AFC West Breakdown + Buy or Sell, Big Kid Parties - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/15

That's just middle of the road, which is exactly what Derek Carr has been for fantasy. Somewhere outside, somewhere 12 to 16. Like, you probably can stream him in a certain matchup. Let's talk about the big question mark that people have, the backfield. They brought in Kenyon Drake, a lot of hoopla. Josh Jacobs' ADP has plummeted compared to last year. He's the RB 20 off the board behind Montgomery. Kenyon Drake has arrived. That's a great question for you, Andy. David Montgomery.

or Josh Jacobs. I'll take David Montgomery. Okay. Yeah, because a sustained elite play at the end of last year combined with the fact that he's, he doesn't have the Kenyon Drake problem if you want to call it that. I'm not that worried about workload for Josh Jacobs. You saw the stat 46% of total receptions to wide receivers and then they added nobody of real relevance. Like they're going to get the ball to Kenyon Drake in the passing game. He's four full years older than Josh Jacobs.

I think they can both work in this offense. Yeah, the big question going into last year was the passing work for Josh Jacobs. It did tick up from 20 to 33 receptions, but that's still just not enough to be relevant in that game. And then you project it forward and you say, it looks like King and Drake is being brought in to be more of the receiving back. And they have always.

brought in a receiving back much to our chagrin, whether it's Jalen Richard, whether it was DeAndre Washington. So that's Kenyon Drake right now. And so I think Josh Jacobs is fine. The Kenyon Drake news has overblown his demise. I don't think Kenyon Drake's demise has much value. Yes, the target, that ship, I think that's.

probably sailed for the career, but it's at least gone for one more year. And he's very game dependent. And Raider wins, he averaged 93 rushing yards and over 20 fantasy points a game and losses. Just over 51 rushing yards per game and under 10 fantasy points per game. I see more losses than wins this year. Josh Jacobs is, yeah, fine. And the RB20, I think that.

that's an okay place to draft him. I'm not going to try to talk people into Josh Jacobs. Like I don't people, Josh Jacobs last year, if you soured on him, if you drafted him because you thought you could get top five and you got RB8 and you got the inconsistency and you were disappointed, just pass on him. That's fine. I still think he's too low and, but you don't have to take him. The hard part is for when you're talking about the consistency of he was,

He was either great for your team or he full-on submarine your week. RB 43 against Tampa and week seven, RB 50 against the Atlanta Falcons week 12. I mean, he's still one of the more consistent running backs. If you look, he's a B, he's 62% of the time usable and he got hurt, right? He missed the game hurt. And that way, so whatever. I don't have to talk you into it. I don't want to go down with another Josh Jacobs ship.

You know, I'm trying to raise your boat. My man, I'm saying like RB20, that's fine because you're not drafting him like you did last year where. Is he good? You need him to carry. Is he good? Yes. Is he a good player? Yes. Thank you for asking that question because we need to say that. He is a very good running back. What about Dan Waller? He's great. Darren Waller is fun. Remember last year when we thought.

that these draft picks and Henry Ruggs and Brian Edwards was going to mean something. Maybe Derek Carr just doesn't really want to throw to those players. Maybe Darren Waller is just that much better than everybody. I would say this. If I was a quarterback behind that offensive line and I could throw it to Darren Waller, I would throw it to him almost every time. Look how big he is. I'm going to throw it to that guy. Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Miami at Los Angeles.

to start the year. Not the best. So, ugh. Where are you drafting, uh, the Waller's? I am, his, his third round ADP is perfectly fine to me. Waller or Kittle for you? Waller. I feel more secure in the Waller having a, the Waller. The Waller. I'm more confident in him maintaining his incredible target share, which in the,

Darren Waller is not Travis Kelsey. He, Darren Waller was, you know, down the stretch, a league winning type of player when he was the tight end won in three of six games. If you include week 17, he finished just absolutely on fire. But he does have games where he doesn't show up. All right. The Chargers were seven and nine last year, won the last four games of this season. Couldn't keep their coach's job. They bring in Brandon Steely.

Their new head coach, Joe Lombardi taking over at Offensive Coordinator. That's a question mark for this team. Hunter Henry, no longer with the squad, brought in Jared Cook. But a great finish to the year. I mean, seven and nine after the way they started, Vegas has them with nine wins. I mean, Justin Herbert, hype is real. Also, great wide receivers, great weapons in the backfield with Austin Eckler.

What is your overarching opinion of this team? I mean, is that win total surprising to you? That win total is not surprising to me. I think this is, you know, the Cinderella Super Bowl contending pick. Whoa. When I look at this roster, I see a very, very, very. You just said Super Bowl. Yes, I see a very, very good team. There, you know, we've talked about this a lot in the offseason. We talked about it a lot last year while we were going through it. But this projected to be a really good defense.

And then they lost other really good defensive players. And then it was a very bad defense. Assuming that they don't, you know, 49ers this thing and just everyone collapse into injuries, I think the Chargers defense is going to be great. And Justin Herbert said, you know, I can do this. They brought in, you know, a head coach that is a defensive-minded guy. So I think just as the, not for fantasy necessarily, but as an NFL team.

They project to me to be very good. If I had to take an over under on the nine, I think I would go over, even in a tough division. I'm not as bullish. Justin Herbert last year was incredible. Quarterback six right now in drafts, six round pick. That's a little too rich for me. Seems too rich for me, too. Like, is this, you know, you said for the NFL purposes and their defense that you like their team, but is Justin Herbert going to take a step back?

He could easily take a step back for fantasy. If you look at how he started his career running the ball through the first several weeks, and then he kind of got away from that, which was good for NFL and bad for fantasy. Now, he was great, you know, the shoe didn't drop for a long time with Justin Herbert last year. And he's very good. But I do think that it's easy for him to take a backward step here with.

out having to always score. You know, I'm looking through their game logs, and they lost, they gave up 28 points, 27, 45, 29, 39, 31, 31, 29. Like, they're, they have to score more than 30 if they're going to win every single week last year. And so he's out there slinging the rock. And I think they're going to be able to run the ball a little bit more this year. So the offensive line is so much, like this is, this is easily in the NFL, the biggest, most improved offensive line.

Okay, then let's move the conversation to Awesome Echler. How confident are you in Austin Echler currently being drafted at the beginning of the second round as the RB10? Are you going in on that? Yeah, I'm in on Austin Echler. I think we know he gets the ball pass to him. We know the offensive line is great. We know he's been good in fantasy and we know he has.

very, very little competition for the backfield. And he's not going to be a 300-carried guy. He's not built for that. But he is the guy. I mean, Joshua Kelly and Justice Jackson, they're not, they're not impeding. Justin Jackson might not even make the team. Right. They're not impeding. Joshua Kelly, you mean. No, I'm in Justin Jackson. Sure. There's talk about Justin Jackson getting cut. I thought I was right. It was Joshua Kelly. We might have both. They're all. Why not both?

We might have read two articles and they're like, no thank you. But yeah, I mean, so I don't see how, I don't see a path for Austin Echler to have a bad season. You know, outside of everybody's path of injury, even if he doesn't score a lot of touchdowns, which he has not really been a touchdown machine, he's going to be fine. He catches the ball enough. I think you could have an elite year. I really do. Okay, so let's.

Put Echler to the test a little bit because at the beginning of the second, you might be looking at a wide receiver, I guess, hypothetically, Jason. You have started, on this show, we kind of like Zeke more than consensus, but you're able to get him at the end of the first round. You start Zeke. Now you're coming back around and you have your choice. Adams is there. Hopkins is there. Diggs is there. Are you starting RBRB? Are you going?

Zeke and then one of the elite three? No, I personally would go Austin Ackler. Right now he's my running back nine, and I think that those middle rounds, those three, four, five, the wide receivers there are just so much better by comparison to the gap of the running backs that are there versus the first rounds. All right, wide receiver core, Keenan Allen, you know he's elite, you know he's great. He is going in the third round right now.

No real doubts about Keenan Allen. Fifth most receptions last year. Fifth highest target share, why not throw to Keenan Allen? You know, that's kind of the way it works. If he's healthy, quarterbacks are going to throw him the ball because he's an elite route runner. Always open. With sure hands. But Mike Williams, do you believe in the sleeper potential that I brought up a few shows ago? Could Mike Williams take a step forward this year to be more consistent?

Oh, yeah, he could. I mean, we're talking about the opportunity for Henry Ruggs or the opportunity for Mike Williams. At least we've seen Mike Williams do it on the NFL field already. He's got a better quarterback, and he is completely free in draft. So he's one of my favorite last round picks this season. You've brought him up as a sleeper, Andy, and I love that take. The Broncos are, they were five and 11 last year. Oh, come on, Jared Cook.

The people want us to talk about Jared Cook. Oh, Jared Kuk. Oh, okay. All right. Jared Cook. It's simple. If he is not D-U-N. If he's not toast, if he's not old busted, he's coming into a team where you've got a good quarterback. He's a great in-zone target. He's replacing Hunter Henry. The opportunity is there for him to be a value as one of those last tight ends off the board. Or?

He's 34. Or he's got nothing left to give. He's 34 and according to last year. Yeah, this is funny. Pro football focus. He graded out as the worst pass blocking tight end ever. So like what time frame, Mike? Oh, of all time. All the times that they've ever looked at anything. Never seen it worse. Hey, that's good news for fantasy. It honestly, it reminds me like Jared Cook could be Jimmy Graham.

Yeah, just go out there once you're in the 20s, yeah. And catch seven, eight touchdowns and then go take a seat. Can we talk about the Broncos now? Yes, we can. All right. You could have been right, Mike. I mean, they're at eight and a half wins right now in Vegas. They were seven and a half early in the off season. That could be a hedge against the potential of Rogers arriving, right? You know, you've got to move that lineup a little bit. But that is becoming more unlikely by the day. Teddy Bridgewater.

Drew Locke competing at the quarterback position. Okay, let's say it's not Rogers because I have a hunch that if they trade for Aaron Rogers, he'll start. He would start for this team. Probably, yeah. Drew Locke, Teddy Bridgewater, you're placing your bets on this. This is, I wanted to call it a heavyweight fight, but this is like, nope, this is like a YouTuber fight. This is this is two D-level YouTubers.

fighting it out to be a starting quarterback. Look, I'm a much bigger fan of the Teddy Bridgewater than I am the Drew Lock. So I think Bridgewater will start more games than Drew Locke. I think they might both see the field. Yeah, I'm going to say, as of right now, I think Teddy Bridgewater starts the whole season. The organization probably wants Drew Lock to be the guy. They want their pick to have worked out. Didn't they trade for Teddy Bridgewater? Yes, but they want him to get that opportunity.

level up. They want him to win the job, but I don't think he will. I don't think he can. There's a lot, a long way to go up from 30th and total number of first downs, 31st in completion percentage. This offense was 28th and points per game. This was a failed offense last year, a failing offense last year. So.