AFC North Breakdown + Hot Takes

I don't really see what happening. Do you believe that Baker can return on draft value? He definitely could, yes. Do I expect him to? I don't think it's likely. Right. I don't think it's likely just because you have to take him so high. He's a quarterback. In order to justify taking, unless you're in a two-quarterback league, if you're in a single quarterback league in order to justify taking a quarterback high and missing out on a running back or wide receiver, they have to dominate.

Baker certainly could. We just made the argument about this great offense. Baker, once he was the starter, Baker was averaging 271 passing yards and two passing touchdowns per game. As a rookie, which is unbelievable. Without Odo Beckham, that's 4,300 yards and 33 touchdowns. Okay. Before we move on, Baker has to do, he has to be Aaron Rogers in this offense. He's not going to run the football very much. No. So one of the things that.

positions fantasy quarterbacks a little bit differently is that extra element of being able to run the ball a little bit. It's what makes to Sean Watson a potential number one type of guy. So Baker does have to stay efficient. He does have to throw a lot of touchdowns. He needs to be in that category of the high touchdown type of guy in order to be in that category. He could do it with those players. I mean, my goodness, you could have big plays. Just saying, and if you look at Odo Beckham and Eli Manning, Odo Beckham was worth 3 percent.

to Eli's pass and completion. That's not a small number to go from Baker Mayfield last year, who was a near 64% completion guy. If you get up just a, you get a bump of 2% because you have Odo Beckham, you should see Big Ben's numbers before you had AB. Sure. We were talking about this. They were worse than Derek Cars without AB. So a good Hall of Fame, great. Wide receiver can go a long way. Yes. It's going to be fun to watch.

We're moving on. Wait, what's happening? This is for Marvin. Oh. The Bengals. We're playing this? Just say goodbye. I mean, 18 years deserves a song, Mike. Look, Andy liked him. Yeah, that's true. Andy had the signed picture. You had a signed picture. No, that was huge. No, that was huge. Now, I know they seem like the same exact. No, no, no, no.

level of talent at the coaching position that was jason how dare you that was that was to win hugh jackson oh who marvin lewis hired yes okay okay okay okay that's why they are they are connected okay all right um yeah look they go from we were talking about this beforehand right you've you've got a six and ten bengals who vagus says are odds on going to you know they've got a high probability of finishing

near the worst in the league, getting that number one pick next year. You have, for fantasy purposes, you're going from Martin Lewis, defensive-minded head coach, very reigned in on the offense to an offensive head coach, Zach Taylor, the protege under Sean McVeigh. Bengals are 100 to 1 with the bills, giants, lions, bucks, and redskins. It went in the Super Bowl? Yeah. I didn't realize, I had to double check to see how bad it was.

I would not make that bet. That would put the jets above them, the Raiders. So you are apprehensive about some of the potential output for this offense. Yes. The expectations. You said this might be the team that you would body. Yeah, it might be the team that I body in the sense that.

Look, not everybody's going to be good next year for offense. We only talk about the offensive side of the ball here predominantly. And in the offseason, everything looks rosy for most of the big names. And this team's full of big names. A.J. Green, Tyler Boyd came out last year on fire. Joe Mixon. There are plenty of options here. But Zach Taylor, yeah, he sprayed on his sprits of Sean McVeigh's Cologne and said.

hire me, but we've got a head coach who has very, very little that we know about. You know what I mean? Like no track record, no history to draw upon. So is he a good head coach? I hope so. Is he a terrible head coach? If he had gone out there and lost a bunch of games in college, that would have been helpful. But that's fair. But at least we know what kind of offensive output we have with Clintings there. We know what we're getting. A loser. No, you got more of a track record. I get it.

combo of Vegas saying that look this team is going to be bad they've got a new unproven head coach if the wheels start to fall off i worry about having these players i worry about even joe mixon who i i think he's such a talented back thankfully he's a pass catching back as well so if they're down they can they could still utilize him but i i think if a j green re-injures himself dalton could get pulled at some point

What about regression for Tyler Boyd if Green is healthy? Yes. I mean, well, Tyler Boyd was better in the games that AJ Green played significantly better. So when we saw, you know, there's the misnomer of maybe, well, AJ Green missed games. That's just how the board broke out. That wasn't true. Not a ton of time together. My counterpoint to your point is that they already were all those bad things last year. And we had a very nice output from Joe Mixon.

I looked up a stat this weekend, 2.59 yards before being contacted out of the backfield. That's the kind of number you see with kind of the shot out of a cannon type of guys. Philip Lindsay, Austin Eckler, led the league in that category. I was shocked to see what Mixon did with his offensive line. They already stunk, 21st in rushing, 24th in passing. That would be my only counterpoint, not to say, look, it caps their ceiling to be on a bad team.

Most of the time as a fantasy owner, I'm out there looking for running backs on great teams with touchdown ceilings. Mixing last year, you didn't know if he'd find his way around the goal line from week to week. That's a problem. His ceiling is a problem. I agree with you on that. So let's talk about A.J. Green. Great wide receiver was dominating last year. You can't forget.

Right. When he started the season, I believe he was the wide receiver seven. It was the wide receiver nine in points per game through week eight before his injury. And then he gets injured. But now he's been injured a lot, usually below the shin. I mean, he's got ankle and feet problems. I'm just saying ankle and feet problems.

He could have said foot. Below toe problems. Nobody has ever said what my biggest problem area is below the shin. I agree with you. Sometimes it's feet. Sometimes it's toes. Sometimes it. I mean, there's, there's a multitude of all below the shin. Yeah. I, you know what I mean? There's no knee problem. I do know what you mean. I'm just saying that people don't say that. People will start. Yes. Who's coming with me? I got a real phalanji problem. Are you guys fearful?

of injury with a j green i am i love a j green yeah so i i think a j green if i could get him in the fourth round of a fantasy draft it is stealing that's how i feel and he's going around there this last head-to-head mike mock draft that uh didn't quite go as well for me as it did for mike in my opinion look i i took the gamble on green going at four oh two he ended up going to like three eleven or something

That just seems like theft for a guy that was on pace for 81, 12, 33, and 14 last year. I get it. I am worried that he will have problems below the shin as well. See? It's starting. But look, I'm going to go for it. If I'm at the back of the third and he's there, and it's like, okay, you can get, these are the guys realistically in that range then. AJ Green.

And if you want a wide receiver, AJ Green, Amari Cooper, Stefan Diggs, who Stefan Diggs has also had sub-shin problems as well. Look, when you order a burger and McDonald's, Jason, you're going to go for it. Most of the time, you're going to be pretty happy. Every once in a while, the mayonnaise is going to be bad. But you take a shot. Most of the time.

Sometimes. Sometimes. Thank you. Terrible analogy. It's probably you've probably thrown out. I think that's an appropriate reality. I feel like what you're doing when you're drafting Bengals is you're going to. You're going to McDonald's. And look, is. Food contamination is delicious. It could be like, oh, I got such a value. This was like a value menu item. I got number four. And then afterwards it's going to be like, oh, this is so good. Week one. Oh, this is delicious. You know what?

I don't feel so good. I wish I didn't do that back in the draft. Why wasn't I smart? It just stayed with the good team. I should have got a salad. The risk is that they are not a productive offense, and that will, you'll have the mixing games where he gets all the volume and work low, but it's inefficient, touchdown-free performances. You saw it sometimes last year. He's a great player, but are you guys surprised there's not more hype around Zach Taylor? Because he seems like he has missed the...

Like he may have spritzed on the cologne of Sean McVeigh to get hired. It was watered down, though. I mean, he cut that thing at least 75% of water. So this was not a full, this was not a full spritz. This was not a full. I just, I met Sean McVeigh. He just got dressed and he's got it. The cologne's still fresh, so it's rubbing off on me. So no, I'm not surprised the hype isn't there. But if he.

can manage to institute Sean McVeigh's system and do it right. That's a huge deal. Like the numbers I talked about with Todd Gurley where you have, it's Todd Gurley, and you can't sell out to stop the run because the plays are designed so well. So that's, that is, that's the upside for the Bengals, even if they're bad, that the offense can still be.

churning out. Does that mean, look, they only have 4.3% vacated targets that's the second lowest in the NFL. These are the same pass catchers. Green, Boyd, John Ross, who can, you know, say what you will about John Ross on his own. He's not a fantasy option. He helps your quarterback if he can run straight down the field. And Andy Dalton, there have been seasons where he has huge plays down the field. Is there a world where you're interested in Andy Dalton in any capacity? No. Okay.

Two quarterback leagues. You want to take a late shot. I don't think that's a problem, especially because in two quarterback leagues, you probably want to draft three quarterbacks just to be safe, especially if you're not going top end heavy, which I don't like to do. I'll grab three later quarterbacks. Dalton is definitely in the mix. Dalton or car? Where do you lean? I lean car. Yeah, that's right. But it's like just as a point, because we were talking about Zach Taylor.

In 2017, I just want to make sure everyone knows this. Okay. That was a long time ago, right? 2017? Really long time ago. Super long time ago. Super long time ago. Year before last, he was hired as the assistant wide receiver coach for the Los Angeles Rams. And then quarterbacks? And then upgraded to quarterback and now you're the head coach of a franchise. Go get them, Ty. I want to know how you, how do you get moved from assistant wide receiver coach to quarterback? And what do, what are they seeing?

with you on the field. Well, he was a quarterback in college. No, you said he moved from the Rams wide receiver to quarterback. Yes, from the Rams assistant wide receiver coach. Then in 2018, he became the quarterback coach. Under the same. Under the same offense. So something he's, was he doing something with the wide receivers? Or they're like, you know where that could go? That could go in the quarterback room. Well, he's friends with McVeigh. And he's also, he's also a young buck. Like, Jason, you realize.

We're older than Sean, than, uh, oh, I'm Jack Taylor. Yeah, 100%. That's ridiculous. All right. Let's, uh, because we're so young. Close it out. Oh, the judge did well. The pristine deal of the day. Nick Chubb signed Brown's jersey $49 yesterday. Nice. At pristine auction.com. Use the registration code ballers to sign up and check out their hundreds of daily auctions.

Guys, that is it for today's episode of the podcast. Oh, we made it. We made it through. Jason is back. We've got more episodes coming this week. And then we'll be five a week. Make sure you subscribe. Oh, my goodness. YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Eyeheart, anything that has the internet. And we'll catch you next time, Foot Clan. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Jointhefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter.

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