Fantasy Football Today - Regression Alert! Wide Receivers and Tight Ends (06/13 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts Nico Collins and Brandon Aiyuk had standout seasons in 2023, but regression is coming (1:50)! Those are two of the wide receivers we'll talk about today as we look at guys who will be less efficient, will score fewer touchdowns or will score more touchdowns at both the WR and tight end positions. There is also a lot of news to cover (11:40) as Jaleel McLaughlin is getting some buzz and Josh Allen is tweaking his mechanics ... Back to our WR regression candidates, we talk about George Pickens and Amari Cooper (28:05) and their efficiency regression. Then it's TD regression for guys who scored too many in 2023 (37:05) and guys who scored too few (42:00). Will Michael Pittman score more TDs than Jayden Reed in 2024? ... Big names on the TE regression list (50:00) including Sam LaPorta, Dalton Kincaid and Evan Engram. Find out why Engram's draft value doesn't match up to his stats ... Email us at [e-mail] SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? No, I can't. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races, and he stays on his feet. He's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.

Some players who are going to score more touchdowns, hopefully, this season. Chris Godwin, we're looking at you. Some players who might score fewer touchdowns this season. Chris Godwin, we're looking at you. Some players who might score fewer touchdowns this season. Jordan Addison, we are looking at you. Can Brandon Ayuk, Nico Collins, George Pickens, Amari Cooper, can they be as efficient as they were last year? We're also going to talk about some tight ends. There's regression for basically all of the tight ends.

Not all, but many of the top tight ends. Laporta, Ingram, David Njoku, Trey McBride, and Dalton Kincaid. They are on the regression list. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Fantasy Football today. It is Thursday, June 13th. We will not have a show tomorrow. We will have four shows going forward for the foreseeable future.

And then I think once we get into July, we'll be up to five. Adam, Dan, Jamie, and Heath here. Heath, are we ready for some more regression? Monday was so good, we brought you back for another. Well, you brought me back. I'm only here for this. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on a couple of times.

I don't think you were supposed to be. I hope that I can do a guest spot again next year. Hey, hey, hey. Because you're doing FFT Dynasty, which everyone should listen to twice a week, you haven't been on this show as much, but we enjoyed the first regression show. We made it a two-parter.

Anyway, who are some of the, let me think, one or two of the biggest regression candidates at wide receiver and tight end, our special guest Heath Cummings today? Heath, I'm not familiar with your work. What do you do? Yeah, can I tell people where they can find my work? Please.

No, I think at wide receiver, it's probably a couple of guys in similar offenses, Nico Collins and Brandon Ayuk. And we see this happen in the Shanahan type system with wide receivers. We saw it with Jalen Waddell a couple of years ago. We had a Debo Samuel year where he averaged like 18 yards a catch and 12 yards per target. And that's kind of what iuk and nico did last year now they can make up for that with an increase in volume this year probably easier to believe for nico than it is for iuk just because that past volume situation's

pretty set with kid old debo iuk and them running a mcafree and running a more run heavy scheme at tight end i would say it's definitely Evan Ingram. He's the guy that I get a lot. How did he have 20 more catches than everyone else last year, and nobody wants to draft him as a top-five tight end? We'll talk about why. So Debo and Nico Collins, there have been some wide receivers recently who have had these remarkably efficient years,

big yards per target, high ADOT and high yak. I mentioned this with Nico. And then the numbers go down the next year in terms of the rates, but the targets might go up. So the two that come to mind are Jamar Chase. I think I said there were a lot. There aren't that many. But Jamar Chase and A.J. Brown.

They had these great, really efficient breakout seasons. They didn't keep up the rates the following year, but they earned so many more targets. They were better in fantasy. But let's talk about that. How much can Nico Collins and Brandon Ayuk gain in targets? Nico was 109 targets in 15 games, with Tank Dell playing a half a season

and Stefan Diggs on the bills. Ayuk was 105 targets in 16 games, so fewer targets in one more game. Do you think either of them get to 120 targets, which is really not that much? I think it's way more likely for Nico to get to 120 targets than it is for Iuke. The flip side of that is we've seen Iuke, while he hasn't been near as good as he was last year in terms of yards per target or yards per catch we've seen him like three or four years produce like an elite wide receiver um this was the first time we've seen it from nico so i think you have to be more concerned about how much regression there is for nico but there is a better chance for nico to earn

the targets to make up for it in my opinion do you go into this with players like that where it's really a one-year sample size and i know you could say offense for the 49ers because it's been the kyle shannon system but brock purdy for first full year as a starter and it feels like that's their guy and they're going to continue to build around him obviously and clearly the same thing in houston with cj stroud now there's been some changes, clearly, you know, Houston adding Stefan Diggs and Tank Dell coming back, San Francisco adding Ricky Pierce also. We'll see what that means.

But I just wonder if like what we saw from those two guys, you know, I mean the breakout season for Collins and the efficiency for IU, how much of that is a result of, okay, they finally have an established quarterback to help them. We know that was the case for Nico, But just in case of both these guys, the quarterback has now maybe elevated what the system has allowed these guys to do, and maybe now this is going to become the norm. And I don't know the answer to that.

I'm just asking the question. Is the quarterback in place and allowing the system to flourish going to help these two guys in particular not necessarily need the huge jump in targets to be as successful as they were. I think when you look at Nico, I think you can say halfway yes to that question of, is this just the new reality? Because his jump was absolutely massive. He went from 7.4 and 7.3 yards per target his first two years in the NFL to 11.9 last year. I like to give kind of the baseline of 10, 9 to 10 is, 9's elite, 10 is probably that's the best you're going to get on a year-over-year basis. That's about where Tyreek Hill has been. That's where Tyler Lockett was for a lot of years with Russell Wilson. I think

at best, you're looking at Nico being two yards worse per target. I mentioned Waddle, who was, I think, 11.6 two years ago and fell to nine the next year. I mentioned Debo, and the reason I bring these guys up is because it's the same offensive system. Debo three years ago, 11.6 fell to 6.7 the next

year. With Ayuk, he's always been pretty elite in that 9 range. It just spiked to, what did he average? 18 yards a catch last year. I don't think there's any chance that's a new reality for iuk it's semi the new reality for nico i don't think dan has

spoken yet but dan who if you're on the clock who would you take nico collins or brandon iuk i'd be taking brandon iuk i just think there's a little bit more of a condensed target share there in san fran but i But I think Heath is right. If we're looking at who's going to have a better chance to be more of the big play guy, it's going to still be Nico Collins. The way that system is run and how he's used within that system, in my opinion, from what I've seen,

and the verticality of that passing game. But Ayuk, to me, has proven it on a longer track record and, most importantly, didn't have Stefan Diggs added to the offense this offseason. So,'re going to talk about uh George Pickens and Amari Cooper also if you look at the top three wide receivers and yards per catch Heath was talking a little bit about yards per target but yards per catch Pickens was at 18.1 Iuke was at 17.9 Amari Cooper was 17.4 Nico Collins was eighth in yards per catch at 16.2. This is, by the way, a minimum of 50 targets. So I went back and I looked at the previous three years.

There were 11 wide receivers who averaged 17 or more yards per catch as Pickens, Iyuk, and Cooper did last year. But the three years before that, there were 11 wide receivers. The only ones who came even close to 17 yards per catch the following year, the only ones who averaged more than 15 yards per catch were MVS and Gabe Davis twice. And those are guys who run really deep routes, don't catch a lot of balls. So, I mean, there might be a four-yard drop in yards per catch for those guys. And like I said, you know, you get more targets from these guys sometimes, but it's just so interesting for Iuka and Nico that they don't seem to have that path to being like 140 target guy.

Right. At least not easily on paper. Okay. Anyway, I mentioned FFT Dynasty. Our guest today, Heath Cummings, does host that show, Fantasy Football Dynasty, on Tuesdays and Fridays. He had Ben Gretchen on Tuesday, who Ben thought that I made a very fair trade with Heath. Dan thought it was a terrible trade. It's funny because Ben liked that trade from your standpoint. No, Ben was nice and said he would lean my way because Adam was there.

And then all fair, he told you the truth? No, he liked it for both of us. That seems more likely. I mean, you moved up three spots to get the game, gave up Trey McBride. It made no sense, really. I got another second round pick and I got Malik. No, you gave up Gardner Minshew for that second round pick. I did.

Yes. And a super flag. Right. So Dan, of course, is part of the reason I made that trade, because all you talk about is how Trey McBride's not that good. And now you hate my trade for giving up Trey McBride well there's another trade that could be going down soon this one between me and Adam though I have I will say this about the big burger league I'm a big fan of this big burger league because I'm in a few dynasty leagues this is honestly one of the more active ones I'm not even on the clock yet I'm on deck and I have four

people talking to me about a trade. I mean, it's obviously somebody's falling that shouldn't have been there, so I understand why, but let's just say I love this league. It's very active, and we are going very quarterback heavy in this first round. Bo Nix is already off the board. We may see Penix come next, so

I'm excited about that. It's super flexing. Bo Nix and Penix will probably be the 11th pick the 11th pick, the 10th pick. He needs to trade out. Don't take Penix. He's trying to trade out. I hope he takes Penix. I think he advertised the wrong player.

Like he advertised you can get Penix right here. No, you can get Xavier Worthy right here. Oh, shit. He, no name dropping. He came on at 112. Everybody wants Xavier Worthy. The thing I don't understand, Dan, is why you didn't move up. You have the ammunition to move up.

One spot up. No, but I mean, even further. You could have taken your two picks and moved up. I could have taken a two pick, but there are a lot of guys following that I like. I'm about to get two guys I like. Yeah, you're in a good spot for that, too. I don't want to give that pick up. All right.

Anyway, check out FFT Dynasty. News and notes real quick here. Actually, we're going to take a break. We'll take a break. We'll come back. We'll give you some news and notes, including a pretty interesting tweet about Javante Williams. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. Whether in the game or in life,

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Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Here are your news and notes. Aaron Rodgers and Hassan Reddick have not been up in it. Mandatory minicamp for the Jets. Brees Hall, though, okay, we know about the whole Rodgers situation, but I thought what Brees Hall said about Rodgers was interesting. He said Rodgers is still trying to get back to feeling right from his injury. That was surprising.

Remember, he took an alternative path toward recovery, didn't he? Wasn't that the whole thing? Yes. Yeah. Maybe not the best move. Okay. What did you guys make of the note from Cecil Lammy? Cecil Lammy?

Cecil Lammy? Cecil Lammy? You don't know him? Have you ever seen the name Cecil in your life? A Hall of Famer in the fantasy industry. A literal Hall of Famer on the way. Unbelievable. Yeah, well, he said the top Denver running back looks like...

He's not the only one who said it, though. Yeah. Adam is definitely the only one who pronounced his first name that way. Cecil Lammy is someone else they both said it no there's two there's two there have been multiple denver uh media members who have said that that jaleel mclaughlin's looked like the best running back there's definitely not two cecil cecil lammy's there's a cecil and a cecil lammy there's brothers dan what are you uh the top denver running back looks like jaleel mclaughlin will javante williams even make the team wow that's that's the the part that's glaring wow yeah i

don't know my my first reaction is that's crazy like take it back and then i remember the sean payton's the head coach there and sean payton didn't bring Javante Williams onto the Broncos. And so, you know, maybe, but I'll say this about that. Well, cause I was looking into this last night when I saw this, there was a drop off in touches for Jaleel McLaughlin.

Is it McLaughlin? I don't even, is that how you pronounce it? McLaughlin McLaughlin. I don't want to pull in a hazer here. Um, Jill, Jill McLaughlin after his like initial don't want to pull in a hazer here um Julio McLaughlin after his like initial breakout last season and then he then his touches fell off and you could see it in the game

log like so he was already with Sean Payton they dialed it back I'm not so sure what would change that maybe he feels more comfortable with him in the system but he's still only 180 something pounds like there's no workhorse role for somebody who's 180 most likely the other side of that yeah what'd you say jamie oh good i was gonna say the other side is what's interesting because giovante williams everyone assumes oh you know now he's really one year removed from that acl he'll be fine but he didn't look the same at all and there are some guys who come back from the acl like wandell robinson came back from the acl last year looked pretty damn close to what he was and he's not the only player who did that breeze hall there's plenty of examples but like giovante williams but not breeze hall no i was just i think that was the first time

in podcast history that somebody put wandale robinson and breeze hall in the same category in terms of how they looked last year just ahead of breeze hall no no i mean he's got more upside explosive off the acl not comparable talents but giovante didn't look like that at all really looked like he lost a lot of what made him special at north carolina which is that force mistackle ability and the yards after contact per attempt so if those two things aren't there he's kind of just applauding um i don't even know what i would compare him to type of back maybe a zach stacy type but like late career Zach Stacey type. So I wouldn't be surprised if the latter comes true. Okay. Jonathan Brooks may not be ready for training camp. Jamie,

I know you're pretty high on Jonathan Brooks. What do you make of that? Uh, well, first there was a report that he would be ready for training camp and then mini camp started and they said he might not be ready. So I look, they don't know. I mean, why would you rush him back to, unless he's at 100%. And so I think he's got more of the long-term upside that you're looking for as opposed to the short-term. I'm not looking for him to be a starting fantasy option in September. I'm hoping he's going to be a starting fantasy option midway through October

to the end of the year. And that would be close to the year mark. He suffered the torn ACL in November and, you know, to Dan's point, um, we probably have to start to readjust our timeline a little bit about the ACL because of how modern medicine has changed, how these guys recover and get back and perform at a high level. And, you know, Brees Hall is a great example that Javante to be playing even is a great example that, you know, still producing, um, at, at a example of that, you know, still producing at a decent enough level. You know, I think that comes down to the athlete. And again, I continue to reveal the magazine a little bit.

Jacob Gibbs is taking Jonathan Brooks, I think, in every draft we've done with him. And he did so in the magazine. I asked him, you know, that's the first running back that he drafted. I believe he drafted in round five. And the question to him was, what are your expectations for him to be a starting fantasy option for you? Because that's the first running back he drafted. And he said he's confident, similar to Brees Hall, that I think he's 20 years old. 20-year-old Jonathan Brooks can get back to playing at a high level soon, or soon enough that he can produce good enough numbers. So for redraft, when you start to get into that range of RB20 to 26, 27,

I think that's where he belongs. To me, he's at the start of it, though. I'm taking him ahead of DeAndre Swift, James Conner, Ramondre Stevenson, that whole group, Najee Harris. I just think there's more upside with him if he hits, especially in Dave Canales' offense. I would probably like to get one or two of Raheem Mostert and Zeke later. I mean, you could just pair him up with Chuba Hubbard too,

but Mostert's probably going to have 15-plus touches the first few weeks of the season. He seems like a good partner for Jonathan Brooks. Can I just say something here, though, because we keep mentioning Brees Hall as if he was just fine last year. But if you compare last year to his rookie season, which granted was only 80 carries, I mean, it was not even close. Yards per carry down 1.3 yards. Everything was worth yards before contact, yards after contact, explosive run rate, 15% as a rookie, rookie 6.7 in his second season i mentioned he

had one of the worst rates of negative or or zero yard runs 25 24.7 of breese hall's carries were for zero or negative yards so the fact is he just caught the ball a ton he got so many carries he had a good year but he wasn't the same yeah but he wasn't the same i agree with all that adam but you could see in the open field he still had a different level of burst it wasn't the same as before the injury it's going to take a year exactly it wasn't but it was still burst in the open field like i think a lot of those rate stats are had to do with the jets just horrific situation on the offensive line barrett sucker like everyone getting injured there but it is what it is especially those zero or one yard carries. Personally, I feel that way about those, but it is what it is.

He wasn't perfect, but it was a different level of like return recovery with, with Javante Williams. Like he didn't look at all the same. He didn't look, he looked like to me, at least somebody who barely belongs on the field. Yeah. He didn't have a very good year at all. All right. Let's fly through the rest of these news and notes here.

And then we'll get back into the,. Can I just say one more thing, too? Because I don't know the context. You referenced that 15% explosive run rate and 6.7% last year. It sounds to me like nobody's going to have a 15% explosive run rate every year. He was a running back coming off of an ACL that had an 83-yard run, a 72-yard run, a 50-yard run, a 43-yard run, and three more runs over 25 yards. That's pretty awesome. I'm not sure Javante Williams had one run over 25 yards.

We're not comparing Brees Hall to Javante Williams. No, I know that. We're comparing Brees Hall to Brees Hall. All I'm saying is every metric was worse last year for Brees Hall than it was in his rookie season, And not just worse, significantly worse. So there is still a recovery from ACL. I just think that's all I'm saying. I expect him to be better than Javante Williams coming off the ACL

because he's better than Javante Williams without the ACL injury. You know what I mean? The bar is higher. Right. I think I was just saying like his rookie year, he averaged 5.8 yards per carry and 11.5 yards per catch. There was 0% chance. If he was 100% healthy,

he was repeating that. I know nobody does that year over year. I know it was, it was just a huge drop off from, okay. Anyway, a giants rookie running back Tyrone Tracy could be the passing downs back, which makes sense.

He's a converted wide receiver. Brian Dable, it appears, will be back to calling plays for the Giants. Joe Burrow said he'd be ready for the start of the season as he continues to recover from a wrist injury. He's talked about the mental toll that all the injuries have taken. And when we talked to Marty last week, our injury guy, Burrow was someone who we came away with. Jamie and I came away with saying, all right, maybe we felt this way beforehand, but definitely if you draft Joe Burrow, you probably want to have a backup as of right now

as we look at his injury status. Josh Allen is tweaking his mechanics. He said his mechanics changed last season as he dealt with a week six shoulder injury. By the way, that's two years in a row that Allen has gotten hurt mid-season and played through it. Jamie, it's weird to hear a guy say he's tweaking his mechanics when he's this established. Does this concern you at all? No, I think, you know, look, there's probably been any number of quarterbacks that have done

this throughout the course of their career that they tweak their mechanics because they're not happy with something or trying to make themselves better or somebody told them something that they found on on film that we just don't always hear about um i think he's just got to get used to you know checking it down to james cook a lot because that's going to be a big part of this offense um i'm not worried about him no i have one thought on this i spoke with sean mcavoy a quarterback trainer um who has worked with a lot of nfl quarterbacks and this is actually something that josh allen has done throughout his career it's this new age thing that some quarterbacks do it's it's this uh different way to tweak your mechanics biomechanics thing and it's it's using like it's kind of like um if anyone's ever done like a swing evaluation from golf tech it shows

you the percentages where you are and your drop back like throughout your whole throwing motion and he's used this throughout his career it's not. It's just something he's going back to now. Okay. Man, you love golf. It's kind of just. I do. But like those last two, and I've been leaning this way a little bit

and like, I'm not going to reveal anything for the magazine, but there's going to be a bold prediction for me about Patrick Mahomes in the magazine. Go. And Joe Burrow, like got these injury concerns. Josh Allen, he doesn't have any wide receivers. Now he's tweaking his mechanics. Jalen Hurts the second half of the season didn't look like he was

the same guy. It's feeling more and more like there should be a little bit of separation between Mahomes and everybody else in fantasy drafts. We're the only ones that seem to believe that. Yeah, tell that to ADP, right? It's crazy. Allen is still number one. It's not crazy. It's not crazy.

It's just that we don't, right. We are the only ones who seem to feel that way. Sam Darnold is going to be the, I'll get to this YouTube comment in a second. Sam Darnold is going to be the Minnesota starter as training camp opens, and then we'll see what happens from there. Matt Weber on YouTube said, did Dan remodel his bathroom? Dan was tired of being on the can.

He changed locations, but we are way behind in time and we have to make fun of Dan for something else in a minute. So let me finish up the notes here. Don't worry, I make it easy for you guys. Rams running back Blake Corum said that they're using him

more like a three down back and that pass blocking is very important to the Rams. So that's something that Kyron Williams is good at. Hopefully Blake Corum can be good at that as well. Travis Kelsey said he'll play until the wheels fall off.

AJ Brown, let's start the best shape of his life list. He says he's in the best shape of his life, motivated by the late season injury. George Pickens is working out of the slot. He's happy about that. He likes working out of the slot. Not obviously exclusively, but they'll move him around more. Amari Cooper missed minicamp. He's happy about that. He likes working out of the slot. Not obviously exclusively, but they'll move him around more.

Amari Cooper missed minicamp. He's a free agent after this season. We're going to talk about Pickens and Cooper in a little bit. And Washington rookie wide receiver Luke McCaffrey has been taking some handoffs. I'm interested to see how they use him, Heath. It's going to be very interesting with the

kickoff rules. There was a note about Deontay Foreman taking kickoff reps for the Browns. What some of these guys are going to do. interesting with the um kickoff rules uh there was a note about deontay foreman taking kickoff reps for the browns um what some of these guys are gonna do there was a video of zach ertz working on special teams um you know just trying to get his release point uh mike mcdaniel said that he thinks that by the end of the year every single star skill player is going to be asking to be on the kickoff guy the dolphins are one of the more fascinating ones because of all that speed that they have right you know so like from a dsd perspective um that's the thing exactly because that's for the dsd it's going to change a lot of how we

dsd and then we may bring back like points for special teams and fantasy things like that we 100 should do like if the nfl is making this change because they want more returns i'm going to push to get at least a couple of our leagues to add some return yard points. I know Scott Fishbowl is getting ready to start pretty quick. That's one of the things he changed this year is there are points for return yards and return touchdowns, of course. I had no idea. I had no idea. Thank you, Heath. Of course, you had no idea. Yeah, I absolutely love that. One other mcafree note i saw uh jayden daniels was talking about how he gets to the facility at 5 45 every day and there's one guy there with him and it's luke

mcafree so like cool we may have a new breakfast oh this is the cooper cut matthew stafford breakfast this may be the new breakfast oh no it's the new breakfast club. Oh, no. It's the new breakfast duo. It's the breakfast club. Adam's favorite movie. All right. Very overrated. Awful. Not awful. Not awful.

Just overrated. It's not awful. Not good, though. Yeah. All right. All right. Listen. So one other thing, because we talked to Megan Schaup yesterday about schedules for playoffs

and how in best ball people really pay attention to that. I just want to let everyone know. Tua Tungvaluwa and the Dolphins really struggle in cold weather. They have, at least in the past. And you don't want to start him in cold weather games. And Tua is at Cleveland in Week 17. So if you have him, even if you have maybe Jalen Waddell, I can't imagine you're sitting Tyreek Hill.

Just be aware they're at Cleveland in Week 17. It has nothing to do with that defense, by the way, just the weather. No, it's bad. Both things are bad. I don't know that they have a single cold weather game all year other than that. They are at Green Bay on November 28th. That's the only other one that might be a cold weather game. Unfortunately, they do have the Jets in Week 14, the Niners in Week 16, but those are home games at Houston. I mean, it's a tough schedule, bad defenses down the stretch,

but I just wanted to— Good defenses. Yeah's a tough schedule. Bad defenses down the stretch. But I just wanted to... Good defenses. Yeah, bad matchups. Good defenses down the stretch. Jets, Texans, 49ers, Cleveland. That's their last four. My goodness. Maybe by then it'll stop raining.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I hope it's not too bad over there. I know a lot of flooding. Okay, let's see what happened on Monday on CBS Sports Network. We played Fantasy Feud, and I tried to explain the rules to Dan. And Heath, I'm not sure if you saw this.

Let's roll the clip. So we played Fantasy Feud, Dan versus Jamie. And go ahead, let's roll the clip. The way you buzz in is just by saying your name. That's the best we're going to do here. Let's go to our first category. The top six answers are on the board. Here's the category.

Tight end touchdown catch leaders. Jamie. Jamie. Sam Laporta. He is the number one answer. Would you like to pass or play? Oh, it's more fun to watch Dan sweat. Let's pass.

I happen to agree with you on this one. Okay. You got five more touchdown catch leaders at the tight end position from last year. Sam Laporta is off the board. Who else led the position? Okay, Dan, let's go. I already missed the rules. Oh, we love it man yeah i can't be the only one who's never watched family feud but you knew like all you had it was your turn to answer and then yeah i heard jamie go jamie

before his answer right yeah because that's how the so then i thought that's how you start a thing off it's like a it's like a jeopardy thing. Like, you know, you have to ask a question. This is a similar thing. You got to say your name. Oh man.

All right. Back to the regression candidates. We talked about Nico. We talked about IU. Just curious. Heath, where do you have them ranked? I think Nico is wide receiver 16 and IU is 18 or 15 and 17.

They are very, very, those Nico Debo IU are all very close. I really want to move Tank Dell up and just put those four right in a row, honestly. Okay, so then let's go to Amari Cooper and George Pickens. These are two other wide receivers that have efficiency regression coming. We have a lot more that have touchdown regression, but Amari Cooper and George Pickens. Yeah. Cooper last year in his age 29 season averaged put two and a half more yards

per catch than he ever had in his career, uh, more yards per target than he had since 2019. And like, you just don't, you don't want to bet on that repeating itself. Now, I think with both Cooper and Pickens, there's reasons to think they can make up for it because Cooper was so much better when Deshaun Watson was there. And it's the inverse for Dave Njoku. If Deshaun Watson plays 17 games, Dave Njoku might be on the waiver wire by week six.

But that's the hope is that Watson playing a full season, if he does that, will be good enough for Cooper in terms of targets that he makes up for it. The hope for Pickens, who was, he led the NFL in yards per catch, right? It's going to see a huge regression in terms of that. The hope for Pickens is he's the clear number one wide receiver in this offense. And we know what a number one wide receiver in Arthur Smith's offense can do yeah and in four games that he played without Deontay Johnson it was just 127 75 25 and 130 yards he had two touchdowns he had huge games against Cleveland and Baltimore he had a 29 percent target share, 26.4% target per route run rate. So Heath, I mean, that's the thing with Pickens. Do you think that unlike Debo, unlike Nico and Iuke, that this guy

could see 140? Is that a lot? 140 targets for Pickens? I think that's probably a little bit too much. But I would say 125, 130 is certainly possible. You could think that many in an Arthur Smith system? I don't. I think it's possible. I mean, first off, yes, there's no other wide receivers, but also I think it's possible that we see more pass attempts from an Arthur Smith system if Russell Wilson's the quarterback or Justin Fields is the quarterback as opposed to Taylor Heineke or Marcus Mariota or Desmond Ritter see that that's

a great point Heath because you got to go back to Smith's first season in Atlanta when he had Matt Ryan and that's you know I referenced this a few times over the last couple years when I spoke to him for the magazine story and this is not revealing anything for the magazine story last year on B. John Robinson and you know I asked him about Drake London and Kyle Pitts and you know it was kind of telling what he said about Pitts which was when we had a veteran quarterback we threw the ball more and that was the case when you know he had a guy that he trusted whether you believed in Matt Ryan or not he did and he believed that he could at least keep this offense from a passing standpoint afloat as opposed to what he had the last two years in the Mariota Ritter Heineke situation. And so whether you believe

in Ryan Tannehill and what he had in Tennessee, whether you believe in Russell Wilson now, or Justin Fields, whoever's going to start the majority of those games, I think he will allow that offense to throw the ball more to whatever degree it is, whether it's 10% more, 20% more, 50% more, you know, I don't think that'll be the case, but 10 to 20% seems more realistic with Russell Wilson. And for Pickens, I mean, my gosh, you said it, the receiving core behind him could be absolutely atrocious, you know, and, and we hope Roman Wilson can step in and be that second guy. It's why I like Pat Fryer. I think he's in line for a big season as that second target getter, because I think that's what it'll be. But, uh, Mark, uh, Kabali,ali, who covers the Steelers for The Athletic,

he was talking about Van Jefferson right now as the starter, but it's just a hodgepodge of guys that they may be throwing into that second spot. I think they're viewing Wilson Moore as the slot guy. It's just an opportunity for Pickens to absolutely dominate targets, and I think he's going to have an absolutely monstrous season. That's easy to see. Why, though, do you think people are not taking Amari Cooper seriously? He's about to be 30 years old. I think he turns 30 in like two days. Amari Cooper. And I get that. But man, he was so good last year. He's mentioned, I mean, the efficiency too high, basically at his best season in terms of efficiency.

But that was also with a few games with Dorian Thompson-Robinson dragging him down. So, whether it was Flacco or Watson, the guy was one of the elite receivers in the league. Yeah, I don't know. He's about wide receiver 29, 30, depending on ADP. I don't really see. All right, I'll just go ahead and say it. I'd take him over Tank Dell, and I'd take him over Zay Flowers,

and I don't know that many people would do that. But do you not have any concern about another mouth defeat in this offense on top of the fact that the quarterback is coming back from a shoulder injury? So, more so the Watson thing. You're talking about Jerry Judy. You know, Cooper was pretty good

last year with Elijah Moore getting a lot of targets with Watson Watson really liked Elijah Moore I think I think it's going to be like Najoku and Moore obviously who suffer target wise more than Cooper personally and yeah I am worried about it but getting him at wide receiver 29 or even 24 there's no concern there. Yeah, but even if it's like 24, that's still like a lot worse than what he was last year. I think it was 15th per game last year. Yeah, I mean, look, he's the Tyler Lockett. He's the Brandon Cooks.

He's the guy that we, and to whatever degree you want to rate those guys, but he's the guy that we're going to say, I don't want him, I don't want him. And then he outproduces his ADP and performs at a high level because he's a good player, you know, but last year there was some career numbers there that you have to be a little bit concerned about. And I think this is where the regression comes in. I think a career high in yards, if I'm not mistaken. And, and you're, you're asking him to overcome a couple of things that I think could be hard for him to overcome, you know, and look, if part of what he was able to do last year, and this sort of plays into, you know, pros and cons of what you think of Nick Chubb, but the run game wasn't the same. And if the run game is back to being, you know,

what the Browns I think want it to be, then maybe the past game isn't as successful and they're not asking their quarterbacks to do as much. And so that, I think that's, that's, that's a factor also. So for me, Cooper's a high end number three receiver. I don't mind taking him as early as 24. I would personally take tank Dell over him, but I would take him ahead of Zay Flowers. I think there's a little bit more safety there, just given the, the, the, the track record and what he should still be able to do, especially with Derek Henry joined in the Ravens, but, um, that's putting Harris, you know, if you want the younger guy, that's going to be clearly the number one receiver on his offense as well. Uh, you can go that route, but Cooper, I think is, is, is going to be clearly the number one receiver on his offense as well. You can go that route.

But Cooper, I think, is a high-end number three receiver with a chance to finish still in the top 20 if everything works out well. But that's asking a lot for what Watson is coming off of and the addition of somebody else. Anybody like Malik Nabors better than Cooper? No chance. Do you like Cooper better than Nabors? You. No, I'd take Cooper. I think Adam's ranking goes CD lamb, Tyree kill,

maybe Jefferson, St. Brown chase neighbors. And then you gotta, you gotta put one deal in there somewhere. No, that's dad. Yeah.

All right. If we said enough about Amari Cooper, anybody want to add anything? All right. We can be good. It's good. All want to add anything? All right, we can be good. I think it's good. All right, let's take a break. Before we go to break, I just want to say something. There's a character on The Simpsons.

His name is Cecil Terwilliger. It was a hitter on the Tigers and the Yankees. His name was Cecil Fielder. None of this has anything to do with Cecil Lammy. Okay, but I think Heath was like, have you never seen the name Cecil written out before? No, I thought he said, have you never heard of Cecil Lammy

who's been in the fantasy industry for years? Yeah, no, you said that. That's not me. But the Cecil thing, I actually think I'm right about that, obviously. Let's go to break and talk about touchdown regression when we come back. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey.

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Don't overthink how you hydrate. Life's full of choices. Smart water is a simple one. A lot of names here. So touchdown regression wide receivers. Heath, if we break it into two categories, you had Jordan Addison who had 10 touchdowns on 108 targets. Brandon Cooks who had eight touchdowns on 81 targets.

Jaden Reed who had eight touchdowns on 94 targets and two rushing touchdowns. Those are the regressing down in terms of touchdowns. So that would be Jaden Reed, Jordan Addison, and Brandon Cooks. And then the guys who hopefully will score more touchdowns are Michael Pittman, Chris Godwin, Garrett Wilson, and Drake London. I think I've got them all. All right, let's start with the Addison, Cooks, and Jaden Reed group there.

Too many touchdowns last year based on the targets. I'm guessing that's what we got. Well, and I think it's easy to just, real quick, if you look at what Addison did last year, you would think he's a number three wide receiver, and he's young, and so maybe he takes a step forward, and maybe he's a low-end number two wide receiver. You're just looking at his fantasy production. And I don't think that's the case. I like Jordan Addison a lot.

But with Sam Darnold maybe starting the season at quarterback and then maybe going to a rookie quarterback, it's hard to project a big jump in terms of efficiency. And the touchdown regression is going to hit hard i think with brandon cooks you could look at it and say man there's no other wide receivers there and he was somewhat relevant sometimes he was only relevant when he scores touchdowns i don't think brandon cooks matters at all does it matter to you at all that brandon cooks was sixth in the nfl and end zone targets and that Dak Prescott, I mean, the Cowboys were fourth in pass rate inside the 10-yard line,

which I thought was kind of interesting. They didn't have their goal line back last year. Yeah, I know, I know. But they don't have a good running game. And Zeke is, he's back, he is back. But they've actually been top eight in that stat in two of the last three seasons. I mean, does that matter to you that he had that role,

that Dak seemed to trust him? By the way, CeeDee Lamb was second in end zone targets. Cooks was sixth. Dak threw 57 passes into the end zone, which was a career, 67 passes into the end zone, which was by far a career high. But does that role do anything for you? Does it translate from one season to the next?

Not at the level of Brandon Cook's target share, no. Okay. Does anybody think Jaden Reed could reach 10 touchdowns? Well, let's take away the rushing touchdowns. Eight touchdowns for Jaden Reed this year. I would have to take the under on that. So much target competition there. I think it comes down to how healthy Christian Watson is

and the asymmetry between his legs. Look, he's going to be a big focal point of the offense. But like Dan said, there's a lot of mouths to feed there. Most of his big games came when Watson wasn't there. But I think he did have to factor in the rushing production. Two rushing touchdowns, I don't think you want to count on it. but they seem to want to use him in this Debo Samuel type role. Now, he only had 11 carries. I think we kind of make a little bit too much of it, but there's still an opportunity for him to be a factor there.

And again, that was 11 carries as a rookie. Who knows if that role increases with or without the addition of Josh Jacobs, which should hopefully add a better run game to the Packers. I think in a lot of ways, the production from Jaden Reed as a rookie that was fueled in some ways, really a lot of ways by the touchdowns, which I think will regress, has him very mispriced. I like Jaden Reed a lot as a talent, but to me, that Packers wide receiver core is going to be a lot more spread out than people realize or think, and there's going to be a lot less predictability. And yet Jaden Reed seems to go considerably ahead of a lot of these players, specifically Dontavian Wicks and Romeo Dobbs. And I'm not so certain the gap makes too much sense for me, at least. My expectation with that. And I was tweeting about this yesterday. Like I think Dobbs is the guy who's probably not

coming off the field very often. He like that a lot too. He's their professional wide receiver. And the other guys are more explosive and are more fun for fantasy and are going to have these huge spike weeks, which I like. But yeah, I've got Reed projected for 6.2 receiving touchdowns and 0.4 rushing touchdowns.

Jaden Reed has had a 72.3% slot rate last year. It is difficult for a player to play that much in the slot and have a great season. Maybe the slot rate comes down, but the only guy, I brought this up before, that had a true standout fantasy season with that kind of slot rate, 70% or higher, I would say would be Tyler

Boyd in 2018. So, you know, and yeah, Jaden Reed didn't quite have a standout season despite those touchdowns. He was 25th per game in full PPR. It was a very good season. Also the target chair. I mean, the weeks four through 13 with Christian Watson, he had a, he was on pace for 83 targets, 83 targets, 19.4% target per out run rate for Jaden Reed. Of course could get better as a, as a second year guy, but Watson hurt him for sure. All right. Then how about the other guys, Michael Pittman who had it? Well, in his last, in four seasons, he's had one, six, four,

and four touchdowns. Michael Pittman, Garrett Wilson had three touchdowns last year, and two of them were in the first two weeks of the season. Drake London, two touchdowns on 109 targets. And Chris Godwin, five touchdowns in his last two seasons on 272 targets. That's two years in a row for Chris Godwin. So what do we do with that, Heath? It happens two years in a row sometimes. Godwin so what do we do with that Heath? It happens two years in a row sometimes like 17 games is a really small sample size

34 is better but how many fantasy baseball decisions do you want to make for the rest of the year based on 34 games? I mean I thought the Royals were good before this week Exactly, yeah it's been a tough week for them I'm glad that I waited to

start watching baseball until the Celtics were done winning the championship. Oh, wow. They're not quite done yet. But, yeah, I think I completely lost my train of thought. You snuck in the trolling really well. I don't even know. Heath, how did you become a Celtics fan?

I lived in rural Missouri in the 80s. There was no basketball team within seven hours of me. I chose Larry Bird. Uh, so you just picked one of the best teams that this is a class is like the New Jersey Cowboys fans. Who should I have chosen? Dan, I guess just choose the best team. I mean, look, you got Jason Tatum.

It must be a nice life when you just root for all of the best teams. I went through the Antoine Walker years. Okay. That's why Walker won a championship. It's a nice life when you just root for all of the best teams. I went through the Antoine Walker years, okay? Antoine Walker won a championship. All Heath does is win championships. No, he left before the championship. No, no, you went with the Heath. You won a championship.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Heath. With what? I have no idea. We trolled our way into a platoon. Michael Pittman, Garrett Wilson. I'm going to take it.

I think everyone expects a lot of touchdowns from Garrett Wilson. We got the Aaron Rodgers thing. So Pittman, London, and Godwin. Do any of them score eight touchdowns this year? I could see London potentially doing it. I could see all three doing it. Pittman's the hardest one to get there, but I could see all three doing it. Pittman's the hardest one to get there, but I could see all three. Pittman's the hardest one for me to get there on.

Yes, I agree that it's possible. I don't project that for any of them, but I think they all score more touchdowns than Jaden Reed. I agree with that. Interesting. Cool. Let's go to tight ends. I think the thing for for uh for london and for

wilson is i mean the the the quarterback upgrade is just so huge like you know we have somebody in the in the chat continuing to um not be in favor of of london um which is fine you know you don't have to draft him if you don't want to but it's hard to overlook the pedigree and what he should be able to accomplish this year you know and so um i i don't know what you have projected for heath i would say for me the baseline for all four of these guys you know maybe outside of godwin would be six touchdowns with the hope of them you know getting to that number and anything north of that should be great because what they should be able to do with their catches in their yards will hopefully overcome that. Now, clearly, that's a PPR, non-PPR thing.

But I think for these guys, you could be talking about 90-plus catches for almost all of them. Right. Yeah, I've got – in fact, I think I have that for all of them except for London. I think I have in the 80s. But I don't understand how many – I think we're kind of just guessing on how many times they're going to pass. They keep talking like balls. And you're by, at least from our group, the low guy in London, which makes sense.

Right. So what do you think, if I were going to look at a stat and see how it correlates to touchdowns, I'm thinking maybe explosive play rate among these wide receivers. Not so much tight ends necessarily.

Maybe, what do you think, end zone targets? Red zone targets for me. Red zone targets? Because this is the problem with Pittman, right, just on the surface. He doesn't, he hasn't. I still think he's capable of more, so I just want to say that. And I guess I'd throw London in there too, but Pittman. Like, Pittman has not made explosive plays he's had a low a dot and he doesn't make explosive

plays i don't think he's ranked higher than 50th in explosive play rate among wide receivers with 50 or more targets in any year of his career maybe one and and he's not getting a ton of like end zone targets so right how do you score if you're not making big plays? Well, you do what he did last year, which is to insert absurd amount of volume. But he didn't score. He only scored four touchdowns. Right.

So I'm going to try to look into that and see if there is a stat that helps us predict touchdowns a little bit more. Because it's not just getting targets. Some people do more with their targets. They make big plays. Or I think AD dot is a big part of this too right like well keenan allen i i think probably um and i don't know how the

problem is i think the things that maybe are most predictive of touchdowns are not necessarily the easiest to predict yeah on a year-to-year the stickiest on a year-to-year basis um like if you're looking backwards and saying what's led to the most touchdowns, that's probably pretty easy. But we know that year-over-year touchdowns are the thing that win you fantasy leagues and also swing wildly beyond our expectations. I'm just wondering if there's a profile of, okay, we want a guy that goes this far down the field typically

i think what would help is if he played on a team that's through a lot more touchdown passes yeah i think that's the key to it like even if you think like the a dot was i i was thinking about you said something about a dot adam but what about all those years like when jimmy graham was racking up touchdowns with a really low a dot so just being that red zone guy that just you can't match up one-on-one against and you can't you know in the red zone you can't allocate more than one defender and you just throw it up for him i think yeah i was gonna lump i was gonna put wide receivers and tight ends differently because differently yeah that might be the case well i mean you talk about dk metcalf's uh end zone targets all the time and

that has not always necessarily translated you know right right true you know i i think what i what i tend to look for is quarterback tendencies you know what are they doing in the red the red zone? You know, not necessarily the receivers run zone targets, because in case of, you know, the guys that we're talking about, they're all getting quarterback changes. Yes. Yes. But, you know, you think of. All right. I'm going to I think I'm going to start with explosive play rate, which which is very much tied to a dot, you know, because I think one of the reasons why Pittman doesn't make big plays is because they don't throw the ball to him downfield. But think about who his quarterbacks have been. I agree. I agree. But, but that's just the way he's been used. I'm not saying it will change, but it's possible that Pittman is going to be a short area guy.

He has been for much of his career. I will say the year that he had like a normal touchdown rate, which was six on 129 targets, the team threw 27 touchdown passes. Yep. The past two years, they've thrown 35 combined. That was Rivers, right? That's still not that good, though. Was it Rivers or Wentz?

Right. No, Rivers was his rookie season. It was Wentz. It's still not that good, six touchdowns. It's not great. It's harder for him to be, if you're drafting him, like, oh, he could be a top five receiver. He can't do it with six touchdowns.

Six on 129, if you're looking at 150, now we, he could be a top five receiver. He can't do it with six touchdowns. Six on 129. If you're looking at 150, now we're at seven. Okay. All right. You're also not drafting him as a top five receiver. Heath, I'm going to let you host the end of the show. Do you have your tight end list? Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. I am sorry. I have to run and be a father for, like, 10 minutes with no one's home except for my daughter. Thank you you guys. Good show. Heath, let us know where we can find your work

and enjoy the rest of FFMT. See ya. So the guy at tight end who starts the list is the guy who's a lot of people's tight end one. And when I run my projections, he actually doesn't come out as tight end one. And when I run my projections, he actually doesn't come out as tight end one because his production last year was based pretty heavily on the fact that he scored 10 touchdowns on 120 targets at Sam Laporta. He had 86 catches for 889 yards. That's awesome for

a rookie tight end. But I think the question is with Jamison Williams role increasing Jamie, is Sam Laporta going to see a big enough increase in catches and yards to make up for the fact that he's probably going to score like seven or eight touchdowns if the volume's the same as it was last year? So I guess the big question would be is how much of Jamison Williams' role is going to increase. There are 64 targets, I believe, that are vacated with Josh Reynolds gone. And so does he see 50 of those,

40 of those, 30 of those? How much of it obviously is sustainable year over year, the exact same numbers. The thing that I like about Laporta is what you talked about. He did this as a rookie. And typically when we see these guys make a leap, it's in their second year because they understand things a little bit easier and their role changes a little bit. And so I don't necessarily want to count on him scoring 10 touchdowns. I think eight is realistic for him. But I also love the fact that Ben Johnson stayed. Jared Goff is still there.

They lost at least a piece of the passing game. And I know they said, Jameer Gibbs love a bigger role. And obviously David Montgomery, and we've talked about this time and time again, in the two years that this regime has been there, they've scored a lot of rushing touchdowns, but I don't think you pay Jared Goff what you paid him to necessarily say

we're just going to continue to be a run-heavy team. They're going to be balanced, and they're going to continue to put the ball in the hands of their playmakers. And to me, he's their second-best playmaker in the passing game behind Amon Russ St. Brown. So for me, he is my tight end one. It's not based on the touchdowns. It's based on the other things improving.

But clearly this is why we're going to have a lot of debate over him versus Kelsey mostly. But I think you throw in McBride, you throw in Andrews as who else could be tight in one. Those four guys are going to be very heavily debated. For me, though, I'm banking on Laporta improving in year two in some of the other areas while the touchdowns may come down by a couple. So, Dan, of course I wanted to save this guy for you because he's a former Giant. You probably have a jersey of his in your closet. Evan Ingram, one of the guys that I think I get complaints about the most because he was so much better in terms of, I gave him full PPR last year. He may have ended up finishing first or second. He finished tight end two, but let's be clear. The reason he finished tight end two, he went into week 18 as tight end six

and scored 18 point something points in a game that most fantasy managers are not counting toward their season, week 18. I don't take that away from him. He actually scored 24 points in week 18, but it started way before that. Weeks one through 12,

Christian Kirk was healthy. Evan Ingram averaged seven.5 targets per game. Week 13, Christian score touchdowns. He still wasn't super efficient. If Christian Kirk plays all year this year, where does Evan Ingram finish amongst tight ends? I like the group up top. I have my big core guys, probably five or six. I'd probably say he's going to be in the tight end eight range, tight end eight, nine range.

I think that's probably right, Jamie i i talk i say this sometimes and i don't even know if it's true with evan ingram but like when you're comparing him to kyle pitts and dalton kincaid and brock bowers a thing that i think i might say is well yeah if you're betting on who's going to score the most fantasy points it's probably ingram but if you're betting on who has the best chance to be a top five guy which which Ingram was last year, I don't really think if Kirk stays healthy, Ingram has near as good a chances of other guys finishing top five. Would you agree with that? No, because I think the Kirk thing is definitely valid, but they also just lost two receivers. And so, you know, losing Kirk was, was a big piece of the puzzle, but also now you have to sort of retool how this offense is going to look

because are they all of a sudden going to say, Brian Thomas, you're Calvin Ridley in your rookie season versus a guy I know who was coming off a missed season, but he was still a veteran. And Gabe Davis, are you all of a sudden going to be Calvin Ridley or Zay Jones? And we've seen what he's sort of become. He's a very good NFL receiver because he blocks and he makes big plays, but he's just not consistent. He's never been more than a 90- know, 90 some odd target guy year over year. And so when you look at what the two key pieces are in this passing game, I think it's Kirk one Ingram two, and then figure out the rest. And so I think with the guys missing, this is why I like Ebony. Now I don't

like him more than KK, but I think when you put him in the next group, which for me is Ingram Kittle, Ingram pits, Kittle is how I have it ranked. And it changes a little bit in non-PPR and half PPR because you have to worry about the touchdowns for him because Trevor Lawrence had a touchdown problem in his career. So has Ingram in his time in Jacksonville. So I look at more what he did without Kirk and sort of bump it down a little bit because, again, there was a guy missing in the middle of the field

as opposed to now changing things on the outside. i also think you know what he does in the scene how he creates mismatches how this offense creates mismatches i mean you go back to doug peterson and what he was able to do with zach ertz and dallas goddard in his time in philadelphia and then when he's done with ingram in the year plus because it was a little bit of a slow start also in his first year there for them i'm counting on him to sort of pick up where he left off and play at the level that he did without Kirk there. Not to the same level from a production standpoint, but close to it and enough that he feels like the safest of the group in the next group because of Kittle's injury concerns.

Pitts, we know about his struggles. If you want to put Kincaid in that group too, clearly he hasn't done it yet. So for me, Ingram is tight end six and I'm perfectly happy taking him. And I like the way he falls, you know, when people reach for him, that's fine. But when he falls on draft day, because people will still take Kittle and pits over him and I get it. To me, Ingram and PPR is about as safe as you can find. I think in full PPR, especially that makes sense in half PPR or non PPR. I'm not sure. And non PPR, I'm not sure that Evan Ingram is going to be a top 12 tight end this year, But Dan, there's a guy I have ranked right behind Ingram. And these two are the only guys that it was like volume is what's going to regress for them.

It's David Njoku. And it wasn't another pass catcher that was a problem for him. The problem was his starting quarterback. We've seen Kevin Stefanski's offenses historically 24% to 26% target share for tight ends. That's been true across multiple quarterbacks even multiple teams when it's changed is the few games that we've seen Deshaun Watson play for the Cleveland Browns and you look at the first three weeks of last year 24 yards 48 yards 20 yards for Njoku those were all with Watson two later in the year, he was at 26 and 58 yards.

Just did not see the target volume at all. We talked about it with Amore Cooper. Watson was great for him, terrible for David Njoku. Are you sure that he's even a top 12 tight end this year? I'm not sure. He's the one I was looking at that list. I'd be least likely to draft. I don't think he'll end up on any of my teams. It goes even deeper I mean, this is historic for Deshaun Watson. He never really used his tight ends and Houston didn't have as much talent there as a new Joker type, but it's just not how he reads the field in my mind. They've also added Jerry Judy to the mix. They also drafted another receiver with a day two pick. I think second year in a row, they've done that Cedric Tillman year before. And I'm blanking on who they drafted in this class,

but it was somebody solid. Um, and now I'm playing trash. Yes. Thrash. Maybe that was day three receiver, but somebody who's actually a talented receiver come out of Louisville. So I just think that this is not a situation. I like Joe Flacco also historically used his tight ends back in Baltimore using Joku. So I think there's a lot of, it was dependent a lot on the quarterback situation. Plus I'm not even sure, like I want to buy into Cleveland Browns passing game with a quarterback coming off shoulder surgery who didn't look good at all before the shoulder surgery. So there's a lot of factors there that lead me down a path that I'm just avoiding him

probably altogether in my drafts. I, I think you could just avoid the Browns, at least in the single digit rounds. And if somebody, if somebody is available in the double digit rounds, then maybe it's worth a flyer. But Amari Cooper was also really good with Sean Watson last year, so maybe not. Jamie, we have to start with you on Trey McBride because Dan well-documented how much he hates Trey McBride.

I don't hate him as much as it's documented. Let me be clear. I just don't like his ranking that high. But I think the question is, how much does Marvin Harrison impact his volume? So how much does the volume regress because they have a true number one wide receiver? And then the second side of that is, Trey McGride played most of last year with either terrible quarterback play or Kyler Murray coming off of a long absence. How much does – and Ben Gretsch said this on the Dynasty show.

I, watching him, saw this. Dan doesn't necessarily feel the same way, but he made some plays just physically. Catches over the middle and stuff after the catch. I thought he made some great plays with those types of catches. It looked like an elite tight end. Do you think that the efficiency gets enough better to make up for the loss in volume for McBride? There's so much at play for him. You mentioned the addition of Harrison, but it's not just him.

I mean, they've kind of retooled this receiving core with harrison with zay jones you know and and so just adding pieces whatever you think of uh you know jones and hopefully healthy michael wilson and greg dorch you know who uh as kyler murray said if he's six foot three he's the best receiver in nfl history um you know they still have two pass catching backs now in Connor and Benson. And so, you know, you, you, you said it, he did it last year. Really. It was most of it was with Kyler Murray because of week six was when they, they got rid of Zach Ertz. And I believe Kyler was back in week 10, um, if I'm not mistaken. Uh, so part of that also the Marquise Brown being in and out of the lineup too. I do think that he belongs in the upper echelon, the top tier of tight ends.

And I think this is a different year because we're not going to say Kelsey is by himself and then the rest of the group. I think there's a tier of four with Kelsey, Laporta, and Andrews. The question is, A, will he score enough touchdowns? Because that's not something he did last year to a high level. B, how much do you trust Kyler Murray coming back from the ACL tier? And C, can he support two guys? Because we're drafting two guys in the first four rounds in Marvin Harrison and Trey McBride to that level,

which we really haven't seen from him consistently. You know, there was a stretch with Marquise Brown and DeAndre Hopkins, but for the most part, it was one or the other. And Larry Fitzgerald, I think at the beginning of Kyler's tenure, if I'm not mistaken, was the guy there. It's just a lot to ask of Kyler. That being said, I think this offense, you know, you talked about Kevin Stefanski's offense. Where does this offense coordinator come from?

He comes from Cleveland. What did we see from this offense last year? It wasn't just that stretch of production from McBride. It was Zach Ertz doing some nice things in the beginning part of the season with Josh Dobbs, who we know is not exactly the most prolific passer. So I think the offense is catered to McBride being successful. I think the quarterback will be able to rely on him and produce enough for him that he should be in this group. But is he going to come near the touchdown total for Laporta? And hopefully, Kelsey, from what we usually see and even Andrews probably not

if the receptions aren't to the same level that we saw last year then I think that bumps him down a little bit even further and so for me he's fourth and and I've said this a few times I think he's closer to Kincaid as tight end five as he is to Laporta Kelsey as tight end one and that's not a knock on him by any stretch it's just that I would rather have him as the fourth tight end one. And that's not a knock on him by any stretch. It's just that I would rather have him as the fourth tight end as opposed to the first time. Jamie hit on something, Dan, that I wanted to follow up and ask you about, because I've heard a lot of people this off season talking about Hunter Henry, the Patriots tight ends and Alex Van Pelt showing up there and how they throw a lot of tight end screens. We saw those go to David Njoku last year as well. That was something I noticed with McBride. He had an average depth of target of six yards downfield, I think. When the quarterback got in trouble in Arizona a lot

of times, it wasn't a dump off to the running back. It was a dump off to Trey McBride in the flat. I do think that's going to be more open with Marvin Harrison on the field. I think he is going to help the efficiency of McBride this year. I think that's definitely true. McBride will have more efficiency. I don't want it to seem like I'm dragging McBride. I think we did a beyond the box score where I watched him make some spectacular catches away from his frame over the middle of the field. My issue with McBride is I always felt like he had more of a Jason Witten type ceiling. I don't see that much post catch explosion or red zone prowess. And he only had three touchdowns last season. I think that could go, that number could stay the same

with Marvin Harrison there. But my question is, will those dump downs be more likely to go to a player like Trey Benson now in the mix, who was really good at the screen game at Florida State? Maybe it's not the case. Maybe the way that offense works, it is through the tight end in those situations as a safety valve, which I still think could be the case. And I could be looking back at this thing like, you know what?

McBride has so many receptions. It's a one-two offense. It's very concentrated there. But I see, I just, it's the touchdown upside that kind of caps me from seeing the total ceiling there. The last tight end I want to talk about, and we mentioned him already, Dalton Kincaid, the guy that Jamie has right behind Trey McBride. Jamie, I think that the key for Dalton Kincaid having his big breakout

is the touchdowns. And Dawson Knox is still there. And despite the fact that Dawson Knox missed some time last year, Jamie. I think that the key for Dalton Kincaid having his big breakout is the touchdowns. Dawson Knox is still there. Despite the fact that Dawson Knox missed some time last year, he had one fewer red zone target than Dalton Kincaid, who really had a decent rookie year, except for the fact that he didn't really score. How do you think those red zone targets are distributed between Knox and Kincaid this year? Can he be a guy who challenges like Laporta to score eight to 10 touchdowns? I don't know if that's necessarily the role that they're going to ask him to play.

I think Knox's role stays the same. I think Kincaid sort of is going to be a little bit of a Diggs replacement, a little bit of a Davis replacement, a lot more of what Kincaid was able to accomplish and sort of make him the focal point of the offense. And that's not necessarily because he's that talented. I think it's just because of what's happening around him. You know, Khalil Shakir

is a, is a nice player. He doesn't profile as an alpha and he's already banged up. Keon Coleman should eventually become that guy. At least that's the hope, but he's a rookie. Curtis Samuel, we know is not that guy. So, you know, Kincaid is going to be somebody that has the opportunity similar to what Travis Kelsey has done to lead his team in targets. And if that happens from a passer and a player like Josh Allen, I don't think the touchdowns necessarily have to just be red zone touchdowns. And, you know, you mentioned Dawson Knox and his numbers spiked in terms of Kincaid when Knox wasn't there. His numbers also spiked from a target share perspective

and also production step perspective when Gabe Davis missed week 18 through the playoffs. And so that was, you know, sort of, again, somebody missing, he stepped up and was more involved. And so if you're Joe Brady and you're looking at the pieces that you have right now at your disposal, it's Coleman, I think with a question exclamation point, like, you know, could be great, but we don't know. Shakir, similar. Samuel, you know what you have, but not necessarily to the same potential upside, at least in my mind, as those other guys. And then as we spent some time earlier this week talking about, I think James Cook is going to be a guy that went from 50 catches in the nine games

with Joe Brady to maybe 70 catches in this offense with Joe Brady. And so can KK get to eight touchdowns? I think that's realistic. Again, I don't want to count on that, but I do think he could be a 90-catch guy. I think he could be a 900-yard kind of guy. And if he gets six to eight touchdowns, then he's going to be in the top five range. So that's kind of the player that I'm looking at here is somebody that has a skill set as a receiving threat that can take that next step forward. That will do it for wide receiver and tight end regression candidates.

As Adam mentioned earlier, my name is Heath Cummings. You can find me on Twitter at Heath Cummings SR. You can find me on Tuesdays and Fridays at FFT Dynasty. For Adam, for Jamie, for Dan, for Thomas, we'll talk to you next time.