The Ringer NFL Show - Season-Swinging Week 1 Questions | Power Hour

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

Introducing our new Wednesday show, ‘Power Hour,’ in which we'll power rank one fantasy football topic each week and argue over the order. This week, we are ranking the biggest questions we’ve been talking about all offseason that we need answered in Week 1. We finish the show by answering some listener questions. Power Hour (4:24) Listener Emails (36:26) Check out The Ringer's 2021 Fantasy Football Draft Guide here. Email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, this is Warren Sharp NFL analyst over at Sharp Football Analysis. I want to welcome you to The Ringer Gambling Show. Join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays each week during the NFL season with guests Chris Vernon, Ben Solac, and Joe House to guide you through the NFL betting landscape. We'll be talking spreads, game totals, parlays, player props, futures, and much, much more. Be sure to follow the Ringer Gambling Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. So my name is Danny Heifitz.

I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck. Welcome to our first Wednesday power hour. We will be ranking something every Wednesday during the season. Power ranking. Power ranking. It's not just, it's not going to be powerful rankings. Yeah, there are rankings and then there are power rankings. Who coined power ranking, by the way?

Because that is really caught on. You think people just did all these rankings and someone's like, it's the power. These are the power rankings. So we're going to do it. If you ever done a power hour, you can probably guess what's coming, which is we're going to rank stuff. We're going to talk about them for a couple minutes, and then you're going to hear this sound.

And then we will move on. Probably not immediately. We'll probably take a little bit to wrap up. But we're not going to be drinking because we have jobs and we don't want to lose them. Maybe we'll get them in more drinking. Can you explain to people who don't know what a power hour is real quick? Oh, sure. The power hour is you and your friends hang out for an hour.

every minute of that hour, you take a shot of beer. I guess it could be a shot of other things, but usually traditionally, it's a shot of beer, and that usually accumulates around seven and a half beers. But it's fun. YouTube has a lot of these compilations for Power Hour. Well, they'll play, like, songs from the 90s, and every minute the song will change, and every time the song changes is when you take a shot of beer. We're not condoning this type of behavior. However, in certain environments, it could be a fun time.

We're not discouraging it either. I also think the genre, the YouTube genre of Power Hour has almost surpassed the game itself. I think now it's like way more fun to just throw on. There's so many YouTube Power Hour playlists that the genre just hears a different music video for a minute, 60 times. It's almost more popular than the actual game. Have you got, when's the last time you guys did a Power Hour? The actual shot a beer thing, a really long time. The early 2000s.

The YouTube videos all the time. They're fantastic. What about you, Craig? In the last six months. Craig's like last night. Really? Not actually, not the full. We do power half hour because like power hours

are a little bit aggressive. We're going to be hung over. They're not going to be an hour. Nobody email us and be like, it's not the whole hour. We're not going to be doing it for the whole hour, okay? You guys don't want us to hear us power rank something for an hour. That's a lot.

We're only going to do less than a full hour. Yeah. So we're going to be doing this every Wednesday. If you have ideas you want us to power rank in the future, please email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. We will look at all your concerns and all your thoughts and what we should be power ranking. Today, we're going to be,

just ranking the things that we want answered in week one. Like there's obviously it's week one you don't want to overreact anything but there are some things like we can just if you see it like you will just know and there are just questions we've been talking about stuff for like six months or nine months in some cases and it's like

we'll just find out this weekend. Yeah finally we'll know if all of our analysis was wrong or not. There we go. Just like we'll know immediately if we've made a huge mistake. So I have done these rankings. This is not like a we all ranked in composite ranking like our draft guide.

Like, this is, I ranked them. And if I'm wrong, you guys can just yell at me. Sure. Does that work? That works for us. Yep. And then we'll be doing that every week. Each person will be ranking things each week and we'll yell at each other. Real quick, before we actually do that, though, there is news. Latavius Mur is released from the Saints. They try to shake them down for a little more money before the season. D.K. Do you want to just do your victory lap on Tony Jones?

Yeah, I would like to say, I mentioned Tony Jones on the podcast. You guys made fun of me. Funny how things work out. I will say, High Fitz. Hyfit says him ranked higher than me on his rankings. I mean, you made fun of me and that I actually ranked my higher. Yeah. So I mean, like, hey, that's fine. DK, I sincerely apologize. I actually did draft Tony Jones for a dollar.

Yes. Because of what you told me. Yes. Okay. Glad we got, glad we can start our power ranking episode with the Tony Jones Victory lap, just like everyone really wanted to hear. Okay, let's get to power rankings. Again, these are basically like season swinging questions that we want answered in week one.

Like, things we just need to freaking see what the hell is. Like, I'm tired of talking. talking about it. I got number one. Okay. What version of James Winston are we seeing with the Saints? Speaking of seeing. Hi, then. Start the clock. Start the timer. Start the timer. Oh, shit. The timer. Oh, my God. The timer. I forgot. Okay. Let me start over. You didn't hear that. First. First one. Timer began. Great start. What version of James Winston we see with the Saints? What is this team? Man, what are they do with Tase of Hill? Like, I need to see what they're going to do.

Yeah, essentially, are we going to get like the version of James Winston that was on the Buccaneers two years ago where he passed for 5,000 yards was just pushing it downfield, super aggressive yolo balls all day long. I remember writing an article like four or five years ago about how James Winston needs to stop playing hero ball. And again, it was like four or five years ago and he never did stop. So I want to know if there's just so much, so many question marks going on. Yeah, is he like, has he actually figured it out? Is he going to start to take care of the football? Can they coach that out of him? Obviously, the LASIC thing is a factor.

He can see now. That's huge. Also, like, you know, I still feel like I'm hesitant about these receivers. We've really talked about Marquez Calloway just becoming, you know, just slotting in for Michael Thomas like it's nothing. There's Trecon Smith's involved. Like, I, the weird tight end situation with Joanne Johnson, Adam Troutman. There's like Tony Jones. There's like five guys starting for the Saints that, like, no one had ever heard of before this year.

So I'm a little hesitant. to just anoint one of them as like, oh, yeah, Marquez Calo is going to be the guy, you know? Like, I think week three we could come around and be like, oh, turns out none of these guys are the guys. But also, like, what is the offense, right? So it's like, James had 30 interceptions that 2019 season. Drew Brees doesn't have 30 picks in his last four years combined. So I'm just curious if they toned if they are more aggressive with the downfield throwing and James is more selective or if they tone his overall profile of what he's doing down because basically James was the most downfield passer in the NFL. and Drew Breeze was the least downfield passer.

Like, James was throwing it not quite, but almost double as far in the air on average as Drew Breeze was. So I'm curious, are they pushing downfield like Breeze was in 2009 or are they scaling James back to be like Breeze Light from two years ago? Okay. Ooh, look at that timing. First one. Wow.

Boom. Perfect. Look at that timing. Unbelievable. Take a shot. We actually recommend that people at home do Power Hour as they listen to the show. Do it with Everclear. Everyone should be.

Actually, will I get sued if someone does that and dies? Probably. Never mind, don't. Don't do that with water. Don't do it with Everclear. Do it with some, a nice cold beer. Do that with water. Yeah. Very hydrated.

Water. Okay. Next up here. Number two burning question is, are the Sealks going to throw more this year or what? Wow. That's number two for you. I think so because, so two years ago, it's like the Sealks were the most run-heavy team since the team T-M-Tbo Broncos. And then the, like, that's a fact.

They have fucking Russell. Wilson at quarterback. Drives me insane. So that was two years ago. The first half of last season, they were the past heaviest team in the NFL. So they went from Tim Tebow Broncos running to the passing more than Patrick Mahomes.

I want to know where they are in the spectrum of those two things. Yeah. D.K., I have a question for you about Seattle. So Shane Waldron is now the offensive coordinator. It was Brian Schottenheimer before that. How many OCs has Russell had in his time with Seattle?

And, like, how have they really affected how he has played and what kind of, you know, how much he throws. Yeah. So I could be wrong. I'm trying to remember. I'm pretty sure it was Darryl Beville and then Schadenheimer and now Shane Waldron will be his third. So I could be misremembering.

I can't remember. But regardless, it's only like three or four, two to three to four. And generally speaking, I'd say they haven't been all that different. And the big reason that people are maybe hesitant to believe that Shane Waldron hype right now is that Pete Carroll is the guy who basically runs the Seahawks. Like his, his, the offense is like the product of his vision, his style. That's why, like, they kind of shut things down midway through the season after Russell Wilson started turning the ball over.

Like, turnovers are the big thing for Pete Carroll. And we can't have turnovers. Like, he will shut it down if Russell Wilson starts throwing turnovers. That said, I think as long as he doesn't start doing that, they'll play fast. They'll pass a lot. You know, even after, even last year, after they quote on quote, shut it down, like stopped letting him cook. They were like, I think, slightly above league average in pass rate.

So it's not like they totally stop passing. It's just they stop passing at the like breakneck speed that they were early on in the season. So I think the boring answer and the time is up right now. The boring answer is they're going to be somewhere around league average. So it's kind of like Pete Carroll is the Logan Roy and the offensive coordinator is the Kendall Roy. And he like, he lets him do what he doesn't do what he wants. But then like the second thing starts getting bad, he's like, no, no, no.

I'm calling the plays here. I think that that's like the Raiders. If there's a Kendall Roy, the NFL, and they're working with the Vegas Raiders. Okay, this next one, I don't know if I've ranked any of these properly, but this one I have the league. Like,

I just need to know what Seekwan's usage is in week one and how good Sequin is and how healthy is. Like, I want to see him play football. Yeah. Like, again, the week one, the only healthy full game he had last season, he had 15 carries for six yards. I haven't seen Seekwon do good football things in two years.

I will say that, having done two auction drafts in the last four days, the hype on Sequin has died, actually. Like, he's going for cheaper. It officially has worked. Like, he's going, like, in the 40s now. He's not near the Dalvin's and the Cameras. The 40s?

Yeah. In both my leagues, he went in the 40s. Because people are scared now. People are scared of Sequin. Maybe they just all my friends just listen to the Ringer Fantasy show and they've been listening to you too much, but it has actually happened.

So he could be the steal of the draft this year. I know Hyvitz you're not into that. Well, the 40s, I would take him in the 40s. I would take him with the 30s. I would take him with the 20s. I mean, I think the thing was Sequin. So he's probably going to play in week one. I do think he's going to be on a snap count ultimately.

And I do think it will probably be the lowest snap count he's had in like a healthy game in like three years. But I just kind of want to see him play. Like if he's on a snap count, I'm really curious to see like how like if he still is that like next level athlete. DK, DK, you just completely disagree and you think he's fine. I was just going to say I kind of just think it's going to be much to do about nothing. He's like almost a year out from getting hurt. I know that he delayed his surgery a little bit there,

but still, he's always just been like the freak of nature, like the best athlete you've ever seen in your life type of guy. And I think it's been, and I've heard several people say this, so I'm not like breaking new ground. But it's like the Giants essentially just underpressed and overdelivered with Sequan.

And basically they're like, we're not going to like tell everybody he's going to be ready. we're just going to like really underplay this or whatever and just say oh he might not be ready but then week one he's just wheels up he's ready to go that's kind of how it's feeling that's the irony of Sequin dropping because when all this stuff happened

like I never moved him like I just kept who's like I don't think he's the first round of this year I think he's a second rounder and then it was like oh he's not playing it's like nothing changed they're just being honest like it's day by day why are you baffled by 40 like if he goes for $47 and if you have him ranked in like the second round that's pretty normal oh $40

I thought you meant like the 40th pick. No, no, he was going for like 45, 44, 44, 43 bucks. You meant the 40th pick. That makes more sense. I was like, what are you talking about? Okay. Next up.

The power hour is good, man. We just go right through this stuff. I like this. We're getting drunk on fantasy. I'm literally not allowed to just drone on about anything in this. It's kind of nice. Wait, it weighs 15 seconds. I'm just going to restart it.

No, no, you're going to pay the price for that, TK. We're already a minute for. Is Matt Stafford actually going to be a huge improvement over Jared Goff? Because no one has done more to propagate the Rams this year than us. Yeah. I think I used propagate wrong. That's definitely not what I've been. Procethylized?

What's the word? How do you say that word? I don't know. I'm not even like, yeah, I'm not sure to say that. The whole narrative is like McVeigh was a little limited with Goff. Now Stafford's there.

He sees him not as like a student, but like a peer. And like they can do whatever the playbook is. Craig, we've heard enough of the Rams from you. What do you need to see? That was rude. I'm sorry. Proselytize, by the way, D.K., we're trying to proselytize people. Praselotize.

I said it wrong. Thank you for, I was actually just Googling that. No, but for real, what is the thing you guys want to see from the Rams that you're like, that's different? They couldn't do that with Jared Goff. Well, so first of all, I think there's two versions of Jared Goff, because we saw the good Goff early on in his, like, McVeigh era. But then I feel like, honestly, he just kind of lost his confidence, lost his mojo. and also too

I think teams started to kind of like figure out where he was you know like what his weaknesses were and then they really capitalized on that I still think that Stafford is going to open up the playbook so they have all three levels short intermediate and vertical

Stafford can hit those throws I don't think Goff had either the arm strength well he had a fine arm but like the confidence to make like the tight window throws I just I honestly like think this is easy I think Stafford's going to be a big improvement. And I think McVeigh, at the end of his tenure, at the end of Goff's tenure is basically just like pulling his hair out.

Like, I can't handle having this kind of quarterback. Like, it ruins everything. I need to go get Stafford. And that's why he did it. Craig, you're the mojo expert. Did Goff lose his mojo? And is his Instagram related? I don't know if it's Instagram related.

Maybe he lost some followers or he got some negative feedback on a post and it really messed with his head. But, yeah, I think his lack of confidence is the sole reason why he left L.A. Okay. Next up is Kyle Pitts legit. Like if Kyle Pitts is not good, I will never trust the draft ever again. What does his line need to be week one for us to be like, okay.

I need it like, four catches seven yards? Here's the thing. If he has like a bad line, but like one or two incredible plays, that's fine. But I either need a legit highlight, like something that will make SportsCenter top 10. Or at least 80 yards. Or else, D.K., we're going to revoke your draft. Dude, if he has 80s high, 80s high. You're going to revoke my draft stuff?

Come on. Not you, everyone. It's actually really convenient because every single analyst said he's the best tight-in prospect like I've ever seen. So we can just sweep, like we can just sweep up and round up all the draft analysts. If he had 80 yards, if he averaged 80 yards, he would have 1,300 yards over 17-game season, which would be like double the rookie record. I feel like that's what I did to say.

All right, 70. 70? I'm not happy with 66. Six for 60, I think, is a fine start, and I'll feel good about it. If he has less than that, then I'll start being like, oh, God, we probably overdid this. I'm kind of excited for the Falcons in general. I don't know if that's weird to say, but I want to see what the sequel of Arthur Smith is like, you know, for a new team. I want to see, like, what happens to Mike Davis?

Yeah. If Calvin Ridley actually is just, you know, Stefan Diggs and what's up with Kyle Pitts? Speaking of Mike Davis, are you worried about Wayne Galman? Hi Fitz. You have first-hand experience with Galman from the Giants. All right, look, the only other running back on the roster with an NFL carry is Cordell Patterson who's like not even really a running back. They literally needed another person.

It's all Mike the situation this year. It's Mike the situation, Davis. I thought about putting Mike Davis on this list. I realized this is the only people who care about that is me and the people have radicalized Mike Davis that I have radicalized. And also I assume Mike Davis's family. Just proselytizing Mike Davis. Procelotizing.

Good one. Good call back. Nice call Next up Sick references bro You're referencing is sick Weed is tight Is Dak like 100% back

And I guess my caveat to this is like What do we need to see To feel that Like so we're recording this on Wednesday Obviously the first games tomorrow night The last time we saw Dak He had 1,700 passing yards in four games

Which I believe is the best stretch For any four game stretch in NFL history so like kind of hard for him to follow up. I'm kind of just curious. Like he's coming up this weird pitcher injury and he was missing a lot of time. Like I kind of feel like the bucks might wreck the Cowboys. I know, we got to be realistic here.

They're playing the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay. It's the first game of season. Rusty, got to shake off all the rest, blah, blah, blah. The Cowboys offensive line is banged up. We don't know if Zach Martin's going to play. Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of things working against them. I will say, though, don't you think they're probably going to be playing from behind? for a good amount of this game. Just based on the matchup, it's at home for Tampa Bay. Like, Tampa Bay could jump out

to an early lead, which means Dak's going to have to throw a lot. So maybe he does just go, like if he goes over 300, are you going to feel good about it? Or is it more like a vibes thing? Like, no statistical metric. No, it's statistics and vibes.

Okay. You make a good point in that the only reason he had the 1700 yards was because they were just like losing by three touchdowns early in like all those games. But that could easily happen with Tom Brady against the Catholic.

No offense to Michael Parsons, but like, I'm not really worried about this rookie linebacker against Tom Brady. Also, I don't really think they intend on getting down early. I mean, the last time the Bucks played a football game, they destroyed Patrick Mahomes. So I think what their goal is going to be to try and maybe have a balanced offense and get ahead and run the ball so they don't have to just drop deck back 50 times against the bucks.

Yeah, but everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face, Craig. That is true. Is that like what you say right before you hit Craig in the face? Mike Tyson. People always say that. I just want someone to do that once and then I actually hit the person in the face. You want violence. He's going to fight club.

I kind of want D. could hit Craig. Never going to hit Craig. Never. Number seven. Craig's like, move on. Is Saremd Arnold going to be good now that he's away from Adam Gay? Honestly, like, this is the most exciting, boring storyline in the season. Like, I know it should.

The Panthers are playing the Jets in week one. Like, this isn't like a hypothetical, like, oh, it's like, I know we can't actually decide if Donald's good in week one, but they're playing the Jets. How funny would it be if Darnel just destroys them immediately? Oh, my God. Is this the final Adam Gase experiment? Is this the last example? Yeah, because he's out of the league now.

Yeah. So, again, the list of guys who have had a career year after leaving Adam Gase, like immediately had a career year, is Ryan Tannehill, who, I mean... He turned into a top five quarterback. Yes. Top three statistically. Tannahill, Robbie Anderson, Kenyon, Drake, Jarvis Landry, Devonte Parker, Damien Williams, all had career years immediately after leaving.

To me, I look at Darnold, playing with Gase, and then also, personnel-wise, Sam Donald played with 25 different offensive linemen, 24 different receivers, tight ends, seven different running backs. How on earth was he supposed

to succeed? You couldn't draw up a worse situation to throw a rookie quarterback into, like honestly, the way it played out in New York, I know that we're making a lot of excuses for the guy,

but there are legitimate reasons. I think that he struggled so much over the first three years? How many years has he played now? Three? Yeah, this is your four. I don't think it's excuses. It's like he just turned 24.

and he was Yeah. It's not like objectively the worst. There's no such thing. But it's like pretty clearly an awful place to succeed. Like it's, he's 24 years old.

How old is Joe Burrow? I think he's younger than Joe Burrow. It's like, no one's giving up. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. It's on an excuse.

We're like, yeah, wow, Burrow, that was a terrible team he played. It's terrible offensive line. Anyway, I really like Donald. I'm into Darnold. Like I said, this is one,

I shouldn't be excited about it, but I'm very legit. excited to see how Darnold does this year. So it's going to be... This is another one of those things where it's like, he can have two straight bad games and everyone's preseason hype. They're like, now he sucks. Never mind.

Yeah, we knew it. Never mind. No, I'll die on the hill. That should be one of our power rankings is the never mind power rankings. We're just like, no, never mind. We'll just do the never mind power rankings. That's actually pretty good. All right.

Next up. Is Antonio Gibson going to play out throwdowns like we all thought? Yeah. This is one of those. I feel like we might just find out quick. or it might be a never mind. Like again, Gibson was outstaffed by JD because it 10 to 1 in third downs.

That's one of those we probably will find out week one. Yeah, this is like sneaky relevant because I feel like Antonio Gibson was the most hyped player of the fantasy off season and was drafted pretty highly like above Sequin in a lot of drafts. So this could be a never mind power rank of number one in a couple weeks. We didn't hit this, but Washington did release Peyton Barber last week

who got, I believe, almost half their goal. goal line carries last season? Yeah. The thing that people are talking about, so they released Payton Barber, but I think the Peyton Barber release has more to do with the fact that Jared Patterson looked really exciting

and good in the preseason, so therefore he is now their backup. They already know J.D. McKissick can play his role in third downs. So it doesn't, to me, the fact they got rid of Payton Barber isn't that big of a good deal. Maybe the goal line carries is a thing.

Like maybe Payton Barber that was like his only role and maybe we'll see that changes here, but I thought that was more of a statement that they really like Jared Patterson, and he's there now their backup and blah, blah, blah. So I don't know. I'm still worried that Gibson is just going to turn into the Nick Chub thing, where really exciting runner, very explosive, like he makes big plays, blah, blah, blah,

but his bottom line is just really limited by the fact that his team is not going to give him that three-down workload. Do you think Nick Chubb? Well, Nick Chub is the, he, he, He's the best. Nick Chubb is like the example I would use just because he's like an extraordinarily gifted runner, but his cap, his fantasy value is capped because of the way they use him. That's what I'm talking about with Antonio Gibson. Maybe you'd rather say he's Josh Jacobs or something like talented runner who just doesn't have any passing game usage. I just think of them different.

I think of Chub as an extremely polished runner, but not a great receiver. And then Gibson's like a unpolished but talented runner who like has receiving talent or not using. But yeah, hopefully the whole thing wasn't wishcasting. We'll see. Yeah. All right. Next up, I don't know if I care about this one as much as I just need to, I need an answer so we can stop talking about it. Is, are the dolphins going to trust two and more?

Are they going to pass more and like is two a good? Because I'm getting a little annoyed with the dolphins as a thing. I am also annoyed. It's just like, they don't, they have not earned this much like discussion and debate. Well, at least in fantasy, I would say that the hype is not there. Is there a single dolphin getting drafted in the top 70? I guess it's just Miles Gaskin. Maybe Miles Gaskin?

Looking at our rankings. Yeah, Gaskin we have at 77. The narrative with Tua is last year who was bad. He was fine. I think bad is tough. But he was a rookie coming off a hip injury in an offense designed for a different dude. And now Tua is actually healthy and in position to succeed. My question is they still have the worst offensive line in football, which when you're

also talking about having a more downfield passing attack and like Will Fuller and Jail Wado, I kind of don't. get it. Yeah, this might be a dink and dunk situation. Like, we could end up with, like, a lot of Jarvis Landrys in the Dolphins where those guys, you know, just racking up five-yard catches, you know, a lot of 10-catch, 64-yard stat lines getting put up because they're just going, playing slash ball. Honestly, like, the fact that they might have to just get rid of the ball in two seconds

every play makes me more excited for Waddle. It makes me less excited for a guy like Will Fuller who's going to be running vertical routes, most likely on the outside. But Waddle, if he's, if he's being used on screens, quick slam, you know, play action, just get the ball out really quickly, blah, blah, blah. And that was like, Tua played that kind of style at Alabama where you just want to get the ball out quickly, very in rhythm, all that stuff.

Like, Waddle could be the surprised guy in this offense, and they might not lean quite as much on Gaskin. I will say, though, like the Gaskin thing is interesting because he averaged like six targets a game or something like that after he took over a starter. And that might not change because they just need to get rid of the ball so quickly. I'm kind of nervous the dolphins are going to struggle to put up 20 points a game. I'm bullish on the dolphins.

Glad we could settle that. Next one is what is Jalen Hertz's rushing floor? This should be higher, I think, in the rankings. I probably, we probably should have put it. He can disagree with them. I mean, yeah, this is this one he has potential to be like if he's a good rusher, Jalen Hurst could be the quarterback one. This is like, this should be like top three.

When he played the month last season, he was the third quarterback. He was only, I believe it was just Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were the only quarterbacks who scored more points than Jalen Hertz when he was the start. I mean, yeah, and like look at what Kyler Murray did last year when throughout, I think through 10 games, he had 10 rushing touchdowns and it was the quarterback one. And he was like setting records, uh, scoring wise. So the rushing floor is massive.

I think people underestimate it. Still, even in, even in today's like more analytically driven, I think fantasy world where we know that that rushing gives you such this incredible upside as a quarterback. And I think I saw this stat the other day. I mentioned to DeKrag, like Lamar Jackson scored more points purely on rushing last year than Zika Elliott did. So add it, so like that is, that gives you this idea where, you know, like, you're, the floor you have as a rush or as a quarterback is insane.

And it's like that's why we call it this cheat code. And Jalen Hurts. The rules are stupid, but yeah. Well, whatever. That doesn't matter. These are the rules. And so like Jalen Hertz could legitimately be the quarterback one. I mean, look at what Kyler did last year.

If Jalen Hertz scores a. rushing touchdown a game. I mean, he's going to run away with it. Are you guys bullish about the Philly offense? No, I actually am comfortable to live in both worlds. I don't think that offense has to be good for Jalen Hertz to be a great fantasy quarterback. Yeah, you're probably right.

I think for him to finish as like a top three guy, it probably has to be above average. Yeah, like, here's the thing. I wouldn't expect a Lamar Jackson season from Jalen Hertz where he is doing all the rushing stuff, but also like leads the NFL in passing touchdowns, which is what Lamar did. But I also just don't think this has to be a hyper-efficient. offense for Jalen Hertz to be putting up like a lot of rushing yards and just like bailing out his bad games and like bolstering is really good games. Yeah, in terms of single players, I think Jalen is probably the most interesting fantasy football player of 2021. Wow, I love it. I mean, he's going

in the 11th round and he was a top three quarterback for the month he played. Like, you know, it's like, who cares? Like, okay, the other one, I've been wondering this one a lot. Ooh, I like this one. Is Javanti Williams just straight up the starting running back in Denver? And will we all regret not that game earlier? Yeah. we bet that prop bet it was like over 750 rushing yards or something like that I think that's an easy

easy money pick the thing I keep coming back to is that he didn't play the final preseason game even though he was like they said he had not no injury anything while Melvin Gordon did the veteran sitting out the preseason game

while the rookie sits and injuries have nothing to do with it kind of says everything to me and I wonder if just he is just now in that two down territory, better end of a time share, just like the Josh Jacobses, the Miles Sanders is, all the guys in that tier, except he was just been going way later. But he'll immediately just be the guy on a team that wants to run a lot. Yeah, he's also very, I think he's really good, too.

Like, he's super delusive tackle breaker, has some unknown upside in the passing game. I don't really know, like, so the Broncos talked about how they wanted to just get Melvin Gordon out there, get him some reps, but like as a fifth or six, whatever he is, six year veteran, like do you really need those reps in the preseason? That's exactly it. That just seems like a cop out. Yeah, like, I don't think they need that.

It tells me, like, they don't want to risk Giovante Williams getting hurt. They didn't care as much about Melvin Gordon. Yeah, what's the inverse? Javante Williams doesn't need the reps. That's also quite the compliment. Yeah. Yeah, I could see a second half Jonathan Taylor season kind of coming for Giovante Williams where he officially

takes over like week eight and just Goes nuts and the top 10 back. If we check in in three weeks and we did a power rank of guys whose values most changed, I think Javante might be on that list. Oh, that's a good, that's a good idea. Wow, okay, look at us. I'll just look at us like not arguing. Five seconds to spare.

Look at that. Wow, we agreed. Unbelievable. We're happy football's here. We're just a bunch of friends hanging out. Having a good time. Drinking some beers. All right, this one, I just need a shout at D.

So I just was wondering if the Cardinals are going to not suck this year. and like if Cliff Kingsbury's offense is going to be good and Kyler will actually be a good passer. Will he run less? But I wanted to shout out. DK wrote an article for the ringer.com. Great website about the Cardinals and Cliff Kingsbury and Tyler. He started it with this, which is quote, quoting Mitch Hedberg.

As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have to end the show strong. Those are the key two elements. You can't be like pancakes, all excited to get first, but by the end, you're fucking sick of them. you're like that's Cliff Kingsbury one of my favorite headword quotes by the way so good dang I've never heard that before your pancakes by the end you're fucking sick of them is so true

Clint Kingsbury we're all excited we're all excited and I was like tears in we're like yo this guy I'm fucking sick of it yeah yeah because and it's not even it's like on a macro level Kingsbury we got excited about him coming into league but in both of his two seasons

the Cardinals have started out kind of fast and then faded down the stretch. And so, I don't know, we just need to see this happen in work throughout the whole season. I do say, like, the Kyler-Murie injury was not insignificant last year, I think. And, you know, it's not necessarily totally Kingsbury's fault that he got hurt or whatever, but I think we still just need to see it happen. And right now, it's a horizontal rate. We're all expecting, like, this vertical attack, downfield, aggressive, like, line up in four,

receiver sets, run four-verts, all this stuff. And really it's just turned into like this dink and dunk, you know, screen game. Like I think no team ran more screens than the Cardinals last year. It's like, I don't know, man. Like we just need to see this offense come together. They don't. I think this is like not pop at the sight. I think part of the offense is in part because Kyler has trouble seeing over certain players, like the lineman.

Yeah, it's the same like Russell Wilson issue. Like you just, you are not that tall. Which you can pretend it's not a thing. It's a thing. And then also I just think Cliff Kingsbury just seems to have his own. offense is predicated and like, well, my guys will beat your guys instead of like, let's just, you know, win. Yeah.

And the other thing is like they got, they went out and got D'Anj Hopkins and then like they've used him on one side of the field on like three or four routes and didn't mix it up. Yeah, extremely simplified. I get like you want to run your stuff, but like you have one of the best receivers in the game. You can't move them around the field, make it a little more difficult and on defense. Like the defense knew exactly what he's going to do on every play. All right.

Those are my 12 power rankings. Do you guys have anything I left off? Do you want to be in the comments right now and yell at me for anything I left off these power rankings? The things you want to see in week one. We talked about, we talked about Sequin, but I think what is Daniel Jones is like a big fantasy implication this year?

Because there's some... I think we know. I think we know what he is. Oh, so maybe you don't need that question. What are you going to see? That's like, what are you going to learn in week one from Daniel Jones? I'm not saying he's Josh Allen, okay? I'm not saying that.

However, if you go back to last off season, We were saying some of the same stuff about Josh Allen. Like, look, we've seen it for two years. This guy's inaccurate. He turns the ball over. Like, he's not going to turn into this great passer. And then all of a sudden, Josh Allen turned into this incredible passer. I'm not saying this is by far the outlier, but I'm just saying, like, this is a do or die year, I think for Daniel Jones.

And so we'll see. I think I'd look at it, even if you, like, I'm not a fan. But the obvious rebuttal is like, I'm not a fan. This offense just has not been playing again. Like the entire premise of the offseason for the Giants was get Daniel Jones weapons. And Kenny Golodey and Cadarist Tony missed like three weeks apiece with hamstring injuries. They're terrible. And now Evan Engram's hurt.

Sequin's coming back. He's probably at least on a pitch count. And also the offensive line is not a disaster, but like I don't know whatever one tier below disaster is. That's the Giants line. Like it's going to be really hard to learn something from them in the first two weeks as the entire offense learns like each other's names again. And then also they're playing Denver and Washington. Like that's not really setting them up for success. Yeah.

I think one other thing that we could have, I think I would have ranked, is like, what the F is going to happen with Jamar Chase? Is he just wide receiver, Trent Richardson? Yeah. Oh, my God. That would suck. You know? Yeah.

Well, so for context, for people that haven't been following it, for people that haven't been following, he's just been, he's had a pretty disastrous preseason slash training camp. Like, there was reports early on that he wasn't separating in camp, which was never a big part of his game. And then he was also dropping. just incredible amount of passes. He dropped like four out of five of his preseason targets or something like that.

So, I mean, yeah, there's, and look, the Bengals don't have a good track record of top 10 receivers that, you know, like panning out or whatever, like go back to John Ross. So it's starting to make me a little nervous, but like at the end of the day, I still think his talent is going to show out. Craig's 2019 preseason crush Auden Tate out here, you're going to take stabs in Jambor Chais. I also shout out to Seth Kalina at Pro Football. focus who made it cut up of like one of those like hype videos of like every jimara chase catch

in the preseason but he just had like one screen he just did like the mirror he just played it from like every camera angle and then he flipped the camera so he had like there were like six shots of it flipped us he had like 12 different angles and they did slow but it's unbelievable uh he'll be fine he'll be fine the other one i didn't do but probably should it was just the niners with the whole like the yeah that's a recent experiment they're doing there with treeland zagrappalo and the whole all right yeah see what happens Yeah, are they going to do a quarterback committee is a big question? Like it hasn't really worked in the NFL.

I mean, it hasn't really worked in any level in college either. I mean, I think there's probably a few examples of teams doing it. But, you know, I feel like as a quarterback, you have to be back there and you have to get in the rhythm and you can't be like expected to come out every time. I mean, is this just going to be the Taysom Hill Drew Brees thing? I hope so. You're hoping for chaos? Like a three-way relationship itself, it just matters if everyone's on the same page. I think Tassum Hill, like many side pieces, was made certain promises about once I leave this person, you know, I'm going to be with you.

And then it's not that. But the Garoppolo Lansing, everyone knows the deal. Everyone knows two years from now who's going to be with who. And it's not going to be Jimmy. I got another question. What is Ryan Fitzpatrick going to look like this year? Are you going to have a beard? No.

I mean, like, is he going to be the Ryan Fitzpatrick that just goes like bonkers and, and, you're going to be? turns all his receivers into like top 10 guys or not? Or is he just going to get benched? He's definitely not going to get benched. I don't think he gets benched. I think it'll be rougher to start the year than people think. I think that the transition. I think it might be.

Yeah. Probably tougher than people think off the offset. It's been a little like there hasn't been a ton of hype honestly so far about Fitzpatrick has there? Like have you guys been like a little bit nervous? Like he's been kind of mediocre and they're like, oh shit. There's been a little bit of Taylor Heineckee hype, which I, I'm baffling. but still it's just like, huh, interesting.

And then they didn't name them the starter until like a week ago. I don't know. Just a little bit nervous. I think it'll be all right. Are you guys going to get to some emails? Yeah. Let's do it.

All right. A lot of you guys listening have a lot of thoughts on how to pronounce Craig. Holy crap. Do we have a lot of listeners? A lot of conflicting. In the UK and Ireland and Australia and a lot of people sending YouTube videos

to explain to me what those places are. and the differences between them, which I will explain. But Craig, it is, in fact, in the UK and all the places with, like, I guess, I don't know, the King's English, Craig. Like a Craig, like a crayfish with a G. Like how we say it. Craig. Craig. Oh, so it's not like how we say it.

So Max points out, and he's like, here's why. It's paid is not pronounced ped. Laid is not pronounced lead. Why is Craig pronounced Craig? But there's also said, yeah. It's not Craig. It's not like. egg or it is like it's like egg which has the y in it craig it's not craig you said like ped

craig is not pronounced craig so the one that i listened to on like some some website where it was like here's how you pronounce craig and blah blah blah the one that i heard was like a scottish guy it sounded like going like creig craig i think the english the king's english craig is it's very similar i mean there's like a little bit longer like i you just elongate the ai sound craig also. We also got a note from Daniel who said, I used to work with a lovely Romanian guy. One day he finished a work phone call that seemed to take a lot longer and acquire a lot more explanation than it should have. He hangs up the phone, sits back on the chair for a moment in reflection, then comes out with Craig. Who calls their child Craig?

That's very rude, Daniel. I dare you. Daniel, what an original name. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not go in on the Daniels here. I got three Daniels here shitting on me. This email actually continues that the Romanian co-worker also taught me a lovely Romanian expression that was, quote, to have a carrot up one's bum, which means when you're nervous.

It's like the sphincter thing. It's like Yeah. Yeah. Type button. Yeah. So I think Craig's got a carrot up his bum about how to pronounce them. Krieg! Craig! Also just shout out to... Did we figure it out? Like, I still feel like I don't know how to pronounce Craig.

I mean, it's Craig. It's his name. Well, I'm going to pronounce him Craig. I'm going to keep fun. It's like whatever he says. That's the answer. It's his name. It's like the word egg, but Craig. Okay.

We also got email from Matt because none of us knew anything about the UK with a great YouTube video. Matt. Great YouTube video explaining the UK, which my God, there's a lot I didn't know. So there's the British Isles, which are the whole thing. The United Kingdom, so Ireland is the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Great Britain is Scotland, Wales, England. And the United Kingdom is Scotland.

is Scotland, Wales, England, and Northern Ireland, hence, I did not know this was the full name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Oh. I mean, that makes sense. You cannot know that. So it's the three and the one. Also, UK still tactically a theocracy.

Technically. Not in reality, though. Oh, my God, looking at the crown thing, don't even... That's ridiculous. What the crown means. It's the British Isles, the Commonwealth realm, and the British overseas territories.

The British Isles are like the whole UK. There's all these crown dependencies, all these islands, like Isle of Man and Jersey, like random islands and then all the territories in the realm which there's literally dozens. Yeah. So anyway, I feel like I know a lot more about the UK. Yeah, I always thought it'd be cool to have dual citizenship of some one of the Commonwealth countries like Canada, for instance, because then you can go live and work in any of the

Commonwealth countries, I believe. I'm not 100% sure about that. But like for instance, if you're Canadian, you can go live in Australia or England. Could be wrong about that. Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure that. Yeah, we're going to quote you. That could be on next week's never mind. Oh, really.

Yeah, seriously. We get an email. I applied for citizenship based on what Daddy Kelly said. Maybe double check me on that. All right, this is from Ethan. Hi, guys, he starts out with a pot shot about Chris Herndon. Craig, he started with a pot shot about Chris Herndon that I just got rid of, but I wanted to tell you that so it started.

He's like, I just left a salary cap draft with Daryl Henderson, who costs 20 bucks, and Sony Michelle, who costs two bucks. basically I got the Rams backfield for $22 which felt like an incredible value considering the quality of their offense and their history of top running backs. So my question is, if the system is good,

does the running back matter? Like, is it better to spend $22 on the Rams backfield than $30 on a good running back in a bad situation like D'Andre Swift? Should we be smashing Gus Edwards and Tyson Williams in Baltimore and then Rahim Mosterd and Trey Sermin San Francisco

instead of spending big on tier, tier, tier three running back from Ethan? That was a really good question. Well, it is a good question, yeah. I mean, he's technically right. Like, the value of $22 for the Rams backfield makes a lot of sense. But also, if these guys are going to split the entire season, then I would probably rather

have a guy who's just going to get more volume, even if he's in a worse situation, because your ceiling still is limited if you're just going to split time. Like, if Rahim Moset and Trey Sermon both play 16, 17 games, their ceiling is just limited. But, like, I guess D'Andre Swift isn't the best example because Jamal Williams, there, but if you get a guy who's worse, who gets more volume, his ceiling might be higher still if he's getting, like, you know, 250 to 300 carries, right? Would you guys agree?

Yeah. I think it's like, this is sort of a, it's, you're not, he's not comparing like, obviously some of the top tier guys. It's, you know, obviously we would say take one of the top tier guys. Don't try and, like, fuck around with like a weird running back rotation, but like, instead

of taking one of the tier two or tier three, like the dead zone guy. So, for instance, like, would you rather have Mike Davis or, do the Gus Edwards Tyson Williams thing or something like that, you know? Right. I don't know. Like, I think I might rather, well, I know where Haifitz would go on this.

But I think I might take the discount and go with like the Gus Edwards, Tyson Williams thing. Although I don't know if you're getting a big discount at this point because Gus Edwards is probably getting quite a bit of hype now. Well, the real answer to me is, it's very simple. If Henderson costs $20, it's Sonny Michelle cost two. Go get yourself Sony and Michelle. I feel like Sony Michelle is going to have a huge window.

I don't think he's going to be very good in the first. three weeks of the season. I think you might get cut in your fantasy league, not in real life. Or like just won't do much because he doesn't seem to know a ton of the playbook.

The second half of the season, I feel like Sony Michelle will just have that job by the end of the year. I could see it. Yeah. And like, so do Michelle to me,

I don't know if there's anyone that I have as much antenna up, not necessarily because they're on my teams now, but the second they did drop for not having a big role or just the guy, like he's not doing anything.

I'm going to send trade offers on your shelf if I don't have them. And you get him for two bucks, like, maybe the answer is go get Sony Michelle for two bucks go get Tyson Williams for two bucks

and then get Ty Johnson for two bucks and call out of day the answer is yeah get the cheap ones yeah go big on other guys win the job if everyone's healthy

all right that's all we got Craig thank you Craig I'm not going to get that right thank you DK thank you Lorne Lord

thank you Roy Orbison oh email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com if you have ideas for future power rankings we'll also be coming to you Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays this season. That's right, Craig, right?

Yeah, that's correct. The season is starting, you guys. Season starts tomorrow. Wait, real quick. Wow. Predictions, because we're not going to be live between now and Bucks Cowboys. Who do you think wins? Buck's Cowboys, D.K.

Go on Bucks. Give me a score. 28 to 26. Craig. 62-55 Cowboys. I hope so. I hit this number exactly last year. I had Chiefs Texans to the point.

Oh, yeah, that was good. So do it again. Bucks 31, Cowboys, 23. Okay. Which will cover the spread because it's seven and a half. There you go. All right. Thank you, everyone.

We will see you guys on Friday.