, as I usually do. I took a shortcut through a nearby plaza. The podcast is playing loud on full blast with my windows down,

enjoying the beautiful weather. I come to a stop sign in the plaza where there was a large group of attractive girls when all of a sudden it happens. Adam plays the Heath Psy soundtrack. Okay, the girls all stop and look directly at me. The sighs continue and I can't help but laugh. To them, it must have sounded very strange.

I felt immediately insecure and drove off, almost feeling ashamed. Thanks, Heath. All I ask is that you please let me into your podcast league. As a longtime four-season listener, I would love the opportunity. Blah, blah, blah. Heath, that's up to you.

You could be in the For the People League. Eh. Ah. That was a real one. All right, well, we're sorry that Heath creeped out the pretty girls in the parking lot not the first time we'll see what happens with the podcast

league thank you for your email Matt and all of you for emailing I appreciate it fantasyfootball at cbsi.com tomorrow we'll talk about some polarizing players we'll do the fill in the blank and we'll tell you the differences how to draft in 10 team leagues, 12 team leagues, 14 team leagues, et cetera.

I want to thank Ben Gretsch, Heath Cummings, Ben Schrager, Dave Richard. I'm Adam Azer. Talk to you on Twitch on Tuesday night and tomorrow afternoon on the Fantasy Football Today podcast. See you later.