Fantasy Football Today - TE Regression; Rookies/Free Agents in a Shortened Offseason (05/26 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

Big news (kinda?) as Carlos Hyde signs with Seattle. How will this affect Chris Carson (2:42)? Is there any reason to believe Carson won't get his typical 300 or so carries? ... We talk Tight End regression (13:40) with Jared Cook and his crazy 2019 stats leading the way. His yards per target, yards per catch and TD rate were too high, but can he still be a Fantasy starter even with regression? Then we compare Darren Waller and Mark Andrews (19:40). They have different regression coming and different obstacles to overcome ... More news and notes (27:30) including a note on the Broncos backfield. And with a shortened offseason, how will rookies and free agents be impacted (33:00)? We draw on history to make some predictions. Perhaps we're too high on the rookie RBs? ... Your emails at [e-mail] 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/newsletters/ 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

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. Hey, we've got some big news to share today.

We've got a running back signing, Carlos Hyde, to the Seahawks. We'll talk about that. We've got a running back signing, Carlos Hyde, to the Seahawks. We'll talk about that. We've got to finish up our regression discussion from last week with tight ends with Jared Cook, Darren Waller, and Mark Andrews. And it's going to be a strange offseason for rookies and free agents, a shortened offseason. What kind of impact will that have? Welcome back from your four-day weekend.

It's Tuesday morning, May 26th. Adam Azer here with Heath Cummings and Ben Gretsch. How was your Memorial Day weekend, guys? Great. Great. Destroyed a deck at my in-laws' house. Got some golf. Got a lot of great feedback from

the listeners. Want to give a shout-out to them about the AJ Brown discussions last week. You might think we get a lot of that type of stuff, but not probably as much as you'd think. Appreciate the half-do dozen or so shout-outs for my absolute torching of Heath's terrible arguments. Yeah, and now today we have competing articles coming out about the discussion that we had, it sounds like. So that will be fun. The thing I really love is i just

turned in my wide receiver regression article and there's like a 50 chance that ben gritch maybe even higher will be the one to edit that it's like a 99 chance i like picturing his face as he reads my aj brown argument i just read the headline and i oh man you should have seen it already without being like there's nothing like i guess you could just change the article but there's no arguing back and the headline you even agree with ben aj brown and stefan diggs need a big bump in targets yeah but like the two names you're picking you're just trolling me like don't act like you didn't think about me when you wrote that headline. Well, I love it.

I love it. Well, I hope everybody had a great and safe Memorial Day weekend. Yeah, mine was good. Thanks for asking. It was nice. It was fun. Jamie's off this week. I'm out next week.

It's going to be some weeks off, some days off from the guys in the next few weeks, I guess, before we really gear up. It's almost June, which means, I know this kind of sounds weird, but it's like, it's almost July, which means training camps and preseason. It's getting close. It really is, assuming the football season starts

on time. We had something from Dolphins owner Stephen Ross about that. Let's get to the big news. The Seahawks signing Carlos Hyde to a one-year deal. He's recovering from surgery for a torn labrum in his shoulder. Actually had a nice year last year, averaged 4.4 yards per carry, which was a little surprising. And he had 245 carries. Chris Carson is a carry machine. It's like a 300-carry guy. So what's the impact here with Carlos Hyde signing in Seattle, Ben? I mean, it makes me not like this backfield at all. You know, I saw in your notes, you noted that Carson's been dominating the goal line carries.

But the other thing we know Carson is a machine for is fumbling. And that's the kind of trend that I think there's a lot more trends like that that we can look at and we looked at all these careers in the past and and those are the types of things that i think uh are hard to to be sticky year over year and now you add in a guy like carlos hyde who is not has never been much of a receiver he had a high reception season one year and it was really like a five game stretch when i believe it was cj bethard was starting where he just caught it like more than half of his passes that year but still it was really poor in efficiency he's never been a good receiving back this guy is a between the tackles runner he's very much um a the kind of player that could take that type of work away from Carson and you know I I think that we will see a little bit of a committee this year you know in in those types of areas. And I don't think that's great for Carson.

I mean, I think of the joke I made in our little text thread when we got this news with just the internal team was like, is Chris Carson going to be like a passing downs back now? Because he did seem to play on passing downs more than most of the other Seattle backs when he was healthy last year. So it's a complicated situation. I just I don't like the way this is going to get split up. I don't really want any, any piece of this backfield. I, I have a question cause I don't remember this and it's genuine.

Was there a Chris Carson fumbling narrative in college? I don't know that. I'm not sure. Because like before last year, he had three fumbles on 300 carries are you gonna are you gonna try and make a case that his fumbles weren't really that much of a problem last year i'm going to make a case that i don't think because he and he had a stretch of like it was like a if i remember correctly a four or five great game stretch where he fumbled like six times.

I don't think there's we have very much reason to expect Chris Carson to fumble a lot more than average this year. What I remember about last year, two things. First, either in game one or game two right away uh he was charged with one fumble but completely botched a perfect handoff from wilson that was like put right in his gut on another one but because he never had the ball that was charged to wilson i remember referencing that and stealing signals and in the weeks that followed that if you go back and just look at his raw fumble numbers this one was accredited to him but it was very much his fault but also that that fumbling problem early in the season uh multiple times it happened in close leads late where they basically just need to hold on to the ball and he was bringing teams back into games uh it was a pretty significant one and then i think it cropped back up later in the year and

again at inopportune times late in games when they were leading when like your number one job as a running back is to not fumble but is there anything that's going to remove carlos hyde from being a 300 type carry player chris carson so yeah sorry um here's without i would say i just pulled up the game logs and he had three fumbles in his first three games from weeks four through eight. He averaged 25 touches a game, including 26 touches in week four after he just fumbled in three consecutive games.

Didn't fumble once in those five games. Weeks nine through 12, he fumbled four times in three games. Week 13, he gets 24 touches, then 18, then 25 touches like they didn't ever really punish him oh that's not true they did before rashad penny's injury as ben has outlined yeah right at the back end of that second three game stretch where he fumbled four times he went

down from you know 80 snap shares to 50 two weeks in a row and then penny tours acl and then they went back to him one of those weeks that he went down to 50 he had 24 touches like i i he had one game a big workload one game before he got hurt with fewer than 15 carries fewer than 18 touches, Rashad Penny had a bigger role, I think, you know, and then he tore his ACL. Penny had 23 carries in his last game of the season, I believe. No, he had

14 carries, then he had 15, and then he got hurt. But okay, I don't want to get too bogged down in the fumbles. Carlos Hyde, I don't think any of us think he's a great player. They obviously needed running back depth. I don't think they could get by with Rashad Penny going on short-term IR or the pup list or whatever and having DJ Dallas, Travis Homer. They needed running back depth. Chris Carson is a workhorse. He was number nine in non-PPR, number 12 in PPR

last year. He played 15 games. The year before, he barely played in weeks one and two. He had a combined 13 carries. After weeks one and two, he was on pace for well over 300 carries. And he's been really good. And he gets all the goal line work, as I mentioned. He's been a top 15 running back two years in a row in both formats and top 12 last year. He seemed like a pretty good pick in the fourth round,

if you could get him, when you're looking at Todd Gurley, at Melvin Gordon, all those aging running backs that we're afraid of. Chris Carson still looked really good. Does this change with Carlos Hyde coming aboard? I think it could. Yeah, so I mean, I'll agree with your point here, Adam, that it's very possible that Carson could still be a lead every down back throughout 2020. I think more or less what we've seen in the last couple of years from a guy that was a late round pick has been not necessarily a lack of better options.

And they do really like him, but I don't think that it's the strongest commitment in the world. I don't necessarily think Chris Carson is going to be a guy who's going to be a lead back for the Seahawks for the next four or five years. I think these types of signings, the DJ Dallas pick, which wasn't a high capital pick, but they're evidence that I don't think Seattle is as committed. And I think there's a possibility that this trend doesn't continue as, I think, fantasy football players believe. I will just say one more thing on the Chris Carson thing, just because I tweeted it out yesterday, and I thought it was really interesting. He's basically been the same guy over the last two years as Joe Mixon. They're separated by like three-tenths of a fantasy point per game and he's being drafted like 35 picks later yeah i saw that tweet it was very interesting i also learned what that stat that you tweeted about was uh what was it again uh yacht yeah yacht it's uh because carlos hyde has kind of

been a replacement level running back it's's yards above Carlos Hyde divided by touches. And Chris Carson has never had a negative yacht in his career. He's always been better than Carlos Hyde. All right, let's see what else we got here. Russell Wilson would love for the Seahawks to sign Antonio Brown. That's according to John Clayton. You can call plays for the Browns in their preseason game. That's a fun promotion.

What would your first play call be? A draw play at fourth and nine like Freddy Kitchens? I knew there was a Freddy Kitchens joke coming. Immediately you would think this could only go bad, but given what Freddy Kitchens did last year, there's no way it could be worse. Devontae Freeman, there was a report he might retire. He could sit out the season if he doesn't get his contract demands met.

He said he's not retiring. We'll see what happens with Devontae Freeman. I guess if you're a Chris Carson owner, I'm happier that they signed Carlos Hyde than Devontae Freeman. At least Freeman would probably cut into Carson's catches. I feel like we all like Freeman better than Hyde,

but I'm not sure. I think it was good. And did you guys watch the match? Mm-hmm. Yeah, about 60% of it. Was it fun? I watched like five minutes. Yeah, it was great.

I watched probably more than 60%. I said I destroyed a deck at my in-laws. I got a friendly wager going with my with my brother-in-law on the match we watched it after after the the work in the in the backyard was done and it was a very entertaining tv in my opinion cool i actually the only part i saw was when i guess tom brady was doing horribly and i didn't realize that but chuck started talking trash to him and then he hit that incredible shot and I was cracking up. That was

actually a really cool moment and I was like, okay, I think I can turn it off now. But what you can't turn off is our Twitch stream tonight Tuesday night. We're playing poker and who's going to win in poker? Well, Shraggy B just posted a poll. Heath

has 50% of the vote. Dave is in second. Ben Gretsch has six votes, and I have three votes. But you are underestimating me, people, because I think I'm going to do very well tonight. We're going to play some poker. We're going to talk some fantasy football. It's going to be hosted by our friends at Faded Spade. Faded Spade Card Club

is a new social poker platform offering free play and custom games. So what you want to do is go to twitch.com slash FFToday or I'll also put the link in our episode description. Go to twitch.com slash FFToday 7 p.m. Eastern tonight. We are on Twitch playing some poker

talking football. Where's this poll? I have six votes. People think I can't play poker? They, you know, I just they like, they have faith in Heath and Dave. All right. Yeah. I mean,

if you play poker, like you play tech mobile, this is not going to be much of a contest for me. Oh man. And Friday we, I said we had a dynasty mailbag. I was promoting our dynasty mailbag. I'm just going to go ahead and convert it to like a regular mailbag.

There's going to be a lot of dynasty though. It's going to be, I'd say primarily dynasty, but we have a question about Christian McCaffrey. We have a question here that's in the notes for today that I'm going to bump to Friday. It's about handcuffing running backs.

So get your dynasty questions in either on Apple Podcast. We'll read those questions for sure. And email fantasyfootballatcbsi.com. All right, let's do some tight end regression here. I mentioned on Thursday's show or Friday's show, I guess you heard of Friday, Jared Cook had 43 catches last year.

He was sixth in non-PPR. He was seventh in PPR. He had nine touchdowns. 43 catches, fewest for a top 12 tight end in PPR since 2014, when Julius Thomas also had 43 catches. What I didn't mention, if you think Jared Cook is going to catch six touchdowns, six touchdowns, that's it.

Well, over the last five seasons, there have been 38 tight ends who caught six or more touchdowns, 38, 31 of them finished top 12 and PPR. And none of the seven who did not finish in the top 12 had 500 yards. So I guess what I'm saying is let's say you project Jared Cook or any tight end for 600 yards and six touchdowns. Almost certainly going to be a top 12 tight end in any format.

Do you think he'll get to those numbers he's 606 i think it's unlikely last year his target pace was for 74 over 16 games six touchdowns would be an 8.1 touchdown rate which is extremely good um like i believe to trello is the second at 8.2 percent all time so i would not expect six touchdowns on 75 targets i don't think emmanuel sanders is going to help his target share and then 600 yards on 75 targets would be eight yards per target that's pretty close to where he's been so he might be at like 575 and five unless michael thomas gets hurt that's just such a bad year for him considering what he's done two years in a row what's your regression what's where is jared cook going to regress um well he scored last year nine touchdowns on 65 targets which is just absolutely ridiculous bonkers makes aj aj brown look sustainable he also had 10.8 yards per target for a player that

we just talked about his career has averaged eight and like the the record for yards per target shared by tyler lockett and tyreek hill at 9.44 i don't think we should expect jared cook to average more yards per target than tyler lockett and tyreek hill probably not he also is 14 how much was yards per catch 16.4's ridiculous. But he's usually pretty good there. I mean, 12 to 13 yards per catch. For a tight end, yes. He's generally pretty good. I was going to look and see what my actual projections were because I was just doing some back

of the envelope stuff there. I've got him at right around 600 and just under 5. I just want to give one last step, Ben, because his season was somewhat interrupted like I would say by Drew Brees' injury because he had pretty lousy production with

Bridgewater the last eight games of the season with Drew Brees Cook was the number one tight end in non-PPR he was number two in PPR it was with only 38 targets he was on pace for 56 catches 1074 yards and 76 targets he averaged 19.2 yards per catch.

The 76 targets would have been 12th most among tight ends. That was his pace in his last eight games with Drew Brees. All right, Ben, where are you on Jared Cook? I probably won't draft him in any formats, in any leagues. I have him behind some of the guys that you can get in pretty much every draft. I think everything is kind of pointing down and and the 10.8 yards per target heath mentioned was a career high by 1.4 yards his his previous career high was 9.4 in a season when he was 24 year old he's 32

or was last year he played his age 32 season uh the nine touchdowns even setting aside the ridiculous per target rate were a career high by three. I mean, this is a guy who never had a high touchdown rate. We used to have that as an issue with Jared Cook. He didn't score a lot of touchdowns. He's only had more than four touchdowns in a season three times. He had a five-touchdown season. He had a six-touchdown season.

Then he goes to nine last year. These numbers were huge outliers to his career rates as well and he was again 32 years old obviously we could still expect some better than average efficiency in a Saints offense and with Drew Brees and maybe we should have expected strong rates to his career after he had a big season at age 31 with the Raiders and it's kind of a late bloomer but I don't see like he said where the targets come from with Emmanuel Sanders there. I think the touchdown regression is almost a guarantee as well when you think about the Saints running backs. The top two backs, whenever Ingram was there, essentially every year scored over 20 touchdowns.

Kamara had 13 and 18 in his first two seasons. Kamara had six last year. And it wasn't because Murray took a ton. Murray only had six last year and it wasn't because murray took a ton murray only had six as well they combined for 12 which was way lower for the top two saints backs than anything we'd seen in prior seasons camara had a high ankle sprain i i think that's where the touchdowns go this year they go back to the backs um or maybe you know pay some hill gets thrown in there whatever they go back to the the shorter area targets and then the other big issue and thing to remember with cook he had some concussion issues last year left a couple games early and now the saints went and

drafted adam troutman who a lot of people believe is was the best head in this class i think they're already kind of preparing for the possibility that cook isn't necessarily able to play 16 games again like he didn't last year so uh you can bank on all this plus efficiency heath you know laid it out very well this is going to regress and the idea that his targets will be strong enough i just i don't see like you know maybe the for a full season the 606 touchdowns feels like he could sneak into the back end of the top you know tight in one area but there's just a lot of other ways where this could just not be you know just be a wasted. All right, let's talk about two other tight ends, Darren Waller and Mark Andrews, Heath. And Waller was fourth in non-PPR.

Andrews was second. But in PPR, Waller was second and Andrews was fifth. Waller had 90 catches. Andrews had 64. Waller played 16 games. Andrews 15. Waller had 1,145 yards. Andrews had 852.

But the touchdowns, wow. Waller had 1,145 yards. Andrews had 852. But the touchdowns, wow. Waller had three, three, and Andrews had 10 in 15 games. Big difference in the way they played, or the way they performed, I would say. But they both were great. Great, great steals and drafts. Where's the regression for Waller and for Andrews? What are we thinking about these two? Well, for running backs and wide receivers, I had a section called It's Complicated. And I think if tight ends, if there were more than four of them, these two players would have fit better in that section. Because all things being equal, I would say Darren Waller is probably going to be better

in fantasy than he was last year mark andrews is probably going to be worse than he was in fantasy last year but all things are not equal darren waller's team went and added about 17 different options in the draft including a wide receiver with the 12th pick overall and mark andrews team is probably going to throw the ball more and play their starters in the second half more than they had to in 2019. So I think he might actually see more than 98 targets. So these are both guys that, like, what I would say is this. Darren Waller's probably going to lose some target share

because of all the additions the Raiders have made. But his touchdown regression, and yes, it's going to be some target share because of all the additions the Raiders have made. But his touchdown regression, and yes, it's going to be positive regression, but it's touchdown regression is going to make up for a lot of that. Maybe not quite all of it, but a lot of it. Mark Andrews is not going to score 10 touchdowns on 98 targets again. He's going to lose some in that area but his increase in targets could make up for a lot of that i like andrews more than i like waller um but they're kind of regressing different ways than like the off season suggests maybe their production would go ben who do you like better waller or or Andrews? I like Andrews too.

The Waller touchdown regression is really interesting. I'm curious, Heath, what are your thoughts on just how they used Foster Moreau last year? They seemed to use him more in the red zone. It seemed like a thing. He was their guy in close, and now they added Jason Witten. They're probably going to play more multiple tight end sets. Is Waller our tight end version of a between the 20s running back? Well, I think he kind of was last year.

And the Eagles did this with Ertz and Goddard a lot as well because Ertz was getting a lot of attention in the red zone, so Goddard scored a bunch of touchdowns. I don't know that it will be as pronounced with some more weapons. Last year, you covered Tyrell Williams and Darren Waller in the red zone and didn't worry about anyone else. And it wasn't Tyrell Williams until he scored a touchdown in each of his first five games. So I think it will be more difficult for teams to completely take Waller away in the red zone. And I do think that he's not just a tight end. He's an exceptional athlete and probably still this year their best

weapon in the passing game. Yeah. So Waller did actually lead the team in red zone targets, but it was not a very high number. It was only 11. And he was third on the team in targets inside the five-yard line with just four, and that was the same amount as Foster Moreau. So it was just too much. Like Renfro had six targets inside the 10-yard line. Tyrell Williams had five. The two tight ends had four apiece. And now you've got even more options there.

So that doesn't look great uh but as i've mentioned before a thousand yards for tight end is is pretty pretty rare and you're the list of the last 10 years with guys who've done that is like basically a hall of fame list plus gary barnage and the lady walker and darren waller now um yeah it'll be interesting and then i thought what was really interesting uh to me was target share. And when you look at the target share of the top tight ends, what I did was I took their 16-game pace for targets and divided that by pass attempts for the team.

Look how consistent this is. Andrews was 23.8. Kelsey, 23.6. Kittle, 25.6 to lead the way. Waller, 22.4 is actually the lowest. And Zachert's 23.5. But four of the five are 22.4 to 23.6, and then Kittle's at 25.6. Is it fair to say that Waller has a better chance of losing target share than Andrews does? Target share, I'm not sure. Total targets, I would say yes,

because I think Baltimore is going to throw the ball significantly more. Target share, I think there's a little... Marquise Brown wasn't healthy for most of last year. And I do think he'll get a bigger share of the targets than he did last year. I would expect either Myles Boykin is better or DuVernay just takes his job and gets a few more targets. I think it's more

likely that Waller loses targets. I'm not totally sure it's more likely he loses target share. Are they both top five guys? I think I have Waller sixth, but right in there think I have Waller sixth, but right in there. I have Waller.

Let me pull it up so I don't overstate it, but I don't think I have him close to sixth necessarily. Oh, yeah, I have him seventh, so that's pretty close to sixth. I think that's as close as you can get to sixth. You have Hunter Henry ahead of him? Yeah, I have Henry ahead of of him but i don't really like i i have waller coming down quite a bit in total targets like you just said and i don't really like anyone in that you know after the first four or sometimes five who i have i have

evan ingram at five so how many rounds would have to separate andrews and waller for you to say, oh, I'd rather have Darren Waller? Six? Yeah, six or seven. Wait, I've got Waller at the end of the seventh round, and I think, no, so I'd say even fewer than six. Yeah. Okay, I don't know if I said that question well. Four. Four rounds.

Okay, you'd take Waller four rounds later than Andrews. Happily. I think two rounds should separate them. Three rounds. Okay. You'd take Waller four rounds later than Andrews? Happily. I think two rounds should separate them. Three rounds. Okay. Three rounds is where it should be. And for me, it really is like six. Really?

Yeah. I would take Andrews in the fourth, probably. And I don't think I would take Waller until about the 10th round. Interesting. Well, let's take a quick break here. When we come back, injuries, news, and notes. Finish up that. We got a note on the Broncos backfield. And

rookies and free agents with a shortened offseason. What will it look like? We'll be right back on Fantasy 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?

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Welcome back, everybody. Have turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Welcome back, everybody. The Jets signed Joe Flacco to a one-year deal. He has not been cleared for contact yet as he recovers from neck surgery. And Flacco not expected to be ready for week one. Obviously, just a backup situation there.

From DenverBroncos.com, I saw Jamie retweet this story. Their writer, I don't know how to pronounce it, Eric Delalla, was asked about how the carries are going to be split in the backfield for the Broncos. He said, I'm going to focus here on Melvin Gordon and Philip Lindsay, because I think the carries for the Broncos' third running back, whether that be Royce Freeman or Levante Bellamy, will be relatively marginal.

If everyone is fully healthy, I expect that Gordon would get a majority of the touches. I'd guess around 60%. But I think Lindsey's workload should still be substantial. The third-year player has proven in his first two seasons that he's too good to not touch the ball. Keep in mind, it's not like Lindsey

had 20 to 25 carries a game last season. He broke 20 carries just once. He often hovered in that 10 to 15 range as the teams lead back, etc., etc. Okay, that pretty much sums it up. He also says, I believe Lindsey is at his best when he's fresh

and can turn the 10-yard runs into 40-yard runs. His explosiveness declined a bit last year, so it would be nice to see a reduction in carries. Your reaction to that? I think it makes sense. I think when you look at last year, the one note I really want to make on this backfield that I don't think people realize is that Freeman played more snaps a lot of games.

Most of the season until I think maybe later in the season, Lindsey started overtaking him when Lindsey was really, you know, turning into the main back. But that's because even though Lindsey was getting more touches, and that's because Freeman was playing on passing downs, you know, that's the role that Gordon's probably going to play. He's always been good on passing downs. He's a good pass protector. Lindsey could still pretty much have the same role and be more of just a running downs player, change of pace guy.

And Gordon's going to be playing more, probably seeing more touches than Freeman did in that role last year. But it makes a lot of sense that Gordon would just kind of take over Freeman's job. Who's a better value, Melvin Gordon in round four or Philip Lindsay in round eight? I'd say Melvin. Like that's just right about where I want one of them. I'll say Melvin. I think Melvin should go around three probably. I'll say Lindsayvin. I think Melvin should go around three probably. I'll say Lindsey's a better value.

I'm very concerned that Lindsey is going to be in this... You talk about running back dead zone, Ben. It's very different than what I'm talking about here. There are some guys that just end up being too good to drop and too bad to start. They are the most useless players in fantasy. It's the Tevin Coleman syndrome where, you know, like he's too involved. And if there's an injury, he's going to be awesome. But if that injury doesn't come, like you can't drop him because he's too involved.

But he doesn't like he doesn't do enough. You know, he's stuck behind Devante Freeman. He's a number three running back at best. And you always feel like there's someone else on your bench that has more upside than him that week and i'm worried lindsey's gonna have like 20 catches this year and he's gonna have you know like 150 care basically i think he's gonna be royce freeman and that's not really a player that i have any interest in unless maybe i have melvin gordon as well and and I want to sort of early round handcuff.

I don't know if anybody else feels that way, though. This is wild, but Freeman had 43 catches last year. I mean, that might seem... That is weird. Yeah. I don't think... I agree with you. Lindsey's going to be more of like a 20-catch guy. I don't think he gets anywhere close to that.

I think that speaks to Melvin Gordon's upside as a dual threat that can do both. But I like what you're saying about those types of backs, and I think you're probably right about Lindsey being in that class. Okay, well, thank you. Appreciate that. Let's see. We got some Dolphins news. So their owner, Stephen Ross, said there will definitely be an NFL season this year. That's nice to hear. The Dolphins are open to playing Tua Tagovailoa, but Ryan Fitzpatrick is likely to begin the year as the

starter, according to the Miami Herald. And Will Fuller is making good progress in his recovery from core muscle surgery. Are you aware that Tua Tagovailoa has the two highest-selling jerseys in the NFL? Really weird. Isn't that weird? Really,

really weird. Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense. They love him already down there. I mean, they are like going gaga. Do you have a Tua jersey, Heath? I do not have a Tua jersey. Would you like one? If you beat me in poker, I'll buy you a Tua jersey.

Well, okay. No, I'm just kidding. I'll take it. Deal. No, I won't do that but i just want to up the any a little bit pun intended all right so let's talk about rookies and free agents with a shortened off season here is that a pun because you actually were upping the ante like i don't think there was any pun there at all you were just saying what you were trying to do. No, I don't think so, because I'm not actually up in the

ante. I said I was just kidding. I don't think there was any pun. You don't think there was a pun? A pun would be like where you... No. I do think there was a pun, because I was trying to intensify the poker game

tonight. I wasn't actually anteing anything. I'm sticking with it. I'm cool with it. I think it works. Are we concerned about rookies and free agents this offseason? I wrote a whole thing about that.

I'm aware. He's verbal sigh. Yes. I am concerned about rookies and free agents with a shortened offseason. I will be more concerned if training camp is affected in any way um but even without that i will be slightly concerned less confident in the rookies i think the biggest thing that i found when looking back at 2011 was how little involvement the rookies had in passing situations especially in the first half

of the year roy hal Hulu, I think, was the only rookie running back that year that had more than like 22 catches or something. And he basically didn't have any of the first eight weeks of the season. Like the rookie running backs just did not play on passing downs early in the year, which kind of makes sense because rookie running backs struggle to get on the field on passing downs as it is. And if they don't have rookie camp and they don't have OTAs, then they have significantly less time to prove to coaches they can protect the quarterback before week one.

But don't skip over the first part of your story, which was about all the success stories in 2011. There were three. They were really good. Cam Newton had an amazing rookie season julio jones amazing rookie season what was the other one aj green yeah i i yes they're good um if joe burrow is a and this is going to get me in trouble but i'm just going to say it anyway if joe burrow is a hall of fame talent then i wouldn't worry about this offseason. If CeeDee Lamb or Jerry Judy or Henry Ruggs

turns out to be a Hall of Fame talent, then I wouldn't necessarily expect this to have that big of an impact on them. Why would that get you in trouble? I thought Adam would not like me insinuating that Cam Newton was a Hall of Fame talent. He's a Hall of Fame talent. He's not going to be in the Hall of Fame, but he's definitely a hall of fame talent oh he's a hall of fame talent he's not gonna be in the hall of fame but he's definitely a hall of fame talent um i i so i thought his work was really

good on this i think this is one of those questions that just from a you know whatever scientific perspective like we we can't really test this we can't really know what the impact's going to be i thought it was interesting you mentioned the match that they had jj watt on there and he referenced 2011 which was was his rookie season. And he talked about how they didn't have OTAs and they didn't have an off season. It was interesting to see a player draw the same parallel that Heath had drawn. I think it's not something that we should just completely overlook, certainly. But essentially i think he's got at it as best as he can but we still don't know whether those trends are going to be exactly the same and

he you and i talked about this last week when you're working on it and you pointed out um you know we don't really know if 2011 will be a mirror image of of what 2020 will be as well so it's it like i from from his research there's a couple things that i took um and i think it depends on what you're coming at where you're coming at it from i was coming at pretty pessimistically so i'm i'm more on adam's side where i i thought it was interesting that there were some really positive success stories from some rookies uh even rookie receivers who tend to maybe start a little slower uh and especially back in 2011 it was a different era tended to uh and then so i was a little bit optimistic and then the second thing was what heath already said

that i thought that was a really interesting note about the running backs not playing on passing downs not getting enough time to show that they can protect the quarterback i think that like i'm going to value that i'm going to put some weight on that i don't necessarily think we should expect the rookies to be playing on passing downs that's already always been a thing with rookie running backs uh being able to pass protect impacting their their overall snap share so um that seems very notable and i i do like i mentioned roy halou i don't want people to uh just think that roy halou was the best running back in that class uh mark ingram was the only first round pick in that class and spent the year until he got hurt in a committee with Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles and was okay but never really –

like obviously you're not going to play much on passing downs if Darren Sproles is on the team, but also never really earned a significant chunk of the rushing work away from pierre thomas um demarco murray was in that class and didn't hardly play more than just in a backup role until felix jones got hurt and then demarco murray just went absolutely bananas from like week 9 through 13 or a four or five week stretch in the middle of the season and And then Felix Jones came back and he was back in a committee like these guys were sharing with backs.

And there were some good pass catching backs. Dion Lewis, Shane Vereen were in this class is like third and fourth round picks. Vereen might have been a second. They didn't do hardly anything all year long. So I don't know how much it will matter that i came into this draft thinking that jonathan taylor was a better running back prospect than certainly anyone in the 2011 class and i think that clyde edwards e-layer landed in a better spot than i would say probably that although mark ingram landed with the saints i mean that that's pretty awesome um so i i do think that there are some unique

circumstances that could make one of those guys pop but kind of what i said was in our drafts right now if i want clyde i've got to pay a second round pick if i want jonathan taylor i at the very latest i better take him early in the fourth round if i want any other rookies i got to take them in round five and i'm just not willing to pay that type of exposure especially when i expect most of them's worst stretch will be the first four weeks of the season if i really want to get some exposure to one of those guys i'm probably going to make some trade offers after the first four or five weeks. And on the other side of that, I've really been feeling like in our drafts, Marlon Mack, Damian Williams, maybe carry on Johnson.

They have, I think, great value. I mean, they're such afterthoughts. And maybe it's just going to be for the first month or so, but they can help get you off to a really good start. Do you feel like those are zero RB targets? Yes. I think we would be better served looking at all of these situations independently, and it's very easy to lump all of the rookie backs together.

I think Damian Williams is. I think the Rams backs probably probably are daryl henderson like this this idea that the rookies might not get on the field as early concerns me more for acres it concerns me for swift i think caron johnson is i don't think mac is i think mac is at best the philip lindsey example that you gave earlier because he's not going to plan passing downs he didn't last year uh he would his snapshot would disappear when when the colts trailed naheem hines played in those situations and so at best he's sharing early down work uh with a much more talented back in my opinion also just a better uh physical back a bigger and faster faster back that I think is just going to kind of show that at least

probably at some point. And then I still like Taylor because Taylor isn't one that I was even really expecting to play a lot in passing downs. I think that's a different situation. But I think you're making a good point generally about guys like this concerns me for Clyde Edwards Hilaire. It concerns me for Keyshawn Vaughn, too, who we kind of already anointed the Bucs passing downs back. If he can't get into camp, Arians is tough on everyone. He's tough on O.J. Howard. He might like Vaughn.

He might want Vaughn to play in passing downs. But maybe Ronald Jones has a little bit of a leg up just because he's been there. You know, it changes that a little bit. So I think we got to look at all these situations a little differently, in my opinion. I do think it's pretty interesting that it seems like right now, the fantasy community has decided that Cam Akers is better than Daryl Henderson. And I think it's a little premature. When you look at the draft capital spent on both of them, it's fairly similar. Akers went a little bit earlier than Henderson,

but Henderson was still a pretty early pick for them. I mean, they invested heavily, and they haven't had a lot of picks, really, in the drafts. They've traded so many of them away, or they got a few back, whatever. But they've invested heavily in both of those guys. And if you're telling me it's Akers in round five

and Henderson in round eight, which I think is pretty representative of what we've seen. I'm on the Henderson three rounds later side there. I think that's an interesting one. And then you have Malcolm Brown factoring in as well. They might all be bad for fantasy. I don't know.

But it just seems like Daryl Henderson averaged eight yards per carry. I think more than that in college. Unbelievable. And we shouldn't just forget about him i just want to say that psa yeah i i think the reason to take acres where and i've taken him in some of our our mocks is the likelihood that he could be their lead back right like the or the possibility or or what have you um and i think he's research and evidence shows

that it's maybe more likely that that this will be a committee and then we also just heard last week you know some talk from the rams that they maybe prefer a committee so i i think you're right i think you'd probably prefer the cheaper option in any committee uh one more guy we didn't talk about jk dobbins another guy that i don't think this research impacts my opinion because the the case with dobbins was always he's probably the backup this year to Ingram unless Ingram gets hurt and then he's he's a monster and he's mostly just a running monster not a guy that needs to play a ton on passing downs um you know would would we'd

expect him to have high efficiency running in that offense so like again each situation is a little different Dobbins is another guy who for me, it doesn't really impact. Last thing on Henderson. Look, I know I'm a yards per carry pain in the ass. I get that. YPC for life. 8.9 yards per carry. Two straight seasons at Memphis. That's incredible. You don't see that very often. Melvin Gordon was

a guy that was unbelievable on a per carry basis. Not quite as good, but he played at Wisconsin. And he, that hasn't translated to the NFLfl unfortunately but i don't know it's just that's an eye-popping number 8.9 yards per carry two straight seasons uh at memphis let's read some emails fantasy football at cbsi.com this is from shannon in pittsburgh hey, Julius Meadowlark, stockard and flip. Globetrotters? Yeah. Oh, nice.

Loved your look back at fantasy seasons of the past and specially relived the pain of the fantasy bust far more than I would have liked. My question involves whether you would classify Andrew Luck last year as a fantasy bust. Granted, his reason for not playing was very different from Le'Veon Bell's, and no doubt that in many of your drafts he was a mid- to late-round pick, but in most fan leagues, I have to believe he was a higher pick slash keeper,

or at the very least someone planned on being a set-it-and-forget-it type of guy at the QB position. So what do you think? Yeah, it's a good question. This is why Le'Veon Bell being the biggest bust was really stupid and short-sighted by everybody but me uh andrew luck was he a bus he was already actually kind of falling in dress because of the injury stuff that that lingered it was you know there was already some concern that he wouldn't be healthy and bs had it and forget a guy actually as as far as i recall even early in august so i think you know i mean it's all obviously a philosophical discussion but

i think if you're already concerned about him and kind of taking him with a little bit of a riskier pick like it makes it feel like less of a bust i took him in one of our leagues last year and in a two qb league that we all played in and and then when he was out it was like less of a bust. I took him in one of our leagues last year in a two QB league that we all played in. And then when he was out, it was like, I kind of thought this might happen. Yeah, I agree with Ben. It's obviously not. From Bobby, I play in a 10-team PPR league with keepers.

I'm keeping Dalvin Cook in the third round. I pick first in the draft, and I plan on taking Christian McCaffrey. My question is this. I'll have Cook and McCaffrey. Next up with the 20th pick, do I pick someone like DJ Moore, Kenny Galladay, Cooper Cup, or should I grab Aaron Jones, Austin Eckler, Joe Mixon, or Josh Jacobs

and then get my wide receivers with four, five, and six? What do you think, Keith? I don't mind the three-receiver start. Three running back start? I mean, running back start. Yeah, because you can get a lot of receiver depth, but for me, it would very clearly be DJ Moore. Yeah, full PPR, DJ Moore would be my favorite wide receiver.

I think I have Eckler and Mixon ahead of him. It does not tell us if he has a flex. I can ask him. I would say I'd probably take Eckler. Okay. Yeah. You can do whatever you want, Bobby.

You'll have McCaffrey and cook. And then it's a 10 team league. You just take best player available. Do you go by a position? It's a good question, but yeah, you'll have McCaffrey and Cook, and then it's a 10-team league. Do you just take best player available? Do you go by position? It's a good question. But, yeah, you are free to do whatever. There's no easy answer here, Bobby. Go with your gut.

From Jason, AJ Green's dynasty value. I've been offered a 2021 second-round pick in a 12-team half PPR dynasty league. The other manager's team isn't super great, and I project to finish sixth at best. So a potential mid-to-early 2021 second-round pick for A.J. Green, yay or nay? I'd do it. You'd do it?

Yeah, I would do it. Yeah, this would depend. I was looking to see what rookies I have close to A.J. Green green on my trade chart and it's mid second round picks like um aj dylan um and so i think this depends entirely on whether you are building for the future or playing for this year right that's a 2021 second is not enough for me to give up a number two or number three wide receiver if I think I have a chance to win this year.

That's fair. I agree with that. This comes from Clay, Bill Clay. Dear Alan, Carl, Jim, and Larry. I have no idea, and neither does Google. I'm in a 12 team, one QB, two running back, three receiver league with a flex. It's PPR, but running backs only get half PPR.

We don't like to reward dinks and dunks. We're not full dynasty, but can keep three players each year. The penalty for keeping is a pick in the draft two rounds ahead of where they were drafted. So I have the first pick. I'm going to pick Christian McCaffrey. I'm definitely keeping Tyreek Hill for a 10th rounder. Who should I keep for my other two picks? Miles Sanders in the second.

Michael Gallup in the fourth. Tyler Boyd in the 14th. DJ Chark in the 16th. Terry McLaurin in the 14th, DJ Chark in the 16th, Terry McLaurin in the 16th. Chark and McLaurin for me. McLaurin is like a no-doubter. He's got the top pick, which means he picks with the last pick in the second round.

So he would get Miles Sanders in a draft where it's a little bit thin because of keepers with like the 2.12. I kind of like that. But only half PPR for Miles Sanders. Keep that in mind. True. And you're not really going to keep him again. I agree with Heathath that shark and mclaurin are the clear best values that you know could be long-term keepers and i like them both i

i think probably both of those guys i think you can consider sanders i wouldn't do gallop in the fourth uh i i like tyler wood a lot but i think shark and mclaurin are better values last emails from quinn hey reggie rick mark, Mark, and Dale. Oh, I hated them. Oh, my least favorite of the least favorites. Hated that team. Sorry, I needed to vent there. 10-team league. Oh, man, did I hate them.

That stinking arena. They had some great fans. But their uniforms are so ugly. Oh, you're a Knicks fan, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Orange and Blue thinks someone's uniforms are so ugly. Oh, you're a Knicks fan, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Orange and Blue thinks someone's uniforms are ugly. Yellow is, without question, the ugliest color.

I don't think we can agree on that at all. Yeah. I don't feel very strongly about that. For a sports team, yellow and brown. I mean, I'm sorry to say it, but obviously there's a reason for it. Yellow and brown are the ugliest colors. And the Pacers have a lot of yellow. The Browns have ugly uniforms

because they're just brown. Orange and brown. Wait, are you going to say that the old Padres uniforms are ugly? Because I love those old brown and yellow uniforms. The old Brewers uniforms are fantastic. They're fantastically ugly. The Chargers current uniform, or the new ones they just released,

are probably the best in the league. And they're similar to the Brewers, blue and yellow. Yeah. The color is subjective also. All right, please don't add it to the list. Okay, so. He's begging it to be added. A 10-team league with half PPR scoring.

I can keep two. Michael Thomas is going to be one of them. Who's the other? Lamar Jackson, Kenny Galladay, George Kittle, DJ Moore, Cooper Cup, and Chris Carson. DJ Moore. No question. Not even

Kittle? We've talked a decent amount about Moore, but I just want to reiterate his season last year he got hurt in week uh 16 the championship game I know because as we talked last year I took him in a ton of leagues and it killed me that he got hurt after six snaps in the championship and multiple championships but going into that game um he had played 14 games he was pacing for essentially identical to Michael Thomas' second season in his own second season. And he was two years younger and playing with Kyle Allen

than Thomas was playing with Drew Brees. And he was wide receiver, eight in PPR points per game if you take out that one game that he only played six snaps. He was, at that time, a clear top 10 receiver. This is, again, a guy that was 22 years old last year i he's this guy's gonna be a star he's like the only young receiver i like more than aj brown okay who would you take heath um i think i would take more it's have them back-to-back in my dynasty rankings. I think what helps a lot...

No, this isn't the 10. I was going to say, if it was a 10-team league, it would really help a lot. It is. Oh, this is a 10-team? Okay, yeah. Also a 10-team. Definitely more.

Because I don't... Like, Titan's not that big of a problem, as big a problem in 10-team leagues. You know, all the bad takes i've had well i think they're good takes but he thinks they're bad takes he's also manipulates them make them seem worse than they actually are the one that i'll go into this at a later date but the one that really shook me and made me self-evaluate was the my thought about creed from the office being the worst character like the most useless character yeah and everybody loves him and i don't know i i thought i thought like people

were gonna be like oh yeah you're right i really thought that was gonna be a popular take i can't believe the feedback i got and i just had to be like what is wrong with me? I was at one point it was like, is there something wrong with me? And then after this, it was what's wrong with me? I've gone from worrying to yeah, this is a problem. I need help. I think like during the lulls in the poker action tonight, we should just maybe have a little therapy session and see if we can figure out what's wrong with you. Okay.

At some point. Make a list. On a different show, I'll tell you why Creed is the Kenny Stills of TV comedy. Save that for another show. Thanks for listening, everybody. We are back with another episode tomorrow. I think it's going to air on Thursday. We'll have one on Friday. But Twitch tonight, baby!

Twitch.com slash FF today. Let's play some poker. Shraggy, let's get some updated Twitter poll standings. What do you got for us? He's in the lead. Dave's still in second. Ben and Adam are tied at six right now. They have six votes.

How many votes do dave and i have i think you're both over 50 wow they really do not think you guys are good at poker yeah you're gonna be surprised like i don't know and i maybe i've talked before about playing online poker or something and that's why i why I know Dave is known as the poker guy. He's definitely played more poker than the three of us combined in the last calendar year. But, yeah, I'm glad. I'm going to try to represent the people of Facebook

and do a good job. Yeah, I'm going to try to destroy all of those people. We'll talk to you tonight on Twitch and on Thursday on the podcast. Thanks for listening everybody. For Ben, for Heath, for the other Ben, I'm Adam. See ya.