The Ringer NFL Show - Players on New Teams and Where to Draft Them

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

The Ringer’s Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck debut ‘The Ringer Fantasy Football Show’ with a refresher on some of the players on new teams in 2020 and how we expect them to perform this year. -Tom Brady (10:13) -Rob Gronkowski (15:08) -Cam Newton (21:00) -Todd Gurley (28:01) -DeAndre Hopkins (36:25) -Kenyan Drake (42:20) -David Johnson (45:35) -Melvin Gordon (51:35) -Stefon Diggs (53:32) -Hayden Hurst (57:58) -Austin Hooper (60:27) Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer fantasy football show, a proud part of the Ringer podcast network. My name is Danny Hyfitz, and I am joined by the Stat Whisperer, the EPA per play listener, the tape grinder, the sleeper finder, the waiver claim hero whose margin for error is zero, the league winner, the roster fat trimmer, the man doing stakeouts to find training camp breakouts, he can procure diamonds in the weeds. He is the analyst we need and the hero we deserve. The Dark Knight himself, Danny Kelly. How are you doing, D.K.?

I think I snorted audibly during that, the first part of that intro. That was beautiful, Danny. Thank you so much for that. I'm really, really excited to have that slightly different, slightly new intro to me. So that was awesome. Just a little bit. I mean, we're also joined by our co-host, Craig Rolbeck. I don't have a rhyme for you, Craig.

Well, this is, I mean, D.K. deserves that. This just validates all the hard work he's put in. And now that we have our own feed, he deserves that long of an intro. I'm proud to be a co-host with you, D.K. This is the first episode of the Ringer Fantasy Football show. Yeah. A lot of you guys know us from Danycy Football.

We were on the NFL show feed. Does this feel like a relegation for you guys because the name Dan is gone? Well, we thought about forcing you to change your name to Danny. And then there was a discussion. We all sat down with Bill Simmons and we're like, all right. Does Craig change his name to Dan? How do you feel about that name, Craig? I'm proud to still be a Craig.

You are still a Craig. But excited. This is good. Drafts coming. It's July. This is awesome. This is great. It's going to be a lot of this same show, but better, but we're still going to be trying to give you actionable information and digestible, hopefully plain English. And we're going to try to make people laugh. But I feel like you don't really laugh when you listen to a podcast.

I feel like you kind of just breathe through your nose a little heavier. Like, you know, like, hmm, who laughs at a fantasy football show? This is the first one. I feel like I laugh. I don't know. Yeah. D.K.'s got a great laugh. Didn't you win Best Laugh in high school? I did win. That's my claim to fame is I won best laugh in high school and I'll never forget it.

Well, I have the worst laugh. So together we're like an average laugh. So I laugh like a witch around a cold. I'm like, it's honestly grading. Craig should probably just edit my laughter out for the rest of this podcast. Yeah, if you'll notice there's only D.K's laugh in the trailer. So yeah. All right. Well, we're going to get in fantasy for the 2020 season. We're pumped. But all right, obviously the elephant in the room here is. is the NFL season going to happen? We don't know. It is in our minds. It is in our minds. The NFL is preparing for it to happen. The players are preparing for it to happen.

And we are too. So we're going to go and we're going to preview the season. And I felt like the best way to start this is the place you always come back to, which is who the hell is playing where again? It's always the first thing you have to figure out. Like last year, like I knew O'Dell Beckham was on the Browns, but I didn't really process it until I saw him in a Browns jersey. And I was like, oh man.

he's not on the Giants anymore. And I feel like this year, one, there's going to be a bunch of players like that with Brady and Tampa, but also just this year in particular is more extreme for that. There's some big names and I actually totally agree with you, Danny. I was going through some of our top 150 that we've put together over the last few weeks. And I was like, man, I keep forgetting where these guys have ended up. You know, obviously there's some really big fantasy names like, you know, Todd Gurley, Melvin Gordon.

There's some ancillary guys that are going to be super important to fantasy overall as well. So yeah, I think it's just a good idea to go through and basically just recap the offseason, reset, build a foundation for this whole podcast, basically looking at, you know, how these players that are moving teams kind of are going to affect the fantasy season. So that's kind of what we're thinking. And I think it's just a good recap of everything that's happened over the past few months because it's been a chaotic past few months. Who do you think is the weirdest, like who's going to be the most shocking jersey when you see it on the field? Obviously, I would say Brady and Tampa is the big one. I think it's DeAnder Hopkins and a Cardinals. I was going to say Hopkins too, actually.

Yeah. That'll just be bizarre. I think Gurley will look good in a Falcons uniform. The Cardinals, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but Cardinals have their uniforms fit differently than every other team, it feels like. Also, their helmets are kind of weird because they're all white. They have no stripe.

They just look like a big cue ball. Yeah. Is that why Kyler Murray looks kind of funny when he plays football? No, I think there's something. He's got like an unusually large helmet. I'm not about short jokes, but the helmet just makes it all look like. a munchkin.

He looks like Lord Farkwand from Shrek. This is a pro-Kyler-Murie podcast. We love Kyler. His helmet is enormous. He has the biggest helmet in the NFL. It's ludicrous. It's, oh my God. No, I agree that Hopkins is going to be the weirdest one.

Although, I also think the most underrated is going to be like Philip Rivers playing for the cults and like 30 million Americans are going to be on the same day. Like, what? Yeah, that is going to look odd. That's going to look very odd. It's going to be bizarre. But before we get, we're going to go to all free agents. changes and trade changes and all that jazz. But first, I think it makes sense to start with something

that is going to come up over and over and over again this fantasy season, which is continuity. And fantasy in the real NFL, this is going to be the buzzword of the year. Basically, I mean, the pandemic has completely changed how an NFL offseason goes. It's going to completely change how the NFL season goes. And the theory that a lot of people believe, I believe, is that that is going to give an advantage to teams that have coaching continuity, player, continuity. Those teams will have an advantage over teams that had a lot of turnover because it's already hard enough to learn a new offense, to install a new system, to be a new quarterback, to get chemistry through receiver in normal year that it's everything's harder this year with limited

practice time. So first off, do you guys buy that? Craig? Absolutely. Yeah. Like I think the perfect example of a guy who is going to benefit from this offseason is like Tyler Lockett. Yeah, just the mind meld with Russell Wilson. Yes. Coaching staff, quarterback. Yeah, they don't even have to, yeah, don't have to go through OTAs and develop that chemistry and do all that stuff. Because I mean, OTAs are gone. They're, you know, they're in the wind at this point. It's just not going to happen. So I absolutely agree with that. You know, actually begun to be a stronger believer in the last few seasons. And I saw a study that Scott Barrett from Fantasy Points did back in 2018. To me, that's like a good indication that you should be wary at the very least of big name

fantasy stars that have changed teams over the offseason. His study, which, included 2010 through 2017 seasons, so those eight seasons. Among top 24 quarterbacks in ADP, only 27% beat their ADP, 46% improved in fantasy points per game over the last season. Among top 36 running backs, 17% beat ADP and 39% improved in fantasy points per game. Top 48 receivers, only 33% beat ADP and 31% improved for fantasy points per game. And in top 24, tight ends, none be ADP, and only 40% improved. in fantasy points per game.

So basically anywhere from a third to upper end, like half. You're talking about top 36 is someone who starts for your team. Yeah, so basically the big name. Yeah, like startable players in fantasy. Those that change teams, a small proportion, usually less than a third, actually beat their ADP. So in other words, they were overdrafted. Yeah.

And only, and fewer than half, like at the high end, we're actually improving the next year going from a team that they were established on and had chemistry with all that stuff and then going on to a new team. So basically, the odds are kind of against you to have... Just in general, like, if you're on a new team, like, I mean, usually don't trade away good players, right? So it's like usually the guys going to new teams, in general, I would think, are moving on for reasons that suggest that they're not as good as they used to be. So that it does make sense to me that, like, they don't all excel. But this year's a little bit different just because we have guys like DeAndre Hopkins and that's a little bit rare, which is why we found this

episode to be kind of pretty important. Melvin Gordon is another good example. Todd Gurley. And I mean, I think the thing to mention before we move on from that specific point, too, is that it's not always the case. There are people that end up beating their ADP that end up improving in fantasy points per game. It's not like zero. It's just the odds are against you to have a better season than you had this season before. So that's just something to be wary about. So that's in normal years. So how extreme do you think that could get this year when team facilities were closed until very recently? I mean, Tom Brady was practicing a little bit with some of his receivers, but that was against NFLPA guidelines.

Like the NFL players union is saying don't practice with your teammates. I mean, how extreme do you think that could get this year if you're saying in normal years, basically a third to a sixth of guys actually outperform their average draft position when they switch teams? Yeah, I think I'm guessing training camp is getting. to be very different than it normally would be or at least truncated in some fashion. There's not going to be as much preseason, if any preseason.

And so, yeah, I think it's just, you know, it's one of those things where it's intangible a little bit in the sense like that chemistry building, the timing building, all that stuff. But it's actually important. I mean, this is a high, like, NFL offenses are fine-tuned instruments. And it's also coaching staffs,

not just players. That's very important. This is also a year where, I mean, Tom Brady left, but Bill Belichick being the Patriots coach for 20 years, Sean Payton being the Saints coach for 12 years, I think, or sorry, oh my God, 13, 14 at this point. I'm math is hard.

But those kind of long-term continuity or something like the Chiefs who are the rare Super Bowl team that kept all of their coordinators, and I believe all of their coaches except one coach of like 25 coaches, that is the kind of continuity that is more under the radar, but just as, if not more important than players beyond the quarterback himself.

yeah absolutely with all of that said shall we dive into some players who switch teams let's do that all right first up Tom Brady

okay people heard about this one and everyone remembers this one this is not really a good example for this episode everyone remembers this yeah TB 12 to TB Tampa Bay all that jazz

doesn't really need any explanation is this better or worse for Brady is this better or worse for Brady's fantasy outlook this year than it was last year he's I think he's actually one of these guys that could be

an exception to the rule that you want to avoid players switching teams because he's essentially going from maybe the most talent bereft offense in the NFL to one of the most talented in terms of the skill position players on that group. So, you know, he's got Mike Evans,

Chris Godwin, potentially the top receiver combination in the NFL legitimately. Potentially, they definitely are. Probably, yeah. And then he obviously they signed Gronk off the street. And we'll get to Gronk a little bit, but I'm assuming he's going to be at least something close to what he was,

you know, the last couple of years of his career. And then O.J. Howard is sort of a wildcard, super, super talented, athletic guy, but just kind of had issues, you know, I guess, like living up to his potential on all that over the last few years. He just didn't play well last year, but very talented player.

And then, you know, so I just think overall Brady, his situation with talent and skill that he's playing with is improved. And I think it's easy to make fun of Brady. the last couple years because his, you know, obviously he's 43 or whatever he is and his game has fallen off a little bit, but he was the quarterback 12. He was a QB1 last year. And going back last eight years, the lowest he is finished is QB15 and he has three top three finishes in that

time. So, I mean, Brady is still a fantasy factor and he's still fantasy relevant. And you're going into an offense with a much better group of skill players. And I think, you know, he has a potential it'll be kind of that low-end QB-1 with some upside to maybe even be better than that this year. Yeah, I think this one's kind of simple. I think this is better for Tom Brady than the Patriots last year, but not nearly as good as James Winston was

for the Buccaneers last year in terms of fantasy. They brought him in basically to not throw interceptions because James Winston had the James Winston 30 for 30 year. And James Winston had more pick sixes last year than Tom Brady has in the last 10 years. So what that led to is the Bucks,

I believe, led the league in plays. Jesus, that's a nuts step. Yeah, it's insane. Like Tom Brady, I mean, throwing 10 picks is a lot for Brady. All right, here's a stat. Brady threw less picks last year than James Winston did in the two games that he was announced by Rich Eisen. Like, where did you get that? Because he threw like four picks in the first Rich Eisen game.

And then the next one, Rich Rish Eisen's like, wow, I've seen nine picks from James Winston this year when I'm announcing. So if Tom Brady just throws, I don't know. 10 interceptions. That means the Buccaneers will go from like, they literally led the league in plays last year. But plays per drive, they were like perfectly average. So if they're just not turning the ball over constantly,

they have a really good defense, they're just going to score less because they're not trying to catch up all the time. They're going to have less plays. And they'll have less of a need to be pushing the ball downfield. I think he's just going to pass a lot less. And that means better running, but also I think worst numbers for Evans and Chris Godwin and also that Brady's going to be somewhere between James

last year and himself last year. What do you think, Craig? I think there's going to be growing pains. And, you know, like, I think the third and four where Edelman and Tom Brady are, like, in each other's brains, like, that's not going to happen this year. And I think there's probably going to be some misthrows and some, just some kind of, like screwed up opportunities. I think Mike Evans' ceiling is capped.

I don't know if he's going to have another 1,000 year at season like he did before. And I think that, talk about continuity, he has his first new coach in 20 years. He's got Grunk back who was, like, I don't know, on a yacht. last year, like doing whatever he was doing. He's got all the receivers. They have a young offensive line now. Hopefully that gets better.

He's got running backs. He's who are young and he doesn't trust. I just think that there's a chance that this looks really good on paper. But we'll see. We'll see what 43-year-old Brady can do. I wouldn't overdraft him. Well, I think that's exactly the point

is that Brady is the person that basically, no matter how much you like him this year, he's going to be overdrafted because he's Tom Brady. Yeah, there are Cubies to reach on. Like, you can make arguments for like why you want to bump up Josh Allen. I don't think there's an argument for why you want to bump up Brady.

But the name value of so many people wanting Tom Brady on their team. If you're in a 10 or 12 team per league, odds are between one and three people, just want Tom Brady on their team. And that's probably going to sap out a lot of the value that there is. I mean, it's not really an objective exercise to be getting Tom Brady and Tampa Bay this year. Well, that's a huge strategy of drafting is like knowing what your league mates are going to do who they like and laying off guys with big names who are going to get overdrafted because of their name.

Yeah, like if I did an auction with you, I would just bid up Leonard Fournett until you just bankrupted yourself. Exactly. I'll drop 40% of my capital on him. Yeah, but same concept here. I mean, Rob Gruncowski, might as well talk about him while we're on the bucks. It's the exact same thing. He comes out of retirement. I don't even know if there is a better or worse. He was freaking selling CBD oil last year. I guess we'll see how effective it, he claims it is because he said he was feeling 60 his whole life. He went down to 140 and then there was all these like skinny gronc stories on page six. And that was like two, 260. You mean 260, right? 260.

Oh yeah, geez. You mentioned Gronk at 140? Yeah. If I weighed more than Gronk, that would be a... I'm sorry, 240. Same thing, right? But now he's back up to 260 and... Is he? Did we hear that?

He said he was almost there like three weeks ago, so I'm going to go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt. People gain weight too fast in sports. I don't know. It freaks me out. No one can gain 15 pounds of muscle in like three months. Like, even Moamba on the magic... Get that CBD oil from Gronx.

Mo Bamba on The Magic was like, oh, I ate a lot and, like, doing pushups and stuff. I had weights in my apartment and I put on like 12 pounds of muscle. And it's like, what? What about what you do? Chambot? Imagine 12 sirloin steaks, each is a pound. And you slap that on your shoulder and thighs and butt. You know how hard that is to build?

I think it's like way more fat than muscle. Hey, I'm going to be, I'm going to put on my fake scientist hat here for a second. And I feel like I've heard this in the past. and someone, if I'm totally making this up, someone can tell me on Twitter, but isn't there, like, thing where you have muscle memory, where your memory, your muscles can get back to where they were more quickly and easily if you already had that muscle mass? I could be completely making this up. I feel like that's something I've read before. I mean, that sounds accurate. I'm not a scientist.

I don't know. So Grog has 20 extra pounds of muscle as what we're landing on. All right, great. So anyway, so Craig thinks Gronk is a fat ass. DK. What do you think about Gronk for this year? Like, should you draft him or is he going to be so overdrafted? Because his name's Rob Grancowski, but people forgot, you know, he retired because, you know,

he's constantly in pain from all these injuries he had. And like the tight end, the bucks have the deepest tight end group in football. And like, what are the odds that Gron can possibly, he's being drafted as like the eighth best tight end last year? This dude was coming out of retirement. What are the odds he can possibly be a top 10 tight end this year? I think the odds are pretty good, actually. I think he's a round appropriately priced, I think, in terms of his ADP is the

tight end eight. He's the 77th pick. right now in PPR leagues. And the reason I say that is, again, you know, it's kind of funny that we had this big preamble about how it's bad to change teams, but Gronk is changing teams with his quarterback. So that's kind of a different variable that you have to take it.

Has that ever happened? Has a tight end and quarterback left at the same time? I'm not sure. That's an interesting question. But I think it is, it does matter because honestly that, you know, then they don't have to talk, they don't have to do that big ramp up thing

where, you know, Brady's yelling at them for being in the wrong spot or whatever. you know. So the way I see Gronk, the reason I'm interested in him at least at what he's cost right now is because he's been a touchdown making machine his entire career, like really, really consistently. Touchdowns are typically not super sticky of a stat. In other words, they don't usually like carry over year to year. They're not super predictive. But with Gronk, he's so big, so strong, so good. And Brady trusts him so much in the red zone. They design plays get him, you know, isolated so much. It's just a huge, huge part of his game that it's

kind of, to me, it's like, that's his upside is a double-digit touchdown season, even now, you know, with all those question marks. So I'm going to read some stats to you, just to kind of put Gronk's career in some context. He's played double-digit games. The best time I never. That's the short way of saying it. He's, but yes, he's played double-digit games. So 10-plus games in seven out of his nine seasons in the league. He scored eight plus touchdowns, six of those seven seasons. He scored 10 plus touchdowns, five of those seven seasons. And 2018 season, when he was banged up all year long, he just did not look like himself at all was kind of the main outlier. And he played 13 games only had three touchdowns.

So what I'm saying is if he plays 10 plus games, he plays double digit games this year. There's based on his career, he's a really strong possibility you have like eight plus, maybe 10 plus touchdowns, especially playing with Tom Brady again this year. You know, there's obviously a ton of caveats to all that, but again, just to put this in context,

since Grant came into the league in 2010, he scored more reception touchdowns than any player, 79 touchdowns. And that includes him missing a whole season. So, yeah, Gronk's like a touchdown a game almost. Yeah. If you really think about it.

Okay, but then DK. So, I mean, I feel like no one's questioning his ability. I mean, he's getting a little bit older, right? He's 31. Although he's only seven months older than Travis Kelsey. I feel like no one knows that. Yeah. There's a lot of those. Yeah, there is. Keenan Allen's a year

older than Michael Thomas, that blew my gourd. That is weird. Let's do a name game then with Gronk for you, D.K. All right. Noah Fant. I would take Gronk over. I think Noah Fant's a great dynasty pick, but I'm still taking Gronk over him right now. Dauce Goddard. Gronk. The Goddert thing. Goddard reminds me of

Godwin a little bit because everyone's just been hyping him up every season. He's been in the league. But he's still got Ertz in front of him. And he's not going to be, I don't think, like, a huge, huge target for them out offense. Okay. Jared Cook? See, that's where it starts to get pretty close for me. Those two guys are right in the same sort of range.

Like, I probably would take gronk just because I want gronk on my team. It's kind of like what we talked about in the past, Danny, where you just want a guy like gronk on your team. But I think those two guys are like right in the same range for me. Okay, so that's in our consensus rankings. That's the tight end 11. So that makes sense right around there. Low end, tight-in one.

Okay. Yeah. So anyways, I'm bullish on Gronk is the bottom line. I'm surprised by that. Wow. But flipping now to the Patriots, the void left by Brady, Cam Newton, signs in New England, presume the starter, although worth noting, not guaranteed.

He has a veteran minimum guarantee. So Jared Stedham could theoretically still start. Obviously, Cam Newton has been very injured, and we don't know if he's going to be the starter, and we don't know how healthy is and all those caveats. Let's just say for a moment, Cam Newton, fully healthy, not as good as he was in 2015. team wins the MVP.

But he is Cam Newton and he will play for the Patriots this season. He plays 16 games. We're going to live in that world for a second. What do you think the Patriots offense looks like and what Cam Newton is like for fantasy? I mean, I'm, I think Cam Newton is going to be one of my favorite late round quarterbacks this season. You know, I think it depends on, I feel like if you're doing drafts now, you might be able to get him super late.

You know, as we get closer to season, if he's for sure the starter and if he's for sure healthy, he's probably going to move up the ranks. Right now he's QB 23. according to fantasy pros ADP right now. And so I think that's an amazing value. He's sandwiched right between Philip Rivers and Drew Locke, Sam Darnold. I think he has the potential to sneak into the QB1 realm just because of his ability.

I still think he has the ability to run. Now, I don't think that the Patriots are going to use him super, super heavily as a runner, but in high-level situations, especially in the red zone. I don't think they would assign this guy and then just decide not to use him for one of his greatest skills, which is to absolutely just make life hell for the opposing defense, especially in the red zone, because he can run. And honestly, we're having a little bit of recency bias because Newton was so injured the last, you know, to end the 2018 season and the 2019 season, almost the whole season,

he was injured. But if you go back to 2018, prior to hurting his shoulder in week 10, he was the QB4 through 10, through I think nine weeks, he was the QB4. And a lot of the reason for that is because he was still running. finished the season with 101 carries, which was second among quarterbacks that season. So, you know, obviously there's some new guys, you know, in the, in the quote, running quarterback world, like Josh Allen, obviously Lamar Jackson. So he's got, he's probably not going to finish second in rushing among quarterbacks this

year, but he still has that really high value because he can be such a force on the ground, especially in the red zone where you can score a lot of touchdowns from 2011 through 2018, Newton rushed for 55 red zone touchdowns, which was more than any other player in the league, even running back, any other player. So to go back to the Konami code, we'll just reference it really quickly. Basically, it's this cheat code in fantasy football

where rushing is more valuable than passing for quarterbacks. Rushing yards are worth two and a half times as much as passing yards. Rushing touchdowns are worth one and a half times as much as passing touchdowns are worth four. The rushing touchdowns are worth six. so a quarterback who can run is incredibly valuable in fantasy. And I still think Newton, especially in the red zone, can have that factor.

Wouldn't surprise me if he had six or eight touchdowns this year. And that's like Josh Allen. You know, he's still, you got question marks about his passing. That's fine. But he can do things with his legs. And so I think he has, if he can be healthy, if he's the starter, all those caveats are still apply. But I think he can be, he could sneak into that low end QB1 and give you huge, huge value in the late rounds. Yeah, he's totally worth taking a dart on as a backup quarterback.

it's, you know, why not? This is a very little risk. All right, let's just hit quickly a few other quarterbacks that change teams. Not huge for fantasy, but like just worth being like, oh yeah, that happened. Teddy Bridgewater, signed with the Carolina Panthers. Low-key has the same cash flow over the next three years as Patrick Mahomes, but we will not talk about that now. Really? I love that.

I swear to God. Panthers have an all new coaching staff. Bridgewater is the new quarterback. They are the least continuity team in the entire NFL, spent all the draftics on defense. D.K., you get one breath. you like Teddy Bridgewater for Fantasy this year? I'm not buying it, to be honest. I think some people see him as a really good sleeper. I'm not really into it.

I think, like you said, there's too many variables. We haven't seen him in a high volume passing offense. I'm out. I agree. I think he's a high upside third quarterback in like a two quarterback league. Your boy, Philip Rivers, went to the Indianapolis cults.

This will never actually enter my long-term memory. So I just have to keep reminding myself of it. He's joining Frank Reich, who is his offensive coordinator in the Chargers. He is, that's his head coach now. Nick Seriani was his quarterback's coach with the Chargers. He's now Colts Offensive Coordinator. You got one breath.

You like Philip Rivers for Fantasy this year in one quarterback leagues. No. I mean, I love Philip Rivers. I'm probably not going to have them on very many, if any, teams. I think they're going to be a run-heavy team. You've got to find who the Danny Woodhead and Austin Eklare is going to be in this offense, because whoever it is is going to outperform their ADP. They are showing Naheim Hines.

tape of Danny Woodhead and Darren Sprouls. I am all in anaheim Hines this year. I just got to learn how to say Naheem. What about you? Are you going on Phil Rivers? Me? No. No.

What kind of question is that? You're the biggest, you're the Rivers' hater. He thought that was assumed. I think he's great for like their real life team prospect. Sure, why not? But like, fan it? No.

My God. That's fair. Last one, just Nick Foles went to the Bears, which is hilarious for a few reasons. RIP to Mitchell Chubisky. Does Foles mean anything? for you in fantasy or just that Alan Robinson somehow is getting his best quarterback ever, Nick

Foles? Yeah, no, I think that's the factor that I'm most excited about is to see if Alan Robinson can finally have a, not good necessarily, but just better than average quarterback, because he's just been, you know, he's just had to suffer through so many bad passers throughout his whole career. So, no, I'm not going to be drafting a lot of Nick Foles, particularly in one quarterback leagues. I just am excited about what he could do for that, you know, for Alan Robbins in particular. I feel bad for Robinson that this is the one year that he can't have a training camp with the quarterback who's actually good. Yeah, it's, Alan Robbins.

Do you guys, Blake Bordal? Quick sidebar. Do you think that it's a 100% guarantee that he's beating out Trubisky? Or do you think Trubisky's actually got a shot? No, I think Trubisky's got a shot. That makes me worried a little bit, too, yeah. I don't think there's any guarantees, but I think it's, I would put it at like 80% plus. Yeah, I'd be surprised if Foles didn't start, but I've read stuff that are like, no, like, I mean, maybe that's,

it's just coach speak. Well, it's an open competition, but I mean, that no one has said like Foles is our starter. I mean, they have a, the team has a vested interest in making Chubisky the guy still.

No, they don't. They are, if Chubisky doesn't get to them playoffs this year, they're all fired. If Chubisky breaks out and finally is awesome, that's huge for them.

I believe in listening to what teams do, not what they say. And they said, Mitchell Chubisky is our starting quarterback the day after the season. And then they try, traded a fourth round pick for Nick Foles and didn't even make the Jaguars take any of his damn salary, which is what I call desperate. They didn't do, they didn't take on $17 million and

give up a fourth rounder to have Nick Foles patchedibiske on the shoulder and say, nice job, Buck. Please. All right. Let's talk about somebody who's important. Todd Gurley on the Falcons. Yes. Uh, okay. Lots's happen with Todd Gurley. We can summarize it very quickly. He was really good and then he got hurt and now he's cut. on the Atlanta Falcons. So we just saved a lot of time. Is Todd Gurley on the Falcons better or worse situation for him than he was with the Rams

last year? He was diminished versus himself. For me, put it simply, no, it's worse. I think it's not as good of a situation. That said, I still think he has potential to be a value pick for people that are willing to take a chance on it. Because I think right now, people are pretty scared off by him. I think he's fallen in ADP pretty far.

He's right now, he's the RV 15. Well, I mean, the three of us did a mock draft last night with some other people, and I got Todd Gurley in the middle of the fourth round. Yeah. I think that's a value. I think that's a great pick. I'm just not willing to really reach for him. I think that's kind of the, it's the nuance of the Todd Gurley discussion is that I'm not super high on it, but I think he's becoming a value based on where he's going because people are so like, oh, his knee is shot. But he's still going to get the volume. There's not a lot of competition in that backfield. no the falcons aren't like a good run team and Danny I think you you know have mentioned this in the past but they're a they're a they're a pass happy team they're gonna lean on Matt Ryan I think Matt Ryan's the guy they've got a really good receiving core it's not like they're gonna run the ball like more than anybody you know buddy in the NFL in fact last year they were 30th in rushing yards so you know I don't think they're like this prolific rushing team and that makes girly you know this awesome awesome prospect but

he's still the starting running back and he's going to get volume, I think, in that offense. And that's, you know, that's not easy to find these days. There's so many running back by committees. Craig, you drafted Gurley and obviously whenever you draft a player, you immediately talk yourself into how that player is going to win you your season. So what have you been talking to yourself about with Gurley?

What's going through your mind? Gurley is the perfect example of the guy you, you got to be a smart fantasy drafter and like Gurley's going to fall. And I kind of feel there's a lot of guys like that this year. I think Keenan Allen's going to be one where there's always guys who start to fall and then everybody kind of gets like afraid

that no one wants to be the person to draft it because they'll get made fun of. So they kind of fall like 12 picks, 20 picks sometimes farther than they should. Like T.Y. Hilton is, I feel like that guy every year and no one wants to pick him. And Todd Gurley, I mean, the dude's 25.

He has arthritis in his knee. I was saying this to you yesterday, Hyatt's. People have played with a lot worse. Oh, my God. How many players can you talk to who are like, oh, I played with a torn rotator cup? I will say, for all the conference, Consternation, he was, I believe, top 20 in touches last year.

He was an RB 1, I think, last year. He averaged 19 touches a game on the final five games of the season. Like, the man is still alive and running, and like, he's on a good offense. There is no backup. I mean, they have Brian Hill and who's the other guy. Eto Smith and Quadriolison. We weren't exactly breathing down his neck. Craig, Gurley was RB 14 and PBR, RB12 in standard.

There you go. I think the knock against, there's a. knock against Gurley that there's a structural issue in Atlanta. Now, first of all, the continuity stuff we talked about with being new teams applies less to running backs than literally any position other than like kickers. Like running backs can be plug and play for the most part for 25 of the 32 teams. So I'm not worried about the continuity thing here. The thing I'm a little worried about is that the Falcons offense led the league in passing

last year, an offensive coordinator, Dirk Cutter loves to pass, and the Falcons are facing the hardest slate of past offenses against them. So basically that means there. probably going to be passing a lot, even by their standards, because they're going to be in shootouts. They don't have a ton of options, though. They have Ridley, Julio, Haydenhurst, and then it's Gurley. I mean, the Falcons completed 51 more passes to their running backs than the Rams did last year. Well, so yeah, Dika, do you think that Gurley is the kind of pass? Obviously, he caught a lot of passes with the Rams, but they kind of designed their entire offense around

Gurley. The Falcons are not designing their offense around Gurley. They have to fit him into it. Does Gurley fit into Atlanta's offense with their cutter as a receiver? Yeah. I mean, I think Why not? I think, and that's actually the, I think that's an awesome point, and it's a really important point, is the Rams basically got away from using Gurley as a receiver last year, and that was one of the reasons he was such a fantasy football. You know, he was just the king of fantasy football for like two seasons

because he was catching so many passes and scoring so many touchdowns. And I think, you know, they could certainly get him more involved in the passing game. He might not be as efficient as a rusher, but if he gets more involved in the passing game, he could finish as a RB1 again. So I think, yeah, I think he, if he's more involved in the passing game this year, which I think he probably will be, that's sort of this hidden value. Everyone's kind of looking at him like, oh, he can't, probably won't have the same efficiency or volume as he did last year as a rusher. But I think if he has that upside in the passing game, then that is huge for him.

He's a good example of someone, people in fantasy always repeat, including us, volume is king. You want people get a lot of touches, especially good touches around the end zone. and if you've, Todd Gurley is as good a candidate for that as anybody considering the team he's on, the amount they're going to score, and the lack of players behind him. The only reason people aren't really excited about him is that he's super, he's had been injured, but he's 25. It's like, it's not crazy to think he could be sixth in touches this year. So.

And you got to just keep up with his health. And I know it's tough now with no training camp, but like, you basically just got to read, like, about what the doctors are saying about him, what, what dirt cutters saying about him. And like, the Rams swallowed 20 million. in Deadcap to get rid of them, which is like a little alarming. And it's like when you go to the old boyfriend of your new girlfriend and ask like, yo, is there anything I should know about her? Have you done that?

No, but like that's the classic thing. Like that's a dirt cutter. Who goes to their girlfriend's ex-boyfriend be like, what's the deal? Well, that's like what dirt cutter is doing. Dirk cutter is basically like, I mean, no one really knows what the health status is. Like he should just call up Sean McVay and be like, yo, you 20 million? Like, why? I will say that is a quote from Dirk Cutter.

The main question that no one seems to know is what's his health status? That's Todd Gulley's offensive coordinator. Is that disconcerting to you, or is that just me? I think the answer is we should probably hear what happens when Todd Gulley shows up to training camp. Just don't let him fall too far. He's still Todd Gurley. All right, so let's flip this for a second. Todd Gurley's not in the Rams.

Who the hell are the Rams going to play at running back? They drafted Cam Acres, who's a very fast running back at a Florida State. In the second round this year, they drafted Daryl Henderson, who they said would be Alvin Kamara the third round of 2019. We say that every time we mentioned. Did they say that? Because they,

because who's they said that he was giving out of course? Oh, either McVeigh or less Sneed. I can't remember. We either Rand's coach or GM said that Darrell Henderson would be Alvin Kamara. I believe the Cowboys also compared Tony Pollard. One of their front office people, either McVeigh or Sneed.

I can't remember who it was, but they also compared him to Lance Dunbar, which is slightly less exciting. That's hilarious. Slightly less exciting than Camara. So let me just, somewhere in the middle between Lance Dunbar and Alvin Camara. Which is all players in football. So we're going to ignore Malcolm Brown, who bless his heart, is not going to win the starting job.

Do you want Cam Acres or Darrell Henderson this year, D.K.? I want Acres. Even, you know, even at their price right now, which is Acres is going 87th overall. He's the RB 26. And then Henderson is RB2, 105th overall. So I'm taking Acres all the time. I like Henderson. I think he's a good player. I was excited for him last year,

but I do think he's going to be closer to the Lance Dunbar type where you're just using him as a pass catcher out of the backfield at times, kind of like a change of pace. I think Acres is going to be their bell cow. You know, maybe not like a, maybe not like an every, every down guy,

but he's going to get the highest amount of volume, I think, in that offense. Dude, Daryl Henderson is Lance Dunbar is the least exciting thing I've ever heard of my life. I know, isn't that?

You want to take Lance Dunbar in the ninth round? Honestly, huge win for Lance Dunbar. Did he ever think he'd get a comp? I think he was a star in the AAF and its brief, oh, no, sorry, the XFL is brief resurgence. Oh, good for him. Yeah. All right, let's move on to before Brady left,

the move of the off season. DeAndreya Hopkins, it's time, traded with a fourth rounder. Unbelievable, they had to throw a fourth rounder in. That's hilarious. To Arizona for David Johnson, a 20-20. second rounder and a 2021 fourth rounder. Let's just for a moment

put the fantasy aside. You're like, holy cow. Like this is, I remember where I was when this happened. Do you feel any different about, like has several months kind of taken the edge off of the, I guess not maybe like disgust is maybe the wrong word

or shock and dismay? I've come full circle and I feel like I get Bill Bryan more than ever before. I mean, on one hand he's, on one hand he's Billy overwhelmed. It's just like he's the head. coach and he's a general manager and I just feel like as a head coach like he is bizarre because on one hand Texans fans look at him as head coach and you're like if you you are holding to

Sean Watson back and it's like the only thing all Texans fans kind of agree on it's it's like Bill O'Brien's the problem and on the other hand they've won their division for the last five years you can't call him a bad head coach and then in the other hand he's a GM he's like an arrested development character it's hard it's really it's very difficult it's like a juxtaposition because they're so good but also everyone seems to hate him well it's pretty complex it's simple. It's just he's a head coach who basically is just like, oh, I need a running back. I'll trade for a running back. And he doesn't

care about the draft pick value because he's going to get fired if this doesn't work out. So yeah, sure, he gives up a third rounder for Duke Johnson the most anybody's paid for draft capital for running back in like 10 years or whatever. And then he goes, trades for David Johnson in this, who's the second highest caput of any running back this year.

Also, like, they're giving up DeAndre Hopkins. Twelve hours later, the Vikings get more for Stefan Diggs. It's all about. So I, sorry, I just, I had to him all that. It's just, it's absolutely insane, man. Yeah. Fantasy stuff, though, let's start with Arizona.

Obviously, now they have a different backfield and a different receiving core. D.K., what do you think of D.Hopp in Arizona? I mean, I definitely still like Hopkins. I think the question is, can he be one of those guys that ends up out playing his ADP and improving his scoring in fantasy points per game? I would, I would probably bet on no, that he's not going to outplay his ADP and or his points per game compared to last year. And the main reason is the volume question, I think.

And over the last six seasons, and this is actually an incredible stat. In the last six seasons, Hopkins has averaged 159 targets a year. 159 a year. It's very just consistent. You know, he's consistently, and he's done this with multiple different quarterbacks. You know, he's obviously just the man. So the question, I guess, is, is he going to garner that amount of targets for the Cardinals this year? I think it's possible.

It's possible. Larry Fitz actually led the Cardinals last year with 109. Christian Kirk had 108. I could say you take 30 from Fitz and whatever and 20 from Kirk or something and then give them to Hopkins. Kirk only played 12 games last year. Yeah. So it wouldn't like be completely shocking.

But I think that to me is the biggest question. And in that air raid offense where the idea, you know, if they get to this air rate offense where they're doing the four wide stuff, they're doing the forverts, in that offense, it's not necessarily like you force-feed a guy. It's based on what the defense does a little bit. You know, it's like if the defense double teams this guy, you're throwing it to the quote, open guy who's in single coverage. And are teams going to leave Hopkins open in single coverage all time? No. So I think there's certainly, you know, they're not going to run forverts every play. So that's not like taking him out of the equation. But I'm just saying my question about the volume,

it makes me nervous enough to not like necessarily take him in the first round, where he's, has pretty securely been, I think, the last couple years. And so, yeah, I just, you know, I'd see him more as a guy that's likely to not live up to what he did last year. He's still going to be a very good, very, like, high-level fantasy player, but maybe just not to the level we saw last year. That being said, like, it wouldn't shock me if Kyler Murray just goes scorched earth this year, and we're all eating our words at the end of the day. Yeah, look, I don't think any of us are saying anything about DeAndja Hopkins being worse as an NFL player. He's an elite NFL player, but it's will his numbers reflect that. Craig, what do you think?

I think he's currently being, his ADP is currently his ceiling, which I don't never think is a good scenario. Could not agree more. Scenario. Wide receiver four is his ADP, and I think that's the absolute best case scenario. So I would avoid that. I have him out, yeah, I have him outside the top ten of the position. I have him like, I think I have 28th overall right now in our rankings. I could get burned at the stake for that right now for like compared to where he's going. but it's what you just said. It's the ceiling. It's the structural issue of the Cardinals' offense right now

and just being as spread out the thing more. Also, I just keep coming back to something he said against the Titans last year. There was a game where the Titans played the Texans. DeAndre Hopkins had like 98 yards in the fourth quarter. And after the game, they asked him how he and Deshawn Watson did the comeback. And he just smiled and said, practice. And I think it's really underrated

that DeAndra Hopkins is a very hard worker who has put in a lot of time with Deshaun Watson. He's a technician. He's a technician. You don't get that kind of... Like, Dea Jopkins is not the fastest receiver in the NFL, and he isn't necessarily like the best, most agile. He's a hard worker, and it's about chemistry and knowledge.

And not only is he going to get less targets, but he's not going to have that mind mel with Kyler Murray in a month of training camp, because that's a disservice to how hard it is to establish that in the first place. So I think he's a great football player, but the thought that you can pencil him in as a top five, fantasy producer this year, I think is, I don't want to be like crazy, because obviously it could happen. It's optimistic. The last three seasons, he was the wide receiver five. The last three seasons,

he was the wider receiver five, three, and one. So we're just essentially saying nothing's going to change. Exactly. A lot of things could change, and that's not really built into his price. Okay, flip side, running back Kenyon Drake for Arizona, basically took over midseason for Arizona's backfield, scored eight touchdowns in his final eight games. It was ridiculous. Played 80 plus percent of snaps and they transition tagged them so they give him like 14 million bucks to play for them this year. He got a little lucky. He got five of those six carries inside the five yard line. Five of those six went for touchdowns. And then the touchdown rate was ridiculous because the Arizona running backs touched the ball 29th most among any group, but they had the fifth most

touchdowns. I love that stat. It's crazy. 29th in touches, but Arizona's running backs were fifth in touchdowns. That's not going to happen. So basically, Kenyon Drake is like being projected as a first rounder on one hand because, well, it's him and Chase Edmunds now. And the other hand, it's like he needs a lot of volume, but this is the air rate, not the ground rate. So do you guys buy Kenyon Drake as a first rounder? It's a tough one for me. Craig, what do you think of this? I kind of do. I'm looking at his ADP now. It's the running back 12 and it's 22 overall. I think I'd have them a little higher than that. And I may be just falling victim to the sexiness of the Cardinals' offense, but when you... And the name Kenyon Drake, which is a lot cooler than other names.

Let me tell you something. It's a great name. If Robert Woods was his name, he wouldn't be a first rounder. A hundred percent. Doug Baldwin, no way. Kenyon Drake. That's a first rounder. I don't know.

You know, sometimes I think the whole efficiency thing, while it was a little bit ridiculous, doesn't mean it's going to go all the way away. If it is the air raid and they create all these open lanes for him to run, like Kenyon Drake has the ability to take advantage. He caught a lot of passes in his eight games with them. The Cardinals were not exactly. they were 18th in past attempts last year and 19th in rush attempts.

And they ran the ball really well. If they're a little bit more balanced that everybody thinks they will, if they're going to be, Kenyon Drake could be a value. I was just looking at the pace stats for last year. The Cardinals were fourth fastest offense

in terms of seconds per place. In other words, they were snapping the ball the fourth fastest in neutral situations. Their offense is fast. They spread the field. They tire out defenses. there's a chance, you know, if their offense takes a big jump this year, that they run a lot more plays, get a lot more, you know, they get their players more involved. There's just more opportunities for fantasy stats. Kyler Murray takes a jump.

Their offense overall is just better. It's like the rising tides, raise all ships type argument. I kind of like, I like Drake too at his ADP right now because I just think they were number two in rushing DVOA last year. Yeah, there's, the Cardinals. Exactly. What ADP are you looking at that you like him out right now? Fantasy pros, he's the RB12. Yeah.

And I think that right there, like kind of the late first round, early second round, I think that, to me, he's worth taking a shot on. Just because the efficiency of that offense, they scheme up fantasy points in that offense. I take him over Josh Jacobs. Yeah, and he can be involved in the passing game as well. He's going to, he's sort of a, you got to take a swing sometimes. He's like that kind of guy where it could end up looking bad at the end of the year. but at the same time he has that like Austin Echler style upside where, you know, he's explosive and he's in a perfect kind of scheme that fits his skill set.

Okay, so let's flip this around. Texans backfield. They got David Johnson now in Duke Johnson. Again, they traded a lot for those two dudes. David Johnson's presumed starter, 20, he's the second highest cap hit this year. He's barely going into top 50. What do you guys think of David Johnson for 2020? I'm not sure I'm buying into David Johnson.

I think I'm probably going to come out of this. All my drafts with like zero David Johnson. So I want you guys to kind of give me the pitch for why I should be drafting David Johnson. Craig. Can we officially announce that David Johnson is this year's Leonard Fournette? The Lenny Fornes. Wow. Because he is.

To me, I remember last year, it all made sense in our head with Fournet. It all made sense. All the stars aligned. And I think you can convince you. yourself of David Johnson in 2018. And sometimes that's all it takes. I mean, he's 28, former fantasy MVP. He's on a team with a decent O-line,

the best QB he's ever had, a coach that, like we said, bet pretty freaking big on him, which is like, I mean, what else can you want, really, in a running back that's going as the RB23? I would like him to, like, play football because last year he had 18 carries

in his final nine games. So, like, I would like that to improve. Injuries are injuries, but, like, if he's healthy, he barely played last year. Let's look at that as a positive, maybe. Like Carlos Hyde had 255 fricking touches last year When he turned those into a thousand yards

Like if he can do that David Johnson can do more Like Alfred Blue had 800 yards on the Texans Oh love that name Lamar Miller a thousand yards Like Bill O'Brien has done better with worse So Craig here's my question though Here's my question worse with better So we compare it we're giving in the Lenny Forns award

Do you Lenny Fournett got a hundred targets last year Do you think there's a chance that David Johnson is the three-down back for the team? Duke Johnson is more or less not really involved, and David Johnson is getting those dump-offs on third down. The other factor, I think, that it makes me a little bit worried that Deshawn Watson is more of the type of quarterback who will pull down and take off rather than dump it off. So those are kind of my concerns. Last year, Duke Johnson got 62 targets.

Carlos Hyde, 16 targets. is David Johnson, because David Johnson has a totally different skill set. He's been a receiving back in his career. And that's one of been one of the big strengths. But I guess my worry a little bit is that he'll just get early down duties. He'll just be Carlos Hyde. And he'll get a lot of touches, but they won't be the valuable touches. I mean, I get that always comes down to how Bill O'Brien wants to utilize the running back he just spent a bunch of money on. I mean, if you want to use him for what he's good at, then you want to pass him the ball. I mean, Devin Singletary is going a spot above him in draft. I'm like, I think it's more likely that David Johnson finishes as like a top seven running back in the league than Devin Singletary. I would agree. I would agree with that. I would agree with that, I think. All he has to do is replicate 29-year-old Carlos Hyde's season, and he returns his value, essentially.

That's interesting. A wild start about David Johnson. He had 2,100 yards and 20 touchdowns in 2016, and then he had 2,200 yards and 16 touchdowns since then. Let's play the game game real quick here. So I'm looking at the PPR ADP for Fantasy Pros. He is... David Johnson is going just after James Conard.

Who do you want? James Connor or David Johnson? Probably slightly... James Connor. What about Jonathan Taylor? David Johnson. What about David Montgomery? David Johnson.

So you're taking David Johnson over Taylor. That's an interesting one. David... That's your time. ...leather Leonard Fournett. David... I don't know. He's short-circuited.

How dare you ask him that? Oh, that's just the same. That's the Spider-Man looking at each other. All right, wait. Real quick, let's just hit this. The Texans receiving core is also completely different. As you said, Hopkins has been averaging 159 targets for like 10 years or whatever, five, whatever. He's gone.

They have replaced him with Brandon Cook's Randall, Randall Cobb, and Will Fuller. Well, Will Fuller was already there. But you get what I'm saying. Kenny Stills is also in the theme. I feel like Kenny Stills is going to get traded to like the Packers before the season. But let's look at Brandon Cook's Fuller and Cobb. Do you guys like any of those players at their ADP and also do you think Will Fuller can be healthy and be a monster? Or is he just another thirst trap?

I think they got a bet on his Fuller, right? He's got the chemistry with DeShon Watson. When he plays, he's an absolute stud. And he's no more injury prone than Brandon Cooks. Yeah. So to me, I think if Cooks is sitting there and he's fallen from his ADP, which right now is wide receiver 35, 88th overall on Fantasy Pro's consensus. but look who is right there after him.

Will Fuller, wide receiver 36, ADP 89. So exactly one after Brandon Cooks. I'm going Fuller, I think almost every time on that because we've seen what Fuller can do when he's healthy.

I mean, the dude is he could score like four touchdowns in a game and he's just so explosive. I guess just when you're in this area, I go for upside. When you're in that like in the 80s, 90s, hundreds like pick. I'm going,

for upside guys. I want guys that are going to try and win me my league, not just score 10 points. But, you know, both guys are kind of injury, have had injury situations in the past. They have to worry about it. I think to me the guy is Fuller that I'm going for there, though. I agree with who you were saying, I think that despite Bill O'Brien being kind of be clounding himself about the Texans' future, I actually think they could be pretty good this year. And I think that both Cooks Fuller could be underrated. But I want to shout out Randall Cobb, who is just going undrafted and has not been very good. but considering he's competing with Cooks who is extremely injury prone

Will Fuller, who is like the most injury prone receiver in football and Randall Cobb could I mean if somehow this season makes it to week eight Randall Cobb could just be the number one receiver for the year. He could get 100 targets and he's not being drafted.

Like I just think that it's interesting to me like that he's not being picked. All right, Melvin Gordon disastrous holdout with the charges last year led to Austin Eccler's rise. He left and signed with the Denver Broncos which like his holdout and like everything with him last year.

year kind of one's super under the radar and no one noticed. Craig, how do you feel about Melvin Gore with the Broncos this year? Pretty good. The Broncos are going to be an improving offense and they paid a $8 million. I feel like that means he's going to get the bulk of the carries. Pat Schumer is now in Denver, likes to feature one running back. And Philip Lindsay, I feel like we've learned, just doesn't have, he just can't sustain maybe like a 250 touch workload. And that's why they bring in a guy like Gordon. So Philip Lindsay can be their change of pace and Royce Freeman, who they got out of Oregon didn't pan out. Gordon, you know, he's still young.

This is going to be his 27-8 season. He's way better than Philip Lindsay, especially as a receiver. Yeah, that's a big thing. That's the big thing. To me, the receiving chops, because I think Lindsay, the problem with Lindsay is he hasn't been

an effective receiver, and that's, I think, part of the reason they wanted to get Gordon. No, and if you look at Gordon's last four years, I mean, he was basically splitting time with Austin Eklick for half of it. Last year he was the RB 16 in points per game, but they had a terrible old line.

But before that, he was the RB4, 7, and 5 in Fantasy Pointer for game in his last three years. So I think Melvin Gordon is a fine pick. Yeah, I agree with you in the third round. In that range, we were just talking about like James Connor, David Johnson, Jonathan Taylor. I think Gordon's established, you know, he's going to get, I think he's going to get receiving work in that offense. He could probably is going to get Red Zone work. So I think that's a good value for him too. I look at Gurley David Johnson and Melvin Gordon very similarly as running backs in their mid-20s who were very good and are on new teams and could make a dent. But realistically, I like the receivers around them being drafted around all of them instead of them.

And I'd rather get a running back before them or after them. Yeah, it kind of depends on how your draft goes to. Who do you got for your first couple of picks? And that can kind of determine things. Another one want to hit. This one's, I don't want to be like divisive, but like I just, I think there's a lot of different opinions here. Stefan Diggs with, he was traded from the Vikings to the Buffalo Bills. This was hours after the Hopkins trade.

And I think it's just hilarious because he went for so many more picks. it was just absolutely ridiculous. Basically, my read of what happened, he was Josh Allen's very bad deep ball thrower. We heard eons of stories. The end's not a amount of distance, but whatever. You got him saying a lot about Josh Allen's arm.

And turns out he can throw it real far, has no control where it goes, because he's like the worst deep passer in the NFL by accuracy, in addition to having the lowest completion percentage overall. So they went out and they built a team around him and they got stuff on Diggs, who was like one of the better good deep ball receivers

in the NFL. NFL. Last year was number two in yards per route run. So that's really good. Second of Michael Thomas. He set a career higher and receiving yards. But now he's going to Buffalo playing with Josh Allen. It's basically the exact opposite of Kirk Cousins in every facet on and off the field. So, DK, do you like this for Stefan Diggs? No, in a word, no. I mean, I think it's good for the team in real football because Diggs is a really good player. But in terms of fantasy, I mean, he was the wide receiver 24 last year. So low end wide receiver two. The odds are that he'll outplay, to me, he's, so right now he is the RV 27 and ADP and PPR. The odds that he'll outplay that to me don't feel strong. Like his floor is kind of where he was last

year, or his ceiling, I should say, is like kind of where he was last year. And I don't think he's going to get there because I think Kirk Cousins was a much more accurate passer, both in the short and long, in the short end downfield ranges. And so I don't know, man. I just, you know, I just don't see a ton of chemistry and volume right out the bat for these two guys. I think it's a good play by the buffs, by the buffs,

by the bills to go get him and improve their team, but for fantasy purposes, I'm not very interested. The buffs is funny. Can we call him the buffs? I just saw Buffs. I saw Buffs next to digs and I was like,

what is a bill? A Buffalo Bill. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like they're the only team in sports. Yeah, no, it is. But I'm saying like, They're the only team in sports whose logo is named after the city, not the nickname. Like the Buffalo Bill, it's not a bill, it's a Buffalo.

And there are no Buffaloes in the Americas. Buffaloes are in Africa. There are bison here. So I just wanted to clarify. You know, the Golden State Warriors logo is like the Golden Gate Bridge, not a way. Oh, that's a good point. It used to be a word. Yeah.

Feels like we're getting off track a little. You think so? I'm just fine. All right, fine. Switch to the Vikings real quick. How does this affect Minnesota? Adam Thieling goes up. we love Adam Thielen so much.

We're going to talk about him on a different podcast because we love Adam Thielen this year. All right, moving on. One breath answers. D.K., I'm going to throw out a couple more people who have changed teams and you're going to give your answer on how you feel about this one breath. Jordan Howard and Matt Berita running backs go to the dolphins. How do you feel about this backfield? I think both have fantasy value.

Ryan Fitzpatrick led the dolphins in rushing last year with 243 yards. So there's only room to go up from there. That being said, I think they're sort of late around guys that you can take a stab at. But I wouldn't bang on either of these guys to be like a foundation. There were at least three breaths in that sentence, but I'll allow it. Emmanuel Sanders signs to the Saints. They have a second receiver for the first time in, God knows when, the 80s. I don't know.

Do you like Sanders with the Saints this year? And why is he being drafted like 100th? I think he's worth grabbing for a flex spot. I wouldn't expect anything more. Beautiful. Rashad Perriman with the Jets. I'm going to answer with a question. This year's Devante Parker.

What? I don't think he's that. He's worth a dark one. Okay. We keep going with the one-breath people. Jimmy Graham goes to the Bears. Should anyone care about this other than Jimmy Graham getting paid a lot of money? No.

All right. No. Eric Ebron, your nemesis goes to the Steelers. Should anyone care? I'm kind of intrigued, honestly, with Eric Ebron. He is one season removed from a lot. tight end four finish pro bowler 66 catches 750 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2018 he's only 27 Danny he's only 27 years old and big Ben is coming back and he's historically been you know he's

gotten his tight ends involved in fantasy so I think he's a interesting sleeper for me okay hayden hurst for the falcons I'm just going to do this one because I love haydenhurst this year Austin Hooper was the number one fantasy tight end for the first 10 weeks of the season and they just traded a second round pick for Hayden Hurst to do that job. I love him too. Yeah. I'm all in on Hooper. Sorry, I'm all in on Hearst. By the way, let's not forget, Hurst has kind of been the butt of jokes, but he was a first rounder. He was a good athlete. He ran 4-6-7 in the 40. He was quietly 11th among tight ends last year in yards per route run, sandwiched in between Zach Hirsch and Hunter Henry.

So he was an effective receiver. He just didn't get a ton of routes last year in that Ravens offense. This year, I think he's going to get a ton of routes and he's going to have good production. Again, the continuity thing's a thing, but again, Haust and Hooper was the number one tight end through 10 weeks, and Hayden Hurst is being drafted like 13th among tight ends. So there's a lot of room for him to not be as good as Hooper, but be a lot better than he's being drafted. And to be clear, the stats we stated at the beginning of the podcast were for big-name fantasy stars improving their ADP, improving their points per game that didn't really include guys like Hurst who are breakout

potential type guys. Yeah. So it's a little bit different. Hooper, who left the Falcons, went to Cleveland. I don't care about this. Craig, since we're on a new podcast feed now, can you just once again tell the story of why you and him got into fights in middle school?

Did he bully you in middle school? No, he didn't bully me. Also, Hoopold bullied you in middle school. We went to middle school together and we played like lunchtime, Intermoral Sports as well as Little League Baseball against each other. How often did he crush you?

He struck you out. didn't he? No, he wasn't a good pitcher. He was all over the place. He threw hard, but he couldn't hit, oh, he couldn't hit the strike zone to save his life. I would have to come in and I'm just painting the corner. So it's all I got to say. So did he strike you out even though he couldn't hit the strike zone? He just, Austin Hooper, you know, I'm happy. He caught a touchdown in the Super Bowl, you know, good for him. But like, intramural sports back in the day, like I maybe have the leg up. So when all your friends and you were like watching the Super Bowl and you saw him scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl and you guys all looked at each other like, wow, we'll never do

anything like that. Literally, yes. We all like texting each other like, God, that's so weird. Look, he wasn't in the friend group, and I think were different grades even. I think he might have been a grade younger than me, but they held him. You know, they do that thing where you hold the kid, so he's like more developed. They did that, to Austin Hooper. So just throwing that out there.

It worked out. Good move by Mr. Hooper. Can we talk about him real quick just for fantasy purposes? That was a great story, Craig. I really appreciate that. All right, fine. I love hearing about all those childhood exploits of yours like paint in the corner. That was vivid imagery.

But yeah, Hooper obviously changing teams. I don't think he's going to be the overall tight-in one through 10 weeks next year. But I do think he is a clear fantasy target for a lot of people for some small bit of context because he's going to a new team, which has a new offensive coordinator slash head coach and Kevin Stefanski. In that Stefansky offense for a little bit of context, Kyle Rudolph and Irv Smith combined for a 21.5% target share in the Vikings offense last year. 95 targets, or I should say 95 catches, 6708 yards and 8 touchdowns between the two of them.

So maybe is that like around his ceiling like that, like the 95 catch target? That's like its overall top top top tier ceiling. I don't know. I'm probably not going to have a ton of hooper. I just think, you know, he's still, that's a new offense. He's still going to have to battle for targets with David Njoku, who is the, least still on the team as the time we record, he did request a trade,

so we'll see how that all goes. But I don't know, I'm not quite sure I'm buying Hooper as like a, even like a top six guy this year. Hooper starts getting, becomes like an end zone target for Baker, maybe he'll start running like fade routes and stuff. So do you think that Baker can paint the corner?

I don't think Hooper's, I feel like Hooper was a good product of the Falcon's offensive system last year. I don't know if Hooper is going to be the type of guy to command like 100 targets this year. We'll see. Agreed. Well, we hope we've commanded your attention for all this time. Thank you to everyone for listening. We really appreciate you.

Tuning for the debut of the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. We will be coming to on Mondays and Wednesdays for the rest of the year. And we have a big announcement coming on the ringer.com and on this feed. We're very excited about it. Tune in and thanks for listening.