The Ringer NFL Show - The Riskiest Players to Draft This Year

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

We take a look at the riskiest players in the draft and determine if selecting them at their current position is the right or wrong choice.  Saquon Barkley, Giants (3:19) Aaron Rodgers, Packers (14:10) Alvin Kamara, Saints (22:09) Michael Thomas, Saints (28:37) Dak Prescott, Cowboys (31:26) Joe Burrow, Bengals (36:18) Courtland Sutton, Broncos (40:22) Josh Jacobs, Raiders (44:17) Miles Sanders, Eagles (48:57) Steelers Offense (52:29) Check out our top 150 half-PPR 2021 fantasy rankings here! Email us: [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's good, everybody? I'm John G. Stremski, host to New York, New York with JJ, the first podcast on the Ringer and Spotify, dedicated to you, the New York Sports fan. We've got episode three nights a week, plus bonus episodes whenever news breaks. So make sure you follow the show on Spotify. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Heifitz. I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Krollbeck and we are pumped. Jacked, KSie style. You guys pumped and Jack, D.K.? Oh, Pete Carroll style. Yeah. We are launching our 2021 Ringer fans. I'm going to be pumped and Jack. We are pumped in Jack. fantasy football draft guide later this week. You can find it at fantasyfootball. Dot the ringer.com. We are pumped. Honestly, it is, I am as proud of this guide and everything we put out around it as anything I have ever been a part of at the ringer. We wanted to update like how fantasy football rankings look, how they feel. And we feel insanely proud. We've poured our hearts and souls into this thing. And we really,

you know what? I don't know if you're going to love it, but I really, really believe that everyone's going to think, you know what, we try to do something different. I hope you guys love it. It will be up at fantasyf football. Dot the ringer.com later this week. We've got 200 players that three of us ranked. It's from me, D.K., and Craig. And we also have write-ups from the three of us. And shout out to Dan Comer, Norprinciotti, Riley Macatty, Ben Glickman,

everyone helped pull it together. And again, that's fantasyfutball. The ringer.com. We'll have a lot of pods coming. Our sleeper pods are coming. Post-type draft sleepers, everything. We are insanely excited. And if you don't like it, unsubscribe from the pod.

Yeah, just, it's okay. It's a really cool looking draft guide, too. Like, if you guys have ever seen my NFL draft guide, it's basically in the same, or Kevin O'Connor's NBA draft guide. It's kind of in the same format, done in the same style, really functional, good user experience. There's some really cool, like, things that you can do, you can go through your draft and click off guys that have been drafted, so you can kind of go through and see our top

rank guys as you're drafting live. It's really cool. Obviously, all top 200 players are going to have little write-ups, blurbs, upside, downside, bottom line. It's just really cool. So yeah, definitely please check that out. So we're insanely excited. For today's episode, what we're going to be doing is we're going to go through the riskiest players in the draft.

And what we mean by that is, as we've been ranking and we've been like knee-deep and all this stuff, there are just some guys that even though you'd see, one thing to rank someone at like, oh, they're 14th. It's another to have the 14th pick in the draft and hit select or hit the draft button. It's a scary moment. You hesitate.

Some guys, there's a hesitation. Finger wiggles. Yeah, your finger. what's rule number one? Never hesitate. We wanted to talk about the guys where we found ourselves hesitating whether to rank them as high as everyone else

or really just what are you going to be thinking about as you take this person. You have a pit in your stomach. You're like, I should draft this guy. He fell, but you're like, there's something inside me that says it's not the right move. And to be clear, we're talking about the higher rank guys. We're not talking about the 140th guy

and what if he sucks. We're talking about your top four, five, six picks. You want to get those right. Like you don't want to screw up your top picks. You want to get on base. Who are the guys that you might strike out on up top? And you know what? There's only one guy I want to talk about first for a variety of reasons.

And it's Sequin. Absolutely. Like I have found there's not one person I feel more apart from everybody else in this industry on than Seekwon. I have Sequin Barkley outside my top ten players this year. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Like Mugatu and a, uh, It's the same look.

It's the same look. It's just blue steel. Here's the thing. Most people, most rankings you'll find, have him like second. It's Christian McCaffrey and Saquan, like almost everywhere. I just can't do that. I don't understand. Like the first round's about mitigating risk.

We've been saying for years is the Matthew Barryism. You cannot win your draft in your first round, but you can lose it if you whiff. I'm not saying Seekwan's a whiff, but there is a bigger risk. of a whiff than anyone else. Like, here's the thing. He tours ACL in week two last year, and he's just not on the recovery timeline that we usually hear,

and they're not saying the things about what he'll be doing this season that usually hear from an athlete that you're hoping is going to come back 100% for this season. Honestly, the way they're talking about him sounds a lot more like an NBA player and how they discuss load management

or something or long-term. Like, it's not how they usually hear as running back, being discussed coming back. And considering the quality the position, I just, I don't have sake one of my top ten. Am I crazy, guys? No, I don't think it's crazy that you're a little bit worried about this.

And we don't even know if he's going to be a full go at the beginning of the year. Like, that is a huge deal. Is he going to be one of those things where they slowly bring him along? He's not really good to go until midway through the season. We just don't know. And so, yeah, like, especially in the first round, if you're taking a guy with

your literal first pick, the fact that he's not fully healthy yet is a huge red flag. I think people are assuming since he's such a outlier as an athlete and just his ability to come back from injuries in the past has been so impressive how quickly he's like returned from a high ankle sprain or whatever. I guess people are maybe baking that into their optimism that he's going to be fully healthy and good to go.

But yeah, I think there's certainly an element of unknown here and we don't exactly have a good grip on where he is in his recovery. I think there's a few other potential. reasons to be a little bit worried about Barclay, too. Do you think he's going to get like 90 catches again in this kind of obvious? Like that is like where his elite elite elite upside had come from earlier on in his career, his ability to be such a big factor in the passing game. But to me that that version of Sequin feels like so long ago because number one,

it was with a different quarterback like Eli was checking it down to him constantly. and now they got Daniel Jones in there. I don't know. I just think there's so many variables right now that I don't think you're crazy. However, I'm just not quite as, I guess I'm not quite as nervous or worried about as you are.

It's in the back of my mind, but I'm not quite as worried. Sequin's really, really interesting because he's almost like, like, he's like, I want him to succeed. And when he's on the field, you don't want to be going up against him. He's like betting the under

where it's no fun to root against Seekwan. Like it's just more fun. Every time he gets the ball, you'd rather be rooting for him to have a 40-yard touchdown than the opposite. So I think that all of us really want Sequin

to be a top five running back. Like I think his style of play, he's so cool, his name, like everything about him is amazing rookie season. I think we're trying to will it into existence more than the evidence kind of shows that it, that it, you know,

what he should be ranked. So I think you're in the right line here, Hyfitz. However, his ceiling is better than anybody. And putting guys like, you have Nick Chub against him give me your rationale behind that.

Is it all health-based or is it a, even if they're both on the field, you'd rather have Chubb? My thing is that Nick Chubb has bad PR, but Nick Chub is as good of a running back to Saquan Barkley. Maybe he's not like the athlete's Sakewon is. Nick Chub is all around as good as Saquan to me, except he has a better offensive line. He has a better quarterback and he doesn't have the same injury concerns. And I understand that he might get spelled. But here's the thing.

Like, let me explain a little. Like the prologue here is essentially that Saquan Tours ACL also is MCL. Long story short, Stefania Bell at ESPN wrote a pretty good article that explained that the MCL didn't need surgery, but they let it heal on its own. But that postponed the ACL surgery by six weeks. So for comparison, Adrian Peterson had his ACL surgery like six days after he tore it. Sequin waited six weeks. So the surgery got postponed. Then he also had surgery in his meniscus.

The meniscus delays the recovery. So like just the range of the motion and what he needs to do with the ACL, the surgery happened later than at normal and the rehab is behind where it's, normally is for just an ACL. Then combine that with the Giants are thinking about a new contract for him. And Joe Judge, so they've signed veteran running back. So if you're looking at what they're doing instead of what they're saying, they're basically really heavily implying and sometimes explicitly saying they're not going to rush him back for week one.

They're going to rotate him back. He's not going to just be getting like 60, 70 snaps a game. They're going to rotate him in and they're thinking about his long-term health, which is the right and responsible decision. But I don't know if that makes you a top-ton fantasy pick because what we want from a top-time fantasy pick is either someone to be Alvin Camara and play 60% of snaps

and get a touchdown a game, which you need a good offense or to play like 80, 85% of snaps. I think they're going to have him play around 60 or 70% and that's assuming he's ready for week one, which we don't know, but they're not rushing him back.

This isn't Robert Griffin like all in for week one. I think that there's going to be way more of a rotation than we think. And then on that, and then you also are wondering, well, shit, Jason Garrett's the offensive coordinator.

Is this even going to be a good offense? Is this even a good situation? but before any of that, I just feel like I'd rather get talent in good situations than I don't know if he'll be on the field and I don't know what this offense or Sequin's role will look like when he is on the field. Do you actually think that they're telling us

that they're not going to play him? Like I look at what they've done this off season and it almost feels reassuring that he's going to be ready because, you know, DeVante Booker, I don't think is he doesn't move the needle. They drafted a guy Gary Brightwell in the sixth round. I think a lot of that is due to like he'll be a good special teams player. He's a six-round pick. You know, like he wasn't like a big name prior to the

draft. Corey Clement, like, who is going to be, to me, like, they're, what they've done this last season is telling us, like, oh, he's ready to go. I think Booker might get more work. But here's again, I'm, this is speculation until we see training camp. I think the question is, I guess I have the reverse process of everyone else. I'm not saying this is rock solid. What I'm saying is my process is until I see Sequin back on the field playing, not like on Instagram and like looking, good in his Instagram and shorts. Like, until I see him playing and in pads at training camp, I can't think about him as a top three pick.

And I just think that that might take a lot longer than people think, because I don't think he's a three-down back until after, like, Columbus Day. I don't know if you guys saw big news. Jeremy Fowler yesterday, ESPN Insider, said that Sequin has, quote, made a lot of progress and is, quote, moving very well, and that Sequan is, quote, eager to get back on the field. Well, well, you know what? that mitigates all my, you know what? You know what?

I changed my mind. I didn't realize he was so eager. Well, just looking at our rankings, a little preview for the NFL draft guide, for the fantasy draft guide, I should say. Craig and I have him, I've got him six, Craig has him five overall. Danny has him 12. He ended up at six because we average it out. But, yeah, high fits, I mean, you're clearly much lower on him and a lot more worried

about him than we are. And talking this through, honestly, like now I'm like, man, maybe we were a little too optimistic, Craig. I don't know. Well, it's simple because I'll tell you my exact process. I'm not saying it's to be bad. What I'm saying is there is a non-zero chance

that he's like ready, but like just rotating in and getting his legs under him for like a month, maybe longer. And so you factor that in with Will McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, Derek Henry, Camara, Zique. I'd rather have all those guys than that question of Sequin. Because it's not like Sequin in this offense. I have no questions about his role, right?

Then it's like Chubb, who I'm higher on than most people. And then you've got Kelsey Hill, Stefan Diggs, and Devante Adams, if Rogers comes back. And those are kind of the guys. And then also you can throw Jonathan Taylor in the mix. Basically, you throw those 10 or 11 guys in, and those are the guys I'm comfortable taking. And then after that, it's Sequin's upside is too much for me to pass on. But again, it just comes back to, I can't miss on my first round pick. I've done it.

So I've done a few mock drafts and real. drafts lately. Picking like 6 through 12 is this year I think is tough. It's like a weird like you know that's maybe just an obvious thing like obviously the top five guys are going to be elite fantasy players.

I would argue it's 4 through 12. Yeah, but yeah exactly because if you include like Elliot Camara like there's and we'll get to both of those guys here on this episode like there's reasons to be worried there's reasons to talk yourself out of these guys I think anywhere in the second half of the

But first round, you really have to make a decision, like, how risky you're willing to go in this draft. Like, are you willing to put all your chips in on so-and-so? You know what I mean? Here's what I think about Sequin. I think the only risk in him is his health. And I know that's obviously a big deal. But a lot of these other guys have, you know, like Nick Chub is like, Nick Chubb has less catches in his entire career than Seekwant did as a rookie. And he has Kareem Hunt, who was at once an all pro running back, like, right next to him.

Yeah. on if he plays, even if he has a, play 60% of snaps the first month. Like, he is going to get Christian McCaffrey-style usage at some point once he's healthy. I mean, he has like a 75-catch floor, probably. So, and I'm trusting medicine. I know that my thing last season was that I think we're, the era of, you know, career altering injuries is pretty much over. He tore his ACL week two last year, even if it took six weeks to get the surgery. And I know all the other stuff you outline their high fits, but, you know, if the Giants, if it's August 10th and I'm drafting or August 20th and I'm drafting and the Giants say, Sequin, you know, tentatively expected to start week one, I don't know, I don't think they're going

to put this guy in the field unless he looks like an absolute animal in practice. And if he is that way, I'm going to bet on him because I think he's better than probably ever running back in the league. I think we should revisit this in a few weeks when training camp opens and guys are running around and we can actually get reports and information from what's going on there. I guess I'm just looking at it as to be a first rounder, I need to see him. happening. So with that said, I think, you know, if you're worried about the knee, I think that that's really, like, I'm giving you permission to worry about the knee. I think that it's just, it's crazy to me that consensus too, and there's no talk discussion of it. Other than the Packers, he is the number one vote.

He's the number one candidate for like, wait and see before you draft. Like he's the, we need to see what happens. On that note, that's the other main question, I think, for training camp right now is, is Aaron Rogers going to show up? And I think Aaron Jones would be higher in our rankings, Devante Adams would be my number one receiver if Rogers was definitely going to come. And right now, I think everyone has to do this weird limbo with ranking players where like you have to you have to bake in the chance that Rogers doesn't show up. So really the ranking is inaccurate. Either it doesn't come and Devonty and Aaron Jones plummet or Rogers does show up and Jones goes and Adams go higher. But realistically, the Packers won't be properly rated in our first ranking.

So with that said, do you guys think Rogers shows up for training camp? Yeah. I do. I've gone back and forth of the offseason. I am now landing on, I think he's going to play. I think he's going to show up and play.

There was an interview done with him last week at that golf tournament thing, and he was basically like, I'm going to... The match, baby. I'm going to finish this up. I'm going to have a ball. I'm going to do this.

And then I'm going to take a couple of weeks and figure out what's next or something like that. So it almost felt like he was alluding to the idea that he's going to get back going and maybe he's accepted the fact that the Packers are playing hardball here. I don't know.

You know, you could take that however you want to take it. Or, you know, maybe it's confirmation bias. But I just, I think he's going to end up playing. And he'll be, I think he's, you know, still going to be really good. I think in, in addition to baking in, like, the uncertainty of whether he's going to play week one, you also have to bake in the thought and the idea that he's likely to regress a little bit off of what happened last year. like their offense in total was extremely, extremely outlier efficient from a touchdown's point of view. He was extremely outlier efficient from a touchdown point of view, a touchdown rate point of view.

So in addition to the idea that he might not show up immediately, you have to also bake in the idea that he's going to potentially regress a little bit from his efficiency point of view. I don't think he's going to fall off a cliff, but you know what I mean? He's not going to be whatever it was he did last year. was like 40-something touchdowns and like three or four interceptions. What was it? I can't remember off the top of my head. But it was 48 and six or something like that? Something ridiculous. Yeah. 45 and six. But here, okay, let me, here's my devil's advocate. Could we be heading into year two of spite year for Rogers where it's not not a spite year? It's not a spite year. It's not a spite year, right? You know what I mean? Like maybe he's like, oh yeah? Okay, fine. I will play for this

fucking team. I'll have the greatest year anyone's ever had and then I'm going to leave. Maybe. Maybe. I mean, so just to this point, his touchdown rate last year was 9.1. That was number one in the NFL. We've looked at touchdown rate in the past many, many times. He talked about it almost always your touchdown rate like regresses to the meaning, aka it like regresses and gets worse. It's the biggest sign that you're having an outlier season. His, yeah, his touchdown rate last year was 9.1.

He had, he threw 48 touchdowns to five picks. The year before, when he was also pretty good, he threw 26 touchdowns. to four picks. His touchdown rate was 4.60. Year before that, his touchdown rate was 4.2. So he essentially more than doubled his touchdown rate last year. So that's the only word, that's like the big worry in addition to the idea like he might not show up.

I think the regression argument, though, is so much more suited for people who haven't really done it for their entire career. Like, Aaron Rogers is the best quarterback in the league, maybe, or number two. So, like, I don't think I would put too much time into like, well, he's likely going to regress heavily back. I mean, he's had other seasons where he's had 9.0, TD. Rate, 7.1, a bunch in the sixes, like another one in the sevens. Like, he's Aaron Rogers.

I'm not, like, I'm not banking everything on like, well, he might not be as good. Yeah, but why did they draft George Love? Because he had three straight seasons where he wasn't really playing to the elite level that we got used to watching him play earlier on his career. And then he came back and was an MVP. He was hurt in 2017. And then in 2018 and 19, he threw six collective picks. I mean, I guess you could say he was throwing 40 touchdowns a year. but I think the love thing is something you should factor in.

I think the spite thing is how he operates. I don't know. I was on him last year. If he plays, I'm in on him again. If we piece together what has been said, it seems that the best idea we have of what Rogers thinks is that the Packers bought and agreed with the idea that he was declining,

drafted Jordan Love to ultimately replace him, and then did not expect for him to absolutely ball out with last season. And so both things can be true. Regression does make sense. so regression does not necessarily apply to the top 1% of people ever at the position, which Aaron Rogers does. If you saw him putt at the match,

you know he's freaking like, he's unbelievable. Locked in. The other thing I want to say, and one last thing on like, why I think he's going to show up. I think Aaron Rogers is a little Jamie Lanister in him. You know what I mean?

Like, there's just kind of vibes. Do you remember Jamie Lanister's first scene with his dad with Tywin and Game of Thrones? Like Tywin's like cutting up a deer. Cleaning the deer or whatever. He's cleaning the deer, which is,

first of what a legendary entrance for Tywin. Manister. Tywin is so mad at Jamie and he's mad that Jamie didn't kill Ned Stark and he's like, well, it wouldn't have been clean. And Tywin's like, clean. You're too concerned with what people think of you. And Jamie's like, I don't care what anyone thinks of me. And Tywin's like, that's what you want people to think about you.

And I think that's what Rogers is. Rogers wants to give off the vibe that he doesn't care what anyone thinks. In reality, if Rogers does not show for training camp, the Green Bay Packers fan base, which is one of the five largest in America, will fucking hate him. And every day he's not there, they will hate him more. I think that that is the most under-discust part of this.

I don't think it's about money. It's about, you know what's cool? Having millions of people love you and not hate you. So I think he's going to come. Do you think they will hate him? I mean, I'm not doubting it necessarily, but like it seems like people are sort of in his corner right now, at least the family.

Hatred, no. Hatred is a strong word, but they will blame him. Like, like, like, like, two things can be true. They'll be mad at how they, the front office handled this and had mad they drafted Jordan Love. However, I have yet, and I know a lot of Packers fans, I have actually yet to meet one that is like, yeah, Roger shouldn't show up to training camp. He's right. Like, no, you can be mad. You still have to show up. You can't give up on your team. You can't give up on us just because they drafted a guy

to eventually replace you. When the games start and like you start losing games. Yeah. Dealing with the fans, I really do believe he's going to come because it's not like he can show up before week one. If you don't show for training camp, that fucks over the entire team. show me a time when a player hasn't showed up for their team and like the fans love it and their reputation has improved right levi on bell james hard is that i don't know people forget about you with aaron rogers is not the case but like i like yeah it's not a good probably not a good plan so with that said when rogers shows up i think i'm gonna move i have devante in the top four receivers i'm just going to move him to number one when rogers shows up just for the lack because if he doesn't show up not you know that would say but i have devonte's probably

a number one receiver for me once Rogers shows up. And then I think Aaron Jones probably moves up for me too. And if he doesn't show up, I think we can kind of deal with it then. Who is, let's say, if Rogers isn't there, are you more confident that Jones will kind of keep up what he's done in the past

or that Adams will keep up what he's done in the past? That's a good question. I'd probably lean Jones. I think that Devante is still going to get a good target rate, regardless of who's playing quarterback. but, you know, his numbers, his ability to score touchdowns, all that stuff. I don't think is going to be strong.

I would say Aaron Jones is going to have more opportunities to actually score points and things like that, but especially in PPR. But yeah, it's not good for either of them, clearly, if Rogers doesn't show up. And that's why this is all baked into the ADP or into our rankings too. Another super risky team while we're talking about the Packers is the Saints. Like the Saints, you know, Drew Brees is retired. We think James is the quarterback, but realistically, we don't know what the hell Sean Payton's going to do with.

Like, James and Payson Hill's still there. Craig, what do you think about, like, Alvin Camara and Michael Thomas post-Rue Breeze? So I'm going to, I'm going to spoil a little bit. I'm not that in on Alvin Camara. I'm much lower on him than consensus, and I'll get into why. So obviously with Camara,

he's been uber consistent. He's been in the NFL for four years. He's been the RB 4, 3, 9, and 3. Pretty good. He has 80 catches. every single year, 80 plus. But his whole thing has been efficiency. He's the touchdown king.

He said 59 touchdowns in 60 games in the regular season. He was never risky, and that's what you want in a first-round pick. Like you stated, Matthew Barry's thing, you know? People are projecting him to be a top-six pick this year. And a top-six pick, you want that guy to be safe. I would argue, Alvin Kamar is the riskiest guy in the top six, even more than Saquin Barclay. So let's talk about it. So Breeze is gone.

Without Breeze, Camer has played nine games in the last two years. The first five are with Teddy Bridgewater, I would say a replacement level quarterback. In those five games, Camara has finished as the RB 40, 22, 25, 19, and 23. It's six targets a game. The other four games without Breeze were with Taysam Hill. In those four games, Camara finished as the RB 22, 37, 11, and 10. In those Taysam Hill games, who might be the starting quarterback this year, here are the target totals on that team in those four weeks.

Michael Thomas 36 Emmanuel Sanders 17 Alvin Camara 16 Jared Cook and Trequin Smith 12 Here are the rushing totals in the games with Taysam Hill Alvin Camara 50 Taysam Hill 39

Latavius Murray 40 He becomes I mean I don't have him in my top 10 because he becomes his talent is still maybe the best in the league but he's not going to get the volume and he never even got the volume to begin with

and this offense is going to be much lower scoring without Breeze I think and in the red zone, Taysam Hill is going to be vulturing carries from Alvin Camara, which is what his bread and butter was. Now, if you even want to pivot

and say, what if Jamis starts? Like, okay, are we comfortable taking the Jamis running back in the top six? This offense is going to be less efficient.

It's going to score less TDs. Unless his touch totals drastically tick up, I don't see how Camer can exist with Dalvin, Zik, Derek Henry, Sequin, McCaffrey.

I just, I don't see it. Yeah, that's worrisome. So you pointed it out, nine games without Breeze, and he was an RB1 and three of those games. Three out of nine.

That's pretty scary. So I think the one thing that maybe has me more confident about Camara than, I mean, that's obviously like when you break it down like that, it's pretty worrisome. But there's also this thought that in the Saints offense as it's built now, they lack like legitimate playmakers. They lack difference making playmakers.

It's not Drew Breeze. And Hyphids, you've talked about this before, like Drew Breeze has made so many different guys like their first, he's, he's thrown so many different touchdowns to their, he's, sorry,

let me rephrase that. He's thrown a first touchdown to like so many different guys. He gets everybody involved in the offense. You know, he's, he's elevated these random no-name guys into like real fantasy players.

Yeah, he's a real point guard. He's a true point guard. Yeah, like you always see like, oh, his first 11 passes went to nine different people. Like, only Drew Breeze and Brady and Rogers do that. Yeah. So my thinking is, and I guess maybe this is wishful thinking potentially, like maybe it doesn't actually end up being like this.

But my thinking, and the reason I'm still so high on Camara is he's clearly the number to, if not the most talented guy, like behind Michael Thomas, or maybe he's more talented than Michael Thomas in this offense. And they're going to manufacture more volume for him in this offense. Now, that could end up not happening. But I think that is the bargain you're making with yourself. like that's the rationalization you're having in your mind that if you're willing to take him that high, that it's going to be because they basically force-feed him targets more than they have in his prior seasons

because this offense just lacks the talent to be really electric and explosive if they don't do that. Does that make sense? So I guess like that's what you're, that's where we have to get to, I think. Here's my question for you, Hyphitz. Where he's ranked right now, most people have him as the running back for,

the overall fourth player in drafts, fifth, Isn't that his best case scenario? Isn't that his ceiling this year? Is that ranking? Does I really feel like what his average will be? Honestly, you're right. And I have thought about moving him down because, again, the thing I keep coming back to is two things. One, that he has a touchdown per game for his career.

Like, he's at 60 or so games. He has 60-ish touchdowns. It's basically the third or fourth best mark ever. Like, we're talking about like Marshall Falk or one of the handful of people he's got, like, again, you can't have a touchdown a game. That's insane. The other part of it is, to your point about efficiency. You mentioned how he's just always like a top three or top five fantasy back. The guys that he's in the company with have been Todd Gurley in 17 and 18 or the Zeke

Eliot's or the McAfree's. What are all those guys have in common? It's kind of simple. They all play like 85% of snaps and up. Sometimes it's just a function of how much a star running backs on a field. They get work. Camara has never been that. Camara has always been on the field for about 60 or 65% of snaps, but his top,

touchdowns and the catches make him play with the big boys like Zeke, McCaffrey, Sequin, and Gurley who were there for, I mean, we're talking about like many more plays a game. And without, if the Saints offense is not this well-orchestrated machine with Drew Breeze, how is Camer going to get there? And so you're right. Like, I think we probably are overrating the ceiling and really underrating the floor of like, what if this, you know, what if like the NFL's second all-time leader in every category of note retires, and then the offense gets worse. And we're like, I guess that was

easy to see coming. I mean, his quarterback was the guy who made every right decision. I mean, that's who Drew Breeze was. And now we're getting Taysam Hill and James Winston. We all know James's reputation. And also, I really do think we're underrating Taysam Hill's usage in the red zone. I think there's a strong chance he could run for eight touchdowns this year. Well, but so on that note, we've talked about Camara this whole time. What about Michael Thomas? I feel better about Michael Thomas than I do Camara this year. And it honestly started with a little Colonel from the top 10 receivers episode we did when it was just me and DK a few weeks ago. I basically didn't even realize how strong Thomas's stats were with Taysam.

He averaged seven and a half catches, 85 yards a game with Taysam Hill and he averaged 12, 6, 11, and 8 targets. He pretty much kept it consistent. And Michael Thomas' whole thing is about, oh, he doesn't catch balls down field. He actually had a higher depth of target rate with Taysam Hill. So I don't think volume is going to be a problem. And James has a history of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin. He's had two top 12 receivers in his past.

I think we all just have recency bias with Michael Thomas, and he should probably be a fringe top 10 receiver. Yeah, I moved him up the last time we talked about him. It was a couple episodes we talked about him, and I was like, you know, I feel like it is recency bias. We're worried about it because he was injured for a large part of last season. Going back, if we would have put ourselves in a time machine,

like he's coming off this massive, massive season the year before. It feels like we went too far with the pendulum. You know what I mean? and now we're underrating him. So I'm still in on Thomas. I think his production is probably going to be more predictable than Camara. And it is like as we're talking through this, I'm getting more and more worried about Camara because you're right.

He might not, if Taseom is the starter, he might not dump it off, hardly ever. He might steal goal line carries. That's going to screw things up. Tateau might steal goal line carries regardless, like you said, even if he's not the starter. So I don't know. It's, yeah, it's worrisome.

at the end of the day, like I think people are betting on Camara's talent, which is not necessarily the wrong thing to do. He's always scored in terms of like, if you look at the numbers for expected, like points over expectations, based on like your volume, he's always been so elite in fantasy points over expectation.

He's just good. He's just really efficient. He's just explosive, elusive, it's just a baller. So I think that people are still remembering that. But I would say that Michael Thomas his volume is probably a little bit more bankable. I don't know.

What do you think? Camara was like the Friday Beers' Instagram account where every week I'm like, they can't keep this up. And then the new video comes out and I'm like, fuck me, they can. Back in. Yeah. And now they got a bunch of new guys running the account. That's what I think.

That's what this situation is like a friend. They just got a bunch of new guys running the account, but they had the same tag, same handle. I'm not going to be the same videos. Yeah. That's the greatest thing that's ever been set in this podcast. Shout out Friday beers. DK

Yeah Another I'm kind of on that note It's not like a different quarterback But the same way We kind of just expect Camerre the same So we've got Dak Prescott I think everyone just kind of is like

Oh yeah Doc broke his ankle and like yeah He's still going to be a top three four four guy Are you worried about like Are you worried about Dak Prescott going into this season Do you think it's weird That everyone's like yeah no

He'll be totally normal Or are you just like no he's going to be Good to go Now so there are two major, I'd say quarterbacks coming off of significant worrisome injuries. That's Dak, Prescott, and Joe Burrow.

And we were talking about this before the show. I'm not really that worried about Dak. I'm more worried about Burrow. And let's walk through each of the scenarios here and talk about the injuries themselves and kind of where we are with these guys. What we know now, where we are with Dak Prescott.

So, Dak's injury was a compound fracture, dislocated his right ankle. The bone came out of his leg, which is obviously just like We don't need a linger. We don't need to dwell there. The other thing that I... Fresh off the McGregor thing, D.K., come on.

Sorry. May I have glossed over this during the off season, but Dack actually had to have two surgeries. He had his initial surgery to obviously, like, reset the bone and everything. And I was reading about this. Albert Breer had a good article about kind of like the timeline of everything that's gone through. And he said, and this is from Dack. The only time I can say that I was like, man, was when I had to get a second surgery, said Prescott.

And that was because I had just gotten my foot back on the ground for about a week or so. And I didn't necessarily know after my leg was facing another way how it was supposed to feel. But it didn't feel great the first couple days walking. And therefore, they went back in and the doctor was like, yeah, this isn't right. Like, we got to fix this. And so they had to do a second surgery to do it. And since then, so I glossed over this during the offseason. I guess it was like we were concentrating on other things.

But that itself is kind of worrisome. however kind of worrisome well here's why I say kind of because since then everything has been great like he's ahead of schedule he was cleared to be on the field

for a cowboy's OTAs in early June you know he's not ahead of schedule is Sequin right right but here's the thing Prescott's already on the field so he was already practicing he was in OTAs with Cowboys OTAs basically

the doctors had more or less cleared him. But there's just a few things like basically he said that he was nearly a full go, but there's a few minor precautions they were taking. He said in May, so this is a couple months ago, he said that he's, he said, I'm healthy.

If we had to play a game now, I could go out there and be very successful, start the game, finish the game, not even worry about the lake. So he said that in May. The other thing that I think is interesting, I don't know if it necessarily means anything, but DAC is saying the right things to make me less worried about it.

from a mental point of view because a lot of times guys come back and mentally they're not quite as confident they're not quite as uh it's just like a scary thing like getting major injury like that can can really affect your psyche and he's like he basically said and they said this in june i buried the injury from the from the point of practice from the point of just moving forward i'm going about my life i buried it i buried it mentally put it on a tombstone so he's like i mean just mentally tough i think and he's really just ready to get past it and go forward So I'm not as worried about Dak for the main reason is he seems to be close. He's probably, and he said his goal is to be ready for training camp and be 100% by training camp.

So if he has a setback, I'll change my tune. But it sounds like he's on pace to be 100% healthy. Obviously, the injury happened relatively early in the season, so he's able to come back and, you know, get right and everything. And I don't know, just to me, it's not quite as worrisome as the borough thing. So first of all, what is your reaction to all that? Like, how are you feeling about Dak Prescott? Are you worried that it's going to be a big effect on his game? I think that the Cowboys paid him and they know more about the injury than we do

and that if the Cowboys aren't so worried about it, neither am I. I think that Jerry Jones did elude. I do think Dak runs less, but I also don't think it matters for fantasy that much because I think they're going to pass so much. The real problem for Dak is that the Cowboys, so he was on pace to break. Like you say, break now, I think about his leg. He was on pace to shatter the single season record for Peyton Manor. matter either.

Look, man. That was, you know what else you got? He was on pace to surpass. Surpass. Crack and half. Rupure. Okay.

He was going to throw for more passing yards than Peyton Manning's record. That's all I was going for. I already regret saying this. But by a thousand yards. He was averaging, he had a career high three weeks in a row. The problem is that it's because the Cowboys defense was so bad.

I still think the defense will be bad. But they can just merely be like really bad and not historically bad. And they won't have to throw for 400 or 500 or 500. yards a game every week. That's my concern is just the pace he was on is cool, but like, I don't know if that's going to be them every week. I actually think that, I don't know. I think there might be some games where Zika is kind of handling the fourth quarter quite a bit, but I'm not worried about Dax's health at all, like the way I am, Sequin. I'm more worried about Joe Burrow. And not because of Joe Burroughs timeline, but I think Joe depends more on running

and I think that he will change his style of play. So my question is really, is the Bengals offense going to be good? Because the Cowboys' offense probably will. I don't know if the Bengals' offense will be good. Yeah, I would say that right now, Dax situation is more beneficial for him. He's not going to have to run. And he's honestly, like, over the last couple years,

he hasn't been, like, a big runner. He's utilized in the red zone a lot, but they're not, like, run-and-read option or anything like that. He's not a traditional, or, like what we'd consider a running quarterback, like Kyler or Lamar right now.

He's more of a guy that they can use to fake out. He's like Josh Allen, I guess, like goal-line-back type deal. He gets touchdowns, though. Yeah, and that's huge. And he, I don't know, if that's going to change, we'll see, but I'm not too worried about it right now. In Burroughs case, number one, I think he's a little bit behind relative to DAC in terms of getting

100% healthy. In late May, he said his left knee was around 80 to 85%. He expects to be ready for week one, but there's some questions. And he even said this, he goes, quote, I don't know how mobile I'll be yet. It's too early to tell if I'll feel normal evading the rush and doing all that. Like, to me, that's setting off alarm bells that he's not sure. how mobile he'll be. And he goes, but I feel optimistic. I feel good right now. We'll have to wait and see.

His goal is to be 100% at the end of camp. But, you know, again, he tore his ACL, his MCL. There's always the worry that, you know, planting and throwing is going to change. And he has talked about the soft season, like kind of like changing his and tweaking his throwing motion and things like that. Like maybe, hopefully it doesn't mean he'll compensate and change too much.

But, yeah, I mean, I think it's, I'm waffling because on one hand, he showed a lot as a rookie. Like, he stood in there, stood tough. Like, their offensive line was terrible. Their offense overall wasn't very good. And they asked a lot of him.

And he, I thought, was pretty good. Like, you know, traditional stats doesn't really pop off the stat sheet or whatever. But I saw this really good article from Seth Galena. And basically, what he pointed out was that Broh graded out really well, according to PFF's numbers in some of the most sticky and predictive stats. So he finished fifth and PFF passing grade from a clean pocket, fourth in passing grade on straight dropbacks, fifth and passing grade on first and second down,

and seventh in passing grade with no play action. So basically all those are saying he's like the scheme wasn't manipulating his numbers. He wasn't getting these big efficient plays based on scheme and stuff. Like when he was asked to drop back, find a receiver, like navigate the pocket and throw. he was really good. And he was second in the NFL on a percentage of negatively graded throws. So like a lot of these are really, really promising, exciting, good numbers.

However, there's just that lingering thought that maybe his knee isn't going to be quite right. And that could affect his overall play. So again, I'm not like, we've got him ranked pretty highly. I'm not out on burrow. But the burrow injury worries me more than the Prescott injury right now at this point in time. We'll see what happens in preseason and OTAs and training. camp and all that. But right now, I'm just slightly more worried about Burrow. It almost seems like, you know, what you're saying, D.K., makes me think and confirm, I'm not

worried about Burrow for his career. Right. Those sticky stats suggesting me that he will be a good quarterback in the NFL. But it's like in 2021 coming off of all this stuff, it's like, maybe not for fantasy this year. Like maybe you just don't draft him this year in fantasy. Maybe even if he's okay, like he may be a better real life quarterback in 2021 than he is a fantasy quarterback. Yeah, yeah. It's tough. It's tough. because, yeah, we just don't know, number one, like, we're all excited about the T. Higgins, Jamar Chase, Tyler Boyd, trifecta, and that offense, but we could see it take a little time for all this to, like get together and be a real thing.

Like you said, maybe, like, we're just a little early on Burrow. I think there's that possibility that that's the case this year. Okay, so while we're talking about risky guys here, I think there's a, I mean, you mentioned Joe Burr with the ACL. Another receiver I want to talk about who also towards ACL last year, Cortland Sutton for the Broncos, this has been one of the hardest people for me to rank. partially because he's coming off the injury, partially because he has a lot of talented teammates,

and also we just don't know who's going to be quarterback for this team. DK, what do you make a Cortland Sutton this year? Yeah, I mean, I think you summed it up. There's several reasons that Sutton is risky and or hard to predict. Coming off a major injury, he's playing in a weird offense with Drew Locke or Teddy Bridgewater. We don't know. Here's the status of his ACL. So he still had on a big, bulky brace when the team was working out in May.

but based on, and I've seen this from, like, around the Twitter sphere, you know, some, some analysis on how well guys can bounce back from ACL injuries and what they go on to do in their career. He's still young enough. He's 25 that he fits firmly into the camp that guys that come back and are still elite at the position. So that makes me feel good. As a 26-year-old, so if I tear my ACL, you feel confident I can make a full record. Well, I think Craig also just really still thinks he could be a professional. pro athlete. Yeah.

But really, like, to me, so the injury is one thing. And there's always, like, the worry of aggravation. And there's also the worry, honestly, that we just have a small sample of him being, like, elite, being, like, a really good receiver. He was really good in 2019. But again, it's sort of, like, just this small sample.

And it could be misleading us a little bit on overall, like, his upside. He was wide receiver 19 and half PPR that year. 72 catches, 1, 112 yards, and six touchdowns. So I guess that's like what we have in our mind. But again, it's like the major thing to me is the injury. It's the Drew Locke versus Teddy Bridgewater question and who's going to be playing, what his role is going to be. Let's just break down because that I think is more important. They're different quarterbacks.

They're very different players. Yeah, they're like the opposite. They're polar opposite quarterback styles. So Drew Locke, aggressive, you know, downfield, yolo type guy. for him the good I would say last year he ranked 12th in big time throws per PFF with 30 yeah Locke's good and I think that's good

because Sutton is most likely I would say he's going to be running routes on the outside where you're like higher a dot type deal Drew Locke his averaged up the target last year was 9.7 which was actually third in the NFL behind only Joe Flacco and Jalen Hertz so he was he was pushing the ball down field and that's good I think for Sutton

However, the bad side, Drewlock, second and turnover-worthy plays per PFF, which was only behind Carson Wentz. He was 34th out of 42 in passing grade, 40th out of 42, an adjusted completion rate. And his passer rating

from a clean pocket was 28th out of 39. So, none of those are very encouraging. In fact, they're very discouraging. In fact, they would probably say he sucks. But does he just suck, or did he hurt his shoulder in week two and was never right?

And everyone's dunking on a week? because he's last in every category. In a quarantine year, we had no offseason, and he kind of dressed it as a project quarterback, and it was a sophomore year. Like, are we really ready to say, like, no, he sucks. I mean, a lot of people are, Craig. Not me. Not me, Danny.

I'm willing to keep an open. My devil's advocate is if the Broncos starts 7 and O and Cortland Sutton leads the league and receiving, I think we'd look back and be like, wow, we all just made fun of his stats when he hurt his shoulder in week two, and this was public information, and we just ignored it. And I'm not saying Drew Locke is good,

but I'm wondering if he wins the job if we'll be like la la la why isn't Bridgewater playing and that we might be sleeping on this office. Having said that, that's unlikely. Like he might just be bad and then all the receivers might suffer. So this is a weird offense. And that's another team I'm very curious

what they do in training camp. On that note, I think there's a couple of running backs that to me are in the same mindset of I don't know what to make of them. Miles Sanders and Josh Jacobs, I think they're both really talented. I think they're on weird teams who have both used high draft picks on them

but also just don't seem to want to give them like three down rolls. It's Miles Saiders, the Eagles, it's Josh Jacobs for the Raiders. D.K., which of those guys do you like better? And which one are you more worried about? That's a good question. Let me actually just consult my rankings here to double check. So I've got Sanders. We've got Sanders ranked 35th overall in half PPR.

I've got him at 39 and then Josh Jacobs, just slightly below him at 41. So I'd say, I mean, based on my rankings, yes, I'm slightly higher and my old standard. However, both of these guys are pretty worrisome. Let's start with Jacobs because I think actually if I had to pick a guy that I would put on my team and turn into a three-down back and I think is actually the most talented player, I think Josh Jacobs is more talented. I think Jacobs is a really good running back. But the problem is we're literally and truly at the mercy of John Gruden's whims here. And we've heard story on story about how John Gruden just gets boring. supportive players, they fall into their doghouse, and then basically he's just like, I'm going to go with someone else.

And I think that's kind of what's happening with Canyon Drake. Jacobs last year wasn't very good in the passing game. And so it feels like they're basically just like, you know what, we gave you your shot, even though they really didn't give him his shot quite, I would say. I think they're basically just like, we're going away from that. You're not getting that anymore. And that's a big deal because obviously in PPR and half PPR are those targets. and those are really, really valuable touches. And he's just going to end up getting, you know, like the early down work, the less valuable

touches through two seasons. I saw the stat. Jacobs has one target on third down. Why did you draft this guy in the first round? I don't understand this. He has 32 touches total on third down in his career. So now it really does feel like Jacob, sorry, Kenyon's Drake is coming in here to kind of take over that role. Even though, ironically, Drake was mad at the Cardinal.

last year because they pigeonholed him into an early down role. Basically, they did to Josh Jacobs, or sorry, they did to Kenyon Drake what the Raiders are doing to Josh Jacobs now. So Kenyon Drake, his spiel is that he got a good pitch from John Gruden. Basically, they convinced him that he's going to come in and, like, line up all over the formation, maybe play receiver on some downs. I don't know exactly what they have in mind. But, yeah, so basically the problem is Jacobs going to get the early down work.

I think he's really good. He's really elusive. Like the numbers say that. But the problem is he's just not going to be very involved in the passing game. Or at least it doesn't feel like it. The Raiders feel like it feels like the Raiders are basically just like done with that. I agree. I think it's right across the board.

There's like a bit of a, the John Gruden thing just makes me think of like Toy Story. It makes me think that Josh Jacobs is like Woody and then Kenyon Drake is buzz. And he's just like, I don't want to play with you anymore. But I still think Josh Jacobs has like Nick Chub, Jonathan. Taylor appeal, right? Like, that's in the realm of possibility that he can run for 13, 1,400 yards, and 11 touchdowns, and he's just Nick Chubb Jonathan Taylor Light at a discount, right? I mean, yeah, in theory, he gets a lot of touches. You know, if you look at last year, hold on, let me pull up the stats, because I was pretty surprised to see this.

When it comes to attempts last year, Jacobs was third. He had 273 rushing attempts, which was behind only Derek Henry and Dalvin Cook. So that to me, is like, okay, you can rely on, like, touches are very important, obviously, for fantasy points. They correlate strongly to fantasy points. But, again, it's just, like, really in that PPR, half PPR world we live in, you know, it's just, it's worrisome because it doesn't feel like he's getting involved. The thing that I thought was really funny and just annoying is Jacobs had 33 catches last year. Ken and Drake had 25 catches last year. Like, and they brought him in to take over the passing down stuff in theory. I don't know exactly how they're going to use him.

But it's just, like, bizarre. The Raiders are bizarre. The other thing that we haven't really even mentioned is they, like, revamped their offensive line. They've gone from a lot of really good veteran players on that offensive line. They've replaced, like, three or four starters. It's going to be totally different. We can't be super confident that it's going to be a very good, strong elite running team again.

So Jacobs gets a lot of carries, but they're sort of like empty calorie type carries. And, you know, it's just like, there's a reason he's ranked so low. He's lost a lot of his value, both in redraft and in Dynasty this offseason because of the Raiders just being weird. Yeah, not great. What about Miles Sanders? So Sanders, I think that there's multiple questions with him, too. Number one, what's Nick Siriani, the new head coach there? What's his scheme going to look like?

How is he going to use running backs? You know, he comes from Indianapolis where, you know, if you go back to before Marlon Mack tearing his Achilles, he tears Achilles standing, whatever, he had a season-ending injury. Before he got injured, they were, like, full-on. three-headed monster at running back. And it was really distressing for Jonathan Taylor fans and people that wanted Jonathan Taylor to be a thing because they didn't seem to have any care about, you know, our fantasy teams.

They just want, like, to rotate three guys in. So there's always this worry, I guess, that he's going to carry that philosophy over here to Philly and basically have, you know, a three-headed monster or more because they've got multiple guys. Like, if you look at their backfield, they've got Sanders, they've got Boston Scott

who's been explosive and effective at times. They grab Carriott Johnson off waivers, Jordan Howard, Jason Huntley, Elijah Holyfield, they drafted Kenneth Gainwell.

There's just so many guys, it's such an unclear rotation that even if he is the quote, lead back, like, is that going to be enough? Is he going to get enough volume? And is he going to get enough

passing down stuff to be a big factor? The other thing that's weird about him is he was really, really good as a receiver. as a rookie. Some of the stuff they were doing with him as a rookie was really cool.

They were running vertical routes down the sideline, like wheel routes. He was catching vertical passes. But his receiving usage and effectiveness dropped pretty precipitously as a sophomore as a second year guy. And now they've got all these

quote, like pass catching backs like Jason Huntley, Kenneth Gainwell. Maybe they want to have Boston Scott be that guy. It just doesn't, we don't know exactly how they're going to use these guys.

So again, you're kind of like pigeonholing him into this early down role, and it's uncertain whether he's going to be a significant pass catcher. So who do you feel better about, though? Yeah. I mean, I guess Jacob slightly, because I feel pretty confident he's going to get a lot of volume as an early down guy. And I don't know that 100% sure about Miles Sanders.

Also, I just think there's also a lot of question marks about Jalen Hertz and his role in the Eagles' offense in the passing game. It's basically the same questions we have about J.K. Dobbins, where, Is Jalen Hertz ever going to check down? Is Jalen Hertz going to steal rushes? Is he going to steal Pasadena? So, like, in addition to the fear that Nick Seriani is going to run this three-headed monster at running back, then you're also having the quarterback stealing rushes. Like, at least in Baltimore, it's going to be J.K. Dobbins and Guess Edwards. And then Lamar.

Like, in Philly, it could be Hertz, Miles Sanders, Boston Scott, and Kenneth Gainwell, or something ridiculous. You know what I mean? And so, like, there's this, it's just like a potential mess. And that's obviously why these guys have been pushed down. Like I said, in fantasy, in redraft and in dynasty, both these guys have, like, fallen off hard this offseason. Nothing, like, about the off season makes you confident about these guys going into this year. Yeah, it sucks when you're rooting for your running back just to get subbed onto the field at the five-yard line.

And you're like, oh, my God, no, put my guy in. But it's even worse when they put Miles Sanders in, and then Jalen Hertz just does a bootleg and just jogs into the end zone untouched. Whereas at least that's not going to be a thing with, Josh Jacobs. And I do think, for me, that's a tiebreaker. That matters a lot. Yeah. Yeah. One other team that I wanted to hit in terms of just riskiness here today is the Steelers. Because, I mean, aside from just like three or four of their offensive linemen changing out this all season, Ben Rothesberger just looked horrible for the last month or two months of the season. Just really looked done. And Craig, you're the Steelers fan here. I'm wondering what you, I don't think Ben is like a, a,

fantasy guy. But I'm wondering how that influences what you think about Deonti Johnson, juju who came back, like the guy who just is desperate to get back with his ex, and then Chase Claypool, Naja Harris. I'm just wondering what you think about the offense after you watch this 11-0 start collapse into like a team that could even move the ball.

There's a lot to unpack with Pittsburgh. The overview is that Ben is back. Their offensive line is completely different. Four or five of the guys last year are gone. Which is funny because last year's offensive line wasn't good,

so you could argue that that's maybe a positive. They're a lot younger now. They kind of had a lot of old guys, and they wore down down the stretch. And what's funny is a lot of people think that, well, I don't know, you can kind of view this two ways. They were like, oh, the Steelers threw the ball quicker than anybody in the league.

Ben had like, he threw the ball quicker than any quarterback, I think, since 2012 or something like that. And so they're like, oh, that's why the offensive line. At least, but. Oh, is it on record? It's realistically, it's, of, it's, it's the fastest by a lot on record. But everyone thought it was because they couldn't protect Ben as a passer,

but the real reason is because they couldn't run the ball at all, so they had to throw the ball a ton. Their run blocking was way worse than their pass blocking. They were actually like a decent pass blocking team, but they couldn't run the ball, so they threw the ball 900 times a game. So now they're a lot younger. They drafted Najee Harris.

I think they're going to be a more balanced offense. I honestly, I don't think Ben will be, I don't, you know, famous last words, I don't think Ben is going to be washed this year. I think he'll be fine. He's there for 500 yards against the Browns, eight, you know, seven months ago. With the receivers,

it's honestly fascinating. Each of them are such interesting players. Deonté Johnson is the most talented of the group, I think, unless you, there might be, honestly, 2018 Juju,

I would still say, look the best out of all these three guys. But Deontay, the knock on him is that he drops passes, right? He led the league and drop passes. I kind of, Ian Harditz was talking about this for PFF, and I kind of agree.

Like, I kind of don't care. And also, like, do we look at any of the other guys who drop passes and say anything? Here are the top leaders in drop passes last year. Deonti Johnson, Jerry, Judy, Tyree Kill, Alvin Camara. Like, do we talk about them? Wasn't D.K. McCaff? D.K. McCaff drops a lot of passes, too. D.K. Metcalf is top 10.

Like, why don't we mention any of that? Odell weirdly dropped a lot of passes even when he was elite. Yeah. I mean, the argument is, like, yeah, you drop passes because they throw you the ball of fuck tons. So you have more opportunities to drop the ball. So like, I don't necessarily think that's like the biggest deal in the world. Deonti Johnson was fifth in the NFL in targets total and he played 12 games pretty much. He played like 14, but there was a lot of half games because one of them he got benched, a lot of them he got hurt.

But I think Deonti is steady and is probably the best pick in general if you want to pick a guy who's going to finish in the top 10. I think Juju's the best value. I think we're really kind of sleeping on him. I know he like was going to leave and we signed him back. but like, dude, two years ago, Juju was looking like the next Antonio Brown for Pittsburgh. And he had like the same year as Antonio Brown. And then the 2019 year happened where the whole team was hurt.

And then 2020 happened. And honestly, Juju was hurt. He had a knee issue all of 2020. He was always on like the Roto World, like, you know, questionable for the game. He was hurt all of 2019 as well with toe injuries, foot injuries. He's the lowest ranked and drafted Steeler receiver right now. Look at what he did in the playoffs.

I mean, when push comes to shove, he had like 15 catches for 180 yards in the playoffs. I still think Juju is a really talented player. He was like a yards after the catch guy when he was healthy. I think there's a chance that that comes back, or at least that he just returns, like, some decent value as like a wide receiver three or even a wide receiver two on your team.

Last year, all three of these guys were wide receiver twos, and now we're not ranking them like that again. And I definitely think it's possible. It's one of those fake wide receiver twos, though, because it's like Chase Claypillow exploded when he was on waivers. No one had him in their lineup. And then he had like two or three huge games. but like averaged out that comes out

but in reality he helped you two or three weeks and that's why he's my least favorite of them now maybe that's dumb because he did that as a rookie and he'll get a lot better but I do agree that Deontay is the guy here and Juju's underrated my question the one thing I want to push back on is just I think the running game's like the chicken or the egg I think part of the reason they couldn't run is because

Ben wants to be in shotgun and you're really limited Yeah, they don't even play action He refuses to play action yeah He just has to be in shotgun because he's old and can't move they were last in play action last year. The Jags were second to last, and they ran play action 57 more times than Pittsburgh.

So that has to change, but maybe it will. We have Matt Canada. We have a new OC. No, it's not changing. 100% not changing. You don't think with Najee Harris? No, that's how Ben's gone.

I don't know. I mean, yeah, we'll see. But I don't, I'll believe it when I see it. Now that everybody has a tell on him and shotgun, maybe they will. Can I give you guys a bold prediction?

This is not our bold predictions episode, but this will probably be one of mine. I think this is the first time under Mike Tom when the Steelers go under 500 this year. I really think that this offense is in trouble. I think the offensive line stuff, quite frankly, is almost a scapegoat. Like, they needed to fix it, to be clear, it was not good.

But Ben, this reminds me of a much better version of when the Giants held on to Eli Manning for a year too long. It's not quite the same because the team is a lot better. But I just think that this team would be a lot better with a different quarterback and that the entire offense feels designed around Ben's limitations. And I don't know if those limitations went away just because he has another year to recover from the elbow.

But that makes me really not thrilled with anyone in this offense other than really Deontay and Naja Harris. Because even though Harris, I don't love the running game, I think he will play all three downs. And I think he's the least attractive of the three-down running backs, but ultimately I want a three-down running back. Otherwise, it's kind of tough for me. So I just want to chime in here and give my take.

The Steelers are a very interesting team. because number one, it's very difficult to know who's going to be like the best receiver on this team who's going to emerge as like the quote number one. I think Deontay is valuable and Ben's favorite target in a large part because he's a really good route runner. He gets open early in his routes and he can get basically he's an extension of the run game almost because you're getting open and getting the ball out within one second. It's like these short little slants and things like that. Like I think he's probably going to leave the team in targets, but I'm a big clay point. believer, honestly. I do think there's a chance

that Juju makes a big comeback and it kind of turns back into the guy we used to know. But Claypool, number one, when he was in there and he was running a lot of routes, he was really good. He's big.

He's got the size. He's like a unreal outlier athlete. Like, he's one of the best athletes at the position. It's like him and Calvin Johnson, like based on his combine numbers. Like, he's an elite elite athlete, constantly making these big plays

down the field. I think he has a real chance and this is a study I've seen this from like RotoViz and some of the fantasy sites around the nation or whatever like the year to jump for receivers

for especially for like receivers recently is like a real thing where you see you see some like flashes of brilliance their rookie year and then all of a sudden you get like you turn into TK

Metcalf like your second year or whatever like you're like one of the top receivers in the game I think there's a real chance that Claypool ends up being that guy this year like one of the guys this year that does that big second year jump and like his snaps were reduced the second half of the year because Tom was really worried about hitting the rookie wall

like we're not going to have to worry about that in theory this year I just trust it like I lost trust in Deontay Johnson I know that we're not supposed to ding a guy for drops but his drops were so egregious and so common like I even tweeted this a few games before he did get benched I was like basically Deontes is a weird

guy in fantasy that could either be the overall wide receiver one or literally get benched because I just you just I lost trust in like his ability to not be a head case essentially and so like and then like a game or two later you get benched so that still sticks in my mind even though I agree like in theory and I agree in principle with Ian that like we shouldn't dock guys for drops like it's just a function of you're really good and targets are earned you're earning those targets because you're getting open. however it's still like i just still have a little bit of like lingering doubt about dionte johnson so i just trust claypool's talent his athleticism his size the whole package basically i think he's going to break

out yeah i've no problem with the claypool thing i love claypool i mean i think he's going to be awesome my point in this was that if you want to talk about value i mean juju being ranked last out of the three of them i think is probably the best draft pick in terms of like what you could get in return it's almost like the this is like almost the uncertain backfield narrative right like you just take the cheapest one. Yeah, kind of. That actually makes a lot of sense. Okay, those are the risky players.

I want to read one email we got. You can email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. Also, yeah, feel free to emails, whatever. Thoughts on the rankings, thoughts in the draft guide, thoughts on episodes we should do. We're going to have a lot episodes coming to you. But again, I think a week or two ago, I asked for a German word for the feeling of when food comes by you at a table.

It's not for you. We got an email from Rudiger Meyer, who is in Germany. And he says, the German word Danny H is looking for is fooder need, which translates to food envy. I think that food or need.

I think that that works really well. Oh man. So literal. I love this. We're almost fluent. We're getting there. And there we go. Maybe that's what Tony Pollard has

because he keeps watching Zeke get to eat. So Tony Pollard has food or need. We're going to see Zeke literally eat on Hard Knocks this year. All right. There you go. Oh, we haven't talked about Harnocks. All right. Thank you for listening.

Again, fantasyfuthorter. Ringer.com. Our draft guide will be up there later this week. Thank you to everyone so much for listening. Thank you to all the hard people, the people who put a lot of hard work in, Riley McAtee, Ben Glickman. I really can't count them all. We'll talk about it again. We got sleepers coming for you later this week. Thank you, but most of all. Thank you, Lorne. Lauren, we could have done it without you. Thank you, Mace. Who? Oh, oh, yeah. Mace. Maybe is that too early for you, Zoomers? Oh, stop. Don't give me that. No, that's, I'm not, I'm not that.

Craig is offended. Oblivious. I am offended. I think you. Yeah. All right. Anyway, thank you. See you guys later this week.

Fantasyfool. Dotterrear.com.