If a good time sounds like or golden hour tastes like and getting back to yourself feels like you've got a sense of New Brunswick. Hey for clan today's show is sponsored by head and shoulder scalp shield technology regular use of head and shoulder scalp shield technology provides a continuous invisible shield of protection against dandruff itch and dryness renewing your protection with every wash get up to 100% dandruff protection that's never not working with head and shoulder scalp shield technology available at walmart.com and foot clan today's show brought to you by Omaha Steaks one of our personal faves you know that we love grilling love those Omaha Steaks and burgers Labor Day is around the corner so it's time to get ready for that last cookout of the summer go to Omaha Steaks.com enter the code footballers into the search bar and order the deluxe grill out assortment includes over 30 entrees like bacon, rap, filet mignon, oh boy filet mignon burgers, boneless pork chops, gourmet franks, sides desserts and more plus you'll save over 50% you'll get 12 free burgers there these are basically a steak between buns visit Omaha Steaks.com keyword footballers save over 50% when you order the deluxe grill out assortment plus get 12 free Omaha Steaks burgers and enjoy that last cookout of the summer that's Omaha Steaks.com keyword footballers. Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Welcome in Thursday, September 2nd, the fantasy footballers podcast, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway back with you this time next week.
We'll be talking about well it'll be football time, Mike. Yes it will. I mean this time next week we'll be doing starts of the week, right? Yeah.
Wow. Tom Brady every week at quarterback. The week one starts the week is just our mic. I tried to acquire Tom Brady yesterday in the League of Records.
Yes. Yes. Who is my league? My week one opponent is Al Borland who our fearless producer back there.
I tried to pull off the largest trade our league has ever seen. I heard tale of this from you. Oh from me. That basically that sentence.
Oh okay. Just now or no. No. You had mentioned that it was like a mama jamas.
It was a 10 player trade. I was trying to just swap a team trying to set the league on fire with my league one opponent. A 10 player? Yeah trade.
They were all sorts of stars. Five on each side to be clear. Yeah. That's what it.
Yes. The swapping teams would be the nine to one. Yeah it was a nine for one deal which I always say get the best player in the deal. No.
It was close I think maybe. It just yeah. It wasn't a bad deal. It just wasn't my team couldn't have survived without the running back.
You want to? Yeah. I mean at the end of the day I got somebody to say it wasn't a bad deal on one of my trade offers. Impressive.
Not just somebody but me who's very critical of your offers. Right. And I didn't include Sony Michelle in the deal because I respect you as a person. Yeah.
Instant reject. Doesn't matter. I know. I know.
Even if it was six to five on the trade but Sony was in there it would have been worse than leaving him out. Correct. We have never not working on the show today excited to talk about some deeper insights, some things that Mike has been digging into. We brought them up briefly on our live Spotify green room yesterday afternoon.
Thank you for everyone. That joined us. So that was a lot of fun. We got NFL news to talk about and today's main event.
The fantasy time machine. So we'll be jumping into the fantasy time machine. We'll be on the hunt for this year's David Montgomery. This year's the Fondigs.
This year's Logan Thomas. This year's Kirk Cousins. All players with kind of a a specific breakout campaign last year. Right.
So we'll talk about those. You can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers, Jason's at Jason FFL. Mike at FF Hitman. I'm at Andy Holloway.
The community. 20,000 strong over at jointhefoot.com where you get a bonus weekly episode of the show. You get premium perks. You get the Megalable entry.
That's all at jointhefoot.com. And there are many articles going up every day on our website, thefantasyfootballers.com. Let's get it going. Every little bit helps the fantasy football player win their league.
And if you stack a little bit of extra work each and every week, it adds up to a lot. It does. I was trying to think of what's a good analogy for it. And it's like, you know, when you're out there, like you're panning for gold.
Oh, yeah, I know. I do that all the time. Back when you were a 49er. Right.
Now in the old gold rush. I was saying like the you're adjusting your sifter and you're able to get more of the the more of the goop, the silt, the dirt, and you're just trying to leave behind the gems and the more data points, the more things that you can look at that helps you do that sifting and I have never heard of silt and I am thoroughly impressed with that. Oh, it is incredible. I mean, silt is fine.
Sand clay or other. You were googling. Oh, I didn't know what silt was, but now I do think you look silty smooth. That's what they say.
And so we've talked about on the show targets are skill based. A player is not going to be a wide receiver. Not going to be running out there, getting targets if they're not a good player. If they're not getting open, if quarterback doesn't trust them to make a contested catch.
And we thought, or we, and you look at target share, that's a good indicator of, you know, this player's pulling in 20% of this team's targets. They're going to be a go to for fantasy football. But is there a another way that we can look even deeper into targets? So we're starting to look at routes run the percent of your routes that you are actually targeted.
So, you know, trying to eliminate some of that noise just sift a little bit deeper. And we took a look at wide receivers who are seeing 60 plus targets because it's helping us to find some gems like the big thing that stands out here, which I didn't have this data when I was making my bold proclamation on Antonio Brown. But last year, on 26% of his routes, Antonio Brown saw a target. So you can see the Antonio Brown ends the season 62 targets.
That's not an impressive number. Well, okay, how many games he played or some other things. But look, when he was on the field, how much was he actually targeted? It's a very impressive number.
I want to run that back again real quick before you jump into those just a percent of routes targeted. So when they're on the field, when they're actually running around where they're eligible to be targeted, how often are they targeted? And I would think this would also come down to players that their quarterbacks, like you said, they trust them. Maybe their favorites of the quarterback as well.
Yeah, exactly. Are they out there just being a distraction? You know, there's running routes, trying to get other people open. And so the names you would expect are there.
Devonta Adams is at the top, Keener now and is at the top. 31% for Devonta Adams was super impressive because of the just the volume, right? Like even how often he's out there? Yeah, I was going to say it's really impressive that the number one in percentage of routes targeted also runs a ton of routes.
Yes, trap, the fonta Adams. And then you can look at other tier names like Jacoby Myers, 24% of his routes. He was seeing a target. Like he was a ghosting for this team.
Chase Claypaw, he saw a target on over 23% of his routes, which was the highest among rookies. When he was out there, Ben Roth was finding a way to target him. And so it's you have to filter this information through some other lenses, but it's helping us locate some of these gems. But it's also helping you locate guys that, you know, maybe we should have faded them a little bit more.
Like last year, guys who who did not see a target on more than 20% of their routes, you know, it was like DJ, Charke, golliday, these guys where Chris Godwin, maybe their fantasy finish was just a little bit too efficient. It doesn't mean they're bad players. But you know, how Godwin was the wide receiver too. Maybe it was like, okay, he over produced just a little bit too much.
Let's put him down into that 10 to 15 range instead of just looking at last year's production and saying, well, yeah, he can absolutely duplicate that. So this is this is a new thing that we are looking at here at the fantasy footballers. And so far the correlation is it's very interesting. A percent of routes run, you get a target and your fantasy finish.
And so the actionable advice for this year is interesting names that maybe you should bump up are Antonio Brown, Chase Claypool, Jacob Myers, like I said, but then Sterling Shepherd, Corey Davis, these are guys that were commanding targets on over 20% of the routes. Meanwhile, players that maybe they overproduced on the percentage that they were getting. Mike Evans saw a target on fewer than 20% of his routes. That's a little that that's an interesting data point when you factor in how often that Antonio Brown was seen a look at the end.
Juju, Mike Williams, Mike Williams has been one of our favorite late round sleepers because of the talent, the ability Justin Herbert's a good quarterback. And yet he was only seeing a target on just under 17% of his routes. That is not that is not going to translate or correlate to fantasy success unless that somehow sees a massive uptick. And so again, this isn't everything.
We're just trying to highlight these other analytics and deep dives that we are doing behind the scenes to try and give you the best information. Yeah, a good example is 2019. Digs was dominating this. And then that could have been a precursor to his talent and switching teams getting what turned out to be a quarterback upgrade.
And then the huge breakout, I can't help, I can't help but notice number 10 on this list. Give it to me. On top 10 Robbie Anderson, baby. Robbie Anderson.
Oh, he was seeing a target on over 24% of his routes. I think what would be interesting too to extend this and maybe the Borgogan can do it would be to look at players that fit this mold that that end up with a high percentage of routes targeted, but maybe had lower snap counts or maybe dealt with some injuries or their end of year numbers were reduced. Claypool is a great example where he was clearly not on the field all the time. Right.
So that number jumps out to me when they put him on the field, the team, it's almost like this is a go to receiver chart in a lot of ways when you look at these names and you think of the most hyper targeted players, everyone knows the Auntie Johnson is the favorite emergency target. So Fondig's is the same thing. AJ Brown, even though the volume wasn't there, it was like, man, when I need a play. Yeah.
And then one that jumps out in the higher end here is Emmanuel Sanders. Like you would not have imagined Emmanuel Sanders to finish this high. He just wasn't out on the field as much. But what if he isn't Buffalo?
Like he was getting targets in the preseason. That's an interesting name. Cooper Cup being at that number is interesting too because there's some positive touchdown regression there. And so maybe we can get an article out with some of this information.
Yeah. So we're very excited to see where this or your fire Kyle. We're very excited to see if this correlation can keep translating and this is a trend that can take some analysis to just another level up. All right.
That'll do it for never not working. Get up to 100% dandruff protection. That's never not working with head and shoulder scalpsheel technology available at Walmart dot com news and notes from around the league presented my sleeper. This news actually broke during our Spotify green room live event yesterday.
We're shot Bateman miles, boy can both put on the short term injured reserve for the Baltimore Ravens. And well, somebody returned to practice. Yes, he did. If you notice the graphic for the Lizard King on our show has changed to team agnostic because we know he'll be playing on different teams every year.
The politics department was working over time with all these same walkers changes. In addition to that lizard uniform in addition to that, Marquis Hollywood Brown also returned to practice yesterday as well. Is that why you drafted him late in the listener late draft yesterday? It was a combination of the fact that he is back and that they took his recovery slowly and I had Lamar Jackson.
So I wanted one of those hopeful, maybe late round stacks. I got regularly sniped in yesterday's listener. It's hard to draft with people who literally listened to hundreds of hours of you talking about your opinions on fantasy football. Yeah, I was like one pick away from my player three or four times by the end of the draft.
I felt beat up, but that was a good time. James and Crowder sat out of practice with the groin injury. Growing index calm newest member. Brchet Perryman signed a one year deal with the Bears.
Okay, Carson Wentz Ryan Kelly, Zach Pascal, all activated from the COVID-19 list. That's good. And T.Y. Hilton got placed on short term IR.
This was something where, you know, it's an neck injury. There's re-injury risk. I was, I wouldn't have been surprised if it was year long and this season was over. So I guess it's worth pointing out that the short term IR, sometimes people are confusing.
That means they will be back in three weeks. It means they're able to come back in three weeks. That is no guarantee that they'll be back week four. All right.
We do have Joe Bernard dealing with a mid high ankle sprain. Okay. Well, he's supposed to play in week one against Dallas. He's that Thursday night game a week from today.
Okay. That's something to pay attention to. I mean, because Geo was going to take the majority of those running back targets away from Ronald and Leonard. A mild high ankle sprain.
Yeah, I don't know what to make of that. I mean, that is the first I've heard of that. I mean, it's if he has a high ankle sprain, I would imagine that's too much for him to play football. It's mild, but it's mild.
So not spicy. Yeah. Royce Freeman was waived from the Broncos. And I bring that up because Mike Boone is on the short term injured reserve.
It's Melvin Gordon and Javante Williams. That is correct. I am I'm preparing myself mentally for the end of week one and that the number one wide receiver in fantasy football is Adam Thielin and the number one running back in fantasy football is Melvin Gordon. Yeah, that's what's trending that way.
I'm ready for those two names to pop up and everybody to say where was all the hype about these guys because Melvin Gordon's going to be viable for a while to start the season. Yes. And I don't I just don't think that this is the kind of team that's going to they paid him a lot of money. And if he's good, they're at least going to share time with him.
Maybe Javante ends up with the majority of the committee at some point, but have you seen anything that says Melvin Gordon slowed down? I mean, he looks great to me. No, I really do think Melvin Gordon will be the leader of this time share. And I think by the end of the year, it'll be it'll be 50 50 and I wonder if the team ends up doing well with Teddy.
If it turns out where this offense is clicking and that is certainly no guarantee. But if that happens, I question whether they could both be viable fantasy assets at the same time, similar to how I view Trey Sermon and Reimosz where you might be able to play both of those guys in the same week. Completely agree. I think people just don't want to draft or play Melvin Gordon.
Correct. Guilty has charged, which I understand, but those are the those are the sneaky players all the time that happens. All right. That was today's news and news brought to you by Sleeper.
Definitely hop over on the Sleeper platform, switch your league over there, and they've always got new and exciting upgrades happening on the platform. Now I am ready to step into the DeLorean. I wish we I wish tall people could fit. It's not we've I've tried to sit on one.
It's not comfortable. No, it was not made for time travels, not comfortable. You're a modern man. Right.
Are people taller now? I think so. Yeah, for sure. I go back and look at the historical we did the live show, you know, in Chicago, where the historical place that was built 100 years ago, the hallways are the hall.
You guys are like ducking in the hallways. Everything was very small and tiny. It does seem that way. And even like seeing Broadway shows in New York, you go to you go to classic theaters and choice.
These were made for human beings that live today. Now my children could barely fit in them, but even old roads have smaller lanes. So how does that work? Well, the homo change everything.
The homo change everything. Michael J. Fox made it look like it was just Oh, he's a little guy. Very comfy.
Michael J. Fox is five four. Oh boy. Is he really?
Five four according to the Google machine? Well, Google's never been wrong. All right. So we're going to hop into the time machine momentarily.
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sportsbook for details, gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or an Indiana 1-800-9 with it. Party, you've got to come back with me. Where? Back in the future.
In the wind chimes? Oh, the wind chimes. That's the thing. That's the tasty harmony into the chimes.
I could listen to that all day. Move that one up my rankings. I've totally forgot that was created. That's at the top now.
All right. The premise of this segment is if you could travel forward in time, who could be this year's version of a number of players that stood out last year? So, let's find 2021 David Montgomery. So what we're talking about, and it doesn't have to fit this exactly.
But what David Montgomery represented last year was running back outside the top 40 picks in an ambiguous backfield. Right. So, Ric Cohen was there and threatening and has a chance to see a 70% of, you know, 70 plus percent of the workload, has an ice end of season schedule, maybe. That was something that held David Montgomery.
But, you know, what is this year's, who has the highest odds of being this year's David Montgomery when you consider some of those elements? For me, it's now James Robinson. James Robinson is a player who has certainly been disrespected, not just by fantasy, but maybe by his own team. He was awesome for you last year, comes in was great for fantasy, was the running back seven, and then you spend a first round pick on Travis ETN.
However, we all know at this point, Travis ETN lost his season due to an unfortunate preseason injury. And now the whole reason why James Robinson can't repeat as that top 10 type running back that he was last year is 31 year old Carlos Hyde. I mean, I get it. Urban Myers loves Carlos Hyde was with him, but I think as the year goes on, I think Carlos Hyde is probably going to be seen for what he is.
A 31 year old running back who's not that good. And I think James Robinson gets the ball more and more. He's capable in the pass catching game, just like David Montgomery was. I think his offense could surprise and be better.
Obviously, it should be better than last year if Trevor Lawrence comes out has a great year. And James Robinson's involved in the passing. I think you could see, I mean, we saw last year, put it this way. Every time we were watching games last year together, the three of us, we were just blown away by James Robinson, not analytics.
I mean, he got the whole market share. That's why he was the running back seven. But just watching, it was like me, and he never goes down. He always gets his eyes another six yards another seven yards.
It was just he's a quality back. And I think in the end, he's going to get enough workload. He can he can catch the ball. He can score touchdowns.
So he's my call on David Montgomery of 2021. Do you think that they respect him now that he's been hurt? Because they disrespect him. They draft the end.
They sign Carlos Hyde. I think they disrespected him when they drafted him. I don't think it's that they don't respect him. I believe it was more the fact that they wanted to bring in Trevor Lawrence's guy from college, give him, you know, that that extra confidence and comfort.
But that's speed. The top end speed for James Robinson is not close to what Travis E.T. and for sure. But you want to know who makes James Robinson looks look fast?
Carlos Hyde at 31 years old. All right, Mike, who's this year's David Montgomery to you? So I went back and forth on this one between my pick and Mike Davis from the Davis on the Atlanta Falcons, which I don't know if you guys saw this because I missed it. You know who's listed number two on the depth start at the running back position?
Herschel Walker, Cordyrell Patterson. Okay, that makes sense. They have no one. Yeah, I just like, I mean, you figured it was all this.
That does help. It's just for my Davis. Yeah. And so it's like it Davis seems like he should be the guy and then look at the players behind him.
And he really should be. You know, who was David Montgomery's backup running back last year? Cordyrell Patterson. Well, there you go.
Maybe switch my pick because the Falcons end of season schedule, at least right now, looks juicy. But I'm going with Chase Edmonds. Okay. The Arizona Cardinals, he's he's a player that we don't yet know what type of workload he's going to be.
He should be the primary ball carry for the Arizona Cardinals. And he has, he's been there past catching specialists. So I mean, when you fuse those two things together, you're looking at a player who's his ceiling is tremendous. Should he receive that workload, he will break out on on Arizona that projects to be a good offense.
And then I was looking at the end of the season of, it's not looking at the end of season schedule right now is a dicey proposition, because things change so much. But in his playoff run, he gets the Lions, the Colts, which isn't my favorite, but and then the Cowboys, I mean, the Lions and the Cowboys in that three game stretch, I would be pretty surprised if both of those teams can shore up their defense in time over the season to stop chase. I'm just having a good run at the end of the season. All three of our picks are from the fifth round right now in fantasy draft.
Mine's Miles Gaskin. When I think about what David Montgomery did at the end of last year, it was not just a run of good games. It was a run of top 10 games. It was a run of like weak winning games and Miles Gaskin can do that because he brings so much in the passing game.
The last, I think six games that he played, he was a top 20 running back, but three of those he was a top 10 running back last year. And so I like his potential to go, you know, 1,800 in this offense. And you talk about ambiguous backfield. Malcolm Brown is the Tariq Cohen to the situation.
Did you say starter? Did you say any other? I need it. You dirty man.
Speaking into existence. Oh, because you draft the Malcolm Brown. I need you. I mean, speaking of the driver, you grab this is this is a real call that you believe in.
You drafted Miles Gaskin in the second round last night in the listener, Lee for 14 teamer. Yes, but then I mean, so this is this is you have put your money where your mouth is here. You really truly believe Miles Gaskin has the chance to be David Montgomery. This isn't just picking a name out of a hat that you don't believe in.
Yeah, I've definitely there's no player I've risen more on. I think into the season that Miles Gaskin and he has the opposite case, in my opinion, of what the Jax what Jacksonville did to James Robinson. Like we all walked away from the draft going, oh my gosh, the dolphins with all that capital did not invest on a young running back. I think that shows the confidence they have in Gaskin to do a lot in the offense.
Not everything. He's not built to do everything, but a lot for a player that catches passes is pretty darn good. So let's look at finding 2021's Stefan Diggs. It is still mind blowing that this is a player that went outside the top six rounds in fantasy or five rounds in fantasy football.
Last year, his average reposition was 603, the wide receiver 27 off the board, fast forward or hop in the DeLorean and travel to now. And we know Josh Allen went nuclear. Bills went from 200 passing yards a game to almost 300. Yeah, if he would have told me that was going to happen, I would have changed my outlook for Stefan Diggs.
So this is a player that's outside the top four rounds has room for the quarterback to improve or the offense to take a leap has a chance to be a target hog. So who is your 2021 Stefan Diggs candidate? Who I similar to Mike, how he sounds skeptical. Well, the reason I'm skeptical is because I want to do what you did at the running back position.
The player that I think matches it the best, I just refused to put my name on. But it's Odell Beckham Jr. He's going in the same spot that that Diggs went last year. He's a known great wide receiver from the past two's not been there for fantasy.
So you know, but I refuse, I would never I would never pick Odell Beckham. I'm gonna go with Corey Davis. When I look at a highly drafted good route running, somewhat disappointing wide receiver left for dead changing teams, like Stefan Diggs did, to an offense that we presume is bad. But maybe it's good.
We haven't seen Zach Wilson and if Zach Wilson really comes on and lights the world on fire, I mean, you got Tony Romo out here saying he thinks he's a he does one of the top guys is going to compete with Patrick Mahomes. He's got that level of talent. If something like that were to happen and a breakout happen, I think Corey Davis could be the target hog. I mean, I know in preseason, you had some games without Elijah Moore, but they paid a ton of money to bring Corey Davis in here as their one.
And I think he will be their number one wide receiver this year. So I find it hard to make the leap all the way up to the one part of the Stefan Diggs comp that clearly doesn't ring true is I don't think he can be a top five wide receiver. But I do think the guy, you know, but he's also not going in the six round like Diggs was Lester. I think that same jump from basically the sixth to a first rounder can happen with Corey Davis being a ninth rounder to like a third rounder next year.
I don't think Elijah Moore played any preseason games. Yeah, I don't think he's getting snaps. And no, Corey Davis is going the latest of our three picks. I mean, he's almost a 10th round pick.
He is in that the data point that we brought up in never not working the percentage of routes targeted. Right. Corey Davis scored very well on that metric. He saw a target on 23.6% of his routes.
I also like that it fits the switching teams storyline. Yeah. Mike, who is your Stefan Diggs candidate? So my wide receiver is also switching teams.
Okay. All right. Spare switching from Alabama to the Philadelphia Eagles of going the rookie Devontae Smith. He's always open and as much as I want to bang the drum for Jaylen Rager and say this second year wide receiver is going to have a breakout.
I mean, it's up and down with Rager. He showed up to camp out of shape. It's like the news on Rager is you just can't buy into it. And then you only see Devontae Smith in a very limited amount of preseason action.
It was, oh, well, the BMI doesn't matter because you can't stop this dude off with a line. He gets open. Talk about Heisman winner? Yes.
Yes. A player who put up one of the most prolific wide receiver of the fall time. He was just absolutely elite. You have the situation with the quarterback.
Like Josh Allen in hindsight, questioning Josh Allen a year ago was the right thing to do. He went from one of the worst passers in football to one of the best. Jaylen Hertz currently being very questioned. Can he be a starting quarterback?
Can he be a franchise quarterback? And so I think that a lot of the narratives align here and you're getting Devontae Smith the back of the seventh early eighth round. And I think that he can immediately jump into the top target share for the Philadelphia Eagles. I wonder if the real answer to this question is Kenny Gallaudet because he has the, like, digs has never been, we never questioned digs the talent, right?
Even in Minnesota. It was always like, you just kind of got fatigued, right? With him not singing a targets and then he switches teams and it was Josh Allen was the problem. Right.
Right. And then, you know, yesterday it was like, who gets stuck with Kenny Gallaudet in our listener league draft? And it was me. And it was Mike.
And it was not like Mike was not happy when he did it. He's just like, okay. And so I do wonder if that's the real answer. I'm gonna go with DJ Moore though.
Outside the fifth round, actually the first pick of the fifth round right now by ADP. You look at those marks of Stefan Diggs last year, room for quarterback improvement in the offense to take a leap. Well, Jason, let's go, Donald. Did the case for Sam Darnell to improve that offense.
Chance to be a target hog. Yes. He does have that opportunity. And he has a similar deep target profile as to fund digs.
You know, he's been peppered with targets this preseason. So he's kind of standing out to me as the player that Darnell is going to look to the most and can make the most big plays. I think he's one of the best real wide receivers in football. So to me, DJ Moore could be one of those names that right now, fifth, sixth round in the year, we're like, Oh, DJ Moore is what we thought he was.
He scored eight times. I mean, digs, digs did it last year on what seven touchdowns? Yeah, eight touchdowns. It was not the prolific number.
DJ Moore reminds me of someone that can, you know, if you hit him 15 yards down the field near the sideline, just like digs, like he'll just run back to the middle of the field, kind of break a tackle and can house it. All right, let's find 2021's Logan Thomas. This one is, of course, finding the news to fund digs is valuable. But finding that late round tight end gym is difficult, but it is very, very valuable.
And it is super like satisfying as a fantasy player to identify the tight end and then be able to lock them in and say, I found something no one else found very hard to do. Logan Thomas, that prototype that we're talking about late or undrafted tight end that still has a chance to be the second or third in targets. Logan Thomas just ended up being a go to receiver for them. And then we can throw in the interesting athletic measurable.
So though, it does not fit my pick for this, Mr. clean. So we'll see. Who's this year's Logan Thomas for you?
For me, it is Gerald Everett. He has the athletic profile. We know that in 91st percentile athletic measurables, he really can get it done on the field. And I think he comes into a role right now where he is the number three in targets.
You've obviously got DK Metcalf Tyler lock and down. So he is not able to break into the top two as the roster currently stands. But as the third option in this offense, we've seen in years past, I mean, big Montana had crazy success. And then he got injured.
And then it was like, okay, we'll bring in Greg Olson, but Greg Olson was a shell of his former stuff. He's an old man on the field. Now it's Gerald Everett, they paid him money to come over to be a part of this team. And I think the opportunity is there.
But the other thing I you know, I want to point out, like, it's only those two wide receivers. They're very shallow here. We talked a lot in the early off season about Tennessee and what if they lost a guy, but if either Tyler Lockett or DK Metcalf happens to go down for a period of time, I think he will become kind of like Logan Thomas very necessary. He's, you know, with a better quarterback situation.
So while right now, if I'm drafting Gerald Everett, it is 100% based on a streaming option, it's match up play. It should, this picture sounds stupid. Just putting it out there. It should sound illogical that these players could do it.
Logan Thomas sounded that way last year. I'm not saying that about your pick. I'm just saying all these names should, the reason they're undrafted is because nobody's really projecting or predicting it. But Everett 100% fits that.
And switching teams like, you know, Logan Thomas, it took him a little while. He switched teams before he had the breakout campaign. And Everett has always fit that athletically. In fact, he's had those plays where you look and you're like, that's one of the top five tight ends in football.
He's had those games, even with Jared Goff. Not a lot of tight ends can run a, you know, a route like a wide receiver down the sideline and catch a fly pass the way that Gerald Everett can. Now Everett. Yes, Matt.
I will. Dizzly is still there though. Yes, but he is. Oh, oh, yeah.
Any chance to push the button? Hey, my Santa. I missed it earlier. Right.
I couldn't find it. Yeah. So trying to find that tight and finding the path forward. Speaking of money, John, who Smith got a lot of money from the New England Patriots.
You're talking a four year $50 million contract to come in. And unfortunately, in the off season, that buzz was destroyed because shortly after the Smith contract was announced, Hunter Henry was signed by the New England Patriots. And it was, oh, the prices right. It was really sad and disappointing.
But the path is still there for John. I think that, yes, they did this. That's where the Hunter Henry signing thing. I think that Jacoby Myers will be the target leader.
He'll be the slot wide receiver for this team. But then who is number two? Is it Nelson Agilor? Is it John who Smith?
Like the question can be fairly asked. And he has the talent, the athletic profile, to come in and be that guy who is who is the number two guy. He was, he's taking snaps out of the backfield, which that doesn't necessarily get me real excited that those are high leverage touches. But the point is the Patriots want to figure out how do we get the ball to John who so we can let him do his thing and move the ball down the field.
So I see the path for him to emerge as the number two guy for the Patriots. We were driving a lunch yesterday, Jason, and I, and talking about the two biggest fantasy blind spots at tight end. John, who was one of the names we brought up where it's like, for some reason, we're not looking at his direction. That completely, to me, it feels like that mangled the potential hype and hope for what he could be.
It is 100%. But that impact happened on signing day. And it's like ignoring all the evidence after signing day. Oh, and the fact that Henry's been injured?
Henry is not there. And the other name we brought up is my pick for this year's. I mean, plug your mic. What an insult to this man's career that he is now being called this year's Logan Thomas.
But it is it's better than this man deserves. It is the number one or two targets for the Philadelphia Eagles. Zachary Earths, the great forgiver of sins because because he has apparently come to turn with the the Eagles leadership that has forgiven them, he said, for all of their disrespect, slash trying to shop him as hard as they tried to shop him. Zachary is undrafted.
And if I already said week one, you're going to have Adam Thiel in the number one, white out, Melvin Gordon, the number one running back. And Zachary is going to end up the number one tight end and week one just getting ready fantasy fans because he's he might be their number one target. Like you brought up to Smith, it might end up being the target leader Zachary Zacherts on this team. The preseason Jalen hurts as we look at it Zacharyts a lot.
And if everything is emotionally fine between the team and the player here, like Jalen hurts needs somebody to throw the ball to and we're not paying attention to Zacharyts and especially in a P.R league. I mean, you look at the preseason usage of Earth's versus Goddard and you're right, it's like Earth's probably ends up with more targets this year. And that's it makes none of us happy because he doesn't have the physical capabilities to do something special with it on the field. But obviously he's good.
Let me read you his fantasy finishes all the way back from 2015 because there's a little surprising to me. He was the Titan nine, Titan six, Titan three, Titan two, Titan five, and then last year, last year was the Titan 32, he missed a couple of five games. So he only played 11 games. And so he has one year removed from being a top five, Titan and he is dead to everyone complete like Titan 82.
I don't care. He's off the board. And I think this is a worthy time to bring it up because here's he's available on your waivers right now. Yes.
Have you drafted? He's available on your waivers. Have you are you drafting this next week? He's going to be on your waivers after the draft.
And I think he has the potential to be the, you know, a top 12, Titan via Jason Whitten style like Jason Whitten had three top six years and then he just went 10 11 12 10 12 like P.R. does a lot to stabilize that position. So it hurts to have to tell you this, Mike. I have come to terms with that.
This is an actual possibility. I have I have been speaking to your I have cleared a space in my underwear drawer that this this possibility exists. But I'm just glad that you're the one who put your name on it. Because I was not going to do that.
Well, now the flip side, I read his career fantasy finish for Titan. But to your point, Mike, yes, if you look at how bad last year was horrific, he did play in 11 games. So he missed he missed five games, but he played in 11. You want to guess how many times he was in the top?
Let's say 15 Titans. Not not not not like a real good fantasy finish. Just top 15 on a week. I believe it's once or twice you would be right with your first answer.
One single time. Oh, yes. This is if you're just if you're brand new to the show, I went very heavy paint for Zachar. It's last year and he broke my heart and I will never forgive him.
He was still on pace for 111 targets though, but he wasn't catching any. I know. I know. But his his yeah, we'll not talk about him anymore.
Move forward. There is a name that I do want to highlight real quick that none of us picked. He's in a buddy's in our candidate list and it's Donald Parham Jr. for the Los Angeles Chargers.
Yeah, this is starting tight. Yeah. This is look at what the path is. Yes, they brought Jared Cookin, but we don't know for is Jared Cook the guy is Jared Cook washed and what we know about the Chargers.
Keenan Allen is the number one wide receiver. Who's the number two guy? Mike Williams, I think his name does have a question mark at the end of it. So and that's the point of finding these types of tight ends is who's the number two option?
And if that is a question mark, then that tight end becomes interesting. Justin Herbert used Tundra Henry a ton. Yes, like we can't forget that's the reason why we were excited about the cook signing potentially is this like targets have to go someplace. I have heard nothing about Jared.
Like I forget that Jared Cook exists. There has been no no news in any way, shape or form. It's not like he's been injured or doing some special or being bad. It's just like crickets.
Yeah. Crickets from the Chargers. All right. We are going to jump in the time machine one more time.
We're going to look for 2021's Kirk Cousins. What does that mean? That means a late under after quarterback that could see a spike in touchdown rate and has some young ascending talent wide receiver. So Cousins had a kind of career year last year touchdown wise and look, I'm going to just be honest with you.
I'm going to let Jason go first and Jason's pick is the right answer to me. So I have a backup, but I agree with Jason 100 percent here. I am happy that this that we're getting the chance to talk about this player because we really haven't said Baker Mayfield's name hardly at all this off season. He hasn't been a late round target.
This is a run first team, a team that looks competitive, but they are, you know, they want to they want to run the ball 500 times a game and throw the ball twice and just, you know, jam it down your down your mouth. Your food hole down your food hole. Not sure what you were going to say, but Baker Mayfield. I think he didn't want to go with throw.
He didn't want to go with the on in those per say jam it down your mouth. Yeah, I'm down your jam hole. Baker Mayfield is is I think a pretty good quarterback. I think if the things change like last year Kirk Cousins, well, he was on a run first team that was a defense and run team.
That's why we didn't like him, but it turned out his defense wasn't as good as we thought he had to play catch up and that could happen. If the defense of the Browns doesn't take that leap forward and teams that he's playing like the Steelers twice, their offense does. Now maybe he's got to catch up and my point is I think he can do it. I think he can actually have good passing efficiency.
You always know that Jarvis Landry is a very, very good wide receiver two for a team to have for quarterback to have. And now they finally have a wide receiver one back Donald people Jones looks great. And then you've got Odell Beckham somewhere there as well. So I think the wide receiver court can come together.
What's his name again? Donovan people's Jones. There you go. The wide receiver one for the Cleveland Browns.
Did you say wide receiver one? Yeah, Jarvis is a good two. That doesn't fit the whole story of Baker. Last year he had two top three performances in a row against Tennessee and Baltimore.
There are rumblings that this team is going to change and give more to Baker. You get back on back and you didn't think that that was possible with Buffalo last year. You just we coming into the year was 200 attempts running identity running Josh Allen defense wins championships. If you are I think Evan Stafansky is one of the smartest coaches in football.
If you're paying attention, you see what Buffalo's doing. You don't count on the fact that your defense is going to be everything every game. This is 2021. The NFL is played on the offensive side of the football.
You're not competing with Patrick Mahomes on the Mar Jackson and Josh Allen with Miles Garrett alone and Nick Chubb. You need to throw the football in. So I am 100% in your camp on Mayfield being that guy this year. And you know his touchdown rate I think was in the fours.
And if you ask, you know, perks jumped up to like 6.2, I think or 5.8. So you're just talking about a small jump in touchdown rate with some more volume. My pick is Sam Darnold. If it's not Baker, it's Darnold.
He was a 2.5% touchdown rate last year. So bad. And you try to fit in the youngest ending talent and you go you put Terrace Marshall and you put DJ Warren Robbie Anderson and Dan Arnold and Christian McCaffrey return like. Yeah.
So I'll just know that out there, Mike. Who's your pick? I'm going with a seasoned veteran quarterback who is surrounded by young sending talent at the wide receiver position. I'm going with Ben Rothiceberger.
It's not like he hasn't done it before. The offense clearly had to change some things up and his arm was not anywhere close to the Ben Rothiceberger cannon arm that we're used to seeing and everything was checked down. Everything was at low average depth of target except for a couple shots here and there to chase Claypool down the field. But he's still through the ball for over 3,800 yards.
He had a decent touchdown percentage like it didn't turn into week in and week out consistency. You know, he was only in he was only a quarterback one five times, which is kind of shocking when you look at his end of end of your season numbers. But the talk of his arm seems to be more healed now from the surgery that he had two years ago. Last year to rehab, they were saying he had to throw the ball nonstop trying to get things back and ready.
Maybe he was already arm fatigued by the time the football season actually started and that is not the case now. So it just with the weapons around him, I think that Rothiceberger can surprise and go from this essentially undrafted quarterback to easily finishing right around that QB nine QB 10 spot. I ended up with Matthew Stafford late. I was the last team to take a quarterback in yesterday's listener league draft 14 team draft.
But my plan was big, Ben Lee. I mean, that was interesting. I was going to go. I ended up going Stafford because I had Cooper cuff and kind of wanted to stack.
But I could see it. That's one of those our quick question on the on the green room yesterday was like what player or team situation has changed the most in your mind. Like it's definitely good vibes on the the sealer offense. So that makes a ton of sense.
Well, I mean, we're back in present day now. Oh, thank goodness. And I think we've learned a lot. So enjoy enjoy that information for the future.
Yes, place your bets. Definitely didn't look at last year's episode at all. I don't know if it went well or not, but we want to thank pristine auction for sporting today's podcast. There can be signed tight and many helmet my first time picking the listener league $50 right now, Insta, Justin Jefferson signed Jersey, Insta night at 50 bucks as well.
You can check that out. Hundreds of daily sports memorabilia, auctions, pristine auction calm, use the code ballers. The thing about the time machine is maybe we saw just a different timeline. Oh, like the alternate 95.
Yeah, so results not guaranteed. We'll see tomorrow. But then goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballer podcast.
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