Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Projecting Justin Jefferson's numbers with JJ McCarthy

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Matthew Coller is joined by Mike Schopp of The Deep End Podcast to discuss the fantasy projections of Justin Jefferson with JJ McCarthy throwing to him. Plus, other fantasy insights after a busy offseason.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Coller here and joining me on the show. It has been a little while. The resident fantasy football expert of our show from WGR 550 in Buffalo, ADP chasing and the deep end fantasy football podcast. I still remember Mike Shope. Welcome back to the show, my friend. We are officially entering fantasy draft season, so it must be an exciting time for you. There is no, just like with the NFL itself, there's really no discontinuation of fantasy draft season. We're drafting for next year before the Super Bowl is played. Then we have our

for next year before the Super Bowl is played. Then we have our ubiquitous never too early tournaments that lead up to the draft. And then how could you draft before the real draft? Well, you just use the information you have. And then once the NFL draft happens, then it's like really on. You get best ball mania six on underdog this year, and there are just countless tournaments over there.

FFPC has some big ones. The main event is open as of this week for $2 million first prize or $1 million dollars first prize. I think it is $2,000 entry and DraftKings has its legions. So, um, I'm, uh, very well, you'll, you'll tell me at the end, if this proves to be true, uh, well versed in the fantasy streets so far in 2025. Hopefully. Well, you and I got into a draft right after the Super Bowl, I think, and we had like 24 hours to make each pick and eventually by the end I did lose track of it and then it just

started drafting completely random players, but I am excited to be back in the underdog world. After a tough first season for me, I finished second in one league, and I was very thrilled by that. Thank you, Sam Darnold, as my last pick in that draft that pushed me to the top. But a new quarterback, a new sheriff in town for the Minnesota Vikings, J.J. McCarthy. Of course, I want to get your attempt at a projection on JJ McCarthy, but let's talk about Justin Jefferson because Justin Jefferson has gotten to the point where I felt like Larry

Fitzgerald was this way for a while there. The Arizona Cardinals were throwing out like John Skelton and Ryan Lindley or whatever and Larry Fitzgerald would still get like a hundred catches it didn't matter. Do you think that he still deserves to be the top fantasy football wide receiver maybe only behind Jamar Chase or with a quarterback that's never played before are we a little bit more hesitant on projecting his numbers? My shorter my shorter answer is yes. I'm not worried about Jefferson really at all for these, for these types of things.

I mean, what kind of concerns would Jamar chase give you right now? Very few, if any, it's got the quarterback. It's proven he's young. Like with all the attention he got before he still won, he led the league in everything and T Higgins is back. So Jamar Chase is, you know, one of like Jefferson and even CD lamb a number of guys where you can see just an outrageous ceiling. But with Chase, you feel like, you know, it's there and Jefferson. I mean for a guy who's still only 25.

He's been through a lot at that position, you mean, for a guy who's still only 25, he's been through a lot at that position, you know, for only being, playing for one team so far. Who knows at the end of it all, how many quarterbacks Justin Jefferson will have racked up, so to speak. But I'm not worried about it. I like McCarthy enough, intelligence and that coach for me to feel really good about that Jefferson will not be a decoy of any to any extent

in that offense. So I think I'm getting what I've been getting. He goes between three and six in most underdog drafts. Once in a while you see a 102. I don't think I've seen a 101. And I don't think I've seen anything lower than six. You've got Chase, Barclay, Bijon Robinson, Jefferson, Gibbs, Lamb. That's kind of your top six. It'll be interesting to see if Ashton Gentry

breaks through that ceiling or even Christian McCaffrey. And after that, you've got six or eight receivers that everybody likes. But Jefferson is still looked at as a tier above Pukka Nakua, Malik neighbors, I mean, very good players. And I think that's just, again, a general confidence that he's quarterback proof, so to speak. And if you like McCarthy, who's quarterback 20 in underdog rankings, not terrible for a guy who's never taken a snap in the league,

then you're going to like Jefferson even more. I'm curious about how Jefferson's numbers change a little bit. I mean, so far in his career, they kind of haven't like he's usually averages about 14 or 15 yards per catch. He gets a million targets and it shifted a little bit. I mean in 2022 they were playing every single game was a shootout to the very last moment the best and he's racking up more stats, right?

That's the dream is the quarterback throwing 700 passes because you have to try to win every game in the last moments. That was not so much the case last year where the Vikings in the beginning of the season was not so much the case last year where the Vikings in the beginning of the season got off to so many leads they were handing it off a lot and there were full games where teams took two or sometimes three players and tried to cover Justin Jefferson and then Jordan Addison or TJ Hockinson went off especially the game in Chicago where it was just almost comedy to watch the film back and watch them just throw everyone at Justin Jefferson and then get smoked by all the other players.

I assume that that's still going to be the case. Kevin O'Connell is very much ready for that with his offense. And that's a good point that O'Connell has built this entire ship around throwing the football to Justin Jefferson. Just like was the case with Cooper Cup in Los Angeles. They're not going to be like, oh, well, you know, let him be double covered so we could throw underneath to the running back or something like that. At the same time, I think JJ McCarthy is going to profile a little differently

as a quarterback than Sam Darnold did. Sam Darnold did one thing super duper well, and that was whip that ball 40 yards down the field and they would hunt deep plays all the time with him when Cousins was the quarterback there was a lot more action going on underneath a lot more to TJ Hawkinson and a lot more short stuff to Justin Jefferson I think that his numbers for actual receptions could go up it's already very high could go up because I think McCarthy sees the underneath area of the field and is a little more comfortable with it than Sam Darnold, who was constantly

just looking downfield. And he doesn't want to take Jefferson out of the, you know, out of the rotation. He doesn't want to he doesn't want to reduce Jefferson's volume. So that would be the logical result, I think. Maybe it's good for Aaron Jones, who we're kind of all sleeping on. They signed Jordan Mason to an interesting contract and these older running backs and fantasy,

nobody ever wants, but last year, if you didn't want them, you got killed because a lot of them did so well. But yeah, I think you'll know better than I what McCarthy's sort of profile is as a passer and what they want to get out of him. I know you're out at these practices all the time, trying to get a read on that, among other things. But Jefferson, if you have a if you have a Sigmund Bloom football guys, one of the one of the goats would say the law of optimal coaching doesn't apply. And I think on Minnesota, maybe at the very top of the list when it comes to the NFL, we think it does. They're going to do what we would

do. Right? That's not to say we would always make optimal decisions, but certainly from a fantasy standpoint, you want to be able to trust that Justin Jefferson will get fed, you know, 10 or more targets a game. And the Ram comparison is a good one because Sean McVay carries the same sort of clout, uh, not when it comes to fourth down stuff where he's terrible. But in terms of getting guys open and doing all that, like he's one of the best too, and you want to be able to trust Puka in this case or Cup in the past. So, um, I think it all. It's there's enough there to feel good about Jefferson with the quarterback change in a landscape where

Puka, Lamb, Chase offer you more sort of what you think is known. It's never really known in football because of all the randomness and injuries but I I feel like Jefferson sort of overcomes that kind of scrutiny. So we are going on quarterback. I think this will be the fourth quarterback. I don't count Josh Dobbs. He was hurt during Dobbs and then Dobbs threw him one pass against the Raiders and got him hurt.

And so he really never played with Josh Dobbs. But with every single one of these quarterbacks, he succeeded, which I think that Justin Jefferson might be the least interesting wide receiver who has ever risen to this caliber of success. And I mean that as a compliment, as in he doesn't have these ups and downs with different quarterbacks. He doesn't have meltdowns out on the field. He doesn't have off field sort of stuff. He you just don't see even in weeks where it's tough for him.

You could see his frustration growing, but then he'll lay a key block or something to help spring a screen pass and win a game. I feel like I've never come across a wide receiver because it's a position that you can run 35 routes in a game and get two footballs and that's got to be really frustrating. I feel like I've never seen a receiver be able to work his way through the ups and downs of that position, work his way through other quarterbacks, work his way through multiple coaches now to be as consistent as he has been.

Yeah, I mean he is sort of a not fitting exactly with the positional stereotype in that in that way. Like he's not a two technique defensive tackle that you just never even think about. But I think that's all to his credit. I mean, the Vikings have had enough success, where he really hasn't been challenged so much in that way, where you're a star, the team is losing. Why? And that would be something this year that would manifest. I think if it doesn't go well, I'm not predicting that it won't. They won 14 games last year, though.

So the bar is pretty high. But I know in fantasy, we all still love the player. Bottom line. The football power index from ESPN does not love the Vikings as much as some other folks. Sometimes I've gotten to the point where with all projections, I'm like, is every single projection outside of two or three teams,

8.7 wins? That's kind of what it feels like. But let's talk about running backs and Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason are the Vikings backfield, but let's expand this out into the bigger conversation. I am interested in your opinion of Jones and Mason as a backfield, but the running back position last year just smoked you. You were thinking, oh, I'll just wait on running backs. These old guys, they can't do it anymore. But you know what? Sometimes guys in their late twenties find it or find the best offen

a quarterback who's also the running back as well. year for running backs la Aaron Jones, who if you h the season was going to s in touches. I don't like, way he makes it through 17 it's a fascinating landscape going

into this year. Exactly. One thing I would say to preface this about last year is you are all over. Just don't bet on Ty Chandler. And you know, in fantasy, you're looking for those those back doors, you're looking for those. Mason is this for the Vikings this year, but he got paid. Like, I'm not sure it's the best example. Guys where if there's your one injury away from a potential bell cow roll. And at the running pack position, we sort of know that that backup can be about as

productive as the starter, no matter who, how good the starter is, whereas a wide receiver that never will happen. If Jefferson goes out, whoever replaces him is not doing anything. So that's sort of the running back mantra, I guess. It's a matter of staying healthy and the bet is that they don't. And last year they did.

That was mostly Jones, that was quintessentially again, James Connor in Arizona. That was Camara. That was Mixon. Of course that was Barkley. Of course that was Derek Henry. And, you know, historically you just don't expect older running backs to stay, to be so durable and then productive.

And the combination of the teams that Barclay and Henry went to and even Mixon going to a new team and they were a little bit dysfunctional but it didn't get your crushed. Josh Jacobs, another name for this, you know, new team in Green Bay and he did great. So it's a different year. Every year is some part reacting to last year. And I think so far this year, I was kind of hoping that drafters would be more in love, infatuated with last year and want to sort of double down on that happening. Like Henry, for one, who I never draft and it hasn't exactly worked out for me, but Henry goes in the second round, early to mid second round. And if like, for one example, if I thought maybe the market was

more sort of obsessed with last year, like last year meant something had changed, then Henry would be a first round pick. Like, why would you not do that? He's Derek Henry, it's Baltimore, et cetera. But that's not really happening. So I don't know, I think it's sort of a, it's a good sign, I think, for the efficiency of the market, which is not good if you're trying to win.

I think everybody's more sophisticated than ever for a combination of reasons. There's so much good content, much of it is free. The sites, starting with Underdog, I mean, leading the way easily, are just so easy to use and fun and affordable. I mean, I'm in some $3 drafts right now, the Schnauzer. So there's that.

And really just fans, I think, Matthew, overall have become more sophisticated, partly due to the likes of yourself, where you're offering football content in a way. I mean, you wrote the the likes of yourself, where you're offering football content in a way. I mean, you wrote the book on PFF, literally, you're offering content in a way that's more data driven. And I think young people relate to that. And that's who's playing most of who's playing fantasy football. So all of it together makes winning harder. Yeah. And just tying that with the running back position.

I also think that folks are probably smart enough to not overreact too much to last year. That there were a few examples that popped. But if you take out those couple examples, if it's aside from a historic season from Saquon Barkley, you know, Derek Henry doing it into his age, we get a lot of the same results that usually pop up. There's, you know, there's guys that get injured or situation, offensive line, how the offensive works out dictates the player success, maybe more than the actual player.

So I think that most people will probably stay the course on this. I would be a little bit nervous about drafting someone like Saquon Barkley because of what happened to Christian McCaffrey and maybe that's not fair, but McCaffrey got all that workload went to the Super Bowl and then it's injured the very next season and Barkley is not without an injury rap sheet. I mean, he has been banged up throughout his career and it was one of the things that I thought going into last year, like,

oh, well, you know, that's a good pickup for Philly, but he kind of gets banged up a lot and we'll see. And then of course he has, you know, a historic season there. What are we supposed to make of McCaffrey though this year? Because I was looking at some fantasy rankings that had him fourth ahead of Ashton Genty, but Ashton Genti is, you know, brand new, fresh, and also the running back who is clearly going to be leaned on no matter what, like hell or high water, they're going to give Ashton Genti the football. You don't draft a guy that high and then be like, you know, I don't know,

we'll see. So that comparison, those two being back to back in this list I'm looking at really popped to me because McCaffrey seems super risky and Gentie seems like the most obvious this guy's going to get a million yards player. Yeah it's a really good one. You don't draft a running back that early and not lean into them unless you're Atlanta and then you sort of give Tyler Algier half the work. give Tyler Algier half the work. You know, the way I do it in a vacuum, I would always draft Gentie over McCaffrey because of the age. And I like the Raiders setup. You don't have to, but Pete Carroll, Chip Kelly, Geno Smith, let's go. I feel like that could be really good. And they should do what you said. And I think they probably will, which is give Gentie the lion's share of the work. So great. McCaffrey has had the same situation in his career. If he's healthy, then there's certainly a scenario where he puts down another

great season. If that's a big if, it always is even for a rookie, you know, Brice Hall went out his rookie year with an ACL and you just wouldn't, you can't know, but on ADP chasing yesterday, we talked about McCaffrey quite a lot because my guys think that really we did Gentie the same way the week before that both are a little bit. They're probably going to rise in drafts. They've been going late first, early second, especially McCaffrey. Gentie's been going above McCaffrey. But McCaffrey is like late second.

And even today, I was in a few and I noticed him going up. Those guys have a lot of power in moving the markets from time to time. But they kind of think in general, Pat Corrine, I'm thinking of mostly that McCaffrey is going to become more expensive and it's easy to understand why. I mean, it's San Francisco with Purdy signed and Kittle is there. Ayuk eventually comes back.

It's the Niners. But I'm excited about the Raider thing and I would put, if I did rankings, Gentie would be above McCaffrey for me. He'd come closer to Gibbs than he would to McCaffrey because as good as Gibbs was, they lose Ben Johnson. And I don't know, like as good as he was and is, Montgomery still there. I'm a little bit, not worried,

but just a little bit less sure that he can have the same year, which is to say what I mean, he was like the most consistently great running back in fantasy last year. So Gibbs comes in just above Gentie for me and then McCaffrey would be I guess that's what running back five. offensive line, they did lose Kevin Zeitler, who was one of the better run blockers in the entire league last year. And I was surprised that they didn't find a way to keep him or I don't know, maybe he didn't want to stay, but, uh, that was, I think a big loss for them. I also feel like play caller and running back are so tied together. I mean, when Gary Kubiak is here with the Vikings, like, you know, that they're running for a million yards and that the run scheme is going to be great.

And we kind of go through this all the time with Kevin O'Connell of is there enough of a commitment to the run with him to ever put up these big numbers? And I did want to circle back on Jordan Mason because last year and we'll see how things play out. Last year I was very very tentative on Ty Chandler because I thought I'm not sure that they're gonna trust him. They tend to lean into their veterans. They play on the defensive side. They play Harrison Smith every single snap despite what they say in the offseason. And so they did that with Aaron Jones until they went out and got Cam Akers. But I think that they really wanted Jordan Mason like they targeted him. They traded something for him.

They paid him extra money. And he averaged five yards to carry and smoked the Vikings last year, when they played against them, which is always one of the fun things, right? When a team gets beat up by a guy, but he was good against everybody. And Aaron Jones, I know that the Vikings do everything with him. It's like a bionic man situation or whatever with him to get him on the field. But I do think they want to mix and match those guys, especially when it comes to short yardage and goal line, which would be important for the fantasy folks last year.

You could I mean, Jerome Bettis can't what's Iron Head Heyward Bo Jackson. None of those guys could have gotten the end zone for the Vikings last year. The offensive line was so bad at getting a push in short yardage. Nobody was getting into the end zone. Frigida or Perry would have been stuffed in the backfield. I mean, there's just no way it's happening this year. They went out and got Mason and three new interior offensive linemen to be able to score in those situations.

So I think Mason's going to be, uh, that guy. So, uh, I wanted to ask about players who are on new teams that have caught your eye that now anytime a situation changes, it becomes very interesting. So I wanted to begin that discussion with Debo Samuel because he is on the Viking schedule this year. They play against Washington. I, I always wondered what to think about Debo Samuel just in general. Like we love this guy. We always love this guy. Like Percy Harvin is this guy.

Hey, he lines up in the backfield. It's so exciting. He does all this different stuff, but Samuel was never a great route runner, a great, like you're not going to run him 40 yards down the field and he just goes past somebody and you throw him a deep ball. And I wonder with the years that have been put on that body, if he's that same guy, because he's got kind of running back years to him, maybe a little bit more than any other wide receiver. Like, did you ever see the clip of Tyler Lockett put together where he would catch the ball and just fall down and make sure he was never hit? Well, that's not Debo Samuel. He's the exact opposite. He's a pinball.

So I'm a little bit skeptical on that. I like that move for them as an idea. But I don't know if I love Debo Samuel there as in a guy who's going to be their wide receiver two and get a million catches or if he's going to be on the field. Yeah, I'm mostly with you. I think about the mileage on Samuel, the wear and tear. I feel like with San Francisco, again, like you said,

everybody loves Debo Samuel and he's been great. But what do you see if you close your eyes and picture Debo Samuel playing for San Francisco, it's something over the middle or in the backfield. And then like, there's nobody else on the screen and he runs for 50 yards. Like, it's just sort of, it's, it's the Niners. They're just able, he's a witch to sort of open space up for anybody. Um, and I don't know if that's Cliff Kingsbury. It's probably worth respecting. I mean,

they traded for him. He's not cheap. And they really just do not have anybody that sort of comes to mind as a number two guy as a pass catcher, even like Zach Ertz, if you include tight ends, is ancient. So there's a chance. I mean, if Samuel, they should scheme him up and it's Jane Daniels. So, and Kingsbury isn't, you know, the worst. Like if, if he's able to hang in there physically, then there's a good season in there. I don't know if it's great. I get a little bit confused by Washington in drafts because Daniels is a fourth round pick. And that's not confusing. Like the running, how great he was right out of the box last year. But McLaurin goes before that. And if you don't get McLaurin and Daniels and they kind

of go on other sides of the draft board, then what do you do? It's me if it's Debo or bust kinda because you want to have some correlation to win these big tournaments and Debo is not an easy click for me. So that ends up leading to Daniel's not being on many of my teams, which I don't like. So I mean,

the running back thing is the same. I think Samuel is a fine pick where he goes. Is that like round seven or eight? Maybe not looking at it. I don't think there's anything bad about that, but I doubt that there's like a really special year there. And I'm a little bit curious about Cliff Kingsbury just in general because last year they had a good second half of the season.

They went to the NFC Championship. So we just went. Oh, it was all fake like all the Clif Kingsbury stuff. It was just wrong, right? And I don't know if we need to throw out all of the reputation that he built in Arizona just because they were able to win some games down the stretch. I mean, I think Jaden Daniels might be so good that he just

transcends any offensive coordinator no matter what is out there kind of in Josh Allen like fashion, like it doesn't really matter who it is. But I also do wonder about like just in terms of how that ball gets distributed the passing game in general, it became a little bit repetitive in Arizona when Deandre Hopkins was there. So does it pump the ball to the number one over and over and over? Like, is that what the offense is supposed to be? And then Debo Samuel is left kind of unhappy,

or is it going to be that Debo Samuel is so much of an underneath wide receiver that they want to get the ball out quickly and they don't want to get Jayden Daniels hit too often. Like they were doing a lot of that last year. So I guess I could go either way on that. I'm just with him. He always seems like he's playing banged up. It's like limited in practice. Debo Samuel is something you see every single week.

Almost it is interesting. Always, I mean, fascinating how the narratives shift as guys move around and, you know, seasons come and go. Because in Arizona, Kingsbury was just like a punchline. And you had Kyler Murray kind of screaming at him on the sideline and just, it looked so bad. And then he leaves, falls into Daniels, and that happens, NFC championship,

offensive rookie of the year, all of that. And Murray is kind of still Murray. I think where it just feels like everything is, is just such hard work. Um, and the Al in comparison with Daniel's is the one I was thinking of too, because in talking about this every day in Buffalo, like I do. When Brian Dable became the offensive coordinator and like, okay, well, he's a name, but what does he ever, like, has he ever had a good offense that didn't have Tom Brady?

Like what, where's the, where's the one year where his offense like really popped and they didn't have one of the best ever notice. I didn't say the best. Uh, so that made me skeptical of Dable, but Alan happened and what Dable not to sell him short But really what I think he did right the most was use play action use motion use the cheat code stuff That coaches are sometimes sort of like not on board with Because you know they want to establish the run or something and that helped elevate the Bills offense to the very top So I don't know if Kingsbury is exactly that

Daniels it was a player and a team. I didn't end up seeing a lot Washington, but it had to be amazing. What I did was great, spectacular. And it just wasn't a team that I really feel like I have got the best handle on Washington. But you know, again, I think Samuel is fine where he goes. Just a little aside, I think Samuel is fine where he goes. Just a little aside.

I think the best thing in sports for sports fans is when that great player truly great player starts to ascend is that person that gets the most excited because they don't have the true expectations yet because once you get there now, it's well, if you're not in the NFC Championship next year, then you've disappointed everyone. We kind of went through that with Anthony Edwards a little bit here with the Timberwolves where watching him ascend last year

was the most fun anybody had. But now that they're down 3-1 in the Western Conference final, well now it's well, Anthony Edwards isn't doing enough. And look, I mean, there's a very short window and we'll see if we have this with JJ McCarthy a very short window of just purely being ecstatic about somebody taking that step which must have been what it

was like for Washington fans to see him. Jade Daniels last year. How about you know, the quarterback position is really dominated by hey, this guy was drafted last year. What's he's going to be, you know, and we're talking about Jaden Daniels, but this is Caleb Williams. This is Michael Pennex. This is JJ McCarthy. There's really not a lot of hey, this quarterback is brand new

with this team. I was looking through the list going like is there who like Justin Fields with the Jets is new with the team is he the most interesting new guy on a team? As long as Aaron Rodgers stays retired or whatever. I mean, even then, is that that interesting? Probably not. So to me, it's all about that 2024 draft class

and even Bo Nix had a good second half of the year. Gotta respect Bo for sneaking four touchdown passes against the Kansas City Chiefs who are playing their starters to help his stats a little bit. But where do you stand on what to do with the 2024 draft class guys? Yeah, it's a good point. Nick's ended up that Chiefs game merchant that he is with more passing yards, touchdown passes and a better completion percentage than Josh Allen,

who I think won the MVP. So I don't know what the voters were thinking. But, you know, yes, a lot of teams are really, they're sort of like locked in on their guys right now. I mean, Drake May, another one from last year that really wasn't that successful, but you can't find anybody who doesn't really like Drake May. Like they're just, they're not, I don't know. I mean, maybe, sure. Athlete,

okay. I don't disagree, but everybody's on board there. And what did he do? So you have them, him and the other, you know, Knicks you got to as well, six guys from last year. I think for new team, Geno Smith again is my favorite this year because as almost shocking as his return to a starting position in the league was with the success he had, like nobody was really expecting Geno Smith to be so good. I still don't think he got enough credit. I mean, he was the most accurate

passer in the league and if he fits right with Chip Kelly and you've got Bowers who was third in the NFL last year in in receptions as a rookie tight end chasing Jefferson above him that's it. If you got that guy Myers is fine right He's pretty reliable and shorter stuff. You can get a year out of Jacoby Myers and Gentie pops, then you could have a really interesting thing there, which we have not seen from the Raiders in a long time. So Caleb Williams is the one from last year. McCarthy, sure, he didn't play at all, but he's got the right coach. And you want to think now that Williams does too

Maybe Vikings fans don't want to think this but the league wants to think that no more excuses for Caleb Williams and we'll see because a lot of his speaking of Fields a lot of his metrics when it came to sacks and you know getting rid of the ball were the absolute worst in the league and That was Fields like Fields thing is he just doesn't sort of get there fast enough. And I don't know, that could be Caleb Williams too. It was as a rookie, you got to be real about that. And there are excuses to be made for him, but maybe not anymore.

So, and you know, you could get a big jump from him and still have people go, yeah, but he was not the first, it shouldn't have been the first overall pick, I mean, cause Daniel set such a high bar last year. So that that'll be a really interesting one. Maybe right at the top of the list this year is Chicago. They, they provided him last year as a rookie, the so-called best setup ever for a 101 with DJ Moore, Odunze, Keenan Allen, Komet even, Swift even, and it was a disaster with their coaches. You know, they had the book now with Caleb Williams where he didn't want to go to Chicago

and maybe Minnesota, and you know, he was right. The setup was really just not ideal for him from a coaching standpoint. No excuses anymore. Yeah. Uh, well, there's a lot of things, uh, that Minnesota has over Chicago, much, uh, more sunny days per year and much better traffic. The traffic in Chicago is an absolute nightmare. So I get it. Oh, and the coach, the coach is way better.

And the top receiver is way better and probably the second receiver too. So, uh, you know, no, I get it it with that was actually not the part of the whole thing that was concerning to me. It was sort of obvious that everyone would rather play for Kevin O'Connell than Matt Eberfluss, and that everyone would rather have Justin Jefferson than any other person on earth to catch the football for you. It was really all the stuff about one that you would even tell anyone that I don't know why you would say that out loud.

Also, every single number one player, you're never going to believe this, goes to a crappy team. It's shocking. I know. But like Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, you're never going to be the first overall pick in the draft and just get to play for Kyle Shanahan's 49ers and in their peak, right? But I thought it was the stuff about the film because that just sounded like excuse making to me. And that's where that always sets off red flags when it's almost like the guy or his dad in this case is trying to rationalize why he couldn't play good

at football. And what I wanna see from him, and this is an interesting thing. Do you think that it can be taught to see the field because I mean, Sam Darnold saw the field better last year than he ever did before because of everything he had around him and that was always my Sam Darnold things. Like I don't think he sees the field very well, but Caleb Williams is shorter than Sam Darnold by a lot and and he was just ducking his eyes,

bringing his eyes down. It didn't look like he saw anything. And when I watched the film back of the two games against the Vikings, he made some spectacular plays. You're like, dude, there's it's right there. Like Keenan Allen is right there wide open and you're not seeing him. That to me is all very very hard thing to fix. Yeah, I don't I don't know. Like that, that could be right.

And maybe it's a little bit of not by scouts, probably, but fantasy, you know, maybe it's a trait that we sort of take for granted. We let the draft capital be our guide and, um, you know, look at the talent. It should work. And there were definitely a lot of believers in Caleb Williams as a fantasy quarterback last year, and that did not work out. So, you know, he still has a lot to prove, that's saying the least.

I think if you're drafting him in fantasy, you're saying, I'm just rolling these dice. I'm not playing this safe, I'm just going for it. You're betting on Ben Johnson, right? Like you're betting on, I don't even know if I got to it before talking about their surrounding talent. What do they do this year? They just double down. They went Colton Loveland as another tight end. They have Komet. So in over him. And then Luther

Burden early in the second round. What they didn't do ever is get to a running back to probably replace DeAndre Swift, which is interesting because Swift, this also we got into on ADP chasing yesterday, has been a guy where the discourse has been around whether his coaches really like him or his coaches trust him. He wants to turn everything into a touchdown and won't just sort of take the five yards. So here you have a new coach there who's gonna be able to, he's gonna have the authority to put a stamp on everything and he had Swift in Detroit and they didn't do anything there.

They reportedly wanted to. It was the Patriots pick of Trevion Henderson and the Bears were in that mix. But the bottom line is they didn't, which makes Swift an interesting choice in fantasy. And I mean, nobody's ever really liked DeAndre Swift, but he's picked 81. And you can get a running back on that offense who probably is, you know, not three downs necessarily, but on the field a lot.

That's a pretty good deal, I think. I think I would be looking at, is itashaun Johnson is there back up a little bit really late because no one's going to pick them. But Deandre Swift always gets benched by everyone, whoever has him. And there was one there's been a few games where Deandre Swift destroyed the Minnesota Vikings. He has he's really quick and really physically gifted and can catch the ball out of the backfield. But it's the Ty Chandler thing where if the coaches don't trust you, you're not going to play and you could see Ben Johnson getting frustrated there and then trying somebody else and going to Rashawn Johnson, who I thought was a

good prospect, like a middle round guy that sometimes pops, but he had put up really good numbers on that same offense that Bijon Robinson was on. So that maybe that's getting a Bijon Robinson was on. So maybe that's getting a little too deep into the weeds May 28th as we're recording this. No, no, not for my taste. I mean, we talked Roshan Johnson yesterday also. He's a little bit of a riser because the air is clear

in Chicago, no rookie. I mean, there's so many of these rookies, Matthew, that went on Saturday that most analysts really liked. You know, some of these analysts anyway did. They all had their favorites. And a guy like Damian Martinez, who would get mocked at like round three or round four, doesn't go at all, or round seven, whatever he was,

Seattle, and the Bears just never touched it. So Swift and Johnson should be, I mean, they look like pretty good values at this point. They could always just bring in JK Dobbins and then like whoops but that hasn't happened yet. So, just a couple of other things that you touched on. I love the Raiders from a like I can't wait till they're on Red Zone when I have you know, Monday Night Football or Sunday football games and I

get to sit and watch red zone with everybody else I can't wait till the Raiders pop up because I think they're going to be real life fun but not actually great as a football team. Gino Smith is one where the film people always love Gino Smith and then you watch a game like I did last year in Seattle of Gino and then you get it. Like you understand why he's kind of been a Kirk Cousins level quarterback, because there's just these crazed decisions that he makes.

And I think that the crazed decisions that work out, everyone watches back and go, wow, I can't believe you've got that tight window throw in there. But there's enough crazed decisions that don't work out. But that's also what makes him really fun. And I think he's going to put up 4500 yards, he's going to throw like crazy. And that's going to be a very entertaining team. I am very in on Drake May being a great quarterback. Last year, I thought that the setup that he had was probably one of the worst I've ever seen in my life. Like, I mean, okay, the Urban Meyer thing where he's, you know,

physically assaulting kickers and stuff, all right, that's an exception. But Trevor Lawrence didn't even play very well under those circumstances. Drake May had an amateur coach who had never done it before. No wide receivers whatsoever. No running game really to speak of. The offensive line was a comedy act. So now they've got a real head coach who is one before and knows what he's doing. They have completely overhauled the line.

They've brought in wide receivers. Stephon Diggs is apparently dating Cardi B, which I saw on Twitter and I don't know what that means. But I just think that this is one of those. He gets to take the big step with everything around him improving. And I felt like him surviving that alone said a lot to me because I've, we've seen, and Sam Darnold's one of them. We've seen really good quarterbacks, Baker Mayfield under those circumstances, just completely melt. So the fact that he was competing in games and making plays and doing stuff

I was like I'm in I'm interested. Yeah me too Raiders Patriots week one. So you want that red zone game? You're playing Monday night. We're playing Sunday night We both should be able to find that game somewhere Sunday one o'clock In the opener the Raiders have the Monday night game in week two, by the way with the Chargers. Yeah I'm optimistic there, but again, I said before, like I can't find anybody who sort of isn't on May and it scares me a little bit because we just really haven't seen a lot yet. But so dysfunctional last year, this is not to take the players off the hook, but they drafted receivers in rounds two and four

but they drafted receivers in rounds two and four and got nothing. Jalen Polk and Javon Baker, they got nothing there. We still had Kendrick Bourne doing things, Pop Douglas, like this is a K'Shaun Boutte, like there's a list with the Patriots. This year, they brought in Kyle Williams from Washington State in the draft and he had his fans. He kind of came on in the pre-draft discourse. And Diggs, I mean, the Patriots could sort of rank their receiver room a lot of different

ways, but Diggs is a known commodity and Williams is promising. Maybe then a Douglas who's had flashes in the league becomes like relevant fantasy wise is a wide receiver three or something. And then you are, you know, you're cooking a little bit running back, Trevion Henderson, good pass catching option to that helps. I don't think Ramon Dr. Stevenson is dead there. They even also had Antonio Gibson. The Patriots are a tough team.

Ten different people would rank their skill position guys 10 different ways. Probably the answer is always is Hunter Henry for just his kind of high floor production at tight end. But yeah, they should, everybody seems to like not just May, but the Patriots this year to be improved. Okay, so before I end the show by asking you to give me a JJ McCarthy stat line so you

could think about that for a second. What else has been on your mind? I mean, you're discussing this stuff on a daily basis with all the greatest fantasy and projecting minds in the world. What's the big conversation? Tell me it's not Kyle Pitts. I don't want to hear it. It's not Kyle Pitts. I don't want to hear it. It's not Kyle Pitts. But I think and I'm not really the one to say this because I mean, I'm sort of

adjacent to some of these guys who max out tournaments and are really like the full time experts in the field. I'm quasi somewhat that but somewhat a host and I sort of somehow have have a seat at the table. But I think right now what a lot of the top players are trying to figure out and are executing is team structure. So it's more of like a fantasy geek kind of a point. But the best drafters are drafting in the first round with the 12th round in mind, or maybe the 18th,

maybe not the 18th. But what happens to the rest of my team if I draft a running back at pick 10 or a receiver? Do I want the elite tight end in Bowers? Do I want the elite quarterback in Lamar Jackson or Allen? And those decisions have consequences. I mean, you're not gonna need as many quarterbacks or tight ends at the end if you do that,

but I like the tight ends at the end of these drafts and I kind of as much as I like Bowers don't hate drafting Hunter Henry three times at the end or something like so that's really I think where we're at on the calendar is we've got the schedule now and the so-called experts, I don't mean that pejoratively, have figured out all the playoff week matchups. I could tell you week 17. I mean I kind of know it. Isn't it Detroit, Minnesota in week 17? So there's that because that's the big money week. You have that in mind. You're really just trying to figure out where are the ebbs and flows at each position and then what do I do about it?

I think Pat made the point yesterday, we're talking about McCaffrey and also Gentie applies here where sure, they make sense. They're going, McCaffrey's going early second, probably deserving of mid to late first. But if I do that, do I get stuck at receiver? Because by the time you get to round six, you don't like any of the receivers anymore. That's just how underdog life is. Everybody's receiver thirsty over there.

That's really what's on my mind is trying to figure out, and this only comes from reps. I mean, you start drafts different ways. You want to get in the $3 one or the cheaper ones just to sort of get a feel for the way teams draft are not that different three bucks to the best ball mania 25 and so on. You want to get a feel for where am I going to get stuck if I do X, Y or Z. And that is the essence of good drafting, I think being able to know right from the beginning, which

is different than like a real NFL draft is there. You just, you know, you're not really worried about who's available in round five when you're picking in the first round that I think is the art of it all is trying to master that. And then on top of that, and I'll keep this short, but these same guys I'm talking about that I'm learning from are maxing out tournaments. So they won't pick their they won't pick by their rankings every draft because they don't want 50% of Brock Bowers

and 0% AJ Brown or something like that. So there's also that game that gets played and you know the correlation aspect within that too. If I draft AJ Brown early, they play Buffalo in week 17, so I want to, that could be a shootout game. I want to make sure I get to Shakir or Kincaid or, you know, whoever it is to give myself a chance. If I'm lucky enough to make it to that final week, I've got a path to victory for seven figures if the Philadelphia Buffalo game happens to be the one that shoots out, for example. Well, one thing I learned from you last year is that there are definitely levels to this game of fantasy football, and that was a pretty deep level for me. But I have a new approach to this year. Last year was very much scattershot.

So I have learned about organizing and preparing before doing the draft rather than just, huh, that guy's on the board. I'll take them. Which, you know, sometimes worked and sometimes did not. But we got plans for this year. And I think underdog will be returning to us for this year. So that should be very fun. Great. Okay, give me the JJ McCarthy stat line. Well, I don't really sort of think like this because I'm thinking more in terms of rankings. I mentioned before he's quarterback 20, which is, you know, I think respectable for what people are thinking he'll be.

I've got Kevin O'Connell, so I don't think I'll be light on volume. What's good here? 3,500 yards? What does that put McCarthy? 3,524 and 7 as a rookie. How does that sound? That sounds a little bit safer than our friend Ian Harditz who I think went 3,900 with 31 touchdowns. I think that the touchdown number could be lower just because they're going to run the ball more at the goal line, which, you know, little things like that can adjust your, your touchdown and, you know, interception ratio. Right. I don't think he's going to throw it. I don't think he's going to throw a ton of picks.

Probably there will be because he's a rookie, there will be rookie moments with the interceptions, but I think the yardage total is a little low there and they're going to have to throw. They have a lot of great quarterbacks on their schedule. So when you're playing Jayden, Daniels, Lamar Jackson, Jalen hurts, uh, Joe burrow, but you're going to have some shootouts that you have to win and you have to get yards from your quarterback. I might, I might push that number up a little closer to 4,000, but

aside from that, I mean 24 and 7 seems pretty good to me. I mean the MVP in 2024 went 3,728 and 6 also ran for 12. Yeah, didn't hurt. So you take that right? You take Josh Allen's 2024, but even without the rushing for JJ McCarthy as a rookie base, essentially a rookie. I mean, if he does, if he does the Bo Nicks type of season, even take away those four touchdowns at the end where there's some serious bumps in the road and some games where you're like, what the heck Bo Nicks, but then the light comes on and they've won enough games, you can have a really good season with the rest of this team because of everybody around them. I think they're a much better team than Denver was last year as a complete team and Denver was there in the playoffs.

There's a tug of war in my mind with McCarthy because you've got O'Connell and Jefferson and those forces, but also what was like everybody's take on him before he was drafted, which they never really passed at Michigan. So is that because of his limitations or is that because they won all the time and didn't need it? So that's why my instinct was to shoot a little lower on him as a rookie. Again, sorry for rookie. I don't know if you're calling him one. He's probably not technically one. I yeah, I've sort of railed against that because when you have an entire year of like training camp preseason, knowing the offense, seeing what it's like behind the scenes,

not having to come straight from the combine and workouts and stuff. It's yeah, it is quite a bit different. But first year the the what we've been using is first year starting quarterback or unproven is also fine. Well, how would you how would you compare it with Mahomes? I mean Mahomes played one garbage game at the end and didn't, I mean, he wasn't injured, but so he would have been on the field,

but still like all he was, it was that plus everything else would be the same with what McCarthy was able to gain from being at the facility, et cetera. I certainly think that the practice helps a lot during the regular season, being able to practice every single day get to know your teammates get to know the offense, but call it like 70% of that, because most of your time as a backup quarterback is spent in meeting rooms anyway, and some of the best experience I think he had was he was on the sideline with the headset on listening to the calls go into Sam Dardold and then watching Sam go execute it.

And the other thing that he went through that I think players cannot prepare themselves for when you come out of the draft, everyone is just so hyped for you. Everyone in your circle, you're going to dominate the league. You're going to run over the NFL. You're going to crush it, all this sort of stuff. And then they arrive and it is so hard're going to dominate the league. You're going to run over the NFL. You're going to crush it all this sort of stuff. And then they arrive and it is so hard to be good in the NFL. And I think what McCarthy was able to see was how truly hard it is and the scrutiny that goes along with it because Sam

Darnold had a really terrible game against Jacksonville. They won the game to go 7-2 and on major Twitter account, people saying he should be benched and they should sign Ryan Tannehill the next day, you know, with the ESPN. Oh, well, you know, he's turning back into a pumpkin. This is the same old Sam Darnold also. And you're seven and two like then playing really, really well. And you're still getting demolished by everybody. And then the playoff game, too. That's the level. really really well and you're still getting demolished by everybody and then

the playoff game too that's the level if you want to win a Super Bowl that's that Rams defensive line that's where you have to face I don't think guys have any concept of that when they come in that just as much as sitting down with O'Connell each week going through the game planning process as if he was playing I think all of that is super important to McCarthy. So I think it's 70 or 75% of what my homes got which is why I would be fairly confident that he can do this just because we haven't seen him and the other part of it too is this

happens in basketball sometimes where it's like well this guy can't shoot threes like well did his did he shoot threes like in college or whatever? Well, you you know no he didn't but it doesn't necessarily mean he can't right it just means that he hasn't and so well better example is Justin Jefferson is an outside wide receiver well he can't play outside wide receiver because he didn't play that in college well it doesn't mean he can't it just means he didn't just means he didn't Kenneth Walker and catching passes out of the backfield at Michigan

State never did it does that mean he can't do it i don't passes out of the backfield at Michigan State. Never did it. Does that mean he can't do it? I don't know. What's the answer on that actually? Well, most passes are swing passes to running backs anyway. So yeah, always, always a very interesting conversation with you. Mike Schoep, ADP Chasing, the Deep End Fantasy Football Podcast. And I'm just looking forward to the next season. I know we haven't talked about it, but getting into the fantasy last year was really fun for me to understand that world

and think through a different lens. We had a lot of great conversations. So I'm happy we could do it again. That's great. And I appreciate you letting me even on that one last question and sort of talk about the strategy of it, because it is, I mean,

I'm not the smartest guy, but I like a good intellectual challenge. I like puzzles. And for many years, I'm older than you. I mean, for many years, fantasy football did not interest me in the slightest. I had no appreciation for the level of depth in the analysis and figuring it out. I would just go by the app, which can work. Anything can work. But I'm so impressed with the brain power in the fantasy space that it makes me excited to be a part of it. And I feel lucky in that way. So if any of your viewers want to get more serious about fantasy, it's May. You have lots of time to sort of ramp up and try things

and learn. Underdog has been a godsend for those people because there's so much available there. And it's not all expensive. I'm not saying you should want to do this. But if you do, there's just a ton of smart people out there. You mentioned Ian is another one who are doing great work and can really help you get good at it. And then you show up for your home league and they don't know what they're in for.

Right. Exactly. Now the number of smart people doing projections in this world is so, I mean, our access to them is so much different than buying a single fantasy football magazine from years ago and taking a swing at it so yeah anyway well I'm looking forward to another year of fantasy and a June and July of drafting let's go we'll see how that goes thanks again Mike you