Fantasy Time Machine + Target Breakdowns, Blind Spots - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/2

Now, Will Disley is still there, though. Yes, but he is, oh, oh, yeah, any chance to push the button, Big Montana. I missed it earlier. I couldn't find it. Yeah, so trying to find that tight in, finding the path forward. Speaking of money, Johnny Smith got a lot of money from the New England Patriots. You're talking a four-year, $50 million contract to come in.

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 like the price is right. It was really sad and disappointing, but the path is still there for Johnny. I think that, yes, thank you. That's for the Hunter Henry signing. Thank you. I think that Jacobi 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 Aguilar? Is it Jonu Smith? The question can be fairly asked. And he has the talent, the athletic profile, to come in and be that guy who is the number two guy? 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 Janu 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 to lunch yesterday, Jason and I, and talking about the two biggest fantasy blind spots at tight end. Jonu is one of the names we brought up where it's like for some reason we're not looking his direction. It's Hunter Henry.

Like 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. Well, and the fact that Henry's been injured. Yeah. Henry is not there. And the other name we brought up is my pick for this year's. I mean, 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 Ertz, the great forgiver of sins. Because he has apparently come to terms with the Eagles leadership. He has forgiven them, he said, for all of their...

disrespect slash trying to shop him as hard as they tried to shop him. Zachertz is undrafted. And I already said, week one, you're going to have Adam Thiel in the number one wide out. Melvin Gordon, the number one running back. And Zachertz is going to end up the number one tight end in week one. Just get ready, fantasy fans. Because he's, he might be their number one target. Like you brought up Devont to Smith. It might end up being the target leader, Zachertz on this team. The preseason.

Jalen Hertz has been looking at Zach Erds a lot. And if everything is emotionally fine between the team and the player here, like, Jalen Hertz needs somebody to throw the ball to, and we're not paying attention to Zach Ertz, and especially in a PPR league, I mean... You look at the preseason usage of Ertz versus Goddert, and you're right, it's like...

Ertz 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. Okay, he was the Titan 9, Titan 6, Titan 3, Titan 2, Titan 5, and then last year. Last year he was the Titan 32. He missed a couple.

Five games. So he only played in 11 games. And so he is one year removed from being a top five tight end. And he is dead to everyone. Complete like tight in 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 the truth. He's available on your waivers right now. Yes, he is. Have you drafted? He's available on your waivers. 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 tight end via Jason Witten style. Like Jason Witten had three top six years and then he just went 10, 11, 12, 10, 12. Like PPR does a lot to stabilize that position. So it hurts to have to tell you this, Mike. Look, 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 had put your name on it because I was not going to do that now the flip side I read his career fantasy finish for tight end but to to your point Mike yes if you look at how bad last year it 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 tight-ins? 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. It was one single time. Yes. If you're just, if you're brand new to the show, I.

went very heavy in the paint for Zach Eritz 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 of them. I know, I know. But his, yeah, we'll not talk about him anymore. We'll move forward. There is a name that I do want to highlight real quick that none of us picked. He's in, but he's in our candidate list, and it's Donald Parham Jr. for the Los Angeles Chargers. Starting tight in. Yeah, this is, look at what the path is. Yes, they brought Jared Cook in.

But we don't know, 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 officially now. 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 tied in becomes interesting. Justin Herbert used Hunter 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 news in any way, shape, or form. It's not like he's been injured or doing something 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 to undrafted quarterback that could see a spike in touchdown rate and has some young ascending talent at 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% here. I am happy 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 offseason. 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 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. I'm not sure what you were going to say. But Baker Mayfield, I think he didn't want to go with throat. He didn't want to go with the on the nose cliche. Jam it down your mouth. Down your jam hole. Baker Mayfield is, I think, a pretty good quarterback. I think if the things changed, 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 a quarterback to have. And now they finally have a wide receiver one back. Donovan People Jones looks great. And then you've got Odell Beckham somewhere there as well. So I think the wide receiver core 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, that's the point. 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 Beckham back, and you didn't think that that was possible with Buffalo last year. You just, coming into the year, it was 200 attempts, running identity, running Josh Allen, defense wins championships. If you are, I think Kevin Stefansky is one of the smartest coaches in football. If you're paying attention, you see what Buffalo is doing. You don't count on the fact that your defense is going to be everything.

Every game. This is 2021. The NFL has played on the offensive side of the football. You're not competing with Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen with Miles Garrett alone and Nick Chubb. You need to throw the football. And 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.

If you ask, you know, Kirk's 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. Oh, man, that is. That's so bad. And you try to fit in the young ascending talent and you go, you put Terrace Marshall and you put DJMR and Robbie Anderson. And Dan Arnold.

And Christian McCaffrey's return like. Yeah. So I'll just throw that out there, Mike. Who's your pick? I'm going with a seasoned veteran quarterback who is surrounded by young ascending talent at the wide receiver position. I'll go with Ben Rathesberger. 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 Rothsburger cannon arm that we're used to seeing, and everything was checked down. Everything was a low average depth of target, except for a couple shots here and there to chase Claypool down the field. But he still threw the ball for over 3,800 yards. He had a decent touchdown percentage. It didn't turn into week in and week out consistency.

You know, he was only in, he was only a quarterback won five times, which is kind of shocking when you look at his end of, end of year 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 just with the weapons around him, I think that Rathusberger can surprise and go from this essentially undrafted quarterback to easily finishing right around that QB9, QB10 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 late. I mean, that was where I was going to go. I ended up going Stafford because I had Cooper Cup and kind of.

Wanted the stack. But I could see it. That's one of those. Our quick question 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 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.