The Ringer NFL Show - The 2019 Fantasy Hangover: Regrets and Achievements | The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

Today we’re transporting ourselves back to the preseason to look at who ended up being the biggest surprises and disappointments of this season as well as to speculate on the reasons why each player's success was either bolstered or stifled. We talk about sleepers who paid off like Chris Godwin and Austin Ekeler, and players who burned us like Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham Jr., and Adam Thielen. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

the Danesee Football Podcast on the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Danny Hyfitts and I am joined as always by my co-host and my co-danny, the hero we need and the analysts we deserve, the Dark Knight himself. Danny Kelly! How are you doing, D.K.? I'm doing well, man. It is the off season, which is, it feels weird. What off season?

There is no off season. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, that's true. This is the on season. Craig, how are you doing? you on, Craig? It's February 11th, and naturally we're talking about what's on everybody's mind fantasy football. I mean, what are you thinking about? We're ready for next year. Starting now. Also looking backwards. We're just simultaneously living in the past and the future. Do you remember

when the Cavs lost the finals to the Warriors and LeBron just posted like 20 minutes of him on Instagram live at the gym the next day, like working out? That's what we're doing right now. We're just like we're getting ready for next year. Like it starts immediately. Hyattah and I are punishing ourselves because we did lose to Sean Yu in the fantasy championship for the ringer. That, we have to be better. Was so upsetting. Yeah. He did have a good team.

I'll give it to him. He had a great team. He went an RB heavy. He's also the commissioner who decided three quarters of a point per reception last year. So I'm not sure if he should be winning. But there is nothing we can do except grind in February. So that's what we're going to start with right now. The biggest most underrated risers, the most disappointing fallers and wits of the 29.

season. It's going to go back to August, put ourselves in the shoes, DK. How does that, how's that sound, man? Yeah, so the idea was to kind of go back and look at preseason ADP, the average draft position of everyone, going into the season, and kind of put ourselves in our shoes, then figure out why we were thinking, what we were thinking about certain guys that actually ended up being pretty bad. And then same goes for guys that ended up being way, way better. Why were we a little bit too low on them? What happened exactly? that had that for these guys to have the breakout. So we're just kind of kind of debrief on the season. It's almost like a hangover. Like we woke up after the season. We're like, oh my God, who did I draft?

Yeah, because it's not good enough to admit you made a mistake. You have to get to the why. You know, you're like, oh, I drained too much. No, it's because you did the fourth tequila shot, but you'd already switch to whiskey. And it's like, you know, you have to stick with one thing. Yeah, we're all sitting around the table, you know, at the diner the next morning. We're all hung over trying to rehash exactly what the hell just happened.

What happened last season? Yeah. So that's kind of the idea. for this episode, go back and look at, you know, what happened in the season? Where guys stood out and where they really failed, I guess. So, yeah. Hangovers and reconciliation.

What's the opposite of a hangover? I think it's... Is it Devante Parker? Because I think it is. You know what? Would you like to go through the rises and fallers, Craig? Yes, I would. Thank you, Danny.

The biggest rise of... in my book is Devante Parker. I mean, hell, the guy was drafted as the wide receiver 76 this year. 76! I think that's just undrafted. Can you blame people, though? Well.

I mean, Craig Ken. Craig is the only person who, fun fact. Nobody said the words, Devante Parker except Craig. Check my tweets. In the entire summer of 2019. You got receipts? Oh, I got receipts.

Yeah, so he was drafted as the wide receiver 76 and he finishes the wide receiver seven. He just got rid of that six there at the end. He's like, I just want to be weather shear seven. Sixty-nine. Jump. 67, 8, 9, there's a joke. For old Devonte.

And the second half of the season, he was a lot of receiver 2 behind a guy named Michael Thomas, who set a couple of records this year as well. All right, so we're going to keep this casual. I just want to throw it to you guys. Devonte Parker.

He's always had the physical skills. We always knew that. D.K. was like, I think what we've learned from him is that, like, you should always trust a high draft pick. But he took longer than pretty much anybody. Who else has had a fifth year come around? Anybody?

Just to clarify, him finishing is like the seventh receiver is actually underselling him because his first month sucked. Yeah. And nobody was playing him in the first month. He wasn't really owned in the first month. And then his final three months,

basically when everyone picked him up, he was like the wide receiver four or five. He was two for the second half of the season. So he was actually better than wide receiver seven. So for the final 12 weeks of the season when he was in people's lineups, yeah, he was basically, there was Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins,

and then like Devonte Barker. Yeah. So we think next year, year, is Tua a better option for him? Or if it's Fits, for fantasy perspective, what's the best fit for him? I mean, fits, I think you have to go with Fits. I mean, you said it,

the second half of the year he was the second best receiver in the NFL in terms of fantasy points per game, blah, blah, blah. I think you have to expect Fits. And Fitts has a history of doing this. He has a history of making guys really, really relevant in fantasy. I mean, going back to even when he was with the Jets. You know, so I think that Fits is, is Fitz just stimulates fantasy production in general.

I do think Tua long term, if they end up getting Tua, will be really good for all the receivers and the whole offense in general. And I'm just saying Tua because I think they're going to grab him. I mean, you've seen that famous photo of Ryan Fitzpatrick, you know, with the glasses and the chain. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's a stimulating guy. He looks like Connor McGregor there.

Yeah. So isn't that kind of weird that Fitzpatrick is the straw that stirs the fantasy drink for wide receivers? Who would have thought? It's like the Paul Red meme. Look at us. DeVonte and Ryan Fitzpatrick are the key duo to Fantasy Rizers. I'm so glad that we rebooted this to just immediately start talking about Ryan Fitzpatrick off the top. D.K., who's your riser? Well, I mean, the obvious one, Lamar Jackson, quarterback.

He started out the season, 101st overall and half PBR ADP, the quarterback 12. And that was already with quite a bit of off-season hype. Like, there was quite a bit of hype on Jackson going into the season I felt like. everybody was talking about, you know, his rushing floor and how much that brings. People didn't really realize that he was a good passer as well. And he ended up, I think he finished second in the NFL in touchdown passes. First. No, he led the league in passing touchdowns.

Yeah. So, I mean, what he did was absolutely remarkable going from a late round, like a 10th round pick in 10 team leagues to the MVP of the NFL. He did exactly what Mahomes did last year, which is elevate all the teams that he was on in fantasy, not to mention his own team, you know, in real football. So he was, I think, the easy one to pick out

just as the most impressive riser in fantasy football just going from kind of a late round pick, like a risky style pick to the QB1. And shout out to you because just, I mean, you were more in a Lamar than Craig was on Devante Parker.

So if we're signing credit here, D.K., you got it. You're in the lead. No, really. You wrote a wonderful piece for the ringers, said Lamar Jackson will break fantasy football. And then he went out and scored the most fantasy football points ever through 16 weeks. So how about them apples?

How many times is the most valuable player in real football, the most valuable player in fantasy football? Mahomes was probably last year, right? Mm-hmm. But then before that, it's like Brady. I don't know if he ever... Here's Tomlinson in 06? Yeah.

We got like Brady, Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, maybe Cam. Adrian Peterson? Yeah, it might be Adrian Peterson. It's rarely a quarterback, but Mahomes and Lamar are kind of both unicorns, but it's normally just like a Brady Manning Breeze, and they always just go in the number one overall anyway for quarterbacks. The difference here is also like those people are usually known. I think the difference is this person.

Like NFL MVP's rarely come out of nowhere, and now we're at it two times in a row. But before that, it doesn't really happen that often that way. Who's it going to be next year? Is Kyler Murray going to do it? Yeah, if you had to pick it out of nowhere MVP next year, who is it? along the lines of what we're talking about. So the baseline, I guess what you have to look at is a guy who's going to be like a 10th round pick or later or whatever who's going to end up being the actual MVP.

It has to be someone like Tyler Murray or maybe like a rookie or something. I mean, Ryan Tannihill this year was pretty freaking shocking what he did. Not that he was an MVP candidate, but... This isn't really in the spirit of out of nowhere because it's like by betting odds or by like average draft position this person will be outside the top 100, but they're not. out of nowhere, Baker. Because MVP is very much a narrative. Well, all right, well, this is just a different conversation about the NFL MVP. But the NFL MVP is a narrative award.

We can talk about whatever. The NFL MVP is a team award disguised as for an individual player. The NFL MVP goes to the quarterback of one of the four teams who get a first round by. 11 of now, sorry, 12 of the last 13 MVPs, because Lamar just won. 12 of the last 13, or it might be 11 to last 13, have gone. to a quarterback who's played for one of the teams who got a first round buy. So if you just look at the teams with the first round buys,

one of them will be a defensive team. One of them will be like, maybe have a good rushing. And two of the teams will be like, well, the quarterback is the best player. The quarterback is why they're here. That team, that player, the quarterback, gets the MVP award. Because at the end of the day, quarterbacks are blamed or

given credit for how the team does. And when you go 13 and 3, that means there were 13 weeks. We talked about you being good. And three weeks, we talked about why you lost your team the game. So it really is about team performance. And so it's really, the real question is which team do you think could get a first round by next year that is shocking.

To me, it's the Browns. Like, if the Browns get a first round by, Baker gets the MVP. You know who came to mind for me, and I don't actually believe this would happen, but this is more of like a bold prediction guess. Jared Goff. Ooh.

Just because I think the, like, I still believe that McVeigh can design an effective offense, and they did get better as a season went on. And if they're healthy, and if they can kind of fix their offensive line, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but that would be an interesting one. I'm not convinced that they're going to fix that offensive line.

And I'm also... I mean, it's a big if, I'll be honest. I'd take golf over Baker. $36 million cap hit for golf next year. Okay, back to fantasy. My just impressive riser for this year, I mean, it's Chris Godwin. Again, it's not shocking.

What shocked me about Chris Godwin this season was, I swear to God, he's the first unanimous sleeper where every single fantasy person you ever would have found was in on him. And then not only did he meet the hype, he's the first person that ever surpassed the hype. He finished third in receiving yards, only behind Michael Thomas and Julio.

He was the number two fantasy wide receiver, regardless of what your PPR format was, zero, half, or one. Pick 45th on average. So went from wide receiver 18 to wide receiver 2. And just looking back on this, this just made me a believer in breakout age, which is a very fancy form.

formula, but it boils down to players who do really well in college are good bets to perform in the NFL. But the ones who perform really well at 18 or 19 years old are so much more likely to hit than the ones who perform well at 20 or 21. And the players who break out when they're still teenagers are the ones that I'm going to be betting on in 2020 going forward. Why do you think that is? I think it's like anything. I mean, Malcolm Gladwell had that whole thing about, you know, like the part of the 10,000 hours thing, like there's the thing about youth hockey where children who are... When they were born, it's like the January kids perform better because they had eight

months to grow. Exactly. And it's kind of like, it looks not exactly like that, but as a general rule, I mean, the same reason with Lamar Jackson, right? Like, one of the key reasons D.K. was on Lamar Jackson is, look how good he was at 21. Like, the younger you are, the more time you have to develop, like, you're, there's a huge difference between being 21 and as good as Lamar was in 2018 versus being 24 and being as good I think the other thing the other thing that goes into this and this is just sort of logic but like

if you're an 18 year old playing a bunch of 21 year olds and you can do that yeah as an 18 year old think about like I mean this is different but like think about when you're in high school like freshmen compared to juniors and seniors in terms of all sports like if you're a freshman who can play at a high level with the older guys like that says a lot like that's that tells you that you're really, really good. Same goes in college. It's a little bit different, but same deal. That's why people are in the fantasy realm

or worried about, you know, guys coming out of college. And this was a knock on Terry McLaurin last year, who was an older prospect, didn't start dominating until he was, like, 23 years old when you're going up against, like, 20 and 21-year-olds. You should be better than those guys in a lot of cases or whatever. That's kind of how the logic goes. Yeah.

He kind of broke the mold a little bit. and he was very, very good as a rookie, but I think that's generally kind of the idea is like if you can come in and dominate older guys, you know, in college, that says a lot of for how much talent and how good you are. Exactly. And Chris Godwin went two years ago in 2018,

at 22 years old was basically as good in the red zone as every receiver in the NFL except DeAndra Hopkins. And that's a small but representative example. The data and there's evidence of this at PFF and people have written about this. I think Frank DuPont created it. We don't have to go in. into super into stuff right now.

But young people performing is good. That's what I learned about Chris Godwin this year. Chris Godwin broke that mold for me. It's why people love DJ more because he is another guy who has, he just dominated from an early age. He's going into his third season now. He's only 22. That's unbelievable.

All right. Let's keep it rolling. D.K., who else is just another riser for you? And what did you learn about him? So, Austin Echler from the Chargers, 24-spot-up, he was drafted. It as the running back 30 coming into the season. And that was even though we all knew Melvin Gordon was holding out. He, yeah, again, running back 30, 70 second overall.

He finished 20th and overall. And as the RB6, 16.4, half PPR points per game. I think the takeaway for me is an easy one. The Echler is a baller. He's just a really, really good player, really dynamic pass catcher, very explosive player. but I think we all maybe overestimated, or I guess we underestimated how big of an impact he'd make, and I guess maybe we all thought that Gordon would come back sooner or something

or have a bigger impact sooner, and Echler just kind of took the job and ran with it. Is this as simple as Austin Echler is really small, so people didn't think he would play that well? Yeah, he's like 190 pounds, which, again, it kind of goes against the, you know, perception that you have to have some, and it's true generally in the NFL that, like, you know, if you're bigger, it helps, especially at the running back position,

if you're like 210 or whatever. Also, the kind of running back that people didn't perceive him as an in-between the tackles runner, and he was better than Melvin Gordon at that this season. I guess he's listed at 200, so. But he was always good. Like, he was good last year, too, and Melvin Gordon being suspended, or not suspended, holding out, and people still not drafting him high. Like, I don't really get why we did that.

The only reason I can think of is that, like, if you just watch him. I mean, it sounds obvious in retrospect. The answer was because you used a first. or fifth round pick on, or sixth round pick on Austin Echler, and then Melvin Gordon comes back two days later, and then Alston Eccler is a backup running back that you might have to cut. That was why. And no one was quite sure when Gordon would come back,

because he was saying, I might hold out the whole season, I might do Levin'Ampe. It's like, who knows? You know what I mean? So it's just, there's risk. And also, it's also, I don't care what anyone says. Very few people were like, oh, yeah, Austin Echler, when he, you know, if he has the job, he's a top three running back.

So I think that he... Echler went from 30. Receptions in 2018 to 92 in 2019. Who could have, I guess, guessed that is the question. So, yeah, I just think Eckler, you know, he ended up being so much better than even, I think, a lot of people who are really high on him thought in terms of, you know, his fantasy production. And he stayed a factor in that offense even when Gordon came back. Yeah, all right. So speaking, I mean, you guys, look, D.K., you even nailed Lamar, Krat.

you nailed Devante. I definitely missed on that for all those reasons. Another person I missed on, I missed on, but a riser. Prasad Paraman, man, and A.J. Brown. I put them next to each other because this blew my mind. This was the... Brashad Paraman on the Bucks and A.J. Brown and the Titans were the two most common players on championship winning...

On the teams that played in the fantasy championship in ESPN this year. Perriman? Wow. Paraman was number one. A.J. Brown was number two. and McCaffer's number three. The caveat to this is it was the most, it was the lowest, Rashad McPerman was 27% of leagues.

He was on a championship team, which is the lowest number that ESPN's tracked in I think six years or so. So really what this number means, big picture is that there were more winning combinations this year than there has been in six or seven years.

Shout out to ESPN's Tristan Cockroft who writes this article every year. It's fantastic. But still, Prasad Paraman was the biggest skeleton key to making your fantasy championship this year. Now, I'm going to own it. That's full.

You know who is not on the paramed train in December? Us. Nobody was. That's not. Look, I'm just saying, so number one thing I learned is counting out a draft bust who's in a better situation because that's definitely what I did. And I confused the talent for like the situation. The other one is A.J. Brown, I mean, obviously IJ.

Brown, D.K., you could go on about this forever, but he was absolutely dominant for the second half of the season. Rookie receivers can play in the NFL now. And I was wrong about that last season. Rookie receivers have not been able to significantly contribute. And the ones who have are generally outliers for basically the entire passing boom. It's been that way. And the belief was because the timing of getting routes down and the precision of NFL

route running just wasn't able to let them succeed. And Kyle Shanahan had a really interesting quote about Debo Samuel in the two weeks between the Super Bowl where he basically said, the college game has changed. Like, you don't have to be a great rat runner in college anymore. And as the, quite frankly, you probably don't. need to be as great of route runner in the NFL as you did five years ago. D.K. Metcalfe. To succeed.

And I think that the underlying factors that made rookie receivers not contribute are much less. And I think rookie receivers like A.J. Brown, Terry McLaurin, D.K. Metcalfe, all showed that. So that's how I feel about that's what I took away from Brown and Paramount. The one thing about Paramount, I wish there was, like, advanced data on just fantasy football websites. And you could, like, track how often owners of their team are, like, check. checking the site and how often they're actually engaging in their team as a general manager of your team or whatever. Because to me, Paramond being on a lot of the championship roster just means that, like, the guys who usually win fantasy football leagues are the guys who are like on the waiver wire. Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean? That's just the guy who was smart enough to pick Paramount up quickly because he noticed that Evans and Godmugher. That's the other one to me. It's like, it's just a reminder that, like, do you remember that show Heroes? Yeah. I never watched it, but I can't forget the commercials. It's like, save the cheerleader. save the world.

And it's like, use the waiver wire, win your league. Like, that's how I think of it now. It's like, Brashad Paraman's the heroes. Like, Brashad Paraman,

these are the hero on the waivers, but it's also, yeah, it's a little chicken in the egg because the people who are most active are probably the most likely to be paying attention and winning.

Exactly. He's just like an example of somebody being active on the waiver wire. It's not necessarily him, I think, that people missed on. It's just that he happened to get hot. He was also fantastic in Week 15.

He was. Anywho. Do you guys think he's going to be good next year? No. Are Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are going to be out for the final two weeks next year? Is he a free agent? I think he's a free agent.

Yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens. I mean, even if he went back to Tampa Bay, we don't know what they're going to do with James Winston. I think, look, I mean, he was in a great situation. And I think that's what I'm not sold in Rashad Paramount's talent. I'm sold on Bruce Ariens, who loves to throw deep, had its season with James Winston,

Mike Evans, and Chris Godwin. Like, that was amazing. I just can't wait to see where he ends up. It'll be interesting. That's what you can't wait for in this NFL off season. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick might go there's separate ways. Dak Prescott might become the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, and you're like, where's Prashad Perriman going to go?

I'll tell you something. I can wait. I can wait to see. I have no problem waiting to see where Prashad Perriman goes. That's fair. Jeez. All right. Let's keep rolling.

Craig, another person that rose for you. Yeah, I mean, just really came out of nowhere. This was also a Danny Kelly guy, right? I feel like D.K. I always liked DJ Chark. Anyway, DJ Chark... DJDK. ...was drafted at the wide receiver 103.

So, well beyond not getting drafted. He wasn't even at the draft. Like, he wasn't even on the lists. And he finishes the wide receiver 16. He jumped 87 spots. And, you know, I was thinking about his season. It's not like he had... It's not like all the ducks were in a row

for DJ Chark to have an amazing season. He kind of had one despite not... Despite the ducks not being in a row. It's like his quarterbacks are going in and out. He had like an ankle injury the last month of the season, and he still finished with over 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns. He outscored six guys who out-targeted him this year, which I thought was interesting.

Six dudes had more targets than him, and he outscored all of them, DeMonte Adams and O'Dell Beckham being two of them. Well, if we can be hottest take Jr. for a second. Okay. Is DJ Shark the best LSC receiver in the NFL? Wow. I don't think I'm ready to say OBJ is done.

I mean, statistically, he was better. And Jarvis. That's the hottest take. That's a great hot take. I'm just posing the question, man. So now Jay Gruden is the offensive coordinator for the Jags. You know, I forgot about that till right now. That's hilarious.

Yeah, because what's the one? Who's the quarterbacking me? Is that the most like coming for your job thing? I was Doug Marone and Jay Gruden. And it's like Jay, like they were going to fire Doug Barone. And then they didn't. And then they held on to him. And they just hired a guy who's been a head coach for six years to be his

offensive coordinator. He's just breathing over his shoulder. It's tough. I'm just wondering if you guys think that Jay Gruden's offensive scheming is going to screw up DJ Chark because from what I've read it sounds like Jay Gruden loves to make short quick passes and that's not really

DJ Charks jam. You know who I think it is? I'm not sure about Chark because I mean yeah there's just so many variables that go into this. One thing I am worried about a little bit though is Fournette going forward like do you see him having the however many

how many did he have a hundred plus targets this year or 90 something targets this year. And Gruden, he's used a pass catching back in his offense is kind of like a bell cow guy on first and second down and then a pass catching back on third down like Chris Thompson style over the years. And so that makes me a little bit worried about four and a nine going forward. Like is he going to be the guy that they lean on for all three downs going forward? No. I don't think he will be that guy. Yeah. I think that Tom Coughlin, I mean, I believe Tom Cawflin is the one who drafted him, right?

I don't know. He is. Should he get IT on that? And Tom Coughlin is gone. And I do not anticipate that there will be a fraction of the same commitment to being like, well, we have to build our offense around Leonard Fournette, who also is going to have to be paid soon. Yeah. He's, I love it. I mean, as a person, he's just fun to, he's one of the more fun players to follow on Instagram.

He's extremely fun to watch, as D.K. said he's a bumper car. But he's not quite versatile enough to build your offense around. and the stat that you're going to hear from me so much this off season that until you just get sick of it is he was fifth to last in yards before contact per attempt but had the fourth most yards

after contact per attempt so he's not getting holes open but he was doing it all himself but it's also like he also needed so many carries to do anything so maybe all of his numbers will decrease but he might score a couple more touchdowns and he might end up having the same amount of fantasy points I mean look we love

Lenny Fornes in this podcast I don't feel the need to prove my love for him to anyone else. However, I do not anticipate being bullish on Lenny Fornes in this year of 2020. One thing I wanted to say about DJ Chark going back to Chark is I think a couple things stand out to me about his profile that are interesting. And what I'm going to take away from Chark's breakout season is it makes me pay attention to guys in his ilk a little bit coming out of college. And specifically, he was a very very very. very, very fast, tall receiver coming out of LSU. He flew under the radar a little bit, but he had a very good senior, senior bowl week.

So I don't know how meaningful it is necessarily, but guys who dominate the senior bowl have been doing really, really well in the NFL. Look at Terry McLaurin. Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones. Yeah. Dominated the senior bowl, MVP of the senior bowl. Look at that.

So, D.K., you're so right, D.K. I'm not talking about quarterbacks quite as much. Because frankly, when I was at the Senior Bowl last year, Gardner Minshew did not stand out to me. Wait, but how does that jive with the thing I said earlier about receivers having to be young to be good? And now you're saying receivers at the Senior Bowl are good. I'm just saying, I'm not, those are two different points. I'm saying people, I think we can pay attention to guys at the Senior Bowl who dominated the Senior Bowl because they're going up against good competition and they're dominating. I think that means something.

Whereas in the past, maybe I wouldn't look that much at it because it's just another. You know. Where they know the coverages? Yeah, like, I don't know. So that's just something I'm like, yeah, fast, very, very fast, had a very good senior bowl week. And the last couple seasons, those kind of guys, those guys have actually played pretty well. So I don't think breakout age, by the way, is a end-all be-all of everything. It's just something that will help you.

No, it's a skeleton key to this universe. It's something that it helps you hit on receivers with more probability. if you're in like a dynasty league. It doesn't mean these guys, if they break out late, they will not be good receivers. And the NFL just means they're much less likely to be. All right, DK, closing out the risers, who else caught your eye?

I want to talk about Alan Robinson real quick because I feel like he's still drastically, drastically underrated. He took a 19-spot jump in his starting ADP. It was a wide receiver 30 and half PPR before the season, essentially a mid-range wide receiver three in 12-team leagues. 67th overall. He finished wide receiver 11, so he was a wide receiver 1 in PBR. He is the

least talked about wide receiver 1 in football. He obviously was on a bad offense with a bad quarterback in Mitch Trubisky, but that's been the story of his entire career. He's been pretty much quarterback proof. He's played 43 games. I apologize, my math is slightly out.

43 games with Blake Bortles, 25 with Trubisky, two with Chase Daniel, and he's still been a very, very good receiver in the NFL and a good fantasy receiver as well. So I saw this from the Kwan Edge's Derek Brown. Seven receivers in 2019 finished with 90 plus receptions, 1,100 yards, 5 plus touchdowns, and 60% catch rate. And those five, sorry, those seven were Michael Thomas, Keenan Allen, Hopkins, Edelman, Julio, Cooper Cup, and Alan Robinson.

So he is among, you know, very, very high-end fantasy receivers. and it feels like we just don't really talk about him. So I just wanted to mention him as a big riser this year. He finally looked completely healthy. And, man, if they ever get a good quarterback, then he could just explode. He also led the league in my favorite advanced stat, which is times he made his quarterback look. Like, he just saved his quarterback's ass. Yeah.

Which is, if you just watch Bears games, like, there are just times he just does something amazing on what should be a completely routine goddamn third and eight. And he just is open. And he just has to say crazy. I don't know. I just wanted to mention him because he's awesome and I don't feel like he gets enough love. Moving on from him,

Mark Andrews, I think, was an interesting storyline this year too, moving up into sort of the elite echelon of tight ends. He started the season with an ADP of 131st overall, the Tidon 13. And remember, Tidon 13 is like tight end 50-something in the receiver position. Like, you're nobody if you're at Tidon 13. He went on to finish as the tight end four.

He looks like a future superstar at the position. Obviously, he had a few games where he kind of shat the bed, so to speak. He dropped a couple passes and things like that. But overall, he looks like a future star at the position. Plus, the Ravens love passing to their tight ends in that offense. They funneled 43.6% of their passing game to the tight end position, easily the most. The Eagles were the second most with 38.9%. So anyways, shout to Andrews, who I think established himself.

and the top tier of tight ends going forward. Would the Ravens be in the Super Bowl if you didn't have the dropsies? We don't need to, you know, we don't need to go there. A lot of things went poorly in that Titans game. So the top tight ends this year, and we're just going by total points, which is flawed because people don't play every game. But Travis Kelsey, Mark Andrews, Zach Ertz, George Kittle, Darren Waller and Oakland, Austin Hooper on Atlanta.

Craig's nemesis! And Hooper was actually third by points per game, but he only played 12 games. So to me, my brief takeaway is just that sounds like the new tight end tier is you've got Kelsey and Kittle up top if Kelsey's not in his own. And then it's like Mark Andrews, Austin Hooper, Waller, and Zach Ertz are kind of like tier two and it's debatable. But that seems like we'll see what happens to Los Neupor because he's a free agent and the Falcons are probbin over the money to bring him back. But that's kind of fascinating to me. Is there anything that can we do a little revisionist history and look back at Mark Andrews and be like, oh yeah, how did we miss that?

thing that showed us he was going to be really good. We didn't miss it. D.K. said he was the number one Tidden breakout, man. D.K. was all on Mark. Nice. Are you serious? If you go back to the tight ends episode we did in August, which slightly behind the curtain was 100%

the first podcast we recorded in August. Spoiler, we went out of order. A little rusty. I believe that your number one guy was Mark Andrews for the whole position. And then we also plugged Darren as a long shot, but Mark Andrews, you were all in on them. And you don't remember?

I'm just going to pretend it was me. Well, we can take pod credit, so that's good. He had really good efficiency numbers as a rookie. And then if you look at that offense, they were funneling a lot of their passes to the tightest position at the end last year when Lamar Jackson took over at quarterback. And so it just made a lot of sense.

There wasn't a lot of competition at receiver. In fact, they had probably the least talented and least experienced receiver core in the NFL, all things considered. So, yeah, it all made sense. And so I guess identifying, the guy going forward for next year will be the challenge, but a lot of tight ends tend to break out in their second and third year.

So just keep that in mind. Loose ends a tight end. All right. Craig, last riser. Cole Beasley is just always good. Oh, my God. Cole Beasley's had like 65 catches in three.

Why do you always start with Devante Parker and end with Cole Beasley? That's just the natural progression of things. He was drafted at 261 overall. When we finished as the wide receiver at 34, he was basically drafted the 21st round. I just, Cole Beasley, it's setting an example. My takeaway is that we all need to understand that these boring guys like Cole Beasley

are people that you need to draft late because they actually matter. They're so important to find in your draft. Guys like Cole Beasley, they're like a reliable old car that you can go across country and back, even though they've got 180,000 miles on them. They're just reliable, you can always plug them in,

and they're guys that people are going to depend on the waiver wire mid-season, but as you have them already, they're your bi-week plug-ins, and they're always good. And Beasley, now with the bills, has had the most targets he's ever had. And he can only have like six less than John Brown

to lead the team. He's just reliable, and no one counts him out again. I think it's for the Echler thing. He's a little white receiver. And people are like, oh, I don't know, he's up in Buffalo. They don't get a lot of coverage. But you got to find guys like that.

And I was going to, yeah, I was going to say he's probably going to get drafted really low again. I guarantee it. Yeah. I think that's perfectly fine. I do not think you need the cold Beasley's of the world. I just think the bench, it's a philosophical thing.

It's do you want your bench. upside or not. Do you want floor or ceiling? Well, the thing is, I think you need to have a beautiful cocktail of everything. I think you need to have guys that you expect to blow up. And I think you need to have guys who you can plug in on a buy week that aren't going to get you one catch for six yards like your breakout start might give you, week three. Just like, I could not be, like to me, Colbeasley is the embodiment of meh. He was a wider receiver three this year.

What? He finished the wide receiver 34. Oh, this is where the jargon. You said wide receiver three. And it was like, oh, he's the third best receiver three. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, that matters.

Hey, Danny, for the record, I've had this conversation with my editor, Riley McAtee, how we differentiate the wide receiver one overall group with the wide receiver. It's literally the versus a. As a general rule, if you even have to ask and the answer is like, well, there's one syllable difference, we should probably do a better job. But there's no other way to do it. Yes, it is. The 34th best receiver.

That's too long. That's, it's clear. No. Let's move on. Let's get the hell out of here. Biggest boss, fallers or whiffs. My God. All right, let's get to the disappointing people.

This podcast was supposed to be about failure. D.K., who failed you? Well, I'm going to start this with a little bit of a caveat because he wasn't a colossal failure. I'm going to look at Sequin Barkley. but he was the overall number one pick by consensus. So I think that is meaningful in the fact that you are counting on this guy to have an absolutely elite, like, dominant season. And that's what we got out of Christian McCaffrey.

Obviously, McCaffrey carried so many teams of the playoffs. He was unstoppable. If you had McCaffrey on your team, you were pretty much in the playoffs. And that's what people were expecting with Barclay. They did not get that. He finished 39th overall in points. Now granted, he missed three games with a, high ankle sprain.

Plus he had, I just don't think he was quite as effective when he came back even with that injury. He just didn't look as explosive as he normally does. Finished RB10 total.

Per game basis, he was the RB6. So again, it's not like he was a complete and colossal failure, but he wasn't the guy who carried you to the playoffs like a lot of people thought he would be.

That being said, if you did manage to get the playoffs with him on your team, you were not disappointed because he was an absolute machine in the fantasy playoffs from week 13 to 16. He was the top non-scoring quarterback and half ppm, 22.9 points per game. So he made good once you got him to the playoffs.

But yeah, he was pretty disappointing overall during the regular season. The takeaway I have for this is not that Barclay is a bad player or, you know, anything like that. It's that truly elite production like he had as a rookie is pretty fleeting and hard to reproduce year to year. So my question is, does that make us fear kind of going forward to what Christian McCaffrey can do next year after such a

hugely dominant season this year? I think that the most underrated part of Christian McCaffrey's Thousand Thousand Season is that he played like 98% of Carolina snaps. And I just don't think that rule is going to do that. Yeah, that's... I don't think Sequan did not succeed because he played 99% of the giant

snaps. I think that is a massive difference. And I just think that Christian Mccaverages numbers have to be deflated by, you know, a certain percentage. You know who else drafted Sequin Barclay in the top two and hoped that he would carry them to the playoffs, but then realized it was not enough? The New York Giants. The person who drafted, the person was drafted before Sequin Barclay, Baker Mayfield,

also quite disappointing in real life and fantasy this year, was... Rough. ...touted to be a lot of potential, very progressive, both in fantasy. People were thinking he'd make a lot of progress. Also the actual company Progressive was like film like 12 commercials with us. It'll be great. Protect this house. Didn't go well.

And my takeaway is when there's a guy who hasn't really won anything and has ended a winning record, but it's booked for a national advertising campaign by week one, there was not going to be any fantasy value on draft day. That's my hot take. Because in all seriousness, like, potential just means you ain't done shit yet. And you're trying to find people like with underrated potential. but Baker, and this is what, I mean, we talked about this in August where it's like people had already built in the expected production into his value.

It isn't done it yet. And when you have potential being treated like its past performance, which it's not, and he was being six or seventh. This is great. Because people thought he would be Mahomes, but like Mahomes light. I mean, I thought he could, but there's no point in drafting him sixth if he hasn't even come close to that. So that's takeaway one is don't buy potential like its past production. Takeaway two is just, this is a more nerdy version,

One of the reasons people were so in on Baker is that he had that huge turnaround when Freddie Kitchens became the offensive coordinator. And then plot twist, it was actually the quarterback's coach, Kenza and Peezy, that Freddie Kitchens fired and did not retain into the season. That seems to be the source of that turnaround. And it's just a good reminder that when we throw credit to a coach and offensive coordinator, staffs are large, and it's worth keeping track of staff movement. I like that. The reason Baker Mayfield failed is because he was in a national commercial. Yeah, no, he's in too. Look, I don't want to be like, if you can't figure out how to shut the alarm off in your home, you can't run an offense.

But I should have been like, wow, he can't even find the beep and where the smoke alarm was in the stadium. No way didn't he can't find an open receiver. If he's all over your television, you're going to get no value because everybody knows about it. And low key? Kind of what happened to Seekwon, too. Seekwon had a really tough year, man. A lot of commercials, a lot going on in his person. It's the new Madden Curse.

I didn't know this was coming and I'm loving it. It's so good. Look, Seekwon I also had a lot going on, man. these are these are these are young men certainly there's a lot going on all right who else oh speaking of the browns my god dk hey k go ahead we're going to move right into odal beckham 21 spot drop from his original adep so he's the 13th overall player the wide receiver five by average draft position coming into the season he finished as the wide receiver 26th and he was even worse than that in ppr points per game i should say half pbr points per game the wide

receiver 35. So very, very disappointing season for him. I thought that coming into the season, I thought they were just going to blow up. I thought, you know, with the improvement we saw last, you know, the previous half season with Baker when he became the starter, everything that they did in the off season, bringing Todd Monkin in, I thought they were just going to go deep all the time. None of that really kind of happened. And Beckham also, it should be noted, played through what was a sports hernia, Danny,

What was it, that he played through all season? So, I mean, the details on our parts, but basically Baker Mayfield suggested that O'Dell had a sports hernia in August, and it was a question of does he get surgery or does he not and play through it? And he played through it. And then Baker mid-season was like he should have gotten surgery and was given the wrong information. And then that became a fiasco because the starting quarterback free football team is questioning his own medical staff publicly. And it was a whole thing. But it seems that O'Dell played the entire season with the sports hernia.

Not great. I think my takeaway from the Odell Beckham thing, number one, is just always you have to be, you have to bake in some skepticism when team changes come into effect, team and scheme and coaching changes. You know, there's just so many variables when it comes to football that sometimes these guys can't overcome those variables. My question for you guys is, because I think there's sort of this general idea now that maybe Beckham is like cooked. Like, is he done or is he coming back strong next year? How do you guys value Beckham? Are you going into drafts next year trying to target him because he's inevitably going to fall?

Are you guys trying to target him aggressively? Is he going to play next year, the entirety of it, with a sports arena? I mean, in theory, no. I think he'll be okay. But my question is, are you going to be aggressively targeting him? I don't know yet, but I think that the Browns seem like a motivated group of people this year and are aware that as Baker, I mean, I'm paraphrasing him,

he said basically when people pat you on the back, he learned this year that that is worse than people doubting him, which I actually thought was extremely apt because he's like getting the commercials and everyone hyping them up. He was like, that was worse for us than doubting. You know, I'm going to pat on the back and say,

it's all right. We'll get it next year. OJ Howard. I mean, everybody knows OJ. Howard absolutely murdered everyone's league this year. He was drafted as the fourth titan and he finishes the 29th. Pretty bad.

Tight end 29 is absurdly bad. Usually you hear about the third year breakout. Well, he had the third year dropout, and he was, you know, succumbed to the Ariens' tight end curse, which helped true. He had one good week, and there was the week you said he would have a good week. Thank you. I still think there was a glitch in the Matrix or something.

Okay, so here's my question. This is just kind of a broader thought when I was thinking about this. What are some other coach-slash-team reputations that are actually true and it pertains to fantasy performances. Like the Ariens' tight end thing is real. The Belichick running back thing, kind of real. To be clear, like, Aryans doesn't use tight outs.

Correct. And then like the Belichick, you never know who's going to give carries to thing? That's actually true. Are there any other fantasy trends like that where you're like, oh, man, Pete Carroll ride receivers, can't do that. Are there any other of those, you think?

Or is it just the Belichick area? Oh, absolutely. You called the Dirk-Codder tight-end thing before the season. Oh, yeah, that is one. Yeah, Falcons, offensive coordinator. just tight-ins guy. Just loves T-EC in the 90s.

That would be something interesting to note as we preview this coming season, things like that. Another than we looked at the Texans tight-ins, like promoted their tight-ins coach to Offitz coordinator and then whoop-de-do. They start throwing it Darren Fells. Like, you know, sometimes it's a simple...

You know, we can pretend like this is rocket signs. Sometimes it's like, oh, Offitz coordinator. Was he a tight-ends coach? Yes. Maybe he'll throw out the tight ends more. So... But before we move on from O.J. Howard, my one takeaway is that

thinking about next season, I literally needed eight minutes to convince myself to buy back in on O.J. Howard for next season. And I'm going to. So I'm buying stock now. Just buying stock in talent. I'm just buying stock. Yeah, right. I'm buying stock in the talent. Oh, I got one. The Kubiak and Shanahan's can run the ball with anybody. That's the one that's true. We should make a list of those and revisit that.

All right, D.K., who else fell for you this season? So I think we need to talk about Adam Thielen's season. He had a 50 spot drop from his initial ADP. So he started out the 24th overall player per ADP, the receiver 11. So he was a wide receiver 1 going into the season. He only played in 10 games. So his finish as the 187th overall player is not super surprising. However, on his per game average, he was the wide receiver 45. That was below guys like John Ross, Darius Slayton, Cole Beasley, Craig's Cole Beasley,

Jameson Crowder and Debo Samuel. So his per game average when he was playing was very, very disappointing. in addition to the fact that he had injuries that kept him out of games during the season. So to me, the takeaway, and he was a guy that I definitely was not typically targeting coming into the season, because I was worried about the Vikings' offense

being able to sustain two receiver ones, which is what they did in 2018. So Thielen was the receiver 7, and Diggs was the receiver 11 in 2018. That wasn't an offense that threw the ball, 38 times a game, six most in the NFL. That team, I should say the head coach of that team,

fired the offensive coordinator because he was throwing the ball too much. He refused to, you know, commit to the run. We talked about it all offseason how the Vikings were going to, you know, be hardcore run team under Kevin Stavansky. And that's exactly what they did in 2019. In 2019, they attempted 29 passes a game, which is the third fewest in the NFL. And so basically,

Basically, it came down to a lot of the time is either Thielen or Diggs. And when you're having to make that decision, I kind of just shy away from both, honestly. But going forward, Diggs is far and away the higher target for me. But frankly, like, that team just kind of makes me nervous in general.

Diggs is just also just a better player, to be honest. And after that first month where the Vikings offense was not a disaster, but they just didn't have their bearings. Like they just, you know, install a new offense it takes a little bit. But from that point forward, Diggs was just clearly like,

like it last year was like, oh, Thielen and Diggs, one A, one B or whatever. And this year was like, no, Diggs is the number one. I think that was also just a good lesson. Sometimes production being equal doesn't mean like defenses are looking at the guys as equally. You know what Thielen lost? He lost that love and Thielen. Top Gun, no? No, I got it.

I got it. Yeah. No, you don't know talking about Danny? He's dumbfounded. That love and feeling top gun, no, doesn't do it for you? Okay. Have you ever seen top of that? Adam feeling kind of reminds me of goose.

Oh, that's what you were thinking about? No, I was thinking about how that was a bad pun, even by my terrible puns. That love and feeling? I honestly think there's been worse. It's been better. I honestly think there's been worse. All right, let's get out of here on that note. Okay.

That was... Just wanted to say one last shoutout before we finish. Dante Pettis absolutely screwed me. What was worse? Dante Pettis' season where he started out as the Niners one and then basically just didn't play during their Super Bowl run? or your Adam Thielen pun from three seconds ago.

Who had a worst time? D.K., you pick. Who had a worse time? Who had a worse February? The pun was worse. The pun was worse. All right, maybe next week. By the way, for everybody,

we'll be back once a week. Oh, yeah, we're coming to you on Tuesdays. That's why we're on this. Probably should have addressed that at the top. But it's all right. We're going to do it right now. We're coming to you on Tuesdays this offseason through the draft. Yeah, the ring around the show is going to be every Thursday.

Danisie will be every Tuesday. they. Beautiful. So going into the combine, we're going to preview the combine, you're going to preview the draft. We're going to talk about... Adam Fuel and Puns. Yeah, we're going to do a lot of hardcore puns. No, but basically the offseason is going to be... We're going to basically just go over everything during the offseason, starting out with draft

stuff, and then moving from there, going into our top 150 list and things of that nature. So it's going to be really fun, really looking forward to the off season. Yeah, stay tuned. We're going to have a lot of fun, weird, one-off episodes. you're not going to want to go anywhere else for your freaking fantasy football coverage, don't you know. Damn straight, Craig. But go somewhere else to your puns.

All right. Thank you, everyone. We'll see you guys next week.