Ice & Fire Picks + Listener League Time! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/1

right now he does project to have the highest probability of being the wide receiver one for this team like at the end of the year who has the most fantasy points i'm still betting on the ceiling upside of christian watson but if you're just talking but are you telling me you believe watson's a top five guy i think he has the i think he has the ability if he plays healthy and is the one he's got the physical ability the explosiveness the size the body but um probability says that it's jaden reed no matter what I think everyone out there is projecting that the pack's offense is pretty darn good. They've got a great head coach. Jordan Love just got the bag for a reason. And so if you're saying, hey, take a shot in the sixth at the number one wide receiver for a good offense. Who's going into year two, which is another good bet to make in fantasy, I don't have any problem, you know, if you want to push your chips on on read. And I love that you are pushing them in because it's like one of those things where almost in those, you know, things to remember type of episodes where.

you are remembering how much you loved the film last year because over and over we'd be sitting in the in the game room watching all the games going and you would just be like dude that guy's got it i mean there's a reason why you love tank dell yes because that dude's got it and and it's not like like you know tank dell situation what's more intimidating to have you know nico collins and that big contract and stephan digs a potential Hall of Fame player coming into that environment. And here's a Packers wide receiver room that is not as intimidating for a player that starred as a rookie. And I feel like, and we had the conversation a few weeks ago, I do feel like the conversation when you include all four, it causes us to lose the focus. But that also gives you a discount and fantasy on a player like Reed. So I like it. I like it. I put it on the table. So Mike tantalize us with whether your player is a ice or fire.

So I will set it up with this. Jason, you brought up Stefan Diggs, and it's fun to bring up that situation because right now the Houston Texans have three players, three wide receivers being drafted as top 36 guys, which is a, it's a very rare occurrence. Like that's a strong bet on the Houston Texans, their future, their offense, and C.J. Stroud. There is actually another team this year. that has three wide receivers being drafted inside the top 36, except that team has a rookie quarterback. Ice. And unfortunately, rookie wide receiver Roma Dunes A has to be my ice pick. This is coming strictly from an 80 team. It feels like it hurts you a little bit. It does because we like the player, like when you like a player and then the ADP gets just out of whack.

It hurts. Like Sam Laporta. Love the player. The guy's just going too early in the draft. And right now, that's how I feel about Roma Dunez. Like I said, three players, three wide receivers being drafted inside the top 36. It is not common before this year. In the last five years, we'd only seen it happen two times. Once was the Rams with Brandon Cooks, Robert Woods, and Cooper Cup. It went really poorly for Brandon Cooks that year. The other two were fine. Then you had the Pittsburgh Steelers, Deontay Johnson, Chase Claypool. Clay pale? It was a pill. He was a pill. I felt like it was a tough pill to swallow it. And it was. And juju. All three were top 36 ADP guys. It worked for Deontay Johnson. And the other two, not so much. And it's not that there's just two other guys in front of, in front of Romadoonze. It's that.

One of them is DJ Moore, who just got a big bag of money because they've said that you are an elite player. The other is Keenan Allen, who was absolutely still playing lights out last year. And you're just, you're automatically number three in the pecking order. And it just doesn't work out. Yeah, there's no way outside of injury that Adunze is above those two this year. There's just no possible way. And like, let's say he's number three. And somehow their offense is still pretty good. We know historically a rookie quarterback roughly two thirds of the time over the last 20 years. So 26% of the time, they can't even support one top 36 wide receiver, one of them. And we're drafting three of them for Caleb Williams. I don't care how. It's a new dawn, Mike. I don't care how bullish you are on the future of Caleb Williams. He could be.

a Hall of Fame player, but he's still a rookie quarterback. And rookie quarterbacks just, they have a ceiling. Andy, you brought up the study of how they just, they struggle, especially with passing touchdowns. The yardage could be fine. They've never sustained a double digit touchdown year. Yes. From a single receiver. Is that what it is? And it's just, so it is absolutely not there. And where he's being drafted, it's a. He's being drafted as the wide receiver 33. On average, that player, the wide receiver 33 is about nine points per game. We can, but we're going to expand on the three wide receivers over the last seven years. 31 teams with three wide receivers in the top 60. So not even the top 36. We're expanding. Top 60. The wide receiver three averages 7.7 fantasy points per game. Like that is way under.

the expectation that you're hoping for when drafting the wide receiver 33. Only seven of those 31 have surpassed 10 points per game. So essentially what I'm saying with a lot of fancy statistics here is your probability of a return is so low that it's just, it's not fair to Romo Dunezay, the player to be putting this much pressure on him, his rookie season, Caleb's rookie season, while you have these other two superstars on the team. He can be wildly helpful to the Bears. Yes. And not. And he can be a good rookie. And you could still not, you know, he might have four or five games where a big play makes him a great play for fantasy, but it isn't predictable. So I think it's unfortunate to have to throw the cold water out there on him because, you know, different situation for the same player.

If you flip him and Malik neighbor situation, you're probably talking, I mean, you're obviously talking a completely different outlook as a rookie. But, but yeah, it makes sense. It's in just wild, because when you think of rookie wide receivers, especially in today's NFL, like these guys are succeeding earlier and more often now, because the rules are changing in the end, the wide receiver skill positions are improving. But is your guys realized that since 2014? There's only 12 rookies that have passed 1,000 yards. Since what year? 2014. So 12 rookies? Rookie wide receivers. So in 12 and 10 years, basically? Or nine years? Nine, yeah. And that's including 2014 where there were like three or four of them? Or is that like post-2014? The 2014 guys said that would have been Beckham, Mike Evans, and Kelvin. There's just their rookie year. Get bodied, Sammy Watkins.

Just saying it's that number was really shocking to me because I expected it would be much higher than just 12 guys. All right. We'll take a break and come back with some more ice and fire picks. All right. I'm going to kick it off here with another ice pick because this is ice and fire. You don't know how we're going. And I'm telling you this little itty bitty baby boy, Devon A. Chan could get broken very easily. Just kidding, baby. He's on fire. Oh, Devon A. Chan, I have gone back and forth all season, all off season, I should say. And I am firmly 100% at the finish line. And I see the end. I see it clearly. Devon A. Chan is a league winner, is awesome. We'll succeed this season. We'll get more opportunity this season. It will be such a foolish thing at the end of this year. When we go back and look at his rookie season and we go,

Why weren't we drafting this dude in the first? Well, I know why, because he's, he's small. I get it. Like this, this is obviously, look, this is a fire pick. I can go down. I can go down in flames and timeshare, and they drafted another speedy back. You've got the touchdown machine and Rahim Moster. There's a reason he's in the third. There's a lot of ways it could go wrong. I am here to tell you he is a fire pick and it is going to go right. He is an explosive play. waiting to happen. Number one in next gen rushing stats over expectation per attempt. He was 2.87 yards over expectation per attempt. That's number one. Number two in that was less than half, and it was Christian freaking McCaffrey at 1.32. He led all NFL running backs in yards per touch, 7.7. And here's a stat from our liar liar episode in March, just to put his...

freakish breakaway speed into a clearer view. A. Chan had 103 total carries rookie season. That's it. Just barely broke 100. He now has as many total runs of 40 plus yards as Reggie Bush had in his 10 year career, who was known as a breakaway guy. So I don't have to talk anyone into A. Chan being a free. Reggie Bush catching strays. Yeah. Hey, you've got your Heisman. You're fine. Grow up. Um, yeah. Does he have a more stories? What is happening? Does he have it back? Why are we? He's got it back now, right? Yeah, he does have it back. Leave Reggie alone. Uh, look, Reggie, you were, you were electric and awesome. You're no, you're no, no, you're no, no, no, no, no. No, no, I want, if I make Reggie is better, that just builds my case. So, okay. Reggie, you're so good. Okay. Um, weirdo. Over the last six years, we've averaged two running backs.

per year who have finished as a running back one with fewer than 17 opportunities a game. So there are a couple guys that cracked into that. Super efficient players. Super efficient players. And if you had to put your money on who's going to be super efficient, maybe like the most efficient rookie season of all time going into year two. Oh, no, this sounds like a good bet. He also averaging his nine full games. I don't know if I like this, Jason. H.N. Jason is a different Jason. Fire is right because I am hot and bothered. Yeah. It's very similar to your Jaden Reed.

Last year you watched Jaden Reed and you were just like, he's unbelievable. He's another level. I'm trying to remember what I felt experienced. And every time you watched every place, like the NFL. Don't tell us how you fell. The NFL can't handle this guy. I'm going pantsless because he deserves it. In his nine full games last year. Clip that. I'm going pantsless because he deserves it. In his nine full games last year, he already averaged. 15.1 opportunities a game. That's enough for him to finish as a top 10 back. Obviously, if you have some breakaway touchdown runs, you're at that point, you're a lock. He's going to be more and more involved, and he is going to grow as a pass catcher in this offense. He lined up in the slot 35% of his pass plays. That's highest in the NFL last year as a rookie. Of his 36 targets,

Keep that number in mind. He only had 36 targets. Of his 36 targets, he was the number, he was the first read on 67% of them. That's the highest in the, in, among all running backs. That is the same total amount of first read targets that Rashad White had. Okay. And Rashad White had 70 targets last year. He is not getting dink and dunks. He's not like, oh, a little safety valve. This is a. prescriptive scripted play that says, hey, let's find a way to get A. Chan the ball. He is. Which adds up, just kind of jump in. Yeah, yeah, jump in. It adds up to the efficiency that you saw because they, when you have a committee or you have a rookie and you know they have a certain level of skill and ability and you're not putting them on the field every single play. When you do, you generally use them. That's kind of what that is saying in summation, right? Yeah. When he was on the field, they designed plays to utilize it.

Yeah, Ryan Heath does great work on Twitter. You can follow him. He had a tweet talking about how efficient he was and the historical data among rookie running max drafted in the first three rounds who outperformed their weighted opportunity by two and a half points per game. So that's the stat I was talking about earlier. Five of five had a volume increase in year two and four of five topped 20 fantasy points per game. That is a crazy high efficient number. The only one that didn't have Jeff Fisher as a head coach. like this head coach, and this head coach likes Devon A. Chan. Don't take it from me. Take it from Mr. McDonald. I'm seeing a pro that, not to say that he wasn't a pro last year, he was a rookie that really impressed his teammates with his ability to digest and execute. And he really impressed guys about how the game, you hear this much, the game's not too big for him, right? Well,

That's cool for Devon if that's where his ceiling, where he wants his ceiling. Thankfully for the Miami Dolphins, that's not. So he's expanded rolls, expanded, you know, different ways that he can get the ball. But he's really, he's become a guy that pretty much every person on the offense counts on to know. Take it from Ronald McDonald's. And that helps everyone. So he's become a pro diet, strength. It's really cool to see. He has a taste of success. And fortunately for us, who authorized this? I did. From Mr. McDonald's. If you were watching YouTube, you see us crack it up because I said from from McDonald's. Mike McDonald's over here. It was a boring quote. You get his name. His name is Mike McDaniel. We have no more listeners. They're all gone after that. Yeah, they all went to go draft Devon A. Chan. No, they deleted the show. Listen, it was him saying that he is now an integral part of the offense to every.

player on the field is relying on Devon A. Chan. They talked about his diet being serious. Is it McDonald's? That he is, because of the McDonald's. That he is, his body is ready. He is more involved and he is not content to just stay at what his great rookie season was. That's, that's what he was saying. It was a little boring, but the, it's a lot boring. The content is important for fantasy managers to know that the, the direction, the arrow is headed up. And obviously, if he gets injured, whatever. But if he's on the field, he's going to win you weeks on the reg. I will say two seconds worth of comments on HM, then we'll move on because I don't really have a lot to add. One, I do believe that Devon HM will be a league winner this year. So I'm with you. My man. Two, I think we can get too lost in.

the hyper efficiency and the kind of crazy numbers, I think it's better to focus on, is this a really good football player and a really good offense with a really good coach? And he seems committed to being great. And I think, you know, you don't need to make him a 7.3 of carry his whole career guy to be amazing for fantasy. That is not, that's unsustainable. So we can be like, wow, that was an amazing rookie year. I hope he has a better year this year. And I think that's very possible. You know, Rahim Ocert, ironically, was crazy efficient as well. That's part of this offense. So, yeah, I'm with you. I believe. Is it my turn to talk? Do you want to play that clip again? I've got a 45-minute conversation here. Hold on. Just listen up. I'm seeing a pro. Do you think anybody in the press conference is like, why did I ask that?

Oh, I should not have asked that. Yes, no questions only. He's much more fun in person if you got the video. Well, he's a fun guy. He is a fun guy. Yeah. He's just got a funny cadence for podcasting. I was about to make Jonathan Brooks my ice player on today's show. And you knew better. And so I will briefly tell you why. It is a fear. Jonathan Brooks, rookie running back, ACL tear. opportunities in Carolina. It was going to be built around the fact we've actually had a lot of second round running back flops in year one, a little bit worried about that Charbonnet effect of, you know, you've got other running backs and maybe it just doesn't pan out. You draft him early. He doesn't help your team by the time he's okay. You've moved on. All these reasons for Jonathan Brooks. The reason I did not put him in here after Kyle spent time building my argument with me. I pivoted this morning. Here's the fundamental reason. He's a great player.

And I don't want to make a Michael Carter, Brees Hall mistake with Jonathan Brooks. So I'm just throwing out at Brees Hall was on a bad football team with a depth chart in front of him and the best player won real quick. And I do think that's possible with Jonathan Brooks. So I'll stay neutral there. Instead, I will use this opportunity to just dump all over Aaron Jones. And I've historically been a monster Aaron Jones fan. Aaron Jones is one of those guys that's always been like crazy efficient. where we're always like, oh, if he just had like, an Adrian Peterson workload. Unleash Aaron Jones, you cowards. But this, you know, you do have to turn the page sometimes in fantasy football. And he's 29.6 years old. The Packers moved on. And you can say whatever you want about the contract situation. They moved on. They were done with Aaron Jones. They moved on to Josh Jacobs, who was as inversely efficient.

as you can be last year. They moved on 30-year-old running backs. It's not a great bet when they changed teams. Since 2000, there was a great article by Marvin on a website, Marvin Elyquin. Since 2000, only 16% of top 24 fantasy seasons have come from running backs over 29 years old. It gets even worse when you're talking about the inefficiency situation there in Minnesota where Kevin O'Connell says he wants to throw the football. and has ranked 28th in rushing attempts for two consecutive years, 31st in neutral rate. You're not going to have as many opportunities on this roster where we all, did we all put Minnesota at the bottom of that division? I'm pretty sure that's what we did. We did. It's a problem. It's a problem to me. From an efficiency standpoint, I'm worried about touchdown opportunities for Aaron Jones, and I'm worried about the offense not being successful. I'm worried about Ty Chandler being worked in because...

You always work somebody in with Aaron Jones in your back field. Aaron Jones can prove me completely wrong if he catches five passes a week. Like if that's just what happens in this offense, then I will be proven wrong. But I think it's a tough bet to make drafting them as a top 24 running back where I have players later in the draft that I have more confidence in that are on the front side of their career. So, you know, Aaron Jones has just been a player this offseason where I just haven't had the confidence. So Kevin O'Connell has not proven the ability to, I mean, we went into last season, and the Madison truthers were ready to be there. We're already dead, man. Leave us alone. Yeah, and so I just don't have the confidence that Aaron Jones is going to be able to have consistency for your lineup this year. Yeah, I get that. I have been pro Aaron Jones.

The end of last year, he was awesome. He was utilized like crazy, and he was so efficient. I mean, he ended the season just showing like he hasn't lost anything. Obviously, when you get to 30, that is an important number for a running back when you switch teams. That is always a big yellow flag that could cause issues when your team goes from a great offense to a... more bottom half offense. That's bad for the running back when you've got a rookie quarterback. So there's a lot of things that are certainly stacked up against Aaron Jones. I still think he's got it. I believe that, you know, the head coach is very, very smart. I think that he'll unleash Aaron Jones in the right way and he'll be efficient. But I don't, I don't see him. He's certainly not a league winner. Well, I hope he unleashes him better than Madison. Oh, for, I mean, Madison, here's the thing. Here's the only difference, you know, that I think is.

You know, we've got to be intellectually honest with the Madison comparison. Last year, you know, there was debate on Madison. Like him or don't like him? No, Aaron Jones is a perennial. There was no debate. You out of your mouth every time said he's a bum, he sucks. He's not good. Aaron Jones is if you want to find the case for Aaron Jones, it's an Alvin Camara late career success in New Orleans case, which is catch the football, be efficient on your touches, but you're going from a top offense to potentially a bottom offense. I mean. We all agree that like Darnold is going to transition at some point in the year. Most likely, yes. And Darnold hasn't looked great. Yeah. And the schedule starts with six, five or six tough, tough games for Minnesota. And so then you're saying, okay, you're going to elevate over the back half of the year for a guy that hasn't played 17 games in a long, long time. Yeah, I mean, to me, I feel like Aaron Jones is locked in as a running back too. Ooh, like I'm not there.

You think he'll finish outside the top 24 running backs? I think so. See, I don't think he's got the potential to be a running back one this year, but I don't think he's got the potential barring injury to be a running back three. He'll be involved in his quality. So if you're drafting him in the sixth, it's a roster construction thing to me, where it's like. RB 18 off the board right now? That's where he's going. Is it? Yeah. Sounds about right. But I think he's just a veteran that might not have that league winning upside, but in the sixth round.

You're looking at, you know, if you can get a running back to in the sixth round, that's, uh, it can be important to your roster. All right. Moving on. All right. If you've done the math, there'll be no suspense. Fire. It's a fire pick. Mike, I had not done the math, though. Yeah, but our listeners have. Oh, that's probably true. Yes, it is. It's Jalen Waddle of the Miami Dolphins who is going right now as the wide receiver 18 over on Sleeper. And I have extreme confidence in Jalen Wattle having a true bounce back season. Last year's end of season numbers, they're not great. 104 targets. He caught 72 for just over 1,000 yards and only four touchdowns. That was the wide receiver 34. You need to fill in some gaps here, though. He missed three games. So he put up that production in 14 games. On the season, that's like a 1,200-yard pace.

You give Jalen Waddle 1,200 yards last year. He's not being drafted as the wide receiver 18. And then look closer at the behind the scenes metrics, not just the raw numbers at the end compared to last year where, by the way, in 2022, he was the wide receiver 7. Tyreek Hill was on that team. Just a quick reminder that this is not a, well, Jalen Waddle can't succeed with Tyreek. He has already done it. He finished as the wide receiver 7 while Tyreek was doing Tyreek things, which are impossible to stop. But so comparing 2023 to 22 for Jalen Waddle. His yards per route run, very, very close. His targets per route run actually went up. He had his pro football focus grade went up. The issue was number one touchdowns. Those definitely went down. And two, besides the games that he missed,

watching the Miami Dolphins play. Jalen Waddle was off the field all the time. I was going to say his injuries per lining up to run around went way up last year. Yes. He was chronically injured and trying to fight through those injuries. So I'm going to make the assumption of health that Jalen Waddle's going to start the year healthy. Let me jump in because the one objection I've heard from our listeners was we talked about Jalen Waddle earlier this offseason and literally somebody replied and said, LOL. banking on Waddle's health, I will never draft that player again. Because the burns and the fact that you, you know, there's something like Julio Jones had these years. He had these years where he didn't miss that many games, but if you had asked us all after the season how many games he missed, we probably would have said like 40. Yeah, like every game. It feels almost worse when you, is he out there? Is he? Yes. Snip, snap, snip, snip, snip, he's on. Oh, he's on the field. Oh, no, he's off the field.

That was the experience with Waddle last year is that I think that the bridge too far for a lot of fantasy managers is presuming hell. Sure. Let me make the counter argument there. Okay. Some guys are weak and they get injured and they stay off the field. Okay. And then they miss games. He played in 14 games last year, 17 games a year prior, 16 games a year prior. That's the rebuttal is he played every single game as a sophomore and he missed a single game as a rookie. So this is not a, Well, Jalen Wattle misses tons and tons of games every single year. But again, the point being, he actually improved on a lot of metrics. He is the perfect player for zone coverage, which the NFL is moving to that more and more. And good luck guarding the Miami Dolphins in man. Can the best cornerback in the league man up against Tyree Kill? No. I would say, oh, if you do that over the course of a game, you're going to end up.

having a bad time. I think the best cornerback in the league probably says no. The best cornerback in the league. They're going to say yes. They're going to say yes. But can they actually do it? And in Tyree kills numbers against Zone are incredible. Last year, the highest yards per route run in zone. Who's number two on that list above Justin Jefferson, above Amun Rae St. Brown, above Puka, Debo, Brandon I. You. It's Jalen Waddle. Like, Jalen Waddle was actually very, very good in his. in yards per route run and opportunities, I think everything was completely related to injury and completely related to expectations of last year. Like, he was the wide receiver 9. So that was admittedly devastating. I had Waddle on a lot of teams last year, and it didn't work. But that doesn't, like, that year is gone. Jalen Waddle, all the arguments of like, okay, is it a good player?