Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF fantasy guru Ian Hartitz talks Irv Smith Jr. and Justin Jefferson's 2021 outlook

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Matthew Coller is joined by PFF's fantasy analyst Ian Hartitz, who breaks down a Mike Zimmer quote in which the Minnesota Vikings' head coach said that Irv Smith Jr.'s role was going to be the same as last year. Does Ian think that Smith Jr. will actually be a breakout star or will the offense hold him back? Plus Ian talks about why he would take Justin Jefferson over any other receiver in dynasty leagues, why Dalvin Cook's usage from last year is not scaring him away from believing he's one of the top RBs in the NFL and Ian gives Kirk Cousins his due. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now we welcome into Purple Insider Ian Harditz, he is the lead fantasy analyst at Pro Football Focus, one of my favorite guys to get together with. And he is tasked with creating some sort of controversy on this podcast, because when I went on your show, Ian, people got very upset when I made a Justin Jefferson, Julio Jones comparison. So that is your goal for today. Sounds good, man. Yeah, we're on the PFF Fantasy Football Podcast. We were joking around before the show about, you know, love my employer. Sometimes they hang us out to dry a little bit with these quote tweets from the podcast without proper video or article to explain the reasoning. But yeah, man, I'll see what I can do.

We've had some, you know, Irv Smith, you know, playing time stuff in the news. Of course, we got Jefferson Thielen Cousins. I think I can pull a hot take out of my ass somewhere here. Okay, perfect. Let's start with the Irv Smith thing, because I was just discussing this on the show the other day with ESPN's Courtney Cronin. Obviously, we both cover the team on a daily basis. She was the one that asked the question to Zimmer about Irv Smith and his role.

And he said something to the effect of Irv Smith's role isn't going to change at all. Now, this was picked up by everybody and they're saying, Oh no, like we were planning on drafting Irv Smith. I don't think it changes anything. I still think Irv Smith is tight end one that he's going to get a vast majority of the targets. I just think they like to play two tight ends and Irv Smith has been playing a lot. This is not a guy going from the bench to starting. So I think that that was Zimmer's point. But when you read it, it does sort of sound like, oh yeah, Irv Smith is only going to get 40 snaps a game

and only a handful of targets. I don't think that that is the case. But how did you perceive it from a fantasy perspective, Ian? Yeah, Irv is someone that I just, I love the talent. He's still only 22 years old which is like one of the craziest like age things we have you know he's going to be the next Amari Cooper Sam Darnold you know we're just going to be talking about his age every single time to start off the argument I guess I'm adding to that issue right now but man you look at it and I understand Tyler Conklin end up

playing more snaps in the actual split we have without Kyle Rudolph but like he was also coming back from injury and in the last three games we saw him hit 82 88 79 snaps a two tight end offense is a problem if they're cutting into each other's workload and we're only seeing you know there's 100 snaps and one guy's playing 50 the other guy's playing 50 to your point they like using two tight ends more than almost any offense out there we saw that you, you know, with the Browns and Stefanski last year. Same thing with Hooper and those guys going out. That didn't necessarily stop Hooper from working as the number one guy when he was healthy. And I think that's what we're going to see here with Irv Smith.

He's, you know, just been great whenever they throw him the ball. I guess the question is, like, can Conklin be good enough to split up the target similar to what Rudolph was? He is bigger, has a higher spark score than Irv. I know we like to think of Irv as just this athletic freak, and he is. Every NFL player is, though, and that's why someone like Tyler Conklin maybe goes a little bit under the radar. So at the end of the day, it's still a run-first offense, and we know Jefferson, Dillon, probably Cook are all going to have more targets than Irv. So for that reason, I've kind of always had them in that tight end 12 tight end 13 range, as opposed to, you know,

a top 10 guy, which I think he could be the targets were there. This doesn't exactly help that. So overall I'm with you not really changing my position, still just a little bit underwhelmed by the situation as a whole. Well, and last year was kind of odd also with, you know,

Kyle Rudolph sort of fading into the background and Irv Smith, when they were both in games after the first couple of weeks where Irv got shut out. It was very strange just to see that happen. And then he sort of kicks it up a notch in the game against Seattle, sort of has that breakout game. And then after that, I believe he was one of the five or six highest graded PFF tight ends after like week five, which I know arbitrary end points are always a problem, but I think that he showed at the end of the season, when he got that starting opportunity that Kirk cousins trusts him. And also I think Kirk cousins completed something like seven out of 10 passes over 10 yards to Irv Smith, which adds a little bit of an extra, I think, layer from what someone like

Tyler Conklin can do or that they want him to do. I think that downfield element of it in an offense that generally likes to push the ball down the field, what would lead you to say maybe he doesn't get the most targets or catches, but I think he could rack up more yardage. I don't know from a fantasy perspective how much that matters to people, but I think that that, that would be a thing I would look at is I think he's going to gain a lot of yards more than what they would have for Conklin or what they had for Kyle Rudolph. Yeah. He has that ability to stretch the seam and that's kind of, you know, different team, but we saw it with the Cowboys last year where they had Blake Jarwin, then he got hurt and they went to Dalton Schultz and Schultz was fine, but they couldn't use them the same way because he

wasn't the same type of talent. So yeah, not all targets are created equal. And Irv does have more fancy friendly deep ball opportunities. You know, I have him ahead of guys like Mike DeSicchi, Cole Comet, Evan Inger. I'm not down on the guy by any stretch of the imagination. The question is, you know, should we go Irv Smith over someone like Adam Troutman, Anthony Fergster, someone that could take all of their positions targets. So for me, you know,

Irv, Hey, if at that week one, like he's someone that I think that week one snap rate is going to change a lot of people's minds either for better or for worse. If we see him go out there, you know, have seven or eight targets and be, you know, an every down player, everyone's going to be back all in on Irv Smith. And Hey, I guess right now, if you're really a truther on Irv, this uncertainty, you should be pumped because it's just going to drive his price down a little bit. So Irv, yeah, not changing. I still think he's not borderline tight at one range,

but it's appropriately priced and he's got the higher ceiling to your point because of the types of target he gets. So it's a good time to buy Irv Smith. Yeah. I think you're being very, very reasoned about this, Ian, and not, i saw lots of people just losing it like what is mike zimmer doing and even our friend eric eager was like oh i guess they're lighting this draft pick on fire and i sent a message i was like okay all right i i don't think that's going to be the case i think they like irv um so it's june it's it's prime offseason coach speak season we had zach taylor say like he's not going to to play Joe Mixon 75 snaps a game. Most offenses don't even have 75 snaps in the game.

That's a pretty rare occurrence. And we got, you know, national outlets running away with that. But that's a story story for another day. No, that's a good point. But let's stay there, though. Let's stay with the running back position, because I was reading an NFL dot com Vikings piece that hinted at the Vikings limiting Delvin Cook's usage. And I hurt myself laughing because there's just no way we've heard it every single year. It is an exact sort of June thing to say,

which is, well, you know, we understand that his Delvin Cook's workload was pretty heavy last year, but then it's 17, 17 in the third quarter. You're not pulling them out for Alexander Madison. And I, I just, I, but I do wonder what you think. And I've probably asked you this a couple of years in a row now, but what you think about his usage last year. And I feel like fantasy people would have been ahead of the game in analytics, just in general, looking at running backs and how they can trend after a year where they carried the ball a lot, his usage last year, if he had played 16 games, I think he was going like 400 touches. So that's, I mean, that's a ton for Delvin cook,

but he is also still in his prime. So how do you factor all of these things together on Delvin cook? So, uh, I was looking at our PFF projections and, you know, there is a difference between projections and fancy ranks. I know everyone loves the fancy pros ranking competition, but in things like that, you're incentivized to not take stands on guys because, you know, you're just trying to hit your ranking. Right. And so when you, it's not the same thing as trying to win your fancy league. We want the highest scoring players possible. And with that in mind,

I was just looking at the usage parts of the projections, which are trying to provide us baselines, because as we know, at running backs, we want guys that are catching passes. That's the difference. Because last year for every one target running back, Scott, they averaged 1.58 PPR points. A carry was only 0.64, basically one target equals two and a half rush attempts. So when we take the projections for that and just basically get this kind of projected opportunity score for 2021, it's Christian McCaffrey, number one, Dalvin cook, number

two, Saquon three Zeke four Kamara five it's McCaffrey is the only reason why he's higher than Cook and probably not even total touches but it's because he could see 120 targets Cook's not going to get that amount but you said it man he had 356 targets in 14 games last year we just literally don't see that elsewhere and he also happens to be the perfect fit for this offense. He's one of the best just players, you know, just taking fancy out of it. One of the best running backs in the league. I think we all agree on that. And he's proven capable of not needing to come off the field. So he has 50 reception

upside. He's going to get 300 carries if he's healthy enough to get it. There just isn't really other than McCaffrey, a better situation to drop a running back to and into. So he's healthy enough to get it there just isn't really other than McCaffrey a better situation to drop a running back to and into so he's in the top tier uh for me alongside he's ahead he's my number two uh running back I have Saquon they're behind him but worse offense you know Dalvin doesn't have Jason Garrett calling his plays which is always a good thing for you and then Derrick Henry is just number four and he's been the exception to the rule you need targets but even then like Nick Chub, everyone loves Nick Chubb. I love Nick Chubb. You love Nick Chubb. One of the best running backs in the league. He's never finished higher than the fancy RB8.

So I am here to complain that fantasy football should not put as much, you know, just love and points behind just the simple act of catching a reception. You know, when Jimmy G flips the ball six inches to Debo Samuel, why is that worth an entire point but it's the game we play and because of that complete workhorses like Dalvin Cook are the guys you need to be prioritizing the question is do we now again want Alexander Madison as one of the top handcuffs in the league and I think we do man because as much as he you know burned everyone in that first Falcons game everybody thought he'd be a top 10 guy like they were down 20 to nothing in the third quarter like

of course they were going to put Abdullah in there and just kind of, you know, pass the ball and not feed Madison. Everyone wasn't really caring about fantasy by the time week 17 came around, but we saw him get that role we were anticipating. So Dalvin, once again, you know, he's, he's RB two. I think he was a consensus top three to five guy last year as well. And Madison right there with Pollard and Latavius Murray as the prime handcuffs you should be year as well and madison right there with paul and latavius murray as the prime handcuffs you should be getting as well so it sounds to me like you are not at all freaking out

over how many carries he got last year now i did do a little poking on this and even adrian peterson the great indestructible adrian peterson after he had years with similar touches per game, did see a drop off in terms of his yards per carry the next year. I mean, is, is that just not like really on your mind? Cause I mean, as a reporter, it's something that I'm, that I'm interested in tracking. Like, how does he look right off the bat? Does he sustain that same burst from the early season? You know, as he builds up with, with more carries and stuff, because it feels like almost every guy I looked

at that had his similar touches per game the next year, it did go down. It's a fair concern. And, you know, this is kind of the regression thing. Like, okay, he's going to regress because how can you be that freaking good again? Is he going to have 17 touchdowns again? Maybe not, but we're projecting what's going to happen in 2021. And once again, he just has all this room for the workload. And I don't, I don't like being in the business of just predicting injuries for guys that, okay, if you're going into the season, like still recovering from a broken foot, like you're not going to be practicing and stuff. Maybe we can

start to worry about that. Like AJ green, uh, 2019 vibes, uh, type of situation, but where do we draw the line with these running backs we can go okay well McCaffrey Saquon Eckler Mixon they were hurt most of last year so why we want a running back coming off of injury Dalvin Nick Chubb well they had past ACL issues a lot of workload Henry he's coming off too many carries Kamara had bad problems before last year Jonathan Taylor and Zeke I mean aren't these college touches gonna end up catching up with them you know like it's where do we draw the line I think you can make an injury case with pretty much everybody so yes it's a little bit concerned with Dalvin maybe it's a good time to sell highish in dynasty like because he is about to be in a

second contract and we've seen with running backs once that kind of fourth or fifth year passes we don't see those same sort of you know leap the same sort of jump years so I would say long term yes you're on to something we should should consider maybe getting out from Dalvin while he's at the peak of his value, but in redraft, man, I just, the opportunity, that's what I'm chasing. And if we also happen to have a talented back, like cook, I just think other than McCaffrey, there's nobody has a better case to be the RB too. And I can guarantee you that the opportunity will absolutely be there with

as long as Mike Zimmer is here, Delvin Cook is getting the football. You can guarantee that. Now, last year, Kirk Cousins made very interesting comment pertaining to Justin Jefferson. It was one of those things that sort of just weaved into a long answer where you went, wait a minute. What? What was that? He said that Justin Jefferson is going to have to be patient in year two because this is a run first type of offense which sort of led me to think i wonder how impatient justin jefferson was last year for the end of the season and if you look at here's an interesting stat that i'm sure you've already come across in the first halves of games justin jefferson couldn't buy a target and then

when they got down, they threw to Jefferson all the time. And then he got them back in games, like single-handedly and several times. Uh, I wonder what you think of his ceiling for this year, because I would put it at statistically, it's maybe probably going to be about the same. I just don't think they're going to change a whole lot of what they do. We sort of expect someone to go, oh, rookie year. So next year you'll just raise the bar. But I just don't know if he's going to get the targets that he so desires with the way that they want to play. Yeah. I have him wide receiver nine, but he's in a tier where he could kind of go down to 13, 14. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with anyone. It's because of those targets. I mean, in my tier write-up, I was just

like, he can be a top three guy. If we could project the targets to be closer to 150 I just think they're down there at 125 so to me you know Jefferson Terry McLaurin Amari Cooper CeeDee Lamb you know Julio I think those guys are all kind of in that same tier the thing is I mean Jefferson it's unfortunate we're not going to get this high-end target share that we fully realize he's a player of his talents deserves. He should be able to make the most out of whatever opportunities he gets, man. Only Devante Adams averaged more yards per outrun than Jefferson last year.

Like I think because he was so good as a rookie, people were almost like stuck in this, like, Oh, he's the best rookie receiver in the league. We get that. But he was a top five receiver period last year, based on pretty much any efficiency stat you want to look at credit to Kirk Cousins you know he's this guy cannot get any respect he has been you know statistically more or less a top 10 top 12 uh quarterback in terms of efficiency since joining the Vikings so it does help having him at QB Adam Thielen's not exactly someone you

can completely ignore but I think Jefferson even talked about this where about six or seven weeks in the season I think it was that week eight game the second matchup against the Pack But I think Jefferson even talked about this where about six or seven weeks in the season, I think it was that week eight game, the second matchup against the Packers. I think they had Jair switch on over to Jefferson. So teams, you know, already kind of switched over to realizing Jefferson is number one guy they need to worry about. And it just didn't matter, man. So yeah, I want him to get 10 plus targets per game every single week.

He's got more though than like guysJ. Brown have been dealing with. And we've seen guys like A.J. Brown, similar, just efficiency monster, still able to overcome the issue in this run-first offense. So the good news, Cousins, it was at one point last year, I was looking at which quarterbacks condensed the most of their target share around their top two options. And Cousins was right there with Dillon Jefferson alongside Russell Wilson with Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf.

So in these run first offenses, we need to have a quarterback that's going to be efficient and that's going to hone in the majority of the target share on one or two guys. That's what we have here. So unfortunate that, you know, Jefferson, who is my actually dynasty wide receiver one. I want him over any other wide receiver for the next 10 years. It's unfortunate we can't make that leap just for redraft in 2021, but I wouldn't panic people. I mean, even if it's 25 fewer targets than we would have liked, I still think we're looking at an annual wide receiver one here. I wonder what trends tell you about this, about what rookies do in their sophomore year because of the amount of attention when they break out. But you make a good point. I remember looking at the game against Carolina and there was a particular red zone play where three guys followed just to Jefferson and Adam Thielen was what?

No, it wasn't Carolina. Cause he didn't play that game, but whatever game it was, maybe Chicago was there for that game. What was he that for that one? I'm looking at his game log right now. Yeah.

Okay. What was the one that he missed? He missed one of the games. Well, I've seen Jefferson at 16, brother. Oh no, no,

I'm in feeling dealing okay yeah it could have been that one so carolina was the game where he was the only receiver and he still dominated right and then there was another game where feeling uh where it just became clear to me midway through the season this is what i'm trying i'm trying to stumble to get to is that it became obvious that defenses were focusing all their attention on Jefferson. And then all of a sudden Thielen ends up catching a bunch of touchdowns, which is because he is also very, very good. But I just wonder about that attention goes up. Everyone spends their summer, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Arizona Cardinals, they're going to have weeks and

weeks to prepare for Justin Jefferson. And I just wonder what generally it tells you when a guy has a great rookie season, how hard that is to follow up from a fantasy perspective. You know, there's no perfect answer to, I think when you try to evaluate all the factors that we have at our disposal. So when you look at some of these stupid, like if you just go pure yards per target over the past two years, I believe the top three are Jefferson, A.J. Brown, and Meikle Hartman. Now I'm not saying we should be out on Meikle he's actually pretty cheap right now and I think it could be a decent bounce back opportunity with the available targets but anybody that has watched those three players knows Meikle is the one getting these you know scheme tap passes and

just really benefiting from you know having Tyreek out there not being the main guy on the offense like you know you mentioned that Carolina game he ran there's a whip route Jefferson ran from like the five yard line where he just toasted like the linebacker ended up having to run over and just try to get close because the corner was put in that much of a blunder and it actually almost inspired me to make this new stat I'm calling it shadow realms it's when you get the wide receiver cornerback iso cam and the wide receiver jukes the dude so bad that at the catch point, the cornerback falls off the television screen and does into the shadow. So I'm going to try and keep track of Jefferson's next year

because, my goodness, man, that was the thing. It was the route running. And it's why after that Tennessee game, like, I was confident to say, go get this guy in every single league you can because he had 175 yards and a touchdown. And it was some of the most impressive 175 yards that you're going to see. Like the route running on this guy is absolutely spectacular already. He can do it.

And it's why you came on my podcast and said, he's like Julio Jones, because he can do everything you want your number one wide receiver to do. Again, I wish we had more targets. I wish every wide receiver in the NFL got more targets when we have a, again, not just a top five rookie talent, but a potential top five, all of wide receiver talent already. Yeah, just keep going to bank. That was what's so crazy about how upset Falcons fans were. It's like, guys, he just got 1,400 yards as a rookie.

I don't think it's that crazy to compare him to one of the best wide receivers, if not the best over the last decade. I think here's one thing I'm very interested in your opinion on the offensive environment, I think is going to be different for everybody this year. And this pertains to all the quarterbacks and Kirk cousins included that going on the road last year. I mean, I, I was in us bank stadium for every home game. It was a morgue dude, I mean, I was in U.S. Bank Stadium for every home game. It was a morgue, dude. I mean, you could hear Aaron Rodgers yelling out play calls from down the field up in the

press box. I mean, there's just no environment whatsoever. Now I'm almost guaranteeing that we're going to have full stadiums. It's happening in every other sport. So stadiums are going to be filled again. I think defenses are going to be significantly helped by this. How are you factoring this when you take last year's stats or are you, and looking at what everyone could do this year?

I'm actually not putting too much stock into having the crowds back. I'm excited. I think it's going to be, you know, more fun, just more electric and stuff. And particularly, you know, teams, Minnesota, Seattle that we've seen just, I think having a little bit of an extra home field advantage over the years i'm sure they're uh i'm sure at their height but it's just tough man fantasy because like everything that sometimes you just uh double count things where if we're saying like okay the vikings are gonna be better now with fans back well maybe we can actually focus on teams playing the vikings because if they're losing they're gonna have more fantasy fantasy friendly game script to pass the ball and comeback mode so for me not something I'm just

super focused on I guess I believe you had him on my co-worker Seth Galena on this podcast talk about his dark horse Kirk Cousins MVP candidate call I guess that would be though I'm not necessarily going on that far of a limb there with Seth it was a great article though and I think he is on to something that would be, you know, my hot take, I guess, for this podcast where I don't quite have them ranked there, but Kirk Cousins has top 10 fantasy QB in his potential range of outcomes. He was that in Washington.

The difference is he was averaging four or five Russian touchdowns per year there. We just haven't gotten in Minnesota. So I'm not saying he's going to necessarily run the ball more. He's an older guy. He's not looking the most mobile as he ever has these days but i mentioned before like he's been a top 12 qb since coming to vikings and this is true by a number of stats pff passing grade he's seventh among 50 qualified qb since 2018 yards per attempt he's tybert russell wilson for 11 qb rating is seventh adjusted completion rate is fourth and that's the one that really stands out to me he's

only behind drew breeze derrick carr and teddy bridgewater all those guys have an average target depth like at least 0.8 yards underneath uh what cousins have been doing so he's been one of the most accurate passers and particularly last year in uh in 2019 with digs as well he's been throwing the ball downfield so just you know i we all want kirk to take this bigger step. It seems like, but I don't know, man, he makes brilliant throws to pull off that victory in the Superdome against the saints. And then he loses the next week. And then it's just the same. All we can't win the big one narrative. So I guess until you win a Superbowl, it's just always going to be,

you can't win the big one. And we kind of, you know, see the, the NBA slander whenever any team other than the champions goes on. So Kirk cousins, give the guy a little bit of a break, Minnesota fans. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see the best of Kirk here in the year 2021. Well, I just did a piece where I looked at his progression statistically for every single season because he said he went back and watched the tape. So I thought, well, let me go back and see what the stats say. One thing that I think drives everybody crazy is the cumulative stats that you just named

all look spectacular. Whether it's box score stats, you can sort by QB rating, or you could sort by PFF grade. But if you look at the beginning of the season and where he started out, and this has happened many times, not just the beginning, but at some point during the year, 2018, it was the end. The Kirk coaster is a real thing. I mean, he's, he is like a baseball player who has 15 home runs in April and then two in may and then 12 in June. Like it's really interesting to look at the hot and cold streaks of Kirk cousins and to get them to one in five, he was very much a big part of that.

And then gets them back to six and six. And then by that time, there were too many injuries on the defensive side. So even when he played well, like against new Orleans, they lost. But I think that is probably the biggest frustration is he's sort of this conundrum of man, why do all of his numbers match up with the great quarterbacks, but the win loss record doesn't. And I think that, you know, some people don't even mention that don't mention when lost record, but well, look, when you have a 15 quarterback rating against the Colts, um, that loss is on you. So, you know, and then there's a lot of those with, with cousins. So I wonder what you think of that, just like his general streakiness. Cause I

find it to be kind of fascinating. Yeah. And look, he was, uh, benefited for some garbage time in some of those games for sure uh but at the end of the day man only aaron rogers have more games with three plus passing touchdowns last year i mean he was putting up those numbers the difference was this was the first year really and it was funny before last year like they asked mike zimmer about the defense because it looked awful on paper and his response was like i've never coached a bad defense i don't plan on starting it sorry mike you have now coached a bad defense and that was the 2020 Vikings I went through last year's best you know just I took the difference between every team's points per game

rank and their points per game allowed rank and the Raiders Titans and the Vikings by far had the largest difference in their offense being really good and their defense being really bad now as opposed to the Raiders and Titans, I'm a little more bullish on the Vikings actually improving that side of the ball. It seemed like as the year went on, they were starting to at least get a little bit more on the same page. I'm not so sure they had the talent. Maybe Patrick Peterson can, you know, reinvent himself. I know he's a little bit older these days, but I don't know.

I'm more confident in Zimmer not having a two year lapse on the defensive side. And I think that is what's going to bring the win-loss back. I mean, the offense wasn't the problem last year. They, you know, what'd they finish? 11th in points per game. They're scoring 27 points per game. That should be enough to win. You can't have a bottom four defense and points per game allowed again.

So hopefully Kirk brings that same, you know, same mojo, hopefully a little bit more in the first half of games, as opposed to when they get down a little bit uh brings that back in 2021 better defense i think we'll see uh the wins and losses uh turn around a little bit and one of my findings in the statistical piece was look you can throw in the first quarter and you could throw in the second quarter you don't have to wait it's 2021 that 2021 you don't have to wait till you're down and that's really what they did last year i think he threw um like for a thousand more yards in the second half or something, which is somewhat being down,

but it's also like not trying to throw even in close situations. When I searched it, the second half was much more throw heavy than the first. So one more question for you, then I got a quick little trivia thing for you. So the Vikings on their schedule play Justin Fields, potentially Trey Lance, and then even Justin Herbert, who is the, probably the focus of some intrigue in the fantasy world as well, going into his second season.

There's a lot of situations, including Jordan love where we just don't really know who they're going to be facing and what it's going to look like. Um, one of the things that I like sort of in a Vegas like fashion with fantasy, I feel like just the thought process is different from a journalistic thought process. So I feel like you'll have different takes on this than maybe we would journalistically, which is, I guess we'll wait and see. Right. But it's your job to try and project how these things are going to play out.

So how are you doing that with some of these quarterback situations that are really unclear? Well, last week I put 25 bucks on the Vikings to win the Superbowl at plus 38, 50 odds, man. If Rogers leaves like, yeah, there should absolutely be the major favorites to win this division. And as great as you know, Brady and the bucks look, they deserve to be the favorites. I get it. I don't know, man i feel like the nfc could be a little bit more down as a whole there is the uncertainty uh going around with uh some of these quarterback situations i don't think jordan love

as much as some of these reporters want to you know make the biggest of deal about every single practice completion uh he throws these days i just i'm not sure like if you're a rookie quarterback and you're not and he's essentially a, not having played a single regular season snap last year. I mean, we just don't have a track record of these guys not having a rushing floor being a fancy factor. So I guess the one situation I'm really keeping an eye on is new Orleans because like as much as people love Alvin Kamara, he, we have eight games of evidence with him without Drew Brees over the past two years. And he has been much more of a borderline RB1. So this is like my take that's getting the most grief around the industry. And I have Alvin Kamara RB7. I'm not down on the guy per se,

but we can't just assume he's going to be this top three perennial RB that he's been without someone like Drew Brees just feeding him checkdowns throughout the course of the entire game. I mean, we have multiple finishes of him outside the top 35 in that eight-game stretch where it was either Teddy, who would check the ball down, but the offense wouldn't score points, so we lost the touchdown equity, or Taysom, who runs like, you know, he's freaking got his, I don't know, some adjective that's probably a little mean to say to Taysom, but man, like he's just running around all the time back there. He seems like he never has a plan.

So hopefully Jameis wins the job, but the more it looks like man we really think jamis wins that job and tasting just sits on the bench it seems like we could be trending towards one of the first true two qb offenses that we've seen so it's not great for kamara michael thomas credit to him for overcoming this uh just three different quarterbacks none of which have arm strength over the past two years and he still gets slandered all the time for it so not great for him uh just necessarily having more taste in under center but that would be the one situation i'm most uh kind of zero it on because kamara and thomas being the perennial wide receiver one rb1 that we've known them as over the past few years like this is different people and we can't be all that confident that the saints

offense is going to keep being a top 10, top 12 scoring unit. So I say Saints, and then just the 49ers as well. We talked a little bit about these mobile QBs, but we see what Lamar Jackson, what Taysom, Jalen Hurts a little bit. Trey Lance could be the next one where when you have a quarterback that's rushing 150 times in a year, it's tough for the running backs and the pass catchers to really get around that. So Trey Lance, if he gets under center,

he's going to instantly be a QB one and fantasy lamb. The problem is if he's having some of these, you know, Kirk Cousins asked like 2025 pass attempt games where they're just able to run the ball. It's not going to be good for Kittle, I look Debo and really like the, the difference that historically, even though at rushing QBs, we tend to see the running backs average more yards per carry makes sense. You're running read options. Defensive ends have to respect to see the running backs average more yards per carry. Makes sense. You're running read options.

Defensive ends have to respect the threat more. They average more yards per carry, but the lack of targets and the total rush attempts that you lose just doesn't equal out. So I would just say, you know, in these QB competitions, really keep an eye on guys like Trey Lance, Taysom Hill, because if they win that job, they're going to be a great fantasy asset, but it's really going to hurt everybody else involved once upon a time way back in football history buddy ryan had ron jawarski play first and second down and randall cunningham play third down that was the thing that really happened in the national league back in the day i think that was when cunningham was a rookie because he knew that uh cunningham might be able to run around if you look if, if you pull it up, you have your computer there, do this,

because your mind's going to blow up right on the Zoom call. Look at Randall Cunningham's sack number from like his second or third season. And this is when they were asking him to do this, only play on third down. It's so insane. Whoa, 72? Bro, that's 72 sacks and 209 pass attempts oh my god randall oh no bro he took the most sacks three years in a row yeah yeah it was a tough situation he didn't play in a real offense until like his eighth year in the nfl when i think john gruden came in

um a very young john Gruden is their quarterback coach. But anyway, so that's a funny little Randy, but 72 sacks and he only dropped back like 300 times. Okay. Before we wrap up, here's what I want from you. So you are 28 years old, which means that you were just coming into your, I love football prime in 2004, the number one fantasy quarterback with PPR scoring. This is, I'm taking this for football reference was Dante call pepper, the Minnesota Vikings, 2004. How many of the top 10 can you name from 2004? And I'm, I know I'm catching on the spot here.

So I can give you hints if you struggle a little bit. Okay. Let's see was i i pulled up this just a standing so i can look at the teams trying to get the quarterbacks was bledsoe uh drew bledsoe was not on that i think that's i think that bledsoe was kind of washed by 04 all right we got peyton there's an easy one peyton is number two correct was the titans were bad that year thomason for sure okay yep he's number four because larry johnson did he take over for holmes yet that wasn't quite yet no so priest holmes uh not priest holmes either he was probably hurt this year sean alexander uh sean alexander is correct yeah we had 1700 yards rushing that year i might have one you're

missing you're missing the number one running back i don't know who did the age 29 actually is ed james edgar and james in that group uh edgar james is yep he was nine okay marshall falk marshall falk not a little late not there a little late yep so there's one amazing ryan westbrook you're oh that's a good guess uh but he is 18th so that's that's a good guess though he's right there clinton portis clinton portis is another good guess but no so uh one of these guys played for the houston texans dominic davis you are like williams dominic williams nailed it yep hey i guess seven yep he ran for over 1100 yards that year 3.9 yards carry but got 68 catches so you only need the number one running back and two wide receivers you're

doing you're doing amazingly well here since i just tossed this at you. Two wide receivers. Terrell Owens had the 15 tutties. Marvin Harrison? So Terrell Owens was 16th. Marvin Harrison was 14th. Oh, wow. Two wide receivers. Because Owens only had 77 catches. Oh, right.

So you'll never get one of them. You may never get either. And it's one of the reasons I like him. Was that the Brandon Lloyd year? No. It's a great guess. No moose and muhammad oh moose had the 16 tonnies that year that's right and uh this guy's son just got drafted one of the top draft picks maybe mildly controversial oh my gosh top 10 um oh my god why am i blanking on this one that'd be joe horn joe horn oh the cell phone og okay and the and the the running back was tiki barber was the number oh tiki there you go bro oh i should have got tiki so there you go how about that stretch from tiki in those early 2000s

man and then he just retires and they won the Super Bowl the next year with Brandon Jacobs and company. In this season, he had 1,500 yards rushing, 4.7 yards per rush, and 11 yards a catch. Was that before or after he figured out how to hold on to the football? That would be after, yeah. You're right. His stretch after age 25 is one of the best, I think,

for any running back in history after age 25. Bro, he was a starting running back for like seven years. And then he's like coming into a new season and he goes, Hey, you know, I've talked to the coach and I'm going to start holding the ball high and tight. And that might like help with the fumble thing. It's like, Hey, yeah, man, like, you know, try that. You think maybe, maybe. I'll never forget him because he said Eli wasn't a good leader.

And then he went and won the super bowl and beat Tom Brady. So. this um I love uh SB Nation's like YouTube channel I forget what they call it specifically but they do these like beef history these like 15 minute videos and the Tiki Barber one is fantastic man just pulling up these like not a single Giants player seemed like they ever missed uh Tiki being there but hey hell of a 2004 season. I think also you said Cole pepper was the QB one. Cole pepper is the last fancy quarterback to repeat as a QB one in a consecutive years. I believe he got an Oh three Oh four. So, you know, it's a shame the Miami years didn't work out, but man, Dante, when he was when he was slinging it in purple, really fun to watch.

That's his career in Minnesota ended as only a quarterback's can with a knee injury so that's how it goes yeah ian harditz you are the best at this i think i i love your perspective i love how well researched you are um i can literally throw out anyone including dante call pepper and you've got something for it so i love that um so make sure people check out your work is it just at ian harditz have you changed have you gone pff harditz no i i haven't gotten the ass to go pff and yeah it's at i harditz i h a r t i t z it was funny when i got suspended uh from posting like nfo game clips a few years ago uh had a buddy asking for help and someone's response was like i don't know maybe have your handle like less resembled a porn name so i'm'm like, all right, fair. Okay. Touche, touche. But yeah,

at iHeartist you can catch the PFF fantasy football podcast. Matthew, I'm sure I'll try to get you back on there before the season starts. Always been bringing the heat. So I'm not sure if I gave you a Jefferson Julio level quote out of here, but good talking to you always my friend and you know, best of luck in the rest of the off season. Yep. We'll do it again soon, man. Sounds good, brother.