Fantasy Football Today - Six Greatest Hits and Biggest Misses from 2023 (02/07 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts What did we get right and what did we whiff on? We'll talk about that after some introductory questions (2:30) about football, music and food plus a lot of news and notes (6:45) on new offensive coordinators. Are the Chargers going to be extremely run heavy? Did the Saints hit a home run with their new offensive coordinator? ... 2023 Greatest Hits from Dave (16:00), Heath (23:25) and Jamey (29:05). We discuss Tank Dell and Nico Collins, Rhamondre Stevenson as a bust, waiting on quarterback and more ... 2023 Biggest Misses from Jamey (33:40), Heath (41:25) and Dave (48:15). The guys talk about Bijan Robinson, Breece Hall, Tony Pollard, Trevor Lawrence and a few more players ... Email us at [e-mail] SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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No, I can't. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. This is going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. We're looking back once again at 2023. Our greatest hits and our biggest whiffs, biggest misses from the 2023 season. Adam, Dave, Heath, Jamie here with you on Wednesday afternoon. You know, it's Wednesday.

It's our fun day. Wednesday's fun. Happy fun day, everybody. Yay. Fun day. The first time you and Heath are back together, right? Back together. First time.

Time heals all wounds. I've served my suspension and allowed back on the show again now. That's right. Wait, so we had Emory on Sunday, and then you had Dynasty on Tuesday, right? Right. So you felt, okay, that's enough time of waiting at them. And then a lot of people were like, my wife does the same thing. I haven't seen her in four days.

So I don't blame you. Don't check your mail. Hold on, hold your mail hold on hold on hold on i'm walking in the field in mobile and a fantasy analyst who listens to our show he's gonna go nameless uh comes to me and says what the hell happened between adam and he and i you know i love you guys i love being on the show i don't listen uh i don't listen back to it when i'm on i don't listen to it when i'm not on but i did this time and wow you two wow here's the thing and i i'll just say it i didn't think anything about it like the show got over and i was not mad at Adam at all. I didn't like we've had so many yelling matches in the last nine years.

Adam has called me an idiot, moron and a loser. He screamed that he hated me. Like I thought this was just kind of a regular thing. Loser. Loser. I was mad at you and I was mad at me. Nothing happened. Yeah, it was mad at me. Nothing happened. Yeah, it was a normal day.

All right, anyway, I got three quick questions for you before we get into the show. One, we're going to talk about Alexander Madison today as a whiff. Who was, he had 180 carries without a touchdown. Who was the last running back to have at least 180 carries and no rushing touchdowns? He went on. Didn't Miles Sanders have a year where he didn't score?

Let me check how many carries he had, but I don't think it was that many. Now I feel like I was wrong. No, he had 137 carries without a touchdown. He was the other guy that fits in the Alexander Madison category of what I was most wrong about. That's right. How recent? Within the last 10 years, it was his guy's rookie season

and he went on to have a very good career. You got it. Come on, you got it. Not the last 10 years. It was Melvin Gordon, wasn't it? Nine years ago. Nine years ago? Okay, wow. That seems like it was longer than nine years ago. Melvin Gordon 2015, I believe it was. 184 carries without a rushing

touchdown. Alexander Madison had 180. Okay, next question. This is a greatest hits show. What's your favorite greatest hits album? What was that called? I had a, I don't know if it counts, but like when I was in high school i had a zeppelin remastered set and it was uh three three discs and i i wore those out so i think that has to probably be it but that does that make it your favorite or just the one that you listen to the most because i've got one that i listened to the most in college but i don't know if if it's my favorite it's the doors i mean my favorite this

week has to be taylor swift right yeah does she have a greatest hits album yet are you i don't know no i don't know if she if she made one i mean obviously she has enough is there a a greatest hits album by Taylor Swift? Yeah, I guess there is. I don't know. Not every artist has. But different times of their career, they make a greatest hits album. All right.

The Doors for Dave. What was your favorite, Dave? I don't know if I've got a favorite greatest hits album. Okay. All right. Jamie, how about you? That I listen to the most most either one or your favorite i'll go uh bc boys license still well but that's not a great album

it's like a compilation album yeah like like for me brian adams greatest hits like there's no chance the doors greatest hits is gonna be my favorite album of all time. That's terrible. I think Brian Adams' So Far So Good, Dave, remember that one? That was like a – I know you love that one. I think the interesting thing was like I answered Zeppelin. Dave answered The Doors. Jamie answered Beastie Boys. And Adam may have tweeted negative things about all three of them in the past.

Yes. Yes, I don't like any of them the answer for me would have been you two's greatest hits by the way all right and then the last one how's it going i'm having trouble with that with this one here are you guys good with barbecue at a super bowl party if i order barbecue is that better than your arts and farts do i build the plate out of like tinfoil and popsicle sticks first? Not my party. That was a different person's party.

Usually it's wings. Maybe it's pizza. I'm thinking barbecue. What's wrong with barbecue? I think it's a little unconventional for Super Bowl. I don't know. If it's been smoked meat for the last seven Super Bowls. You're doing it yourself.

I'm catering right yeah all right um all right uh fft dynasty please check that out what do we have uh what do we have yesterday what do we have coming up on fft dynasty we had a couple guys from the underdogs chalk and scott blanger we talked about the art of dynasty and something i think that we'll get into a little bit later when we talk about tank Dell, but the anatomy of kind of looking at like, what do the best players at each position, what attributes do they share and how that's changed over the last few years. All right. Make sure you listen to it every Tuesday.

You can watch it on YouTube right here on youtube.com slash fantasy football today. Obviously you can watch it anytime on demand or just download the podcast fantasy football today. Dynasty subscribe to it. We have a mailbag tomorrow. You have time to get your questions in fantasy You can watch it anytime on demand or just download the podcast, Fantasy Football Today Dynasty. Subscribe to it. We have a mailbag tomorrow. You have time to get your questions in. FantasyFootball at CBSi.com. That's the letter I.

FantasyFootball at CBSi.com. Let's do some news and notes real quick. Andy Reid appears to be set to return next season. Kind of brushing off retirement talk. But Jarek McKinnon and Joe Tooney starting offensive guard, unlikely to play, it seems. Tampa Bay Center Ryan Jensen retired. He's played only one game over the last two seasons. So sorry to see that he'll be retiring.

Obviously, just health issues for him. Stephon Diggs, you know, the Bills talked about having Stephon Diggs back. He said, can't tell what the future holds. He did not really commit. It's not necessarily his decision, but he did not necessarily seem to think he'd be back in Buffalo, Stefan. Are you talking about his answer

at the Pro Bowl from the NFL Network? It was a, I don't know who he was talking to, but it was a long-winded, it was just like a kind of repetitive, I don't know, we'll see what the future holds. Yeah, I think it's the only time he talked at the Pro Bowl. So, yes, it was very noncommittal.

Right. Le'Veon Bell, though, wants to return, and he wants to play for the Steelers. All right, good luck. Arthur Smith could use him. And John Harbaugh spoke highly of Rashad Bateman, says he'll be a starter in 2024. The Packers plan to sign Jordan Love to an extension,

and they expect to have Aaron Jones back in 2024. And then we got a lot of offensive coordinator hires recently. I asked Jamie about Cliff Kingsbury yesterday, but we have him going to Washington. We have former Browns coordinator Alex Van Pelt going to the Patriots. Greg Roman being hired as the coordinator for the Chargers. Nick Holtz, who was the passing game coordinator for Jacksonville. He's the Titans offensive coordinator, but Brian Callahan, the new head coach, he's going

to call plays. Clint Kubiak of the 49ers is expected to be the Saints' new offensive coordinator. The Raiders hired Luke Getze, who was the former Bears offensive coordinator. Dave, is there one or two that really stand out as big-time fantasy significance here? I like the Kubiak hire. I'm just a little bit nervous about how long he'll be there or how big of an impact he'll make because that coaching staff feels set up for a lame duck year where if they, they're, if they don't make the playoffs, they're all gone,

but it is the same type of offense that Derek cars thrived in before. And I'm at least a little bit hopeful that it could lead to some good things for the saints offense. I am kind of a Luke Getzey fan two years ago. He was an absolute master of scheming up in the red zone. Curious to see what quarterback will be in las vegas with getsy and whether or not he'll be able to have that kind of success remember not last year's success in chicago but two years ago uh with the raiders i think he has something to say

about greg roman i well i don't really i mostly think that when you read through that list, it was not very inspiring. No. These are not guys – Kubiak has been a part of a very successful offense. Maybe Luke Getzey did some good things in Chicago, but it wasn't like it was one of the best offenses in the NFL. I remember Jamie and Pete talking a lot this season about the passing game concepts for the Jacksonville Jaguars and the right ways they were holding Trevor Lawrence back. Now, their passing game coordinator is going to be an offensive coordinator, but none of them were more disturbing to me than the idea of Justin Herbert with Greg Roman.

We've talked about already with the Harbaugh hire how he's been really run heavy. Roman has been a coordinator in the NFL for 10 NFL seasons. All 10 of those seasons, his team ranked in the top nine in rush attempts. And nine of those 10 seasons, his team ranked in the bottom five in pass attempts. Now, he'd never had a passer like Justin Herbert, but I don't think he's going to completely... Maybe he does completely change his stripes, but if you'll remember last offseason, one of the things we heard about why Lamar Jackson

was going to be so much more successful as a passer is because of how much better the passing game concepts were going to be than they were under Greg Roman. So I'm not even sure a bunch of pass attempts in his offense is a good thing. Yeah, I mean... even sure a bunch of pass attempts in his offense is a good thing. Yeah, I mean, I don't. I'm working on 2024 projections this week because they're the earliest are going to publish next week.

And I did the Chargers last night, and Justin Herbert was not a top 12 quarterback. Okay. How many touchdowns did you get? 24. That's the biggest fear for me is that he's not going to be able to come through with the 30 touchdown mark that we want to get out of our elite quarterbacks. And I'm feeling what Heath's feeling for sure. Jamie, how do you feel? Well, I mean, personnel working against him too. You know, you have Keenan Allen in his early 30s, Mike Williams, if he's back, coming off an ACL tear, Quentin Johnston, who we know had a rough rookie campaign, you know, no star at tight end,

and Austin Eckler may be out the door. And if he's back, he's an elder statesman. Can he still do what he's capable of doing, catching the ball? I have a great question here. I'll get to this question in a second. I want to finish this Greg Roman discussion here. But the other part of that, you know, Justin Herbert's personnel isn't great, but neither is the idea of being a run-heavy team right now. I mean, so does that mean if they draft a running back that we're going to love whoever the Chargers have as their starting running back?

If it's Eckler again, I can't imagine we're going to love him. They don't have a good running back. It doesn't look like right now. I would not expect it will be Eckler again. I don't know that I'm going to love any of the running backs from this draft class, but there's a very good chance if the Chargers take a running back in round two, that is going to be my highest ranked rookie running back. Right.

I mean, you have Josh Jacobs free, Saquon Barkley free, Joe Mixon potentially free. Tony Bullard. There are guys that could be on the move that could end up there. You'd like it to potentially be one of those guys as opposed to, let's say, a Devin Singletary type who's going to be fine, but just not a chance to be maybe a superstar in this type of office. Yeah, they're also in, Chargers are in salary cap hell right now. They do have to do some things to free up some money. All right. The question from Krana is between Adam, Heath, Jamie, and Dave at a Super Bowl party, who is the most likely to double dip? Not me. I think

this is one I feel confident about. I'm not the worst. Same here. I've already trained my children not to do it. I think it's probably me. First off, at a Super Bowl party, who is the most likely to maybe not have all their faculties? It's probably me. Forget

basic decorum. It's probably me. Also, does it count as double dipping if you dip a different side of the chip than the one that you ate from? I think in public, yes, it does count. Okay. Yeah, that's a great question and a great answer because I do that at home, but I would never do that at someone's Super Bowl party. Right. Well, that's the thing is the Super Bowl party is at my house. So people are coming here. Other people attending or you're at somebody else's house. You can't do it.

I will definitely double dip on Sunday. So my apologies in advance. And chips is probably a questionable one if you go to the other side. You could do like carrots, maybe the other side because they're a little bit – But it's still so close to your mouth. Oh, I agree. It's close to the bite. the bite you like one of those super long pretzel sticks were like that i'd be comfortable with but like a normal size carrot stick you double dip that oh it's too close to what you're breathing on

i was gonna say heath because i felt like he wouldn't care if other people were double dipping i had i would not bother me at all if other people were double dipping. It would not bother me at all if other people were doing it. If somebody takes a drink out of my drink, it's not going to bother me. I'd throw a drink in their face if they did that. We've got to take a break. We'll take a break, come back with our greatest hits and our

biggest misses from 2023. We will be right back on Fantasy Football today. Metrolinks 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.

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you can now make the first move or not with opening moves you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches then sit back and let your matches start the chat download bumble and try it for yourself we're gonna go dave heath, Jamie with the greatest hits. Dave, I asked you each for two. Dave, what were your two greatest hits from 2023? It's the two you picked for me. I ended up sending you like a dozen hits and a dozen misses

and I just wanted you to pick the ones that you thought were best. So the first one was Nico Collins being on my deep sleeper list. And this is one where watching preseason games help me was Nico Collins being on my deep sleeper list. And this is one where watching preseason games help, help me evaluate Nico Collins because I thought that he looked good. I thought shroud looked okay. I thought Nico looked good and I felt good about him being a,

a number one type of receiver for Houston this year. And I thought he could improve. I never thought he'd be as good as he was, but I just, I liked, he had good enough speed. I love the way that he could turn back to the quarterback. He had good movement for a guy of size and Stroud acquitted himself moderately well in the preseason. He wasn't my favorite sleeper.

He was on the deep sleeper list, but he wasn't even the top wide receiver on the deep sleeper list, but he wasn't even the top wide receiver on the deep sleeper list, but he was on the list. And so I'm taking credit for that one, that Nico was a hit. When you first sent this out, I was wondering, is this a individual greatest hits and biggest whiffs or like the show's greatest hits and biggest whiffs? Because there were some things that we were all in on this one. I think we were all in agreement this was an FFT hit

not deep sleepers just sleepers good job to you guys I remember well that's one of Dave's greatest hits we'll get to the other one in a second I remember you know well I didn't remember until I looked at my old notes but this is what I wrote about Nico Collins.

Just put it in his notes. Houston has been 30th in scoring in two straight seasons going into 2023, and they average 214 passing yards per game each of the last two seasons. So the two Davis Mills seasons, basically, Davis Mills and whoever else, about 214 passing yards per game. And I said, have first round rookie quarterbacks averaged 215 passing yards per game in the last five seasons. There had been 17 quarterbacks and only six, only 10 of the 17 averaged more than 214, but only six of the 17 averaged more than 224 passing yards per game. This wasn't a good track record for rookie quarterbacks, even the first-round picks. C.J. Stroud averaged 278 yards per game

or 274 yards per game. Yeah, it's 74. That was amazing. And Nico Collins was a big part of that. He was like the poster child third-year receiver, a guy that really hasn't done much, but you could see a trajectory in the right direction, and he hit in his third season.

Dave, what was your other greatest hit? That Ramondre Stevenson was a bust. Ramondre was on my bust list. I was nervous about his production when he was the feature guy in 2022. I also didn't love how he did against the AFC East in 2022. And what really ended up happening in 2023 was that he shared to a degree with Ezekiel Elliott, didn't score a lot of touchdowns. That whole Patriots offense was a mess. The offensive line was a mess. That was another factor for why I didn't like Ramondre Stevenson. And he was, he was on zero of my teams. I was really nervous about him having a big

breakout type of year. And now I don't know what his future is because it's a new coaching staff. I'm certain that the offensive line is going to get better. How can it get worse in new England, but they could go and add a better running back in free agency or in the draft and relegate Ramondre to being a passing downs back or a number two running back. I I'm nervous that he's never going to be able to hit the upside that we talked about him having back in August, but it was upside that I never thought he'd be able to realize anyway. So Ramondre is a pretty interesting player. I think if you look at his 11 healthy games, he left week 13 after 27% of the snaps, so A's are statting that one, getting rid of that game.

He played 11 healthy games, and he actually scored 13.2 or more PPR fantasy points in 7 of 11 games. I think one of the problems with Ramondre is that he rarely had huge games. He didn't have a lot of great games. And he had 4 games out of

11 with 7.2 or fewer PPR fantasy points. Just absolutely terrible games. He didn't have a lot of great games. And he had four games out of 11 with 7.2 or fewer PPR fantasy points. Just absolutely terrible games. And those were his only games with fewer than three catches. So he was relying on that, but he got them. And then he was actually kind of rolling at the end. And then he got hurt

at the end of his season. But I don't really know what to say about Ramondre in terms of what went wrong. You said it, Dave. He did share with Zeke a lot, but I also think he just wasn't nearly as good. He only averaged four yards per carry.

I think he averaged five yards per carry. He averaged 4.6 and five in his first two years. And he just didn't get enough work to only average four yards per carry. He wasn't making any big plays. So I don't, I mean, that was kind of, that was hard to project. He was one, well, but I think the thing that we did project, I remember he was one of those guys who I had the tweets of,

guys who had seen as many targets as he had and been as bad in terms of yards per target, generally saw a reduction in the number of their targets. And he did, even on a per game basis, see a reduction in the number of their targets. And he did even on a per per game basis, see a reduction in the number of his targets, but also the yards per target remained awful. He's been below five yards per target two years in a row. And that's just,

that could be quarterback play. That could be system, but it's just, it's terrible. Yeah. Um, now they got a new offensive coordinator. I hopefully they'll stop throwing to their running back so much but they're going to have to get some receivers first

true is Ramondre Stevenson a lesson in running backs on bad offenses and I know we're going to talk about Sanders too I don't know if that's another I mean I say this all the time bad offenses don't matter as

much for running backs as they do for wide receivers but it matters. You have to be involved in the passing game, and he was, but not to the degree, I guess, that we wanted. Think about how Ezekiel Elliott's biggest games went down. How many of them were because he was an efficient runner? There were a ton of games when he was the guy in New England where he was averaging under 3.5 yards per carry.

It was ugly, but he would catch the ball out of the backfield. And that's just something that Ramond Ray didn't do consistently enough when he was the feature back for the Patriots. I mentioned the offensive line. I didn't even talk about the quarterbacks. Quarterbacks were terrible. Just the offense in general was bad. It made it easy for opposing defenses to gang up on Ramond Ray. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Ramondre is a bad talent. I don't think he's that at all. He belongs in the National Football League. He was in a bad situation, and that certainly made it tougher on him

to have a good rushing average, to have a great receiving average, to score a lot of touchdowns. This Patriots team, I don't know exactly how many weeks they went. They were barely inside the five-yard line, I think like the first half of the year. Something like, I don't know, maybe like 10 snaps, something like that. I might be exaggerating just a little. But they just could not get the ball near the end zone.

And that's a problem for any running back. Okay, Heath, you're up. Your greatest hits. They were. I think I should have sent you a list like Dave didn't let you choose. But the two I chose were the waiver wire splurge on trey mcbride and tank dell being my most drafted rookie of 2023 and i think that the mcbride one was a reminder that not all tight ends come out like sam laporta and are awesome their rookie year. It's okay that a tight end with the pedigree that he had and the production that he had in college and didn't have a good first year.

And the combination of that with the scheme that we saw from this Cardinals offense when Zach Ertz was healthy, it was a complete reliance. They threw 32% of their passes this past season to tight ends. And McBride just picked right up on the volume where Ertz left off, but also was just a little bit better in terms of efficiency or a lot better, I guess, in terms of yards per outrun. When it comes to that,

I think that the more difficult thing with McBride is knowing what to do with him next year, because if you just project off what he did after he became the starter, after Ertz left, he would project as my number one tight end this coming year. 27% target share for him after Ertz got hurt.

I'm going to have him as a top three guy probably, and we'll see if they draft Marvin Harris and how much that impacts it. For Tank Dell, I mentioned the Anatomy of series that we talked about on FFT Dynasty yesterday. One of the things that we are seeing is that these size requirements for both wide receivers and running back are not as important as they used to be. Used to be if you were a wide receiver under 180 pounds or under a certain height.

We've seen Jalen Waddell and Devontae Smith and a lot of guys challenge those. And then Tank Dell just completely blew them up and was fantastic when he was healthy and Devante Smith. And a lot of guys challenge those. And then Tank Dale just completely blew them up and was fantastic when he was healthy and on the field and hopefully stays healthy for all of 2024. It's funny you mention that. The AFC Pro Bowl, at Pro Bowl, the AFC squad lined up at one point. It was Tyree Kill.

Who was the other receiver? Tyree Kill. Somebody small. other receiver? Tyree kill. Somebody small. I'm blanking on it. Um, and, and Keenan Allen, but he now was in a slot and he was the biggest one of the three of them.

Um, I'm trying to remember who the other receiver was. I pointed out to Zach. I was like, look, look how small the two outside guys are. Was a flowers there somehow? No,

it wasn't Flowers. Like as an alternate or something? No. Man, who was it? It'll come to me. Maybe Diggs. Oh, Diggs. Diggs is not big.

So it was Diggs and Tyreek Hill and then Keenan Allen just stood out among the three of them and just the two outside guys being little guys. So yeah, you're right. It's certainly a trend that's going to work well for a few of these rookies coming into the league yeah so let's look at the wide receivers who were drafted in rounds around mostly in round three of the nfl draft i'll just include marvin mims he was the last pick of round two mims tank dell jalen hyatt cedric Tillman, Josh Downs, Michael Wilson, Trey Tucker. So Dell.

Two big guys, as far as the scale goes. You mean height-wise? Yeah. Okay. No, like they've got some girth to them. Okay. But, yeah, I mean, from a fantasy standpoint what what made tank dell what made tank dell your favorite was it just the opportunity it wasn't just the opportunity i thought that he

was a third round pick because of his size and then he was being downgraded again when we got to rookie drafts because of his size um i think if Tank Dell had been a couple inches taller and 20 pounds heavier, he would have been a first-round pick. He was incredibly productive. And then I am a sucker and will remain a sucker after working out this year for a quarterback saying, please go draft that guy. I love it when college teammates get reunited,

especially when it's the wide receiver coming after the quarterback. And C.J. Stroud, there was all kinds of talk about how he wanted them to go get Tank Dell. And so that and the production, which I thought got overshadowed by the size, which is funny because Tank Dell's shadow is not very big. The other thing is it's the opposite of what we talked about with Ramondre Stevenson.

The Texans' offense was awesome. They did a great job of utilizing Dell. And he turned out to be a really good route runner. If you go back and you watch him play, he's open a lot because he can run good routes. He was a master on those deep out routes that helped get the Texans in position late in games to score some points and to win games. I think that the fact that Bobby Sloak's going to be there again and nothing's really changing in a negative way in Houston, they'll upgrade their offensive line. Maybe they upgrade their run game a little bit.

But I think the light is green for Tank Dell to pick up right where he left off, coming off of his injury. Nine games with Stroud and Nico and he averaged 16.2 PPR points in those games I think he could hit that number again next year all right real quick Stroud or Nico or Tank Dell who you guys ranked higher for next year I believe I have Nico just a little bit ahead of Dell. I'm just going to change this answer. February, March, April, May, just every month,

I'll go with a different guy. I think we're back-to-back in my projections. I will go Nico right now, but we get to the tanks 100% healthy and looking good, then I may go back to tank. All right, Jamie, you're up. Your greatest hits. Beastie boys.

Um, what I got, right? Yeah. Oh, uh, avoiding 30 year old receivers. Uh,

we've talked about this a lot already, but, um, I was very anti these guys at this age. Um, and it worked out well with a couple and burned me in a couple. So Mike Evans and Keenan Allen clearly did well in their 30-year-old seasons. Great, as a matter of fact.

I think well beyond the expectations of what we had hoped. But really it was Cooper Cupp, Devontae Adams, DeAndre Hopkins, those three in particular. I guess Adam Thielen did well too, but he wasn't really being drafted in the first three or four rounds. But in terms of Adams and Kup and Hopkins, certainly once Kup got injured as well, you saw the red flags of what they could be. Quarterback situation not being great.

Age showing some decline in a couple of these cases. And so, again, I'll probably stay with the same thing. You know, probably be wrong on a couple of these cases and so again i'll probably stay with the same thing you know probably be wrong on a couple and and right on on a few as well but this was something that i felt pretty confident in going in the season anything else your other greatest hit yeah you know i was looking at our magazine to see what we got right and what we got wrong and um there are certainly some some of our bold predictions were funny uh but i saw it just happened to flip through and and Chris did a story. It was great and well-written on Chris Towers on taking quarterbacks early.

And that still wasn't something that I was buying into last year, even as successful as Mahomes and Hertz and Allen were and certainly the push to draft those guys early. It still wasn't something I was really comfortable doing and stayed away from and worked out well for me. Again, I think we know how quarterbacks sort of unfolded last season. So more taking a chance on some of the quarterbacks, 10 through 12, had a lot of Dak Prescott, which worked out well. Situations like that, Tua, for a good portion of the season, picking up CJ Stroud and, and, um, and Jordan Love helped me

win a couple of championships. So, uh, I'll probably still go that route as always. I just want to see my interpretation of quarterback was that it like, okay, before I even say that, let me just give this stat in 2022, we had 12 quarterbacks, not counting Davis Webb and Sam Howell played one game. We had 12 quarterbacks average 20 fantasy points per game, six points per passing touchdown. That was 2022. In 2023, we had eight. No, wait, sorry, sorry.

No, that's wrong. It was not sorting per game. We had, what did I say 12 yeah 14 or 15 i guess okay we did have more i i was going to say that my interpretation of the position was that it would that part of why jamie was right to wait on quarterback is because there were a lot of quarterbacks that emerged but also the top guys weren't nearly as good as we thought would you agree with that well i almost put that in my wrong column because I was drafting three of them in round two.

I still think if you drafted Josh Allen in round two, you felt pretty good about it because of how bad the other top guys were. But yeah, I mean, Mahomes was obviously a disappointment. Joe Burrow got hurt. Justin Herbert, like the guys that we took early mostly didn't live up to that cost. Yeah. I mean, no quarterback

scored more than 26.2 fantasy points except per game. Except for Carson Wentz. 28 points in week 18. Alright, let's take a break. Let's talk about our biggest misses when we come back. And we will be right back on FFT. With Smartwater's

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Should have skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. Here we go. What did we get wrong? Our biggest misses from 2023. I'm going to go Jamie, Heath, Dave. Jamie's got a couple

of running backs he wants to talk about here with his biggest misses of 2023. You're on the clock. Well, I'll start with the most obvious one for me was J.K. Dobbins

not staying healthy. You know, that was frustrating after he got off to a great start in his first game. But blowing out his Achilles, I feel terrible for him. Hopefully he'll be able to still get a job and perform well in the NFL. But I really thought it was going to be a breakout season for him. You know, everything was pointing in the right direction year two off of his ACL tear offense.

You know, I thought it was going to have a successful season. I thought he'd be a little bit more involved in the passing game, but once again, unfortunately he could not stay healthy. And so never got a chance to see what he could have become. And, um, as you probably expect ruined a few of my fantasy teams as well, because I invested heavily in, in, in JK Dobbins. But what do you think about that? How much does that make you avoid guys with the injury prone label going forward? Or do you think it's just totally fluky? It's a little bit of both. I mean,

obviously he's got a track record. You know, I was thinking about this cause I have a father, son basketball league with my, my 11 year old. And I took Joel Embiid in the 30 deep league. That is pretty popular in the industry that I'm still lucky to be a part of.

So I haven't beaten both those leagues. And clearly there's a track record of, of his injuries. And I was thinking about this, like, there's no way I could take him as a top three pick again. You know what I mean? He's still probably going to be a first round pick based on his talent. But when you start to get these guys that just have this, this stigma attached to them, that they're always hurt and they just can't unfortunately stay healthy, especially when

they've been with the same team over and over again. Is it the training staff? Is it them? You know, what's the issue? Is it soft tissue? Is it, you know, broken bones? You know, what's the, what's the case. And so you just have to, I think, just understand that there are some guys that just, you know, can't stay healthy or at least can't stay healthy for a full season. And so in the case of, uh, Dobbins, yes, I will avoid him at the cost or at least the expectations that I was putting on him. Uh, as we talked about in the draft yesterday, like will avoid him at the cost or at least the expectations that I was putting on him. As we talked about in the draft yesterday, I didn't like the Nick Chubb pick, for example.

I don't think he's going to be at his age the best running back in Cleveland for the majority of the season. It just feels tough to trust. So players like that I will certainly avoid, and that's why I was avoiding Brees Hall and Javante Williams this season because coming back from the ACL tear at the cost you had to pay for them to me was a little bit too high specifically Hall. Now he turned out to be very good at the end of the season as very special, which, you know, just speaks to, I think his talents, there's going to be, you know, exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions to the 30 year old receivers. Like we just talked about Mike Evans and Keenan Allen. So it's just a matter of, you know, sometimes you'll be right. Sometimes you'll be wrong. Uh, but the premise is to avoid players

like this or situations like this. And in this case, yes, players that have multiple injuries, you know, just don't, at least for me, it won't be as boastful as them having big seasons. Like I thought he was going to have. He was going to have a big season. I think, you know, you look at what Gus Edwards did, what Dobbins did, even though I don't think he was very efficient in that first game, but I think he was going to have a good season. I'm going to give you a round of applause. It was gutsy.

Good job. Now, what about Bijan Robinson? That was another one of your misses for everybody. But you had a pretty bold take on him. Yeah, it's a cover of a magazine that I thought he would be the best rookie running back ever. So he would surpass in PPR Saquon Barkley and non-PPR Eric Dickerson. Dickerson, I believe, was 1983. Barkley was 2018 or 19, one of those years.

And he obviously fell well short of that. Thank you, Arthur Smith. But in any event, yeah, not that Bijan was terrible, but he definitely did not live up to the expectations of even not being the best rookie running back. He was behind Jameer Gibbs. He was in a lot of ways a bust in his rookie season, you know, based on where he was drafted as a top six, seven overall pick. So he he unfortunately failed. I do love that Raheem Morris has already said.

I don't know if you saw the answer the other day. What do you like about this team? And he said Drake London and Bijan Robinson about this offense, Drake London and Bijan Robinson notably left out. What about the other guy? Right. He did. He did specifically single out Drake London and Bijan Robinson.

So hopefully the, the new coaching staff there will feature their top talents. Like we thought the previous coaching staff would. Okay. Yeah. You know, guys, were we all,

well, actually I feel heath was probably the lowest where did you have bijan if you recall uh one two turn yeah if i remember like i think i still had him in a first round pick um but it was in that 10 to 12 range probably and like he's awesome and he's probably going to have one of those seasons that validates the things that Jamie said about him. I think my concern was just Arthur Smith. Yeah. Well said. That's the lesson learned is Arthur Smith.

If I told you before the season that the Falcons were going to lead the NFL in running back rushes per game and that Bijan would be fifth among running backs in targets per game, you would have taken Bijan Robinson in the first round, no questions asked. Well, he did, and that was kind of the premise, was they led the NFL in rush attempts the previous year.

So nothing really changed from an offensive philosophy standpoint. It's just that he didn't get a lot of the high-level touches that we wanted. He had the headache game, which factors just that he didn't get a lot of the high-level touches that we wanted. He had the headache game, which factors into, you know, how he performed overall, which lowered his points per game, unfortunately. But in any event, look,

he didn't live up to the expectations, and he certainly fell short of what my bowl prediction was. Do any of these things make you excited about the Steelers running backs for next year? Now that Arthur Smith

is the OC in Pittsburgh. I think the thing is, is the cost for them is going to be fantastic. You know, so what's your, like, you know, I know Heath wasn't part of this draft, but like I got Najee Harris and I know it was super flex in round nine. Jalen Warren, I think went later in round nine or round 10. So let's just say it's round eight or round seven, you know, for those type of players and what they're still capable of doing. I mean, look, both those guys were, were still good fantasy options. I know Najee

was a bus based on where his cost was this past season. And I think his ADP settled in round three. So he didn't live up to a round three pick, but he still had a good fantasy season based on how he finished. And Jalen Warren, for the most part, had a good fantasy season based on what the expectations was as everybody's favorite sleeper. You you know so you're looking at how those two guys ended up performing last year and now you're putting Arthur Smith there and while we can sit here and say he wasn't a good head coach which he wasn't and he had some questionable decisions as an offensive coordinator he still had a couple of good seasons for the Titans turn Ryan Tannehill into a successful quarterback had a good year good good start to the career for A.J. Brown, and clearly was great for Derrick Henry.

So I think you're going to get some very quality games. Hopefully it's just not maddening where we can't figure out which of the two is going to be better on a week-to-week basis, which we had last year and a lot of times as well. But Najee Harris and Jalen Warren should be set up for some relative success. I don't know if you guys agree with this, but Bijan Robinson, even if he had split carries the way that he did, if he had just gotten the way that he did, if he had just gotten

the goal line-ish work, I mean, the first nine games of the season, he had two carries inside the 10-yard line and no rushing touchdowns. The last eight games of the season,

that's when they really started to feature him a little bit more. He had 10 carries inside the 10-yard line. He had three rushing touchdowns. If he had just had that role the entire year,

maybe he would have been kind of like, I don't think he would have been top two or three, but maybe one-two turn good. That was the big deal to me, is that Algier came in at the goal line.

So stupid. Frustrating. Oh. Okay. Let's go to Heath. Heath, your biggest misses from... Two of these guys I put in one group. We talked about them last week, so I'll be short.

It's just Miles Sanders and Alexander Madison. Now, it wasn't exactly the same thing, but it was mostly a workload projection type thing. With Madison, it was not about his talent. It was just that, I mean,

Minnesota gave him a contract and he looked to be the only guy soon after cam acres was there. And then Ty Chandler was better. And miles Sanders got the biggest contract for a running back, went to a place where all they could do was rave about how much they wanted to use him and throw to him. And it took like a month and Chuba Hubbard was better. So those guys were,

were huge, huge whiffs. Yeah. I, you know, I was thinking about this before the show. How many, I need to do some research on this running backs who changed teams.

It's not going to be a bunch of them this year. It's not a great thing. I feel, you know, it's, I don't really know what to say about why Miles Sanders, who's so good per carry, was so bad. I mean, I looked at it.

Had a pretty tough schedule to start the year. Also, the offensive line is where you go. They were really bad. The offense in general. Yeah, he had come from a team that was pretty great offensive line for all four of his seasons, and Carolina was, I mean,

a Kwan who is, looks like a total bus. They just, they struggled, but, but several of the guys who were like top five or top 10 running backs this year were not on their original team. I mean,

obviously McCaffrey Raheem most church most, or I thought about, but he's at least got the same, you know, James Connor on a least got the same system. James Conner on a per game basis. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're going with a couple years now that they've been with their respective teams, though.

They weren't the first year. That's right. Right, but they were good the first year there, I think. Obviously McCaffrey was. No, I mean, it's worth looking into. I think one of the things is for some running backs is they play like the first part of their career with a team, and then they change teams and they're not in their prime anymore. Well, I mean, like Swift had a good season.

It wasn't what we hoped. I mean, you go back the year before, Jamal Williams clearly was a touchdown machine. But, you know, in his first year in Detroit, you know, I mean, it's a case-by-case basis. I think sometimes what we see, and this is, you know, mean it's a case-by-case basis i think sometimes what we see and this is you know usually something i tend to avoid i can remember dave and i having this argument you know 10 years ago about who was the guy that went either from baltimore to minnesota minnesota baltimore and jester taylor jester taylor right uh and i was maybe maybe it was jester taylor it was somebody and and your line was follow the money. And I was like, don't follow the money.

It was not a good. Yeah, that's when I learned not to follow the money. It was certainly one of those things where you see these guys, they get overpaid for production that they may have had in a career season, in a contract year. And then they don't go to the most favorable situations. Now, I wasn't necessarily fearing Miles Sanders because I did think that, as Heath alluded to, it was a favorable situation for him because we thought he was going to be more involved in the passing game. And so that was, I think, the biggest thing. And the clip that got circulated almost right before a lot of drafts happened was Frank Reich and the GM at the time, his name scared me, Fitter, were saying, we're saying, you know, we're going to use you, you know, whatever the words were. Talk about the 50 catches in Philly.

Right, 50 catches. So it felt like he was going to be in a good spot. Now, I know Heath was very aggressive in how he was drafting him, and he had a feeling about it. There's nothing wrong with that. And it didn't work out. But I think you look at it and you say, okay, it was set up for a great situation and it wasn't like he got a monster deal to go play there.

He just got the richest deal of running backs last offseason. Now, we're going to probably see guys get maybe a little bit overpaid. We could see the Chargers maybe overpaying if they figure out their cap situation for a Barkley or a Jacobs because they want to get that system going in the right direction. We could see the Giants maybe overpaying for somebody because they want to replace Saquon Barkley if they don't feel like the contract is right.

And I don't mean like paying more than what Barkley's worth. It's just paying more than that player potentially is worth. But there's going to be a couple of those this offseason, and we're going to get enamored by it because it's Josh Jacobs. He's only 25. He's going to the Beng know, the Bengals or, or whatever team, you know,

to be part of this offense. I mean, look, David Montgomery had a good season last year. That was brought up in the chat. Montgomery was a, was a great one. Yeah.

I was looking at DeMarco Murray. He changed from Dallas to Philadelphia, had a bad year with Philadelphia, but then he went to Tennessee and he had a bounce back here with Tennessee. I think the Sean McCoy, uh, wasn't great in his first year in buffalo was terrific in his second year in buffalo so i guess it's probably case by case all right uh heath what was your other biggest miss uh avoid jamie kind of referenced it earlier we were we were out on javante williams and breezehole because of the the first year after an ACL. It slowed Brees Hall

down for about three weeks, if my memory is correct, but he finished the year as a top eight running back, both per game and for the season. This does not necessarily change my mind about this process. I agree with what Jamie said about Nick Chubb. It more just changed my mind about Brees Hall. And I already thought he was great, but I think he is just one of those extreme outliers. Um, and it, as super elite athlete,

and he proved that this year in a, in a terrible situation and his first year off of an ACL, he still finishes as a top eight running back everywhere. Yeah. What do you think about this nine game stretch he had because he ended up averaging four and a half yards per carry it's pretty damn good he had a nine game stretch where he averaged 2.5 yards per carry his longest run in nine games 99 carries was 15 yards talking about breeze hall i don't know if you remember that but it was it was

i'm sure you do but but yes, I do remember. He was playing with one, probably the worst quarterback situation in the NFL and one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL. But I think what I'm asking is when you look at that and say, all right, maybe he was still not back to full form and, you know, maybe we got a little lucky with him. I think it's,

see, I don't, I think it's the opposite because like when he wasn't getting as much work early in the year was actually when he was breaking long carries. Yeah. Like he, I mean, week one,

what do you have? 127 yards on 10 carries? Week five, you had a run or something like that in that game? Yeah, average nine yards per carry against the Chiefs, eight yards per carry against the Broncos. Like, he was incredible early in the year. Yeah. All right, Brees Hall was, and Dave was on that.

I mean, Dave was the high guy on Brees Hall, so that's a hit for Dave. But what about those misses, Dave? What about your biggest misses? Well, you picked the misses for me just like you picked the hits for me. And I'm curious why you chose – maybe it's just the talking point of Trevor Lawrence. I projected him as a breakout, thought he'd be fantastic, and he ended up being terrible. I remember why I liked him. I remember that he finished the 2022 regular season pretty strong,

right around 23 fantasy points per game in his last seven, and that includes having just one passing touchdown in his final three games. And I remember saying he had a ton of drops by his targets last year, and he should have had even better numbers. And then what happened this year is a ton of drops by his targets last year and he should have had even better numbers. And then what happened this year is a ton of drops by Calvin Ridley, other players on the team, including a bunch in the end zone. We talk about that every time we talk about the Jaguars passing game.

You know what? Can I just interrupt? I was shocked by something. True media has Trevor Lawrence with one drop on end zone passes. And I just, yeah, I drop on end zone passes. And I just, yeah, I looked at red zone passes and on,

they didn't, they didn't drop them. They were just always standing out of bounds when they cut. Right. That's right. I think that's what it ended up being was just like a bunch of BS going down where the receiver was either like fumbling the ball just a little bit or a foot out of bounds, like he said. There were some overthrows, too.

There was definitely an off-target rate that went along with Trevor Lawrence. I think it was around 12%. It wasn't great, but he didn't take that step forward, and the offense wasn't that good either. We thought that this would be an offense that would evolve with the receivers, with Trevor Lawrence, and it didn't really do that. And I feel like there's some rumors that have come out about Ridley and what exactly happened to him this year. I don't know them.

I didn't remember what I read about him, but I know that he obviously was not perfect when it came to being a top target for Trevor Lawrence. And this is going to make us all very nervous for Lawrence next year. I don't think any of us have him as a top 12 quarterback, and I don't think anybody would bat an eyelash at it, but I still can't help but think that he does have the potential to finish as a top 12 fantasy quarterback next year. Could be one of the quarterbacks that I don't mind taking a chance on late in drafts.

I think it really is a test of how much do you care about pedigree after a guy has played 50 games in the NFL? Yeah, I think it was easy going into last year. Not everybody felt this way. I mean, Heath obviously was the lowest guy on Lawrence, but a lot of people felt this way.

Forget about what happened in the urban Meyer year. So if you treated his second season as if it were not exactly a rookie season, on Lawrence, but a lot of people felt this way. Forget about what happened in the Urban Meyer year. So if you treated his second season as if it were not exactly a rookie season, but if you just looked at that season, you said that was encouraging. He came on strong late in the year. He was the number one pick. He was the best prospect since Andrew Luck

for a lot of people. He added Calvin Ridley, made sense to have the breakout. It never happened. I think the big number that jumps out to me is 22 touchdowns to 15 interceptions. That's just horrible. He did. That was the 17 game pace. Sorry. He played only 16 games. He was on pace for 360 rushing yards though, which is great. Jamie, what do you think happened with Trevor Lawrence? And the reason why

I picked for Dave, you did give me a long list. I picked Lawrence and Tony Pollard. So I feel like those were industry-wide, you know, mistakes or misses rather. But Trevor Lawrence, Jamie, what's your thought on what went wrong for him? I mean, you guys hit on a lot of it. I think the offense was just really a failure as a whole. You know, I mean, there were some offensive line injuries that played a part in this. I mean, I just spoke to Evan Ingram at the Pro Bowl. I said, what do you have to do, you know, personally to help Trevor get better?

And he said, we have to protect him. You know, he said, and that includes the tight ends. You know, that's a big part of it, you know, was that he was constantly under pressure. But, you know, Ingram talked about the personnel expecting to change, so I think that speaks to maybe the team expecting Ridley to move on, you know, if I had to, you know, just read between the lines. But, um, I mean, look, you know, when you have three pass catchers and what we thought Travis ETN could be as a pass catcher, you know, so four guys that should have elevated him, um, coming off

the year that he had the way that he finished because he was fantastic in that Chargers playoff game. You know, we all saw how the, how he brought that team back and really the way that he finished the season. But Heath has a great point there. How much do you buy into pedigree? And so the physical tools are certainly there. The weapons, I think, whether Ridley is there or not, I think you can still buy into him having enough around him to be successful. But he's got to prove it.

He's got to go out there and he's got to show it. And it felt as if, and I spoke to some people who cover the Jaguars last off season, and this is not a Pete Prisco thing. This is other guys that they were saying the schedule, the division, everything set up for them to just have sort of like a runaway year. And I think that's why a lot of it is, is a complete failure. I mean, they, they should have won this division with their eyes closed. And I don't think anybody expected the Texans to be as good. That's clearly a second part of this. And the Colts had a much better season than a lot of people expected,

especially after Anthony Richardson went down. But everything on that franchise took a step backward. And, you know, we may be looking at Doug Peterson gone after this season if they don't make the playoffs and maybe make a significant playoff run. But Press Taylor was a bad play caller, or Peterson was a bad play caller, whoever actually ended up calling plays. I don't think anybody ever knew. And so there's a lot of work to be done in Jacksonville.

And I'd like to see Lawrence play a little bit more free, throw the ball downfield a little bit more. A lot of it felt like it was horizontal passes as opposed to vertical throws down the field. And maybe that was Zay Jones missing so much time because it felt like their offense horizontal passes as opposed to vertical throws down the field. Maybe that was Zay Jones missing so much time because it felt like their offense was better when Jones was healthy. We'll see. Adam, you mentioned

the touchdowns and you should play the Adam, you were right clip. Do I have a list for you? Trevor Lawrence has thrown 1,750 passes in the NFL. He has a touchdown rate in his career of 3.3%.

There are 13 quarterbacks in NFL history who have thrown at least 1,750 passes with a touchdown rate of 3.3% or lower. Would you like to hear the list? Adam, you were right. Yeah, sure. I'd love to. Mike Livingston, Mike Phipps, Jim Harbaugh, Rick Meyer, Rodney Peet, Tony Banks, Cordell Stewart, Joey Harrington, Kerry Collins, David Carr, Chad Henney, Trevor Lawrence, Daniel Jones. You're about to make every Trevor Lawrence

Dynasty League manager drive off the road. I don't think I knew the first two names on that list. Who were they? Mike Livingston and Mike Phipps. I think Mike Livingston might have been a Chiefs quarterback. Possibly. He was his entire career at Chiefs quarterback. All right. He his last season was the year I was born.

So I didn't I didn't actually see him play. Jim Harbaugh was a quarterback. Trevor Lawrence was eighth in pass attempts. He was 18th in red zone pass attempts, 21st in green zone pass attempts. That was another weird thing. They just didn't get near the end zone that much. And I also saw today, Calvin Ridley

led the NFL in end zone targets. How about that? He had 24 of them, and they just, I don't know. I He had 24 of them. I watched all 24 of them. What did you say? No drops according to your media. Maybe one, but I actually watched all of them and I would agree with that assessment.

I would say he had no drops. He maybe had one, but it was really tough. Then I remember that one against the Ravens where he was totally inbounds and they called it incomplete and then they reviewed it and then they still called it incomplete. I believe it was John Perry was like, I don't know what they're doing. He's inbounds. Trevor Lawrence just couldn't catch a break.

The other one was Tony Pollard, who was a huge bust. And another guy who he had, he had the second most red zone carries and the sixth most carries inside the 10-yard line, the sixth most carries inside the 5-yard line amongst running backs, a couple quarterbacks who were ahead of him there, and he scored six touchdowns all season, and he was the number 23 running back per game in PPR, number 26 in non-PPR.

This is Tony Pollard we're talking about. Dave is the last one here, so finish with this whiff. I just thought Harbaugh was Screech's cousin, and that was it. Pollard, we kind of got hoodwinked by the stats. We knew that he was elusive in 2022. He was top 15 that year in yards after contact per rush, explosive play rate, PFF's

elusive rating. He was just tough to bring down on the limited diet of work that he had in 2022 in Dallas with Ezekiel Elliott. And I think we all just thought, okay, he's going to be able to do what he did that year, 2022, and get end zone opportunities on top of it. And Adam, you just illustrated that he did. Yeah. He just didn't come through with them,

but he really wasn't elusive at all. If you give me a minute, I will tell you just how unelusive he wound up being in 2022, but nowhere near the breakout candidate that I thought it would be. I thought he'd easily have double digit touchdowns thought he'd have a shot at over 1500 total yards, not worth where we were taking him in drafts. Not even close.

Is he a word of caution when it comes to Devon Achan? Certainly. It's the exact same thing, because what are we going to point to with Achan? You can't catch him. He's amazing. But like Achan, there's a question about, or like Pollard, there's a question about thing because what are we going to point to with a chan you can't catch him he's amazing but like a chan there's a question about or like pauler there's a question about how much work a chan

can actually have the difference though is that i think that a chan can be if if they if you told me before the season he's never ever going to have a game with more than 15 touches i would still be excited about him because of how explosive he ended up being last year, last season. Yeah. This past season. So he,

Pollard did say that the leg was an issue that he wasn't fully held. That was kind of late in the season. Um, but do you think, you know, not to question his, his validity, but I always,

you know, get concerned, you know, covering the league for as long as I have. When you hear guys that are having bad seasons, say that after the fact. Not that it's not justified, but if he's having a great season, like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm doing this, but my legs don't bother me. Those are always some questionable takes.

See, I'm always nervous when I hear about it before the season. That's different. Totally different. It is different, but when they start making excuses before the games count, I'm taking three steps back from that player. I'm not really interested in drafting them. 6% explosive rate for Tony Pollard in 2023 compared to 11.9 in 2022. So that was cut in half his yards after contact per rush was down by a full yard. I don't know what his elusiveness rating is from PFF. It doesn't really matter. You could see it with Pollard.

He just wasn't nearly the same guy that he was the year before. And HN, you know, to be fair, you know, you're going to have, I think some injury concerns because of him struggling to stay healthy in his rookie campaign. But if they move on from most or move on from Wilson, don't bring in anybody of significance. It's hard not to get excited about what he can become. I think it's a hundred percent that there will be a split of running back duties in Miami. That's just what Mike McDaniel does. It's what all the 49ers or the Kyle Shanahan guys do, except when they've got a Christian McCaffrey. But it doesn't mean that he's going to be bad for fantasy.

It might mean that he's not worth a top 15 pick, though. I am very interested to see what 2024 looks like for Tony Pollard, where he is, because he played on the franchise tag, what kind of role he has. Maybe he can just thrive in a smaller role again. I don't think the numbers were just nonsense his first four years. He was, by the regular metrics, by the advanced metrics, he was phenomenal. I think that first four years, this is kind of a test also of is it is it total number of touches or is it age and a combination of injuries because he's pretty much to the age where it wouldn't be that surprising if he's you know he's 27 this year

right yeah that's fine i mean 26 27 is still a pretty good year for for back. That's when the breakdowns start to come. I don't know. I think 27-28 is. 26 is not. He hasn't had that much work, so that's the other factor in it. What do you think the chances are of Tony Pollard being the weak one starting running back for the Cowboys? 25%. I was going to say 30-35.

Right in that range. I think offensively, that's their biggest upgrade. All right, we have a question here. Yeah, go ahead. What's the chance that he's a week one starting running back for somebody? See, I could see, again, if we're talking about the Chargers being in cap hell or some team doesn't want to pay for Barkley or Jacobs,

he's going to be in that next tier of free agents. Yeah. Last question here before we go. It's from a viewer, Jaquan. Is Caleb Williams a better prospect than Trevor Lawrence? Asking because I don't watch college football and I'm genuinely curious. We had Emory Hunt on. He gave them the same grade, gave them a 90 grade.

Who did he compare him to? But they're different, right? So different. Yes. Caleb Williams is not as much of what people would call a can't-miss prospect, I don't think, as Lawrence was, is my perception. But he has some attributes that are wildly more fun to speculate on than what could be. He's smaller. Was he 6'1"? Lawrence has that, you know,

that height you love from your kind of prototypical franchise quarterback. Williams has a better arm, would we say? He's got a freaking cannon. Makes ridiculous throws. I mean, they both have great arms. But I just thought that was an interesting question because Emery Hunt did mention he had the same grade on both of them,

a 90, which is very, very high. All right, you want our bold predictions from the magazine? Yeah, but before you do that, before I forget, we have a mailbag tomorrow, so please send in your questions. FantasyFootball at CBSi.com. Go ahead. Oh, boy. Who remembers their bold predictions?

I'd like to leave. Can I leave now? You want to finish the show without me? I thought yours was the best. You had one that was the best. Oh, boy. Who remembers their bowl prediction? I'd like to leave. Can I leave now? You want to finish the show without me? I thought yours was the best. You had one that was the best. You had two that were terrible. Oh, terrible.

Here are your three, Adam. Jameer Gibbs will be a top five running back. That was pretty good. Boom. That's good. All right, now close yours. Jerry Judy will be a top five wide receiver. Close.

I think I said on the Broncos, and the editors cut that out. You said Marvin Mims will be better. Harlan Sutton will be a top five wide receiver. Close. I think I said on the Broncos, and the editors cut that out. Yes, you did. You said Marvin Mims will be better. Harlan Sutton will be better. Hold on, hold on. When were these submitted? It was in June, right? These were submitted end of May, early June, yes. Okay, so Adam, I don't think I'd give you credit

that you wouldn't say that after Judy messed up his hamstring. Of course. That is true, yes. That was the reason. And then your final one was Marquise Brown will be a top 10 wide receiver. I thought Kyler Murray was going to play in week one at that point. He had a

seriously slow recovery from that injury. Week one, week two, week three, something like that. I had not expected it to be like week 10 or whatever. But did Marquise Brown still play some games with Kyler Murray? Oh yeah, he was horrible. He's very similar to Adam. You had one great one and two stinkers. Oh, I had a good one?

I don't remember that. Your first one was Tua Tungavailoa plays 17 games and throws for 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns. So you were close. Close, yeah. But the NFL in passing. All right, cover yours. Pat Fryer finishes the year as tight end three

with 900 yards receiving and seven touchdowns. I'm going to be much less specific next year. Like, I need to stop. I'm going to be much less specific next year. I need to stop. Way too specific. And then Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison are the first duo since Antonio Brown and Juju to both top 100 catches and 1,000 yards. How far off were you on that one?

Well, I mean, I guess you were off a lot because of Jefferson. Yeah. Well, and Addison didn't do either. All lot because of Jefferson. Yeah. Let's see. Well, and Addison didn't do either. All right, let me just see through the Green Bay game what Jordan Addison was on pace for. That's when – go ahead. You can read Dave's. It was like 12-something.

That's when Kirk Cousins got hurt. Right. So this may not have been such a bad – all right, I got you right now. He was on pace for only 76 catches but 1,024 yards and 15 touchdowns. But some of those games were without Jefferson. Jefferson got hurt in the Bears game, I want to say. So it would have been two. All right, so I'll do just the first six games.

We know Jefferson would have hit that pace. Yeah, Addison was on pace for 62 catches, 785 yards, 11 touchdowns. He averaged 12.4 PPR points per game in the first five games with Cousins and Jefferson. His next three games without Jefferson but with Cousins, 21.5 PPR points per game. Mega stuff. I screwed that up. 9.9 PPR points per game after that.

I did six games instead of five. Anyway, go ahead to Dave's. Dave's, okay. Dave's was pretty good. Aaron Jones will not finish as a top 20 fantasy running back. Where'd he finish? Definitely outside of the top 20 in total points. I don't know where he was. Oh, yeah. No question in total points, but who cares about total points?

28th in PPR per game. That felt that I would have never guessed that low. Calvin Ridley will be a top five fantasy wide receiver. Nailed it. And then this one is hedging a little bit because there's really only one other player that would fall into this category.

So you were right, but you had the only New York Giant where the top 150 pick is Saquon Barkley. I believe the only other player going in the top 150 was Darren Waller. Yeah, that's why I said that. in the top 150 was Darren Waller. Yeah, that's why I said that. So basically, he just said Darren Waller's going to be busted.

Daniel Jones wasn't a top 150 pick? Maybe, but if he was, based on ADP, just barely. Okay. All right, Jamie, what were your... Hey, you know Ridley finished ahead of Kirk in PPR points per game? Did he? By a full PPR point. I bet if we Azers

that he did not. What does that mean? Because Kirk got hurt in like the first drive. Per game. It's not based on seven. I didn't take their total numbers. No, but I'm saying if you take out the Kirk game that he left with an injury, although it was on a pretty big play, as I recall,

I bet Kirk averaged more, but I don't know. Jamie? Yeah, my three are terrible. Anthony Richardson will become the second quarterback all-time to pass for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards. May have done it, but... That was a decent one.

Another Calvin Ridley one. Calvin Ridley and Christian Kirk will be the best wide receiver duo in the NFL. No, they were not. And then Ramondre Stevenson will have the best PPR season for running back in Patriots history. So it would have been better than Curtis Martin's best season,

which was not close. Who was the best? Oh, I guess it was. It was. No. Who was the best wide receiver duo? The best wide receiver duo? The best wide receiver duo? Yeah.

Probably Hill and Waddle still. Could have been Hill and Waddle still. No, I think I'm going to go with Brown and Smith. I'm going to go with the Eagles guys. What about Nico and Tank? That's a good one. No, they missed too many games.

The week before Christian Kirk got hurt, he was averaging 13.8, and Ridley was averaging 12.6. Okay, A.J. Brown averaged 17.3, and Devontae Smith, 14.4. Oh, you know what? Maybe it was Debo and I. No, I think it was probably the Eagles.

Why? I don't understand. Devontae Smith only averaged one point more than Jalen Waddle. Did he? All right. Well, Tyreek Hill averaged five points more than AJ Brown. Yeah, you're right. Well, okay.

Because I was doing overall. But if you want to do per game. Ayuk and Tebow were both finished in the top 16 in PPR points per game among wide receivers. Okay. Per game, it's definitely the Dolphins guys. No, it's not. It's the 49ers guys. Why would...

Are you nine points behind Tyree Kill? No, it's O per game. Tyree Kill averaged 23.7. Jalen Waddell averaged 14.2. Oh, you're combining the two? Yeah. I don't know. That's one way to do it.

That sounds like a loser way to do it. That was Heath's way. What? What way are you doing it, Dave? Just where they finished among receivers and PPR points per game. So you're going for the highest. They were the highest duo.

I see. I see. Yeah. Okay. But I would say that since Devante Smith was just barely behind those guys, that's total points. I'm getting all confused.

It was Thielen and Mingo. We'll be back tomorrow. Probably Sky Moore and Kadarius Toney. Yeah, we'll be back tomorrow with another episode of Fantasy. How far behind were Puka and Cup? I thought about that, too. Cup was, let's see. Cup was only around like 13 PPR points per game.

Yeah, 13 and a half. Nico and Tank were both top 18. Oh, Nico and Tank were really, really good. They were really good. And then Devante and AJ Brown were both top 20. And J.O. Muller was 21st in PPR points per game, if you can believe that. What about Jefferson?

Jefferson 20 plus Addison. Jefferson and Addison were up there too. That was 33 points per game. Goodbye everybody.