Fantasy Football Today - Regression to the Mean! (05/22 Fantasy Football Podcast)
Episode Date: May 21, 2020We often talk about regression to the mean ... well, what does it mean??? We briefly explain before a quick discussion about some of the players with a lot of regression coming their way like Lamar Ja...ckson, Aaron Jones and A.J. Brown. We've also got some news items (7:00) on Jarvis Landry, Melvin Gordon and more ... QB regression (12:00) begins with Jackson. What else was wacky other than his TD rate? We also discuss Ryan Tannehill and Jared Goff. At RB (28:40), what will a normal season look like for Raheem Mostert? Why does Mark Ingram have a history of getting the most out of his touches? ... A long discussion about WRs who will regress to the mean (42:00) headlined of course by A.J. Brown. Ben tells you why Brown might regress while still being awesome. And what does 2020 look like for Robert Woods and Odell Beckham? ... Email us at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com and tweet us with #AskFFT 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow the new FFT Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/FFToday Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @YardsPerGretch, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCviK78rIWXhZdFzJ1Woi7Fg/videos Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports.
Here we go!
Email us at fantasyfootballatcbsi.com.
Here we go!
It's time to dominate your fantasy league.
Let's go!
Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.
Robert Woods caught two touchdowns last year.
Lamar Jackson threw 36 touchdown passes.
Let's talk about regression to the mean and what does it mean.
Welcome to Fantasy Football Today here.
It's Thursday early evening.
As we record, you're going to listen to this on Friday, May 22nd.
Going to get you ready for your big Memorial Day weekend.
Hope everybody has a lot of fun.
We won't have a show for you on Monday,
but we will have one for you on Tuesday next week.
We'll have three episodes next week.
I'm Adam Azer.
Heath Cummings. Regression to the
Mean. It's kind of your thing.
I feel
like this is
one of the shows that I've been more excited
about over the past couple of months.
It's weird because when we start to do
Dynasty shows,
I have to anticipate
those for a lot longer because they get rescheduled three or
four times before we actually do them the regression one happened on the day that we
were planning it so it's exciting i couldn't think of anything better i guess so yeah let's
just go with the regression uh jamie's here hey jamie hey buddy jamie's taking next week off
we're gonna miss you i won't miss you it was a collective way i're going to miss you. I won't miss you.
It was a collective we. I personally will not miss you. No, I'll miss everybody else, but I won't
miss you. Ben Gretch is here.
Ben is reeling
from a 9-0 defeat in
Tecmo Super Bowl to me.
You're just making up points. I scored.
It was 9-0. I scored.
I mean, I was obviously
logged off by that point.
We couldn't connect.
And Adam tweets out, I just crushed yards per Gretsch at Techno Super Bowl
because he got a safety on the opening kickoff because I couldn't run out of the end zone.
There's no touchbacks in that game.
That's correct.
But I knocked the ball out of your hands anyway.
It was a fumble.
You recovered it, and then I tackled that guy, so it would have been a safety.
All right, so regression to the mean. Heath, what does that mean exactly?
You are going to be more normal next year. I think that's the easiest way to say it,
because people hear regression. Even when I did the pieces this year, I've actually made
a different section for positive regression, and I've not called it positive regression. I
don't, that's not what it is. It's still just regression. But every year, if I don't, I have
to hear from people on Twitter about how he's going to be better. That's not regression. And
so it's just like being more normal is the, is the easiest way to say it and think about it.
People love to say that the correct term is progression.
Progression, yes.
You can use a dictionary and find out that it's not the correct term.
Right.
Progression just means getting better. with regression and progression is like Kyler Murray or a rookie who has what looks kind of like an unlucky year,
but it may also be a skill issue because rookie quarterbacks struggle with
touchdown rate.
And so is he going to regress or progress?
Okay.
That's the one instance where I could understand the debate.
Yeah.
Progression is the process of developing or moving gradually towards a more
advanced state.
Regression is a return to a former state.
So, all right, anyway, what does it all mean?
I think there's another definition for regression, right?
I'm sure.
Yes.
Okay, well, we get the point.
What does it all mean?
So Lamar Jackson's touchdown rate, we'll look at that.
He led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes.
I do want you to know this stat, though.
In a four-point-per-passing touchdown league,
if you took away nine touchdown passes,
he still would have been the number one quarterback
by nearly 40 points ahead of Dak Prescott.
Spoiler alert.
You should take away more than nine touchdown passes.
And there were multiple...
Lamar Jackson was one of a few players who had
multiple things about his season that you should regress it's not just the touchdown rate uh here's
one that i like about robert woods over the last five seasons there have been 13 wide receivers
well technically uh 11 but jarvis landry shows up on the list three times. So 13 times that a wide receiver has had 130 or more targets
and fewer than five touchdown catches.
How about that, Jarvis Landry?
Three times.
Robert Woods had the fewest with two touchdown catches,
so he had the worst touchdown luck, basically.
And then Jared Cook, I know we're going to talk about him.
He had 43 catches.
That's the fewest for top 12 tight end in PPR since Julius Thomas also had 43
and finished as tight end 10 in PPR in 2014.
So six seasons, Jared Cook, the fewest catches of any top 12 tight end,
basically, since six seasons ago.
I do have another Jared Cook stat that I'm going to give out.
I'll make the case why he will finish top 12 in PPR.
But I'll do that a little bit later. And let's Jamie, let me ask you, is there one player I
mentioned Jackson, Robert Woods, Jared Cook, we're going to talk about Tannehill, Josh Allen, Raheem
Mostert, Aaron Jones, Mark Ingram, AJ Brown, Kenny Galladay, Stefan Diggs. Is there one player that
you think has a regression to the mean coming in a big
way that's going to impact fantasy?
Aaron Jones for sure.
Just the nature of what he did last year
based on the touchdowns, but the fact that they added
another player
to his position
is a significant
damaging thing to what he did last year as well.
Ben, how about you? Who's the one guy?
If you were writing the story and you were picking the cover photo,
I think it's all of them.
So I'm going to answer a completely different question than you're asking
and say,
I want to defend Lamar Jackson's past TV,
right?
When we get there,
he's one that I don't think will regress as much.
Okay.
Next time you ask me a question,
I will answer a completely different question of my choosing
he's gonna be the cover photo the cover man uh well that'll be fun because like i'm writing
four pieces and the cover photo is going to likely be lamar jackson aaron jones and aj brown
and jared cook so like the four guys that we just talked about are the guys.
And if you are someone who is annoyed over the A.J. Brown fight,
I'm sorry.
You can't have a discussion about regression
without talking about A.J. Brown, so we have to do this.
This won't end anything,
but we'll try not to do it as much after this.
Maybe today I'll just take what Ben said on yesterday's show
and see how much of it I
remember and argue with Heath
because he had the
pre-argument with Heath
about A.J. Brown when he wasn't on
the show. I'll see how much I remember.
Alright, let's do some quick news and notes. Jarvis
Landry said he's ahead of schedule in his recovery
from hip surgery. He's hoping to return
to the field in August.
Jamie, your thought there?
I'm not going to draft a lot of Jarvis Landry.
I just think the injury concern, because this is something that could recur,
the fact that they added Austin Hooper, I think Beckham will be better.
I know they're going to run the ball a ton.
So he's not going to be somebody I have a lot of stock in.
I'm not drafting him either, but can I just point out
that he's going wide receiver 32, and in six seasons,
he's never finished lower than wide receiver 30,
which was his rookie year.
The last five seasons, he's finished at least wide receiver 20,
and he's been his ADP five out of six years.
I mean, and I don't draft him either.
He's boring, but like...
But he's never been coming off an injury, though.
True.
But should that matter that much
if Jarvis Landry's the 30th wide receiver
off the board?
He's one of those guys, you know, this is
something we've talked about a lot throughout the years.
Do you want to draft your team
to win a championship or draft your team to make the playoffs?
He'll help you get to the playoffs. He's not going to help you win a championship.
Fair enough.
Melvin Gordon says Denver's
system is more suited for him than the Chargers was.
Anybody think that's important?
Well, they don't have Austin Eckler, so if that's part of the system, it's good because Austin Eckler is better than Melvin Gordon.
But they also don't have Phillip Rivers, who throws to his running backs and, and did before Melvin Gordon and,
and to all these other running backs like Danny Woodhead and all these guys
over the years,
Mike Tolbert.
Um,
so he might like Denver system more,
but the receptions matter a lot.
And the NFL reinstated Dallas defensive end,
Alden Smith.
I mean,
what,
what,
what,
what does Melvin Gordon going to say when he's doing a press conference for
the Broncos?
You know, I really like that Chargers system
a hell of a lot better.
No, but he didn't just say that, though.
I know, but that's the gist of it.
But he actually went and said that he felt like
he had to adjust to the Chargers system.
It was a little strange.
You don't see quotes like that too often.
Well, if you go back to, you remember,
his disastrous rookie campaign,
and then they added a fullback,
and that's what he was used to in Wisconsin,
and he was dramatically better.
So, you know, he's a very candid person
about what he wants and what he likes
and what works for him.
See, we got some more news items here.
The Eagles, according to ESPN,
they're looking at Devontae Freeman,
Carlos Hyde, and LaShawn McCoy,
according to ESPN.
You said the Eagles?
Yeah.
Because so are the Seahawks.
This is, yeah, hot off the presses like 20 minutes ago.
Tim McManus of ESPN.
The Eagles looking at Freeman, Hyde, and McCoy.
We'll react when they sign someone.
Yeah, apparently the Seahawks made an offer to Freeman,
a one-year $4 million.
So I would not draft Rashad Penny.
I know you like him, Ben, but I think at this point it's pretty clear
that they're not comfortable with where he's at physically.
I agree.
Sean McVay said, we feel we've got three really good backs.
I'm not sure you have one, but I hope you do.
And Josh Gordon, according to Pro Football Talk,
Josh Gordon is going to apply for reinstatement soon.
And that's pretty much it.
All right.
Let me tell you what's coming up next week.
We have three episodes next week,
including a Dynasty mailbag on Friday.
So get your questions in via Apple Podcast Review.
I have a ton of emails about Dynasty League,
so we'll be doing a mailbag
show, but leave us a nice review
on Apple Podcast, then we'll read your question
on our Friday Dynasty show.
Tuesday night, we're Twitching!
We're on Twitch, twitch.com
slash FF today. We're streaming
and playing some poker!
The FFT crew will be competing in a single-table
poker tournament hosted by
our friends at Faded Spade.
That's going to be awesome.
Faded Spade Card Club is a new social poker platform
offering free play and custom games.
You can watch at twitch.com slash FF today.
And again, it's Faded Spade Card Club.
I'm going to say Dave kicks all your asses.
You know, we had a podcasting call within the company on Tuesday,
and somebody asked me,
Azar, are you good at poker?
And I said, I am very lucky at poker.
I always get good cards. So, Jamie, don't underestimate my blind luck.
As someone who has played, not recently at all, but a lot of both in-person and online poker,
online poker is a completely different animal.
This is going to be super interesting.
So I've never seen it in person,
but I know Dave usually wears big, big sunglasses,
like old person, giant sunglasses.
And he wears a hat and a jacket, I think,
if I remember correctly the story.
So he tries to make it like you can't read him at all.
So you might be right about that.
He might be better in person than he is in online poker.
But I know he plays a lot.
So if I had to put money on one of you guys, I'd put it on Dave.
Oh, I think that's the smart money.
I just think his advantage is smaller in this format than it would be around a table.
Around a table, I'm not sure Adam would make it out of the first 15 minutes.
No, you're wrong.
He might just start crying and leave.
I'm not that bad at poker.
And I think I want the whole thing to be
split the ocean anyway, which is a
complete luck game, but extremely
fun.
No, it won't be that. Okay, so let's
get into it here. Regression of the mean, starting with
the quarterbacks. I don't think... We might
be able to mention 18
players. We won't be able to
expand on them but let's start with lamar jackson heath and and what you expect from lamar jackson
yeah i would say for this section like lamar jackson ryan tannahill and maybe jared goff are
the only three we have to spend very much time at all on jackson is strange obviously he had a nine
percent touchdown rate last year um i think patrick Mahomes is like 8.5 the year before, and we just screamed that there's no way he matches that. In the last 20 years, I believe three quarterbacks have had a 9% touchdown rate in a season. No one's ever come close to following that up with anything above eight so like at the very very least you
are taking two percent off the top i think like if you wanted to be very kind you would take three
percent off the top because aaron rogers has the all-time or at least modern era highest touchdown
rate in the nfl at six percent. And that's an enormous difference.
I projected him at 5.5 going into this year, which is still a one point higher than league
average.
That moves him at 25 and a half touchdowns through the air.
You lose 10 and a half, despite the fact that I have him throwing 60 more passes than he
did last year.
He's going to lose 10 touchdowns.
And then it's not just like Ben might have a defense for that.
I don't think he has a defense that he's going to have a touchdown rate higher than 6%.
But we'll hear what that is in a second.
The other thing is that I know Ben agrees with.
He averaged 6.9 yards per carry last year.
He was at 4.7 as a rookie michael vick did average seven yards per carry as a rusher over
his career so there's a precedent there but the second best of all time is russell wilson at five
and a half i don't feel comfortable projecting lamar jackson to be better than the second best
of all time and if you drop him to five and a half you there's 400 rushing yards are going like literally you could take three to four hundred yards off the top so i i think there's
a he outscored in six point per passing touchdown leagues number two by 93 points last year
i think there's a real chance he plays 16 games and scores 100 fewer fantasy points
he played i just want to mention he did play 15 games last year.
Yep.
So that's, yeah, okay.
And I didn't even mention yards per attempt,
but he's probably not going to average nearly eight yards per attempt either,
but that's out the door.
I didn't even factor that in.
Okay.
Gretch?
Yeah, I do agree with Heath on the yards per carry part.
I think the reasons for aggression and we like it's not just
the math right like we talk about the actual football side of it sometimes I know Heath and
I have talked about like what a player's true skill level is and and all that we're not going
to regress Lamar Jackson back to some league average right and that's not what Heath was doing
but we are going to recognize that teams are going to do things differently they're not going to
scheme against Lamar Jackson the same way they did last year because he was the mvp last year they have
to they have to do something different um so that's going to probably limit his ability to
run for such a high yards per carry as far as the touchdowns i i've been thinking about this and
it's related to the point i just made their offense was so run heavy and so effective running the ball
that and this is actually probably something you could test and i haven't tested it so i'm kind of made, their offense was so run heavy and so effective running the ball.
And this is actually probably something you could test, and I haven't tested it, so I'm kind of just throwing this out there.
But I would guess that Lamar Jackson had a lot higher percentage of his pass attempts
in scoring range, meaning other quarterbacks, even on good offenses like Patrick Mahomes
when he threw 50 touchdowns in 2018, he was throwing in his own, on his own side of the field.
Every drive, typically, not every drive, but the vast majority started on a team's own side of the field.
And he was throwing to get into plus territory.
The Ravens being a good offense, they ran more plays in plus territory than most offenses.
That's not one I don't think I have to look up.
I think we can all agree on that.
And I would argue that because they're so good running the ball and their pass attempts were lower, because we're talking about a TV percent of total pass attempts, if he was throwing more passes in plus territory, there's there's reason to believe that Lamar Jackson's touchdown rate should be higher than a typical quarterbacks because he's throwing a lot higher of his higher percentage of his passes in scoring range.
Does it matter to you that seven of his 36 touchdown passes were of more than 30 yards?
Yes.
Four of them were of more than 47 yards.
And I went back, I kind of looked at other quarterbacks who had similar touchdown pass numbers.
It's not unusual to have that many big pass plays for them.
What is unusual is that Lamar Jackson was 21st in air yards. So I'm thinking there was a lot of
yak. And I've seen it. I mean, guys running wide open because nobody knew how to defend the Ravens.
So that's my guess. A lot like yards after catch leading to long touchdown passes for Lamar Jackson.
He's definitely going to regress.
You don't get 9%.
Like you said,
it's one of three seasons that he found,
right?
Is that what you said?
In 20,
in 20 years.
Yeah.
In 20 years.
So like,
he's definitely going to regress and that's the exact spot.
Yes.
I was thinking of that as I was making the case to Marquis Brown,
getting deep,
you know, Mark Andrews running free. Like you said said like we saw a lot of that those those plays are
going to be harder to hit on at such a high rate next year i mean some of that yes is also related
to the run game they have to press their safeties up and it creates room for guys to run over the
top but it's like you just can't do what he did last year multiple years in a row but i do think
there is a possibility that his regression isn't as big as,
like maybe as he said he projected, which is just like one percentage point
above the average.
Maybe he can stay around 7%, which would still be incredibly high.
But if he did that for his career, he would have the highest touchdown rate
in NFL history.
Right.
Jamie, we see quarterbacks like Peyton Manning have this best season ever for him,
55 touchdown passes.
Then the year after, he wasn't the number one quarterback.
He was like QB4 or something like that.
He was really good, but not amazing.
Patrick Mahomes dealt with the injury, but also regressed.
But we've never seen a quarterback have a year like this
and do it with the rushing totals that Lamar Jackson did.
So I know everybody's got him one or two in the rankings.
What do you think about him this year?
What do you think the most likely outcome is?
I think his numbers come down, but it's just a matter of, you know,
where does he make up for it to still keep him afloat?
So I think he improves as a passer slightly.
I think his, not his touchdowns, but his yards,
because I think Marquise Brown wasn't healthy.
They add two young receivers who I think, is not as touchdowns, but as yards, because I think Marquise Brown wasn't healthy. They add two young receivers, who I think will help. They add, you know, probably a better
complementary running back in the backfield to help Mark Ingram and sort of stylistically work
with him, I hope, at least with J.K. Dobbins. You know, the most important person for Baltimore
right now is Greg Roman, because as long as Lamar Jackson's healthy, it's what's the next wrinkle?
Because that's what has to change.
It has to be what do they do to throw off defenses now?
Because I think I said this a few times.
I spoke to TJ Watt.
I spoke to Stephon Gilmore.
I spoke to guys at the Pro Bowl about how do you stop him?
What's the way to slow him down?
Our own colleague, Brian McFadden, I asked him.
He's a two-time Super Bowl champion with the Steelers.
You know, what would you do to defend him?
You know, and so that's what teams are doing right now.
Their schedule gets tougher because they're a first-place schedule now.
You know, the risk of injury is higher, you know, for a player that does what he does.
So there are a lot of things that are working against him.
But if Greg Roman does his job and figures out how to, okay, maybe the design runs aren't the same.
Maybe it's a different screen game that they incorporate.
Maybe it's different personnel packages that they use and they're better that way.
He's going to come down.
It's just the nature of what he did.
He had a record-breaking season.
It was phenomenal.
He won the MVP for a reason.
But those type of performances.
We were really robbed of what Michael Vick would
have done coming off of his 1,000-yard season by his own doing, obviously, by what happened to him.
But 2006, he had 2,000 and 1,000. Could he have become the first 3,000, 1,000 guy? Maybe. We
don't know. And we'll see now how Lamar Jackson backs that up. So like I said, we all expect the
numbers to come down, but everybody's going to have
Lamar Jackson as their QB1 or QB2 in the rankings.
So what does this actually mean for people on draft day?
It's going to have a first round ADP.
Certainly, we're going to get to July or August, and Lamar Jackson's ADP is going to be in
the first round, just like Patrick Mahomes was last year.
But Mahomes was actually outside.
I was shocked.
He was at 13.
13?
Okay.
Yeah.
Even that.
It's minuscule, obviously.
When should we take Lamar Jackson?
Late third, earliest.
That's never going to happen, though, but you're right.
I mean, this is one of those things where people see even the projections,
your projections, sports science projections, whatever site you play on,
they're going to be still better than most, most quarterbacks. And then you're going to debate, okay, I I'm taking a quarterback here. Is it going to be my homes
and which my homes are getting, you know, I, I think, you know, he said it, uh, my homes,
what he did in 2018 and then what the regression was going to be um we don't really know where he
would have been with those three games you know i mean with the ankle injury you know he was playing
hurt so we don't know how he if he was 100 healthy and everything worked out for him where would the
numbers have been i don't think that would have been where they were in 2018 but how far off would
they have come we don't talk about this enough but he in september last year he was pacing
for a better season remember that i know he was he was incredible it was ridiculous you know tyra
kill got hurt too right you know those are all factors you have to consider and and that's you
know a positive for lamar jackson marquise brown is as good as he was advertised coming out of
college he didn't have that weapon at 100 last year year. So imagine Andrew is a better Marquise Brown,
and then maybe one of the rookies does something.
So just a heads up, can't spend 10 minutes on everyone,
but I did think it was worth it for Lamar Jackson.
Let's do Ryan Tannehill.
Heath, thoughts on him?
This will be quick because I can't imagine anyone disagreeing.
The nice thing with Ryan Tannehill is we've got like years of nfl action to show what type of player he was um he
had a 7.7 touchdown rate which was you know about three points better than league average three and
a half points better than his career average but the the yards per attempt 9.6 yards per attempt is just outlandish.
No one's ever going to repeat that.
A few people have done it in the past.
Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2018 and followed that up with a 7.0 yards per attempt.
Nick Foles back in his breakout year with the Eagles did it and then followed it up with a 7.2.
Also, there have been good quarterbacks that have done it as well followed it up with like a 7.2. I just think like and also
there have been good quarterbacks that have done it as well, but
he's not Peyton Manning. So
even if you project
him for eight yards per attempt, which is
above average and a 5%
touchdown rate, which is 10% better
than league average
at 500 attempts, which would be a
huge increase from last year. He's still not
a top 12 quarterback.
So don't draft Ryan Tannehill.
Does anybody want to draft Ryan Tannehill?
I just did a story about seven quarterbacks that I would take
that are going to have an ADP after 100 overall.
And just looking at a fancy football calculator,
I did it based off of our rankings,
so guys that are after our consensus top 12.
And he was one I was like, I have no interest.
I put Tyrod
Taylor in the story over
Ryan Tannehill. I don't have it ranked that way.
I don't have it ranked that way because I don't think Tyrod
is going to play 16 games, but
if you're looking for who's going to
have a better chance to be a league winner,
it's Tyrod over Tannehill.
Okay, Jared Goff is the last one we
want to talk about. What are we looking to come back here?
Touchdown rate.
He had a 3.5% touchdown rate and like his career numbers,
4.7,
which seems like a very small difference.
It would have been seven and a half touchdowns last year.
If he'd had his career touchdown rate last year,
he would have been QB seven.
So I,
and I don't know if they will throw as much.
I think they would prefer to have a better,
like not throw quite as much and run the ball a little bit better.
And the defense play a little better,
but I,
I think he is,
um,
he's a little bit undervalued because of a blip on the touchdown rate.
Golf is on a team that will run a lot of plays.
So whether or not they,
you know,
want to run the ball more,
they still have plenty of room to pass.
They've been fourth and eighth in
scrimmage plays the last two seasons.
Jamie, my question about Goff
is, because I was drafting
him a lot last year because in 2018
he was
sixth, and with
Cooper Cup, he was basically
second best behind Mahomes.
But he doesn't run the ball a lot.
About 100 rushing yards last year, I think.
Oh, no.
He had 40.
Sorry.
Maybe the year before that.
I don't know.
He doesn't run the ball a lot.
Yeah, he had 100 the year before.
What's the ceiling for Goff?
Well, I think if you go back to last year, he had that four-game stretch, which was completely miserable.
And if you look at the four opponents that he played, three of them had the best defense in football last year, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. You throw in the
Chicago game, which was the fourth one. Their defense is obviously good. He combined for 12
points in those four games. It's astounding that a quarterback can only get 12 points in a four
game stretch. You take out those four games, he averaged over 22 points per game for the season.
And he came back against San Francisco week 16, and he hit 22 points, 23 points.
So I think he's a better quarterback
than what he showed last year.
I think he's right.
He's going to regress.
The thing that's working against him is
the offensive line got older,
and they didn't do anything to upgrade it.
And the run game, is that going to be able to support him?
So if those two things fail him again,
he's so good off play action,
he needs everything to sort
of be working you know this this McVay system to be you know almost you know links in a chain you
know working together but I think he's one of the best guys you can draft if you miss on one of your
preferred targets there I think there are four guys Roethlisberger, Daniel Jones, Goff, and maybe
Minshew. Mayfield?
Mayfield, I just
don't know the plays. That's the thing with him.
If they allow him to be in the 500
range of pass attempts, he could
be really good because of what they have.
Who's your favorite in the group you just mentioned?
Roethlisberger.
Ben, how about you? There's Roethlisberger,
Goff, Daniel Jones, Baker Mayfield, Gardner Minshew?
Who stands out?
We're excluding Stafford because the guy's now having ranked in the top 12.
But that's the guy that I've been taking that range.
I just want to throw that out there that if he's not going higher in your league, Stafford would be my pick.
But I don't really care i think these
are all fine guys like i think i think i agree with jamie that's a good list i like rothlisberger
a little bit even later i like golf for all the reasons they just said he had four games of 370
or more passing yards last year he had one over 500 um there's still plenty upside in this ram's
passing offense we it's one of those ones where our expectations were so high
and he had that really bad stretch that Jamie referenced.
His season numbers weren't great.
He doesn't run.
It looks really bad immediately.
For a stationary quarterback with a bad touchdown rate
and a few bad games, his fantasy line looks bad.
But he could very easily bounce back and have a QB1 season.
And I like Daniel Jones upside too.
So those are all guys that I would look at for sure.
The thing you want to look at with these quarterbacks, Adam,
and Ben said this, I think it was on HQ,
high volume passing or running.
And that's what these guys are going to have in their favor.
Yeah.
I mean, I read your article.
All this, by the way,
was inspired by Ben Roethlisberger getting a haircut.
Jamie decided to write a story about it.
It was a good story.
Check it out.
And like Heath mentioned, he's writing four stories about regression to the mean,
quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end.
So anything we don't get to, Josh Allen, Tom Brady, you'll read about it.
Let's go to running back here.
Raheem Mostert and Aaron Jones, Mark mark ingram alvin camara tarik cohen
who should we talk about heath who should we talk about i think jones and mostert are like the two
that i would choose and you can pick one more if you like but um like the thing that i have
struggled with with aaron jones and we don't like the aj Dillon is a wild card. Aaron Jones would have made
the regression article, whether the Packers drafted Aaron Jones or not. He just was not
going to have that type of touchdown success, 19 touchdowns in the number of touches that he had.
He was amongst the league leaders in terms of touchdown rate for running backs.
And he scored some receiving touchdowns like that wasn't going to happen.
And they've pretty clearly said they're going to share touches.
The thing that I struggled with before they drafted Dylan that I'm still kind of bothered by before last season.
In his first two years in the league, Aaron Jones had averaged six touchdowns per 100 carries.
Well, I don't think A.J. Dillon's going to cause him to get less than 200 carries.
Maybe he gets 200 and A.J. Dillon gets 140 or 150 or something.
Things are really bad for Jones.
But that rate went up last year.
But we're now at three years where he's had a touchdown rate that,
and even a yards per carry in most cases that I would say we need to regress
that back a little bit.
So Jones is a little bit more of a complicated case than I'm used to.
Like,
yeah,
his 6.8% touchdown rate from last year on rush attempts was out of this
world,
but I don't really know what...
I can't get him anywhere close to league average
because of what the first two years look like.
He had 13 carries inside the five-yard line.
Jamal Williams had two.
He had 4.6 yards per carry,
which was the worst of his career.
I just think that Aaron Jones is awesome.
Really good.
I hope they let him be really good.
We mentioned, Jamie, you always bring this up, the catches.
He had 49 catches.
Well, he had 27 in 12 games with Devontae Adams,
and he had 22 in four games without Devontae Adams.
And all three of his receiving scores.
Oh, thank you.
And all three of his receiving touchdowns.
So that's another angle there.
Yeah, he's a tough one.
I think after the NFL draft.
Yeah.
Okay.
Heath, I know what you're saying.
He would have been on this list before the NFL draft.
Does A.J. Dillon just take Jamal Williams' touches?
That's what I'm hoping.
And Jones still gets a big role.
But I just feel like they're better when Aaron Jones is on the field.
They're better.
The one thing I will say is A.J.
Dillon is not taking all of Jamal Williams touches because a huge percentage of all Williams touches were in the passing game.
OK, his carry is not taking that his carries.
If he just takes his carries and Aaron Jones gets more of Jamal, they're doing a two back split between Jones and Dillon.
Jones might be better outside of the touchdowns.
All right. and dylan jones might be better outside of the touchdowns all right i agree with i agree with
heath that jones is very good and his touchdown rate matters that we've seen enough of it um i
think the way that you think about his regression is that stat adam that you just gave 13 carries
inside the five and jamal williams only had two we can't figure out why the packers drafted aj
dylan there's no explanation for he doesn't play on passing downs. That's where they use Jamal Williams.
It's literally has to be coming for some aspect of Aaron Jones workload.
And the only thing that makes any sense is short.
What if it's 2021?
What if that's the reason they drafted him?
But they're not just putting him on the bench for a year.
I mean, he's going to play.
I compare it to DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry.
You know, Henry was a second round pick.
Didn't really have a big role. And then I don't remember if DeMarco Murray and Derrick Henry. You know, Henry was a second round pick, didn't really have a big role.
And then I don't remember if DeMarco Murray had a better career.
The slight difference here is that Aaron Jones is not a workhorse back size wise.
He's 5'9", 208.
He's Duke Johnson size.
They're almost the same size, which doesn't mean that he's not capable of it.
He's shown that he is.
But they just went out and drafted a 247 pound back.
This guy has 40 pounds on him.
Who are they going to give those 13 inside the five yard carries to?
Why else would they draft him in the second round?
That's the only explanation I have.
You also have to factor in offensive line could be worse.
They lose Balaga.
Rick Wagner is not as good as Balaga.
So there's one piece in the offensive line, which was great last year that they have to replace.
And that's also another factor.
For me, it comes down to value with him and that's it you know i mean if you're getting him past round two and a half you
know mid round three i'm fine with that but he still goes around too i think that's just too
soon you know i i think there are better backs in that range you know for me he's in the group
of girly and gordon and those you know guys in the teens as opposed to somebody that's still in
the top 12 it's splitting hairs you know i mean it's obviously you know you're talking to
a few spots but like for example in our in our magazine that's coming out in June Chris took him
Chris Towers took him at the back end of round two you know and I pose questions to everybody
similar to what Ben does on our on our site um you know why did you take him in that spot and
he said he still thinks he's the top uh 11 back i think he was 11th back off the board i just i don't see it possible if everybody's
healthy and they want to split the workload potentially three ways if not just giving
dylan some of these high level touches like ben said those 13 you know opportunities could be
split in half and then jones if he doesn't produce like we saw with his receiving stats,
and then you factor in the touchdowns coming down, it's just hard on paper to justify him being a second-round pick.
By the way, I think Derrick Henry and DeMarco Murray played two seasons together.
Henry had 110 or so carries as a rookie behind a very good DeMarco Murray.
So that's Aaron Jones. Raheem Mostert
is the second one he wanted to talk about. I'm going to say the
third one is going to actually be Mark Ingram,
but let's go to Raheem Mostert.
Ingram is a
good choice because he is absolutely
going to regress. The thing with
Mostert is
he averaged 5.6 yards
per carry last year, and it's easy to say,
well, his career average is even better than that.
He's going to be 28 years old this season, and he has 178 career rush attempts.
He doesn't have a season's worth of carries yet.
So off the top, I'm not going to project him for over five yards per carry.
You're automatically losing at least a half a yard and probably a little bit more.
And then he also had almost a 6% touchdown rate on those carries
while his teammate Matt Breida scored one touchdown, like 150 carries or something.
I don't really think it's all that likely that he comes anywhere close to that.
And the problem is, there's a lot of guys we'll talk about
including aj brown where you can make the argument yeah but they're going to get a lot more work
so they can make up for the regression that's obviously going to happen he'll get more than
137 carries for sure but i don't know that there's a path to a lot more than 200 carries for raheem
mostert and if you're going below five yards per carry, which I think you
should, I don't think you're getting a thousand
yard rusher. I don't think you're getting a 10 touchdown
guy, and he's not going to catch very
many passes.
Does anybody like Mostert?
Nope.
I think he's an okay flex.
I think he would drive him as
a starter to mistake. He's certainly
better non-PPR than PPR.
Does he not justify more work, though, with how good he's been?
But Shanahan's never – I mean, I guess he has to go back as an OC,
but it doesn't seem at all like that's what he wants to do.
They just loaded up on – I mean, they traded Breida,
but they brought back McKinnon.
They brought back Wilson.
They loaded up on running backs again this offseason.
They're going to use multiple backs.
Yeah, they're going to use them.
He's bulking up for a 200-touch workload or carry workload.
He had 137 last year.
200 is almost exactly what Mark Ingram had, by the way, in 15 games.
Do you think Raheem Mostert gets 200 carries?
I'd bet the under.
200
doesn't... I'm sure I haven't
projected for less than that, but
that's the ceiling.
Okay. Would you guys rather
have Raheem Mostert or Darius Geis?
Geis.
Raheem Mostert or Keyshawn Vaughn?
Vaughn.
I'm going to take Vaughn. I think I have Mostert projected higher,hawn Vaughn? Vaughn. I'm going to take Vaughn.
I think I have Mostert projected higher, but yeah, I'll take Vaughn.
Okay.
Raheem Mostert or J.K. Dobbins?
Mostert.
Depends on the backs you've drafted to that point.
I think Mostert.
Especially if you're zero RB, it's Mostert.
Yeah.
Mostert is...
I mean, the comps for M third for me are, are Sony, Michelle
and David Montgomery, you know, guys that are going to potentially get a lot of work,
but aren't going to catch the ball a ton.
And they need to really have good offensive line play scoring opportunities.
You know, I mean, those are the type of guys that I, that I struggled with when I ranked
them, you know, I mean, just based on how they perform and how they play in the offenses
they're going to play.
And if you don't take a lot of running backs early, like I don't in some of my drafts, those are the types of guys that if you have to start one of them in the range that you're looking at those guys, they're the best potential startable options that are available.
But if you do have some good running backs, I would take J.K. Dobbins upside as a bench dash over these guys. Right. If Mark Ingram goes down,
you'd by leaps and bounds
rather have J.K. Dobbins than any of the
guys we just mentioned.
If Mark Ingram and Tevin Coleman are both injured,
would you rather have Dobbins or Mostert?
Dobbins.
Oh, Dobbins.
Not close.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Mark Ingram is the last guy.
I'm going to do 90 seconds on Mark Ingram here
because I want to bring this up.
He had 202 carries.
That's really not a lot in 15 games.
He scored 10 touchdowns on the ground,
five receiving touchdowns.
But I don't think I noticed about Mark Ingram.
He's played three seasons in his last five or six,
I think five, with 15 or 16 games.
All three of those seasons, he's been a top 12 running back.
He's been top eight in non-PPR and top 11 in PPR.
He did that with 205, 230, and 202 carries.
So he's just remarkably efficient.
Now, in those three seasons, including last year,
he had 46, 58, and 26 catches.
That's the problem.
He's not catching the ball like he did with New Orleans.
But I don't know. Heath, this guy has
a remarkable ability
to be
better than most on a
per-touch basis. Is that fair to say?
To score, I'm going to put it that way. 100% fair
to say, and I don't know if it's...
He's awesome. I love Mark
Ingram. He's also worked in
situations and will continue to work in a situation that's going to be more efficient for a running back.
Like Gus Edwards was pretty damn efficient last year, and we don't think Gus Edwards is anything special.
The rushing touchdown rate for Ingram, 5%, is high enough that I would normally regress it in my projection.
So I would not expect him to score 10 touchdowns on 200 carries, even on an offense as good as the Ravens. But the receiving, he had
five receiving touchdowns on 29 targets. Like we were laughing about the touchdown rate for Lamar
Jackson of 9%, 17% of his attempts to Mark Ingram went for touchdowns.
Mark Ingram might be the reason for Lamar Jackson's high touchdown rate.
How about Robert Woods gets 130-plus targets and catches two touchdowns,
and Mark Ingram has five?
That's football.
And Ingram's profile is so—the word I would use is fragile because anything bad that happens could just destroy it.
It's a house of cards.
It has a top 15 back.
And there's more concern that J.K. Dobbins is going to take a higher percentage of the carries in the second half than there was with Gus Edwards.
So everything is working against Mark Ingram.
All right, I'll ask you guys.
Mark Ingram or James Conner?
Conner. Conner.
Conner.
Conner Heath?
Yeah.
Ingram or a Rams running back?
I'll take Akers.
I'll take Ingram and non-PPR, Akers and PPR.
I'll take Ingram and both.
I will take a quick break.
After this commercial break, we will talk about wide receivers.
A.J. Brown, Kenny Galladay, Stefan Diggs, Robert Woods, Odell Beckham.
We'll pick a few of those, and then I'll tell you about Jared Cook,
a case for and against.
Mark Andrews, Darren Waller, we'll get to that.
We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today.
Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM,
an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League.
Yard after yard, down after down,
the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance
to take action to the end zone
and celebrate every highlight reel play.
And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL,
BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom
on every game day.
With a variety of exciting features,
BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron
and to embrace peak sports action.
Ready for another season of gridiron glory?
What are you waiting for?
Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long.
Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions.
Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the
Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with
iGaming Ontario. Metrolinx and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful
as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress.
Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.
Remember to follow all traffic signals.
Be careful along our tracks,
and only make left turns where it's safe to do so.
Be alert, be aware, and stay safe.
Well, yeah, you can't have a discussion about receivers regressing
without talking about A.J. Brown.
And why don't we lump A.J. Brown and Robert Woods?
I had this great idea during the commercial break to lump A.J. Brown.
Ben had a great idea to lump A.J. Brown and Robert Woods together
because we've already talked about the quarterbacks.
So, Heath, are there similarities between A.J. Brown and Robert Woods?
I guess the regression is really in opposite directions, right?
It's in opposite directions.
It does correlate with what we said about their quarterbacks.
Jared Goff's going to throw more touchdowns,
so Robert Woods will score more touchdowns.
I will say that A.J. Brown's regression, and Ben's going to like Yelp when I say this,
to me looks more severe than Ryan Tannehill's regression.
He averaged 12.5 yards per target.
I believe that's the second highest mark since they began tracking that stat.
Tyler Lockett and Tyreek Hill are essentially tied
for the best yards per target of all time
at right around 9.44.
So three yards per target worse
than what Brown was last year.
And he might just be the most efficient
wide receiver of all time.
Ben will probably say that he's going to be.
This is insane.
I'm not going to say that. I going to be um but this is insane i'm not gonna say that i don't
feel comfortable projecting him for better than nine yards per target which is pretty close to
like the best of ever he also had a touchdown rate of 9.5 percent which is also insane it's
better than lamar jackson's passing touchdown rate that we all just agreed has to
regress. So I just looked at what does he have to do to match last year's numbers?
If he gets 117 targets, which is what, 30 more than he had last year, 35 more than he had last
year, an enormous increase. But I think Ben also thinks
a completely reasonable one,
and maybe it is.
117 targets at nine yards per target,
he gets the same yardage total as last year.
133 targets at a 6% touchdown rate,
which if you'll remember,
Aaron Rodgers' 6% touchdown rate
is the greatest quarterback
touchdown rate career of all time.
So A.J. Brown is basically Aaron Rodgers.
At a 6% touchdown rate, he takes 133 targets to match last year's eight touchdowns.
Question.
You are not drafting A.J. Brown in the late third or early fourth round
to match what he did last year.
You were drafting him to improve.
Not in PPR, I guess you could, because he was number 10.
I'm talking, yes, you're right.
But he was 21st in PPR.
But quarterback touchdown rate versus wide receiver touchdown rate.
Wide receiver median is very similar.
Okay.
But a really good wide receiver, if your name is not Julio Jones, will be higher than a really good quarterback.
Yes.
But you can get over 9%.
An elite receiver can get over 9% a lot easier than a quarterback.
But an elite receiver cannot maintain 9% year over year.
DeAndre Hopkins is right around 7%.
And DeLonte Adams is right around 7%.
7% would be fair.
I did it 6%.
But even if you did it 7%, you're right around the 120 targets again to get to what he was last year.
I want to go to Jamie he was last year. I want to go to Jamie actually here.
And believe me, Ben will get in there.
But Jamie, where should A.J. Brown be drafted?
Round four.
Do you think he's got a huge range of outcomes,
boom or bust kind of player?
Yeah, I mean, we addressed this the other day.
You know, I think you're hoping that he takes that step forward.
I think, you know, my point was I just hope he kind of stays the same.
Like, that's kind of my expectation for him is to kind of stay the same.
But if he does take that next step forward,
that's the type of guy that's a league winner for you.
So, you know, it depends on what you need for your team. Like, he's going to be drafted in the range of guy that's a league winner for you so you know it depends on what you need for your team
like he's going to be drafted in the range of robert woods and alan robinson and tyler lockett
dk metcalf you know those type of guys and you know while those other guys are probably safer
because you've seen robert woods aside from last year produced with the rams alan robinson when
he's had the chance to be productive um god he's played with them off quarterbacks Robinson, when he's had the chance to be productive, God, he's played with them off of quarterbacks, but when he's had the chance to be productive,
he's been good. Last year proved that. A.J. Brown could be better than those guys,
but he could be significantly worse. That's just the risk you run. You're talking about a guy that
could be fantastic. The thing that you have to be concerned about is quarterback is not that great
just at a career season.
It's a run heavy offense. And does he change the dynamic of what those things are?
Ben laid it out for the other day. You know, I mean, if Derrick Henry gets hurt and they have to rely more on their ground game, he's their best player.
You know, there's not a competition for targets.
You know, I do think John Smith gets better and maybe better than what Laney Walker has been banged up the last couple of years.
But Corey Davis has been a flop.
So the passing game should run through him.
There are a lot of ways to look at A.J. Brown and say,
okay, he could be really, really great.
There's a few to look at it and say he could be flawed,
but that's why he's not, I think, a first three-round pick.
I know Ben's aggressive when he drafts him, but Ben's typically aggressive with a lot of the guys that he likes to draft.
Okay, Ben.
So you think that they were so efficient last year,
that's not going to be the case this year,
but that's going to force Ryan Tannehill to throw the ball more.
Yeah, I mean...
Nailed it.
I mentioned just yesterday,
but there's only four teams in the last seven seasons
that have thrown fewer than 450 passes.
The Titans, the last two years, are two of those four teams, as are the last two years are two of those four teams as are the ravens last year you think the ravens were low
pass volume last year 440 attempts um at 440 attempts and aj brown's target share from week
10 on when he uh started playing full snaps and and he keeps mentioning how many targets he got
full season last year he didn't play full snaps until week 10. That's the biggest point I want to make.
At 25%, 440 pass attempts, which would be the lowest in the league last year, that's 110 targets.
That is A.J. Brown's floor.
He's going to get at least 110 targets this year.
If he doesn't, I'll eat his shoe.
Well, I will say the only – he might get 110 110 targets 110 targets is not enough to be as good
as he was last year yeah i'm just pointing out because you keep making these straw man arguments
that he's going to get like 95 targets again or like pointing out that 117 is a 35 i haven't
projected for 114 targets okay um i have him as a late fourth round pick. I don't dislike A.J. Brown at all,
but I do think I'm projecting him
closer to his ceiling than his floor.
And in the playoffs,
he had a 15% target share.
Corey Davis had more targets than A.J. Brown did
in their three playoff games.
They barely threw, right?
I don't think...
They threw for fewer than 100 yards
in two of those games.
I actually just wrote a huge A.J. Brown piece,
so if anyone wants to read my refutation of all this slander from Heath,
they can find it on the site.
That's how you know that one of us is not being reasonable,
is that one of us has AJ Brown like a round behind where Ben wants to take him.
And has AJ Brown projected for world-class efficiency across the board,
but arguing regression that he's not worth a third-round pick is slander?
Let me ask you this, Ben.
Let me ask you this.
You love A.J. Brown.
Yep.
But, like, what are you telling people realistically where to draft him?
Like, are you telling people to draft him in the third round?
Or are you saying take him in the fourth round?
Because I think that's important.
Because we all love players.
I take Clyde over to Laird sooner than he should go.
I get that.
We do this all the time with players that we like.
He's the only one that drafts Gardner.
So we all have guys that we're going to take earlier.
But if your friends come to you, you're on the podcast, you're on HQ.
Where are you telling people that A.J. Brown should go?
And it's a perfect question for me to just sum this up real quick.
And I talk about this in the article.
But to his point, I'm not disagreeing with that.
And I don't think I'm being unreasonable.
I just don't think I've put this point out there.
The average projection is probably going to have him as like a fifth round pick.
And I say this in the article.
And I believe, and I've said this a lot of times on pods, he is either a small loss on
the low end if he gets 110 targets or 114 like he's projection or he's a huge win.
And I would, I like to make those types of bets compared to the running backs in those
ranges that are potentially small wins or huge losses.
I don't think AJ Brown's floor is very low at all.
I think it's pretty high.
In the third round.
His floor would be like a fifth round value.
And I take him at the back end of the third round or the early part of the fourth typically.
But I would draft him in the third because I'm comfortable with a player that
doesn't have a huge negative impact on my team. He's a little loss, but could potentially have
a massive positive impact. Just to let you know, Sportsline hasn't projected as the 21st receiver
off the board. So that's round four, round five. Yeah, I've got him 22nd. Which is exactly what
my point is. Just you said you hadn't projected closer to a ceiling. I think that's crazy.
So we did the year two wide receiver episode,
and it didn't really go the way I thought it was going to go.
I kind of thought I had all this enthusiasm,
and I thought other people would, and it wasn't really the case.
But one thing I didn't mention was that like there's a recent history of year two wide receivers dramatically outperforming their
adp and that was actually the basis for for the entire episode uh like we forgot to mention the
basis for the episode during the episode yes i did it was the basis for why I started doing all the year two wide receiver research
with some help from the rest of the crew.
Adam's going to go for his doctorate,
but he's not going to tell everybody what he did.
I have a really interesting spreadsheet with year two wide receiver notes.
In fact, Jamie, I updated it after the show
to include the round they were drafted in.
Because you mentioned pedigree, and I thought that was a really good point.
Um,
and that works against the receivers from last year,
but,
but Brown was pretty high second round pick.
Uh,
so,
but anyway,
uh,
I,
your two wide receivers typically out the ones that hit,
they typically outperform their,
their ADP,
although he's going pretty early.
I think you just said the ones that hit typically outperform their ADP, although he's going pretty early. I think you just
said the ones that hit typically
outperform their ADP.
Dramatically.
Look,
DJ Moore was
wide receiver 28 in ADP.
DJ Chark was not drafted.
DJ Moore was the guy that we had this conversation
about all last year because I was taking him in every draft.
Oh yeah, he hit last year. You weren was taking him in every draft. Oh, yeah. He hit last year.
You weren't taking him in the third round.
Absolutely was.
Cortland Sutton was wide receiver 48 in ADP.
Michael Gallup was wide receiver 44.
The year before that, Juju Smith-Schuster was wide receiver 18 in ADP.
And he finished as wide receiver.
But do you think these guys are going to outperform their ADP?
Metcalf, McCorin, Brown?
I'm saying that's what the research suggests.
If you get 900 yards as a rookie,
you're probably going to outperform your ADP in year two.
But think about the ADP you just listed, though.
Yeah, but I just – let me finish.
You're only talking about the top half of that spreadsheet.
No, I'm not.
I went through all of it.
What about the bottom half of the spreadsheet?
Well, the problem is a lot of those guys were earlier in the decade.
You're right.
No, no, no.
They were earlier in the decade.
So I'm not going back to Michael Clayton in 2010.
No, you're right.
There are failures.
There are absolutely failures.
I laid it out.
And the reasons why most of them were failures.
And those reasons don't seem like they're going to apply to most of these players except are their quarterbacks going to get worse
and that is a big concern for A.J. Brown.
But isn't the ADP going to be a problem though?
Yes.
I don't know because like I'm saying,
Juju Smith-Schuster had a similar ADP to A.J. Brown.
He was wide receiver 18 in ADP as a sophomore
and he had 1,400 yards and seven touchdowns.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing,
but they're all going in the same range.
That's the problem.
It's like all these guys are going to be
round four, round five picks.
For them to all hit to this level
and be top whatever receivers,
there's going to be a lot of fall.
I think only three of them are.
I think it's A.J. Brown.
It's those three.
Okay, the 900-yard guys, yeah.
But Metcalf's probably, yeah, you're right.
They are all going to go fairly similarly.
The difference between A.J. Brown and McLaurin and Metcalf
is that A.J. Brown was a dominant collegiate player.
The similarity between A.J. Brown, D.J. Moore, and Juju Smith-Schuster
is they all had elite age-adjusted production in college.
He's the same as those guys in that I'm willing to look past year one
and just that efficiency. I don't see that as a negative. It will regress, but I see it as an
extension of how good he was in college. Him and Metcalf played 20 games together. He had more
receptions in 15, more yards in 70. He was an alpha alongside Metcalf in college, and then he
was an alpha last year in the half season that he played. He's a superstar. Yeah, the thing,
though, I think that could hold him back is Tannehill.
That's the only thing that you've got to worry about.
Well, and Vrabel.
They don't play it.
They could throw 480 passes this year.
I can give you more examples, by the way.
Allen Robinson was wide receiver 25 in ADP.
He was wide receiver 6 that year.
Jarvis Landry was wide receiver 17 in ADP.
He finished wide receiver 11. Jordan. Jarvis Landry was wide receiver 17 at ADP. He finished wide receiver 11.
Jordan Matthews got a little worse.
He was wide receiver 11.
You still haven't got to the bottom half of the spreadsheet.
I don't have...
I totally acknowledge the failures, Heath,
but most of the examples were positive ones.
It was 50-50.
No, it wasn't, because it was 10-8, first of all.
You said it was 9-9. It was 10-8. No, it wasn't. Because it was 10-8, first of all. You said it was 9-9.
It was 10-8, positive versus negative.
But two of the eight were Michael Thomas and Mike Evans.
They had amazing second seasons.
They just had bad touchdown luck.
They increased their yards.
They were fine.
Evans had bad touchdown luck.
Thomas just had his usual luck.
I think it was 10-6.
No, I think Thomas went down to six touchdowns that year.
That's his usual luck. No, he's usually nine. 10-, I think Thomas went down to like six touchdowns that year. That's his usual luck.
No, he's usually nine.
10-6-2 is what I would say, Heath, in terms of...
Sorry, Michael Thomas, if you're listening, I apologize.
I would say two of the wins were tied.
I'll go 8-6-4.
Okay, 8-6-4.
I'll agree to that.
8-6-4.
If you take out four games of their sophomore season,
then you carry the one and then subtract seven.
I should just share the spreadsheet.
It's a great spreadsheet.
If you can't use week 10, their opponent was coming off a bye.
That's right.
That's true.
But all of these guys from last year, including A.J. Brown,
they had fewer targets than just about every other wide receiver
that had a good rookie year.
It was really weird.
And they still managed to do pretty well.
Okay, so no time for tight ends.
So last thing here, we'll do tight end on Monday or Tuesday.
Shraggy B, make a note of that.
Last thing here, tell me, Heath, in terms of regression candidates now, Odell Beckham,
why he should actually go ahead of AJ Brown and PPR. OJ, although Beckham had a 3% touchdown rate last year, which is extreme, like that's running
back low and well below the median for wide receivers.
And he's always been elite at that.
That was one of the things that made him an elite wide receiver is how good he was in
the red zone, how good he was at scoring touchdowns. And I don't care so much that he was hurt all year last year because he's been hurt
almost all of his career he's just always hurt but i would just he's going to score probably
75 percent more touchdowns like he scored four i'd guess sevens like a floor and that makes a
big difference in where he finishes do you know
what people would have said about odell beckham after his rookie season they would have said you
have to regress all that efficiency there's just no way you can do that again and if you want to
draft like that that's a good point like if you want to draft aj brown as if he's odell beckham
then just do that it's okay to bet on him being odell beckham and he did, to be clear, he did regress, but he was still amazing.
That's actually the point, and that's fair.
I think he's just gotten down to the point.
I think A.J. Brown is a bet that I want to make as a player who is already elite
because of everything I said that goes back to college,
not just the half season last year.
And a nice comparison is the quarterback situation
because obviously Eli was playing out of the string at that point.
He wasn't great.
When Beckham came in to the league?
2015.
I mean, that was the start of the decline for Eli.
Hasn't Eli pretty much always been playing out of the string?
He had the kind of resurgence in the two years with McAdoo.
No, he put up decent numbers.
In terms of talent,
you would say Tannehill and Eli Manning
are probably comparable.
I would not say that.
Oh my God.
Eli coming off that?
At that point in his career and Tannehill coming off
the season he just had?
Tannehill coming off the season he just had
is different than Tannehill.
He's not that good.
I'm not saying Tannehill is a borderline Hall of Famer. Eli Manning is better. And less rushing upside than Tannehill. He's not that good. I'm not saying Tannehill is a borderline Hall of Famer.
Eli Manning is better.
And less rushing upside than Tannehill.
This is going to be a very bad tangent
and I apologize for bringing it up. All I was saying
is that Tannehill is coming off a great season
and Manning was toward the end of his career.
So quarterback comparison
not the greatest quarterback situation
for those two receivers.
That's true, except
Beckham had a really bad catch rate too.
I thought you might go there with the regression.
But boy, Baker Mayfield was so inaccurate last year.
But Baker Mayfield probably will increase that completion rate
because it was much better as a rookie.
Beckham, the thing you've got to worry about is
he's sharing the field with a ton of talent.
If Landry's right and Hooper's there and the Joker's still going to play
and the backs are awesome, it's going to be a running dominant team.
I mean, that's the concern for me with Beckham.
And he gutted out 16 games last year through a groin injury
or a core injury, whatever it was.
He typically misses games.
He's getting tougher.
How about that?
All right, that's it for the show.
Good stuff.
You're too wide.
What did we learn? Something about you're too wide receive what do
we learn something about your two wide receivers i think aj brown's on a backham that's what we
learned i i learned that adam beat ben in super that's right yeah aj brown is someone we're going
to talk a lot about wait aj brown did go to the same school as eli manning right he did
there we go yeah and it's ben's guy yeah it was adam's guy's different story go look at the list Wait, A.J. Brown did go to the same school as Eli Manning, right? He did.
There we go.
It was Adam's guy.
Go look at the list of guys who have ever done anything close to 12.5 yards per target on 80 or more targets.
And find me one player that's anywhere near that on 80 or more targets.
Not your Anthony Armstrong comparisons.
That wasn't an elite fantasy player in at least one season.
Because the top 10 is just a list of Torrey Holtz and Julio Joneses and all these elite players.
I just wonder if it's going to be year three as opposed to year two.
It might be.
If I think about how I could be wrong on Brown,
it's what you said in the last call.
And on the last show, I keep calling him calls.
On the last show, and I wrote that in my article as well.
It might be that he doesn't take a huge step forward in year two.
But I feel so confident this guy is going to be an elite player five years from now the the path to
that is henry is still great they still run the ball a ton the everything that you've laid out
the passing numbers are down the run efficiency is great and then henry gets hurt and they come
back or he leaves the team they come back year three for Brown and it's he's now their guy yep and even in that scenario Brown is a small loss on his ADP I
still think he'd be efficient in that type of offense same play action stuff going on he would
put up strong numbers typically the sports line model that I've seen since we've been doing this
running projections they don't usually adjust for a player like this and put him as high as they do.
He's usually somebody that they kind of look at.
They look more at what Heath does,
which is not a knock by any stretch of the full game numbers,
the fact that he wasn't involved as much early in the season,
and they spin that forward a little bit.
I'm surprised.
They haven't projected for 93 targets,
but 56 catches, 1,045, and six touchdowns.
Well, listen, guys,
our conference call's gone a little long,
and someone else needs the room right now.
Well, last thing.
Two of the top four seasons
above 80 targets all time
are Jordy Nelson,
Mike Wallace,
A.J. Brown,
and Deshaun Jackson.
I think Mike Wallace and Deshaun Jackson are the,
like the,
the concern area,
the problem area.
They're deep threats.
Go read the rest of the list.
Stefan digs,
Eric molds.
Molds was great.
Tori Holt,
Victor Cruz,
Michael Irvin,
Tyreek Hill,
Kenny stills.
Like there's, there's, you haven't even got to like, Michael Irvin, Tyreek Hill, Kenny Stills.
There's hits and misses.
You haven't even got to Julio and then Holt again.
None of those are even bad.
You said Kenny Stills.
I mean, to Heath, Kenny Stills is Julio Jones.
Adam, when would you think?
Yeah.
In non-PPR.
Mike Wallace, Deshaun Jackson, Kenny Stills.
I don't always love doing the in non versus in PPR,
but I think he's probably the number one receiver affected most by it.
In non PPR, he's a top 36 pick.
He's the end of round three.
In full PPR, he's about six to eight picks later, mid round four.
It's a lot like Kenny Galladay.
Yeah, but like... Calvin Ridley.
Galladay's awesome.
And he probably outperformed projections last year, right?
Because he's a huge yards per catch guy.
He caught a lot of touchdowns.
You know what?
No, screw it.
I'm with Ben.
I'm bullish on A.J. Brown.
Yes.
He's a year two receiver.
He's a late round three pick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wait, did you skip Randy Moss on that list?
No, I just stopped at the top.
All right, you guys have fun.
I got to go.
Bye.
Okay, thanks for listening, everybody.
Have a great weekend.
Have a fun Memorial Day weekend.
We'll talk to you on Tuesday with another edition of Fantasy Football.