Fantasy Football - AFC West Breakdown + Jason's Devastating Curse - Podcast for 7/12

I don't, when Xavier Worthy finally started to make some things happen, it was over the second half of the season, and they had pulled him in closer to the line of scrimmage, at least where his targets were, and they were trying to let him do yards after catch stuff the way that Rishi Rice is. So can he, but Rice is just, if Rice is healthy, he's much better at that than Worthy. So do they put Worthy back, or I would say, I'm projecting Worthy will go back to his try to be a traditional wide receiver. And I don't know that he is good enough to really command a high target share in that role. Yeah, I think roles evolve and players evolve and offenses evolve. And when you see what you had and Xavier Worthy over the back half of the year and how valuable he was, including two monster touchdowns in the Super Bowl on big plays, I mean, to me, Worthy's taken a step up over the back half of the year.

A rookie year with 100 targets. I think all three of those players, you know, I think Kelsey will still have value. I mean, Kelsey's in good shape. He wants to come back and make an impact. And so... Are you drafting him? He's never gone at 6-11. I'm fine taking him there. I'm fine taking him in the late 6, early 7 and taking a shot at it. Yeah, I mean, he could still be a touchdown machine around the red zone. He could pull in Antonio Gates. I know last year... He only had three red zone touchdowns, but he's got that skill set. I believe he was number one in targets? All tight ends in red zone targets. I mean, we're talking about his down year being how many total targets did he have last year? Travis Kelsey had 133 targets. 97 catches. So you get that in the seventh round with touchdown upside. That's fine. Yeah. I mean, seeing 133 targets turn into 823 yards is. Andy, I know you.

You have been worthy over Rice through this off season, but are you really off of both players, or are you targeting Xavier Worthy? Or have you switched to Rice now? They're only around apart. So it's hard not to go with Rice. Worthy's climbed that high? Yeah, it's 408 and 511. Ooh. Byder's receiver 21 and 27. I do think that both of those players project to be in the... their ceilings to be lower teens. So a lot of distribution. I mean, we didn't talk about Hollywood because we're not looking at him as a fantasy option, but he will be an NFL option. Yeah, he'll be a streaming play. Someone, if you need a playoff, the waivers. Or I just mean to take away from Rice or worthy on a weekly basis a little bit. There's still going to be a lot of targets in Kansas City. And Rice, for all his astounding work last year, he had.

three games played and only one of them was inside that top 15 and he's coming off of an injury where there's you know disputed you watch these videos of him in camp and some people are like look how good he looks and other people are like he's hobbling on that knee so yeah I would say that both of them have a ceiling slightly above where they're being drafted but I just it's unpredictable in Kansas City that's the challenge with the wide receiver room and then you talked about the defense and so that's about where I have those guys they start on the road against the Chargers

Philadelphia at home, the Giants on the road, and then Baltimore. So some fun games. Chargers, Philly, Baltimore. Three out of four tough ones. So, yeah, those will be entertaining games that you're probably going to have to score some points because those other teams are going to put some up on you. Let's talk about the Chargers. You want to do that? Yes. Oh, by the way, one quick final question there. Mahomes, what are you willing to do with Mahomes? I'm willing to watch them go to someone else's team. Yeah. that's pretty much where i am too yeah yeah i mean he he might be the lowest he's ever been but i don't think he's low enough it is the lowest he's been the adp one two or three every year since he was starting basically right now he's still being drafted as the sixth quarterback off the board and you know he finishes the quarterback 11 but you can say oh that's not bad but he was terrible i mean he was an f inconsistency that his good games

23% of his games last season was, you know, in 4-point exceeded 20 points. What percentage chance do you give him to him and the chiefs to go, to revert to back to the high flyers? I think there's a 30% chance that happens, but I think the majority is, I mean, it got to the Super Bowl. They don't need to destroy this thing, tear it down, and rebuild. They just need to keep on winning. They get there no matter what they do. It doesn't matter what style their offense is. They just get there. Chargers 11 and 6 last year, 4 and 1 score games. Didn't have the amazing 12-and-0 run of the Chiefs. The projected win total last year was 9. They outpaced that. It's 9.5 this year. They have a middle-of-the-pack strength of schedule, so it's kind of not going to factor into the analysis here. 13th and points per game, 20th and yards per game. They...

passed it. They were the 23rd ranked team in terms of passing percentage and 10th and rushing. It was what we expected for the most part from Harbaugh and Giro. But the defense was amazing. I mean, it's very similar to what Kansas City's recipe was. They were number one in points per game allowed on defense. But you did see a back half of the year where they trusted Justin Herbert a lot more. A lot more. And it correlated with Ladd-McConkie evolving as a go-to target in the offense and kind of the lowering efficiency of J.K. Dobbins over the back half of the year as well. So it begs a question a little bit, like, did they feel forced to put more in Herbert's hands because Dobbins' efficiency kind of collapsed? And then they...

They solved for that with Najee Harris and the drafting of Amari and Hampton. And Jason, you uttered yes. Do you believe that that's kind of what happened? Yeah, I do. I mean, if you look at J.K. Dobbins, he missed a stretch of games towards the end of last season. Came out the gates on fire. You know, those first two weeks had a 61-yard run, a 43-yard run, was an explosive back, and then really took a step back. From that point forward, he was... Not good. 2.9 yards, 2.3 yards, 3.8, 2.9, like, atrociously bad on an efficiency and explosiveness factor. And so, yeah, they pivoted away after that first month and said, well, we've got Justin Herbert. We've got to win more with him. And then you go, okay, well, maybe they realized that Justin Herbert's the dude. And so they're going to come out this year and throw more just like they did the second half of last year. But what were their transactions? Their transactions were to immediately go out and sign Najee Harris.

and then spend their first round pick on a running back. They want to be able to establish it. They care about winning games, and you know if they've got a good defense and a hard ball and they can run the ball, they're going to win more games. Now, Herbert's great. They also added Trey Harris, a wide receiver in the draft. I love. I think he went pick 55? I push the button. I'm not even 100% on that one. That's why I was laughing. But, yeah, I mean, I think this is a team that's going to run the ball more and run the ball successfully. He did? All right. They did add Tyler Conklin at the tight-in position, Trey Harris at wide receiver, lost Joshua Palmer, and added Mike Williams back to the offense. I think balance is what they're aiming for. Yes. The ability to come back and win in a game they're losing, the ability to dominate with the offensive line in the running game on games that they're winning or neutral game scripts. So, you know.

Can Justin Herbert return to being an elite fantasy option as a top six guy? Can he? Yes. Will he probably not? But I've got good news, Andy. They have the 15th ranked strength of schedule. So we know no matter what, no matter how I word it, it's middle. That's right. It's an average schedule. 15th easiest. Also the 15th hardest. Yeah, about there. Yeah. Naji Harris, we talked about him in the news, but he has been an Iron Man, which is, you know, what we have expected from him to be able to come in here and be. Other guys would have lost an eye. Not Najee. No. Because he closed the little flap. Yeah. I don't.

That's what we call it. We don't know what happens. I don't want to joke about it anymore because that's fair. I mean, it's easy enough to be like, you know, the fireworks thing. It's a crazy event. But let's just see how he's doing. Amarion Hampton was, he is currently going three rounds ahead of Naji. So the rookie running back that they took in the first round who on film, love him, well-rounded, does everything well, in my opinion. I think it's a really difficult running back room of. The, you know, the stats on first round running backs are, they just, they are some of the best bets in fantasy football. I mean, Naji was a first round running back. But the, that split of right now, back of the fourth versus back of the seventh, I think that's a little too confident by the drafters that saying like, it's for sure going to work out to be Hampton because he, like, he needs to be.

substantially better than Naji for that to work out as a as a good draft pick. Naji could be the starter the entire season. I don't think, I think ruling that out and just putting all your chips on Hampton is not being honest to what the real situation is. I won't argue with you if you were like, Hampton's just such a better running back, but they immediately went and got Noggy and Noggy can. Najee can absorb so many carries that he will be on the field. I think it'll be a time share. I do think Amarian wins out as the lead. I mean, Gus Edwards was the starter last year, and then it was like Dobbins is better. They're going to see that Najee, who is much better than Gus Edwards, he's a good quality back, but he is not as good as Hampton. Hampton will...

play his way more and more onto the field. And I remember in the off season, like after the Najee Harris signing, you were talking about if they were to go out and get another running back. You could see that running back. If he's good, taking over by the end. And I'm curious, you know, NFL draft scouting, you weren't as high on Hampton as Andy and I, who we'd love Omar and Hampton. If Trayvion Henderson had come here, would you be like he's going to take over? I would think, I think Hampton will take over. It's just, it's about the ADP of that he is where he is and Najee is where he is. That's the discrepancy that I take issue with. I think Hampton does end up becoming the starter before the end of the year. It's just at what point? Because if you're going, I mean, the, he's a first rounder, so this is not apples to apples, but it's like the, Jonathan Taylor.

when he was drafted and we all loved Jonathan Taylor, got drafted in the second round. You're like, Marlon Mac is in front of him. You're like, Marlon Mac. And then the way it was playing out, if you drafted Jonathan Taylor, you got completely bailed out that Marlon Mac went down to, I think it was an Achilles. I don't remember which injury it was. But it was like up until the point of the injury, Marlon Mac was the 1A. So that's all I mean of. If you're going to spend a fourth on that guy, you've got to be patient and you've got to wait for it to happen. It's always correlating to your belief of the talent of that player. It's one of the reasons why Jason was this, you know, stone cold lock on Breece Hall as a rookie in the face of Michael Carter. It's why you are so confident in Trayvion Henderson in the face of Ramandre Stevenson. And I think it's why Jason and I are more confident Armani in Hampton showing enough evidence that, you know, it's always going to be a timeshare.

It's just going to be how effective. Like efficiency is very, very like high odds in this offense. You don't necessarily have to have 20 carries in Los Angeles because they are so effective on the ground. Like the games that, I mean, J.K. Dobbins shocked the world to start that year last year, and it was big plays, it was chunk plays. So I think, I think it's just a matter of the who's the most effective player. And does Amarian earn the trust of things like goal line? third down and eventually the majority of the work. Right. Oh, Mac only had four carries? Yeah, that was instantaneous. We never got to see how that one played out. I'm sorry, I apologize. I remember that one incorrectly. Probably remember in a little bit of camp in there. Maybe. Maybe that's what it was. A difference for me for the Henderson situation versus this one, the Chargers, 31.

out of 32 teams talking running back target percentage. Greg Roman doesn't throw to his running backs. You know, that was like, we're like, way, was that a Ravens thing? Was that a Lamar Jackson thing? I think it's a Greg Roman thing. And so that if you aren't getting the bulk of the carries, there's not going to be a ton of targets to go around to this running back position. So that's where I'm more nervous about this timeshare. Ladd-McConkie at 2-11. You like that spot in drafts or no? I love it. I do not. Tie-break us. It seems expensive. But- I think bringing in Quentin Johnston, bringing in Trey Harris, having a better running game. Are you using Q's as a reason? I'm just saying there are- There are more. Didn't you say Mike? Mike.

Mike Williams. Didn't he say Michael or did they say Quentin Johnson? He said Quinn Johnson. Yeah, but bringing in Mike Williams, bringing in Trey Harris, bringing in a better running game. I think that. There's just some letdown potential, not like bus potential. Not bus potential. Dude is awesome. Slightly like, does he profile to score seven times again? Maybe. You know, 120 targets. I think that's reasonable. I think we all have him ranked pretty high. It's just you do need to get it when you're taking them in the second round. That's all. um you need to get volume you need to get the second half passing volume lad mcconkey's numbers are truly truly elite it's probably not too hot to handle it's just like i have to switch hands like back and forth back and forth back and forth yeah i can i can see that happening and lad yeah i mean lad was down the stretch he was so good yeah and into the playoffs um anybody else that you think's going to actually be valuable for fantasy in the passing game tight ends wide receivers

I would love to take a shot in the double-digit rounds on Trey Harris. He was a prospect I adored. I think he was my wide receiver four in this class behind Egbuka. And the fact that he goes to Justin Herbert on a team that really needs an outside wide receiver, I could see a path to success. Kansas City, Las Vegas, Denver, and then the Giants to start the year. So a couple of tough home games. A couple of very winnable road games to start the season. And that's your chargers. The Broncos. We're going to talk about them in just a second. All right, Denver was 10 and 7 last year. It was impressive. They had a projected wind total of five and a half before the season began. So on the last episode, talked about the Patriots, talked about their potential to, you know, to jump. Vegas is predicting it a little bit more with New England. They did not predict it with Denver. So it was, you know, nearly doubling their win total.

And it was the Bo Nix experiment gone right. I mean, the pick looks like it was a win. This year they have a projected wind toll of nine and a half. They were 10th in points per game, which is super impressive with a rookie quarterback. They were a very good defense once again. Third in points per game allowed. So here we go. We got three of the best defenses in football for the first three teams we're talking about in the AFC West. And... Now we get to talk about fantasy football options in Denver where they lost, and I'm putting that in like quotes. They lost Giovante. They lost Zach Wilson. But they added J.K. Dobbins and Evan Ingram. Ingram, I think, is going to play a vital role. Whatever you want to say about him in fantasy, he only helps Bo Nix in this offense, move it down the field. A lot of what we watched last year was, okay, Bo Nix is getting it done and Cortland Sutton is scoring touchdowns.

but you really don't know who else is going to contribute on a weekly basis. And suddenly you're surprised with some big game by, you know, Marvin Mims out of nowhere or, you know, Velae has a catch here. And Troy Franklin, they give him a shot down the sideline. It was a little bit unpredictable. But I think Ingram will really help Bonix maintain stability and week-to-week consistency. You also have a much, much improved receiving game out of the backfield. Javante did nothing with those targets and he had a ton of targets. And now R.J. Harvey, their rookie is very good at the receiving game out of the backfield. J.K. Dobbins is better at this point than what we saw from last year from Javent. We know that Sean Payton has patted those stats of his quarterback. Drew Brees for years would always have, just have, you know, extra yardage, extra passing touchdowns through the running backs. And so I think that's good.

I think he's my favorite value, my favorite target in drafts. If you look at, you cut the first month of last season off, right? It was his rookie year. They didn't let him throw the ball a lot. All of a sudden, there was a huge transition after the first month. And they started saying, okay, this is Bo Nix's team from week five on, which is the vast majority of the season. He was the quarterback six in fantasy. And if you go, what does that mean? Jaden Daniels through that time. scored 28.7 fantasy points per game. Bo Nix 28.5 is like... He was the case of the... He's the opposite Caleb Williams in so many ways where you had an amazing offensive line and structure around him and coaching that you trusted. And they allowed the least amount of pressure in football last year to the quarterback. And then you saw Bo Nix thrive.

All the starters are turning should be a great offensive line again. You look at that. That's a huge advantage for the running game and the passing game. And also just week to week consistency. You don't have to just expect Bo Nix to go out and make something out of nothing every week. You need him to go out and execute a good offense with a good coach. And he's going to run for 400, 500 yards on the ground. Like that's, you know, that's very weird to have a division where, okay, one team is one nine in a row. But I can.

easily see two other teams winning the division. And that's how I feel about Denver and Los Angeles. I agree. So, you know, fantasy wise, RJ Harvey, second round pick, who they had their eyes on. Very, very good collegiate player. I believe he was number two behind Gentie in, you know, some very impressive like dominator metrics. It's going to be an experiment as to who gets what work. We just talked about it. Harvey, Dobbins, McLaughlin, there will be some sort of committee. But the team should win a lot of games. We love that about for running backs. Even if J.K. Dobbins is the starter. Let's pretend that report, that rumor, that speculation is confirmed. Even if he's the starter, we saw at this juncture of his career, a huge reduction in efficiency over the back half of the year. We also saw Sean Peyton willing to move it around and change to what works last year. We got Tyler Biday weeks. So part of the.

Dobbin's conversation isn't just maybe I take a shot on him. It's also like, does he stick around as a starter or as a high, high snap count player? Yeah, and Harvey was extremely productive and very explosive. You know, Sean's going to use a running back by committee approach. He always did when Alvin Camara was great. He still had Mark Ingram there. And these players are not as good as Mark Ingram and Alvin Camara. So you, you know, you can't just. paint that over here, but I could see those being the situation where both of these players, J.K. Dobbins, being a double-digit round pick, probably is a good pick there. RJ Harvey, going ahead of them, probably still a good pick with that explosiveness and I anticipate more work in the receiving game. Just to put, I said, Dominator rating, the rating I was referring to was Genti was number one in college football in yards created per attempt. Harvey was two.

So ahead of Hampton, Judkins, Henderson, Caleb Johnson, Scataboo, all those guys. He did have a, you know, it wasn't an expectation that he was going to be the most heralded running back pick coming in. Right. But Sean Peyton fancied him. Yeah, they did. They were targeting him. In fact, he said if you watch the press conferences after the draft, they loved Gentie. They wanted Gentile, but they quickly realized he's never going to fall to him. And so then they were looking for the next running back that they really loved that was realistic they could get. And their target was R.J. Harvey was coming off of 1,400.

rushing yards and 16 rushing touchdowns followed by 1500 rushing yards and 22 rushing touchdowns is a good back he's older so in dynasty leagues you can have arguments about like okay maybe pays for his own insurance right yeah he can't be on mom and dad's insurance no more he's 24 right let me ask you a simple question so many cars they play Tennessee Indianapolis the Chargers in Cincinnati to start the season oh that's nice when you play those four after those four weeks which word do you think is going to be more easily associated with their backfield Frustrating or exciting? Exciting. I think exciting. Let's say this ADP holds of Harvey, like back of the six, was we were talking about Isaiah Pacheco being right around there. A couple picks ahead. I would rather have Harvey. Yeah, I would be there too. And then shift to the wide receivers. Yeah, Sutton. Corlin Sutton had the big year. I mean, he was a big year of touchdowns, really.

But for Bo Nix as a rookie to put up 3,700 and almost 3,800 and 29, like, that is very exciting for his future moving forward, especially when you factor in the first month of not really letting the offense run through Bo Nix. So Sutton feels safe. He feels very safe to me. Really? Very safe. I don't. You can't, he is such a, he's such a leg above all their other pass catchers in. both the pecking order and experience and size and, like to me, Bo Nix cannot have the season we all expect from him without Cortland Sutton being a very, very safe option. Not flashy, but I think safe. Yeah, it's fair. He's a Ford tourist. I agree. I think he is. Look, we're going to get where we need to go. That's right. No one, when we get out of the car, no one's like, hey, sweet ride, man. But we got there and we all got there safely. I don't know if I want him to be a Ford.

My, where I was shifting to the conversation to is I, let's project an increase here for, for Bo Nix. We get over 4,000. We're flirting with, you know, the, the 30s of touchdowns. Someone else has to be. Someone else has to. Someone else has to. Someone else has to. Oh, Troy Franklin out of nowhere. And, okay, you can make your case for. Something about hitting a button and then acting like you didn't hit the button. That tickled me right there. What? Where I am looking at it is you got Troy Franklin, who fell massively in the draft. He finally got on the field and did some things. Marvin Mims, despite what Sean Payton says about him, continues to be a, I don't want to call my gadget player, but I will call him a side player. He's a side hustle. Let me just say that because I saw the news report yesterday. I'm looking at it right now.

There are reports right now from the Denver Post saying that he's emerging as the number two options. Mims. That would be awesome because he can do it. He should have already emerged because when you put the ball in his hands, he's very good and they just don't put the ball on his hands enough. But then you also have the wide receiver six, four and six in three of the final five weeks. Yeah. And then he on no snaps. He averaged on the season, which he appeared. We don't talk about season. Sorry. He appeared five game samples in every game. And he averaged 27% of the snaps despite Sean Payton continually telling us how he is. Yeah, but it jumped to 37% over the final five weeks on pace for 1,200 yards and 17 touchdowns. I don't know what to do with Sean Peyton and hitting all of the gum flapping because I, because I want to. The gum flapper is right. I want to use this argument of he was like, hey, he says all these things that Marvin Mims, but you know what then he did say rookie Pat Bryant.

who they just drafted, who after they got done gushing about how stoked they were to get R.J. Harvey, which a reminder for people, O'Marion Hampton was on the board for their pick. They could do up for their first round. Their first, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not saying this. But in the first, if they had Hampton ranked so much higher than R.J. Harvey, I imagine they would have taken him. But then their other day two pick was Pat Bryant, who Sean Peyton, gets on the podium and he starts talking about Michael Thomas as his comp for Pat Bryant. Yeah, you can say whatever he wants. This is where this is where I'm like, I'm getting to this of like, I don't know, Sean Paid, do we trust this guy? That's why I say Cortland Sutton and then just if you need a spot start, see what's happening during the year. You're not drafting Mims, Franklin, Bryant, or Valle. Especially with Ingram now taking a target share. And look, what they spend their first round pick on? Cornerback. Yeah.