Fantasy Football Today - Ten Crazy Stats from 2021! (02/17 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Joe Burrow's yards per attempts, Diontae Johnson's efficiency, Josh Jacobs's catches and more! We'll give you some of the craziest 2020 stats. First, a musical discussion to start the show and your news and notes (4:00) ... We begin with Burrow's yards per attempt (8:00) and why it will be lower in 2022. We also give crazy stats on Deebo Samuel (14:10), Jaylen Waddle (19:40), Diontae Johnson (24:00) and Tyreek Hill (29:10). What happened to Hill in 2021 that we had not seen in any of the previous three seasons? ... We'll talk crazy RB stats on Elijah Mitchell (35:40), elite backup RBs (39:00), Josh Jacobs in the passing game (42:00) and Rashaad Penny (45:05) before concluding with something that Aaron Rodgers has done for the first time since he himself did it nearly a decade ago (48:40) ... Your emails at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is touchdown! Oh, he's done it again! Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Beck. Welcome to our Thursday show. We are getting crazy today. Get crazy with the Cheez Whiz for all of you 90s rock fans. We're going to talk about 10 crazy stats from 2021. Joe Burrow's yards per attempt and what you can expect next year. Jalen Waddell's weird season that looked nothing like what we saw from Jalen Waddell in college. Something that happened to Tyree Kill in five straight games that hadn't happened in more than two straight games in any of the three previous seasons. The best big play running back

in football and more. I'm Adam Azer. I'm here with Chris Towers and Heath Cummings. Guys, first question, first crazy question is a non-football question. What is the best song that has the word crazy in the title? Here are some options for you. You've got Aerosmith's Crazy. You've got Gnarl's Barkley Crazy. Beyonce, Crazy in Love. Britney Spears, You Drive Me,

or parentheses, You Drive Me, end parentheses, Crazy. Seal, Crazy. Casey and Jojo, Crazy. Ozzy Osbourne, Crazy Train, might be that one for me. Madonna, Crazy for You, and apparently Willie Nelson,

I did this one just for Heath, apparently Willie Nelson has a song called Crazy. Willie Nelson has a great song named Crazy, and it's definitely in my top five. But I don't think you named the song that I just immediately thought of when you said best song with the word crazy in it. Okay, what did I miss? I would say Crazy Love, Van Morrison. I don't know that song. Yes, you do. I think you know that song. Yes, you do.

I think you missed a couple. Well, don't blame me. This is Google, okay? Crazy Love didn't show up. Did you get Crazy on You by Heart? I didn't know that. I saw that in Google, but I don't know. I know Heart pretty well, but I don't know that song.

I need you to acknowledge that you do know Crazy Love by Van Morrison. There's no way you've not heard that song. I'm going to listen to it now. Hold on. Actually, I love She Drives Me Crazy by the Fine Young Cannibals. Yeah, that's a good one. That's not the best, but it's pretty good.

Crazy Bleep by Buck Cherry. That's not a good song, but it exists. That's not a good song? It's a nutty song. They've got some pretty controversial... I don't know good song, but it exists. That's not a good song? It's a nutty song. They've got some pretty controversial... I don't know this song, Heath. Give me love, love, love, love, crazy love.

Come on. I don't know it. I'm thinking Crazy Train. You didn't mention Crazy Little Thing Called Love also. Ooh, another good one. I'm thinking Crazy Train is probably the best one. I'm going to agree with you there. Crazy Train.

Heath, can we make it a sweep? Probably Crazy in Love. Heath, let's go. Crazy Train over this Van Morrison song? I don't think so. I think I'd probably go this Van Morrison song and then Crazy by Willie Nelson. Okay.

All right. Fun topic. Anyway, let's do some news and notes, knock these out real quick, and then we will get to some crazy stats and your emails, fantasyfootball at cbsi.com. We do not have a show on Monday. That is President's Day. And then we have Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for you.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday shows. Tuesday is going to be some ranking disputes. Wednesday is going to be rookie ranking disputes. Wednesday is going to be rookie quarterback evaluations and dynasty risers. And Thursday is going to be rookie running back evaluations. I love looking back at the rookie classes. News and notes,

Deshaun Watson is interested in going to Tampa Bay and Minnesota, according to ESPN. Where would you guys rather see him go if you had to choose between those two destinations, Tampa Bay or Minnesota uh probably Tampa I guess just because the difference between Kirk Cousins and Deshaun Watson while it would be pretty big is not nearly the difference between Deshaun Watson and whoever Tampa Bay would currently be starting. So I guess that. Yeah, I mean, if I'm just looking at it specifically for Watson,

I think I would choose Minnesota, especially dynasty-wise, just because the pairing of Watson and Jefferson over the next however long. But either one would be fine. Yeah, like I don't currently have Mike Evans or Chris Godwin in my top 20, that wide receiver, based on what their offense looks like right now. So those guys could definitely use a quarterback of any renown. Sean McVay is not retiring. Which is good because he's younger than Shraggy b i'm not sure why he would

be retiring he's younger than every he's not younger than chris and shraggy b but he's younger than me and heath dave and jamie as well it would really kind of piss me off if he retired i he didn't put it what do you mean it's not a career so he's 36 i think okay but if assuming i don't know how much money he's made but he hasn't made enough money to retire he's made over 10 million dollars right he's definitely made enough money to retire after taxes you know lives in la it's very expensive you're right you know what i think he has not made enough money to retire comfortably in la if he wants to live the lifestyle that i assume he wants to live. Does anybody retire in LA?

He's going to probably go to Arizona, somewhere out in the desert. Maybe. Head coach Mike McDaniel of Miami said he would start Jalen Waddell. He's got a lot of Jalen Waddell love. He said he'd start Jalen Waddell in fantasy. I would too. Yeah, I was. We did last year too.

You're going to do something better than that. Tell me you drafted him in the first round. We started him over A.J. Brown in that, was it the Niners game when A.J. Brown on Thursday night went berserk and had it was his first game back, I think.

And we started... Heath, you and I, we started Jalen Waddell over A.J. Brown. I don't know if Mike McDaniel would have done that. We won that league. We did win the league. We won that league. He is a top 10 wide receiver for me, so I can't really move him up. Dave said that as well.

I did not come out that high on him. More on him later. it was 11 catches 145 yards and a touchdown for aj brown on our bench uh new orleans is keeping offensive coordinator mike pete carmichael so he called plays in three seasons 2011 2012 and 2016 and the saints were second third and second in scoring in those three seasons. So they are keeping their offensive coordinator. Obviously, Sean Payton had a huge influence, but this is good for continuity's sake. And finally, Buffalo GM Brandon Bean said his priority in the offseason is going to be protecting Josh Allen. They were 14th in pass

blocking according to PFF. They had a lot of injuries on that offensive line. Moved guys around a lot. They weren't that bad, but obviously they want to be better. If your priority was truly protecting Josh Allen, you would not call so many running plays for him, right? Do they call running plays for him a lot, or does he just

run? They had a lot more in the second half of the season, I believe. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's his job to slide, Heath. All right, right into the crazy stats. Here we go. This one is from Heath Cummings. You want to read it or you want me to read it? Wow, I gave two crazy stats and one of them was the headliner?

Yeah. That's fantastic. I'll read it. Okay. Joe Burrow was at 8.9 yards per attempt last year, 8.87 if you want to be exact. Fourth best since 2000 with a minimum of 500 attempts. There were six others who were at 8.7 or better and played the next season because Deshaun Watson didn't play last year.

They were Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers, Kurt Warner, Patrick Mahomes, Phillip Rivers, Carson Palmer. The following year, they averaged 7.55 yards per attempt, or on average, they lost 1.4 yards per attempt, which for him would put him at 7.5. If Joe Burrow averages 7.5 yards per attempt next year, he'll need 94 more pass attempts to match this season's yardage total. Okay, 94 divided by 17. That's 5.5 per game. That's a lot.

Yeah, it is a lot. And what did you say? What was the average? 7.5? 5.5. Okay. Which I think was still above average this year. I think 7.2 probably was pretty close to league median.

Okay, let's just see who was in that 7.5 range. Herbert, Prescott, Cousins, Lamar Jackson, 7.5. So you could totally believe that Joe Burrow was at 7.5. Yeah, he could be in that range, right? I think, where was Josh Allen last year? Well below, I think. Let's see. That's what I thought.

Josh Allen had a very low passer rating. Josh Allen averaged 6.8 yards per attempt. That was 23rd. This could be a crazy stat in and of itself. Let me see his passer rating here. He was like 16th or something. Josh Allen was 16th, 92.2. Very strange. I did not realize Josh Allen was 16th, 92.2. Very strange.

I did not realize Josh Allen's yards per attempt regressed that much. Very, it was weird. He threw 36 touchdowns. Which I think Josh Allen is the perfect example because we just came off of an off season where a lot of people argued, no, he's clearly ascending.

Look at his last three years. Why would you think he would go the other direction? And it's because anytime you have a season that great, you go the other direction the next year, almost always. I will give the one example, and he's not in this because his past attempts were kind of weird year over year. Kurt Warner from 99 through 2001 actually had a three-year stretch at 8.7 yards per attempt or better i

don't believe anyone else has ever done that now he had like 250 attempts one year and 499 another year it was and it was the greatest show on turf but kurt like if you think joe burrow is going to have a kurt warner run then he could keep it up j Josh Allen did finish his QB1 this year, though. In fantasy. Yeah, but where did the regression... Joe Burrow's probably not going to rush for 600 yards. No. Now, can he throw that much?

I'll point this out. Remember we talked about after the San Francisco game, Zach Taylor said they had been very conservative with Joe Burrow because of the knee injury, and they decided we just have to run the offensive and basically unleash him and stop being so conservative. Well, from that point forward, Burrow's past attempts went up from 31.8 per game in his first 13 games to 35.6 per game in his last seven games, including the postseason. And they were 6-1 in those games. So they did start throwing more, if that's encouraging.

It's not discouraging. It's the kind of thing where... I would think 35 pass attempts per game seems like a reasonable number for Joe Burrow. And given the weapons that they have, you could expect him to be more efficient than not just the standard, your typical quarterback, but more efficient than the baseline level of what you would expect from him, I guess would be the way that I would say it because Jamar Chase is going to break a lot of big plays because T Higgins is a good downfield receiver as well. So, you know, I think that does help him. It is interesting to note that after the San Francisco game where they needed to unleash him, his next game was 22 pass attempts. Yeah, I know. But I, I think after that, the, the bigger point, I, I don't but then after that. The bigger point,

I don't think it would be that abnormal at all if he had 605 pass attempts next year. If his pass attempts went up by 94, I think if somebody says that's what's going to happen, okay. If he throws for the same number of yards this year as he did last year, he's going to be a bust

because people aren't going to draft him to be QB 11 or QB going to draft him to be qb 11 or qb 10 he's qb 8 but remember he played 16 games so you gotta factor that in with the past attempts right he threw 520 times in 16 games all right anyway let's move on to our next stat crazy stat number two if you listen to fft and five i butchered this so bad and heath called me out for it and i was like no i'm right and i was totally wrong wait adam can i throw one thing out there yeah about the previous one it's sort of the same thing as derrick henry last season where you know he's coming off this 5.4 yards per carry 2 000 yard season he had 4.3 yards per carry now he was

still arguably the best running back in fantasy when he was healthy but you know he was much less effective on a per carry basis just the kind of thing that happens with outlier seasons it's not necessarily like a well you know derrick henry was worse this season or derrick henry is going to be worse because he was so good it's just like outlier seasons are outliers and you typically can't reproduce them. So that's really the case. It's not really a Joe Burrow stat. It's a statistical regression. It's the kind of thing where like when you get a couple of 80 yard plays, it's really hard to keep doing that.

Like the Jamar Chase touchdowns against the Ravens in that first game. Yeah, I gotcha. At least one of those probably should have just been like a 12-yard gain. And to your point, every 2,000-yard rusher has lost at least a yard per carry the following season. Okay, let's go to our next stat.

Only one player in the last four seasons has averaged more than nine yards after catch per catch. On FFTN5, I said after contact because I wrote after contact for some reason. That's what you have here. And I Ron Burgundy'd it. But it's more than nine yards after catch per catch. Only one player has done it in the last four seasons.

It's Debo Samuel, and he's done it twice now. Two seasons in a row. Statistically, Chris doesn't make a lot of sense. He just does things that nobody else does and you wonder how sustainable it is. He's also really annoying because finishing as a top five wide receiver where so much of his production was based on

his running skills. It messes with all the trends that I try to look for in a top five receiver. But anyway, after catch, he's just sensational. Do you think that'll continue with a new quarterback? Presumably. I would think so just because it's the way the offense is designed.

And I would imagine Kyle Shanahan is going to continue to dial up those kind of easy throws that allow his playmakers to get the ball in space and make plays. And, you know, Debo almost did it three years in a row. He was at 8.3 yards after catch in 2019 as well as a rookie. The thing that's wild about Debo Samuel is getting a lot of yards after catch is highly correlated with your average depth of target. Shorter catches tend to lead to more yards after the catch. Deeper targets tend to lead to much fewer. That's why Mike Evans routinely has very unimpressive yards after catch numbers because he's getting 15 yard down the field targets. He had 8.3 yards after the catch on a 7.5 a dot in 2019 and then 10 yards after the catch on 8.4

yard a dot in 2021 that's really really difficult to do and so i think he is arguably the best receiver in football with the ball in his hands and i think that's going to continue he's not going to average 18 yards per catch this season. And so there's going to be significant regression for him. He's probably not going to have 1,400 yards and 18 yards per catch again. The question is, one, how much volume is there in this passing game? Two, how much volume is there in this passing game for each receiver?

How are they going to distribute the target that do exist? And then three, and I think the biggest thing for Debo's fantasy value is, is they going to distribute the target that do exist? And then three, and I think the biggest thing for Debo's fantasy value is, is he going to be a running back again? Yeah. The way they used him in the second half of the season. I ended up with him as my wide receiver 15 in my projections and wide receiver 13 in the rankings. And I have George Kittle as tight end seven and Brandon Iuke is wide

receiver 45. I think so. You say 15. Yeah. Wow. And full PPR. Yeah. And it's just,

it's really the, the 49ers have a math problem. If Trey Lance is their quarterback. Yeah. I think for fantasy it's going to be really really hard if he's going to run a bunch they're going to not throw as much as they did last season and Iuke Kittle and Samuel

are all going to be healthy which is not something that's really happened all that much in their careers it's going to be really hard for them for those three guys to be fantasy relevant at the same time and I don't think all three of them can do it yeah heath i just i kind of felt like debo samuel established himself as the number one option you know i don't really think brandon iuk is much of a threat to debo samuel right now i don't know my feelings could change on this but but uh man i

wanted to doubt him it's's kind of like Cooper Cup. As it was happening, I was like, what is going on? Cooper Cup was actually better in the playoffs in four games than he was in the regular season. And then Debo, he's just the man. When they needed a big play, they went to him. He was awesome again in the postseason. So, I don't know.

He just kept proving me wrong yeah i i had a much easier time believing cooper cup than debo samuel and i've got cooper cup as my number one wide receiver for next year i think debo's around 12 so i do think like we had seen cooper cup be an elite fantasy wide receiver in the past. We had seen him, I would say, perform closer to what he did last year than we had Debo Samuel. Yeah. So I think I'm surprised that I'm ahead of Chris

and now this gives me the courage to move Debo a little bit lower. But I do think it's just a wild, do you expect him to have 60 rush attempts again next year? Do you expect him to score once every seven rush attempts again next year? So what do you make of this, then? What do you make of this? Because you're 100% right.

The rush attempts are crazy. As soon as he had the rush attempts, though, he stopped with the receiver. But if you look at his receiving totals before he became more involved in the running game, he was having a tremendous year just as a receiver. So, Heath, do you think if the rushing totals go away, does he just go back to being a stud receiver

and having a more conventional star season? Yeah, and he can be a stud receiver in regress. If he's somewhere between wide receiver 12 and wide receiver 15, that's a stud receiver. Waddle or Debo? I still have Debo higher than Waddle, but I'm the low guy on Waddle, apparently.

I have Waddle a little higher, but it's very close. Let's do our Waddle stat then. Crazy stat on Jalen Waddle, who was the number 21 wide receiver and non-PPR number 12 in PPR. This kind of says it all. He had 104 catches in 16 games last year. He had 106 catches in 34 games at Alabama. He averaged 18.9 yards per catch in college and 9.8 yards per catch as a rookie with the Dolphins. Jalen Waddell was just a completely different type of player who very

rarely made a big play last year and did it very frequently at Alabama. So Chris, you were the high guy on Jalen Waddell. Do you think that there's another level that could be unleashed in Waddell? Absolutely. I think he's an incredibly talented player who clearly has the ability to make plays down the field. And there were some stretches this season when, especially early on, when he was making some plays down the field

and that kind of got derailed by Tua his rib injury and then the transition to just this almost entirely rpo based offense and i think that's what happened with him that's why he averaged 9.8 yards per catch is because basically i mean they kind of turned him into like a jarvis Landry type it was you know their their their offense was based on RPOs and quick hitting passes and that was really good for Jaylen Waldo on a PPR league and I expect that will continue to a certain extent um but with Mike McDaniels taking over and coming from the Kyle Shanahan offense I would expect more of those you know what was the stat the the 49ers led the league in in breaking targets by like some massive they had like more like twice as many in breaking targets as any other team in football and that's partially to take advantage of the playmakers that they have and the guys that they

have who can make plays with the ball in their hands and that's been a a focal point of the 49ers as a team you know in building their offense and I think we'll probably see more of that from Jalen Waddell not so much just these these quick slants where they're trying to get eight yards and and nothing more I think we'll see more opportunities for him to get the ball in space and I think you'll see his yards per attempt or reception jump to like 11. I'm not going to say it's going to be like 18 or 15 even, but I do think we'll see more efficiency from Jaylen Lott on his second season and,

you know, somewhat similar volume. I do think it's interesting to compare this one, what we just talked about though, with Debo, because I came into this year thinking Devante Smithith is the safe guy the the technician the guy that's already polished and ready for the nfl and jaylen waddle is the elite specimen who is a little bit worried about year one is might be a little rough around the edges right and that was not the type of season

obviously that we got from either but with the type of athletic profile that I thought Waddle had, I would have anticipated him having a few more plays like Debo Samuel. He was at 4.2 yards per – yards, whatever, the Azerstadt. Yards after the catch per reception on a 7.1 ADOT. And you mentioned Jarvis Landry, sure, or Deontay Johnson. Very similar numbers from Deontay Johnson over the past few years. I'm surprised that he didn't do more after the catch on all those short targets. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. That was something that he definitely could do in college. But he did have over 1,000 yards as a rookie, and that hit 900, Heath. You know, I love that. In 16 games. It's 1,000 now, right? It was 900 for 16 games.

Well, he did it in 16 games, so that just makes it easy. But no, it's not 1,000. What would it be? Like 960? 956 or something. Right. Yeah, I think if you play 17 games and you don't get 1,000 yards, you're not good now.

Oh, DK Metcalf, right? But he wasn't a rookie. It's fine. Oh, okay. Then he's fine, yeah. All right, next stat. Let's talk about two wide receivers who had the same amount of targets,

Devontae Adams and Deontay Johnson. They had 169 targets, second most in the NFL behind Cooper Cup. Same amount of targets. Adams had 392 more yards than Deontay Johnson. That is a staggering difference. 2.3 more yards per target

than Johnson. Johnson was a top 10 wide receiver in both formats. He was 8th in PPR, 10th in non-PPR. He had 107 catches. An interesting guy to evaluate, Heath, with a new quarterback coming in. But not as good as Devontae Adams, I think, is what I'm uncovering here.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. That appears to be true. I could say the same thing I said the last three years, which is everybody else, including Ben Roethlisberger, appears much more convinced that Deontay Johnson is good than me. And I'm worried about him depending on where they go at quarterback. If they stay at Mason Rudolph, then I think the pass volume probably drops

and the accuracy of the throws doesn't get any better. If they draft Malik Willis, I think the pass volume probably drops and I'm not sure that the quarterback play, in terms of throwing, gets much better this year. And all Deontay Johnson has given us in his career is targets. Now, he doesn't really even catch these short area targets at a particularly good level, doesn't really do very much after the catch, has a pretty average touchdown rate. He just gets 10 targets a game, which is a skill. And I'm not putting that down. But if, and I've made this joke, but I think it's true actually,

if Ben Roethlisberger was the reason that the Steelers threw so many passes and they are not going to have Ben Roethlisberger in the huddle audibling out of these run calls anymore. I expect the Steelers' pass volume to drop. I don't think Johnson's efficiency improves, and so I don't think it's going to be as good. Would they have to upgrade at quarterback for him to be better? Yes.

Yeah, it's not that easy to do. It shouldn't be that hard it was really not good yeah but then look at how bad they were the one game he missed you know look at the like mason rudolph has been worse than ben rothisberger so you think about they were the whole season that ben rothisberger missed you know right yeah exactly exactly it's gonna be i don't know i i struggle with it because i do think you know know, Deontay Johnson's passing game role and even Najee Harris's passing game role early in the season, you know, obviously it tailed off, but I think both of those things were a reflection of the dysfunction of the

Pittsburgh Steelers offense. That's not, I don't mean that as a knock on Deontay or Najee Harris, even though it is one and comes off as one, but it's to say that in a normal functioning NFL offense, Deontay that is probably not an ideal way to run your offense you know funneling so many targets to a guy who he was a 30 target share guy this season yeah you know funneling so many of your targets to a guy who's not a great playmaker with the ball in his hands necessarily does a really good job of getting open but doesn't get open downfield necessarily so it's it's tough because i i think the most likely outcome is the steelers offense is probably still pretty dysfunctional yeah but yeah if the volume goes down that's going to be a concern a lot of people really believe they're on the right track the way that they could make their offense better this year is malik willis at quarterback and run an offense similar

to what the eagles did or the ravens do and just run the ball a lot more and be more efficient running it because you have a running quarterback but even in that scenario that's bad news for deontay johnson well what if it's what if it's still have a 30 percent target share but you know if the if that's coming from 540 pass attempts as opposed to, what was it last year, 680, it's probably not going to, you're just going to lose 40 targets off the top. Yeah, but if it's Kenny Pickett and he's a Pitt guy, then that's a more conventional pocket passer,

very accurate guy. Not the biggest Kenny Pickett fan, but what do I know? We would expect, though, I would say, based on what we've seen from rookie quarterbacks in the last decade, we should not expect Kenny Pickett to be a more efficient passer than Ben's been the last two years. Well, I don't know. I mean, I expect him to be better than Mason Rudolph.

6.2 yards per attempt and a 3.6% touchdown rate is pretty awful. Was there a rookie that was definitively better than that last year? Matt Jones. Yeah. Yeah. I think. Probably. I don't.

Okay. All right. Let's go to our next crazy stat. Tyreek Hill. He went five straight games without a 20-yard catch. His longest stretch in any of the three previous seasons was two. Two straight games without a 20-yard catch pretty amazing so five straight games without a 20-yard catch for tyree

kill who finished as wide receiver seven in non-ppr and it's gonna be better than that in full ppr it was uh wide receiver six so much better how about that that? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, a very different year from him. A hundred and eleven catches, but only one thousand two hundred thirty nine yards. Just just different. Very different version of which weeks were those? Probably like four to eight, something like that.

They were just before the start of the Mahomes. A rough stretch, because I think that kind of started with the Tennessee game. I think there's two games before Tennessee and then two games after Tennessee and obviously included. I think it will be really interesting if the Chiefs add a wide receiver.

Is it somewhat because I do think I don't know if it's reflected in the full season numbers or not, but there was definitely a stretch where they had to change the way they were using Tyreek Hill because that was the only way they could get him the ball because the defenses took away a lot of the things they'd done with him in the past.

I'll be interested to see if the Chiefs add someone like Juju to take care of those short area stuff so they can send Tyreek deeper again, or if they add more of a deep threat and keep him closer to the line of scrimmage. His average depth of

target was 10.4 yards per target this year. It was 12.9 the two years prior and 14.8 the year before that. Well, it's a little risky. It's a little risky to take him. He feels a little risky this year for the first time. In

2022, he feels a little risky for the first time, I'd say. Is that a that fair assessment i do not agree that he's never felt risky he has felt much riskier than this in the past for a variety of reasons oh you're talking about the off-field stuff but just from a performance standpoint this is the riskiest i think he's felt since he you know burst onto the scene i guess but see I don't know because what we saw happen with Terry Kill is exactly what you would expect to happen if a team, if defenses are focusing on taking away the long ball, is they just started throwing a ton of targets to him in the short area. And so he still ended up as wide receiver six in what is widely acknowledged to be a down season. And then in the postseason, he had 23 catches, 285 yards,

and three touchdowns. I just kind of think what this showed was Tiger Kill's kind of foolproof for fantasy. If he's not going to be the guy who averages 15 yards per catch and scores seven 60-yard touchdowns in a season, well, he can be the 110 catch guy and you know there was that stretch late in the season where he just wasn't healthy i mean really the last three games i would say at least um but he had but chris right off he averaged about four

and a half fewer ppr fantasy points per game than he did in 2020. He averaged three PPR fantasy points per game than he did in 2018, which was his first great season. 2019 was a down year for him. Mahomes was injured. He was injured. It sounds like he's been really good in even years, and we should expect him to be awesome in 2022. No, he was good.

I think maybe more of a philosophical question. You look at what he did in finishing his wide receiver six overall. But was he a disappointment? I think if you had Tyreek Hill, you were disappointed. And if you draft him again near the end of round one, beginning of round two, in that range, and he gives you 17.6 PPR fantasy points per game, I think you're probably going to be disappointed.

Yes, but again, I'll mention those last three games. What was the injury that he was playing through? He only played 42% of the snaps and then 18% of the snaps in two of those three games. He got hurt in...

It was the Pittsburgh gamesburgh game in week 18 no no they played him they played him in the playoffs yeah i don't remember because before through week 15 he was averaging 20.1 ppr points per game and i would assume if you just add his postseason to his overall numbers he probably gets back pretty close to 20 PPR points per game. So that's the thing is I'm not sure how, like in the moment, it certainly did feel pretty disappointing. I'll,

I'll grant that. But in retrospect, I'm not sure it was necessarily. I don't know if that's, I will just say it makes sense. Like don't know if that's, I will just say, like what we've seen, if 17.6 PPR fantasy points per game is Tyreek Hills disappointing, then I am very excited to draft him at the one,

two turn. He does deserve a lot of other people in that range is much, much worse. He deserves an Acer stat, honestly, because played 42% of the stat in that range is much, much worse. He deserves an Azers stat, honestly, because he played 42% of the snaps, as Chris just said. I can't count the Denver game. 14 snaps, two yards on one catch.

I mean, that's killing his average. Yeah, I mean, they played the full game. He just didn't. It wasn't like the offense didn't play the full game. He just didn't because he wasn't healthy. All right, let's take a break. I got five more crazy game. He just didn't because he wasn't healthy. All right, let's take a break. I got five more crazy stats.

We have to go a little bit faster here. Five more crazy stats. Plus your emails right now. When we come back, rather on fantasy football today. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit, more cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days.

And the ability to reach further with access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. We're back. Let's talk about some running backs.

Who saw the most eight-man fronts in football? Well, I don't know. I think it was Deontay Foreman, but really the stat I have is about who saw the third most eight-man fronts in football. I think it was Deontay Foreman, though, believe it or not. I think Derrick Henry actually saw a higher rate of eight-man fronts than Deontay Foreman.

I think I saw that on Twitter yesterday. Derry actually saw a higher rate of eight-man fronts than deontay foreman i think i saw that on twitter uh yesterday derrick henry saw a higher rate i don't think so i think foreman did okay because i i think and this was actually doesn't matter someone on tennessee this is actually percentage wise not total eight-man fronts anyway the guy i wanted to focus on was eli mitchell and what i noticed was the guys who had the eight-man fronts were not necessarily the best running backs. They were often just on the teams that were kind of one-dimensional. Didn't have great passing games. Anyway, Eli Mitchell saw the third highest percentage of eight-man fronts. And what does that mean?

That's when the defense commits an extra defender into the box, so to speak. Average 4.8 yards per carry against eight-man fronts. By the way, that also could be just a product of the offensive formation if you come out with... It's mostly a product of the offensive formation from what I understand.

The two teams, the three teams that run the fewest 11 personnel also tend to see the most stacked boxes and that's the um titans the browns and the 49ers because those teams the 49ers use their fullback a ton way more than any other team in football the titans and browns run the most two tight end sets okay i will say that i found the tweet that chris was referenced referencing because there was a discussion about foreman and henry ref averaging about the same yards per carry last year.

Josh Larkey says, Derek, Henry faced stacked fronts 24% of the time, Foreman 14.3% of the time. So I think that's a different stat than the eight-man fronts also. Oh, it is? Yeah. Okay. Stacked versus eight-man, a totally different thing.

Yeah, I don't know what, I don't know what the difference is, but it, that clearly it's different because Elijah Mitchell is it. Oh, I don't know. Actually, this is a stupid stat.

I think then. No, I think it's, I think which, which one's useful. The 8%. They, the percentage of eight man fronts,

but the other stat was that Eli Mitchell averaged 4.8 yards per carry against eight-man fronts. That was fifth best behind Rashad Penny, Nick Chubb, A.J. Dillon, and Tony Pollard. And that's... He was great. I mean, George Kittle's the best blocking tight end in football,

probably. And Kyle Ushuk's a really good blocker, so that probably plays a pretty good part of that. And Debo Samuel's an excellent blocker as well. And Brandon Ayuk probably got better at blocking because that was a big part of that. Debo Samuel's an excellent blocker as well. Brandon Ayuk probably got better at blocking because that was a big part of why he wasn't playing early on in the season from what I understand.

That, I think, is... Eli Mitchell's good. This stat sucks, Chris. It's a 49er stat, I think. The 49ers have an incredibly efficient running game, and that'll probably be the case next season with the Trailers. Nine crazy stats. Okay, here's number seven.

Number seven. Yes, number seven. The three running backs with the highest run grade. PFF gives a grade to all the running backs. The three running backs with the highest run grade from Pro Football Focus were all backup running backs who had a hundred or more carries. Dearness Johnson, Tony Pollard, and A.J. Dillon were the highest graded running backs.

Jonathan Taylor was fourth and Damian Harris was fifth. Heath, do you care at all about that? Dearness Johnson, Tony Pollard, and A.J. Dillon were the three highest graded running backs. And it's not like they had 15 carries here. Like I said, they all had 100 or more. Right, but they all probably had less than half the number of carries of Taylor. I would assume, and I think that's probably just a little bit of a lesson of the law

of large numbers. But I also don't fully know how that formula works for the grading and the numbers. Very scientific and not subjective at all. Yeah. Dearness Johnson was really good. A.J. Dillon and Tony Pollard were really efficient.

Does it make you more confident that Johnson's going to be a tough spot if Kareem Hunt's back, but that Pollard and Dillon, if given the opportunity, if there's an injury or something like that, does the run grade make you more confident in their home run potential? Not Pollard, because I don't think Pollard... I think Pollard has an incomplete in his grade against defenses that are expecting the run,

because he's not ahead. He doesn't do a lot of the things that Ezekiel Elliott has looked so bad and slow at. A lot of Tony Pollard's runs are creative and exciting and fun. And then Zeke gets the ball and runs between the tackles. So, Dylan, yes. I struggle with Dylan and Aaron Jones.

I don't know exactly how to um to project them and i my split could be entirely wrong because i ended up with aaron jones as my rb 15 aj dylan at 28 and i'm certainly going to be the low guy on dylan with that ranking and i would guess i'm going to be pretty high on Aaron Jones with that. I have them getting the same number of carries, actually. I just think Jones is going to have the much bigger role in the passing game. And I'm not sure Dylan is just like a better goal linebacker than Aaron Jones. Aaron Jones has been really good in that role. So it's really tough to know what to make of that situation,

especially if Jordan love is the quarterback instead of aaron rogers would it make you feel better to know that i came out with aaron jones at 13 and dylan at 30 um a little bit because that was with me moving aaron jones down from 11 in the projections uh all right guys next up oh, it's another Heath Cummings stat. Stat number eight, Heath. You want to read it? Yeah, I mean, this one definitely deserves to be behind the Devontae Adams is better than Deontay Johnson stat.

And the eight-man run numbers don't matter. Look, dude, I couldn't give you the first two slots. Josh Jacobs averaged 3.8 catches per game in his final 15 games, including the playoffs. In his first two seasons, he only had two games with more than three catches. That's wild. That's a great stat. Partially, was it the coaching staff change?

Was it Kenny and Drake getting hurt? i would think kenny and drake getting hurt played a decent part in it but no that's it that's a good sign for him it was it was why he kept i mean he kept finishing as like a top 15 back every week even when he wasn't that good and i kept ranking him as a top 10 back every week just because if you're going to get five targets per game which he pretty much was it's really hard not to be a top 15 back and if he's going to get five targets per game next season it would be really hard for him not to be a top 15 back i don't have him as a top 15 back um but i i also acknowledge that i probably maybe am being too conservative in his projection. This is one that I think I have a nine right now.

So we're opposite on this one. But he is going to make me the most nervous because new coaching staff, a coordinator that for most of his career has had a designated pass catching back. Right. And Jacobs last year, while it was great that he got the targets, he averaged 5.4 yards per target, which is about 10% worse than league average for running backs. And he's at 5.5 for his three-year career. He hasn't actually been good, although he did catch 84% of his targets. That's a positive.

Although then, 5.4 yards per target looks even worse. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's... Go ahead. I'm starting to think he's just a guy. I know he was a first-round pick, but it's hard to disentangle this from the fact

that their line hasn't been as good the last couple of seasons. But I just, yeah, I don't know. There's not a lot about Josh Jacobs that looks all that impressive when you look at his career as a whole. So I don't know what he's good at. I will say that the thing that is above average probably is the way he's scored touchdowns the last couple of years and that's something that new england backs they've generally had a guy who scores a lot of touchdowns yeah yeah yeah i just have a offense, but even last year they didn't have a great offense. How many carries do you have him projected for?

I have him projected for 286. I have him for 235. That probably explained most of the difference in where we've got him. All right, running back stat, well, stat number nine, crazy stat number nine, about another running back. I already talked about this earlier this week

with Dave and Jamie, but I would like to know how you guys feel about it and it's just basically rashad penny and his big playability he had 119 carries yet he had the third most 20 yard carries in the nfl 20 plus yard carries in the nfl behind jonathan taylor and nick chubb who had a lot more carries than he had he had like i said 119 carries and 11 of them went for 20 or more yards i know i already gave this stat last time but uh for for heath and chris's purposes the second most amount of 20 plus yard carries by a running back who had fewer than 130 carries was four and he had 11 he also rashad penny led all running backs in yards after contact per carry.

So, I mean, I can dismiss six games because he played against some really easy matchups and he tore them up. I do have a harder time dismissing big playability. I mean, I watched almost all of his carries, and I'm just confused because he doesn't really look very fast. He looks kind of slow to me, but could just be deceiving because he's a little bit bigger.

But man, I mean, what a stretch for him. And the big plays really jumped out to me. I would say definitely if he had some dreadlocks, just like some extensions that he could put on the back of his helmet so that you could see his hair bounce on his shoulder pads, you would definitely think that he's faster. Second round pick. It'd be a second round pick. He's really going to be an interesting guy.

Is he back in Seattle? Is Chris Carson back in Seattle? Does somebody else try to go take him from Seattle? Because I believe he's an unrestricted free agent and Carson's still under contract. I don't have any idea. I'm going to let NFL teams tell me what they think of that, I think.

Yeah, they're not going to invest much. I don't think he's so injury prone. Yeah, Chris, do you care about the explosiveness? The ability to make those big plays that register? There does seem to be some year-over-year stickiness in the leaders. Jonathan Taylor was one of the leaders in 2020.

Nick Chubb was number two both years. Dalvin Cook. But a lot of that's also a product of how many touches those guys get. But yeah, Nick Chubb is consistently a home run hitter Derek Henry is consistently a home run hitter maybe Rashad Penny is that guy as well but we have such a small sample size that I don't know that him doing that in such a small number of carries necessarily tells us all that much moving forward because sometimes you roll a dice 12 times in a row and you get four

sixes and it doesn't necessarily mean that those four sixes are going to happen again. So that's the difficult thing just because we don't have any kind of track record for Rashad Penny. He had 40% of his career carries last season and he didn't get a lot of carries last season. So I really struggle with him. If he's the number one back somewhere, he'll probably be in the low end RB two range, but I can't see myself investing a ton in a guy who probably isn't going to have much of a passing game role, uh, and has very little track record on the ground. I think it's nice to see. It was great to see him play that well, but I don't necessarily buy it.

Well, that was what he was in college. It's worth pointing out. Okay, let's go to our last stat. Aaron Rodgers has now led the NFL in touchdown rate two straight seasons. He is the first quarterback to lead the NFL in touchdown rate in two straight seasons since Aaron Rodgers

in 2011 and 2012. And what's more crazy, what's even crazier, the touchdown rates were almost identical. In 2011, it was 9%. In 2020, it was 9.1%. And then the following year,

it was 7.1% and 7%. And he led the NFL in both those two-season stretches. You want something even crazier? Uh-oh. Go. Devontae Adams went from a 12.1% touchdown rate in 2020 to 6.5% in 2021. And Aaron Rodgers' touchdown rate didn't change.

No, it did change. It did change. Not a ton. 2%. I mean, 9.1% to mean nine point one here's a here's a a real scare for you the year before he did it last time in 2010 he had a 5.9 touchdown rate the year following in 2013 he had a 5.9 touchdown rate so eventually he got back to the same guy he had been unfortunately the year before he did this he had a 4.6 percent touchdown rate so i think he's probably going to have a terrible year that's not how it works well he's never going to be among the yardage leaders at least as long as he's with green bay and he's not going to be among the rushing yardage leaders but he is also one of the greatest football players

of all time so well yeah i think if you do the if you set 5.9 as his standard you know he would fall from qb6 to qb9 which isn't a huge fall but you're talking about two points per game. It drops him from, you know, the, the borderline elite territory to more like a Kirk cousins. And I think that, you know, Kirk cousins has had really good touchdown rates the past three seasons. Um,

so I, I don't know. It's like a 5.9 touchdown percent would be really, really good. That, that Rogers has. Yeah. Rogers has the second highest. Yes. Ever. Touchdown percent would be really, really good. Rodgers has the second highest ever.

Touchdown. Mahomes is number one, right? Mahomes at 6.4, Rodgers at 6.3, Russ at 6.2, and then Watson at 5.9. That's active quarterbacks. There's some guys from the old days who only threw like six passes and they were all touchdowns.

Okay. All right. So where do you come out in your rankings, guys? Aaron Rodgers? QB6 for me. That's assuming the status quo in Green Bay, but he's in a tight group with Murray and Burrow and Stafford, then I think there's a drop.

Yeah, I've got him fifth. And there's actually a little bit of a teardrop after him, but he's behind Mahomes, Allen, Jackson, Herbert for sure, but ahead of Murray, Hertz, Dak, and Wilson and Burrow as well. Yep, that's pretty much the same range-ish for me. What a crazy show. Wow. And one email.

Time for one email here. I had three in here. I'm going to save a couple. Save our Keeper Dynasty questions. Is it a crazy email? No. Oh. But it is from Bradley

and he says, Dear, and I don't know how to pronounce these names, Qui-Gon, Jar Jar, I know him, Shmi, and Maul.

Yep. Darth Maul, I know. Shmi is from Hook. That's just Smee. Hold on, let me grab him. I've got my little Darth Maul bobblehead here. I'm a big nerd.

Is Qui-Gon a good guy? Qui-Gon was Obi-Wan's master. He's, yeah. He's a good guy. Liam Neeson. Oh, okay. That's right, guy uh liam neeson oh okay you don't you never oh yeah that's right you're not a star wars guy no i am you don't know i watched all i watched right but yeah

have you watched the prequels not yet no yeah no i watched blood sport instead which was really interesting really weird um but good fighting anyway uh from bradley i'm trying to learn more about value-based drafting to answer my questions about why certain players deserve to be drafted at a certain spot. My main question is, if value-based drafting is the optimal strategy for fantasy drafts,

well, I kind of read that with the wrong inflection. My main question is, if value-based drafting is the optimal strategy for fantasy drafts. And if so, what are the key principles and advanced tips that you guys can give me? i'm just a college student who loves fantasy football looking to get my foot in the industry what is the biggest piece of advice you can give to someone in my position biggest piece of advice i would give to someone who is currently in college is um

write for your college newspaper if you want a job in any journalism industry or content creation because you need clips. You need a show that you can do it. Chris, come on. It's a dying industry. Get on the radio. Get on college TV. Sure. Look, man, I did Radiate FM, college radio station. I was the football play-by-play guy back in college there are some clips of that hey yeah me too they're probably not good um i was on the the newspaper we never did video but you know that was that was god the halcyon days of the aughts um yeah do it all chris is right do it all if you want to get into the fantasy football industry specifically you have to have a baseline of you know showing that you can do the the writing part

of and the the podcasting and all that stuff and you know you're gonna probably have to put in some time for not very much pay and doing that in college is probably the best time to do it because you've got more free time there than you're going to have pretty much in any other point in your life from this point on so and yeah don't do what i did and take a statistics class and drop it because you didn't want to take the midterm that's basically what i do with economics so learn uh all those things the kids are doing these days the what is it the r coding r and python yeah um q um the the black snake sequel um whatever all those things are learn those But I think the more important thing is, and you can do this in writing, you can do this on radio, you can do this on video. You need to

do it on all three is you got to figure out what your voice is and who you are. Um, and like who you are, or at least who you're going to present. Um, and you need to have like a developed voice and that will help a lot. And if you don't like your voice, use your mixer to make it sound deeper. That is something you could do if you're insecure. I used to do. I don't do that anymore. Or develop a non-regional dialect. What is that from? That's a thing, right? Lots of things. Well, I just wanted to share a story.

I did UMTV. I was a news anchor for UMTV at college, and I had to sit on a phone book to make myself taller next to the girl I was sitting next to. Did I ever tell you about the time I almost got kicked out of high school newspaper? No, but can we save it for another show? One of the most embarrassing. No, I think you should do it at the end of the show.

It's one of the most embarrassing things I've ever done. No, I want this to be at the beginning of a show. No, it's definitely not the beginning of a show. I had a lot of columns and stuff in high school, and it was my senior year, and things were going really well. And there was this thing over, I think it was courtwarming. The two winners of courtwarming, I was supposed to write a little feature on them, which was not my cup of tea, not the type of thing I did. It's like homecoming for basketball and wrestling season. Oh.

And so the problem was I knew both of them very well. One of them was on the basketball team with me, the guy was. And he said, you know, just write some stuff, and I'm good with whatever. That was great. Oh, no. The young woman who won, I knew her as well, but I was terrified because I'd had a crush on her, and I couldn't speak to her hardly. And I just did the same thing with her profile as well and didn couldn't speak to her hardly and i just did the same thing with her profile as well and didn't ever speak to her and um that didn't go over very well she didn't know she didn't think it was okay if uh the biggest piece of advice i can give to someone who wants to get

in the industry don't do that don't make up quotes quotes. That's one of the first rules. That is awesome. I was on the staff next year. Actually, I'm a little surprised Heath was on the high school newspaper. I thought you would have been too cool for that. No, no. Yeah, I'm with you. It was just me and a bunch of other nerds locked in our windowless room.

Why is it that we think he was so cool? Because we were so uncool? He's tall. Yeah, he's very tall. It's true. Okay. That goes a long way in high school. I know.

I just had to fill out an application with my height. Going to the doctor and they asked me my height. And I'm just so embarrassed by it. But anyway. You can give yourself an extra inch right in 5'4".'t i mean i can't do that at the doctor five four maybe i could bring the i could bring the food book they don't measure you well when you're filling out the form they it's there they ask you and then you know they go check your check your work. Oh, 5'9", huh? I'm in shoes. Anyway, anything on value-based drafting?

We did a show on this last year, and we should do another one this offseason. It's very, very helpful and important, and I think a little bit overlooked now. But we shouldn't do that now. Right, it's a long question. Do you think it's better than not doing it? I do.

Okay. A lot of my rankings are based on the concepts. And a lot of it is like the idea that it's about figuring out who the best player available is, right? Like it's not just, you know, you should generally take the best player available. And I think positional scarcity is probably overrated in fantasy

in both baseball and football, the two sports I cover. But it's about figuring out where the positional scarcity ends and where it doesn't and what spots you should be vaulting some guys over others and stuff like that but yeah it's it's basically just trying to to have a method to what you're doing i think that's the biggest advantage that it can give you is just you you've got your own you've got a strategy you're not going in you know just well i think this guy's better i think that's that's the biggest thing we we will do.

I will pressure Adam to make sure we talk about this. Maybe we'll have a drafting strategy. I like it. Yeah. And we could talk about that. Are you guys ready to be Charlie Brown? More, more discussions of,

of that sort. Charlie Brown. Yeah. You're ready to be Charlie Brown. Sure. Uh, stranger things. Season four is coming May 27th.

Volume one. Um, at least that's what they say now. This is, I believe, is like the third or fourth time that I thought I knew when Stranger Things Season 4 was out. I don't think they had, like, announced a date officially yet, though, right? Uh, there's been spring of... May 27th? May 27th, and then Volume 2 comes July 1st. So, we're probably getting, like, six episodes on the 27th and six on July 1st. So we're probably getting like 6 episodes

on the 27th and 6 on July 1st. That's going to be fun. They probably have to spread them out because the cast has gone from like 12 to 19. They're going to have to do a time jump midway through the season. For sure. That's fun. Obi-Wan comes out on the 25th. That's going to be a very

nerdy weekend for me. They have to find a way to justify me keeping my Netflix subscription because it is an overpriced service now. I need to start charging family is what I need to start doing. Yeah, me too. You still have time

to catch up on The Marvelous Miss Maisel before the next season releases on Friday. Not a chance. Tomorrow. I do not like that show. Oh, it's so good.

I can't get into it. It's a play. It's a play. If I wanted to go to the play, I'd go to Broadway. It's a theater, and I don't There's not any singing. The way that it is scripted Wait, hold on. Heath, you know there's plays that aren't musicals, right? I understand, but

it's not a play. No, it is a play. The way that it is scripted is very theater-like. The dialogue is very over the top. Her sets are funnier than Seinfeld's sets on Seinfeld. All right, we got to go. What is the deal with my husband? Why did he leave me? We got to go, everybody.

We'll talk to you later. We've got no show on Monday, so have a great President's Day weekend. Talk to you on Tuesday on Fantasy Football. Today!