Fantasy Football Today - Regression Candidates: Beyond the Box Score (07/01 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 1, 2023

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  We learn about regression and which players stand to benefit or lose in 2023 as we bring in Jared Smola of Draft Sharks for today's show! We talk about teams that could regress (2:15) like the Cowboys and Dolphins and possibly the Broncos (12:25). Remember, regression isn't always a bad thing! The Broncos can't possibly be as bad as they were last season, could they? And what kind of regression are the Browns in for this season (20:55)? ... After our team discussion, it's time to get into regression for individual players with a focus on touchdown regression (28:50). Jacob Gibbs tells us how aDOT and TD rate correlate and which players should see an improvement in their TD rate this season. We also look at a few players including George Kittle (35:40) who are likely to score fewer TDs in 2023 ... A look at deep catch regression and why it matters (43:10) and running back TD regression (54:05) with an eye on Dameon Pierce and Rhamondre Stevenson ... Email us at [e-mail] 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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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. All right, we're talking about regression today on another episode. I'm going to call it an awesome episode. They've all been awesome. This will be no exception of Beyond the Boxscore. Welcome, everybody. I'm Adam Azer with Dan Schneier and Jacob Gibbs. I love this trio.

We're going to add another awesome guest to it today. Jacob, tell us who we're bringing on today. Yeah, no pressure, Jared, but we're going for awesome. Jared is an awesome fantasy analyst over at DraftSharks, has the second highest multi-season expert accuracy score, according to Fantasy Pro. So across the 2019 through 2021 seasons, the second most accurate of anyone in the contest. If you have been keeping up with the Beyond the Box score guest list, you maybe are catching on that I'm just inviting all the people that I can't quite catch on the rating score and trying to see what they're doing, uh,

get their secret sauce. Um, but yeah, I, I love Jared's content on Twitter. Um, and I've been really, really excited to have him on the show. So thanks for coming on Jared. Thanks for having me guys. I I'm a sure I'm going to learn a lot today, so I'm just hoping I can contribute a little something to the conversation. And this is Jared Smola of DraftSharks at SmolaDS, S-M-O-L-A-D-S. And it is our pleasure to have you on here. We're going to be talking about regression. So Jacob, yeah, what do people need to know about regression, including are we going to get yelled at for people like gaining touchdowns and us calling that regression instead of progression or something like that? Yeah, we've got a lot to talk about on the team level side of things.

We'll get into some specific players and the positive regression, negative regression, however you want to label it. Just players who maybe should have scored more, should have been more efficient with the opportunities that they did get last year. Just really trying to add context to the baseline numbers that we got and see if we can get some values heading into 2023. All right, where do we begin? So on the team side of things, I really wanted to bring up the Dallas Cowboys. Something I looked at, I tweeted this out. It's a chart that charts their points per drive and a team's yards per drive and just has a trend line there, and there's a few teams that stand out,

and none more so than the Cowboys. The Cowboys were seventh in points per drive in 2022 but we're only 18th in yards per drive and I think in conjunction with what we've seen this offseason I'm not encouraged about the move from Kellen Moore to Brian Schottenheimer I think they're going to play a lot slower I'm a little bit worried when I project Dallas if If I don't think that they're going to be as efficient as they were last year and then the scoring is going to come down to match something closer to the yards per drive, I think we could have some concerns with guys who are getting drafted really high here. So if you look at the highest touchdown to rush ratio, so simply the amount of rushes that resulted in touchdowns last year,

there were four running backs with a rate of 5% or higher. Two of them were Cowboys, Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard. And really, Pollard, he scored nine rushing touchdowns, three receiving touchdowns. Both of those were 90th percentile in terms of touchdown per rush or per reception at the running back position. So really an outlier type of performance from him. And as you've brought up, Adam, Zeke was the guy who they really gave those touches to. And if they bring in anybody to challenge him in that role, that is something that's going to scare me off of him at ADP quite a bit. The only other thing to bring up was Cee Lamb was 61st percentile among

wide receivers in touchdown per reception, highest rate of his career. So it really affected the whole offense, but particularly the rushing offense. All right. So our first topic is then,, but particularly the rushing offense. All right. So our first topic is then, are we worried about the Dallas Cowboys offense? This is something that Chris Towers has talked about on the show where he thinks they're going to be a top 12 offense,

but I think they were third in scoring last year and they were scoring well over 30 points per game. Not well over, but somewhere, I think around 31, 32, which is an incredible number after Dak Prescott came back from his injury. They just, maybe, I'm not sure if that included week 18 where they laid a total egg, but they were unbelievable. which is an incredible number after Dak Prescott came back from his injury. I'm not sure if that included Week 18 where they laid a total egg, but they were unbelievable.

Jared, do you share any of these concerns from Jacob about the Dallas Cowboys offense? I do, and it's the OC change that Jacob talked about. I have the numbers here. Under Kellen Moore the last three seasons, the Cowboys top two in situation neutral pace in all three of those seasons. Brian Schottenheimer's last three Seahawks offenses, the last three times he was an OC, those teams finished 18th, 24th, and 22nd in situation neutral pace. So I just think you're going to get fewer plays from Dallas this season. I'm not out on Dallas. I actually like Pollard at ADP and I'm fine with where CeeDee Lamb is going.

But I am kind of out on Dak Prescott and these ancillary wide receivers. I definitely do have some concerns with Dallas' offense. What are you, by the way, using for ADP right now? Okay, so we're recording this on Thursday, June 29th. I look at fantasy pros. I look at NFC maybe since like June 1st. But I don't know what reliable ADP is because, you know, I've said this before, you know, I've taken Tony Pollard

at the end of the first round, but I see him in ADP going more like 24th, two, three turn, CeeDee Lamb a little earlier than that. What do you use, Jared, for ADP at the moment? I'm using ADP from the two places I'm drafting at right now, and that's underdog and FFPC.

Underdog's half PPRPR FFPC does have the tight end premium 1.5 PPR for tight ends. So you gotta be careful with that. But, um, I think those two ADP sources are pretty reliable at this point. Just to add, just to add a little bit more to this Dallas discussion, cause it's a team that I'm also very concerned with. It's a team I won't be investing much in this year. In addition to the main factor here that both Jared and Jacob did a good job outlining, which is you're going from somebody who Kellen Moore three times in a row, top two in neutral rate and neutral pass rate to what you know is going to be the opposite, almost, almost a polar opposite. That's not good for fantasy, but also looking a little bit into

the scheduling here. And I know we don't want to make too much of it, but I think Dave Richard does a really good job of it with his projected strength of schedule, which factors in not the typical strength of schedule factors, factors, things like PFF grades and all of that. And Dallas has projected strength of schedule of 25th easiest. So obviously this is the seventh hardest 24 against with quarterbacks, 24th with running backs, 25th receivers,

20th with tight ends. The entire NFC East has a really difficult schedule. They go from facing the easiest division of football by far the AFC South to facing the AFC East with defenses like the Bills the Jets the Dolphins defenses that are really difficult in my opinion to run on the Patriots as well you can add to the mix in addition to facing the NFC West which is not easy to run on and not easy to throw on either so I think the scheduling is going to be a big difficult thing here too and if Dallas is the team they were last year which was a team that made a massive jump defensively under dan quinn it leads me to believe they're not going to be in these shootout type games either which is also bad

for fantasy so there's for me a lot not to like with dallas where they're projected to go adp wise very negative very negative today jacob all right. There's also positive regression, Adam. Yeah, well, I mean... Coming up, eventually. You know, I brought this up. The Cowboys, I think they were 24th in run percentage inside the 10-yard line last year. I think that will be different.

I don't know. They were somewhere around there. I think they were much higher the year before. I think CeeDee Lamb's going to catch more touchdowns. What did you say about CeeDee Lamb's touchdown rate, Jacob? It was above. It was in the top half of the league, which it had not been prior. It was by far his career high,

which he was career high across the board last year. He should be. He only had nine touchdowns on 150 targets or something like that. He had a third of his team's touchdowns. I think they're going to throw more touchdowns and like 150 targets or something like that he had a third of his team's touchdowns so um i think they're gonna throw i think they're gonna throw more touchdowns and run for fewer i'm going back to the rush rate in the red zone thing i mean zeke was third league wide in both carries inside the 10 and carries inside the five last year i think pollard's gonna get some of those which is why i like pollard but i don't think he's you know i don't he's gonna get all

those i think a lot of those runs are going to turn into passes as you're as you're saying adam yeah or or they're just not going to score as much but hopefully that's what you guys think might happen all right jacob what else we got yeah let's get into some positive ones here the dolphins were 18th in points per drive uh so below league average actually but we're fifth in yards per drive um so i think we've got some correction coming for them potentially. And definitely that has a lot to do with the splits without Tua. So a third of their total offensive players were played without Tua last year.

And on those plays, they were 30th in EPA per play and 1.44 points per drive, which ranks 29th. And the player that really stood out to me when digging into Miami's data was Tyreek Hill. He had 170 targets, 119 receptions. All of his numbers across the board were easy career highs, but he only had seven touchdowns. We're going to talk in more detail about touchdown to reception ratio, but his was just like really hard to believe. He was sixth percentile among wide receivers with an average depth of target of 12 yards or higher. Um, and I think it is important to bucket receivers, um, by the types

of routes that they're running and among who players are running really deep routes. He was like one of the least lucky when it came to scoring touchdowns, um, which is obviously a surprise for a player as good as Tyree kill. Yeah. It's interesting. Cause we had, uh, Jake Sealy on our show earlier today on Thursday. This is when we're recording. I'm not quite sure yet when we're going to publish this, but he had Tyreek Hill as his wide receiver two in half PPR. Jared, what do you think about that?

There's really a lot to like about Tyreek Hill. He's my wide receiver two as well. Now, it's neck and neck between him and Jamar Chase, and I would not fault anyone for taking Chase above Tyreekreek i'm sort of mixing and matching them if i have the choice but um yeah tyreek hill talk about the the two injury stuff tyreek saw more volume from tua he was more efficient when tua was on the field so i like that i like the fact that he's a positive touchdown regression canada i like the fact that it's the second year under Mike McDaniel. The entire offense could take a step forward, just being more comfortable

with the system. I'm definitely in on the Dolphins passing game. We know how concentrated it is. It's Tyreek and Waddle, so that kind of makes it easy to invest in those guys. Dan, I think that Tua knew what he was doing because two of the games he missed were against the Jets. I just don't think he wanted to face them.

Tyreek was terrible in both of those games without Tua. Chase or Tua, Dan? Chase or Tua? Oh, you mean Chase or Hill? I mean Chase or Tyreek Hill. Super flex, super flex. Shit, dad. That would have been a more interesting one.

I still have Chase slightly above Tyreek, who is my wide receiver three, which I feel like even just listening to Jared and Jake, we're higher on tyreek than the consensus i think most people have them as four or five um for the reasons they brought up as far as why is chase a little above tyreek for me it's just for me mostly just watching these guys play on film i just know from a schematic standpoint at this stage of their careers there is absolutely no real way to defend jamar chase on the outside because he's either going to run the vertical or run the back shoulder. None are neither,

which is coverable. People try to play press man against him. He's one of like a handful of receivers. You can't play press man against. It's a little different for me watching Tyreek Hill. I feel like he's schemed open a little bit more. McDaniel was just fine for fantasy. That's fine. Um, and he's going to rack up yards, but I just feel like the state, the floor, the higher higher floor for Chase for me is just there's no way to really defend him right now in the NFL. Everyone's tried different things against the Bengals, and it hasn't worked. So I don't know. I just like the floor a little bit more for Chase, I think. All right.

So that's a couple of teams that Jacob was looking at in terms of touchdown regression. And I think he should be very, very confident drafting Tyreek Hill. Does that affect Jalen Waddell at all jacob how we should feel about him of the two he like was in the upper echelon of um touchdown to reception ratio i think it's possible that like he ran a little bit hot and some of those could go to tyreek but overall i don't think it affects him a whole lot i think both should smash we we had uh been on just last episode being gretch talking about the rpos and just how concentrated it is in offenses like Miami and Philadelphia.

I feel good about drafting both guys. And as crazy as it sounds, I kind of feel a little bit better this year drafting both guys with Mike White in there over Teddy Bridgewater. I just feel like he has a better chance of keeping that style of offense on track and keeping it in rhythm. I just had one other crazy team stat, and I wanted to throw it to Jared to talk about the Cleveland Browns. keeping that style of offense on track and keeping it in rhythm. Yeah. Um, I just had one other crazy team stat and I wanted to throw it to Jared to talk about,

uh, the Cleveland Browns. Um, the Broncos only had 2.1 red zone drives per game last year. Only seven, only seven teams have had a rate that low over the past 10 years. Um, so that's,

you know, 320 teams, obviously that's pretty nuts and things could be a a lot, lot better with Sean Payton. So, yeah, I don't know if there's anyone specifically on Denver, Samajai Piran, that is going to clearly benefit from that. But I just wanted to bring that up. Yeah, I mean, I like that take. Denver is definitely a team I've been big on.

I looked at last year and just kind of thought about some of the offenses that broke out that we weren't expecting. Two of them for fantasy were the Dolphins that we just discussed. It's not that we weren't expecting, but we weren't really pricing them at that point. Tyreek, Jalen Waddell, too, and none of those guys were priced at that point. I feel like the Giants were also in that boat. Daniel Jones wasn't priced at that point. Saquon Barkley was creeping up and not quite priced at that point.

You look at those teams, and for me, the biggest difference is the coaching change there. They completely retooled their system, and they got in somebody who knows how to move the football from a schematic standpoint. And that's exactly what Denver did. No offense to Nathaniel Hackett, who I think was a little bit over his head trying to head coach. A little bit? A little bit. A lot over his head. But Sean Baton is a proven schematic dominant coach.

He's the guy you want calling plays and designing offensive plays outside of maybe Andy Reed and a couple others. So I'm big on the Broncos. Like you said, like that, that's the regression I'm looking for. Jacob right there. Historic lows on offense.

What are the chances that repeats itself, especially with a coach like Sean Payton in there. So it's not even that I'm that confident and Russell Wilson. I'm more just confident in Sean Payton. The chances are almost zero of the teams that were below them. None of them were ever that low the next year. There you go. Jared, you share the optimism.

I feel like everybody in the fantasy industry loves Jerry Judy, but do you share the optimism on the Broncos in general? I haven't made up my mind on the Broncos yet. I guess I still have, what, two months to go before the season starts because I love the Payton addition. I think they have the weapons there. They upgraded the O-line, and the O-line is going to be quite a bit better this year. I just

don't know about Russell Wilson. I don't. I'm not sure he's going to bounce back. I'm sure he'll be better just because of the coaching upgrade, but is he going to be good enough to support that as a top 10 offense and to support a couple of fantasy viable wide receivers and a fantasy viable tight end? There's two running backs going in the top, like 40 and 80p. So there's just – people are investing heavily in Denver, and I'm not quite there yet because of Russell Wilson. All right, Dan, you ready to kind of keep me in check here? Okay.

This is a big moment. I was wondering, when is this moment going to happen? I think I'm ready to do it right now. Uh-oh. Because last year I was really high on the Broncos and Russell Wilson. I'm going there again. I already decided. I was huge on Corlin Sutton last year.

I've already decided that's going to be Jerry Judy this year. But thankfully, like two rounds later. But I think I want to be really high on Russell Wilson because it costs nothing. He's your backup quarterback. Your last pick. One of your last picks. A 2QB league could be a little bit different, but I still think worth the roll of the dice. But I'm looking at his QB 18

right now, going after Daniel Jones, after Jared Goff, after Aaron Rodgers. I mean, I can't say he has higher upside than Rodgers, but I think he definitely has higher upside than even Geno Smith and Jones and Goff. I mean, look, I talked, we talked to Robert Turbin two days ago is Russell Wilson washed up. He said, hell no.

So I, I think that it's worth it when he's so easy to just drop. If you just after two weeks, if it's not working, you're not investing anything in him right now. So there it is. Schneier. Are you, because he's one of my favorite targets at quarterback this year. And if I'm going with that strategy, which I have been less likely to do so far in drafts this year, it's the weirdest thing ever for me. I'm drafting quarterbacks early for the first time in my fantasy career. I've never done it once in one QB leagues. And I'm finding myself taking Allen when he falls around for deep round for like these types of players. And I just never thought I'd get there. But during the times, there still are going to be teams

where I go late round quarterback for sure. It's a tried and true strategy. It's a backup quarterback. I'm not saying that Russell Wilson has to be the centerpiece. No, no. When I do that, it's like I draft a Wilson and I draft a, like, not this is a bad example, like a Trey Lance. I'm not even going to talk about him, but like someone like that

with upside and a Wilson. Anthony Richardson. Look at Richardson, right. And then I just play them both and cut one of them our roster and both cut one of them early but russell for me i just think about those later years of the saints with sean payton and drew breeze when drew breeze his arm was like shot and they were still moving the football consistently and i just i just know how that offense is going to work it's going to be a lot of screens and throws to the running backs p ryan i think is going to be a great value for that standpoint. And a lot of just easy solutions

for the quarterback. That's what McDaniel did for Tua. That's what Dable did for Daniel Jones. And I think that's what Sean Payton will do for Russell. So I don't think he needs to be that good for them to move the football. I want to bring up one more name on Denver. It's Greg Dulcich. Um, and I want to point you guys to a really cool article on fantasy points by Ryan Heath. It's called Age Curves, When NFL Players Break Out and Fall Off. And he looked at each position and tight end specifically. The numbers going in from year one to year two was like really, really what stood out to me, really at any of the positions. I have generally thought the tight ends break out later in the career.

And we all know to avoid rookie tight ends. But like his research showed that like year two tight ends are definitely something you want to buy in on um and dulcich is just a really interesting name um among year two tight ends who had some decent underlying rates yes dulcich is one of my favorite values and drafts are now at tight end um you know he missed seven games last year so it kind of masked how good he was as a rookie fantasy production was there he was a top 12 tight end and fantasy points per game i think as jacob said you know the the per route efficiency was good the target earning was pretty solid for a rookie tight end so i i

like him quite a bit i think it's a good take dolchich was my tight end one coming out of the draft last year i had him over trade ride yeah i felt like he was a much better player on tape he's more of the receiver type i think they'll use him in three by ones but my one concern with dolchich i don't know if this concerns you guys it just concerns me a little bit was the saints trading for adam or i'm sorry the broncos trading for adam troutman i just think the history was sean payton there it scares me a little bit because they're not going to have an ability they're not going to have they're probably not going to run too much 12 personnel and get them both on the field so it's like is he going to eat into dolchich's snaps and at that point like, are you getting any consistency out of a player

like that fantasy-wise? So Payton was asked about Dalsich at the Combine, and he gave a really tepid answer. Like, I don't know how to use this guy. I'm not really sure yet. And he talked about him again. I think it was during minicamp this past week, and he seemed pumped about Greg Dalsich.

He said he's going to play the Joker role in his offense, which is like the Camara. So I think Peyton's kind of come around on Dalsich over the last three months. So I was kind of lukewarm on him when I heard the comments back in March, but after hearing Peyton talk about him last week, that made me a lot more comfortable with Dalsich's role in this offense. And that's interesting, too, to me,alsich's role in this offense and that's interesting too to me because it's like when he came out into that draft class he wasn't your typical tight end

like he was nowhere close to prototypical why almost more so look like a big receiver running out there like a Mike Evans style receiver so if he feels like he can get him in that type of role that puts him in space and allows him to create it could be really interesting for fantasy all right we got to take a quick break here and we'll come back with much more with Jared and Dan and Jacob right after this. Did you know 66% of utility damage is caused by not requesting a locate? Don't let your project become part of this statistic. A quick locate request can save you from unexpected downtime, financial penalties, and keep you safe. Don't let avoidable damage cost you time and money.

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I'm not doing much. Jacob, do my job. What's next? All right, so Jared, you say you can't make up your mind on the Broncos. It's been an easy show for me. I'm not doing much. Jacob, do my job. What's next? All right. So, Jared, you say you can't make up your mind on the Broncos. That's exactly how I feel about the Cleveland Browns. So I just want to kick it to you to help me understand what to do with Cleveland this year. Yeah, I guess just starting from the regression standpoint, since that's what this show is about,

Cleveland's a positive regression candidate for sure. Just looking at points per drive last year, 17th there. They were ninth, though, in yards per drive. A big problem. They just couldn't convert in the red zone. They were 19th in red zone touchdown rate. They were getting there. They just weren't, you know, turning those red zone trips into touchdown.

So I like that. I mean, that obviously came with, what, two-thirds of a season of Jacoby Brissett and then a third of a clearly rusty Deshaun Watson so to me if you believe Deshaun Watson is going to bounce back anywhere close to you know Texans form where to me you know he was a he was a top five NFL quarterback and then the numbers will bear that out in terms of efficiency yeah if he's going to bounce back anywhere close to that level I think this Browns passing game in particular is really going to take off this season. But who do you think other than Amari Cooper enters the, you know,

must must start territory if anyone, or are we just looking more at streamers in that passing offense? I mean, I have, I have David and Joku. I think he's my tight end seven. I'm a few spots ahead of ADP. He's another guy where injuries kind of masked how good he was last year.

I think he was around an 18% target share in his health at the games, which is a really strong number for a tight end. He, I mean, he is a big freak athlete. He's still only like 26 years old or something. He came into the league so young. So I know it's kind of been a disappointing, well, I think five years to his career so far, but he's still super young. I think there's, there's reasons he hasn't delivered yet. And I think, I think he's in a really strong spot this season to probably have his most productive season of his career yeah go ahead now when i draft quarterbacks early because i'm with you dan like i prioritize it more this year every time someone else drafts to sean watson later i go oh why didn't i just do that i understand it i i'm i'm on the same boat as you and Jared. I just feel like everything we've been told here, it's first of all, just one more quick aside.

I feel like one of the reasons we got Miami so wrong last year as a consensus, I don't know where you guys were at on them, is at least for me, I saw McDaniel coming over and I felt like there was an opportunity for them to be similar to the 49ers offense, which is so run heavy. Even now you look at the splits and Chanahan's run rate over expected is still super high. It's one of the reasons I'm still high on McCaffrey, despite Mitchell taking up so many snaps, but it was the opposite. They were such a pass heavy team. And I just feel like that's where you can really get an edge in fantasy football. When you predict that, when you predict the team that goes from very run heavy to very pass heavy. And I feel like Cleveland is in that transition right now. We're going to see it in front of our eyes this year.

They just needed Deshaun to play more efficiently last year, which he wasn't, but now he has the full off season. And now he has different weapons in the offense. You talk about some of the players you want to target, Adam. Jared mentioned David Njoku. I'm taking late round flyers in almost every draft and Eli Moore and Cedric Tillman, two players who I evaluated in college,

really freaking good on tape. Eli Moore hasn't had a good opportunity. He's played with Zach Wilson his whole career. Now he has Deshaun Watson. And as far as Cedric Tillman goes, if you just look at the 2021 tape and throw out 2022, when he was injured and playing through a high ankle sprain and Jalen Hyatt kind of took over there in Tennessee, he looked like a first round talent. He plays above the rim. He can get vertical. And these are all traits that work well for at least the Deshaun Watson we saw in Houston. If he can get back to being that vertical thrower that I know he can be to Sean Watson,

that means a lot for a player like Tillman and potentially even Eli Moore as well. Obviously Cooper too, but I'm excited about both those guys as late round dart throws. All right, Jacob, do my job. All right. Um, I've got a, just to finish up the Browns discussion here. I want to ask, uh, Jared first, Nick Chubb, Ramondre Stevenson, who we're going to talk about a lot later, and I know you like a lot, Jared, or Tony Pollard. Is Chubb the clear guy out of those guys?

I think in full PPR, I actually have Chubb just behind Stevenson and Pollard. I have Stevenson highest among those three right now. I heard most among running backs. Sorry to cut you off. How crazy is that? That's the most amazing stat. I was looking into targets the third most among running backs sorry to cut you off how crazy is that this is the most amazing style i was looking into targets the other day for running back i couldn't believe romandre stevens had the third most targets last year yeah i'm a little worried that could drop without a third down roll without a third down roll that

you know right without even being on the third down but why do you say that could drop jacob well okay go ahead go ahead jacob yeah they're talking about getting him off the field a lot more particularly on third downs um and he did play on third downs quite a bit last year um so for time montgomery though i don't know if i buy time montgomery yeah we'll see this is where i mean this is where i wonder about projections versus are you know are we overthinking it because i can't put him ahead of nick Chubb. Nick Chubb is clearly one of the best running backs in football. Stevenson, I don't know. I just don't think he's an explosive player.

He took a huge step. I didn't think he was very good after his rookie year. His longest carry of his rookie year was 21 yards. I usually completely avoid those guys. He did have a lot more pop last year, but I'm not really sure what to make of him. And I never, ever thought Ramondre Stevenson was a guy who profiled as someone who was going to catch a lot of passes. So it's almost like, I feel like it's how I felt about Antonio Gibson when everybody was super, super high on him.

I didn't know if he could repeat that. And then I just feel like Pollard is just, Pollard is so good. And the Cowboys are a running back fantasy point factory year after year. And I think even if they slow it down, I still think they're going to have a really good offense. So, you know, I feel like if this is a regression show, I don't think there will be as many catches for Andre Stevenson. He would be last for me, but I don't want to be. I feel like I'm the lowest on Stevenson. I don't want to be. I feel like I'm the lowest on Stevenson. I don't want to be, but Jared, if we were just sitting there evaluating them as

running backs, still a lot to be determined about who Stevenson is and who Pollard is with a bigger role. I do think he'd be last, though, and I can't and I have less faith in his offense, too. The Patriots, they just signed Devontae Parker to a three-year deal. They suck.

I don't know. You want to talk a little bit more about these three players? Well, no, I'm with you. In terms of talent, I'd rank them exactly opposite how I rank them in fantasy. I'd go Chuck, Powell, and Stevenson. But fantasy football is an opportunity game. Just the numbers I'm looking at right now. Again, this is assuming New England doesn't add anything else, which they definitely could.

I mean, I think Fortinet could head there and steal some passing down work from Stevenson, too. So we'll see where that all goes. But Stevenson, if you look at some some of the stuff like you know rush yards over expected and elusive rating he was really good as a runner last year and he was also you know good enough in the passing game i think the patriots offense will be better this season than last just having a legit offensive coordinator there i don't think it's going to be an awesome offense but i think it could be a league average offense so that that would only be good news for

stevenson's you know touchdown opportunity completely agree with that't think it's going to be an awesome offense, but I think it could be a league average offense. So that would only be good news for Stevenson's touchdown opportunity. Completely agree with that. I think it's a little odd too, that we're getting Nick Chubb at probably the most discounted price we've got him at in a while. And yet this is the first time we have him without cream on. I actually think he was going later last year. Was he going later? Okay. Um, I think he was really slept on last year. Because they had Jacoby Brissett, you know, and people were very worried about them. And no matter what, Chubb, unless he starts cashing more passes,

he's probably not going to be a top five per game running back in PPR. But he's probably not going to be any lower than 10. He's just the same awesome player every year. That's my take on it. With more upside now, because do we think that Cleveland's going to throw him the ball more? That's my thought. Are they going to throw him the ball more, and they're going to be in scoring position more often and playing with better tempo, and I think all those things are possible.

It's kind of why Nick Chubb's one of my favorite targets at running back this year, for sure. Yeah, I have a Chubb and then Ramondre and then Pollard, but it's kind of contention on what happens if dallas isn't signing when pollard would be the top of that list for me there's that i have my concerns with pollard i've i have my concerns with him handling a workload that those two above him i think can handle for sure and i have concerns with him coming back from the injury that i guess many people don't have right now all right jac Jacob, what's our next topic here? We're going to talk about some player regression candidates with touchdowns. Yeah, the wide receiver and tight end position.

Players who maybe should have scored more receiving touchdowns and then a couple who we want to watch out for regression for sure. I'm going to kind of frame this conversation through the lens of touchdown per reception ratio, which is simply the amount of their receptions that result in touchdowns. And on that note, I want to bring up some important context that average depth of target really makes a difference here. So with an ADOT below eight yards, the average touchdown per reception rate was 5.7. That went up to 7.8% on ADOT eight to 12 yards. And then with an ADOT above 12 yards, 10.2%. So almost twice as high as an ADOT

below eight yards. So for example, Amonra St. Brown had a 5.7% rate last year compared to 5.9% for Tyreek Hill. And you might look at them and they're, you know, they're both elite receivers. They both had a low rate in this category. So you might think they're both equally likely to score more touchdowns last year. But if you if you you know frame that within the context of their average depth of target a monorail's rate was 50th percentile among receivers with an 8 out below 8 yards and tyree kill's rate was actually higher but was only six percentile like we mentioned at the top of the episode among receivers with an average depth target of 12 or more yards so that's important to bring up and then i just want to quickly list off some of these rates.

So some players with notably low rates last year, we have Chris Godwin at 2.9%. So even among wide receivers with an ADOT below eight yards, that was sixth percentile. This is touchdown rate. This is touchdown. Just simply touchdown rate. Per catch or per target?

Per catch. Okay. So 2.9% for Chris Godwinwin 3.8 for juju um and he had 16 red zone targets with only one red zone touchdown juju smith schuster only deontay johnson had a worse conversion rate in the red zone just wanted to bring that up i think that's interesting potentially for cadareus tony or whichever kansas city receiver you want to take a late round flyer on um michael pitman only four percent uh deontay johnson obviously did not score a touchdown all year which is insane because he actually had a lot of red zone targets

pat fryer move 3.2 percent was six percentile among tight ends uh tyra kill we already mentioned 5.9 percent gary wilson 4.8 percent 15th percentile among wide receivers in his adop bracket and then the guy wanted to end on um feel free to chime in on any of these guys jerry but the guy wanted to end on and talk about specifically was dk metcalf so dk metcalf's rate was 6.7 his career rate prior to 2022 was 13 and a half percent uh only six touchdowns last year on a career high of 141 targets he led the nfl in red zone target share he was third in total red zone targets um but the touchdowns just weren't there. And I think we all could see Seattle's offense being quite a bit better than they were last year, potentially this year.

And it wouldn't surprise me at all if Metcalf scores 15 touchdowns this year. I think that's totally within his range of outcomes. I went back and watched all 27 of meccaf's red zone targets and it was really really frustrating he easily could have double digit touchdowns last year um it and you know second year with gino smith um it wouldn't surprise me if the connection is a lot cleaner this year i like that yeah jared what do you think about that uh some of those players anyone jump out at you well just starting with the seahawks i'm i'm in i'm big big in on tyler lockett at cost i'm also above market on dk metcalf for that specific

reason that jacob mentioned he did underachieve in the touchdown department last season if you're into expected touchdowns dk was third among all wide receivers with 10 and a half expected touchdowns actually expected touchdowns just look at you know where the targets are coming so you know target inside the 10 is worth a lot more than a target from the 50 yard line you're more likely to score on the target inside the 10 so 10.5 expected touchdowns for DK just six actual actual touchdowns that's just another way to frame you know how he underachieving the touchdown department last year I do wish that DK was getting the um Jackson Smith and Jigba discount that Tyler Lockett's getting. For some reason, everyone's discounting Lockett for JSM, but not really moving Metcalf's price.

But I still think Metcalf is at a pretty fair price in drafts right now. Yeah, there's actually a stat I was wondering if you guys ever look at. And for two of the players you mentioned, Jacob, Deontay Johnson and DK Metcalf, it's yards after catch per catch. For DK Metcalf, I think I'm on Deontay Johnson first. Deontay Johnson in four seasons, his yak per catch, 5.2 yards, 4.5, 4.9, 2.7. For DK Metcalf, 4.7, 4.4, 4.4, 2.4 yards after catch per catch. I've seen this before. I don't remember any specific examples,

but it is not predictive. I would certainly expect more yak per catch. There's really no reason why it was so low for Deontay. Now, Deontay's ADOT was higher, so a lot of times with a higher ADOT, you get fewer yards after the catch, but that's going to come up. That was just weird.

He was doing nothing after the catch for much of of last year and metcalf too and metcalf certainly capable of it so i think that's interesting stuff there yeah that was interesting i really haven't looked at in that lens either so that's good good context even with even with even with metcalf his eight out was down yes here you weighed down last year yeah. That makes his yards after catch per catch even more surprising. Right, but he's not, yeah, it's funny, because maybe he's not the kind of guy who should be having shorter targets. He just needs to get a deep ball and then run another, I don't know, I'm just spitballing here.

But it still wasn't that low. It was 11.2 yards, but that's still by far the lowest of his career. All right, Jacob. Sorry, Dan, I just want to move along here because we have so many players to talk about Jacob, who else in the touchdown regression category, which is one more note on Deontay Johnson. He accounted for 44% of Pittsburgh's end zone targets while on the field,

which was the sixth highest rate. And he had zero touchdowns. So it's not just that, like he had a lot of targets in general and somehow scored zero. Like he was getting red zone and end zone opportunities.'s really like a freak outlier what we saw last year from him um yeah that's pretty much it on the guys who um should score more um the other side of things these are 80th percentile players in terms of their um touchdown rate um davante adams aj brown travis kelsey tyler lockett jamar chase those are guys that pretty much always get there in terms of their touchdown rate. Devonta Adams, A.J. Brown, Travis Kelsey, Tyler Lockett, Jamar Chase.

Those are guys that pretty much always get there, but they were really, really high last year. I'm actually a little bit worried about Tyler Lockett. I like him at price, but from a projection standpoint, I struggle with him. And then the two guys I specifically wanted to talk about are George Kittle, which I'm going to throw that to Jared. He had an 18.3% touchdown rate last year. I saw the video. Absolutely nuts. And then Christian

Kirk. I want to throw that to Dan after we talk about George Kittle. He had a 10% rate. And so outside of him, Jacksonville really struggled with their scoring opportunities, but Kirk was really efficient on his red zone targets, on his deep targets as well um he's a player who I really really think might regress a lot this year but um Jared why don't you start us off with George Kittle yeah there are a lot of reasons I'm out on Kittle this season um we don't have to talk about them all today we'll just keep it to the touchdowns I guess but um yeah I, Jacob said at 18.3% touchdown rate, league average for just for all tight ends is around eight and a half percent. And then, you know, even Kittle in his first five NFL seasons, 6.0% touchdown rate. He was always a guy where we were like, you know, why isn't George Kittle scoring more touchdowns? They kind

of all bounced back in his favor last year and he scored at an absurd rate. So I think that's coming way down again. There are other reasons to be worried about George Kittle, but he's going way too high for me in drafts right now. So let me, uh, let me follow up on that because, you know, I think maybe I just live in this, uh, alternate reality, but to me, you know, all the analysts are so good these days and, and the fantasy managers are, are, they know what they're doing too. And I feel like everybody kind of knows that we shouldn't expect Kittle to be the second best tight end. He was the second best tight end in fantasy.

And everyone kind of understands the target competition's really tough in San Francisco. So I'm wondering, you say you're out on him, and I also sort of want to be out on him, but at what point is he priced fairly? Because I'm looking at NFC ADP and he's tight end four, but he's not going until 57th overall. So that's like the end of round five.

That's still a little early for me. The next ones off the board are Pitts and Goddard and Darren Waller who were in the seventies. But when would you feel comfortable taking Kittle? Because I would say that the ADP doesn't really match the production. He was on a per-game basis tight end two last year, and he's nowhere near Andrews or Hawkinson in ADP.

Yeah, I mean, I prefer Pitts, Goddard, and Waller all straight up over Kittle. Okay. So, I mean, I'm just not drafting him unless he goes, you know, two to three rounds later than ADP. Yeah. For me, I just don't really see it. I'm taking him over Goddard, but he... I don't see a huge difference between any of those four, really.

So you really should be waiting at that point. Well, I think there's a... I know nobody wants to get on board with this, but there's a chance that of those four tight ends, let's just break it down to this. What are we looking for in fantasy? We're looking for target volume mostly, right? That's the best way to project points. It's the best it down to this. What are we looking for in fantasy? We're looking for target volume mostly, right? That's the best way to project points.

It's the best way to project production. Of those four, do any of them potentially have the opportunity to rack up 100 triple-digit targets and be the number one option in that offense? To me, there is one player. Two. I kind of love that player. Two. What did you say?

Waller. Waller, yeah. Waller has nothing around him. I think Pitts. And he's on a team that's going to want to throw more. But Pitts is on a team that runs the ball the second highest run rate over expected, and that's not changing. They drafted Bijan Robinson.

But you don't think he can get 100 targets? I'm not asking for 130 here. I think he can get 100 targets. Fine. Let me rephrase that. Who can be the number one option on the offense? Yeah, Pitts. Darren Waller can be the number one option in his offense, potentially.

You take him over Pitts and Goddard? I take him over all of those guys except for maybe goddard who i love as a talent oh yeah yeah i on darren waller he was in my bold predictions as he can be the tight end too this year jacob i like i like that obviously i'm close to the team so like it's part of it but they're using him and otas all over the place there's constantly moving him in motion there's no one else on that offense who did anything last year that was notable for fantasy. I just feel like no other tight end is in this situation

except for Kelsey. I have Pitts ahead of Waller, but they're very close, and there's a clear tier breakdown to Kittle and Goddard, in my opinion. The reason I bring up Kittle, I think you're right. It is priced in. People aren't expecting him to be tight end, too. but just looking at his game log, he played 15 games and he had fewer

than 50 yards in 10 of them. He had fewer than 30 yards in 8 of 15 games. If the touchdowns do fall off, it's just going to be maddeningly inconsistent on a week-to-week basis. I would just rather wait to draft a tight end if that's what I'm going to be dealing with. Yeah. Remember my

Fantasy Jeopardy clue, Dan? It was like, he hasn't been between 40 and 70 yards in any game in the last two seasons, I think. That is crazy. I don't know if that's exactly true, but it's very close. Yeah, it's either below 40 or over 70. It's crazy. That, by the way, is what I feel like is going to be the case

for a player you mentioned jacob christian kirk i'm not high on at all this year i just feel like besides calvin ridley in that offense i don't know if we're going to get a weekly floor from any player there even etn scares me he's a like if you look at how this project the trajectory for christian kirk in his first season with jacksonville the beginning of the season when they were still kind of figuring that all out that offense first year for Trevor Lawrence with Doug Peterson, Christian Kirk was moved all over the place. He was playing a ton of slot. He was the first read. And as that season progressed, we saw some say Jones breakout games. We saw some Evan Ingram breakout games. And like

you mentioned on top of all that, the potential for touchdown regression with, with Christian Kirk, I, I don't see it at his price. And a lot of people really like him at his price. I saw some people say they would draft him over Calvin Ridley. To me, that's just like something I wouldn't even never even consider. I bet. See the touchdown regression for me, Jared for Jacksonville is with Trevor Lawrence. Cause he threw 25 touchdowns.

If we're projecting a big breakout for him, and I don't know if you are or not, but a lot of people obviously are, you know, he's going to have to be 32 or more touchdowns, I would say. So maybe the touchdown rate isn't there for Kirk, but the overall touchdowns are there for the team, and he benefits and maybe stays at the same level of touchdowns.

I don't know. Because we can't just project the same passing stats for Trevor Lawrence this year, right? So how does that work with the regression factor? I expect Lawrence to Trevor Lawrence this year. Right. So how does that work with the regression factor? I mean, I expect Lawrence to be better this year, right? I mean,

his third season, second season under Peterson, you add Calvin Ridley to the mix. Um, Lawrence had a 4.3% touchdown rate last year. So that's like, that's like league average. I mean,

that, that could even climb. I, I, I don't know what to make of Calvin Ridley. We've barely seen the guy in the last two years. Like if he's the guy he was last time we saw him in, what was it, 2020 or whatever it was, then he's like the alpha there.

He's a 25% target share guy, and that's really bad news for Christian Kirk. If Ridley isn't that guy anymore, then I think Kirk could be okay. He's wide receiver 24 in ADP right now. It's a little high for me, but again, to me, it all comes down to what Calvin Ridley has at this point. Does anybody see this offense as being with Ridley and

Kirk being, I'm not going to say A.J. Brown and Devontae Smith, but what about Metcalf and Lockett? Something like that. Both must start guys. That's exactly how Kirk played last year, was like Tyler Lockett with, you know,

elite efficiency on the opportunities that he got. And if he does it again, then yeah, it would be exactly like that. I just think it's a possibility. It's a possibility, but I don't think it happens with Zay Jones and Evan Ingram having roles in that offense.

Yeah. I'm not buying into it. I have Christian Kirk ranked as wide receiver 32. I think I have trouble like with Zay jones versus christian kirk obviously i would take christian kirk over him but there's such a big gap in their adp it just doesn't make that much sense to me yeah i'm with that they were they were closer in terms of fantasy points and target share last year than their adp right now would suggest yeah it is true yeah so on the christian kirk note we'll just go ahead and dive into deep deep catch regression

candidates so these are targets of 15 or more air yards and he tied justin jefferson for the league high with a 63 percent deep catch rate i think his rate is usually going to be a little higher than other players because he's running a lot of those deep rats over the middle compared to on the perimeter if you look at the other players with rates that high, it's Travis Kelsey, T. Higgins, Jay Waddle, CeeDee Lamb, Tyree Kill. So all of the best players in the NFL and Christian Kirk. So if choosing anyone from that list to regress, it's probably him for me. Okay, can you explain that stat one more time?

Yeah, it's their catch rate on deep targets, 15 plus air yards, what percentage of those targets they caught. And all those players were at 58% or higher. Christian Kirk was at 63. Yeah. Yeah. It's just something that's definitely going to regress. Like players that are at 60% are almost never over 60% the next year.

Even the Devante Adams, just Jefferson types. On the other side of that, we have the worst catch rates on deep targets not nearly as fun to talk about 16 for kyle pitts 16 of his deep targets were caught 21 for chase claypool marvin jones 27 for dionte johnson his name just continues to pop up so the question really is is he just not good? Or is this all going to turn around? I mean, he's like clearly undervalued. And the Brandon Ayuk at 29%. I wanted to bring up Ayuk specifically because what I looked at was the highest off target rate on their deep targets. And he had the second highest rate among qualified players, which really surprised me. DJ Moore was the highest at 55%. And the Brandon Ayuk was next highest.

Is that something that you guys would have expected? I would have not expected Brandon Ayuk to make that list by any means. But it's kind of a indictment of the quarterback. Yeah, it's a great point, Adam. So I'm not surprised. The receivers' quarterbacks can't get them the football. Yeah, I'm not surprised.

And unfortunately, I'm not sure it's going to get any better. It wasn't really like Purdy. I mean, Purdy was, that's when Kittle went nuts. Purdy's not, last year anyway, was not throwing the ball downfield very much. Doesn't have a very strong arm. So, you know, I think people love Brandon Ayuk. You just heard what the

49ers were saying about him. Like, he's an absolute stud. I just wonder if this team is the situation for him to realize his potential um but he's kind of an i think it's a bit of an afterthought in drafts and probably shouldn't be jared what do you think about iuk yeah i always come in lower than market on 49ers just because of the low pass volume and because of all the targets they have i mean christian mccaffrey's added to the mix now too i i don't have it in front of me but i did i did look at iuk's target

share with and without mccaffrey last year and it obviously took a pretty significant hit so it's just like i mean one or two of those guys could pay off at cost but like it's almost impossible for them all to pay off at cost unless you expect the 49ers to pass it a bunch more than they have in the past few seasons when both when all the the weapons were healthy for the 49ers i have this number in front of me because i was doing it for our running back show, were healthy last year, here's how the target share was. Debo Samuel led the team with 34, Ayuk 26, McCaffrey 26, Kittle 21,

and then Jawan Jennings had 15. So it was pretty spread out right there. So I just want to bring up one thing. We talk about the 49ers being a low-pass volume team all the time, but the last two seasons when Garoppolo has been healthy for a lot of it, they have actually been 13th and 15th in gross passing yards per game. So they do not throw the ball that much, but they are so damn efficient. They're almost always at the top of yards per attempt.

That is not that bad of an offense. It's not like we're talking about the Falcons here. They do give you a lot of yards. This is important to understand your format because you're not going to get as many catches because they don't throw that much, but you're not talking about a bad passing offense, at least when Garoppolo has been healthy.

You are talking about a middle-of-the-pack passing offense just in terms of gross passing yards. And if you go to pro football reference and you look at passing yards, that includes sacksacks so if you take the sacks out of it i mean it's not going to change that much they're middle of 13th and 15th in gross passing yards per game it is something to keep in mind you get probably more production than you realize because they're not throwing that much but they're doing it as such an efficient clip that's fair and the niners have even had guys like cj bathard and nick Nick Mullins throw for eight yards per attempt.

Even if you don't think Purdy's good or you think like Darnold's going to see the field at some point this season. It doesn't matter. Shanahan's system is so good. It really doesn't matter.

I've been saying for years how bad Jimmy Garoppolo is actually at football. I really... We're going to find out this year. I have nothing against Jimmy Garoppolo, but I do like you

better than him. And I'm hoping that he struggles this year because you need to be right about this. If he goes out and is good... The annoying thing is that McDaniels is the only possible system he could have potentially fit in. Every other system but McDaniels and

Shanann, I think he would have been horrible. I still think he's going to be bad. You're never going to have to disprove that because that theory can't be disproven. You see how I pick these takes? Absolutely. Jacob, what else we got yeah i just wanted to finish that you conversation by saying the real reason i bring it up is for dynasty purposes um we had matt harman on the show and he's just like in love with brenna you can go read his reception perception

profile and now you get really exciting and just to contextualize how bad it really has been like there were only two players above 40 him and dj more um and on that note two players with an off target rate on their deep targets above 40 43 iuk 55 dj more guess what cal pits's rate was he didn't have enough targets to qualify i saw your tweet 19 deep targets 74 of them are off target and it checks checks out. If you watch Mariota on film, it was the biggest disaster in football last year. I just don't know that Desmond Ritter is going to be that much better. I don't like Desmond Ritter at all.

It's bad. I don't know either. This is another Dynasty note, really, because it's been as bad as it could possibly have been for Kyle Pitts, specifically last year. That's a really good way of putting it. What'd you say? That's a good way of putting it.

Like you have to put that in perspective. And you think of it like that, like it can't get worse. And that's similar to the Deontay Johnson, Fryer move stuff because it's like, can it not get worse? Can he pick it at 10 touchdowns and what 14 games last year? But I just don't know when you watch these guys on tape,

like if they're things are definitely going to get better with Pittsburgh, I feel a little bit better about Atlanta, I guess, but with Pittsburgh and, and, um, whoever we mentioned before with Pittsburgh, it's like they're bringing back the same offensive system,

the same offensive line. No, I added, say a model at guard. They did add to him. Oh, I'm wrong about that from Philly. Yes.

A big addition. Maybe, maybe he was just between four elite offensive linemen and looked okay, but I don't know. It's hard to explain. He's got Lane Johnson on one side and Jason Kelsey, two all-famers, to the left and right. But Kenny Pickett was not good on tape last year,

and it's like, am I expecting with the same system him to take this huge jump with Matt Canada? Not really, no. And so it's hard for me to like – They have to be better, yes, but does that make them fantasy relevant is the question. The thing with Pittsburgh is the second half of the season, they shifted and they were super run heavy. They've talked about wanting to continue that way in 2023.

I get it with Deontay. He's the ultimate positive regression candidate, but I'm still not super high on him just because I don't love that passing game in general. Same. How much does this statistic mean to you? Because I'm looking now at off-target percentage for quarterbacks, 15 yards, 15 air yards or more, right? Obviously, based on what Jacob said about Kyle Pitts, shouldn't surprise you that Marcus Mariota

had the highest off-target percentage among qualified quarterbacks, 37.3%. Second worst was Lamar jackson third worst matthew stafford fourth worst baker mayfield and then justin fields because we've mentioned dj moore's name as several times i feel like in this show jacob or maybe i'm confusing it with this morning but i know you just said it uh and we haven't talked about him so maybe dj moore will make justin fields a better passer downfield Maybe we shouldn't care about Justin Fields through two seasons because this is a lot of times when a quarterback makes a big leap.

But just that stat right there that DJ Moore had a low catch rate on deep throws and now he's being paired with a guy who is the fifth worst in the NFL off-target rate on deep throws, that's not a good thing. Does that matter to you, Jacob? It's not a good thing. Does that matter to you, Jacob? It's not a good thing. I am not optimistic about more. Um, especially from a projection standpoint, we talked with Ben Gretsch and JJ Zachary about that last week. Um, Jared, I'm curious if you have a take on DJ more, um, the potential for fields to take a step forward and what you think of the Bears offensive general. Yeah, this all comes down to how much more you think they're

going to pass, right? Like they're, they're like they're gonna pass more they almost have to because they were so unhappy last year and i think dj more like dj more is gonna get 28 plus percent of the targets there i feel comfortable projecting that but it's like even if you give them a 30 percent target share at their pass rate from last season that still doesn't even get more to you know where he is in adp right now so i'm i'm below field on more at this point um he's he's dropping an adp by the way i think he's like wide receiver 26 on underdog over the past few weeks which is down like five or six spots from where he was um a few months ago so i'll be curious to see where his price goes over the next next couple months but um

i'm uh i'm probably gonna be below ADP on DJ Moore. Even at 26? Because I think I'd be pretty interested. 26 is about where I have him. So if he does settle there, I think it's okay. Yeah, that's exactly where I have him. I think there's enough upside that you could take a shot there. Sure.

All right. I don't think we took our second break. Did we not take it, Thomas Schaefer? Did we take our second break? We didn't take our second break. Let's take our second break. We got about 10 minutes left, Jacob. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. We have taken our second break? We didn't take our second break. Let's take our second break. We've got about 10 minutes left, Jacob. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today.

We have taken our second break. Okay, Jacob, what's next? We're going to talk about rushing touchdown regression candidates. So we're going to look at the red zone touchdown rate, the percentage of the red zone touches that resulted in a touchdown, some outliers on the high and low end. So the highest rate was Ezekiel Elliott. We've talked about him a lot. 29% of his red zone touches turned into touchdowns which is especially impressive

with the amount of volume that he got there same thing with jamal williams obviously resulted in a huge total 27 and then 25 for james connor derrick henry tony pollard and jerek mckinnon so again we see the two cowboys at the top i was surprised to see james connor there but he just keeps doing it we keep saying he's going to regress and he keeps scoring touchdowns at an insane rate on the low side of things eight percent for tyler algier nine percent for travis etn jonathan taylor and alvin kamara and 11 for remandre stevenson and damian pierce we're definitely going to talk about those last two guys I think it's interesting that some of these guys who performed poorly in this category immediately got another backfield mate added to the mix is there anyone on the high or low end that stands out to you Jared well James Connor is a guy that I reluctantly draft a lot it never feels good right because

like he's old he's always hurt he hasn't really been efficient the past couple years but like he was he was a top 12 running back when he was healthy last season just because of the sheer volume he was getting and i kind of think he's going to get that level of volume again i mean maybe he does regress in the touchdown department but i'm not really drafting him for touchdowns i don't think the cardinals offense is going to be very good especially until kyler gets back you know close to 100 but um just based on volume and cost connor's guy i'm kind of into rb26 might be able to get him in anywhere from the sixth to the eighth round uh yeah i i don't know i feel like that's not gonna last because everybody everyone

i talked to is like yeah i want james connor but right now it's lasting so that's terrific terrific value for James Connor. What a sick game that we play where everyone that you talk to is like, yeah, I want James Connor. I think he's underrated. I mean, you know, why are people so low on James Connor? I understand that they're worried about the Cardinals offense. But what I would point out is that we already saw him last year without Kyler Murray on like the worst one of the worst offenses in football they were awful and he was an absolute stud so you're not even drafting him to be that I just don't really know I will say one thing on that regard I bet I've bashed um I'm blanking on his name not McCoy uh that's who their old coordinator

was. Mike McCoy, uh, Cliff Kingsbury on multiple occasions in the past. Cause I thought he ran one of the worst offenses in football from a schematic standpoint. But the one thing I did give him credit for just from the times I've seen his offense on film was his designs in the run game. I actually thought he designed a pretty good run game. And I think that helped James Connor before that it helped chase Edmonds to kind of get uh you know a little bit of fantasy appeal so i'm a little bit worried about transitioning offenses for the run game personally um if they go more traditional style run game i don't know if that's going to help james connor so i would say that would be my concern a player you mentioned on that list jacob that i have to bring up every time i hear his name because he you would assume

it's going to be positive regression here but i don't't. You hate Travis Etienne. You hate Travis Etienne. I hate Travis Etienne. I don't understand Travis Etienne's appeal whatsoever. But Travis Etienne in the red zone was a disaster last year. He's not a good red zone back. He doesn't process his blocks well. He's not a physical runner. They brought in a player in Tank Bigsby who is a physical runner

who processes blocks and has a vision in the red zone. Would you keep playing a guy like Travis Etan who literally cost you a game against the Giants when he fumbled through the end zone on second and goal? Do you act like he's the only guy who ever fumbled? You're drafting Ramondre Stevenson in the second round. Do you remember the Bengals game?

Do you remember the Bengals game? Do you remember the Bengals game? What happened with Ramondre Stevenson? He fumbled at the six-yard line. They were going to upset the Bengals. He fumbled four times in his last Bengals game, what happened with Ramondre Stevenson? He fumbled at like the six-yard line. They were going to upset the Bengals. He fumbled four times in his last six games, by the way, Ramondre Stevenson. So I will not have this Travis Etienne slander like he's the only running back who's ever fumbled. He's not the only running back who ever fumbled in the end zone, but he was one of the least efficient running backs in the red zone last year.

Yeah, you're right. And I don't see any reason why Jacksonville is going to keep trotting him out there when they've tanked Bigsby on the roster. All right, Jacob, do me a favor. Set an over-under for Travis Etienne as RB blank. 15. I'm taking the over, like, immediate over. 15.

People are drafting him in the third and fourth round. That's how RB 15 goes. He's my RB 17. He's RB 13 on NFC. I'll still take the under. I don't see many halves. Good. That's my point. You take the under. He's my RB17. He's RB13 on NFC. I'll still take the under. I don't see many halves. Good. That's my point.

You take the under. I'll take the over. He had five touchdowns last year. We'll talk in January. What did he have? Five touchdowns, right? Combined? With like 1,300 yards, 1,400 yards.

I'll take the under on the touchdowns. I'll take the over. I'll take the over on everything. On Ramondre, he really profiles kind of similarly. I think Adam bringing him up as a fair comparison so um 36 red zone touchdowns only four red zone or 36 red zone touches only four red zone touchdowns last year the nfl average rate on rushes inside the five the conversion rate was 42 remandre was at 23 which was tied with travis etn only kenneth walker was worse at 20

um on the positive side of things, we should have better offensive line play, potentially more red zone trips. The Patriots were 28th in red zone drives, and they were dead last in red zone touchdown conversion rate. So if the red zone work is still his, Ramondre could definitely score a lot more. And Jared, is that kind of what you're expecting?

I know you're pretty bullish on Ramondre this year. i mean he's a big back too so i don't really see a reason why he should be you know less efficient than average at least near the end zone damian harris is gone as well i think he saw like five or six carries inside the 10 last season so yeah i definitely think we should get more touchdowns out of steven this year. Okay. That's the new bet. New bet. It's ETN versus Stevenson. I will even, I'm taking that at a loss here because ETN is going behind Stevenson. Everyone likes Stevenson better. I will take ETN over Stevenson, Schneier.

Okay. We can do a side bet on that. We'll discuss it on a mailbag show. I don't even love Stevenson this year at all. Oh, you took him in the second round. I'll take basically anyone over ETN. Okay. Basically anyone. By the way, we should not. I don't really see stevenson this year at all oh you took him in the second round i'll pick basically anyone over etn okay one by the way we should really i don't really see your path for etn i don't get it we should not gloss over ken walker's inclusion on that list jacob because like yeah that's a that's a concern with jack charbonnet in town yeah no absolutely worst um

inside the five and then also inside the 10 he He only scored on 13% of his touches, which was also the worst. Travis Etienne was the next worst at 17%. And then, yeah, the draft Charbonnet, who is a much higher success rate guy. He's better at getting easy yards. And I think it's totally valid that he could take that role from him in the red zone. I will say this. He will take that role from the red zone because he was a great red zone back. But I just find it completely wild to me that Seattle has two backs who

are much better fits for a gap scheme. And they're running just strictly zone at all times there. And obviously Ken Walker wasn't good behind it last year. It was super inefficient and I don't think they're changing that. So just an odd thing, but Charbonnet brand, they run a little bit of zone at UCLA. They're a good amount.

So I think it should be fine. Jacob, let's talk about damian pierce yes your boy the breakout jacob's favorite player and fan is that your favorite value in all the fantasy right now um there are some receivers who i prefer um that are cheap but i i really thought he fit well for the article for the breakout um so yeah i just i just read about damian pierce for the fft cbs magazine i haven't ranked at RB12. So I'm drafting him way ahead of Travis Etienne. I'm curious to get your thoughts on that.

Obviously, Dan probably agrees. But while healthy and starting across weeks two through 13, so he didn't start in week one and then he was injured week 14, he accounted for 53% of Houston's red zone touches. So if you look at red zone touch percentage last year, Josh Jacobs led the league at 50%. Eric Henry was 49%. Austin Eckler, 49%. That's the territory we're talking about for damian pierce

um the result was only four red zone touchdowns on 34 red zone touches um only five touchdowns on the year on 250 touches so the red zone role is there um i really don't think devin singletary is the guy to um vulture that from him and I just think he's such a major regression candidate if Houston's offense does improve which it is almost inevitable and he was the RB 13 last year during that stretch he's being drafted as RB 21 so he's RB 13 even without the touchdowns even without a functional offense um and that was another note I wanted to point out in Ryan Heath's article um year two running two running backs, absolutely smash. Um, so like, I think everything points towards a big year from Damian Pierce. I think he's one of the, he's the clearest value of the running back position. Um, and I'm, I'm definitely taking them over ETN. I love it. You've convinced me on him. I think a few other

notes that really will help him in is, or a few other things that will really help him factor wise the system they're, they're installing there from a schematic standpoint is such a perfect fit for his skill set. It's a wide set that said Shanahan zone system. I just love to see him. I love to see him run behind that given his style of running. So I love that they brought in Shaq Mason, who I think is going to really help that run game as well. So I just think there's good pieces being out there. And if you draft CJ Stroud and you're going to put, I think they're going to put him in this like under center, a lot of play action heavy style offense. You're going to want to make things easier

for him. And Damian Pierce is that guy to do it. So you've convinced me on him, Jacob. I've moved him wildly up the board. All right, Jerry, what do you think about Damian Pierce? I like what we saw from Pierce last year. I'm curious to see what the Texans think, though, after

giving Devin singletary that deal my other concern with pierce too is just how busy and effective is he going to be in the passing game right because if you look at some of the metrics last year he was not that efficient in the passing game didn't do a whole lot of that in college so now devon singletary is not good in the passing game either yeah so you know that that's a mark in pierce's favor i'm just curious to see exactly how big his workload is going to be if the tex, you know, that's a mark in Pierce's favor. I'm just curious to see exactly how big his workload is going to be. If the Texans, you know, let him be a guy that handles 60 to 70 percent of the backfield work, I could definitely see him finishing as a top 15 back.

Well, from week two to two until he got hurt, two through 14, Damian Pierce had 209 carries and the other Houston running backs had 20. So you can talk about touchdown regression. It will go up. The percentage of carry regression, though, is not going to be on his side. I was curious. He had a lot of

pretty big plays, and he runs over people, and he's violent, and he's fun. But he also has a lot of negative plays. He held his efficiency down a little bit, and he had some really bad games in there as well. So I can't, I don't know.

This is again, Jacob, this is what I was saying. This is similar to a Ramondre Stevenson versus Tony Pollard argument, because I think very highly of Travis Etienne. And I could understand from a projection standpoint expecting more touches from Damian Pierce, expecting more touchdowns from Damian Pierce. But I look at the type of player ETN is and the type of offense I'm hoping the Jaguars can become. And I would just prefer to attach myself to that rather than a possible workhorse.

Because Devin Singletary, I think, is a solid player, good backup for the Texans who, yes, they'll be better. I still think they're going to be a bad offense this year. I just do not worry about Singletary at all. Jared mentioned how bad he's been as a receiver, but for context, he's been the worst. If you look at his yard per hour and race, since he's in the NFL, he's been the stoneld worst. And they really didn't give him very much money. He got less guaranteed money than, you know, Samajit Piran and Jeff Wilson. One year, $2.75 million. It's not...

I don't... The way I'm projecting it, he's not going to play much of a role there. But I could be wrong. I think everything lines up well for Pierce, and they love him. And he's done everything they've asked for. And he wasn't very efficient as a receiver, but I could be wrong. I think everything lines up well for Pierce and they love him and he's done everything they've asked for. And he,

he wasn't very efficient as a receiver, but he was more efficient than his backfield mates in terms of yards per outrun. And he did drop targets at a decent rate, same rate as Sigmar Barkley in terms of target per outrun rate. Um, I think everything lines up for him to really smash this year. The one thing I would say matters if you're like comparing ETN versus Pierce

is you're talking about a first roundround pick versus a fourth-round pick. That does matter. It probably shouldn't once they hit the field, but it does matter as NFL teams. The only thing to say, though, is it was a first-round pick by a regime that's no longer there. That's true. That's fair. It was, and also, I think Pierce was the first pick of the fourth round. So let's just say he had been the last pick of the third round. For some people, that might make a difference.

Just the label of being a day two pick versus a day three pick. Would that matter to you? And sometimes you also can shift that so fast once you get to the NFL. Pierce is a guy who people who watch the tape of at Florida loved. Just loved. They thought he was second-round talent, but he didn't get a lot of touches at Florida. I think he proved that in year one that he is that kind of talent. So it's like that can kind of shift a little bit, I feel like,

when you're that late-round guy who breaks out early that's yeah so he avoided tackles at the highest rate of any running back in the nfl last year um his last year at florida his avoided tackle rate was one of the highest of any college football back in the past five years and another um efficiency metric that i measure is running backs relative to their running back teammates their backfield teammates and his discrepancy was higher than breeze hall higher than kenneth kenneth walker in terms of how he's producing relative to his florida teammates so like dan says everything pointed towards him being an elite talent we just never saw it for whatever reason florida didn't give him that role and i think that's entirely the reason that he fell is because

teams didn't know if he could handle it but houston took him and then said we think you can handle it and he did and he continued to be the most the hardest running back to tackle in the nfl until his season ending injury that was a breakout take from jacob breakout take from jacob and you know what jacob i will applaud you that was an excellent article for the magazine i'll say this we didn't get we didn't get this year's article from adam maser i don't know what was going on there no article in the magazine just ask for it just ask for it you know i'll write an article jared what did you learn about dan schneier today dan's a man i love his x's and o's take because that's definitely not my um my forte so i always learn a lot from dan for real oh thank you jared yeah

yep i i learned that he that he can definitely trash Jimmy Garoppolo with the best of them. I already knew that. Jared, thank you very much for coming on. We did learn a lot from you today. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys. That was fun. Tell us how we can follow you and what to look out for. Yeah, at SmolaDS

on Twitter. Then all my stuff is on DraftSharks. Definitely check that out. We have our full projections up for the season. You can use our Draft War Room, which is really sweet. It syncs up to your Fantasy League and gets you custom rankings based on your league's exact scoring formats. The rankings

adjust throughout the draft based on your team needs and who's still available. That's a really sweet tool that everyone should check out. The Draft War Room on DraftSharks. Last question for you Jared, if you're starting a league, redraft league not Dynasty, not Keeper or anything yes or no to kickers, yes or no

to DSTs? No to both. I'd say play IDPs. Get him out of here. That's it, that's enough. Leave DSTs alone. Fellow man of culture. Leave DSTs alone. Adam is just weirdly being contrarian on this whole thing. I'm not being contrarian. I saved DSTs. Try to start a Dynasty league with us with just DSTs alone. A fellow man of culture. A strong taste. DSTs alone. Adam is just weirdly being contrarian on this whole thing. I'm not being contrarian.

I saved DSTs. Try to start a Dynasty League with us with just DSTs. I like DSTs. Who has DST in Dynasty? It's unheard of. It's not unheard of. All right, we got to go. Thanks for listening and watching, everybody.

We'll talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Football.