AFC East Breakdown + Best Draft Spot, Bragging Rights - Fantasy Football Podcast

Just 4.9 yards per offensive play, 25th in football. That is the fewest yards per play since 2006 for a Patriots team, which I thought was very interesting when you look holistically at this team and what you would expect them to be able to do this year. There's a lot of kind of high-level perception that, well, Tom Brady's gone. This team can only exist in the framework of a great defense and kind of figuring out the offense bit by bit. But now Cam Newton's been signed.

And they weren't that great on offense last year despite going 12 and 4. Mike, I know that you believe in Belichick more than just about anybody. So is it a rosier view at this point when you see that the offense wasn't great last year? They were still 12 and 4. You've got Cam Newton coming in now. What's your thought? My thoughts are it's really interesting because this won't be the first time that Bill Belichick has shuffled up his entire offense.

These are offenses that had Tom Brady. He's been run heavy. He's been tight end heavy. He's had two tight end sets. He's had elite wide receiver numbers with like Randy Moss. The slot receiver is kind of a common factor like that he always has that. But other than that, like Bill Belichick changes things all the time. He tries to stay one to two steps ahead of what the NFL is doing to catch up.

when his offenses become prolific. So I'm very excited to see what he can do with Cam Newton. I'm projecting Cam Newton as a starter, but I'd also say, I still believed in this team when we thought it was going to be Jared Stidham. I think that Bill will figure it out, and there'll be guys with fantasy value on this team still. One of the things that's interesting is you brought up their tight-in, you know, they had the Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez era of Patriots offensive football.

And then you look to last year where they were literally dead last in the National Football League in terms of targets to the tight-end position. They didn't have one so they don't throw to them. Right. And that's good coaching rather than conforming targets to positions and players that don't have the ability to produce. We keep trying to, as the fantasy community at large, year after year, fit our expectations on to Bill Belichick as opposed to the other way around at times.

And then you end up with that situation where they're not targeting the tight end. And yeah, sure, you pick the right Patriots tight end and they're dead last in the league in targets. Jason, what are your thoughts on this offense as a whole when it comes to fantasy and potential opportunities that maybe the fantasy community isn't seeing? Yeah, I think everything changed when they got Cam Newton. This offense was one I didn't want any part of. And I changed a little bit when they brought in Cam Newton specifically.

The running game, I think things are going to open up for Sony Michelle a lot. You know, last year, he was not good. I don't know that he's really ever been good. I wasn't a huge fan of him coming out of college. Can I shoot a stat at you, Jay, to highlight that? Yes, I've got my bulletproof vest on. Sony Michelle has five running back one scoring weeks in 29 regular season games.

With 18 weeks as an RB3 or lower. Yes. And maybe doesn't get the goal line now with him new. Five times? Five times. Yeah, which, you know, to some degree has been good news when you, when you didn't believe in the player. But I also think that, you know, when Tom Brady's there, obviously Tom Brady's goat, he's great. But when they didn't.

do what you would expect them to do of like masking when they're going to run. You know, they just bring in and say, we're running the ball in a heavy set. And I think that Sony isn't good enough to get it done. But here's the thing that changes when Cam Newton is on the field against the stacked boxes. This is according to Warren Sharp, Cam Newton and the Panthers against stacked boxes, running backs were able to.

have a great yards per carry, a great positive result. And as soon as Cam left, they didn't. And that's the same running back. So you have to, it's very similar to what you see in Baltimore. If you have a true.

mobile quarterback. And I think Bill Belichick is going to run Cam Newton like crazy. It's a one-year contract. He's going to see if he can create a great offense around Cam Newton's strengths. And I think that will open up running rushing lanes for Sony Michelle. So the goal line might be vultured a little bit, but I do think if Sony.

does not land on the pup, he's such a value in drafts right now because you can get them late, not mid rounds, late rounds. And that's where it's like he's one of the last starters left. So Cam helps me believe in that. And I also believe in Cam Newton. I think he's going to be pretty good for fantasy. He has never not been good for fantasy when he's on the field. Do you agree with the assessment of Sony Michelle, Mike? I find myself, while he is a great value late in drafts perceptually, I just

I just don't know if we're going to get it when we need it. Yeah, that's very fair. But I'm fine with his draft price because he's just building in the margin for Sony Michelle to hit some type of a ceiling at running back 37 right now in best ball. That's absolutely outstanding value. Now his counterpart, I should say, of James White, who has averaged 94 targets over the last four years.

How do you guys feel about James White as, you know, just a later round PPR running back who's had great fantasy success has also been kind of meh. And the, we saw enough of the, uh, Cam Newton doesn't throw to the running back narrative. Like Christian McCaffrey blew that up. So if James White is there in a Patriot system and Cam Newton is the quarterback, White's still going to seek targets. But do you,

Do you want James White on any teams? I don't think I've even considered drafting James White at any point of this offseason. I think a lot of it to me has to do with whether Nikiel Harry is a viable target in this offense on a regular basis and whether this absolute atrocious trade for Muhammad Sunu ends up being a horrible bust or not. I mean, Muhammad Sunu in Atlanta was a slot dominator.

And here you have Julian Edelman in that spot in this offense, and Sunu did nothing. If Harry Sunu and Edelman are the primary targets in this offense, then James White's going to be one of those players that in a pinch, yeah, you can start him, but it's not a reliable week-to-week type of player. A lot of what Cam Newton did successfully the last time we saw him healthy on the field was attributed to essentially short passing game, putting him in a position where he could succeed.

on the underneath routes, which is complimentary for James Wright. If he lines up in the slot and runs some of those underneaths, high percentage throws for Cam Newton in this offense, then maybe. But you're right. It's a weird dynamic where James White doesn't really fit into the narrative fantasy-wise for this team. And I don't know if that's a mistake or not. I think it's just because we can't have our, we don't have our heads around this offense.

Well, you're certainly going to pass the ball less with Cam Newton than you did with Tom Brady. Cam Newton's never been anywhere near the passing volume that Brady had last year. Part of that is because he scrambles from time to time. And those are the plays that take away from the past catching running back. I'm going to say something that I think will surprise a lot of people. James White.

is not Christian McCaffrey. When they brought in Christian McCaffrey, yes, Cam Newton threw the ball to him because he's Christian McCaffer. I don't think they're going to, yes, thank you. I mean, shocking. But the reality is I think a lot of the dump-offs, the timing routes, the pockets collapsing, get it to my checkdown guy from Brady, those are gone with Cam Newton. Now it's scramble, buy time, find something, scramble, throw the ball downfield, or pick it up with my legs. So he'll be involved.

In a PPR league, maybe you can have, you know, a borderline flex player, but he's not a guy that I'm interested in. Julian Edelman is the wide receiver 33 right now in drafts. Nicky O'Harey's the wide receiver 65 in drafts. Mike, were you going to talk about the wide outs? I was. Like Julian Edelman, I'm still, I'm confident with Julian Edelman, especially at this draft cost of wide receiver 33 currently in baseball. He's coming off the best year of his career. Like Julian Edelman, he's,

He's already an outlier in terms of age and production. So I'm still willing to draft the wide receiver 10 and half PPR. I'm willing to give him a shot in the wide receiver 30s. What I wanted to bring up, I took a deeper look at Nikiel Harry and comparable drafted players. So I went and I looked because Harry was a bust. And what kind of hope should we have?

for a player of his draft pedigree to break out. So over the last 10 years, I looked at first and second round wide receivers who were drafted, who put up under 30 receptions in their rookie season. We have 27 wide receivers who have next year data. So across these players, again, I know 30 is kind of an arbitrary number, but I wanted like a really low number to see if these players succeeded or not.

Of the 27 players, the average receptions for their rookie seasons, 16 receptions. The average increase to the next year, about 16 receptions. So really not anything that you were happy with. Can I ask you a question for clarity there though? Because, I mean, Nikiel Harry didn't see a snap to week 11. Is that include players that are injured? It doesn't even matter? I did not remove players for any reason of like some guys were hurt. Some guys just didn't produce.

He was a little bit of both because he was hurt for the majority of the season, but then really didn't come in and splash at all. 12 receptions on the entire year or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were three players who made a big jump that you were happy with. That would have been Randall Cobb, who went up 55 receptions. He went up 55. Thank you. All right. We're remote today, Mike. Give me a second. DJ Chark.

went up 59 receptions, and Alshon Jeffrey went up 65 receptions. Now, there are some notable players in this group that took a few years to kind of become something like Golden Tate, Demarius Thomas, Devante Parker. Devante Parker is in that group now, and Mike Williams, I kind of put him in that bunch of, he's, he's a fine fantasy player now, but if you're just going on historical comps, it's, it's not.

It's not positive news for Nikiel Harry. Yeah, my initial thought was the same as Andy's was that he missed so much of the season due to injury that you can't really tell. It's just hard to hold 12 receptions against the guy that didn't play until week 11. Yeah, I mean, but that is the thing, right? He still played in seven games and, you know, would have his 16 game pace in those seven was 27 reception. So that's not good. Yeah, I will apologize for him. I have no.

qualms with taking a shot at him. I think he's got equal odds of being the number one wide receiver on that team and you're paying nothing for him. He did have more rushing attempts than their third round running back selection who was not injured the whole season in Damien Harris. So that's incredible. Is that true? That's a funny set. Yeah, I like a shot on one of these players. If you look at the team as a whole as we move on to Buffalo, I feel like every single player on this entire team.

has been adjusted down in ADP due to the ambiguity of this offseason and losing Tom Brady. There is a, you know, if there's a proportionate Brady bump on the Tampa side, there is a, what's the opposite of a, what's the opposite of a bump? How do you go down? A dip? Yeah, there's a Brady dip in all ADPs on this team. So whether it's Sony Michelle, James Wyne, to kill Harry, Julian Edelman, if you have a beat on this team, if you have a player you like.

You're getting him cheaper than they'll finish. And the ironic part is we could very easily look back and say that Cam this coming year was better than Brady was last year and that Brady this coming year was worse for fantasy purposes than James Winston was last year. It's possible that you should be getting a Brady dip in Tampa. Sure. And it's a gross question, but I want to throw it out.

If you have to, if you're in a really deep league and you've got to grab one of these tied ends of Matt Lacoste, who was on the team last year, did nothing. And then you have the rookies, Devin Ozzi, Oye, Oye, or Dalton Keene, who are you picking? You have to take one. Don't tell me you've not taken one. You have to. Gross. I said it was gross. Okay. My answer, if I'm on the clock and I have to take one, is Jordan Reed. And I'm not joking.