Hey Foot Clan, the NFL season is here five days a week. We're here with you. Check out the Ultimate Draft Kit. Prepare for your drafts.
We've got it all ready for you at Ultimate Draft Kit. Dot com. To the Fantasy Foot Molars Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in.
The Fantasy Footballers Podcast, Mike Wright, Jason Moore. I'm Andy Holloway. We welcome you in Wednesday, August 2nd. We begin the journey towards a fantasy football championship.
We'll be alongside you all season long every single day. If you're into Dynasty, we've even got an extra episode. Oh, that's great. I am into Dynasty.
Yeah. Yeah. And I have news for you, Jason. What?
You may be interested in something we're providing, which also comes out today, right? Yes. So Wednesday's a double, double dose of the fantasy footballers. We've got the main show.
We got the Dynasty show. I believe Mike was on there with Borg and Betts. Yeah, we were talking all about quarterbacks. I've heard of them.
Yeah. That sounds like a good discussion. Today we have Ice and Fire, one of our favorite episodes of the year we got news to talk about. We have so much going on.
I just can't wait for the drop. I mean, that's all I'm here for is just when we get into that segment, but we do have something maybe a little bit more important than that drop. Oh, I didn't even see this. Why don't you go and take the mantle?
This is this is the time. I mean, we are here. We are in August. Training camps are open and listener league entries are now eventually open.
So you have one week only to submit your listener league entries. And here's how you do it. You make whatever fun thing you want to represent yourself to say I should be in the league and you're going to email that fun thing to listener league at fantasyfootpaulers.com. I said it once and I'll say it one more time.
That's going to be twice listener league at fantasyfootpaulers.com. We are accepting entries for one week and maybe we'll plan a league together this year. And Mike, you know, we don't need the resume, right? That is correct.
Look, we want to play with fun people. You're going to be like, we're going to be chatting and yucking it up all season long. So we want people is it's a good time. This show hopefully realize that fantasy football is about.
We all want to win, but we also want to have a good time throughout the NFL season. So what do you do to get into the listener league? Just something that that that we know that you're a fan of the show and that you're going to have a good time with us. We don't want don't just, you know, you're too scared to let me in the league.
No, we aren't too scared, but you're not going to get in that way. Don't send us a wall of text. Yeah, if you love fantasy football and you love the podcast, I think Brooks, you put that well. Brooks should know it Brooks in the listener league.
We met Brooks from the listener league. He's part of the show now with the biggest loser Brian Catcher. Listener league. This is we know that one was an unfortunate.
Oh, it sucks. I'm so I'm so I'm so unhappy to have made his acquaintance and become close friends. But yeah, I mean, oh man, we take a lead. You just said you were close friends with Brian.
I know he's he's going to lose his mind. But it's true. You get down at showing up at the office of the 15 minutes. But yeah, that's a big announcement.
I didn't realize that was dropping on today's show, but it makes sense. The one week one week one week and don't endanger yourself because somebody somebody reached out to me and let me know that this year's entry like they almost drowned or something going through a river. They say out there. So no, no, no, I don't think we need you to like be a fjording a river.
What is that? That fjording is when you take the the raft. Yeah, don't do that. Not that we're shorting.
You walk through it with the oxen and the oxygen just they disappear. Yeah, no organ trail stuff like we don't need that. But also safe and then last one. Don't ask us on fording a river.
Oh, if you're doing those things down in New Zealand or something in Norway and stuff last bit of information. Don't ask us on social media for where you send your entry. Because these are the rules. Yeah, I almost repeated it.
But I'm not we will not say it again. We're not saying listen to the family. If I come again, okay, there it is. Jason quick question of the day.
I said it twice. I'll say it right. This question comes in from Dr. Kool-Aid.
He says, how do I get my commissioners to get the ball rolling on leagues earlier without being too annoying? So that would be things like setting the draft order, which I did for our family league this morning or setting the day for the draft, which I did for our family league this morning. How do you get them to do it sooner? I genuinely think that the best way is to offer your services to do it for them.
I don't think that the that the commissioner of your league is like, I refuse to think about this until August 15th. People are busy. So, you know, a lot of leagues that we are in have co commissioners that's every platform now will allow you to have multiple people with administrative access. And I think it's really nice when someone else can step up and say, Hey, I was thinking about getting the ball rolling on this.
Do you want some help? Do you want me to help set the draft order and stuff like that? And then it makes yeah, it makes sense that you're in this position where you're very excited because you're listening to the show right now and you've probably listened for a while and we go year round. So you've been excited.
You've wanted the league and the draft order happen. I will say this. Signing the draft order. Cool.
If you want to have it happen early, you want to get the league going, you want to start chatting. That's great. Don't and we're getting to the news in a minute. So you'll understand this even more.
Don't push for your draft to be too soon just because you're excited because we're always trying to push our draft as far back as possible. We're on Labor Day for our League of Records, which is September 4th. I'm trying to sync it up with kick off like right. Yeah, like the final pick.
Yeah. And then the final pick is in you have 30 seconds to say you're like, Oh, that's true. Yeah. But it's just like the injuries they stink regardless, but they think a whole lot more when you already got the players on the roster.
So we've had drafts where we didn't have a choice. Obviously it was the time people could get together and we've had injuries happen literally mid draft before because preseason teams were taking place. So it's good to avoid that. If you can, let's jump into the news.
News and notes from around the league presented by USA insurance. Well, there's some stuff going on. Let's start with the headline here. Cooper cop left practice yesterday dealing with a horse.
It wasn't meant to be a sad horse. Yeah. He left practice hamstring injury underwent an MRI. The team's going to be cautious.
It's going to take weeks kind of sounded similar to the borough situation where you're probably not going to see any more Cooper cop. You know, this data is interesting. I'm not saying it's prescriptive for Cooper in this situation, sir, you know, for sure. But Matthew Betts, our injury expert talked about the fact that in his data set over the last two years, 60% of players who dealt with camp injuries failed to meet their ADP pretty hard to meet your ADP when you're being drafted in the top five anyway.
You add to that an injury laden season last year going into the season with a hamstring. You know, Cooper cop is a special type of player and athlete. We've seen him return from an ACL when people didn't expect him to produce any dead, but I'm not excited to see this news. Our risk ratings in the UK are going to rise on Cooper cop.
I'm sure of that. And he's moved from like one to four because I see those pop four wide receivers so close that look, if you have a hamstring injury, that's going to separate you a little bit in my rankings because I don't want that risk. Yeah, I have a rule that I've adopted over the last several years, which is when you're in draft season. Don't don't buy the ADP dip of currently injured players.
Now if he's totally back and healthy by the time drafts come around, you're not buying an ADP dip and there won't be one, but certainly it's unfortunate. Alvin Camara is going to meet with Roger Goodell today to discuss the Las Vegas incident. And so we will get an answer likely soon on whether he'll be suspended for one game, two games, four games. Yeah, we don't know.
And we might talk about him today. Later. Calvin Ridley, this was I guess as good as it gets. Dealing with the toe injury, that was reported, a lot of sad faces.
And then this morning we found out it's related to the cleats he was wearing and he switched cleats today and he's expected to be fine. Yeah, he was like, I'm a size 12? Yeah, he had no idea. Wait, do Cooper cop try this?
Yeah, you should like change his pants for the hamstring injury. My pants were too tight. I really doubt that one. Like, we got to try everything.
Well, you're in a good mood now, but what about this? Viking's running back Alexander Madison limped off the practice field. Well, like like Pimple, like no, not like he had a big plan. He's like, that's right.
Yeah, no, Pimple, calm. That's like the growing index, but it's for different injuries. No, don't go there by the way. I don't know what's going to find.
He stayed on the field to watch the remainder of practice. Okay. Unfortunately, this meant that seventh round rookie Dwayne McBride ends up with first team reps with Madison out and Kenny Nwangu also not practicing. So Madison Camp Injury didn't seem serious, but we'll have to pay attention.
Garrett Wilson expected to return to practice with that low. All right. I want all my ankle injuries to be low ankle. Yeah.
That's just that's a lot better than high ankle and then Trevion Williams. Who cares? I mean, I don't know. I don't know.
I care for a face. I mean, he's fine though. So like this is not news. Well, it was news because yes, this is it's an update for me.
Actually, I hadn't seen this part. I don't know anybody out there that probably knows where he plays. So you might have to say that part of the dynasty players know where Trevion Williams is on the Cincinnati Bengals. He is fighting to be the backup to Joe mix and which could have some value if you are in much deeper leagues, of course, but he was the report came out.
He went down. He was carted off, but I guess it is in rap report says it's believed to be a mild ankle sprain, but that this shakes things up. You have Chris Evans there. You have Chase Brown, who they drafted in the fifth round, I believe this year.
So it can potentially shake things up for who is actually the backup. Oh, Jay Howard has been waived by the Raiders. I mean, unfortunately for him, but Michael, Michael, I keep wanting to go Michael. I actually think a storm is brewing for Jason, by the way.
Yeah, I do. Oh, no, I think a storm is brewing for a rookie tight end. I think we're going to have three or four this year that you're going to have to talk about on waiver shows. I think it's going to be Don Porda, the Kincaid mayor and maybe one of the Packers tight ends.
I don't know if it will happen, but I will enjoy every minute. There's certainly opportunity this year. I'm super still in Vegas. Yes, he is.
He is also still Austin Hooper. One of his worst. Oh, man. Oh, no.
We, uh, this year will be the real testing of the rookie tight end. This is a great rookie tight end class. And I have no doubt that there will be weeks. You remember Greg Golsich last year's rookie.
Sure. I mean, he was really important for waivers on certain matchups, but obviously Greg Golsich wasn't a good pick last year. No, you're right. Didn't win people leagues.
All of them will have games. Can Kate, mayor, you know, LaPorda, but most of the most. Don't forget. Don't forget.
Oh, he's on the pub. You're right. And I think the hard part is that it's for any tight end ever. It's very difficult to be consistent in any way, shape and form.
Sure. And it's so hard for a rookie to have earned the level of trust of the quarterback playing time, the blocking assignments to do all that so well as a rookie to be on the field enough to be consistent to not just be a waiver ad that you pick up you play. And then you're like, dang it. That's not it.
So it'd be fun though. It'd be fun if it happened. All right. That was today's news and notes presented by USA insurance.
You can learn more at usa.com slash insurance is ready. Let me hear it. Ice and fire. All right.
We have each selected an ice and fire pick for today's show and we're going to tease them a little bit before we let you know what category these players are in. But Jason gets the privilege of beginning our ice and fire segment. Yeah. And I'm going to start us off with a tight end.
We were just talking about rookie tight ends and how they are. And I'm going to talk about last year's Titan number three super uber talented. He man has set at times the NFL record for yardage. George Kittle chops down trees between plays on the sideline.
I'm just a warm. Yeah. That guy is awesome. I really like George Kittle.
Unfortunate. He's not fire ice. Oh, George Kittle. George Kittle is my ice player, my ice pick.
And I think that it is it's a bad pick right now in fantasy football. All of us have him ranked slightly behind his ADP on the lowest. I've got him at Titan seven. If you look at how his fantasy points came last year, it was an anomaly for his career.
We're going to year seven here and he had 11 touchdowns last year. You think, well, yeah, George Kittle and tight ends. They're tied in. They're towards Kittle.
I'll have 11 touchdowns. Here's his career season finishes a touchdown two five five two six. He's never been a touchdown guy. Now last year 11 touchdowns and we know we say this all the time and it's just proven year after year after year.
Every position touchdowns are not a sticky stat. There are extremely few players. I mean, you could count them on one hand that are like every year they're going to be double digit touchdowns. Even great running backs would do it one year, turn around the next year and don't have it done.
The yardage wasn't really there for him. And I know at the end of the year, there's a lot of people really, really in on George Kittle because of what he did with Brock Purdy. He had seven touchdowns in his final four games with Brock Purdy. He was just a machine.
He won people championships. He was awesome because he is awesome. He could do it. He could be the number one Titan in the league.
If him and Kelsey switched teams, George Kittle would be drafted at the one oh five and you could argue it's the best pick in fantasy. Unfortunately, he plays for the San Francisco 49ers. He is not the number one target. That's probably Diva.
He's not the number two target. That's probably Christian McCaffrey. Yeah, he's not the number three target. That's Brandon Iyuk.
Yeah, so you're talking about a fourth read in an offense where he is dominant, but he's not going to be able to get it done. He only had an 11 and a half percent target share in the games where he played with all of those players. In fact, there were only two games where Purdy was playing and Diva was playing. And in those games, he had 22 yards and 29 yards.
He can get it done. He's talented. He'll have monstrous games, but his bad games are going to be really bad because he's also. Just a kick butt blocker.
I mean, he'll block people into the ground and set things up for their team in ways where he can have an amazing game for the San Francisco 49ers. But for fantasy football, not the so much. Year seven, one complete season for George Kill. He hasn't played every game since 2018.
So that's another thing you need to factor in right? Like last year, 60 for 765 is not doing it for you if you don't have 11 touch. Right. You need the 11th in fact over the last decade, there's only one top five tight end who was fourth on his team and targets.
And that was Robert Tungen who only had a fifth number. I remember it. We had 11 touchdowns. So if you get 11 touchdown, sure, but that's not something we can predict in fantasy.
But here is my biggest point. I think the biggest reason I'm super ice on George Kittle is not because I don't like George Kittle. I love Greg Dolsich just here. Of course, I'd rather have George Kittle on my roster than Greg Dolsich.
He's great, but he's a fifth round pick right now right now in order to select him. You're giving up Justin Herbert or Justin Fields. Those guys are going to be every week difference because you're giving up Miles Sanders or Cam Akers or Alexander Madison right now. You're giving up Terry McClorn or Hopkins or Watson or Judy.
It's just not worth it. You're the inconsistency you're going to receive will not be worth it just because you're like, I want to feel my tight imposition and feel good about it. Don't do it. That's my case.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think it's very fair. I saw those numbers.
The target share when all those four guys are on the field now. Look, San Francisco is going to go through their injuries because they do it every year. Sometimes it's Kittle. If you took one or two of those pieces out, you know, that's a trade target all the sudden, but, but as it stands right now, we have not, I don't think any of us have even like thought about drafting him at that price point.
Correct. And every name that you mentioned that you're choosing him over, I think every single one of those that are other have over George Kittle. Yeah, I genuinely would. I'm curious.
I don't know what my exposure is. I wonder if I have any George Kittle. Yeah, I don't think so. Not at that price.
So I will, I'll take up the mantle next because I we don't want to just, you know, poop all over the tight in position. I mean, we do because we do it every year. Mm hmm. Well, they do it.
Yeah. Well, they it's on them. Yeah. And this guy, this guy made it easier last year because he wasn't participating a lot.
I want to talk about the brand new tight end for the New York football Giants, the offseason surprise edition, the tallest man in the receiver room. We're talking about Darren Waller. We're talking about a player that's made a huge contribution in the past getting older, changing teams, Daniel Jones confidence. But I'm here to tell you this is a fire pick fire.
Whoo. Darren Waller. Googoo googoo. Darren Waller is going to make a difference in your leagues this year.
And you can look to the discussion that Jason just brought forth regarding the draft position of George Kittle. And then you can look Darren Waller's way and you see him sometimes in the seventh into the sixth round. So here's what I have to say about Darren Waller that I want to open your eyes to why I'm getting more and more. I would say enthusiastic about his potential in New York.
First of all, the last two full seasons he had, he did finish as the tight end three and the tight end two. It's been a while. It has been a while. Those two years, the average was 98 receptions, 131 targets, six touchdowns.
You look at the Giants wide receiver room. You look at the targets that they have right now. It is almost impossible to define a leader. And it also feels like they shouldn't be allowed to be called giants.
Oh boy. You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's a misnamed wide receiver.
Wow. The New York Giants have a bunch of slot receivers. They play big Jason. They sit on boosters in that.
Oh, man. You're here. I don't know. I've got a lot more caffeine in the system or recording in the morning.
Look, in fantasy football, there's a clear negative correlation between team wide receiver and tight end shares. Historically, offenses without a clear wide receiver one see boosted tight end target shares. They went out. They want to do a quick Daniel Jones, who they brought back to be successful in this offense.
And who's the wide receiver one in New York? It's saying name out loud at the same time. Three, but it's got to be a wide receiver. It's got to be a wide receiver.
Three, two, one, sir. Oh, really? The guy coming off the Achilles and who just came off the pup. Yes.
So you got one Dale and Crowder and you've got Paris Campbell. The answer might just be Darren Waller. And so since, you know, Daniel Jones, since his entire tenure in New York wide receivers have seen less than 60% of the targets every single year. And that's without Darren Waller in the equation.
Look, Daniel Bellinger, who did not profile to be much of an impact last year was getting involved in the offense as a rookie very early. I'm seeing Kyle share the VHS cover for the movie, Little Giants. Is it Marinus? Oh, yeah.
Thank you. That was Little Giants. Oh boy. But right now, Darren Waller, he's flashing in camp.
He's a matchup nightmare. He's in a good place in his. He's happy to be in New York. Blind Backers, we know they can't cover Darren Waller.
And I think that the price is why he's brought up here as a fire. If you were building into his draft price in fantasy football, the fact that he has to reach these certain thresholds, it would be too scary to say, hey, New Team, New Quarterback. But the Giants showed me last year with very limited personnel. Brian Dable put his quarterback in a position to where they could compete regularly in games.
You bring back Sequan, you take some pressure off the defense. I don't know if Darren Waller, a healthy Darren Waller can't get, you know, eight or nine targets a game in this offense. He helps his quarterback so much. So I'm very excited about his potential.
I wanted to take him in our mock draft yesterday, but he was stolen from me. No, it's I'm all aboard here with the Wallerists. It's going to be great to have him back. Thank you.
I can't believe I missed the drop until the end. That was really, that was pathetic. We got there. Some of the quotes coming out of New York are they're just sensational.
You have a quote here from Connor Hughes. It appears the Giants have taken Darren Waller out. Some say for a breather. I think it's forced Daniel Jones to throw elsewhere.
Like this is, they're just the buzz out of there is incredible. If he is truly healthy, he is, he will be the top target for the New York Giants and look at having getting a top target for anything. It's a great thing to have when you don't have to spend a top five round pick on him even better. And then it turns out it's a onesie position, a top target onesie position available at the back of the six round right now.
That's beautiful. And I will throw in. Darian Slaton, Jaylen Hyatt, deep threats. Daniel Jones has had success there.
If those guys can take the top off this defense and Darren Waller, run free in the intermediate routes in the middle of the field, I think it could be very, very easy to do. Mike is going to share a player with us in a moment, but you're going to have to wait. All right, Mike, it's your turn to share an ice or fire pick with us. All right.
I'm going to talk about a stalwart of fantasy football, someone who has dominated for us at the running back position year after year after year. It's Mr. Alvin Camara. We're going to get right into it.
Ice. I am very, very concerned about Alvin Camara heading into the 2023 season. Yes, there is an ADP dip because we don't know what's going on. We're going to have more clarification of will he miss any games or not?
I'm projecting he will miss at least a couple games anywhere from one to four. But that matters. Like when you're drafting a player who is suspended, they can't go on your IR. They just sit there on the bench, waiting, waiting to unleash them.
Meanwhile, they're absolutely killing the moves that you can make when hot waiver guys pop in week one and you're just like, well, I got to sit here with Alvin Camara. But here's the ugly side of the story on top of that. The efficiency has gone down. We have a full, like, Lamar Miller situation here over the last two years, his volume, the volume we've all been screaming at New Orleans to give us.
Give it like we need Alvin Camara to touch the ball more tons and tons of carries the last two years. Last year was the lowest yards per carry of his career. It was a bad year. Yeah.
He was really bad last year on the advanced metrics over the first four years of his career. He had at least one 40 plus yard rush in the last two years. He's barely like 30 was as long as like the explosive plays on the ground. They just haven't been there for Alvin Camara the last two years despite the volume.
The receptions have gone down since the Drew Brees years. We have six total rushing touchdowns the last two years and like Andy said, the terrible efficiency mark. You know, it was over the past two years. Touchdown per 77 carries.
That's not the Alvin Camara that we've grown to love over his first few years in the league. Then look at his competition. Right. We have Jamal Williams who got himself a nice decent contract and then they spent a day to pick on Kendra Miller, which to me really emphasizes how the New Orleans Saints feel about Kendra Miller because not only did they spend a higher draft capital pick, which we want.
We are running back to day one or day two pick. He was hurt at the time and NFL teams, if you've been paying attention to the draft for any amount of years, are a lot of people who are in the state. They're in the state for any amount of years are scared, poopless for anyone who is injured in the draft season. You get outliers like James and Williams who was coming off of an ACL tear and they still took him in the first round of lines.
But for the most part, running back to our hurt, even if they're really good, they just tumbled down draft boards. Look at Sean Tucker. Like this guy was an incredible running back and teams just, he went undrafted. Like it seems like, well, no, we're not even going to spend a six-door seventh round pick on this guy.
He's hurt. We're going to see what he can do and maybe we'll try and get him as an undrafted free agent. Last year, you had Alvin Camara getting on that volume because here are the running backs who took snaps for the Saints last year. Jordan Howard, Dwayne Washington, Eno Benjamin, David Johnson, Tony Jones Jr., Mark Ingram, Latavius Murray.
This was the competition last year for Alvin Camara. Man, David Johnson. I know. I wait for the Saints last year.
Dude, when I went look at this list, it blew my mind. Like Eno Benjamin, I forgot he was on the team for a couple weeks. I got back after the Cardinals, don't tell them. And like I said, Jamal Williams, Kendra Miller, we have actual competition for him now, especially at the goal line.
Both Jamal Williams and Kendra Miller are big body powerbacks. Now you can just put it on the goal line and get two yards. Jamal Williams was incredible at it last year. Nick Underhill, who was a beat reporter for the Saints, has already highlighted Kendra Miller multiple times throughout the training camp.
Experience. Again, the suspension is incoming. And then here is a stat which just kind of highlights everything because Alvin Camara is, look, he's at the age cliff. Okay.
He is 28 years old, peering out across. Yeah. For running backs, which this factors into the whole running back discussion that's been going on for several weeks now with guys trying to get paid. Since 2014, only 10 running backs averaged 12 plus fantasy points per game in their age 28 season, which is not that great.
Alvin Camara was barely over 12 points last year and finished as the running back 18 appearing in 15 games. You have to have an outlier touchdown season from Camara. So those 10 running backs, all of them had 12 plus touchdowns, except for Aaron Jones last year and joint bell, who's you always have a wild name when you have these stats. It just, it seems like a really bad bet.
That's right. That's right. Bell was the original two ago. Yeah.
It just seems like a really bad bet to carry a 28 year old running back whose efficiency has plummeted and he has to get touchdowns. Meanwhile, you have, you have a young buck and then a guy who just had a bajillion touchdowns last season. That's a lot. It is.
It is a lot of touchdowns. But I am, Alvin Camara is pretty much off my draft board if anywhere close to where he's going. Let me ask you this then, Jason, Mike, what's he worth if Alvin Camara, like I think he's going to catch 50 passes for this team. Yeah.
I've been watching the camp stuff. I mean, the receiving game, that's where he excels. If he catches 50 passes. He got 57 last year.
Yeah. If he catches 50 passes, but he's a part of this offense with the touchdowns not guaranteed. What's he truly like, take the name out of it. Yeah.
Are you, and is a suspension going to play a part in whether you're willing to hold that? Like if he's just 50 catches and he doesn't have a bunch of touchdowns and he's suspended three games. I mean, you're wasting a roster spot, aren't you? That's how I am looking at it.
Yeah. If, I mean, the thing is, we're going to know hopefully here pretty soon what the suspension is or isn't. And that will allow his ADP to rest because obviously right now he's the running back 29. He doesn't cost a ton.
If he had no suspension, I'd be like, no, I mean, of course that's a fine traffic to get a guy running back 29 who's such a good pass catcher and has done it before. But if he loses a couple of games and then you've got to hold him and you have everything you described, I've had a really hard time. Every time I'm around his ADP going, don't want to do it because I do see, you know, he's definitely getting less and less efficient. But he still catches the ball.
So he's not a bunny. He's not off my boards. But you make a really compelling case of the fact that the competition is super different now. Okay.
Well, let's turn the page for a moment and let's talk about T Higgins. I mean, who doesn't love T Higgins? I love him. I love T Higgins.
He's great. A great player. Right? We are bringing the fire.
I think we'll have some good discussion in a moment. This one I am, I feel very strongly about not because we're not sitting here doing an ice and fire show about, you know, you just talked about George Kittle. He's a very talented player. He plays a huge role.
He's going to have tied in one week on the year. But it's about the draft cost. It's about what to expect from this roster and this team. And the more I dove into T Higgins and looked at this draft cost and looked at what kind of player he actually is relative to the draft cost, he's an ice player for me this year.
And I'm sorry because I know we like watching him play football. He is drafted as the wide receiver 12 right now in the third round. In fact, I think we've been in quite a few mocks where you've had that chance to grab him and maybe I'm misremembering, but you guys passed at times on T Higgins when you're staring down some of these other options. You're drafting him at his super tippy top ceiling in my opinion.
Wide receiver 12 is a position and a finish that he's never approached before. He had four of 17 weeks last year. We actually finished inside the top 12 at all. And two of those four weeks was they were without Jamar Chase on the field.
And I know a lot's been said about he was banged up and so we started some games and didn't play some games. Look, I'm looking at what to expect from him this season. He's finished at wide receiver 17. That was his peak last year.
But you are now expecting and this is the headline that I want you to hear. You're expecting a player who was 42nd in the league in targets per route run to finish as a top 12 receiver on the Cincinnati Bengals. I think he's a top 24 guy. I think that's where he'll end up.
But he's going ahead of players that I think you might admit have higher upside, DK Metcalf and the end zone targets and his ability to be the one in the offense. Chris Olave, Mike, who we talk about having tremendous upside. And I'm going to throw another wide receiver two or one B, whatever you want to say to Monte Smith. I'd much rather have him and pick him at this spot than I would T Higgins.
And so you have this choice with T Higgins where look, yes, he's a highly productive player. But you can pass on him and draft highly productive players around or two layer later. Metcalf and Debo are more than around later than T Higgins. Keenan Helen and Calvin Ridley are two rounds later than T Higgins.
And so I am not willing at this draft spot to take him where he has to finish well above his highest career finish. Because I just don't think it's realistic. Like T Higgins, here's how it happens. And you're going to say it's the same thing you said about George Kittle, 10 plus touchdowns.
If the Higgins ends up 10 plus touchdowns, then he can overcome being 42nd and targets per route run and not necessarily running as many routes as somebody topped here wide for the team. But if he doesn't get 10 plus touchdowns, I really think you're going to be unhappy with the cadence of performances from T Higgins. So I think it's a hot take because I don't think anybody said anything negative about T Higgins this offseason, which is evident in the ADP of wide receiver 12. But I really just don't think the Joe Baro Colón is rubbing off.
And I think anything that touches Joe Cool, it's getting an ADP bump. But yeah, I think he's too expensive. That's really my case. I had no clue if you agree or not.
Yeah, I does it smell like cool water? What's the Joe Cool fragrance? I really don't know. The water's not nice enough.
No, Joe Cool. I mean, I don't know. Google. What's the most expensive?
Well, he smells good. Oh, that's how I know what smells good? I'm sure. That's the most Jason thing I have ever heard.
Does anyone in this room do you have a fragrance that you wear? Is anyone? No. Ow.
Axe body's right. Something like that. Oh, yeah. That's funny.
I've got Dior. That's mine. OK. Eeyore?
Dior. It's a real sad smell. It's just depressing. I put it on whenever I feel bad.
Eeyore. By the way, Kyle sharing this with us over the last five years. You want to be top 12. Your average 97 or 7 is for over 1,300 yards and 9.5 touchdowns.
It's a very high bar. It's not that he couldn't do it. It's that he's going to have to have his career best year and then you've broken even on your draft pick. That's the point.
So I will say this. I agree with you that you are drafting him basically at his ceiling. You're, you know, I don't think you're drafting a wide receiver at 12 that is not going to finish the top five guy. You're hoping he finishes a wide receiver 12.
There are spots in the draft where that's what you're staring at. You're staring at guys that are near their ceiling and that's what you've got to draft. And obviously that's more common in the first few rounds. So it's just a matter of your confidence in the player, your confidence in the situation, your confidence in the team.
I think the best stat that you shared was where he was in routes run. That gets a little bit scary. But I do think it is worth at least giving the other side of the argument in the, you know, you brought up that he had a couple games he missed. He basically didn't play in three games.
Now if you look at his game log, he didn't miss a game. Sure. He was there. And so it looks like, you know, yeah, I missed the absent Buffalo game obviously that everybody did.
Sure. He didn't physically 1% snap sharing one game exactly. So only 16 games and then he had three games where he went out early. So you're talking about 13 games where he finished as the wide receiver 17.
So you could see the path, but I went back and I looked because Chase missed some games. You talked about Higgins had big games without him in the games. There were nine full games that Jamar Chase and T Higgins played together and the 17 game pace of those games for T Higgins would have been 136 targets, 87 receptions, 1192 yards, and nine and a half touchdowns, which is right around there. Last year, if he had done that, that would have been the wide receiver eight.
So T Higgins is really good. But I, you know, if you think other people going next to him have the actual chance to finish as a top five guy or or at a different position being better, then I think it's a good ice argument to be made. All right, Jason, I think you're up. I am up and I'm going to talk about a player that was on yesterday's show in an important way.
It is a player that, look, one of our producers just hates. Just absolutely hates. And that producer is Kyle Borden, you know, he had a chance to draft Keenan Allen and he must have been like, man, Keenan, so ice, but he's wrong. Fire.
Keenan. This is the joke here. Yeah, because this is the joke for one person. Right.
No, I think there's like four or five of us that are enjoying this. Keenan Allen, I think is a fire pick. He is obviously a great wide receiver, has been for the last six years since 2017 or last six years. He ranks only behind Devonta Adams in total targets, receptions, first downs.
He's just been really, really great. You look at the last six years, he finishes the wide receiver three, 12, eight, 14, 14, and then last year was bad. He finishes the wide receiver 42, but that's because he only played in 10 games and he missed basically the first 10 weeks of the season. Whenever, when he got back from week 11 on, he was not good.
He was great. He was the wide receiver four in fantasy from that point forward. So he like, I know he's consistent. I know he can get a lot of targets and in PPR, leaves is good, but I just don't think he's got a ceiling.
Yes, he really does. He can get it done every single game as the first free target for a great offense with a great quarterback. You know, we talk about Kellen Moore coming over to this team for the Chargers. I'm very excited to see them open this offense up a little bit and to have Herbert, who I love for fantasy this year, not be playing with broken ribs and hopefully have his targets.
But Kellen Moore's done a lot with the slot player. If you look at the last three years in 2022, CD lamb led the NFL in receiving yards from the slot. In 2021, Cedric Wilson quietly had the third most slot touchdowns behind only Cooper Cup and Devante Adams. In 2020, rookie CD lamb had the second most slot receiving yards in the NFL and Keenan Allen is a dominant slot player.
If you think about the great slot players are not Cooper Cup, right? Just dominating Cooper Cup and Keenan Allen last year both had nine games where they played the whole game. And in those games from the slot, Keenan Allen had more receptions, more yardage and a higher quarterback rating from the slot. He's going to do a lot from the slot.
That's what Keenan Allen is going to do. That's getting me hot. And I think the reason people are afraid is because he's 31. I don't love drafting old players.
All these injury symbols that are next to all of these game logs also concerned people. Yeah, I mean early in Keenan Allen's career was thought, oh, he's a huge injury risk. And then all of a sudden, he wasn't. And then last year he was right now, he's healthy.
I believe he's looking great in camp from all the reports. And age 31 is not a death now for wide receivers whose trait is getting open from the slot. In 2016, Larry Fitzgerald led the NFL in receptions at age 33. He was the wide receiver 11 that year.
Emmanuel Sanders, Julio Jones, Adam Thelon, all top 20 wide receivers at that age. Last year at age 30, he averaged the most red zone targets per game in his career. So I think a lot of people are worried they see him as someone that doesn't have upside. Here's what I believe Keenan Allen is.
Keenan Allen is a solid foundational piece of fantasy roster that's going to have a high score every single week. He is going to have the most targets for one of the best offenses, for one of the best quarterbacks. And he's good at football. He's getting an upgraded offensive coordinator and their line should be a lot healthier.
So when I look at Keenan Allen, I don't see a lot of risk there. That's the way that I view the pick. I think he's going to have a phenomenal season this year. Yeah, I think the baseline foundation of building your team on a Keenan Allen is great.
I don't think you're going to get, and we've seen him for how many seasons now. He's got 10 seasons played. He doesn't score a lot of touchdowns. It just doesn't happen for Keenan Allen.
He never has. He averages 5.3 per season. I think he's had a couple years with eight, most of them with four or five. He accumulates a lot of numbers in an offense.
And so it encourages me greatly as somebody who has Keenan Allen on a dynasty roster that you think so highly of him. I told you this week I made the offer, floated it out, Keenan Allen for Calvin Ridley. Then I saw you made him your fire pick. And I was really offered to reconsider.
I'm excited about both of those players, but they're very different arc types. Like Calvin Ridley is kind of a player that you're going to get multi-touchdown, big play potential. Keenan Allen is a tina catch type of guy, which is to be fair, that's kind of what Cooper copies, except for Cooper Coppins scores like 17 times. So you look at the game log last year that run that you talked about, it wasn't like bouncing between number four.
Number 32, number six, number 40. It was 22, 13, 15, 20, 13, 23. I mean, it was just peppered with targets, reliable first down target. And I guess there's really no reason we need to go away from that other than fear of age.
Yeah, and you know, if you compare him to T Higgins, right? T Higgins is going to maybe don't finish. I'm going to ask you that question. Maybe you'll finish higher, but I would prefer Keenan Allen in the fourth round as my fourth player on my roster than drafting T Higgins as a top 12 guy.
That's the T Higgins case. Is there's some players that I think Keenan Allen's one of them where you can wait around, take somebody else in the third, maybe get yourself a little Mark Andrews. You know, look at who you take. You want T Higgins plus a fourth round picker.
You want like Mark Andrews and Keenan Allen. Give me that. All right. So maybe that'll talk Kyle back into him.
I don't know. Maybe. We got one more name. All right.
From Keenan Allen, so we're going out with the old in with the new fire. Say, flowers. Say fire. Rookie for the Baltimore Ravens, who is currently going as most rookies do.
He's in the back of the ninth round wide receiver 46. So here's the case for his eight flowers. Number one, first round draft pick 22 overall. We love that.
We love having that day one draft capital of the first round wide receivers. If you're looking at their actual production profile, which if you're new to that term, a production profile is like their percentage of their team. So their percentage of their teams receiving arts, receptions, touchdowns, Zay flowers has the strongest production profile of the first round wide receivers. He was he was dominant.
Now he went to a smaller school, but we love seeing that a player just absolutely took over. What's going on with the rest of the Baltimore Ravens wide receivers? Well, Rashad Bateman, who knows? Like we had, we've had some bad vibes with him this offseason.
He had to get the shot in his foot, which Matthew Betts had highlighted. This is not a normal thing for the injury that he's recovering from. He's just, he's still not around. OBJ, yes.
They gave him a ton of cash. I totally understand that. But look at the facts about where we are with Odell Beckham. He's 31, much like Keenan Allen, except he is coming off his second ACL tear.
He didn't play last year and he hasn't been the Odell Beckham fantasy force in years. When he was with the Rams, he got that, got that trade, was he traded release? I don't remember, but he ends up on the Rams for the Super Bowl Rams. He's a midseason trade.
Like he had a couple of decent weeks as a ramp because he was catching some touchdowns. But do you realize in those eight games he was averaging just over three receptions and 38 yards? Like that's, that's not for 38. I think, I think you get him higher.
Yeah, that's not getting it done. Look at Lamar Jackson. Look, it's, it has, it's been a while for Lamar Jackson. So we've seen that prolific passing touchdown season.
But last year when he had an actual wide receiver one Rashad Bateman, Bateman was healthy for three games. In those three games Lamar Jackson threw 10 touchdowns combined. Like he can still absolutely get it done. Now let's look at the opportunity for just the Baltimore Ravens offense.
Since 2019 here's how the Ravens have ranked in neutral pace. Back with the, the old we're going to grind it out. High T run, run, run, run. That's Bell, the one to free in the T.S.
Murray. Neutral pace ranks in 2019. It's 32nd, 31st, 28th, 32nd. We don't like that because we want a high paced offense.
High paced offense means many, many opportunities. Todd Monkin, the new head, the new offensive coordinator back his years with the box. Neutral pace, fourth, fourth, 11th. Last year the Ravens used 11 personnel, which is three wide receivers, just 12% of their plays.