Fantasy Football - AFC North Breakdown + Partying Thoughts - Podcast for 7/3

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Thursday, July 3rd. We are the fantasy footballers, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. The crew is back together. We are 10 Sundays from football. Oh, 10? Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. like real yeah from like the season like the first the first week of i think it was scott hanson that tweeted that out it's the first weekend of the red zone okay that's i mean if you're like hey 10 weeks till the hall of fame game no get out of here get out of here no he's just i'll be excited but don't i don't need to count out for that that's fair i mean we are still very close to uh meaningful football and um the hall of fame game is this month

We're in the month of the Hall of Fame. It was last week. Right. It was a heck of a game. Have it gone that long? But. Is it this month? Yeah. Yeah. It's in July? July 31st this year. What is what is happening with the world? Like my, my daughter. Yeah, they're going back to school in July. My daughter starts school in July. No, that's. what are we doing we're trying to psychologically destroy our children like you can't put them back in school in july when we were the youths it was so long ago but it was like you go to school around september day and then they like started scooching it forward for us all said we're going to school in august and now we're starting school in july like why what are we doing why even stop school just go every day year round

I like where your head's at. Ruin these kids. Oh, no, I was giving me more free time. Yeah. You go learn kids. Dad needs a nap. Yeah, I mean, technically speaking, we're under 10 weeks if you count NFL kickoff because Hansen's worried about his. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Red zone. So we're nine weeks from today exactly. from the kickoff of the NFL season. And so appropriately, we've got our July episodes. We're three a week in July and then five a week from August through December. And we're getting into the divisional breakdowns. They begin today with the AFC North. So we're going to get that kicked off here in just a moment. Our quick question of the day is from Matt. He says, do you focus on best player or best value when deciding a keeper?

For example, should I keep A-chan at 210 and gain a little bit of value, which Jason and I, we talked about A-chan being right on the edge of that first tier, kind of into the top of the second tier? But that's value, right? He's going to go ahead of 210. Or do I keep Rashi Rice in the seventh round, which is several rounds of value? I would say that the most common question we get for advice in the off-season is keeper questions like this. this guy in this round this guy in that round how do i look at the value proposition versus the player i want you know sometimes you just want a certain guy on your team in this situation what would you do and then how do you view that question in general usually i'm looking for a difference maker i'm looking for someone like if this is my keeper i want someone who's great and if i can get any kind of like sometimes i'll i'll prefer to keep jimar chase for a first

You know, it's like that's no value, but also I get Jamar Chase. It's very good value. Right, exactly. And I think, you know, the goal here is to get the best players. Sometimes a value can be good enough where I go, okay, this is still, this is still a good player and my better player is not Jamar Chase. So this is a legit question here of like, I know what I. I know my answer on this one's pretty easy. Yeah, in this case, I'd take Rashi Rice. Wow. Oh, wow. What just happened? I'm not really sure. I'm on the A-chan side. Wait, what? You're Mr. Anti-Rushy Rice. You hate Russian Rice? Yeah, I'm on the A-H-hand side. I mean, it doesn't make sense to me to be on the 8-hand side of this one. Because he's a mid-second round pick already. And the way I always look at it is who do I get in lieu of that pick? I mean, at 2-10, I could take...

Josh Jacobs. I could take Bucky Irving potentially. And then I'm not getting Rashi Rice in the seventh round or anything close to him value-wise. So to me, that one is fairly clear on my side, and I don't like Rashi-Rice as much as you guys. Putting names to the, like basically the two players, looking at who you would get in each round in lieu of. I mean, Khalil Shakir is who I'm going to get instead of Rashi-Rice if I don't take his value. I mean, always factoring, look, it's a keeper. So the names, the ADP names were at 210. Those guys are going to be up at the top of the second. That's true. So, but yeah, your opportunity cost, I think that's kind of the, the starting point of I like to put the names like you did for Shakir or so in the seventh. Or Ridley in the seventh. And in positional value matters as, as well. So it's not just a.

along with everything else in fantasy football. This is I'm not focusing on one thing. I have a home brew concoction of things that I'm factoring in. And sometimes, like we said at the top, sometimes I just want that guy because that dude's cool and I want him on my team. Yeah, I think there was one we got yesterday in the Footcast, Jason. It was Jamar Jason the first or Trey McBride in the fifth. Right. And we both went McBride on that one. Yeah. Because we felt like you, you know, you're getting a. Big time difference maker much later. You probably miss out on chase because I'll probably go one-on-one. But I wouldn't have blamed anybody to go chase there. So, yeah, it is a, it is a brew, like you said, Mike. It's nuanced. It does depend on your league. How many keepers, right? We know it's a keeper league. Is there more? You know, how many players are off the board when it comes to value? I mean, maybe A-chan here at 210.

is a tremendous value because there's four or five keepers. Well, and knowing your league's tendencies. So I know when we used to, we've changed kind of the rules of how we keep keep keepers in our league, but it used to be everyone kept all the running backs. So like if you're not keeping a running back, you're just, you're just, you're really screwed. It's like, it's not like, oh, well, A chance in the 210, I could get Josh Jacobs or I could get these other guys. If everyone kept the other running backs, then that's, that makes it more difficult. Um, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. There's a lot of ways to think about it. We're going to, we don't have any big time news, really. I mean, we had the Panthers talk about Chuba Hubbard getting all the carries. I like Chuba Hubbard. We've talked about Chuba Hubbard getting all the carries. But we'll jump right into our divisional breakdowns. Let's get divisional. Well, this is our first divisional breakdown show. It's an opportunity to kind of gather all the data from the offseason and give you a general overview of teams. Our expectations for them, offseason changes regarding players and rookies and coaching changes, how things could function in their offenses this year as it pertains to fantasy football. And then just some personal takes of where we think these teams are headed.

So we're starting with the AFC North last year. Baltimore won the division at 12 and 5. Pittsburgh, 10 and 7, but lost their final four games. Ravens won their final four. And then the Bengals were 9 and 8. They needed help in the final week, if you remember. They won their final five, but didn't get enough help. I believe, wasn't last year the year they lost to New England in week one? That sounds right. And they are such a slow starting team. And you know, you kind of, you see that bad loss and then it came to bear in the final week of the season. They didn't make the playoffs, but they won the final five and then the Browns. They lost their final six games. The final three games are started by DTR and Bailey's zap, zap, zap, zap under center. And here we are going into. We're trying to win. It's unique.

I think because we'll go through. We'll start with the Ravens. But first divisional breakdown show, first team we talk about is my Super Bowl champion. That's who I think will win the Super Bowl this year. So I'm extremely bullish on what the Ravens have put together and what I think they're going to do this year. They were 12 and 5 last year. They projected win total in Vegas. Last year was 11.5. So they beat that. And it's 11 and a half again. A friend of the show, Warren Sharp, has their strength of schedule for 2025 at 21. So we're not intimidated by most of the time when I'm looking at strength of schedule, there's a lot of turnover in the NFL. There's a lot of change on defense. I'm not putting too much emphasis on it. But if it's extreme, I might pay a little bit of attention. If you're projected with a top five easiest, top five best, that's kind of the way I look at it, Jason. I know about you. No, I agree.

the outside edges of the strength of schedule are what matters. And the nice thing is the way that specifically Warren Sharp does his is it's not just looking at like pure, well, last year's ranking versus this year's ranking. He factors in a lot of detailed work with future projections. Which is a much better way to go about it. Mike, last year they were the third ranked offense and points per game, number one in yards per game. Lamar was a league winner, Henry was a league winner. Your initial perspective on Baltimore, I'm sure it's fairly positive, but do you have any initial thoughts? There's not a lot to add there. If you project that the Baltimore Ravens are, I mean, like Andy, you say a Super Bowl, they're going to win the Super Bowl. I can't imagine anyone out there saying that they don't, they aren't one of the favorites for.

a Super Bowl run. That means they're going to win a bunch of games. That means Derek Henry will continue to be absolutely incredible. I think the question for me is just it's with Lamar of what do you do with a guy who threw 24 touchdowns two years ago and then through 41 this year and surpassed 4,000 pass yards for the first time in his career. are we anywhere close to 41 passes or do we get all the good running stuff, but now we're back down to like 31? Because that makes a really, really big difference. If you're going to talk about Detroit and the NFC as a team that should regress offensive efficiency-wise, it's not fair to not talk about Baltimore in the same way. Correct. Because they're one of only seven teams in the last decade to average 3.8 or more touchdowns per game. So they were...

They were definitely an outlier offense in terms of how effective they were. Number one in yards per game, like I said, number three in points per game, number one in rushing yards per game, a bin don't break defense. But they bring back basically everybody. Everything. This is what is the most impressive thing to me for the Baltimore Ravens is usually on these shows, what we are discussing is what has changed from last year. You know, it's easy to just. look at last year and say, well, that's what's going to happen this year. That's not what happens. No, it never does. Because there's so much turnover, offense, defense, special teams, coordinators, head coaches. There's so little change for the Baltimore Ravens. Personnel-wise, like they brought in D'Andre Hopkins. Okay, as, as, you know, like, okay, whatever. He's going to be their wide receiver three or four. They paid Rashad Bateman. Yeah, he is, I think, I think he's the most fun guy to talk about. They're from the Ravens. They're trying to find.

Year three with Todd Monkin. I mean, there's their offensive lines ranked the same year to year. Yeah, they gave another contract extension to Derek Henry even. So it's like you just expect more of the same this year. A Mark Andrews catchaway from maybe winning it last year. And, you know, I do not expect Lamar Jackson to be able to throw for 4,040. But he doesn't need to throw for 4,040 to be the number one quarterback again this year. If he were to throw for 3,835, he's probably still the number one quarterback. Top two questions then. You know, you talked about the regression potential and how it doesn't necessarily, he can have some variance and still be an impactful fantasy player. But the number two question to me is who's going to be second on this team in targets?

Zayflower's probably going to lead the team in targets. Yeah, he should. But you have some tight ends in the mix. And how do you handle them in the draft? Because Isaiah likely younger, more athletic at this point in his career, faster. But Mark Andrews still has an alarm that goes off when he's around the red zone that Lamar Jackson pays attention to. And rumors did not turn into them moving him. He's a Baltimore Raven. So you talk about running it back. How do you approach those guys in the draft? And then Mike, I guess to your point, the Bateman stuff, is he that second target or is it one of the tight ends? The most likely outcome is just sad. Was that a pun? Oh, okay. No, no, no. No, it's sadness of you don't have a true number two target. The tight ends, I feel like.

This is an area where I'm just okay watching it happen because I don't want to bet on Mark Andrews at this point. The experience was pretty rough. Yeah, I know he caught all those touchdowns, but do you guys realize he had 15 red zone targets that turned into 11 touchdowns? Like, that is bonkers off the chart efficiency. Mark Andrews is a great touchdown score historically, but. even that is playing above his pay grade. That's his career high, wasn't it, in touchdowns? It was. It was the first time he's been double digit since 2019, where he had 10. Yeah. So, you know, this is the guy who had, he's had his, his numbers have declined year after year in terms of effectiveness. But point being, he's still there. He's still going to be a part of that in the game plan. And we all, like, saw what happened in week one with Isaiah likely and we're like, holy crap.

dropped the entire fab because he took over for Mark Andrews. He did not. I know we're getting, you know, puff pieces of the coach saying I likely should be a pro bowler. But I don't know that I want to jump into those waters. When there's when there's two potential tight ends, it feels like I don't, you're going to be playing roulette of who actually gives you fantasy points. So I'm going to try. to find someone on a different team. If Andrews was a double digit pick, if he's in round 10, 11, 12, I'm happy to take that on. Sure. But he's a seventh rounder, and so to me, your touchdown are unhappy. The target totals were actually very close last year between the two players. I think it was 69 targets to 58 targets. And...

I do feel like somewhere somebody will be like, should I take them both and try to. Don't do that out. Goodness no. Please don't do that. What's insane about that is, you know, likely was 12 targets in week one. And, you know, we had those like, we had the back-to-back goose from Andrews. So that's, I mean, I expect something somewhat similar in terms of fantasy output. And this team's goal is, unfortunately, not our fantasy team's production. It is to win a Super Bowl, which they got close to doing. And so, you know, Bateman, 45 for 7, 56 and 9 last year. He's a best ball player to me. Yeah, or an emergency start in the right matchup, hoping for a home run. He's not someone I'm looking to draft in any of my redraft leagues. I don't want to do it. No, you don't see a world where he becomes the true number two.

I mean, he was the number two last year. He was second targets on the team, and it still was on a year where Lamar threw 4,040, he was mostly irrelevant for, you know, an every week player. You're not going to plug him in and be happy, but I agree he's someone you could always take a shot on. You know, as the season goes on, injuries happen. You need someone to play off the waiver wire. I think Bateman is that guy. Yeah, nine touchdowns on 45 receptions is, uh, A little Westbrook of him. Yeah. Well, yeah. Keene was like one catch, one touchdown per week. Yeah, yeah. But I think, I mean, I think those are the major questions is do you think there's going to be some aggression? Do you pass on players because of it? None of us are. I mean, I would say Henry is pretty, like people are not hyper aggressive on Henry in drafts. If anything, he's the guy that kind of gets.

kicked down a little bit. I mean, Mike, you took CMC three times over him. I mean, it's one of those things where I don't know why we do it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. They paid him again. He's going to score a million touchdowns. It's all about passes. And because everyone else in the world not named Derek Henry to hit that true ceiling, they have to catch, you know, 40 plus receptions. And Derek Henry's just not going to do that. But they were leading. or tied on 81% of his carries. That makes sense. And they will be again. It seems like that's what they will be again. They do. We will get a very fun openings matchup because you'll get the Sunday night game in week one against Buffalo. Oh, baby. Which NFL already makes me very excited. And then Cleveland, Detroit at home. So they're in in Buffalo and then at home for a couple games. Then Kansas City in week four. So it's going to be, I mean, Detroit, Kansas City, Buffalo in three of the first four weeks.

Those are some tough matchups. Are you guys good with the Flowers ADP? I don't think any of the three of us are in love with flowers. That's fine. Fifth round? Wider's here, 24. Somebody that's a guaranteed, like, I'd be happy to flex Flowers all year long. I mean. Yeah, if he's your fifth player, that's fine. I'm not in love with Flowers, but he is still a young guy with a great quarterback, talented. If he were to step up on target percentage, you know, 2%, He could be a weekly relevant starter. Oh, is he the last, 25% last year? Was he that high? Yeah. I mean, because you had a couple games. He missed some time, didn't he? No, he played every game. But the final week, he only played 20% of the snaps, which is, that's week 18, so we don't really count it. The one real clunker would be in week seven against Tampa Bay, where he only had one target, but he played really the whole game. I.

counted on him in championship week. I guess that's not his only clunker, but... That didn't work. But he was a little bit banged up. Did he miss a playoff game then? Yes. Okay, that's what I'm thinking about. I think he got hurt in the final week and then Kyle, are you there? Do we have Kyle today? Kyle, come in. I'll look it up. Over and out. Oh my goodness. Kyle, you're supposed to know this stuff. Is he coming in on a ham radio? Okay. Yeah, he didn't play in the playoffs. Yeah, any partying thoughts on Baltimore before we move on? Partying thoughts. Yeah. I think a Super Bowl party is the thoughts for the Ravens. Thank you, Jason. You're welcome. Really appreciate that. We'll take a break and come back with a party on team that is just there. I don't know what they're doing.

All right. I don't know, Jason, if you have partying thoughts on the Pittsburgh Steelers, but they were the number two team in the division last year, 10 and 7. Their projected win total last year was 8.5, but of course they surpassed it because they won six of their 10, one score games, and they, but they ended in a really depressing way for Steelers fans. And, you know, they lost their final four games. Then they lost in the wild card game. You know, the story of Tomlin and they haven't won a playoff game since 2016. So you're talking about, what, almost 10 years at this point? The projected win total this year, it's eight and a half again. And the division's tough. They were playing with Russell Wilson. And those final four games they lost. Do you remember their schedule? It was the Philadelphia Eagles, the Baltimore Ravens, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Cincinnati Bengals. I mean, it's, it's like, that's.

That's tough sledding. Obviously, they play in division two of those, but the other two were the two teams that got to the Super Bowl. So are you excusing that? I am. I'm saying like, I don't think it was... That's the Miami Dolphins can't win games against good teams. But those aren't just, Miami Dolphins is against above 500 teams. Teams just with a winning record. These were the Eagles and the Chiefs were literally the Super Bowl. Okay. They still didn't in the year well. Five straight losses. I, Aaron Rogers is a better quarterback than Russell Wilson. I would, I would agree. What? I mean, this isn't a pro Aaron Rogers take. This is an anti-Russell. Hold on. Cut that for sure and post it and make it all like a partying. Jason Jason. But second of all, commit to the bit, man. So far, so far we've got.

He completely dismissed their five-game losing streak and endorsed Aaron Rogers. So just to be clear, that's where we're at on the Steelers so far. What's happening? They were 20th and points per game last year, 23rd in yards per game. So when you look at the bar on offense, it's set very low. 28th and passing percentage. You've got an Arthur Smith issue because, you know, one of the things coming out this week, Aaron Rogers and Arthur Smith are going to talk about how to balance the offense, the running game versus the passing game. I mean, okay. It's not, I mean, the running game versus the passing game. It was it literally it's Arthur Smith versus Aaron Rogers. Like they're already in battle like. It's going to go great guys. Arthur wants to run the ball way more than everyone else in the league. And Aaron Rogers doesn't, he's not coming back to him the ball off. He's coming back to to chuck it. There's a, there's an aspect here. And look, it's hard not to give Mike Tomlin a tremendous amount of credit. He's at 18 seasons.

and 18 seasons of over 500. So if that's your bar, amazing. If it's winning a playoff game, it's been a while. It does feel like some of the moves this offseason, Ramsey, Rogers, the big changes at wide receiver, D.K. McCaff coming in, big contract, pickings out the door, now Johnny Smith. It does feel like, okay, it could work. You could be going all in and you could get a good year. You got to avoid injury. But it also feels a little bit like the sun's traded for Shaq, you know, and Kevin Durant. And you're spending the money and you're going all in, but you're kind of at a breaking point. Like nobody in Pittsburgh is going to be okay with this offseason coming back and re-rolling what got them five losses to end the year and losing another playoff game. So you had to do major things. They're shaking it up, man. There's very unstealersy. It does feel that way. And look, I liked the move for Ramsey personally.

Ramsey's older, but Minka's done to me. Like Minkas, he's, he wasn't the guy he was previously. He hasn't been an all pro for three years. He was beat a ton last year all over the field. So to me, I like that move. I think Aaron Rogers is a better quarterback. I like D.K. McCaff and fantasy drafts. No more nausea. We didn't even talk about the backfield. That's completely redone. Caleb Johnson. Jaylon Warren. Their second pick overall, as they didn't have a second rounder, they brought in Caleb Johnson to replace Najee Harris. So you're hoping for a lot more juice, a lot more breakaway plays, breakaway runs for the offense. And you can't stack the box as easily against Aaron Rogers as you could with Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. I feel like looking at this team and their ADPs, I know you guys like DK, but.

Loved, love, love, love. Oh, you love, D.K. Oh, I apologize. Yeah, you misspoke. I forgive you. The, well, I'm about as the opposite of that is possible. The only guy I really want to draft from this team is Caleb Johnson. And I don't know what, his ADP, we're quoting it right now, I assume this is from Sleeper of a late 8th. That won't happen. Right. Like that's, when we get to August, rookies will fly up. And the casuals come back and the fever is in there. Caleb's going to go up. So where does he land? I think that's my biggest question for the Steelers. On my team. Yeah. That's where he's going to land. Yes, we know. So love, love Aaron Rogers. We got any monologue shows coming up because loves Caleb Johnson. I need a, I need a full refresh on. Loves the Steelers. But he's really the only guy that I have true interest in. If the other guys have thrown my team, I got backed into it. Yeah, I mean.

This is a fantasy show. Yeah, I like D.K. Mackaf in the fifth round of his wide receiver 24, who is the clear number one target here for Aaron Rosh. I feel like he just downgraded from love to L. K. Mck. It is. You love D.K. Mekf. I like D.K. McF. And Mike dislikes D. K. Mekhaff. He has disappointed his ADP for like four straight years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And a move to Pittsburgh. with Arthur Smith and Aaron Rogers does not give me super confidence in. I'm fascinated to watch how it happens because D.K. McHaf, he could still be a dominant player out there, but this is not the, like Aaron Rogers is a general who demands that you be exactly where you are supposed to be, exactly when you are supposed to be there. And like Rogers likes a tactician. And that's not who D.K. is just a bully.