Good Vibes/Bad Vibes + Upside Names

run as fast as possible right at you, but then they stopped short. And the defense was just, the defense was 30 yards down the field. And Pat Mahomes is just like, here's a quick little past 10 yards wide open. I can do this all day. And I'm like, how do you possibly stop? You need like 15 defenders because you've got to have guys short. You got to have guys long. Can we get that instituted? Yeah, just against the chief. Yeah. I prefer not to. And I like offense.

So good vibes around the Chiefs, MVP of football. This is not to say that I think Patrick Mahomes is a guarantee to throw 50 touchdowns again, but he just might. He just might do it. So that wheel route, my goodness, the different options that they have to pick you apart, Chiefs look really, really good, the vibes, very, very good. When the off season started, you know, they didn't have McCall Hardman, they didn't look like they had Tyreek Hill, and you wondered what was going to happen.

It just has lost cream hunt. Yeah. It was like the vibes were not good in Kansas City. So it's certainly turned around. So yeah. So that was my, that's my good vibes candidate. Who wants to go next? My good vibes candidate is the New York Jets. They have really changed my opinion of them this off season, this preseason. You know, not every team is playing as starters. Obviously, we haven't seen Love Bell out there. But.

the team and specifically Sam Darnold. I mean, he has just looked great. His accuracy, his decision making, his mobility within the pocket to just evade pressure. They've been working with, you know, not their starting week one offensive line. And he's been under pressure at times. And the way that he is just...

professionally just stepped to the side, stepped up. I mean, he looks like Big Ben in there just with the little, you know, three-yard movement within the pocket and then just dropping dimes to Chris Herndon, who I think is going to be special as the year goes on. He's going to be a great waiver wire pickup. Robbie Anderson has looked good. And the offensive line in the run game has also looked pretty solid. It's, it's given me hope. They haven't even had their, uh,

starting center coming back out of retirement just to play for the Jets. So the vibes are good right now. I am believing more in the capability of them taking a big step forward this season. I'm not necessarily projecting that in my rankings because it's all probability. But before, I didn't see that being an option. Right now, I think this is, they could really surprise. I mean, there's always teams in the NFL that go from, you know,

Last to first in a division, and they're not going to. But they could obviously. They could get to an Adam Gaye's style 9 and 7 finish, which is what he did in Miami. Yeah. Okay. Mike, good vibes. Well, your New York Jets, they may have some trouble because they're in division with the Patriots and my good vibes team. I'm throwing out the Buffalo Bills.

The bills, they already had an incredibly solid defense. Last year on a yards per game basis, they were number two behind only the Baltimore Ravens. And now, with the addition of Cole Beasley and John Brown, Josh Allen, yes, I'm praising Josh Allen, it looks like he's making the decision that he doesn't have to chuck the ball deep every single play. He can say,

All right, Cole Beasley, he's open short. I will actually go to him. He was a target machine in that preseason week two. And people forget how good John Brown actually was with Joe Flacco. In the games that Joe Flacco was the starter, John Brown was going to hit over 1,000 yards. Easy. By the end of the season, Lamar Jackson came in. Everything pretty much imploded for John Brown and the rest of the Baltimore wide receivers. But Brown is still an excellent field stretcher.

I think Zay Jones is the most underrated wide receiver on that team. Jay Jones as well. It'll be a starter and it'll be more consistent than John Brown. I was going to bring him up where you had those final five games when Josh Allen was actually tearing it up for fantasy football. Say Jones was averaging essentially nine targets a game. And they have, and Robert Foster, who was a, he was pretty sensational a few games. He can't even get on the field. And then the other part of the offense, Shady McCoy and Frank Gore, it was only one game.

But they looked excellent and revitalized. And if this team can be who they want where the defense is excellent and actually get the running game going, I think that the Buffalo Bills will surprise more than the New York Jets. I think Buffalo is going to be second in this division.

Getting into some individual players that we might have good vibes about. David Montgomery is in that category for me. The way that this team has treated him in the preseason certainly seems like from week one, unlike my view of Miles Sanders, which might take some time. From week one, David Montgomery looks like he's going to make an impact. If the kind of...

narrative street, Kareem Hunt, comps, what Matt Nagy's actually looking for in a workhorseback come true. You've got incredible upside, and there's been nothing this preseason to dissuade us from thinking David Montgomery is both a draft day value and a very high upside guy. So he'd be one name that I bring up. I would bring up Tyler Lockett. Yeah, you are feeling real nice about Tyler Lockett. Tyler Lockett is, one, a great player.

the entire passing offense of the Seattle Seahawks. I mean, it was, it was insane watching this game. Obviously, D.K. Metcalf is hurt. David Morris hurt. Geron Brown is as good as is Geron Brown? Yeah. So it's like one of those things where let's say the Seahawks don't pass a lot and they're near the bottom of the barrel in passing yards, which probably won't happen being at the bottom of the passing yards. But even if that happens, just market sharewise.

Tyler Lockett is going to get his on an every single game basis. They're handing the ball off to him. They're throwing him screens. Then they're launching him long. All game long. He was just wide open because he's also a great route runner. So, I mean, Tyler Lockett has all the good vibes. All the tingles are happening for me. And, you know, it's a very similar narrative to D.D. Westbrook. You know, another guy who's like, I just think the competition.

around him. Your fantasy sense is tingling. It's not at his level. So it's like you've got these two wide receivers on these teams that people aren't really all about in fantasy. You're not loving the Seahawks passing game or the Jaguar's passing game. But when there's one guy who's so clearly better than all the other receivers there, he's going to end up with a high target share and just a higher consistency for those reasons.

Is there anybody you want to bring up, Mike, or should we talk about some bad vibe guys? Just Sony, Michelle. Absolutely. The vibes of his preseason have been unbelievably positive, especially when you juxtapose them against his early offseason, which was another knee surgery, even though it was a scope. For my running max, I don't like medical tools going inside of their knees. And he's had so many knee problems, but he looked incredible.

All these whispers from the bushes that they're going to get him more involved in the passing game. Sony Michelle, who went from your drafting him near his ceiling when he was slipping into the second round and it was like he has to perform at a certain level to now in the fourth round. I mean, I've been in some drafts where I've gotten an unbelievable value on Sony Michelle because people, you still have that stigma of the Patriots running back where...

We don't know when he's going to go off, but Sony Michelle was so heavily utilized last year. And with everything they're talking about featuring him this year, the vibes have been great. I would just throw out one more name, and I know you won't mind it, Andy. But Chris Carson has just looked dominant. I mean, every time they hand the ball up, he's running out for targets. You've seen a little bit of that in the preseason. When you hear the coach speak of like, we want to get him more involved in the passing game, but then you see him.

constantly leaking up for targets, whether or not he, he, you know, received the target in preseason. Definitely good vibes going on with Chris Carson. All right, let's move on to some bad vibes. I want to bring up to San Francisco 49ers. It's, I just feel very uncomfortable up and down the board with the 49ers. I had the, the Pettis, my guy, retraction. The Pettus pivot.

The Pettus pivot as it's been. It will live in infamy. Can you find that on Wikipedia, the great Pettus Pivot? I still feel great about that pivot right now. Pettis played in late into the game. After the game concluded, it was like, yeah, he's earning a role. He was still playing. He's earning a role on the team. We're all heading in, Pettas, you stay out there. Hit the jugs. Everyone, we got a huddle up. No, not you. Yeah, you're playing the fifth quarter, Dante. But.

Right now, it just looks rougher than I expected. Pettus hasn't stepped up, established himself as a one. Jimmy G. has had a rough preseason in camp. Jerich McKinnon is banged up. Trent Taylor went down. He's hurt. Is it Goodwin or Pettis or Debo or Richie James or Jalen Hurd or Kendrick Bourne on a week-to-week basis? I went back and looked at the box scores for the five big wins, right? Jimmy G's coming out party at the end of 2017 before the ACL tear.

He distributes the ball to a ton of different places. At that time, you know, Goodwin was receiving the most targets from Jimmy G. But, you know, it was Louis Smurphy. It was, you know, a ton of different options in the offense. So to me, it's an unpredictable problem here. If you have to kind of say you feel confident about somebody, it's Coleman and Breda, but even then you don't have a backfield that's like perfectly...

defined for you from a snap count, carry count perspective. What happens if McKinnon does get reactivated? Like, I don't know. My vibes around the 49ers right now are very uncomfortable vibes. I'm not comfortable with it. They're bad on both sides of the ball, which when you're talking about the vibes for a team and how things are going emotionally for them, that matters. I mean, they've dealt with a lot of defensive injuries this preseason. So, I mean, the vibes in San Francisco are certainly

Not what you're hoping going into the season. My bad vibes are the Cincinnati Bengals. You know, you've got all the hype, the early off season. We're going to sign the young gun. Sean McVe disciple, Zach Taylor, get him in here. Yeah, I know he's barely been like a part-time offensive coordinator.

but he's young and he's been around Sean McVey. We've got Joe Mixing. We've got A.J. Green. We've got Tyler Boy, we're going to make this an offense and light the field on fire. Seems very dangerous. That's how we're going to score. But here's the problem. They've lost two significant pieces of their offensive line. They've lost their best offensive player in A.J. Green. Andy Dalton has looked as bad as ever this preseason.

His backup looks better than he does, which is never a good thing right now for a team. What happens? Are you talking about the Giants? No, I'm talking about the Bengals. Yes, also there. So the vibes right now for Cincinnati, they scare, like I still, I mean, Joe Mixen is such a talented running back. He's fast. He's electric. He can get the edge. You can catch passes without thought. He's very good.

And so that's why he's in the first round. But man, I have a lot of hesitation drafting a running back that looks like he doesn't have an offensive line or a quarterback or an offense. It's really rough. We've seen that in years past with talented backs like David Johnson and Todd Gurley. Tyler Boyd seems to be safe right now. I'm fine with his value. But, I mean, I just, I'm getting the bad vibes from the Bengals.

I expect them to be really competing for last place by the end of the season and maybe looking towards who's the quarterback of the future. You know, Dalton and Green came in the league together. Are they leaving together? They might be leaving together somewhere soon. Do you think they might get watered? Like the whole Bengals team. Yes, for sure. Mike, bad vibes. Yeah. All right. Not that.

Fantasy players were coming into the season, hoping and expecting for a lot of things. But my bad vibe team is the Miami Dolphins. I'm going to start at the top where all offseason, the training camp, all the hype was Josh Rosen looks terrible. Ryan Fitzpatrick has this, he seems to have the starting quarterback job locked up. And last year for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Ryan Fitzpatrick, one of his best abilities.