Free Agent Frenzy! + Austin Ekeler Joins the Show

It's so ridiculous. I don't think he's that much better than Jacoby Brissette at this stage. I'm not saying Philip Rivers is an infinitely better quarterback than Jacoby Brissette. And at the end of their careers, they won't even be in the same breath. Of course not. But a 38-year-old Philip Rivers, who looked bad on film last year, threw picks like he was trying to compete with James Winston. And now coming over. And now coming over to a team where.

You forget, Jacoby Preset was off to a smoking hot start last year until injuries to both him and his wide receiving core kind of derailed at second half Jacoby Preset sucked. But the first half of the year, he was off to a unsustainable touchdown pace. Sure, which is really good though, right? Like Lamar Jackson last year, unsustainable touchdown rate, also synonymous with good performance. But I'm saying like those things just happen. Like Nick Foles came into a situation and.

was awesome, like for a small stretch of time. Like guys can do that. Philip Rivers has a, has Hall of Fame credentials. I mean, he probably won't get in, but if you just look at the longevity and his statistics, he has a Hall of Fame level quarterback. Last year threw for over 4,600 yards. He had a 66 completion percentage. Meanwhile, Jacoby.

Under 3,000 yards, completing 61% of his passes. I mean, to me, this is a monstrous, a monstrous upgrade to the Colts offense, a monstrous upgrade to all fantasy options for this team. I will say this. My opinion of whether or not the Colts should have paid $25 million for Philip Rivers, which is negative, might be a little bit informed by the fact that

I believe the fantasy implications for a lot of these offensive pieces go up. So, you know, maybe I'm a little bit less, I'm unbiased when it comes to the actual analysis of what's going to happen and more biased to just the opinion of do I like it or not. Because I don't like Philip Rivers what he did to me and my team last year. But when it comes to, so look at the past catching back. I'm curious how they might involve Marlon Mack, but really nine Heinz.

You would project to be the more prototypical player to come into that Austin Echler, Danny Woodhead role. Yeah, for that role, but I don't think they're just going to, you know, like Frank Reich is not going to copy the system for the charges. I mean, he's going to put the personnel out that would. I think now is the, now we get to see Carlin Mac really catch the ball and make things happen.

Like, yeah, I agree. He's going to get targets. I mean, you, this isn't about like installing some other system and trying to emulate teams of the past. But I think, um, look, we're going to talk to awesome Echler here a little bit. Oh, my goodness. You started to forget, right? I honestly, I did that this show is, it's so weird. I'm in a room. I'm alone.

I mean, not virtually, because Jason's here. Our producers are here. It's just, it's so weird. Austin Eckler's on the freaking show today. Yeah. And. Oh, my gosh. What am I doing? We talked to him, but he brings up a great example.

The way that he illustrates the difference in Philip Rivers passing to his running back versus, say, Tyrod Taylor, if that's who goes forward, is that Tyrod Taylor is mobile, can get out of issues on his own a little bit better. And that's when... A little bit better. A little, just a little bit better than Philip. Just like he can move a little better. Rivers has like a career 20 rushing yards. Yeah, he's...

I agree with you, Mike. Your words, not mine. He's the worst. But my point is that awesome Echler states that, you know, that's his safety valve is when things are breaking down, he dumps it off. That's not a system thing necessarily so much as a he's not going to escape the pocket when things break down. He's going to get the ball out of his hands.

to his safety valve at running back. And I'm curious to see if Marlon Mack can inherit that role or if Naim Hines kind of takes that over. But the point is it certainly, without a shadow, a shred of doubt, the pass catching to the running back position for the Colts will be greater than it was last year. And I think significantly so. It'll be our job as the season progresses to determine how that divvies up. And Ty Hilton?

He gets a huge bump to me. Rivers went deep far more often and far more accurately than Jacoby percent. Like this, I think this is a really big move. Yeah. For fantasy purposes. It's great for T.Y. Hilton, probably good for Marlon Mack. Great for Naim Hines. I'm still not yet. A man, Jack, baby hands, Doyle. Oh.

Or Gigantor, maybe. Gigantor, please. Because look, they need a tight end here. Like they really, really, really need a tight end. And there isn't one on the free agent market to get. There's not one in the draft that's going to. They don't need one. They have one. They have two and a half. That's my. Moly Cox counts as one and a half. I, but that's the point I'm getting to. I believe they need one. There isn't one to get. So they're going to use who's on the roster. And.

Maybe Mowali Cox can finally break through. It's hard for him to break into things because he's so big. You know, it's like if you can't break into a large. Well, like if you break into a house and the whole house just shatters, did you break into the house? I think you just broke the house. And so that's what Mowley Cox has been doing, breaking the NFL fields because he's so big. But I agree with you. Jack Doyle.

He has a massive bump up because he is going to be the primary receiving tight end. It won't. Around the red zone, Moe Alley Cox, but through the 20s and still in the red zone, I think Jack Doyle is, Eric Abron is gone. This is great, great news for any Doyle owner in Dynasty. And in redraft leagues, Doyle will be very relevant. I was going to say I'm not a huge believer in Paris Campbell yet.

Yeah, it remains to be seen the secondary wide receiver for this team. I don't know. I like Paris Campbell a lot coming out of college. So did the team. They spent a second round pick on him, but we didn't really get a chance to see him. Generally speaking, when you're talking about free agency, this would already be like, we would be way over the limit of quarterback information, quarterback change. Except we aren't close to done talking about the quarterbacks. It's unbelievable.

The Carolina Panthers in a scenario that just went from wait, what? No, there's no wait. Oh, and it's done. They went from Cam Newton is our guy again to, we're going to let Cam Newton try and get traded, try and seek a trade partner. And we're going to let him. We're allowing Cam Newton to seek a trade trade. And Cam Newton tweets out.

what don't put those words out there you're forcing how did he do all the the weird letters i could how long did that thing take i could barely read his tweet i don't know if he's got some program where every letter he types looks funky but yes his tweet if you haven't seen it it's it's basically in hieroglyphics but also in english so but he he came out and he said no no don't don't say that this is like some amicable thing he wanted to be a panther

You're forcing him out and they go sign a $3.63 million contract with Teddy Bridgewater. This doesn't, this isn't fantasy. And I know Andy disagrees with me a little bit. I don't know where you stand. I think the Panthers freaking hosed Cam Newton. I'm not like some Cam Newton apologist or truth or, you know, I've spoken poorly of him in the past. I've spoken well of him in the past. I thought he was going to be good for fantasy last year prior to the foot injury. But goodness gracious, he's.

What option does he have, especially with the corona world where he can't get tested by teams doctors? He can't go and easily prove that he's ready to go. You've got... There's one job. There's one job left, allegedly. And that would be the Patriots, because the Chargers, at least they've come out and said the Chargers are moving forward with Tyrod Taylor. They're not going to spend big money on a veteran quarterback at someone in the draft. But I'm with you. Like they...

They absolutely hosed him. You had to have known that you weren't going to move forward with Cam Newton a while ago. Just cut him, or try and trade him a couple months ago. Let him figure out what the market is. Don't take this player who has been the face of your franchise for so long and then right before, or like halfway through the free agency process, say, oh, yeah.

Figure it out, Cam. Good luck. It was so greedy. They just wanted to get something in return. And when they've realized that they're not going to be able to do that because the doctors can't verify where he's at, now they're, they moved on. And they're like, I'm going to get Teddy Bridgewater. And tell me this. So like the Bears, the Bears should have got Cam Newton. They would have been phenomenal with Cam Newton. Sure. They couldn't trust it. If you're the Bears and you see the Panthers who have access to how he is health, you know, physically.

They go out and sign Teddy Bridgewater. What does that say about Cam Newton? That says, oh, they can't rely on him, so we can't rely on them. And then they go and trade for Nick Foles. Right. And that's another big piece, big potential piece. But hold on. Let's say with the Panthers. Fantasy implications for the pieces, you know, DJ Moore, Curtis Samuel, Christian McCaffrey.

How are you feeling about those three guys? Anyone going up, anyone going down? I think it's DJ Moore is on his own going up in general. I wouldn't say he's up much higher than he was prior to the trade because Teddy Bridgewater is a very safe, great manager. But he's actually accurate. Kyle Allen was not good.

Yes. But I think DJ Moore, where he was already trending, was already kind of a low-end wide receiver one, high-end wide receiver two. So I just don't know that this move can bump him much higher than that to me. I think it moves his ceiling up for me. Because when you have to deal with bad quarterback play the whole year, but you're still overcoming, you're still being great. Get him an accurate quarterback, which Teddy Bridgewater is, then I mean, I'm interested.

It's unfortunate for Curtis Samuel. Samuel was like the king of air yards last year, but the king of unrealized air yards. And the way that Teddy plays of being safer a game manager, at least he was for the Saints. We'll see if an entire offseason, well, then again, does he get an entire off season in this crazy world we're living in? But theoretically, if he had the whole off season.

Does that change how he plays the game? And I don't think it really will. Yeah, I just don't know that I can bump DJ more up higher than he was already set to. But Curtis Samuel, that's what I'm saying. Like, I think it's, I've, I got the arrow pointed down for Curtis Samuel. What? Really? Yeah. Oh, I see, this is interesting because I've got the arrow pointed up for Curtis Samuel because like you said, the deep ball targets were just atrocious. He couldn't catch them. And while.

Teddy isn't really a push it downfield every quarterback in the NFL throws downfield from time to time. And when they do, if Curtis Samuel can catch the ball because it's just a catchable target, I think that goes up. And where his average draft is, he was pretty much left for dead after this season and now gets a relevant player. I mean, look at Michael Thomas, right? Michael Thomas was unbelievable this year. He had five games with Teddy Bridgewater. And if you look at the game splits between when he had Breeze and when he had...

Bridgewater, he had half a fantasy point more with Breeze. You know, average in PPR 23 fantasy points without Breeze this year. So Teddy can get it done. I just don't think I could push DJ more above where he was, but Curtis Samuel, because he was so low, I think the arrow's up for him. We briefly mentioned it here. The Bears traded for Nick Foles. They gave a fourth round pick. There was some contract restructuring.

It surely seems like the Bears want Nick Foles to take the job away from Mitch Trabisky, or at the very least, it lets Trabisky know that you, if you're not committing 100% to this program, then you're going to be out. So, Jason, your takeaway is Nick Foles, the starter at the beginning of the year, is the starter a couple games in halfway through the season? How are you projecting the situation?