Fantasy Football - Explain Yourself! Debates + UDK RELEASE DAY! - Podcast for 6/1

They don't talk about that with Rome because he has a complete route tree. First of all, a few comments. That's really assuming a lot. One comment. If you started the year with Rome and Abuka last year, they're very similar. There was a major injury to Abuka that moved him around the field and the Evans injury and then the Odunze injury gets underplayed. Two, I am pretty sure Mike only is allowing himself, like, ten units of love for the Bears and he has to move them from somebody. That is true. He has to move them from Odunze to Burden. His amount of love of Burden is so high, there's not enough room for anybody else.

And the truth is, with all three of the Bears' prospects, you have to choose. You just have to. Here's what I promise can't happen. Loveland can't be the wide receiver or the tight end three while Burden is the wide receiver eight and Rome is the wide receiver 12. There's just not enough for all three to hit. Unless Caleb is the quarterback one. Right. So you are taking a bet. Right now most people are betting on Luther Burden. I am betting on Rome. ADP says that they are. Yes, that's what I mean. I genuinely believe that at the end of the year, I am so confident that Rome will have far more targets, far more touchdowns.

On a per touch base. You guys should bet that. Sure. I will happily bet just season finish, Rome versus Burden. Fantasy finish? Fantasy finish. Oh, yeah. I'll take Luther. Beautiful. Yeah, put it on the board. Bet it. There it is. Water bet. What? Because, I mean, you said a lot of words, but all I heard was Rome would do and say is soft. Soft. Because he hurt his foot? Yeah. Oh, okay. Soft. Can't play. Can't play through injury. His foot was a burden to him. Hey, oh. Nice. Got him. Can I just take Loveland out of this deal? Oh, no.

Okay. All three of us are in on Rome. I'm more in on Rome with Jason because of the draft pricing because I believe the same things. I believe that Rome is a true alpha. You didn't even bring up the fact that, you know, they got rid of another one of their top tier receivers, right? Yeah. More is, DJ Moore is now a member of the Bills. And by the way, struggling with the playbook over there. Yeah. I heard that. I'm not out on Rome. I just. No, you can't come back. You're not allowed in. You're out. I locked the door, Mike.

Okay, that's fine. Dead bull. He's like, whatever. Let's find him out on Rome. Yeah. He's like, no, that's cool. I was going to say, the ADP of Rome, I don't think that makes sense either. Look, I'm on. The disparity is too big. I don't think the ADP of either of those guys makes sense. Like, I'm excited for Burden. Burden does because this is what people do when they. Spending a fourth round pick on the hope and chance. That feels hopium. The hopium is, I can tell. I'll speak for Mike. Amon Ra. Yes. It's the Amon Ra argument. It's the. It's the, this dude is going to function in that role in this offense and be that good

in this offense for years to come. That's wide receiver. Three numbers. I think just because Ben Johnson had Amon Ra and comes over, people are saying Amon Ra. It's not that same type of player to me. This is more of a, like a Percy Harvin. Like, get the ball in his hands on screens and just let him. Percy Harvin. Just trying to, like. I mean, he's awesome with his, with the ball in his hands. He is awesome. But Amon Ra is awesome in routes and, like, you know, he's just always in the right spot at the right time. He's a tactician.

I remember us having these conversations. Is Amon Ra actually good? Yes. This will be a fun one. Amon Ra actually good. This will be a fun one. Rome, maybe. We'll take a break and then we'll see what Mike can do as we enter the geriatric portion of this show. Yes. And there it is. The geriatric portion of the show. Deuces alley. Just Josh. Josh, it's you. Yeah. Don't you? Josh, it's you. Just out of nowhere. All right. Mike's player that we're talking about today is Devante Adams. All 33.4 years old. Devante Adams. I've got him at 32. I think that's probably a little bit too low after we did his player profile video.

Because he is 33, yes. Jason has him at 27. You have aged him too low. Mike has him ranked at number 17. Yeah. This is the final year of his contract in Los Angeles. Out of all of the top 24 fantasy seasons on a point per game basis since 2010, only 5.5% have been achieved by receivers who are 33 years or older. So the biggest challenge here for Devante Adams is father time. He's old. That's for sure. And he was also just ridiculously efficient last year around the goal line. Now, when we started talking through this team, look, I think the team was willing to move

on from Devante Adams this offseason. Seemed like it. It seems like they were willing to invest in a wide receiver, but they chose Ty Simpson over Makai Lemon. So here we are. We end up with the Devante Adams default. We'll call it that. But Mike, you have him the highest among the three of us. So explain yourself. So obviously last year, Devante Adams, the goal line wide receiver, he ends the year with 14 touchdowns despite missing weeks 16 through 18 with the hamstring injury. Basically, it was the best season inside the five yard ever for a wide receiver. 27 end zone targets.

Yes, he is old, but we always have our Hall of Fame outliers. Devante Adams is a first ballot Hall of Fame type of wide receiver to me. Jason always. Like Mike Evans. I don't. He'll be a Hall of Famer. He'll probably be second ballot because of how difficult it is. But okay, let me change the phrasing. Devante Adams is guaranteed to end up in the Hall of Fame. Can you agree with that, Jason? I think that is probable, yeah. He's got a championship, right? Yes. Yeah, he got one with the Packers, right? Packer boy, or was that too soon? Or was that before?

No, I don't actually. I don't think he has one. I don't think he's a guaranteed. But I mean, the point you're making is he's an all-timer. He's great. He's an all-timer. I think he's a guaranteed Hall of Fame type of wide receiver. And those types of guys end up being able to play longer than your average. Oh, Kyle's up. No titles. No Super Bowl. He was there right before it happened, or after it happened, I guess. Can't even get to 1,000 yards. Go on. And so here's what I want to bring up is the touchdowns is the story of Devante Adams' season.

But what we're not looking at is his catch rate for a player of his caliber just does not make sense. It does not make sense at all to me that Devante Adams, who has his career before, even including last year, a 63% catch rate. That's fine. That's not crazy. That's not. He's catching everything. That's not. He's down catching, what, less than half of his balls like Roma Dunze. Devante Adams was playing with the MVP of football, and yet he only caught 53% of his passes last year. Take a look at the rest of the team. Colby Park. And these are so catchable targets.

68.5% of Devante Adams' targets were catchable. That's ridiculously low. Parkinson, 93%. Davis Allen, 91%. Makes sense. Tight ends. What's Puka? Jordan Winnington, 88%. Puka, with 163 targets, 86% of his targets were catchable. This is a— You think Stafford was just assuming he was faster and threw the ball out ahead of him? This is a—we are not completely on the same page until we close in on the field. The fact that you can go in inside the five and catch half of your targets, turning them into touchdowns, and then only 68% of your targets on the year are catchable, that seems like a—

I think a number to me that will regress. That really does sound like he's overthrowing. It sounds like he's like, you should be further. Last year, Adams was 10th in wide receivers for air yards, and 8th for unrealized air yards, as in he's just—the targets are going, and they're not catchable, and it's not even—it's not even Adams' fault. There's just a misconnection between Devontae Adams, a great wide receiver, and Matthew Stafford, last year's MVP. I just don't see a world where on this team—he's not still in the mid-20s. I'm not out of control in my projection. I got him at 24% of the targets.

He was 25% last year. I just have him catching more of them, which seems like an absolute no-brainer to me. The fact that they passed on Makai Lemon with everything, like, oh, they were going to get rid of Adams. They didn't. They didn't add anybody. It's Devontae Adams. It's Puka. These are going to be the main two guys, and they're going to keep running their 12 sets out there, what'll be just the two wide receivers and the consolidation of targets. And to me, there's no way this year that the connection of Matthew Stafford and Devontae Adams results in Devontae catching 53% of his passes again.

Well, I would pay a lot of money for breaking news right now that A.J. Brown was traded to the Rams. I would pay a lot for that. I would change my argument. But I think the hardest part for me is those arguments all make a lot of sense to me if Devontae Adams is not in the decline of his career in terms of, oh, they'll fix what was broken. It's hard to lay at the feet of Matthew Stafford the problems last year of connecting with Devontae Adams. It's easier for me to lay that at the 33-year-old Adams' feet and say the MVP of football,

who won the MVP, could connect with everybody but you. To me, there's a problem there. And I also don't like for fantasy— And Terrence Ferguson, by the way. And Terrence Ferguson. Okay. Well, that says a lot. 60% of Ferguson's targets were catchable. The problem to me is you get another year. You get another year of injury exposure and problems for Devontae Adams. Sometimes you get another year of like, hey, does he catch enough touchdowns to make up for the inefficiencies elsewhere? Or does he become more efficient elsewhere? That's tough for me to try to figure out with the injury thing on top of it.

And it's just hard to project the older you get, the more it gets fixed. Yeah. That's the part that is the challenge for me. But it is also very hard to look at the roster as it stands today, the depth chart as it stands today, what you expect from Stafford from a stat sheet standpoint, and not say Adams ends up with a ton of it. Because unless someone else emerges in the offense, it's really hard not to give him those counting stats. I mean, you can, yes, he is older than the Raiders years, but the Raiders years would have been what, him at 30 and 31, if I'm doing the math right.

Those years he caught 56% and 59%. From those Raiders quarterbacks, he had a higher catch rate than he did from Matthew Stafford. And I'm not saying it's one person's fault or the other. I agree with, yeah, it's probably more on Adams than it would be on Stafford. But I think they fix it. Fix it! And he doesn't have to be outrageous. Get him up to below his career average at 60%, and he will be awesome for fantasy. This is the first environment that Devontae Adams has ever had to adjust to where you are not the dude. You are not the dude at all.

And when I look at go-to wide receivers, when that ball is snapped, target one, two, and three is Puka, and then Adams is this. I just think adjusting to that may have been more difficult for Adams. Could have been. Jason has him somewhat more on the lower side? Yeah, I mean. You look like a man with no strong opinion here. I think that it's very difficult to bank on a 34-year-old wide receiver. You know, the stat you brought up earlier, 5.5% of all top 24 finishes, and that's top 24, not top 12, are for players over that age. Now, he is one of those that's like, hey, maybe he could go a long time.

But I believe that if he does crack the top 24, it's going to be touchdowns again. You know, it's going to be, oh, he got double-digit touchdowns, and that could absolutely happen. I do think between the 20s, he's going to be unreliable. So, probably not a very consistent. Where is he being drafted? ADP-wise. I don't expect him to repeat what he did last year. And that's, so, if it gets worse than that, I think you're thinking. I'm seeing wide receiver 19. Yeah, he's still up there. I will say this. I mean, first thoughts, I mean, it just happened. Rams defense.

I mean, you just brought it up. One of the reasons that Cleveland, you know, they don't have to do a lot. Miles Garrett on the defensive side of the ball. Are you seeing, do you have any initial expectations for that offense to be less productive? No, I don't. Because the game's in hand? And Tyson's getting some token snaps? Well, not even that. Just their defense, the Rams defense is always good. And, yeah, like, you have an impact player who probably ends up with more sacks now. So, a couple drives ended here. But on the season, I'm not going to look at the acquisition of Garrett and change my financial,

or my offensive outlook. Or your financial outlook. You're not going to change any of your investment profile. Listen, before we close it out, as we've each defended ourselves, and I think, you know, we're on edge here. Very defensive. Field Deets just tweeted this out. I just want to read it to you. Rams first round pick since 2016. You ready? In 2016, Jared Goff, who was traded for Stafford. None, none, none, none, none, none, none. 2024, Jared Verse, who was traded, eventually, for Miles Garrett. None in 2025, and then Ty Simpson in 2026. So, they've had none. It sounds like my dynasty team for the first 10 years.

But they've basically had none. Or they've traded the ones that they've had for established players. Which, you can win. But it feels like the creditors will catch you. Pour one out. They'll find you. Everybody out there, say a little prayer for one man. One man only. His name is Jared Verse. Jared, you were one drive away from the Super Bowl. Yeah. And you're going to be watching it next year from home. Sorry, buddy. Catch you on the next episode. Enjoy the UDK, everybody. Bye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com.

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