NFC North Breakdown + Dobbins Doubt, Jet Logs - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/5

You have one of the best, if not the best, pure wide receivers in football and Justin Jefferson, and you have a very capable, albeit hyper-efficient quarterback and Kirk Cousins. You don't know whether pass happy will translate to those same efficiency stats where he protects the football and kind of, you know, isn't put in that primetime spot all the time? Yeah, he's...

He's been known to buckle under the pressure at time or two. But I actually love the Vikings. This is an offense that I'm heavily targeting right now in my drafts because I think that they are better this year than they were last year for fantasy football. I've got Kirk Cousins right now as a top 10 quarterback, and he is someone that is as unexciting as anyone in a draft. So you want to get him late wherever you are in any format. You can get him late.

You know, when you have a great receiving court, first of all, they're getting Irv Smith back. And whether or not you think Irv Smith Jr., Big Irv, is a good tight-in flyer for fantasy, I do, but maybe you don't, it still helps the offense to get a young, big target back. And KJ. Osborne, these two guys to me, Irv Smith and KJ. Osborne are young players who are going to elevate their games.

and fit right in with three other already known amazing pieces in the offense of Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and Dalvin Cook. So you've got a really good chance at a high-powered offense here with a new offensive-minded head coach just kind of unleashing them. Kurt Cousins is more exciting now. We know who he is as a quarterback. Well, I guess we're all pretty divided. Like I think that Kirk Cousins is a.

good starting quarterback that can that can win games for your team and it produces for fantasy so the past two seasons we've seen 516 attempts and 5161 if and 561 like if that number goes up like the way that they are talking uh you know about like andy mentioned the all the players are very excited that that uh the old i mean zimmer is about as

crumagony and it will be established as you can possibly get in the NFL. And with him out and this new system, Kirk Cousins could be one of those surprised quarterbacks where you're like, holy crap, Kirk Couss was the quarterback six on the year. Yeah, if you were rolling your eyes at how long we're talking about Kirk Cousins, that's simply because you forget, you forget when the pass attempts were.

Much higher in Washington. He was the quarterback five on a season. Almost 5,000 yards. He hasn't thrown for more than 4,200 and something yards ever in Minnesota. So he was almost 5,000 in 2016. He was the number five quarterback in 2017. So it is within him to give you a fantasy season that vastly outperforms his average draft position. So that's why he's getting talked about. And he has the weapons, like Jason said. And Dalvin Cook.

Look, I'm not worried about Dalvin Cook just because the offense passes the ball 40 more times than they did last year. He's too good and too important to this offense and too good of a pass catcher for me to really, you know, I'll throw a shade on him due to injury risk, but not based on offense that may be better. Yeah. Once you get past, I think, four running backs in this year's draft, when you get to the fifth running back,

there is a group of about eight guys you can make an argument for. And Dalvin Cook could easily be the fifth pick overall, and that could end up being a great pick. He could drop to the turn and still be a better pick. Last year, Dalvin Cook had, he was tied for the fourth most carries inside the 15. He had, I'm sorry, inside the five. He had 15 carries. It was so weird. That turned into three touchdowns. Meanwhile, you have, so you have Damien Harris. He had 15 turned into eight touchdowns.

Antonio Gibson, 15 carries inside the five turned into six touchdowns. He had 16 touchdowns the year before. He had 13 touchdowns the year before that. Right. The bad luck that he received inside the five speaks to, and I would expect him to, he'll be right around there again. You know, if he gets 15 carries inside the five again, that's not a surprising thing. But what would be surprising is if he stayed at three rushing touchdowns on those attempts. So I expect.

Daven Cook to bounce back in a big way there. Injuries included, Adam Thielen finished 61st at the wide receiver position in 2019, then jumped up to 8 in 2020, down to 28th last year, missed four games, I believe. But double-digit touchdowns in two consecutive seasons, you know, you combine pass happy with a player that has a nose for the end zone. Are you avoiding him because the ceiling isn't what it once was, or are you...

monitoring that draft position and taking your shot if he gets to a place you like him. I find that I am avoiding him in redraft leagues and targeting him in best ball leagues. I think he's going to be very touchdown dependent. And so you're going to have weeks that are fine. But he is no longer the high volume 150 target guy that was a fantasy gold mine. That's Justin Jefferson on this team now. So when you get around the goal line, he can still take people out of their shoes, lay him on the ground and catch a wide open touchdown. And I want those.

on a best ball league where I don't where I get you know I don't have to make the start sit decisions now now he's not being drafted like that former Adam feeling he's the wide receiver 30 right now yeah that's why I'm in I mean a seventh round wide receiver that has the potential to finish in the top 24 and score over 10 touchdowns I'm in on that because he's he's not your what he is not your wide receiver too if you're drafting him in the seventh round unless you you drafted like all running backs to start

He was the wide receiver seven through the first 12 weeks last year, which is kind of wild, but obviously on the back of touchdowns. Win total this year for Minnesota? If you haven't looked at it, do you want to take a guess? I have not looked at it. I would imagine it went up from last year, so I'll say nine and a half. Okay, Mike, do you want to take a shot? I was going to go with nine. It is nine. Then I'll take the over. You like them to win. With some confidence. With a half game confidence.

I want you to put the word confidence out of your mind as we move on here. Let's go deeper. The Chicago Bears, 6 and 11 last season. They went into the season with a preseason Vegas win total of seven and a half. Three and three and one score games. Matt Nagy, Sayonora, no longer a part of this organization. Matt Iber Flus, Luke Getsy.

It's a new regime for the 27th ranked in points per game. Chicago Bears, 24th in total yards, 23rd in pass attempts, 30th in passing yards, 29th in passing touchdowns. Anemic is a good word. Sure. Didn't throw their 10th touchdown pass until December. So anemic might not be strong enough. That's not good. And they went and they said, hey, we can make it worse.

We're going to stick with what we got. We're really not going to invest in free agency. We're going to say goodbye to Jimmy Graham and Alan Robinson. And look, their offensive line is ranked 31st heading into the season, which is down from where they were in the offseason last year. So if you wanted to say all the cards are stacked against a certain player, more than maybe anybody in the National Football League, that's the place that Justin Fields finds himself in.

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you compare that to Zach Wilson, right? Like two guys drafted last year and one team has done everything they can to build around them, help the offensive line, draft a top 10 wide receiver. The other has said, well, we're a year away and we're going to tear it down to the nubs and see a beacon. Maybe too, Jason. Maybe. But let's, you know, one of the nice things. We're a half decade away.

So there are a couple really nice takeaways here from the Bears' offense for fantasy football, though. Even though it is bad and I expect their win total to be bad, I saw like almost 90% of all the money on Chicago was on the under. That's because they're at six and a half right now. Yeah, in your bra.

I mean, they're just, they project to be a really bad team in all phases of the game. But for fantasy purposes, different discussion. You have Justin Fields, who his value comes from his legs. The first few games last year, he wasn't really running the ball much. They kind of switched that over. I mean, they had built this system for Andy Dalton last year and then kind of stuck with that when Fields got in. So you still have hope that Justin Fields can be a,

800-yard rushing quarterback. If he is, he's going to be fine for fantasy. He'll have 7, 8, 9 rushing touchdowns and throw a handful. You saw last year, Jalen Hertz, not a lot of weapons and not phenomenal play, still be good for fantasy because of that. So that's the hope. It's a little tough for me to love Justin Fields. And in single quarterback leagues, I'm not really drafting him in Superflex or best ball.

commonly grabbed him as a later round guy. But the player that I'm excited about, maybe is not the best in the world, but Colt Commet. Yeah. When you look over the last several years of the tight ends who are relevant for fantasy in an impactful way, it's because they're one of the top two targets on their team. And there's no chance in my view that he's not one of the top two targets. Jimmy Graham is gone. And he was already a big part of this. It's Darnell Mooney.

He was stealing all those touchdowns and $100 from you last year. Oh, my gosh, I got rich on Jimmy Graham. Yeah, so I do think Cole Commet is someone who is, he's talented. He was highly drafted for the year that he came out. And the concern with him is going, I agree with everything he said, 100%. And I like him as a sleeper tight end. But he couldn't find the end zone last year. And I don't know how, look, we just said they didn't throw 10 passing touchdowns of December.

So if he doesn't occasionally just jaunt into the painted area, every once in a while, you could have a, I see the PPR Colcomat. I see six for 48 in no touchdown Colcomat. And that would be the only downside is you have an offense that is going to score in the bottom 10. No, the touchdowns is if he ends the season with three touchdowns, he won't be great for fantasy. If you give.

the three Jimmy Graham touchdowns over to Cole Cometty and he ends up with six touchdowns, then you're going to be pretty happy. Having 93 targets last year, like he was essentially an 18% target share player for that to turn into zero receiving touchdowns is like that is a major anomaly statistically. So I'm in on Cole Comett. He's very interesting. What you didn't know, and I don't know if you guys had seen this, but the camera wasn't on him a lot of the time, but.

Jimmy Graham would trip him right around the goal line. Total grandpa trick. Yeah, right at the one. Your shoes tied. Except he actually, he actually tied his shoes together. He just tied his shoes for him? His shoes were tied together. They're nice and tight. Meanwhile, that couldn't happen to Jimmy Graham because they're Velcro. Right. Man, we are, it's a multi-year ruthless attack on Jimmy Grandpa. How much older than Jimmy Graham are we? Like, multiple years? You're calling Jimmy Grandma? No, I don't.

He actually used his real name. Oh, did he? How old is Jimmy Graham? He's 98. No. Nice. Okay, so we're not old. Give me the real age. He's 35. So we are three, two, and one years older. We'll just. Great, great. Hey, I want to talk about. That guy's so old. What a loser. He could still do our job at his age. Oh, for sure. I want to talk about Darnow Mooney for a second. Expectations.

My concern with Darnell Mooney is that I think you're going to get exactly what you got over the last eight games of last season, which is, look, he was on 172 target 95 reception pace during that time. 1,200 yards. Sounds great. But he had four games in that eight game span that were great. Awesome. And four where you would have regretted putting him out there on the field, 49, 83, 25, I guess you were okay, and then 43. So he had four games that you were thrilled with.

Four games that were okay. And that's probably what it's going to be like this year for Chicago. Putting Justin Fields in a position to succeed means using the legs that he has, which takes away from the receiving options. And then using David Montgomery, who is a high volume workhorse type of back. So I don't.

Mind Mooney at 32, but I'm nervous. And he was my my guy last year. So I love the talent. I'm just nervous about the consistency. Well, that's really what should be telling. I mean, our history of pre-p predicting talent a year too early on these my guys is pretty good. So, no, I'm, I'm fine with Mooney. I mean, if you're drafting him, you know, look, him and Adam Thielen are going in the seventh round, right? I would so much rather take Darnell Mooney.