Fantasy Football Today - 🚨Stafford to the Rams! Goff to the Lions! (01/30 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: January 31, 2021

We react to the blockbuster trade, give you the Fantasy winners and tell you if the Rams overpaid and if they are legit Super Bowl contenders in 2021. Subscribe to the FFT in 5 podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to FFT. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @CTowersCBS, @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 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/ Want winning picks each morning in under 10 minutes? Subscribe to 'The Early Edge: A Daily SportsLine Betting Podcast' on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts. Enter the CBS Sports 'Football Props' game for your chance to compete for the $1 million jackpot. https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/games/props-pickem 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

Well, the NFL offseason has begun before the Super Bowl's even played. What a trade. I mean, I'm sure everybody just like me was sitting there doing Super Bowl research, eating ramen noodles and watching John Wick on their Saturday night. And this better be good, guys, because I was halfway through. That movie's awesome. But yeah, Stafford to the Rams, Goff to the Lions, and the Lions also getting a couple of first-round picks and a third-round pick. Adam Azer, Dave Richard, Jamie Isenberg. Jamie, you're in Tampa getting ready for the Super Bowl.

Got to be a lot of buzz amongst you and the other media members there. What do you think of this deal? Actually, give me the big, if there is one, big fantasy winner here, and then give me your thoughts, and then I'll ask the same from Dave. The big fantasy winner is Robert Woods and Cooper C know they get a uh better thrower of the football than jared goff and uh you know i think stafford's a big winner obviously you know he goes to a system and a team that's clearly going to um i think enhance his abilities um man the rams give

up a lot though to get him. A lot to get him. They sure did. That's what it takes to get rid of that golf contract, though, because that golf contract was ugly. And I don't know how much of it they're paying for the Lions to just take on less of it, or maybe the Lions are taking on all of it, and then they get the first-round picks in 2022 and 2023.

I think a huge winner is Cam Akers, who is already in a great position to be the lead back for the Rams. But now that they've got Stafford as the signal caller there, defenses are going to have to respect that passing game downfield differently than they did with Goff.

And it's going to make things just a little bit easier for Cam Akers, who had been getting a nice workload before. I think he's a clear winner. This was a really short yardage kind of passing offense, though. If you look at Jared Goff, we go to the Rams here, not the Lions. Jared Goff last year, his intended air yards or his ADOT, whatever you want to call it, 6.6.

And that's really, really low. The last three seasons, it's been 8.7, 7.7, 6.6. So they have thrown the ball downfield, but I don't know that they really had that type of wide receiver this year. So I don't know how that meshes with Matthew Stafford. His ADOT the last three years has been 6.9, which is really low.

Then 10.6 when he was the number three quarterback per game in 2019. And last year, 8.7, which is still very high, which is the same as golf three seasons ago when they went to the Super Bowl. So, yeah, McVay is very adaptable. But is this a good fit, Dave, for Matthew Stafford? Yeah, it's a great fit for Matthew Stafford because he's got a lot of weapons to throw

to there. He's got an offensive line that's at worst just as good as what he's had in Detroit for the past couple of years. And at best is an improvement. And the Rams could still try and make improvements on that offensive line. And yeah, he loses Kenny Galladay, but he might not have had Kenny Galladay in 2021 anyway, because he could end up changing teams. And I listen, you've got cup, you've got woods.

I think woods is a good downfield threat. If he wants to be, you saw Van Jefferson. I think that they can put together enough potent players in that passing game to make Matthew Stafford a capable quarterback in fantasy. And I think you've got to start considering him close to the top 12 among quarterbacks in the coming year because of all the weapons that he's got. Yeah. Jamie, talk about rankings and where Stafford fits in. Golf will be, I'm sure, much further down, but how about Stafford? He's not going to be anywhere near Stafford.

Stafford will be right around somewhere between 12 and 15. There's a lot to like about the quarterback position, and you just have to wonder, is this going to be still a run-heavy Rams team? Like Dave alluded to, Cam Akers has put up some good numbers this season, toward the end of the season, and the workload kind of speaks to the volume, speaks to kind of the offense that I think they still want to run. But Stafford is in a good spot because of the weapons around him,

and we'll see. This is pretty incredible. This is from Pro Football Talk about 12 minutes ago from the time of recording this. The last time that the Rams will have used their first round pick was 2016. When they drafted Jared Goff.

Yeah, and they don't have another... Schrager was saying before the show, they don't have another first round pick until 2024. It's amazing. How does Les Snead still have a job? Well, I mean, they win. That's why. They do? Okay, I mean, I guess they do. Yeah, they do okay i mean i guess yeah they win i mean the thing is playoffs i guess technically they are in the playoffs but they they were not a superbowl

caliber team this year and it's pretty hard i mean maybe getting out of that contract frees up some you know space and free agency in the future but salary caps going down this year stafford's still going to be expensive i don't know all the money details here, but it's hard to look at them and say they're in prime position to, in my opinion anyway, to be a true Super Bowl contender. I think they are.

You think so? Stafford's a little legit. I mean, you're talking about they had arguably the best defense in the NFL. Yes. Oh, they're a Super Bowl contender. They lose their defense coordinator. We'll see how much that costs them.

The coaching staff continues to have turnover year over year because everybody wants McVay's guys. But when you walk into a situation where you have arguably the best defensive player in the NFL, maybe two of the top five, that gives you a fighting chance on that side of the ball. And now they've upgraded their quarterback position. They can run the ball. They can catch the ball.

Can they block? You know, that's going to be the big question. You know, if Whitworth still the same guy, you know, is the rest of the line going to hold up its end of the bargain? You know, so I think, you know, they're pound for pound in the mix. You know, certainly in the NFC West, which is going to be a loaded division once again when San Francisco gets their guys back. You see what the Cardinals

are building. You see what the Seahawks still have. It's a tough division to get out of, but when you put them up against every other team in that conference, they're right there. Woods and Kup are really good, but I don't think this is a great receiving core. I think it's good.

I think it's real good. Yeah. And I think that the type of offense that they've been running can be expanded with Stafford rather than retracted a little bit because of that's the thing. I don't know, Dave, because I,

I think the type of office that they run, it's getting the quarterback out in space. And now you're bringing a 33 year old guy in there. That's been beat up to do that. That's my other point is like, I know, but because they couldn't trust golf, they could not trust your golf.

Well, that's the, that's the thing. Like, I don't know who I was listening to the other day, but somebody was talking about how, what Walford was doing for them. I know it was,

it was Greg Olson on Colin Coward show. Greg Olson was talking about what, what Walford brought to the table for them that he felt McVay was looking for was a much more mobile quarterback and a guy that can, when he gets out of the pocket is not just looking to throw is actually looking to run when the space is available. And we saw golf time and time again, down the stretch, especially in that playoff game, he had open lanes to run, and he didn't.

And that's kind of been his M.O., is that, you know, he's looking to throw, which most coaches would covet. But it doesn't seem like McVay necessarily wants that. Now he's got a guy that's a pure pocket passer. You know what I mean? Obviously, if Stafford can move, he may move better than Goff. But I don't think he's going to do the type of things that what McVay's offense in its current structure necessarily both.

Now, obviously, Stafford changes the dynamic of what they can do throwing the ball because he's a much better passer. Yes. We'll see how McVay adjusts to that, but all we've seen is McVay with Goff, and we'll have to see how the offense gets tailored around a much more proven quarterback. I think he can certainly create an offense where he doesn't need a quarterback who's running all over the place and he can lean on Stafford's arm a little bit more to attack downfield. I think this is going to be very good for Woodson Cup. Okay. And this is kind of interesting, actually, believe it or not, Jared Goff averaged more fantasy points per game than Matthew Stafford in 2020. Big reason for that, though, he had four rushing touchdowns.

And fewer rushing yards than Stafford. These guys don't rush. They have 100 yards a year or something like that. But he did end up with four rushing touchdowns, which is fluky. None for Matthew Stafford. But the passing numbers were certainly better for Stafford. The Rams offense, I think maybe the reason why I don't buy them as much as you guys do is their offense has been getting worse the last two years.

I talked about this on the Thursday show, and maybe this is just because of Jared Goff and his regression, but they went from the best offense in football to the third best last year. I'll look it up. They were somewhere around 20... Where are you? No, they were 20.

Where are you? Stat? No. Points per game. They scored 23.25 points per game last year. Two years ago, 32.9. Oh, they were 22nd. All right.

Sorry. They've gone from first to second to 11th to 22nd. There we go. Yeah, it's pretty bad. Yeah. So, all right. Hopefully we go. Yeah, it's pretty bad. Yeah, so... All right, hopefully this helps. Congratulations, Detroit.

Now, let's say... Yeah, let's say that Kenny Galladay is back with Detroit. Oh, please no. Who is the best wide receiver now when you look at these two teams for fantasy? Galladay, Cup, Woods. How would you rank them, Dave?

Woods? I think I got to go Woods, Cup, Gallaudet. I'm nervous about Gallaudet catching passes from Goff or a rookie not named Trevor Lawrence, which is going to be the case. Jamie? Gallaudet, Woods, Cup. I mean, you know, it's easy to sit here and crap on Jared Goff. He made Robert Woods and Cooper Cup pretty good fantasy receivers,

and they're going to probably be chasing points. He's going to have to throw. We've never seen Jared Goff in a different offense. You know, so Jared Goff may be a capable fantasy quarterback, a better fantasy quarterback. Four-sense-ism situation is going to have to throw. Galladay is the best talent of these three. And so I'll take my chances with the

best talent going into a situation where he may not have Marvin Jones opposite him. He's still going to have TJ Hawkinson. But targets are definitely going to be in his favor. So I'll take my chances with Galladay. They're all going to be close. They're all going to be number two receivers. But I think the upside still favors Galladay. Okay. I just want to look up one thing here

because we're doing this right after the news broke. I just want to look up one thing here because we're doing this, you know, right after the news broke. I just want to see the difference in pass attempts for the two teams. Let's take a look. So the Rams almost have to throw out everything with the lions though, because they have a new coaching staff in place. Okay.

Well, the Rams were 12th at five. The Rams were 12th. The lions were 13th. They had almost the same amount of pass attempts, eight more for the Rams this year. All right. Any final thoughts?

How about DeAndre Swift? Does this change anything for him? We were excited about him in a new offense with Anthony Lynn, where his running backs always catch a lot of balls. And Deuce Daly. Don't forget about that. Yeah, it's big. It's big.

Swift is still going to be a very popular fantasy running back because of the coaches that are there. And certainly Jared Goff can lean on that run game a little bit and certainly dump off to Swift. I think this is good for Hawkinson too. You look at when Jared Goff had his big games over the last two seasons, Higby was a big part of that. So Hawkinson will probably be there. And if Galladay is somehow out of the picture, then the targets are just going to be ridiculous for Hawkinson in that case. Yeah.

That goes back to when we did the tight end show, Adam, remember the tight ends that seemed to be the best were the ones that didn't have any competition. And it was certainly fall into that category. And Hawkinson, Marvin Jones could move on. Galladay could move on this.

This could be great for Hawkinson. I wonder though, if they could afford Galladay now to franchise tag him, because we, do we know how much of the contract, the lions of golf contract, Lions, of Goff's contract the Lions are going to actually have to pay? Are they paying the whole thing? Because that would make sense.

I haven't seen it yet. I actually think the Lions got a bad deal on this. They got a bad deal on this? I think this is a bad deal for the Lions. What? Get two first-round picks for a 33-year-old quarterback? What? They're going to be late

first-round picks. The Rams are going to be better for it, and they've got to pay Jared Goff for a 33 year old quarterback. They're going to be late first round picks. The Rams are going to be better for it. And they've got to pay Jared Goff for the next year. Plus, Oh, this is a great deal for them. All right. This is a great deal for them.

We'll see how this does for the lions franchise. It keeps the Rams certainly in the super bowl conversation. Like you said, the lions aren't going to be anywhere near the super bowl for the next couple of years. No, but this, of course they haven't been near.

I think it's a great deal because you can always, now you can package your first round. Right. Now you can move up. This is a great deal. By the way, Hawkinson averaged... He was on pace for 552 yards with Galladay and 780

yards without Galladay. So that's a big difference there. We talked about that on Tuesday. Twitter poll update. Are the Rams a legit Super Bowl contender next season with Matthew Stafford? About two-thirds of the votes so far. I just posted this when we had the conversation. Say yes. 65.3%.

Yes, the Rams are a legit Super Bowl contender. Oh, that's the thing. How much does Stafford have left? I want to remind everybody, he played 16 games, but it was not easy. He left on the opening drive in one of them. He was beat up. I mean, this is three years in a row this guy has really taken a beating and that's why I think it was a little risky

to give up two first round picks for Stafford, but they're going for it. They always do. If they keep him upright, Adam, he's going to be great for them. All right. That is it for this emergency bonus podcast of Fantasy Football today. Thanks for listening everybody. We is it for this emergency bonus podcast of Fantasy Football today. Thanks for listening, everybody.

We appreciate it. Have a great weekend. We will talk to you Sunday night on FFT in 5. We will talk to you more about this trade on the Monday episode of Fantasy Football today. Jamie will enjoy Tampa. Dave will enjoy South Florida. And I will enjoy the rest of John Wick. See you later.