NFC North Breakdown, Stack Attack, Chicken Salad

the utilization of some of these complimentary backs. You know, they drafted Edo. This regime drafted Edo. They like him. Say what you will about what's on the field. I said this the other day. We don't look through the same lens that the coaches look through. The coaches look through a different lens than fantasy owners. What is your concern about? If Olson does take, carries inside the two, let's just hype. Let's say he takes half of those. How does that change your view of Devonata Freeman if that becomes a reality? If he actually did that, it would be.

a large concern because part of Freeman's upside is that he's a double-digit rushing touchdown type of a guy. I look at this as more of an indictment on Edo personally. And it would be shocking to me that if you know what you have in Freeman and he's paid to be a number one running back and then you just decide, okay, this fifth round rookie, we're going to give him this goal line job.

even though he has no NFL experience, and we know that Freeman is incredible in these particular situations. It would shock me if he's getting goal-lined. Part of our job here is to sift through news and decide what is actionable, what's real, what's fluff, what's, you know, a headline that matters. When I look at the actual article and see, you know, the context, they were so bad.

at running the ball last year. That was obviously without Devante Freeman. And they're talking about this rookie. What are they going to say other than he's going to help us get the ball in on the goal line? I don't think that this is actually going to siphon work away from Devonthe Freeman at the goal line. I don't view this as a red flag. For what it's worth, Olison's humongous. He's 6-2-225. When you talk about Edo, Edo's what? He's 5-9-194. So if you...

did want to give the ball to a Latavius Murray-esque type of runner around the goal line, which sometimes teams just want to do. Olson at least fits the physical build, but you have to prove himself. And look, that's the analysis I wanted. Do you think it's fluff or not? Spencer wears on the active PUP. Marquis-Lee coming off the knee injury is on the active PUP list. Cooper Cup will avoid it. That's big news. Cooper Cup avoiding the active PUP to open training camp, feeling good.

That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, he was doing some individual drills through OTA, you know, and now the fact that he's coming into camp not on the pup says he is at a place where preseason, presumably he'll be a full go. They're still going to take it light with him right now. They've got him on a schedule, but it's what you want to see because we've been interpreting the length of time for his injury as.

Cooper Cup could be someone that gets off to a slower start, kind of gets his footing better in the second half of the year. But if he's ahead of the game, you know, maybe you move him up a little bit and you're more confident in drafting him as a week one play. Like you're doing with the manual Sanders? No. You avoided the active PUP? Correct. Okay. So we'll see on both those. I've seen too many players come back from ACLs and be just fine.

Right away? You've seen that? The next year. I mean, they're... Okay. Yeah. I think it's significant. I think it's significant that both players avoid it. I think it's significant that they're on the field. Check out the Sleeper app. Not just the best breaking news, but the best platform. I saw that they're working on... Some mascot stuff. Yeah, but they're focusing a bunch of developing work on night mode. Oh, yeah, yeah. Night mode for the app. That's all the rage, man. Yes. You should see me, my dark mode.

When you turn the lights off? I get real scary. I can only imagine. I know we don't like to lean on dreaming as a prognostication method other than Jason. Jason loves to do it. I had a dream last night, guys. Oh, oh. It's checking the fantasy scores from week one. Just remember his nickname is the Reaper. This is true. Let's hear who's about to go down, Andy. You're not going to like it. Now that you set that out. Oh, no. Week one.

Number one running back, most fantasy points. My dream last night was Todd Gurley. No, of course I can happen. It was Todd Gurley. The number one, he comes out, sets the world on fire. As the dynasty owner of Todd Gurley, I do not appreciate the Reaper sharing good news on Todd Gurley. You might trade them by then. We'll see. Hey, we're going to get into the NFC North breakdown momentarily. We do want to thank today's sponsor. You've heard of them. They're all over.

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Go to fantasychamps.com. Use the promo code ballers to save 10%. Fantasy champs has awesome trophies. You can customize it. Really cool championship belts to rub into the faces of all the other losers. Well, not physical. Like if you actually take this steel belt and rub it on someone's face, it's shape it. It's a salt. It's a salt, but I like, well, I'm not saying you should do that because it's assault. We're not saying you shouldn't do it. But we're saying you could.

You could do that, but if you're going to do it, you do it at fancychamps.com. And then, look, I'm just saying their championship rings, they're gigantic. And so, like, if you were getting in a fight, look, that's assault. But if you're wearing those rings, you're going to, the champ is going to win that fight. I'm just saying, fancychamps.com, promo code ballers. Protect yourself. Protect yourself. Let's get divisional. All right, the NFC North last year, the Bears.

Oh, they blew it up. Twelve and four with that incredible defense. We'll talk about the Bears today. They were great. The Vikings, eight, seven, and one, the Packers, six, nine and one, the Lions, six and ten. We'll start with the Bears. Jay Gris, obviously he will weigh in. Huge fan. As well as he can. Last year, this was a team that everything was predicated on the number one.

rush defense and football number seven past defense. They were just a dominating incredible defense that set the table for everything they did. We need to talk through the offensive fantasy options and what we believe about the bears going into 2019 Mitch Trubisky. The one thing I want to bring up real quick on him is simply the fact that this is his second year with Matt Nagy, right? This is his second opportunity in that offense. I want people to remember that because

You know, sometimes it's year three for Mitch Trubisky, right? That is correct, you. But second year in a new offense with offensive coordinator, Mark Helphrick. David Montgomery, Tareke Cohen, Mike Davis, the running backs, Alan Robinson, Anthony Miller, Taylor Gabriel, significant wide outs there. And then Trey Burton last year, very hyped, could be a post-hyped sleeper and fantasy this season. Right now, let's start with the running backs. David Montgomery.

is being drafted at 402. Tariq Cohen's... Stop! Tariq Cohen's being drafted at 512. 512. I want to bring up Tariq Cohen because a lot of time and effort and energy has been given to looking at David Mopportunity and the chance he has in this offense. So I want to talk about Treek Cohen. I tweeted something the other day. He was number one in football in yards...

from scrimmage per touch. 6.9 ahead of everybody else. Very dynamic player. Had a good fantasy football week, 63% of the time from weeks 4 through 13. He was the RB12 in football. I'm just curious where you're at with Tariq Cohen because, you know, he's a great player. I don't know if he could have done anything more with the opportunity he had last year.

So I don't see any reason why the team doesn't want to utilize them in the same fashion, and that equated to a very nice finish. I have them at RB21. Mike, you've got them all the way down at 31. Jason, you're splitting the difference here at RB 26. So here's my concern for Tariq Cohen. Number one, regression is just, it's coming for Tariq Cohen naturally, even if they utilize them the same way. Since the year 2000, there are only eight.

instances where a running back has had 70 or more receptions and cleared 10 yards per reception. So what he did last year in the passing game was actually on a historic level. And that's where he gets his entire value. Now, if you look back the first three games when the Chicago Bears were trying their best to turn Jordan Howard into a three-down skill set running back where they actually gave him some targets in those first three weeks.

Here's Tariq Cohen's passing line, or receiving line. 2.7 targets per game, 16 receiving yards per game. Yeah, it was all Howard. It was all Howard all the time. And that's my concern for Cohen is that they've paid up for David Montgomery because he has the three-down skill set. Tariq Cohen was still, he's still going to play. He's an excellent player. He's great for this offense. But if he turns, if.

a lot of that passing work or even part of that passing work gets transferred over to David Montgomery, then I think people are going to be very disappointed that they spent the fifth round pick on Tariq Cohen. He won't be nearly as consistent as he was last year. That's the take that I'm on as well. I worry about Tariq Cohen because I do believe they want a back in Mett Nagy's system that can...

be a three-down back. They showed it, and then they paid up heavily in the draft to get their guy. So I worried that Therite Cohen is going away. However, one thing that's worth bringing up a little bit, I know the Bears' defense, they're very good, but some of what they did from a turnover margin, things like that, they're not sustainable from last year. You lose Vic Fangio as a defensive coordinator, and you replace it with Chuck Pagano, who is a defensive mind.

Sure. They never had good defensive teams. Yeah, I don't have any concerns about this defense. My point is just they won, I mean, they were a 12 win team. They were in game, you know, winning game scripts. They didn't want to lose Vic Fangio. And so my point is if maybe, you know, they are in more losing situations, that bodes well for Tariq Cohen in that sense. But for the most part, I, if you're asking, would I rather have?

At the high price of an early fourth round, David Montgomery, or the cheaper price of almost the sixth round for Tariq Cohen, I'm still going my opportunity. And I'll go the other direction. I think Cohen is a better value in that situation. And Mike, a couple counterpoints just to bring up to kind of help people make their decisions about the backfield. One.

Jordan Howard was not a slouch in terms of offensive snaps and participation in this offense. You already had an offense last year where he had 250 carries. In fact, his 3,370 yards is in the top five over the last three years. He's just been, it's crazy when you let a guy go that's been that effective on the ground. Obviously, it's about a fit for this team. He had 20 receptions last year. So yes, does David Montgomery maybe eat in?

Does he catch 30, 35 passes in his rookie season? They brought in Mike Davis, who was on the field for over 100. Yes, and Davis as well. 120 touches last year in Seattle. The reason they bring in these guys and they move on from a Howard is for fit, obviously. It's not just production on the ground. It's for fit. The Bears were one of the least efficient teams when they ran multiple back sets. And that's something they want to do in that kind of an option shotgun offense. They want multiple backs on the field. So.

When Tariq Cohen is highly effective, and he's going to still be on the field in multiple back sets, and Jordan Howard did have a huge touch count. I mean, 270 touches is a lot. Those would be kind of some of the reasons I believe Tariq Cohen will continue doing what he's doing and give you better value than maybe. And let's say the first, you think, Montgomery, is he going to be that guy the first four weeks of the season? Maybe there's huge opportunity for somebody to...