The Ringer NFL Show - The Players Who Are Dead To Us

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

We start with some news from the week, including Ian Rapoport’s report that Aaron Rodgers plans to play for Green Bay this season, as well as Michael Thomas’s recent ankle surgery and how far we have dropped him in our rankings. Then, we perform a séance to communicate with the players who are dead to us from last season and decide whether they deserve resurrecting for the 2021 season. QB Aaron Rodgers, Packers (2:00) WR Michael Thomas, Saints (4:18) WR Odell Beckham, Browns (13:26) WR Jarvis Landry, Browns (20:52) WR Marquise Brown, Ravens (27:13) WR Mike Williams, Chargers (33:49) QB Russell Wilson, Seahawks (41:02) WR Tyler Lockett, Seahawks (46:13) TE Chris Herndon, Jets (50:37) RB Miles Sanders, Eagles (53:49) 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

Ringer Films is premiering its first of six films in our music box series, Woodstock 99, Peace, Love, and Rage on Friday, July 23rd on HBO. Woodstock 99 tells the story of the infamous music festival promoting unity and counterculture, but devolved into chaos and collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. Watch or stream Woodstock 99, peace, love, and rage on HBO or HBO Max Now. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Heifitz, and I am joined on a very special. episode here today by Danny Kelly and Craig Rollback.

Today, today's a little different than other podcast we've done because today we were doing a seance to communicate with all the fantasy football players who are dead to us. For those who may be new to the concept of a seance, we will be bridging two realms, traveling from the living to the dead to make peace if we so choose with players who have wronged us or just dropped a touchdown or something we're being really big babies about. but regardless, they've wronged us. They're dead to us. And we're going to try to get over those feelings, maybe bury the hatchet.

We will be acting as our own mediums for today's episode. In the future, perhaps we will seek professional help, but today we will be doing it ourselves. So this is very special. But you know what? I think in keeping with the theme of today's episode of just being dead to people, we have a little news first which is basically

are the Packers dead to Aaron Rogers I don't know but this is kind of the perfect prelude Maybe not Maybe who knows Ian Rappaport Today's Monday Ian Rappaport from NFL Network tweeted

That hashtag Packers Do you guys do hashtags when you tweet? No I don't need that Probably should Packers QB Aaron Rogers has indicated to people close to him that he does play

He does play into play for Green Bay The season sources say That is the expectation Many factors at play But with GM Brian Good saying he is, quote, hopeful for a positive outcome, there is a glimmer of optimism. Here we go. Okay.

I mean, I feel like this was, this is all three of us that are already kind of assumed this was going to happen. There was always the chance that Aaron Rogers could end up not playing or be traded or whatever, but this is always the most probable outcome, I would think. Well, first off, actually, let me back up a little bit. This tweet is couched in several different areas by, you know, like it's looking like it's going to, the expectation, many factors at play, but it's hopeful for a positive outcome. There's a glimmer of optimism. There's a lot of hedging. There's a lot of hedging in this tweet. However, I will say it's probable that this is going to happen. If it was like 2 a.m.

and I'm like going to go get pizza, it's like Danny Hafeitz has indicated to people close to him that he does plan to get, you know what I mean? Like a lock and shit indicated to people close to you is like, let me ask, how tenuous does the information that Ian Rappaport has have to be to where he can still get away with tweeting this. Look, considering it's Monday, we're going to find out tomorrow. Like, there's no point. We don't have to speculate on this. He's literally going to show up or not tomorrow. It's, I, we, D.K. and I've been saying for a while, we think he's going to show up. We'll see. At this point, like, we'll see. Yeah. I think we should. So,

and we'll see if maybe they're dead to him. We'll see. Maybe he's doing his seance right now. So bottom line, before, like, we'll get into this deeper once something actually happens, but I'm guessing this will have a big effect for Devante. Spite season year two on the way. Devante Adams might turn into our wide receiver one collectively. Obviously, this is great for Aaron Rogers and for Aaron Jones. Overall for the Packers' offense. Packers fans, the city of Greenback?

Did you say it's great for Aaron Rogers, like, from a fantasy perspective, that he'll be better playing that he would be not playing? Was that you where you were implying? Yes. I think it's going to inflate Aaron Rogers' fantasy value because he's going to be scoring fantasy points now. He will not. Stock up on Rogers if he plays.

I think it's a good thing. Huge. Okay. There is actually some other news that we actually have information on now, which is Michael Thomas, who we've talked about a lot, but Craig, I mean, hit us with the vampire, the vampire song. It's getting kind of pause, do believe things are going to get better. So apparently Michael Thomas's like ankle, like the high ankle sprain, he had week one last year. The timeline in this thing has been completely screwed up, like the recovery timeline.

It's like Rashad Penny's knee. It just doesn't go away. God damn it. Yeah. So he injured in week one. Anyone had him last year knows that it was just an up and down roller coaster. He went on IR briefly. So the season ends and Michael Thomas sees a specialist.

Apparently the specialist told him to rehab the injury, come back in the spring and they'll check him need surgery. Michael Thomas returned to the specialist after mini camp, which is like May or June, like not really closer to summer than spring. It needed surgery, apparently. So this ankle sprain that happened in September, he didn't end up getting surgery on until like June, four-month recovery timeline. So he's back in October, November. It's like, and even he could come back earlier, but that would basically mean at the cost of not being 100% healthy,

which we just saw last year didn't go well. So we dropped Thomas in our rankings, at least for half people here, to like 110. We have him at like wide receiver 50s behind Leviscus, Chanel. D.K, I mean, do you even want Thomas on your team this year? This is tough. it's very tough because there's actually no guarantee he'll be back by October November too like there's always the chance he just might not play this year you know

based on how the rehab goes if he has a setback all that stuff and so I'm you know it just depends on your philosophy some people just don't want to have a guy that's not you know doing anything for the first half of the year sitting on their bench and wasting a ross spot when you can have potentially a higher upside player there helping you now on the other hand when he comes back he's still going to get that that volume that we wanted and that made him, you know, I think earlier on we had him as the top 12 receiver, you know, I was like receiver 9 or something in our rankings before this.

So they're still going to have that upside to be a big, huge target hog in this offense. You just have to wait for it. So it just depends on your philosophy. We dropped them down so far because I think generally speaking, all of us are just like, you know, there's so many uncertainties around it. We'd rather just pick another player at this point and not take a, you know, not take an L for the first half of the year, maybe the whole year on that. say how good would you have to be in the second half of the season to justify holding onto him

for the first half? Yeah. And there's still the quarterback questions. There's still so much, there's still so many question marks involved in the saints. Also, we're just sick of it. I feel like we're sick of Michael Thomas after last year. Like, if he was perfectly healthy last year and then this happened, I think we'd be a little bit more receptive to him coming back and us being okay with it. I think everyone's just annoyed. What's the history of guys who missed the first half of the season and then come back and are awesome? I'd actually love to go back and do that research. I feel like it doesn't happen very often. it's very rare.

As a general rule, like, it's hard to go wrong, just avoid injured dudes are injured in August. Yeah, especially high ankle brains, man. I think that there is like this misconception that like when the little cue for questionable goes away

that the player is healthy, almost like they just are sucking it up and they'll deal with it after the season and get surgery later. But like the injuries most of the time don't go away. They just manage them. It's hard for me to believe

that if he recovers from this and he just goes back to playing foot. Like he's not going to get to 100%. Seems deeply unlikely. And then as D.K said, then you've got to get the chemistry with the quarterbacks. Is there a worse scenario as a fantasy football player than when Michael Thomas is supposed to be out until week eight, but it's week five? And they go, Michael Thomas is feeling pretty good. And it is planning to, quote, give it a go in week five on a potentially limited snap count.

And then you're like, God damn it. They're playing the Panthers. Do I do this? And then he gets like, and then there's only two scenarios. Either has one catch for eight yards or he is 140. Those are the only two options. So I think Michael Thomas is kind of cooked for all of us right now. And then, you know, if he's a late round flyer, sure.

I actually think the best scenario is if he's, if you have IR spots in your league, you can think about it a lot more than if you don't. You think he goes for one, like, is he a $1 pick in auction leagues? Yeah, for sure. But like, I think he matters a lot more if you have an IR spot. Like there's a lot of leagues, I think added injured reserve spots or something last year for COVID. And I mean, look, there's a thousand variations of that. But if you have an IR spot, he's a lot more value, maybe not a lot more of

valuable. He's certainly a little more valuable if you can just stash him and it's not taking him. He might be the best IR guy so far. Yeah, exactly. But that's kind of like a crazy thing. Should we have our IR rankings? Oh yeah, we can do that. The, I want to just look at the depth chart for the Saints, right? It's kind of nuts of any team to lose their number one receiver. The Saints, other receivers are like, not good. Treyquan Smith. Deonté Harris. Deonté Harris is a like a lightning bolt. He's five foot six. He's like a punt returner guy. He's suddenly in line for like like real snaps on them at receiver to the point that these guys are like barely NFL caliber players that it I'm curious what you think this does for Alvin Camara who we've had questions about this season and then like Adam Troutman the tight end but deacon what do you think this does for Camara that's a multi-prong question number one I think this injury and this is sort of the general I'd say consensus on Twitter that I've seen is that this injury to Michael Thomas makes

it more likely that Tassum's Hill is going to be the starter at quarterback because basically what this means is the Saints passing offense is going to take a backseat to the run offense. They're going to want to make it very versatile, kind of like what we saw with the Patriots last year with Cam Newton, you know, build this offense out of a multiple run scheme where they're doing a lot of options stuff. And so I think that's the idea behind the thinking that this makes Taysam Hill like the more likely starter now, which I think is a negative overall for Camara because his target. rate with Taysam Hillen was like scary bad at times and I don't know necessarily if that's going to change.

However, taking Michael Thomas out of this offense also seems like it's a good thing for Camara because he's just going to be the focal point of the offense. Now, much more at a higher rate, I would say, than when Thomas was going to be in. So overall, net, I would say this is a good thing for Camara in terms of the fantasy world because he's just going to be the guy in that offense, right? So, I don't know, you know, I feel a little bit better about where we had Camara. I don't necessarily want to move him up. If anything, it just makes me feel a little bit better how high and how bullish we were on him prior to this all happening.

Does that make sense? Craig, you've been Debbie Downer and Camara. What do you think? To be honest, I don't necessarily, I don't think this improves Camara's status that much. I think D.K.'s point about how Thomas being out could mean Taysam Hills, the quarterback, that hurts Camara in my mind. And to me, I don't know, how do you guys feel about

the one good guy on the terrible offense who's going to get all the touches? Like, this isn't McCaffrey on the Panthers. Like, it's not. They're not just going to give Camara 300 touches now. So I don't really think this affects that much.

I actually think it hurts because now he's the only guy in the team who defense has to focus on. And if Tason Hill plays more, like, that's just worse for Camara. I just think, as Alves Snow put it, like Alta Snow, like this is interminable dross the Saints offense.

No, I get, like, the fundamental point with Camara now to me is just like, look, he had the most efficient quarterback of all time in Drew Breeze, and then he was scoring, and Camara was scoring a touchdown a game, and then now Drew Breeze is gone, and we're like, oh, can he do that again?

And now Michael Thomas is out. You think all these defenses are just going to be like, you know what we're going to do whatever we have to do to stop Camara and let Treyquan Smith beat us. I'm not convinced that I'm actually kind of lean. I don't think the Saints are going to be very good this year. I think that this is kind of like a disaster year for New Orleans. I mean, yeah, they lost Drew,

Breeze and Michael Thomas. Yeah, like that's not fucking good. There, there's your expert hard-hitting fantasy analysis right there. It's not fucking good. Maybe they'll sign somebody, Golden Tate, Alshon Jeffrey, like I guess they could bring in one of those guys, Des Bryant. No, the guys, okay, the guys who are running backs, receivers, whatever, if you're looking at free agency in July, and you're like, oh, we could sign that guy. He's there for a reason. It's not like the other 32 teams have, or all the other 31 teams have thought of this. It's because there's a problem, usually medical if there's no other reason that, like, you can think of. It's like, they're probably not that healthy. So I think the Saints are kind of screwed, to be honest.

Yeah. Should we get to a seance? Should we transport ourselves to another realm? Yes. Okay. Again, some players are dead to us and are we incredibly selfish and self-centered for thinking that a guy drops a touchdown and they're dead to us? Yeah, but you know what? But like, that's fantasy. It's our truth. That's our feelings. That's our truth. Yeah. So he wants to start us off here. Hi, Vince. Why don't you do it? I feel.

I give a lot of guys who are dead to you. He's the most petty of the three of us. Let's be honest. Me? Lo-l-l-me? All right, fine. I'll go first. Okay.

Let's see if we can summon. Let's get the red energy here. We're going to have to do a little chanting. You guys know this. O'Dell Beckham from the Cleveland Brown. Do we hold hands in a circle? Yeah, we hold hands. We like to do the circle of ash and we chat.

Odell Beckham. O'Dell Beckham. O'Dell Backum. I don't know how that went. Did he show up? Are you here with us? The candles were flickering, guys. I feel like Odell,

I loved Odell when he was with the Giants. I feel like he was like the last player that connected to me to my childhood. And I actually feel like when the Giants traded him, like I no longer had any relations to any of my sports teams like in that like youthful naivety way. It all died. with me. But I still believed in Odell when he went to the Browns. Like, I still wanted him to

succeed. And he just has not at all. Like, Odell had like 25 touchdowns in his first two seasons with the Giants. He has like seven in his first two with the Browns. He also just isn't dominant. Like, he isn't getting a lot of, he's not getting a lot of catches. He's not getting as many looks as he should. He's not, doesn't look as explosive because he's had so many lower body injuries. And then the craziest thing to me was that all these people pointed out. I think Craig said it last year. The Brown's offense looked better when he got hurt. Like that's a fucked up thing to say. And I thought that was kind of like really messed up when people said it. But they were

kind of right. The Brown's offense was better after O'Dell tore his ACL. And I didn't even believe that at first. But Mary Kay Cabot, who's like the best beat writer for Cleveland, she's been there for 25 years. And she said that Baker felt pressure to get O'Dell the ball. Like he felt like O'Dell was this big acquisition. He's a star. And quarterbacks have to play politics sometimes.

He had to get Odell the ball. But it disrupted the entire offense because Baker was forcing it. And do you know what Mary Kay Cabot called this? Baker's pressure to get Odell the ball? She called it the ghost of Odell. Oh. Wow.

It was haunting Baker. She literally called it that. And I feel like he's just been so disappointing for so long. And like that tantalizing talent from five years ago was just not coming back. And I look now, I'm like, okay, training camp's starting this week. And it's like, do we want, do I want to undo this? And I'm like, well, if Baker wasn't, if Baker was forcing him the ball before and Odell still

kind of sucked, how is he going to get better? The offense gets better, I guess. Baker improves and they throw more. Yeah, Mayfield becomes more efficient. We saw what he did down the stretch last year. Obviously, that was small sample. But he was looking really, really good. Maybe he's more in tune with this offense.

What if we make the argument that O'Dell is humbled now? Has O'Dell finally been humbled? Is he like, all right, listen, I got to put together a 16-game season one of these years? I think it's what D.K. said where it's like, Baker has to be more confident now. It's like, I'm going to just play the game and I'm not going to just force it.

And that the process, it's kind of not intuitive. But now that he's no longer forcing it to O'Dell, O'Dell actually could have a better season because the whole offense, rising tile will lift all boats. But still, it's like, also he's an explosive player coming off a torn ACL. which is just the latest in a litany of lower body injuries.

And it's like, I feel like Odell is the king of like the 11 point game, but he's never delivering you big weeks. And I don't know, man. Like he's just, it's weird because I think that Odell in some ways the name value hurts and helps him when you draft. Like there are some people who see Odell around the sixth round that they're like,

absolutely. And some people just hate him and won't take him at any rate. So it's weird. But I don't know. I think that he's, you could convince me, look, at the end of the day, he's a number one receiver.

And he's being priced. really no one has any higher than like the top 23, top 24 receivers. But I just kind of don't want him on my team anymore, man. It's just such bad vibe. Yeah. A lot of these players are personally dead to us, but I think Odell is one of the more universally dead to fantasy football managers guys in the league.

I mean, we're all pretty scorned about him. It's rare that a guy has gone from so sexy to kind of so annoying. And he's only 28 years old. I mean, it's been a journey for Odell and fantasy. I mean, just kind of like Seekwon. Like if Seekwon puts together one or two more shit of, years like he's in Odell territory. I mean, they were so electric. And now I think they're just kind of gross. So if you look at his, I'm just looking at his page here at Pro Football

Reference. As a rookie, he averaged 7.6 receptions per game, 108 yards per game. His yards per game average, I'm just going to read off his like seven seasons in the league here. 108, 96, 85, 75, 87, traded to the Browns, 64 in 2019, and then 45 last year. So it's going down every year. Receptions per game, 7.6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 last year. Sorry, in 2019. So his yards and catches are going down every year. And then 3.3 catches per game last year.

So, yeah, like, it's not even just the injury thing. It's his, like, efficiency and volume per game has, like, steadily decreased over the last few years. it's it's it is really getting harder to believe that like he's going to be the post yeah it's like the post post post type sleeper like I don't like what is it at this point you know what I mean

like it's just not going to happen at this point it feels like but also I do still sort of have this thought in my mind like okay the O'Dell of old is going to come back this year I can't like completely you know give up the ghost if you will yeah I mean if you look at the guys around him in drafts It's Cortland Sutton, it's T. Higgins. It's Kenny Galladay, Jamar Chase, Brandon Ayyuk.

If one of those guys is going to have 15,600 yards and 11 touchdowns, I might pick O'Dell. Like if I had... But there's something different about picking a player like O'Dell because if you pick one of those other guys, you're like, oh, well, there's this or there's that. And like, you know, something ends up happening. Like, you're the right or you're wrong and your hope for the player. Odell, it's a little different because if O'Dell sucks, it's because you're dumb. It's not because of O'Dell. It's because you should have known.

It's like if you get burned four times, at what point are you just a masochist? Right. Do we have him ranked way too high, by the way? This is what I'm wondering. I think we do. I don't know. I don't know if we do. Do you think you'd have Cortland Sutton over him?

I don't think so. So we have Odell in half PPR. We have him 57th overall. He's right there. Like Craig said, he's right there right above Cortland Sutton, Brandon Ayuk. I mean, there's question marks around all these guys. Sutton, Iyuk, DJ Chark. Claypool. I think all those guys

have pretty major question marks. And Sutton and O'Dell are both coming off torn ACLs. Odell's name value is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, though. So I think he's dead to me and he will remain close. I think it makes a lot of sense where we ranked him and I think it's correct. However, I don't want him. Yeah, I'm not burying the hatchet.

I'm leaving, yeah. I don't think I want a lot of Adelish. But he's still the number one guy in the Cleveland offense, isn't he? I know, I know, I know. He's still the number one. There's just something about him. You know what I mean? I'll be really bummed if he's like the wide receiver's four after four weeks but i think you got to decide within yourself if you're okay with that happening i just yeah i i i'd rather be wrong that he and he ends up being good on someone else's team than pick him and he's bad on my yeah like him being bad on

my team would be way more upsetting than if he's good and i didn't pick him yeah anyway who wants to go next well let's stick with the brands here i will go up i'd like like to request to speak to Jarvis Landry, wide receiver on the Browns. Jarvis Landry, Jarvis Landry, Jarvis Landry, Jarvis Landry. So there's no way this is going to sound good. I just felt a draft. Did you guys feel that? Oh, is he here, Jarvis?

The room just got cold. I just sensed the two-yard screen that broke the all-time record for catches through four yards, four years. So Jarvis is a good. interesting because basically I have a personal relationship with Jarvis in my long standing fantasy football league. I have a friend named Jackson Barry and he drafts Jarvis Landry extremely highly every year claiming that he's so good. You guys are

idiots. Jarvis is awesome. And we're like, you're a moron. This is like when he went in the dolphins. We're like, you're so stupid. He's going to catch like 90 balls but for like 700 yards. And he's like every year. He's like, Judge, you're so dumb. Jarvis is the best. And finally, last year, I was like, this is going to be it. I'm now on the Jarvis bandwagon. I think he's going to be good.

Like, it was the first year. My buddy Jackson, like, didn't draft him. And so, like, we all hopped on him and we're like, and we're going to steal this bandwagon from you. We're going to kick you off. And then he sucked. And he was borderline benchable last year. Like, even after O'Dell got hurt.

I mean, he got a little bit better. But, man, he was pretty much just putting up, like, 40 yards a game, three catches. didn't have a touchdown until week 12. I mean, it was really bad. I put him in the bird buck last year. Yeah, DK. Baird burned him.

And the Browns were a really hard offense to root for, especially last year because they literally never threw the ball. So when they did, you got so excited. And if it didn't go to your guy and it wasn't like a perfect 15-yard-completed pass, you got so upset because you're like, well, that's not going to happen again for the rest of the drive. Like, it was really few and far between, you know. And then Odell got hurt. Things changed a little bit.

But then, you know, you hear all about Jarvis's injury. he was playing with a shaved hip. They treated his hip like Parmesan cheese and we're shaving it in the off-season. And I got to say, Jarvis, if you're listening, man, come back. You're not dead to me.

You were part of my sleepers episode, you know, two weeks ago or whatever. I'm all in on you this year. I'm all in on the Brown's offense. I'm ready for Jarvis to be back into my life and to blossom as the guy I know he can be in the Browns offense. You're a bigger man than I'm.

I am. How do you guys feel about Jarvis? He's good. I still think he's a good player, a dynamic player. I will not be drafting him. I really do think it's one of those things. Maybe that he's just not very exciting. But I think he is.

I think he's just not put in exciting situations. He's like a good actor on a bad show. Yeah. But that's like, I don't know. I just like I feel like the guys around him, though. I'm just more apt to take the guys around. I'm trying to find him on our rankings. I think, I think Craig's right.

about Jerry Judy or Jarvis Landry? Like, I'm taking Judy. He's more exciting. I think that's the thing. It's, do you think Baker Mayfield levels up this year? And do you think that he's just going to be a much better passer?

Because I just think at the end of the day the Browns want to run the ball and that they're just not, I just don't think Baker's throwing 30 times a game a lot this year. I don't know. If you look at the second half of last season, he did throw it over 30 times a game.

Yeah, but I think their defense is going to be a lot better. The defense kind of sucked last year. And it's not because they, I mean, they signed Judeavian Clownie, but like, I don't really care. it's because they did well in free agency. They added John Johnson, like the safety from the Rams.

They just have a lot of better players. I don't know if there's actually a defense that improves in the offseason quite as much as Cleveland. And I think that that's exactly how they want to play is they kind of want to choke teams out in the second half. But again, at the same time, if Baker gets a lot better, like, we could feel pretty dumb for like, oh yeah, Jarvis and Odell were there. Like, if they're both like really good, Odell and Jarvis to start the year, what do we look back and say, oh, right, well, they were both hurt on and off for portions of last year.

Baker didn't find himself. If Baker starts playing better, that's the thing. I just don't know if I want to bet on that. Yeah, this feels almost more like a decision on, like with Odell and Jarvis, this feels more like you're deciding whether to take Baker Mayfield. Even if you're not even taking Mayfield, you're just indirectly taking Baker Mayfield in these drafts. The thing that I had just come back to, though, and like the reason I still would have hope and I'm with Craig, I think I'm still, he's not dead to me.

I'm probably not going to be looking. for him frequently, but like, Stefansky was part of an offense in Minnesota that was producing two number ones in, like, Thielen and Diggs. And when you have an offense, even if it's run heavy or

like, quote, balanced, if you funnel a most or like a huge majority of the targets to your two receivers, like they can still put up the volume that you want. Yeah, look at the Titans. I mean, like Corey Davis and Baxter Brown are serviceable guys. If Baker's good, I think they're going to throw more. And I think it's honestly as simple

is that. We're underselling Baker too. You have to remember that he's had four offenses in three seasons and that last year they installed this offense during the COVID year, which I know that it's kind of easy to be like, ah, whatever, shit. But like, there are plenty of teams, plenty of individual players just did not get

their feet under them last year, whether just for conditioning or knowing the scheme, but a lot of different reasons, to like middle of the year. Like, there were a ton of rookies last year that just weren't going till week seven or week eight last year. And the Browns incredibly hurt. And listen, he's been better than O'Dell since O'Dell came to the Browns.

Like the year before last, he had eight, over 80 catches almost 1,200 yards. Like, and that guy's going in the seventh round, eighth round? Like, why? I don't get it. So this thing, if Baker is really good this year, we'll all look at ourselves and say, oh, yeah, it's the first year he had an offseason with the same offense he had before. And we're dumb. But having said that, if I'm going to pick between these two guys at where they're going in drafts, I would rather, I think I'd rather have Jarvis, if only because Odell, again,

is coming off the torn ACL and he has all these other injuries. It's not like it's a one-off flute thing for him. I think I almost like Jarvis more, but just because I think that Odell, there are actually other guys with more upside, but they're not, it's weird because they were both so exciting and now I look at them as very unexciting

players. I agree. I think Jarvis is the pick. I think he's more valuable. All right, D.K., do you have another spirit that you would like to contact? I do. I do. The player that I'd like to communicate with, is Marquise Brown.

Marquise Brown. Marquise Brown. Hollywood Brown. Oh, sorry. Bakersfield Brown. Bakersfield Brown. Fresno. Olds Mar.

Olds Mar. And Sino Brown. No, remember, it's got to be Florida. It's got to be Florida. Florida cities. Yeah, so obviously people know, I guess, the history, if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know the history between me and in Hollywood Brown. I was very high on him as a real.

rookie. He showed out, he flashed here and there, didn't, was not really reliable. And then last year, you know, I'd say that he was very disappointing based on what we were expecting and where he was going. And so yeah, basically I just decided to hop off that hype train hard. I was just ready to give up. Um, he finished. Hollywood shoes up a lot of young, naive believing people to spit them out. Like, you're not the first and you won't be the last. Yeah, I thought, I came to Hollywood thinking I was going to be a star. Um, yeah. So last year he finished as the wide receiver 34. And half ppr. He averaged

9.6 points in half pbr. He was usable for like a handful of weeks over the first 10 games,

but then basically really fucked you over. There's some big time yikes performances sprinkled in. He had weeks with 4.2, 1.3,

3.8, 1.4, and 0 points respectively in that stretch. And that was all despite him having a very strong target rate

for the, for the Ravens. He actually finished the season with a 26% target rate, which was seventh most of mug receivers. He was still just getting tons of targets, which is I think also the reason, by the way,

I was just constantly being like, we got to get, we got a hypolywood brown, we got a hyperpolywood brown. At some point he's going to catch up because he's getting the targets, he's getting the volume, he's getting those high valuables looks, blah, blah, blah.

It just never really came to fruition where he was turning those, like that target volume into anything usable. So basically a combination of inconsistency, the low-volume passing offense where you have Lamar Jackson running the ball a ton. Rocks for hands. He had like seven drops last year. And like a lot of the times it's like these big time moments where he's like dropping these passes. And now the Ravens have new additions in their offense.

Sammy Watkins, Rashad Bateman, the two notables. I don't know. It makes me very nervous about picking Marquis Brown in any draft at any point. Does it hurt even more because you wanted him? to be good so badly last year. Like, he was your number one pick. If you could guarantee one of your choices panned out,

it would have been Marquis Brown last year, right? Yeah, because I was such, I was so vocal on the hype train for him for the first two seasons. And I still think he's, like, really talented, but all the variables now, I'm just like, no. We did, like, an entire episode on his diet

and how he gained 20 pounds last year, remember? I think the problem with Markey's Brown to me is there's overlapping variables. Yeah. Are the Ravens going to pass bottom two, bottom three in the entire NFL again? Very possibly. Do we need Marquise Brown to like develop more as the kind of route runner? Maybe.

Does Lamar maybe, is Lamar going to have to adjust how he throws? Like, not how he throws, but like, is the more going to have to adjust the kinds that throws he's making? Whether it's outside the has to adjust to Greg Roman, the offense corner has to get players open. There's just so many questions. What's the breakdown between him and Sammy Watkins? Who's like the Carlos Hyde of receivers?

It's just, there's just so many. any questions that even though Marquis Brown in theory not a lot has changed between what we liked about him last year and he's going a lot later than we had him last year you could make the argument that he's a post type sleeper but there's just so many things that have to align for him to be

consistent and to D.K.'s point, I think a lot of the reasons these guys are dead to us is the inconsistency. It's the sub five point games where you feel like a fucking moron. Sub two point games. The sub two point games. The zero point zero game. I don't do it. So here's the

And we've got him ranked, in half PPR, we've got him ranked at 89th overall. You know, so I think if he falls to that area, like, you're taking him in the eighth, ninth round or whatever. I think that's fine. I don't know. You know, it's much more, I feel like he's much more appropriately priced than he has been the last couple of seasons. I don't know, off the top of my head, if that's necessarily true. But it always feels like people were overdrafting him the last two seasons. This year, and there are some reasons.

Yeah, I could probably not have, I might have helped that a little bit. but there are some reasons that I'm like half of me wants to just get get back on the train. Here's a few reasons I'm like at least considering getting back on the Marquis Brown train this year. He had a very strong finish to the season. I will say that. He was the wide receiver 11 from weeks 12 through 17. So that six week period, he caught 26 passes for 338 yards and six touchdowns. He also caught 11 catches.

for 196 yards in the playoffs, that's an eight-game stretch. So half the season, in which he caught 37 balls, 537 yards, 6 touchdowns. A full season, like a 16-game season. I know it's 17, but just for context,

since we understand that, 16-game stretch. That would be a 74-catch, 1,068-yard, 12-touchown season, which would make him, obviously, a pretty useful fantasy tool. It is worth noting that in those games, they play Dallas, the Jags,

the Giants, Cincinnati. Yeah, and that's why it's always a little dangerous to use small sample sizes. However, it's still, you know, and I mean, he still was doing it. And he still came on strong at the end of the year, which is confirming a lot of our biases, which is always a problem. And the other thing that makes me a little bit intrigued with him now is, like, people are going into the season thinking like Bateman's going to be the number one,

that pushes Marquis Brown to that number two role, which is probably more suited to him. Maybe that means he plays in the slot more. maybe they use him in different ways, not just like a deep threat down the field. I don't know. Like there are reasons to be in on Marquis Brown this year, especially at cost. But as we talked about on the saving,

the forgetting Sarah Marshall podcast a couple weeks, like last week, I'm just going to continue. I'm just going to go about living my life. I'm not going to be drafting him when I see him there in drafts for the most part. Like if it's a really good value, I'll grab him,

but for the most part, I'm just going to carry on living my life. Not getting back on the train. words. All right. Well, you reminded me of someone that I have a long-standing history with D.K. And I'm going to need to contact if we can transcend into another realm for a moment. Mike Williams of the Chargers. Mike Williams. Mike Williams. Mike Williams. I think we get worse at it every time. Yeah. It's not going well. Maybe I won't edit them together so it'd be all really clunky and that'd be funny. It's not going well. It's going to sound terrible. We should

should have done chant practice. We wouldn't make for a good like barbershop quartet or threesome. Three. No, I'm not, I don't want to say threesome. What's the word? Tri-factor. I don't know.

It's not a threesome. We would make for a good threesome. I tried to avoid saying the word threesome here, but I couldn't, I couldn't come up with something quick enough. No. Do more. Do more. Do less.

Threesome. Threesome. Three-sum. Trium. Guys, can I talk about how Michaeloumes is dead to me. Yeah. Yeah, and then I'll talk about why I'm resurrecting him immediately. Are you serious?

All right. I love my... What I'm talking about? He's one of my sleepers. I know. That's dumb. When I think of fantasy players who are dead to me, the first person I thought of was Mike Williams.

Like, when we first thought of this idea, I was like, I need to have a conversation with the ghost of Mike Williams. Because guys who are dead to you are because they pissed you off. And nothing is worse than like getting, feeling like a moron. D.K., you mentioned the Marquis Brown games that are like sub two. That's Mike Williams to me. When I think of Mike Williams, I think of 20-point games and 1.9 and nothing in between. Like, he's the fantasy thirst trap.

Last year, he had eight games under eight points. In 2019, he had 10 games under 10 points. In 2018, he had another 10 games under 10 points. Like, Mike Williams is the guy who gets, who's drafted in like the top 100 and then gets cut in your league. And you're like, oh, my God, Mike Williams is available. And you use your waiver claim. You get Mike Williams. you plug and play, he gets you 1.8 points, and you're like, I'm an idiot.

You bench him the next week, it gets 24 on your bench. You play him the next week, and he gets four. And you're like, fuck this. You cut him. And then some other sap picks him up. And the whole thing starts over. It is like, it's like the time is a flat circle. Like, I get the appeal, but how long, like, I just can't go through this anymore.

He's never had 50 catches in the season. He's never had 100 targets in his season. And like, I get the Herbert stuff. it's a better quarterback maybe than Rivers and like he should be better. But like Mike Williams only have like three targets a game when Herbert and him overlap last season. And maybe that's a little skewed

because Mike Williams was hurt. But Mike Williams has always hurt. So why am I going to draft this guy? We have them back to back in our rankings and it's not because I'm high on Mike Williams. I'm much lower on him than both you two. I would take Marquis Brown over Mike Williams. Every day of the week, I don't want Mike Williams anywhere

near it. I get all the arguments. I get like oh, number two on the charges. Herbert. I just can't do it. Listen, that's fine. I think part of the reason why I'm in is I've never had him on my team. You know? That is probably why you've been hurt before. I haven't been hurt by him before.

You know, he's like, I don't know. I'm on a dating app, but I just see this profile. I'm like, this looks great. And then the ex-boyfriend's like, don't do it. And I'm like, eh, it looks good. I don't want to do it. Yeah. I am a jaded ex of Mike Williams.

It's the absolute worst experience. But you know what? Maybe he's changed. I mean, listen, you being like he's never had 50 catch. in a year. That's cool. I mean, he's had a thousand yards in a year. He's had 10 touchdowns in a year. Like, isn't that even more impressive considering he hasn't had 50 catches in a year? Like, imagine if he gets 100 targets this year, and he is healthy. He's already done those two things. You're using words like, imagine and if I have been there, done that. This is fantasy football.

We're projecting. Oh, my God. We're talking about Markey's Brown. We're like, oh, all the ifs involved with that, there's overlapping variables, yet you're like, I wouldn't do that. I'd take him as a second over Mike Williams. There's less variables with Mike Williams. There's less variables with Mike Williams. When it comes to analytics, like, or just advanced math, whatever, the ideal version is you want the eye test to match up with the math. And I just want to throw this on the eye test. No, no, no, no. I just want to throw this out there. When I'm saying the eye test, I'm being, my personal experience suggests that he's the most fucking infuriating player I've ever had in fantasy. Maybe ever. Maybe ever, at least in the last five years, no question. How many times have you had

him on your team? Too many. But that's the point. Now, that's my experience. But what's hilarious is that Josh Hermesmeyer, who does this amazing air yards model for Establish the Run, Mike Williams has fooled Josh Hermsmeyer's established the run air yards model so often that he just refers to Mike Williams as redacted. Yeah. He built a whole model and it's really good at predicting everyone in the NFL except Mike Williams. Doesn't that tell you that some good is to come?

No, I actually think that a lot of the Matt, like the reason people are, are high on Mike Williams is this advanced statistics that suggests he underperforms in the red zone. The reason he underperforms in the red zone is that they just throw him fades that don't work in the corner of the end zone. I'm not over projecting him because of any fancy EPA per play bullshit. I'm saying he's basically really talented. His quarterback is really good. He's going to be on a good offense and he's healthy right now. Like what else is there? Also his usage is like people are already talking about his usage changing, I think, which is a big variable. You know, in this Lombardi offense, which turned Mike Williams into, or sorry, which turned Michael Thomas

into like the clear number one at the exposition. Like, people are wondering if he could have a much bigger role based on the offensive changes, which is another variable that'll get you sucked in. I would need to see some like real tangible stuff at a training camp from people like before I can get. I just, I can't, I can't. The other argument is there's literally no one else catching the football. Like there's Jared Cook who's 75 years old and then there's a bunch of of like Josh Palmer rookie second year wide receivers like there's not a lot going on when mike williams gets hurt in week six imagine how crazy that depth chart will be so high fits we've got marquise brown at 89 mike williams at 92 back to back for receivers who are you taken in that

group are you taking marquise brown i think i have mike williams 20 spots later than both of you guys okay well so you're taking marquise brown by by a million maybe by a trillion so you'd rather have you'd rather have like curtis samuel you know i think i would yeah okay about like Corey Davis or Devante Parker. Yeah, I would. I would rather have those guys. T. Y. Hilton? I could be Michael Pittman, yes.

T. Yelton, I'd have to think about. But like, I'm so, like, there's a thing, there are certain guys where it's like, it's emotional. And I get, again, 90% of the value you'll find in fantasy is taking emotions out of it. But if you take the other 10% out, you're not a human being.

I can't separate how much I've been burned. It's not worth it. I can't go through this again. I can't live like this anymore. I can't go through this. again. You act like it's an actual relationship. God. Anyway. Okay. Fair enough.

Okay. Can you say on someone else? I'm emotional, my emotional energy has been spent. All right. Yeah. We got a couple teammates here back to back. So, Craig, you go first here. Okay. I'd like to speak with Russell Wilson. Wow. Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson. Mr. Unstoppable. What is it? Unlimited. Oh, Mr. Unlimited. Well, that's turned out not to be the case last year, Russ. Relatively limited. Mr. Occasionally limited.

Russell Wilson personally ruined my fantasy playoffs last year. On his own is the single reason I lost in the championship is because of Russell Wilson. I had the best team and I stuck with him like an idiot because Jekyll and Hyde screwed me. So it's really interesting. You can look back on stats and they can tell a very different story. if you look at the full season stats and actually going through game by game. Russ, you know, if some guy's playing fantasy

for the first year this year, and that should be an episode we do. Like things that people who are playing fantasy for the first time would think by looking at last year. Yeah, you look at Mike Williams stats and you're like, oh, what a good player. You go, oh, Russell Wilson,

was the quarterback six last year. What a stud. Well, he was basically the quarterback one for the first half of the season and he was the quarterback 12 for the second half. And it was a large gap. He scored almost 30 points a game for the first half of the season.

and then fucking 17 for the second half. And the asshole sprinkled in a week 14 game where he threw four touchdowns and you're like, oh my God, he's back just in time for fantasy playoffs. And then you know what he does in week 15, 225 yards, one touchdown? And week 16, fantasy championship week, 181 yards in two touchdowns.

Russ was brutal. And here's my thing with Russ. I know he's good. Obviously, I get it, okay? He's probably a top five quarterback in the league and he has been and he will be. but I'm personally I'm kind of done with the like

will Russ cook will he not cook is Pete Carroll going to let whatever OC here going to do what he wants for a little while until Pete Carroll's upset about it and then he changes it I don't want to deal with that anymore I want to draft a quarterback who the offensive scheme is set they know what he is they know what they're going to do I feel more confident that Justin Herbert

is going to have the same game plan from week one to week 17 than I am with Russell Wilson And for that reason, I'm out. It's like Shark Tank. And for those reasons, I'm out. So I'm like Cuban there. I get it. So I definitely get it.

I definitely understand the fatigue, wondering of whether he's going to cook or not. Like, believe me, I've lived that life. What, the three decades of Seahawks football has worn you down to the night? Yeah, like from a real fan point of view, it's so frustrating seeing how the Seahawks play sometimes because they like to play, you know, very, I don't know, conservatively and ball. control, not turning it over. Pete Carroll is totally comfortable letting the game go down to the last play, blah, blah, blah. Chaos is a ladder.

That's Pete Carroll's like operating. I'm aware that he shouldn't be dead to me, but he is. I'm aware that he shouldn't be, but I'm being irrational. Yeah. I get what you're saying, though, because you know what's really weird that Russell Wilson is like maybe a top five NFL quarterback and also every offseason? It's like, will they let him throw the ball? That's weird.

Yeah, it's a weird conversation. You don't hear that about it. The other good conversation, hmm. Seriously. Are they going to let Josh Allen throw this year? Yeah. It's just not a thing with the other teams. What do you think he tried to fucking force a trade?

I don't even know. It's one of those things that sometimes you get so inside this bubble world that you forget how weird this shit sounds. If the NBA, they were just like, yeah, this guy's one of the best three-point shooters, but will they let him shoot? Like that would never happen. Like if Steve Kerr was like, Steph took too many threes last year. We're going to scale him back.

We can't turn the ball over. Come on, Steph. Yeah, Russell, he was tough last year because, like you said, he came out scorched earth, like crazy, crazy good, all-time good. Like, he was on pace to set all-time records and touchdowns and yards and things like that. Maybe not yards, but definitely touchdowns.

And then down the stretch... And then he became like Alex Smith. Yeah, down the stretch, it was tough because on one hand, you're like, oh, I can't bench him because he's Russell Wilson and look what he did. What are you talking about benching him? No, in fantasy.

I'm talking about it for fantasy, dude. Oh, okay. I was like... Okay, I was like, what? No, I'm talking about We had these discussions late in the season Like should you just stream Should you just stream a quarterback?

And you know, I don't remember exactly what we said But like Craig mentioned the game Where he kind of came back He threw four touchdowns against the Jets But if you look at the stretch of games Where he really struggled Down the stretch last year The Rams twice

You could see that coming The CX always suck against the Rams The Cardinals 49ers who had a really good defense and Washington and the Giants who had a solid defense for stretches there last year. So, I mean, he faced some really, really good defenses, particularly the Rams

and the 49ers and Cardinals, which is a little worrisome because those are their division teams this year, so they're going to be freaking playing them again. But on the other hand, like, that is a variable that I have to keep in mind. Like, that stretch was just a lot of really good defenses. They pair back. They pulled back.

If you're a top five quarterback in the league, to be honest, I shouldn't have to give a shit what defense you play. You know? I agree. By definition. Like the whole question, though, this whole question, though, to me is just, will the Seahawks throw more or not? It's just the whole Searx offense.

It's like, is D.K. Metcalfa top five receiver or not? Is Tyler Lockett a good pick? You want to say on Tyler Lockett, so we got to bring him in here. So we should, we should summon him. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Tyler Lockett. Tyler Lockett.

Tyler Lockett. We are really getting worse. Good Lord. That's, we're not good at the chance. Zoom struggles. Yeah, we're not chanting well. anyway, literally disenchanted.

All right. It's the same thing that would lock it in the inconsistency, right? Yeah, so I think, I can't remember, I'm pretty sure I put Lockett in the Burnbook last year, too.

You did. You did. And the big reason was last year was a roller coaster ride. It was basically the same track of Russell Wilson, but maybe worse. He started off the year really high.

He was wide receiver four in half PPR, halfway through the season. Because he had the 50-point game. Yeah, including maybe the greatest fantasy like week one of the greatest fantasy weeks of all time when he

15 catch 200 yard three touchdowns in week 7. It was like 50 points. However he was the wide receiver 42 from weeks 9 through 16 he basically fell off the map he was unusable, unstartable at times and I think that a lot of people are carrying

the feeling they got from that and the reaction they got from that into this season and I'm not out on locket this year. I'm kind of bullish on Lockett this year. And I'm actually bullish on Russell Wilson, too, because I think everyone has such a bad taste from what happened down the stretch last season. But there's so many variables involved in that. I already mentioned the defense thing. I don't think that's the biggest one.

I think they also pulled back on the reins. They wanted to get back to Pete Carroll ball a little bit more. I think that they're going to be somewhere in between the let Russ cook thing that we saw early in the season and the pull back on the rain, slow things down and play really. good defenses, like style that they played late in the season. I think it's going to be somewhere in the middle. I think that Russell Wilson, if you look at his whole career, he's been really explosive. He's been really efficient. He scores a lot of fantasy points. Like, his worst fantasy finishes like a quarterback one. Has he ever finished outside the quarterback one in his career? I think, no, I think he's been a quarterback, he's been the quarterback 11 or better every year of

his career. Yeah. And most of the time, it's like top five. And I think he's going to go back to being that guy. I think they brought in this new coordinator because he can help Russell Wilson develop more of a mid-range jumper-type game where they're using him on quicker passes, getting the ball out of his hands, all that. I think there's going to be a lot of more like Ram-style looks where you're doing screens and sweeps and little slants, things like that to get the ball out quicker,

not going to be so reliant on deep shots, which makes him like, you know, a little more inconsistent. I think that's what we saw last year. They teams started taking away that deep ball. And so I'm bullish on Wilson, and because of that, I'm bullish on Lockett. I mean, Lockett in his career, you know, he finished as the wide receiver 18 and

2018, wide receiver 17 and 2019. Wide receiver 13 last year, obviously it was up and down. But, I mean, you can expect, I think you can expect, like, high end or mid-range at worst, like wide receiver two has this floor. And I think he has the upside to be a wide receiver one. If this offense clicks and gets back to what we were seeing closer to in the first half of the last season, which I think is still capable of doing. I think this is going to be a good offense.

And I think Lockett, who, by the way, got hurt halfway through the season, and that was a huge part of the reason he fell off down the stretch. They basically turned him and he tweaked his knee, and I want to say week 11, and basically turned him into a decoy for the rest of the year. He was just running routes on the outside. They weren't really going to him, and he wasn't as fast or dynamic as he had been earlier in the season. Now, granted, I understand this has happened two years in a row, but I don't think that necessarily means

it's going to happen again. I think I'm still just optimistic that he's going to be highly efficient, highly explosive type player from his Russell Wilson offense. I think the Seahawks offense can score a lot of points. And I think that, you know,

lock in DK or locked in as the two top guys in this offense. Hope springs eternal. Yeah. Okay. My next, my next player here is, used to be very near and dear to my heart.

And I'd like, to speak to him once again, perhaps for the last time, and his name is Chris Herndon on the Jets. Chris Herndon. Chris Herndon, Chris Herndon, Chris Herndon. God, that's not good. I can feel his presence. I can feel it. I just felt a ball on second and ten just fall through his hands.

Do you think fans listening to the show right now are kind of disappointed that we've kept up with this like chanting bit at minute 50? I have no idea. I'm really curious to see how the chanting. went. Okay. I think it's a hit. I think it's a huge hit. Everyone, please join me on a ride back in time, will you? Adam Gase, 2020. Chris Herndon gives us a lot of flexibility. It's rare to have a guy with the ability to be as effective as a pass catcher and a guy that's explosive when he gets the ball on his hands and to still be an on-the-line tight end that can block in the run game and also pass-protect,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Chris Herndon, wow, wow, he's the next Jimmy Graham, whatever you want to call him. The Athletic last year, beat reporters are saying the Jets can't wait to unleash Chris Herndon. I was flipping out because he was ranked as the tight end 27.

I was like, guys, what are we doing? Well, he turned out he finishes the tight end 35. In other words, irrelevant, completely irrelevant. Truly irrelevant.

There's only 32 teams. He was awful, and he like wasn't hood, which was my whole bit. So, like, oh, his rookie season, he was good. his second year he was hurt.

Third year tight end breakup, blah, blah. So the question, are they dead to you going into 2021? Chris, unfortunately, yes, you are. However, small little mini glimmer of hope here, kind of in the same situation. They have Tyler Croft. I know, it's another tight end from Cincinnati. But like, man, would we be surprised

if Gase, the yoke of Gase, he has been freed from it? We have a better quarterback potentially in Zach Wilson. Like, I'm going to be, I will actually be really bummed and upset if he's even like the tight end 16 I think I'll be upset And I think it's in play But no, he is

He is dead to me I'm gonna stick to my guns It doesn't sound good for him Based on beat reports From OTAs and training camp stuff Like he didn't look good It sounded like he wasn't learning the playbook He's still dropping passes

It's just not going well I don't think you can bank on it whatsoever Maybe he'll be a post post type sleeper But I doubt it I really doubt it I'm more interested in, like, um, they got this rookie Kenny Yebo.

I don't know how to say his name, sorry, but, um, he's kind of interesting. Like, he's an athletic guy. I don't know. I'd rather like, I'd rather like, I'd rather look at that than,

going to be hard to chant Kevin's name. I do want to recognize this is a big moment for Craig. Kenny, Kenny, because if Craig did not actually keep Chris Dearnden dead to him, I would have told him that he had a disease. Like you, it's a sickness. Yeah,

I need to seek help. No, no, he's dead. We can move on. Yeah. All right. Good. D-K

anyone else you want to contact Yeah so I'm trying to look up how I say this guy's name first hold on It's Yboa Kenny Yobo

I thought you were talking about the next guy in the list here I was like yeah He's a very simple name Miles Sanders Yeah Now I'm going with Miles Sanders of the Eiles Ebola

Miles Sanders Miles Sanders Miles Sanders Miles Sanders I'm so sorry everybody at home I'm so sorry That was like a legit woof for me right there.

I think we have to retire the chancing after this, unless there's like a genuine outcry from more chanting. This episode is now dead to us. This bit is dead. This bit is now dead. We will resurrect Bill. Can we put this bit in the burn book? Because, okay, so Miles Sanders, why is he dead to me?

Well, the much anticipated breakout that a lot of people thought was going to happen last year, it really just did not happen. He finished as the Running Back 23, which is terrible. but certainly not, I think, up to expectations. I think a lot of people thought he would be in that top tier. There's a chance he would descend to the top tier running backs based on a pretty exciting rookie season where he was really utilized as a receiver,

like downfield vertical receiving threat, all this stuff. Sanders, he rushed for 867 yards and six touchdowns, but his receiving work fell way off. In fact, it was almost like half, or actually it was worse than half in yards from what he did as a rookie. He caught 197 yards last year. It was $590 the year before.

He got 28 passes. It was 50 the year before as a rookie. So his receiving work really fell off the map, which is like the Josh Jacobs death spiral. It's like starting to really become worrisome. He was injured a couple different times. He had a hammy, I think, in the beginning of the year, a knee injury halfway through the season,

missed a couple games. They brought him back slowly. The Eagles were just, excuse me, the Eagles were just a massive, cluster fuck from like start to finish, offensive line issues and injuries, quarterback drama, coaching drama.

There was just, it was just a bad look. And then obviously, there was sort of a running back by committee still in effect. Obviously didn't get a lot of the receiving work. Last year, he had to deal with Boston Scott and Corey Clement. They kind of like ate into his production.

So what is 2021 going to look like in my back in? I would say that I'm not completely, he's not dead to me quite yet. I'm still willing to sort of a scry a lot of his struggles last year to just the overall dysfunctionalness, dysfunctionality? What is the word there?

Disfunction. Disfunction. Shit show. Cluster fuck. The shit show. Interminable dross. Yeah. The interminable dross that was Eagles football in 2020.

I'm just willing to kind of just give Sanders a pass on that season. He's still got to fend off some guys like Boston Scott still is there. Still there. Carry on Johnson. They picked up. Jordan Howard, Kenneth Gainwell, they draft in the fifth round,

who's a very talented receiving back. A new coach, there's the Nick Siriani thing. He comes from a team in Indianapolis that used the running back by committee a lot. The team has invested in running backs like Gainwell. Jalen hurts as the quarterback could potentially hurt things because he's going to, number one, steal carries, and number two, still goal line carries. And number three, run instead of dumping it off in the past game. So you get kind of like the Lamar Jackson, J.K. Dobbins,

corollary going on here where he's just going to be an early down guy. He's going to be efficient, but is that going to be enough to make him an elite guy? All those things are still sort of working against him, but I'm still willing to bet on his talent and bet on the idea that the Eagles know he's the best guy, and they're going to use him the most. And I guess overall, what I'm saying is, like, the talent's going to show out. Hopefully he can stay healthy. And I think he's going to be a lot more efficient this year than it was last year. So bottom line, I'm not completely out on Miles Sanders. I think right now he's pretty appropriately priced, though, I would say. Like, I don't think he's, you know, necessarily a big time sleep or anything like that.

I think right now we've got him in, you know, our fourth tier right below Clyde Edward's, Laer. And I think that makes sense. I don't think he's a worthless asset in fantasy. I don't know. Am I being too wishy-washy here? No, I think part of the problem is that the Eagles are running their team like a baseball team in that, like, the front office just is making a lot more decisions around.

I think this coaching staff than like usually. Like in baseball right now, a lot of GMs and front offices are making decisions that usually would have been made by managers. I think that the Eagles kind of are doing a similar thing. We're like Nick Siriani, the head coach, I think that the Eagles are a lot more,

the front office is more heavy-handed in decision-making, one of which is like the running backs and just the usage. And I just, I don't know if they want to give Miles Sanders like a big workload. I don't know how much they want to rotating in and out. And like the fact that they have so many guys on this roster

at the running back position is, it just, it feels like there's such a hard ceiling on how much Sanders is going to play. You know, it's so interesting looking back at stuff. I remember, like, my buddy had Miles Sanders and I seen last year, and he was so frustrated with him. And when I'm looking at his 2020 season right now, when you just look at it, you're like, this isn't bad.

You know, most of the games, he has like 80, 90 yards. Right. There's a couple duds, but you don't really realize when you actually are starting a guy every week and he's like your best running back on your team, like Miles Sanders in week 11, six carries for 15 yards. Like, that cannot happen.

Like, I think when you look back at... I think he was coming up an injury at that point, though, wasn't he? Well, the next week, he had 10 carries for 31. But, like... It's rough. When you look at the full game log, you kind of just, like, toss those away, and you're like, well, whatever, look at the rest of them. But, like, that is something that Derek Henry just, like, doesn't do.

Like, the best guys don't have those games, and I think that's what's stuff about Miles Sanders is when you watch him, you're like, oh, he's really good. nine carries 118 yards in week six. Why can't he do that every game? And, you know, I went back and I'm on Roto World. And one of my favorite things to do is to just scroll back to 2020 and read all the reports that everybody was saying. And it's Doug Peterson says Miles Sanders would be the guy.

He will be the back. 15 to 18 touches a game, which did happen. He did average 16 touches a game. But he is entrenched as the Eagles number one running back. Entrenched. But, yeah, my point is like kind of hazy. but I just think it's a lot different in the moment

experiencing the guy on your team than looking back at someone's 2020 and deciding if you were okay with it or not Intermittable draws that's the theme here that's certainly the theme Yeah I don't know Hyphen says do you think

Miles Sanders is like one of the best upside picks in that tier this tier I think the more we just prep for this season everything like there is not a tier of players that I just don't know what to fucking do with

than this tier of running backs. That's Miles Sanders, Josh Jacobs, DeAndre Swift, Chris Carson, who I feel is very unfairly lumped in. Right. Because I like him so much more

than these other guys. David Montgomery, J.K. Dobbins, we've Daryl Henderson there now. These guys who are like two down backs, who are for the most part, very talented, but for whatever reason,

their organization just seems to limit their fantasy upside. Like the Raiders, like Josh Jacobs, he's first round pick, and then he signed Kenyon Drake. And I'm like, all right.

Like, Jackie Dobbins, it's like he's this first round pick, but like Gus Edwards seems like he's still going to get a lot of work and Lamar's still rushing. So like can you trust Jackie Dobbins and they don't only throw him the ball at all? And then David Montgomery, we just talked about him for a episode. I just don't know what to do with any of these guys. But if I had to pick one of them, I feel like D.K. would pick DeAndre Swift. I could see Miles Sanders emerging from this tier.

Yeah, well, I guess let me put, let me face it this way to you. Would it be any big surprise if like next year we're ranking him back up there by like Austin Eckler? and, you know, Nick Chub. No, I think that of all those guys, I think he's the one I want the most. I trust him more. Chris Carson, I guess it's Chris Carson. But I think Chris Carson and Miles Sanders are the guys to me. Chris Carson doesn't really count

because the other guys are all very similar in age, workload, all the stuff. Chris Carson's like the seventh third pick who's really fun to watch and is on his second contract. Of these guys who are like all in their rookie contract and like all in similar boats, I like Miles Sanders the most. I think, but I don't like, I don't love him. I'm not excited that I got Miles Sanders when I do.

I'd say like the personality or, identity of this tier versus the tier above, which is Nick Chubb, Taylor, Aaron Jones, Alston, E. E.J. Harrison, Joe Mixon, Antonio Gibson, and C.E.H. This tier, which you just read it off, it's every one of these guys has something kind of like big holding them down potentially. And in practical terms, that means that, like, if you're doing a snake draft, you wait around and you hope one of them falls. And I don't even know if I care which as much as just I don't want, I want one of them to fall before I really want to take them. You know what I mean? I think this group of running backs

has aptly named the dead zone for this episode. Like there's a reason why these guys usually don't pan out and you gotta have to get really lucky. The dead zone guys. Seance. Get it? The dead zone. Oh wow. There you go. Well, it's appropriate. Although, wait, there is one more group of people we have to seance before we get out of here. Not a group, just a person.

Who's that? It's Adam Gase. Wait, don't say his name. It's a Candyman. He will fucking appear. He'll just show up if you say his name. But I just want to confirm he's still dead. Can he be our version of the guy we refer to as redacted? No, he's Candyman. He'll come up and kill your fantasy season.

By the way, before we close this out, I just want to point out, we talked about Aaron Rogers at the beginning of the show. David Bakhtiari left tackle for the Packers responded or quote tweeted that Ian Rappaport report that said that Rogers has indicated to people close to him that he does plan to play for Green Bay this season. Bakhtiari goes, wow, guess we aren't close people, Aaron Rogers. So Bactiari hasn't heard shit, in other words Didn't they work out like two days ago?

Yeah, they're like working out together. I think that he would tell him. Or Bactiari's just fucking with him. Boktiari was just on, he was on Rassillo's pod like two weeks ago. That was a really good interview. He should listen to it. He's cool. Yeah.

I feel like offensive linemen are always good interviews. Is that like a weird take? Boktiari was a one-star recruit. And he was only a one-star recruit because his high school coach lied about his height and weight so he could go to school and play. because he wasn't big enough. And that's why he was a one-star.

The whole high school star thing. I don't know about that. I don't know about it. All right. Thank you to everyone. Thank you mostly to the spirits that we contacted. We hope we did not upset any of you, especially Adam Gaze.

Please don't come to murder us. That would be super great. All right. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, D.K. Thank you for listening. And really just thank you for getting through those chance. We're sorry we did that to you.

Thank you, Lorne. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Baroon. Five. Oh. Okay. All right. Songs about Jane.

I mean, it's all downhill from there. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Sugar? Now they're like, like, you know, they're like the, every time they come out with an album, I'm like, I'll just know. I'm just, I was going to listen to it.

Carried on living my life. Yeah. See you guys on Wednesday.