Fantasy Football Today - Re-evaluating Melvin Gordon and Post-Free Agency Rankings (03/23 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

After having a weekend to think about it, have we changed our minds about any of the free agents? Adam would like to be more optimistic about Melvin Gordon (5:00) but he might be alone on that. How are we feeling about Odell Beckham right now (14:00)? And we play "Value Up, Down or the Same" (18:00) for Emmanuel Sanders, Michael Thomas, Eric Ebron and more ... Let's talk about the Tight End position (23:30). Who do we rank 4th and 5th at TE? What draft strategy should you use at this position? ... Fantasy combos (28:50), an intriguing Nick Foles note (34:34) and more news from around the NFL (38:10). Are we excited about drafting any Patriots right now? ... Your emails at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts. 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

This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. Here we go! Email us at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. Here we go! It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Let's go! Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. It's Monday, March 23rd. We're back to talk more about free agency,

including your Eric Ebron breakdown which we did not give you on friday to the chagrin of dave richard i'm adam azer yeah dave's here he's guring ben gretch is here hey ben how we doing jamie eisenberg is here hey jamie eisenberg i don't want to talk to you i want to talk to ben all right talk to ben go ahead what do you guys want to talk about i just want to see how ben Ben. All right. Talk to Ben. Go ahead. What do you guys want to talk about? I just want to see how Ben is doing. It was lovely. Lovely. Homeschooling three children at all different ages is a lot of fun.

Yeah. Having a great time with that out here, too. That's why you just have to just don't bother with the homeschooling and let the kids just go do whatever they want. Well, the nice thing is that I get to be their PE coach. Okay. Ryan is teaching me all about Fortnite. He's picked up Fortnite again. And my daughter made this amazing dessert.

She got cookie dough, and then she put Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey bars and all that stuff on top of it, and then another layer of cookie dough, and then she baked it. And now I weigh over 300 pounds again. And everything's going great here. Wow. So, yeah, listen, I guess we haven't really addressed this. We sort of just talked about football. But obviously, things are crazy. And we all live in states that are kind of on lockdown or at least parts of states that are on lockdown.

Ben's out in Washington State. I'm in Westchester County in New York. And Dave and Jamie and Heath are in Fort Lauderdale, the surrounding areas. So we're going to be all at home doing these shows from different locations, which is the same for me and the same for Ben, a little bit different for Dave, Jamie and Heath are usually in the office. But look, we're going to keep coming at you with three episodes per week. More when news breaks and whatnot, we'll get you ready for the NFL draft. It's really not going to have that much of an interruption at all in our programming,

but I, I have to be a human being and ask you guys how you're doing. Cause we just totally skipped over it last week. And I just want to make, I just want to know everybody's good. I mean, not bored yet. Uh, you know, how know, how's life, Jamie? Life so far has been relatively the same because of free agency. So work was a lot of the same. Kids being home obviously is a little bit different.

But, you know, you try and make the best of every situation and just hope everybody's safe and healthy. Dave? So one of my fraternity brothers is a doctor in one of the areas in the country that has been hit hard by the COVID-19. And he talked to me yesterday after his shift and he said he met 15 people in the hospital who wish they just hadn't gone outside. And it scared me straight. So before this weekend, I knew not to be in big groups. I knew that leaving the house wasn't, I thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal. I went into the office. I wasn't really nervous about it. And now after talking to my doctor friend, my tune has totally changed. My kids are not going anywhere.

And if I go anywhere, I'm staying away from everybody. I'm going to pretend that I haven't showered in a month and that I don't want people to smell me. And therefore, they're going to stay away from me. And I will tell them to stay away from me. And I don't want any piece of this. It sounds very dangerous. And those of you who are staying home and not going to big groups, I'm proud of you. Very happy for you.

Thank you for doing that. You would be proud of me. I'm proud of you. Very happy for you. Thank you for doing that. You would be proud of me. I've not gone anywhere. You don't go anywhere anyway. Sort of true. But I went to the grocery store, I think a week ago, and I haven't been out other than taking a quick walk the other day. I was out.

It was like 70 degrees on Friday. It's snowing today, so it's been a little weird in New York. And I was out with my son. He's 20 months. And we were just walking around in the parking lot of our little townhouse development or whatever you want to call it. And I was kind of hidden behind this tree. And there was this lady. And she was probably 30 yards away from me. And she's walking towards me. And she doesn't see me. And then she see me and then she sees me and she just darts in the other direction like i'm like i'm radioactive because everybody's trying to stay like at least six feet away from everybody but i was like you know what good for you good

social distancing way to make me feel like i'm completely toxic but that's how you have to be i mean just avoid everyone if you're gonna go for a walk do it without being near anybody if possible and ben in washington state where i know it's been bad, how are you? I'm good. You asked at the beginning if anyone's bored yet. I mean, obviously this is the least of our concerns, but up here I've been doing this for I think over two weeks now. So I have been kind of bored.

I got some buddies together for some online board games this weekend, which was like the most exciting part of my weekend. Yeah, that's clever. I mean, people will find ways to be clever. And we're going to help you out, get you through it with some good fantasy football content. So to start things off, you've had the weekend to sort of think about things.

Has anybody changed their mind on any of the signings or trades, the big news from last week? Nope. No? No, I have. What did you say in your mind? I want to be a little bit more optimistic about Melvin Gordon. At first, I was like, ugh, Denver, this stinks.

But I think he's going to get a lot of work. Do you think Philip Lindsay just disappeared? Well, I think if you look at what they did last year, Philip Lindsay got something around 270 touches, something like that. And Royce Freeman had a pretty big role. And it's been two years in a row where they've split. And those two guys were the only running backs that had more than three carries. So they got all of the carries, basically.

And you don't sign Melvin Gordon so he can split goal line work. I mean, I think he'll get the majority of the carries basically and you don't sign melvin gordon so he can split goal line work i mean i think he'll get the majority of the goal line work and i think he'll catch the passes because you know dave's brought it up we all know like philip lindsey pass protection's been a problem and i think schirmer's got a really good history with running backs so um i'm i'm more optimistic about him and i think that you, you know, Ben, you talked about how the Broncos offense is going to be bad. I don't like the emergency pods are fun to do, but I always feel like I need more time to really think about things. I wish I hadn't said some of the things I said on the emergency pod. But in terms of the offense

not being good, it probably won't be that good for Denver. Over the last two years, that hasn't mattered nearly as much. It used to be the best running backs were on great offenses pretty much, and now I think as the running backs are more and more involved in the passing game, that becomes a bigger part of their fantasy production. I just don't think that matters as much anymore. So if he can score his touchdowns, I think he'll be fine. And yeah, I think he'll get 270. And yeah, I think he'll get 270 plus touches, which isn't great, but good enough if he can score double-digit touchdowns.

So I'm more optimistic. So you think Royce Freeman, you mentioned the third back only had three carries. You think Royce Freeman will either be gone or completely irrelevant? I mean, that's a great question. I don't know the answer, but I'm leaning towards completely irrelevant. How about you guys? I think they try and trade him.

You know, try and get a sixth or seventh for him just to see if anybody's going to take some running back depth, you know, that they may or may not like as opposed to somebody that they can't get in the draft. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens on draft day. I agree. But I would imagine it's like a conditional seventh round pick where Royce Freeman can't get in the draft i wouldn't be surprised that happens on draft day i agree but i i would

imagine it's like a conditional seventh round pick where royce freeman has to you know be the super bowl mvp in order to get the pick like it's no team is going to give up a lot for him when even the running backs in this draft class that aren't household names seem to be more appealing options on day three than Royce Freeman. So I wonder if it's just at a point for Denver where they say, you know what? He's not costing us a lot of money.

He's a, he's a capable back. Let's have him as a backup. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Rookie contract. I don't really see that they're in need of moving on from him.

It's not a bad thing to be three deep at running back. Um, I would like to see him get moved. I'm'm a little more optimistic i think than um like what dave just said compared to the the current class i think freeman is still very good i don't think he necessarily has been bad so far in his career it's just that philip lindsey has been great and they both came out of the same draft class and lindsey basically has outplayed him so it's kind of kept him off the field but I'm still optimistic about Freeman's potential long term um but yeah I mean getting back to Adam's original point on Gordon I just don't see how the the touches will be there it seems you're optimistic I don't see uh how he can have like RB1 upside A huge part of why he had that with the Chargers was prior to last year, Eckler was not as involved. Eckler was more involved last year and Gordon wasn't as good,

but also the amount of targets and high value touches that the Chargers offense generates, that's going to go down with the Broncos. And you have to imagine Lindsey's going to take a bigger share than Eckler used to. I just, I don't see how Gordon gets anywhere close to the type of workload he used to get. Correct, but I do think he can return value as a number two running back, whereas in years prior, we were taking him as a number one. In PPR last year, seven of the top 12 running backs scored less than 10 total touchdowns. So I think if you do score 10 or more total touchdowns,

you're going to be in good shape. If you just look at some of the guys who finished top 12 and how many touches they had and how many touchdowns they had, Saquon Barkley had 269 touches, 8 touchdowns. Alvin Kamara, 252 touches, 6 touchdowns.

Nick Chubb had 334 touches, but only 8 touchdowns. Mark Ingram had 228 touches. That's nothing. He had 15 touchdowns. What I noticed when I looked at all the top 12 running backs, I broke down their touches, I broke down their touchdowns. There's a path to not having a lot of touches if you can have a lot of touchdowns, I think.

But Lindsey and Freeman last year only combined for 11 scores. I mean, the Broncos offense is not going to generate 20 TDs for running backs. I mean, it might. I think it can be better. No, it doesn't. I think he can have 12 touchdowns. We had this conversation the other day on HQ.

Who's the second best team in the AFC West right now? Chargers. Yeah, it might be the Chargers. Right, but the only thing that you're looking at with the Chargers is, obviously Tyrod has to be competent, right, because what they've built around him is pretty impressive. And at what point do they go to a rookie? So is that rookie better than Drew Locke?

Because the Broncos have done a lot of nice things this offseason too. And they still have a very good defense. Chargers defense I would say is better on paper. But the Broncos, if they get Chubb back, pretty good pass rush. Secondary would still be pretty good, even with the loss of Harris. So you're looking at a team

that I think is in the conversation. And then the Raiders, who were the second best team last year, did they take a step back? Did they take a step forward? They stayed. And if you look at the Raiders as saying, okay, maybe they're right there,

it's a question of how competitive are the Broncos in terms of how much their offense will dramatically improve. But here's the thing. Even if they're the worst team, I think I'd probably pick them to finish last, not by a lot, but Philip Lindsay and Royce Freeman just never gave us consistency in the passing game. I think Melvin Gordon will.

You would hope. I still think they're going to add a receiver in the draft. They're very heavily linked to Ruggs. Especially now, not that it mattered because they were ahead of New Orleans, but New Orleans adding Sanders takes them maybe out of the picture of moving up. So I think if you add another pass catcher, Fant getting better. He didn't obviously have a lot of catches last year by what he could be this year. Sutton's going to be, I think, slightly better than what he was last year.

And so, you know, you're just adding pieces around this offense, including Gordon. So I'm sorry. I just think it's like like Gordon. I think this wasn't a terrible landing spot for him. The only thing I think that sort of is the drawback is what Lindsay's work was going to be. Yeah, I agree with all that about Denver side. And then the thing is that I keep emphasizing he's coming from a situation where they threw to backs more than almost any team in the league. So like Adam, you're saying they haven't always been involved.

I think Gordon might be more involved but you're talking about maybe moving the running back targets in the denver offense up around league average um and i think they're at least close to league average last year they were both you know somewhat involved but regardless that's a drop-off from near the top of the league which is where the charges have always been so i i just see almost no way that gordon's receiving role can be where it was. I know he was sharing with Eckler before, but that was a team that threw their back so, so much. He's never even had 60 catches in a season.

I mean, I think he's been on pace for more than that, but he had 58, 50, 42 catches in his last three seasons. Yeah, he's only played 16 games once a year. It's another reason not to like him. Yeah, but I mean, I think that he could get 50 to 60 catches and be perfectly fine. I'm not saying he has to have 80 catches. Okay, over-unders 50 catches for

Melvin Gordon. What do you think? I'll take the under. I'll take under. Really? I think 40 is doable, though. Why? I mean, they brought him here for a reason. But you're assuming that Lindsey's not going to catch the ball at all. Yeah, I am kind of assuming that because he stinks in pass protection.

I mean, that's the end of thought. But you don't have to catch the ball on obvious passing downs, Adam. You don't have to be in pass pro to catch the ball. Okay, but obviously, who's going to be on the field on third down? It's going to be Gordon. Okay, so there's 30 catches for the season.

35 catches for the season. They don't throw their backs on every passing down's play? They will. Everyone. Okay. Well, then you better not draft any Cortland Sutton or no man. They're going to play and just change the script. All right. So I guess anybody else want to comment?

Has nobody changed their mind on anyone? I'm not ready to change my mind yet on Odell Beckham, but I'm wondering if I've got him ranked kind of close to the 20s, if not 20th overall, and I'm wondering if that's too high because my philosophy is that Hooper's there to catch touchdowns. It's another mouth to feed in the offense. What are the odds that Odell Beckham is going to put up numbers

beyond what he did last season. Yeah, which was what, like 1,050 yards and five touchdowns? I don't remember what he had. Right. It was terrible. I've gotten far more pessimistic about him, too. I think when you look at the signing of Hooper and you look at Stefanski's usage in the past, he's used multiple tight ends so frequently.

Last year, the Vikings ran 11 personnel, the main three wide receiver set with one tight end, 18% of the time. They're the only team in the league that ran under 30%. That's where Stefanski was as the offensive coordinator. I'm assuming that the Browns are going that direction. They're either going to have two tight ends on the field or two running backs on the field, which means we might start to see a wide receiver target distribution similar to Minnesota, where Landry's kind of like the Thielen when Thielen was healthy in Minnesota last year. And Beckham is kind of like Diggs, who's seeing a lot of downfield targets and downfield routes, but not seeing nearly as many targets overall

as we'd expect for a guy with his talent. And the tight ends and backs are both seeing plenty of targets as well. I just want to see how healthy Landry is first. Yeah, you still have Beckham 13, Jamie, and Heath has him 15, and this is PPR, and Dave has him 20th. So talk about where you have Beckham now, 13, in between Juju and Galladay, and where you might have him when the season starts.

He'll slide a little bit. But again, if Landry's not right um and we have no indication you know i mean we may not know until god knows when under the circumstances but um if he's right for training camp then then beckham deserves to be maybe even farther than that like what dave is saying but if if landry is uh you know slow pop list i mean you know that should open up targets and i think the other thing we've got to keep in mind is Stefanski going to run the same offense he ran in Minnesota where he had, I think it was a three-game sample size,

if I'm not mistaken, and then Kubiak came in. Five-game sample size, whatever it was, and we took over for DiFilippo in 2018? I think five. I think that sounds right. And then Kubiak comes in and has his influence on the offense. And is he going to be as conservative as he was playing under Mike Zimmer, who we know did not want to be an aggressive offense,

or as aggressive as most offenses we see? Could that come down to how well Baker Mayfield plays? I'm sure it's a big factor. I mean, look, they have so much talent. They have the ability to be a strong running team, especially now adding Conklin and having this offense. They have multiple weapons now with Landry 100%, Hooper, hopefully Njoku 100%.

So there's lots to like about all these parts. Can one player stand above the rest? And I think that's the question. Beckham, at his best, was a player stand above the rest? And I think that's the question. Beckham, at his best, was a player standing above the rest. And as we saw last year when he had more talent around him, even if it was just Landry and the strong run game, his numbers came down and Baker wasn't good. So, yeah, there's reason to be pessimistic about Beckham for sure.

All right. We'll get to some more stuff. The Emmanuel Sanders signing, the Eric Ebron signing with Pittsburgh. We're going to still have three shows a week, as I mentioned, but on Thursday,

we got a regulators episode. It won't be exclusively regulators, but if you have any league regulation, anything that needs to be solved, you can send us an email, fantasyfootballatcbsi.com, or you can leave

an Apple Pod review, which would be awesome. Leave us a question in your Apple Podcast review. Five-star review would be very helpful. Fantasy Regulators will be at it on Thursday. Let's go value up, down, or the same. It's kind of hard with a guy like Emmanuel Sanders.

So I guess value up, down, or the same in the sense like, do you like the move going into New Orleans? Emmanuel Sanders, go. I've got him. I think he's worth a draft pick, whereas before I'm not sure I would have taken him so confidently. Round 10, round 11, somewhere in there. So I guess that would constitute an up.

Good bench receiver. Definitely up. He's a down for me. Oh, really? Emmanuel Sanders, why? Well, Jared Cook went over there last year, and his targets from his time in Oakland went from 100 or wherever they're at. You weren't going to expect that,

but they dropped all the way down to, I think, like 65 targets last year. And then if you look at Manny coming back from the Achilles last year, he was good for certain games, but he really took a back seat to uh Kittle and and even Debo Samuel late in the 49er season I think he had over six targets just twice and he was in like the 4.5 target per game range uh with them he's 33 I don't know how you know it's great that he came back from the Achilles and was so productive and had big splashes but I don't know how productive he'll continue to be.

I still think New Orleans is a situation where the number three guy loses so much to Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara. Then as the number three guy, he's also competing with Jared Cook. I think he's a great fit for the Saints. I just don't think the targets will be there. All right.

Value up, down, or the same for Michael Thomas? Same. Jared Cook? there all right value up down or the same for michael thomas same same same jared cook i got him it's the same for now yeah which is like what you guys have in like tight end 10 or something like that 12 for me yeah okay uh so he's a low end number one tight end a little bit down for for ben how about Alvin Kamara? You said on HQ he was one of your favorite tight ends. Is that still the same for you? No.

Yeah, so we recorded a bunch of stuff that's like evergreen. Do you think this hurts him that much? Because your argument was the touchdowns. I don't think it hurts him that much, but I do think it hurts him. And I think Jared Cook, to me, he had 65 targets, I think. In the last eight games of the year with Drew Brees, he was on pace for 76 targets for a full season, which is not a ton, but it's better than 65.

He did nothing with Teddy Bridgewater. He had 131 yards in five games with Teddy Bridgewater and two touchdowns. Yeah, no, I thought he was being overlooked. He didn't have anybody really to share with that wasn't there last year. But now this hurts. Like I've been saying, I think ideally Breeze will throw less than he did last year. They'll have a better running game in theory. So I'd say it hurts him.

I wouldn't say that Sanders' arrival in San Francisco hurt George Kittle. And I know that we're not comparing apples to apples with Kittle and Cook. But I'm not ready to say that this destroys Jared Cook. I'd like to know who his week one opponent is before I draft him though. Because if he's got a tough week one matchup, I'm just

going to go for one of the young up-and-coming tight ends that we're going to end up talking a ton about in the next six months. All right. Well, he was the number one or number two in the last eight games of the year after Breeze got back from the injury. I don't know. I think

he deserves a little more respect than who's his week one matchup, but I guess I'm on kind of an island there. Excuse me. It's two years in a row for him. He was good his last year in Oakland. He was the It's two years in a row for him. You know, he was good his last year in Oklahoma. He was the number one receiver in his last year in Oklahoma.

Sure. Value up, down, or the same for Cortland Sutton with Melvin Gordon in town? Same. Same. I did not move him. Eric Ebron.

Oh, I mean, he's a star. Where'd you move him? Number two, number three among tight ends he's down for me i'm missing the joke here you guys i mean like you can't make a case for eric you brought to be a top 12 tight end in pittsburgh could you for ladarius green or vance mcdonald the other uber athletic tight ends the Steelers brought in and we all drafted in fantasy and never did anything? It's funny because those guys are all athletic, but Heath Miller.

Heath Miller was athletic too, but he was more of a blocker type. And even he had better years than those other guys had. Who's benefiting more, Drew Brees with Emmanuel Sanders or Ben Roethlisberger with Eric Ebron? I think they're both marginal improvements. I could see Ebron being used similarly to how he was in Indianapolis, which is kind of a red zone guy who you just hope he holds

onto the football when you throw at him. And they're going to use him for mismatches and stuff like that. I don't know how big of a priority signing it was for Pittsburgh. Not sure how many targets he'll get from week to week. And I don't feel good about starting him. He's going to slot in behind guys that you weren't even thinking about drafting until free agency and the NFL season restarted,

which is guys like Blake Jarwin and Hayden Hurst. There's no chance I'm going to take Eric Ebron ahead of them, unless I don't even know if they play the Jaguars in week one, but it would take a matchup like that where they're taking on one of the worst defenses possible. And Ebron could be good for a matchup where he scores outside of that. There's no way I'm drafting Ebron. Who is your number four and five tight ends right now? Andrews Hooper.

Jamie? Hooper. That was my what? I'm sorry. Four and five tight ends. Four is Waller. Five is... Andrews uh hunter hunter not andrews andrews is i'm sorry andrews is four waller five okay so andrews waller for jamie or four or five andrews hooper for dave and ben's like hooper who would you have four and five he said Hooper probably Andrews and Henry

Andrews and Henry I'm not really super optimistic about Henry with Tyrod Taylor I've definitely moved Waller back and Hooper back I think the signing was bad for him as well and the way I view it is I don't know who is decidedly

better than Hooper once you get past the top four tight ends. You can make a case for Hunter Henry. You can make a case for Darren Waller, but I think Austin Hooper could get more touchdowns in Cleveland than he got in Atlanta. I don't like what's happened with tight end. I mean, it kind of stinks because I think that it's been a bad offseason

for Austin Hooper and Hunter Henry. Yeah, Hooper loses in this one. Henry, I don't necessarily agree with. I think Henry's going to be fine. I want to see who the rookie quarterback is. It's weird because it's like the top, you know, should be fine with the top four guys. And then it's like once you get to five,

because I think you should throw Andrews in the fine mix. It's like five through 12. There's a little bit of like uncertainty. Right. I like this guy. I don't know. Maybe this guy could be good. And then there's like so many number two type tight ends that could be

really good, but they could also just be absolute horror shows. Yeah. There's a ton of upside. I was going to say that the way that this like middle range fell back, like we're talking about the, the middle range of the top 10 fell back. And so many guys,

Johnny Smith and Ian Thomas and Jay Sternberger. And who are the new ones? Jack Doyle, Hayden Hurst, Blake Jarwin. Yeah. Jarwin. Yeah.

You know, Hawkinson, Hayden Hurst, Blake Jarwin. Hayden Hurst, yeah. Jarwin, yeah. You know, Hawkinson, hopefully. You know, all these guys have a chance to potentially be starting fantasy tight ends and maybe really good. You know, maybe one or two of them have Andrews and Waller-type breakout seasons. But there's just – you could also see, like, the downside, you know, of all those guys. And so it's a matter of do you still take one of the top guys early, which is never a bad idea with what they give you, or do you sort of play tight end roulette and hope that Hooper still scores touchdowns and is a big part of this offense and hope that

maybe O.J. Howard has a resurgence with Tom Brady or hope that Hunter Henry doesn't fall off with, you know, Tyrod Taylor slash rookie quarterback or hope that Blake Darwin replaces Jason Witten and is a thousand times better. I'm kind of going each end of the spectrum there with those guys. But that's kind of the nature of what you have to do. It's why when we did the show that will air on HQ,

it's like, is it a bad idea to maybe take two tight ends and just sort of say, okay, I'll take maybe a steady presence of what hopefully is tyler higby and then take a shot on you know ian thomas like you said you know one of those type of guys so i think from a draft strategy perspective what you just said is really interesting because like there's i think we're turning towards a strategy where i for me i'll either take one of the top names

and I won't do that in every draft but I will be very open to taking Kittle or Kelsey at a good price I'm not really that high on Ertz even and I don't know if I'd get him at price but maybe Andrews but if I'd miss those guys I feel so uncomfortable with the five to six to seven to eight range now I'd probably just wait till the end of the draft and grab two upside guys and hope i hit a home run on darren waller or hope i hit a home run on um andrews for this year or you can go back there's been a lot of breakout tight ends like that i remember jordan reed's first big year he was like a 16th round pick an upside play i had a really good year you can find tight ends who break out and be your number one tight end late so i'd probably just take multiple chances later in the draft and not put any real draft equity into the position at that point.

Yeah. I'm a kid. It was one of those guys just a couple of years ago. He got hurt and didn't know if he was going to be ready for week one. And he really fell. I don't even know if he was drafted that year. You could have done that with Waller and Andrews last year. That's what he,

that's what Ben was saying. Yeah. He's like, you try to find that guy. Uh, yeah, it's just interesting. It's like five Waller. I don't even think we've seen the worst of the offseason yet for him

because we expect the Raiders to get a wide receiver in the draft. Henry, obviously, we know the quarterback downgrade, but some people are fine with it. Hooper goes to a crowded situation on a team that might run the ball more than the Falcons did. And, you know, Ingram has this mess with so many targets there. So I see what you guys are saying. That's why I kind of liked Cook when we did the show on HQ, and then they signed Emmanuel Sanders. So if you watch it on HQ, please remember.

I didn't know that at the time. All right, let's do some fantasy combos here. I'm going to give you some guys who have mostly been affected one way or the other by free agency. Who do you which side of the combo do you like? Do you want DeAndre Hopkins and Melvin Gordon or Aaron Jones and Calvin Ridley Hopkins and Gordon or Aaron Jones and Calvin Ridley? These are just for 2020, right? Correct.

Yeah, I'll take I'll take the Jones ridley side because i think you're getting two i'll say two top 12 options at each position i think ridley's going to be good enough especially now that hooper's gone we'll see if hearst can truly replace him and uh i think he was just super consistent last year, improved last year compared to his rookie season. I think the sky's the limit for Calvin Ridley, and I think Aaron Jones is going to continue to be used as the main running back. I say main running back in Green Bay, but usually when I say a main running back, I'm thinking that's somebody that can be 15-plus touches confidently every week. I don't know if that'll exactly be the case, but the dude is scoring touchdowns at like a one per game clip. That's risky

though. He's got huge upsides. 285 touches for Aaron Jones. Does Melvin Gordon get 285 touches? No. I don't think so. Okay. So wait, so you say We don't think he's going to get more than 40 catches so I don't think he's going to get 245 carries.

You say Jones and Ridley. Jamie and Ben, what did you guys say? For this year, I would take Hopkins and Gordon. Ben? I think I might take Jones and Ridley too. It's close. I didn't move Hopkins back, but that would be more a reflection on me not being as high on Gordon.

All right, next combo. A teammate combo addition. Julio Jones and Todd Gurley or Nick Chubb and Odell Beckham? The Falcons. Yes, the Falcons. Yeah. You got to feel a lot better about the share of the offense those two will handle compared to Cleveland where Chubb's going to have to share, I think, with Kareem Hunt. Gurley will probably share with the rookie as well eventually, butckham has a lot more competition for targets than julio i mean

girly and jones i expect to be really involved in those in that offense and i guess if there's one player who's who i'm kind of changing my tune on a little bit maybe it's girly just because the offensive line is going to be better for him in at. And what if the Falcons don't get one of the top three or four running backs in the draft? Then they're going to sink their teeth into Gurley. And Adam, you've done a really good job detailing how Devontae Freeman had a ton of red zone touches before last season, and Gurley could be in line for that. So maybe he does have a chance at getting double-digit touchdowns.

And if he's playing a lot and he stays healthy, you know he's a cinch for over 1,000 yards. He did that last year, but maybe it'll be a little bit better because the offensive line's a little bit better in Atlanta. Yeah, not just red zone carries, but he was top five in carries inside the five-yard line in three of his last four healthy seasons. So that's Devontae Freeman.

That's the situation that Todd Gurley is stepping into. Next fantasy combo, Kenyon Drake and Mark Andrews? Kenyon Drake and Mark Andrews? I'll take that. Or Travis Kelsey and Mark Ingram? Yep. Drake. Yeah.

October's very own. I'm down on Ingram enough to take the Drake and Andrew side. Let me do a different running back than Mark Ingram, okay? Drake and Andrews or Kelsey. Who do you like better, Ingram or Gurley? Gurley. Okay, so let's do that. I think I have Ingram or Tyra as of now, but that could change.

All right, Dave's answer isn't going to change. Kenyon, Drake, and Mark Andrews or Travis Kelsey and Todd Gurley? I'd still take Drake and Andrews. Okay. Miles Sanders and Keenan Allen or Mike Evans and David Johnson? Sanders and Allen for me. Yeah, same. Sure, me too sanders and keenan allen over evans and david johnson i'm trying to think of one more fantasy combo here um dave what's your favorite dessert

um there was a restaurant that we used to go to where they put a brownie inside of a cookie so i had the thickness of a brownie inside of a cookie. So I had the thickness of a brownie, but it was surrounded by a cookie and then that was hot and they had a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of that with hot fudge. Okay. So last combo pizza and an ice cream Sunday or a burrito and Dave's brownie cookie ice cream dessert pizza and an ice cream Sunday or a burrito and Dave's brownie cookie ice cream dessert. Pizza and an ice cream sundae or a burrito and Dave's favorite dessert? I'll take it all.

Dave made that sound so appetizing. I'm going to go with that option. I don't think it goes with a burrito, though. No, that's true. Not a good combo. Jamie, what's your favorite dessert? Anything chocolate. Anything chocolate. I'm simple. that's true not a good combo jamie what's your favorite dessert uh anything chocolate anything chocolate simple i came up with a uh with a dad joke over the weekend would you guys like to hear

it sure i'm gonna tell you anyway what did the frog say about his favorite movie it was ribbiting thank you ben thank you ben right, here's your... What was the other dad joke you had last week, too? I don't remember. It wasn't that good. I'll tell you that one. One's enough. Okay.

Here's your note of the day from CBSSports.com from one of our writers, Cody Benjamin. He was talking about the most underrated moves of free agency since the league year started. And number one was Nick Foles going to the Bears. And he said, Foles is already better than Trubisky, and he's got three of the coaches perhaps best equipped to unlock his production.

Matt Nagy, a former Andy Reid disciple. Bill Lazor, Foles' QB coach during a magical 2013 season. And John DiFilippo, Foles' QB coach during a magical 2017 season. And I thought that was pretty interesting. He's got on the Bears staff the two coaches that were his quarterback coach at his absolute best. And he was amazing in 2013, 27 touchdowns, two interceptions. In 2017, he was fine in the regular season, but it was obviously the playoffs.

Won the Super Bowl with 971 yards, six touchdowns, and one interception in three games. We don't often talk about quarterback coaches and stuff like that, but does that factor in? Does that change your mind at all about Nick Foles' potential, or at least the Bears' offense potential with this coaching staff? It does for me um i think anytime you've got coaches who are familiar with a player and know the player's strengths and weaknesses especially before you know the the you know ota's start during the spring i think it's a good thing so this tells me the bears probably have some designs on how their offense can improve certainly be more efficient maybe a little more explosive with foals under center compared to Trubisky.

And it's not like Matt Nagy doesn't know anything about Mitchell Trubisky. He's been working with him now for a couple of seasons. But you've got more brainpower brought in. In the case of DiFilippo, an aggressive, passing-minded coach who could help influence the offense, just throw the ball even more and come up with creative designs for their plays. I think it's good for Foles. And I didn't move Allen Robinson down or up.

I didn't move Anthony Miller down or up. I didn't move Jimmy Graham up. And I think that those two receivers are going to be certainly helpful in fantasy. It's a good move for Chicago, having all these people that trust Foles and know how to use them. Okay, cool. It's just another...

I really like Allen Robinson, I think. I mean, you look at those two teams. I was just pulling them up. Deshaun Jackson had a really strong season with Foles in 2013. That year you referenced. Alshon Jeffrey had a really strong season with Foles in 2013 that year you referenced Alshon Jeffrey had a really strong playoff run um in 2018 that other year you referenced and Allen Robinson has never played with a better quarterback which is crazy to say about Nick Foles I don't think Nick Foles is is amazing but he's been playing with Blake Bortles and

Mitch Trubisky's whole career these are guys who are notoriously inconsistent um and if you've ever watched alan robinson you know he's a lot better than the numbers he's been able to put up because he gets i mean if you ever had him in fantasy like he gets a maddening maddening maddening maddeningly yeah wow high rate of his targets that are like oh man, man, that should have been a touchdown. Right? And if these QB coaches and all these things can help Foles play well in this offense, Allen Robinson could easily have a career year. Ooh, I don't know about career year.

It's going to be hard for him to top what he did. Yeah, not career year. That one year. Maybe not touchdown-wise. I'm thinking a career year in Chicago. He had like 1,400 yards that year, didn't he? Yeah. He was at the time one of five receivers along with Calvin

Johnson and Julio Jones and Jerry Rice, I think, that accomplished these amazing feats. Yeah, but your point is taken. It could be a very good year for Robinson if Foles can hit. All right, some news and notes. The Patriots signed Brian Hoyer, and according to The Athletic, they're not currently considering Andy Dalton.

They might have Stidham and Hoyer going into the year. Right now, is there... Thank you for Trevor. Is there one Patriot that you are excited to draft? No. No.

Where would you take Julian Edelman right now? 8 in non-PPR, 6 in PPR. Alright. Yeah, I think that's fine. New England's the hardest team right now because we don't know what's going to happen. I don't believe they're going to tank. I think they're going to add

QB talent, and I think they're going to be good. Well, I mean, they did get Brian Hoyer, so here we go. The longer they wait this out, the cheaper Jameis and Cam become. So they can get them as cheap as they want, potentially, from a financial standpoint. If that's the route they decide to go. If they wait it out to the draft and they want to get Dalton,

he also becomes cheaper. So there's no rush. There's nowhere for they decided to go. If they waited out to the draft and they want to get Dalton, he also becomes cheaper. So there's no rush. There's nowhere for those guys to go. If you're Tampa Bay, and this isn't a fantasy conversation, do you give up a round three or round four pick to get Edelman? Two years left on his deal. Takes the Patriots off the hook of paying him. He's at 34 years of age.

Try and reunite him with his buddy. I think Godwin was so good in the slot last year. It would be terrible for Godwin, but if that's something that Brady wants, and the price wouldn't be too high.

Does he fender their cap after some of the moves that they made because they were a little strapped in the moves that they made to keep some of their own guys. It's not a bad thing to explore, especially if they really were serious about trying to appease Brady with the Antonio Brown conversation, which sounds like it's not going to happen, but still. So, yeah. No, I mean, If you can do that, I think any team should be trying to take Elliman off the Patriots' hands if that's something they feel that could help them.

If there's a team that feels like they're a slot receiver away, it'd be a genius move. Denver signed Melvin Gordon. It's a two-year deal, $16 million, $13.5 million guarantee. There was a report out of Denver that Buffalo offered more money to Gordon,

but Gordon chose the Broncos, and Adam Schefter was like, no, Buffalo never made Gordon an offer. I only bring that up because you want to know how they feel about Devin Singletary, and according to Adam Schefter, they did not make an offer to Melvin Gordon. Yeah, things look good for him so far. So far, so good, yeah. Wide receiver news, other than Emmanuel Sanders, Nelson Aguilar going to the Raiders on a one-year deal

and Laquan Treadwell going to the Falcons and a tight end, Nick Vanette, going to Denver. Does Aguilar to the Raiders, Treadwell to the Falcons, or Vanette to the Broncos mean anything in fantasy? Don't forget Nick O'Leary to the Raiders, too, to add to their tight end arsenal. Yeah, what the hell are they doing? They've got 12... They're probably moving

Darren Waller to receiver. Okay, well let's keep them at tight end for fantasy as long as they do that and that's great. But they have like 10 tight ends now. They're going to be running 0-5 personnel. I don't know what they're doing. It's crazy.

Doesn't XY spider mean 14 tight end? Maybe that does. What is it? Spider 2Y banana? There's definitely a banana in there. Tarantula 5. It'll be 0Y because there's

no wide receiver. Watermelon because bigger fruit, bigger position. In terms of offensive line, it's clear the Jets have been the most active team. They have not necessarily made big

signings, but they're trying. They're getting as many low-end guys as possible for their whole line. They re-signed Alex Lewis. He's a guard. They signed a center, Connor McGovern.

Left tackle, George Fant. Or I'll say offensive tackle. I guess McGovern's not bad. McGovern isn't a bad lineman. Guard, Greg Van Roden. Guard, Josh Andrews. So the Jets knew this was a big priority and hopefully could be a little bit better.

One other note I want to bring up. Everson Griffin opted out of his contract Minnesota defensive end. And boy, that team is just going to have such a different look defensively. And maybe they're going to be forced to throw the ball more. What do you think, Jamie, about the Vikings' defense? I mean, it's in rebuild mode. Mike Zimmer is going to have to work some magic a little bit, but I think he will.

They'll use the draft to fix some things. They got an extra first-round pick from the Diggs trade. So they have the capital to do it. But yeah, it's a rebuild mode, clearly. All right. And I just want to read one email from Clinton. I've been listening to you guys since the days of Nando. Winning season, losing season, or off season.

I listen to you all religiously. Please keep up the amazing work. We will. Thank you, Clinton. This is bull. Hey, stop it. I'm looking for keepers for next season. $500 budget.

PPR league. I can only keep the following for one more year. Kyler Murray for a buck, A.J. Brown for 12, Brandon Cooks for a buck, Will Fuller for six, Kenny Galladay for 30, Adam Thielen for 78, and Evan Ingram for five. How do you get Kyler Murray for one? He can keep three of them.

Well, two are easy. Kyler or A.J. Brown. For $1 and for $12. Yep. Let me give the other options here. Pick one. Cooks for $1. Fuller for $6. Galladay for $30. Thielen for $78. Ingram for $5. Evan Ingram for $5.

Fuller for $6. Okay. We got to vote for Galladay for 30, a vote for Fuller for six. Dave, what do you say? Yeah, I'll say Galladay for 30. Okay, Galladay gets two votes. That's the end of the show. That's what, $43 for three starters?

Yeah. And the best starters for 90% of the budget. Yeah, I mean, look, if you were to say right now Fuller 16 games, I would say Fuller for six easily, but you can't say that. That's the problem. Well, I mean, over two seasons, he'll probably play

16 games. That's true. But you can only keep these guys for one year. I hope. All right, good show, guys. Thank you very much. Tomorrow, we're talking Dynasty. We also are lining up an interview with Bucks beat writer Greg Allman this week. I don't know what we're going to ask him about. We'll figure something out.

But we'll get a little Bucks insight. Yeah, they've had a quiet offseason. Nothing to talk about. We'll ask him about a potential Julian Eveling tree. All right, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Until tomorrow, I'm Adam for Ben, for Dave, and for Jamie. Talk to you then. No, no, no, no,ett, Jay. All right, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Until tomorrow, I'm Adam. For Ben, for Dave, and for Jamie,

talk to you then. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na.