Top 10 Things to Remember for 2023, Quarterblechs! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 3/2

You know, winning teams that you project to have success might be the difference maker on the pick. Maybe you draft them differently. One of them was like the Mike Williams-Diante Johnson decision. Back-to-back in fantasy drafts. Well, Steelers, there wasn't a lot of confidence on that roster, rookie quarterback. Sure. Winning team in Los Angeles, even if it wasn't as good of a season as people expected in with the Chargers. Another one that this one would have been a little more difficult, but it. turned out this way. A.J. Brown and Michael Pittman were back to back in the drafts. Colts had a disastrous year. A.J. Brown and the Eagles went to the Super Bowl. And then another one, back to back. At this point, it seems ludicrous. But Amon Rae St. Brown and Brandon Cooks. Like Houston being the bottom dwelling team that didn't project to have a bunch of wins. Maybe you didn't think that way about Detroit. It would have depended. You knew that they had some potential coming into this year. That decision was, those players were interchangeable for a lot of people in draft.

As you're going into 2023, as you're looking at wide receivers, just recognize the fact that 75% of the top wide receivers for two consecutive years have been on teams projected to make the playoffs. And maybe you take some Vegas data and you look at the win totals. Maybe that's a guide for you on making that decision between them. But I thought it was very interesting to discover that correlation the past couple of years. I love it. Okay. Jason loves it. Number six. I can't speak until the announcer says my number. Yeah. Number six. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mike Wright. And for a lot of my life, I have been a sizist. Okay. When it comes to fantasy wide receivers, I apologize because that is incorrect. Uh, we look. Well, you're a man with a big head. So you like a big.

Yes. Big wide receiver? Yeah, especially wide receivers with a noggin that can compare it to the size of mine, which is very, very few. But the NFL is changing. Yes, back in the day, back when we were kids, big wide receivers. That's where everything was. It was a different NFL game, though. You needed to have your gigantic wide receivers on the outside. They go up. They make the contested catch. But things are shifting. Tell me more. In the NFL draft, the average first round wide receiver in the NFL from the years 2000 to 2013, the average height was 6.2.5 and weighed about 216 pounds. Since 2014 through current, that has dropped all the way. The average has dropped down to 6.1.202. Average for day two wide receivers in the NFL.

The first time period from 2000, 2013, 6-2 to 11. NFL still wanted big players. And now in modern day, 2014-22, 6-1, 204. For an average to drop a full-inch in size and 7 pounds, and for the first round, 14 pounds, that lets you know the NFL is changing things. Last year, the top 10 wide receivers. Top 10, only three of them were over 200 pounds listed. Over 200 pounds. You had Devante Adams, AJ Brown, and Amari Cooper. The rest of the guys, they're smaller because, again, the way that the NFL is working, the way that the passing game is working, the way that the guys are moving around the position, the way that the slot wide receiver is utilized now. Slot wide receiver used to be a pretty dirty word in the NFL. Now you're like, now you can have offenses that run. It happens. Like sometimes Amman Raw types take over, and they're the number one wide receiver for your team.

So I want people to remember, like even we went into our dynasty pass where in the production profile area, where you take a look at the way that guys are playing in the NFL currently and they're producing, go back and look at their size in college, what they listed at. That average, we took a look and we refreshed it. We dropped it down. We dropped it down up. about an inch and 10 pounds. And because these guys are actually coming through, no longer is it looking at the incoming draft class. And you're like, Quentin Johnston, he's, he is it. He's the size speed freak. He's got to be the guy. Like, well, Jackson Smith and Jigba is over there much smaller than Quentin. And Jordan Addison, tiny guy. He's coming in, because it's like, look, look at like Duvante Adams. Thin.

It didn't matter. The BMI, all that entire offseason, talking about the BMI of Devante Smith. Devonte Smith. Oh, did I say it wrong? You said Adams. Oh, oh, sorry, Devante Smith. Talking about how thick or slim Devante Smith is, that talk is gone. That dude's elite. Yeah. I wonder, too, if this is a product. And Kyle, I don't know if you have any thoughts on this. You might watch more college football than we do. But I wonder how much of that has come out of college systems like where there used to be. I feel like there used to be, okay, here's a pro-style system, here's not a pro-style system. I feel like everything is not a pro-style system or formerly NFL pro-style system anymore. College is certainly influencing the way that the NFL plays. So then smaller players are probably getting more opportunities to function in these kind of high-flying collegiate systems. I think you're seeing.

smaller receivers excel at the next level and they say, hey, I'm not discounted because I'm 59 or 510. Like they can make it in the NFL. Yeah, Devante Smith is going to get opportunities for a bunch of small guys for the next 10 years because of his success. Yeah, his success is part of why I am fine. being kind of all in on Jordan Addison because Jordan Addison would usually be someone that I'd be like, man, I'd like him, but he's not, he's not, he's not the size that I usually go for. Chris Olava, I love this tape. Not usually the size over, you know, the last decade that I've gone for. You're right, Mike. It's changing in the NFL. We need to adapt. We need to change. It's still, there's still a limit.

You're not having itty-bitty baby guys come in here at 160 pounds and dominate, but it has. Don't draft Tavon Austin in the first round. Exactly. But it has dropped a little bit and we're okay now with some of these sub-200-pound wide receivers. And I would say especially ones that have proven themselves to the degree that some of these players have like Devante Smith, who won the Heisman. Number five. I call this one, remember the remembrances. Ah, as you would. He eloquence. And perfect. Look, this is a doubling down of two tips that I had on last year's things to remember. Those tips. We're going to reflect on the remembrances. On the remembrances because they were home runs. Not saying that to toot my own horn. I'm saying it because I didn't follow my own advice enough this year. It's hard not to.

It was one of those things where it was like, I would bring this up on the show. Oh, yeah. After this episode, you'd be like, oh, yeah, remember this? Yes. But I didn't trust it enough. So the two things that I want to just remember quickly in summation. One was hurt don't help, which is guys that are hurt at the beginning of the season who have inter-training camp injured, haven't gotten around. They, you know, you're at your draft and you think there's an injury dip. Oh, they'll be ready by week one or they're going to be here soon. Don't buy into it. It doesn't work. There are a few examples where it works, but the data, this was last year's data that was really good that made me say, hey, I got to remember this. Here's the data this year. I'm just going to read you a list of players. This is the players we tracked who were.

hurt early on in the season and draft season. James Robinson, Cam Acres, Daryl Henderson, J.K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards, Elijah Mitchell, Miles, Kenneth Walker, Brian Robinson, Rodgers, Najee Harris, Mike Evans, Russell Gage, Chris Godwin, Michael Gallup, Jameson, Sterling Shepard, Van Jefferson, Christian Watson, Cadarie Stony, Michael Thomas, KJ Hamler, Darren Waller, Robert Tunyon, Irv Smith Jr, and Logis Thomas. There's a ton of guys, right? That's a big list. Here's the guys that outperform their ADP. Miles Sanders. Kenneth Walker, Chris Godwin, Christian Watson. And honestly, Christian Watson was a bad pick because he didn't do it until the very end of the season because he was injured. I'm taking my... All those other names you mentioned, just to make it clear, underperform their ADP. Exactly. They all basically were not a great draft pick. And everything we do in fantasy football is just a bet where we're trying to win...

most of the time. And this is a really high odds bet where you're saying if the guy is already injured, maybe look to a guy that's healthy. Maybe he'll perform better. It can be tempting. And what's wild about it is that their ADPs for many of these players were already reduced. Exactly. There's, there's a reason that J.K. Dobbins was all the way down and running back 22. It's because you were getting a great deal because he was injured. Well, he finished his running back 48. So it wasn't as good a deal. So you're right. And then the other one was quarter blacks. Quarter, all these middling quarterbacks that change teams that happens every single year that you think and the narratives are going to be like, oh, they're going to fix. They're going to fix the situation. I mean, it's hard to even imagine and remember, but Carson Wins was a hero. He's going to tear him a Clarence finally got a quarterback. It's Carson Wins. Hero to some.

Matt Ryan didn't fix any to all. Baker Mayfield didn't fix anything. Carson Winst didn't fix anything. Marks Mariotta didn't fix anything. Even Russell Wilson didn't fix anything. Made it worse. Well, yeah, he broke some things. So in 2022, when Derek Carr goes somewhere. I was going to say that's the brutal one. Carr and Garapolo are both players that you're going to have to decide if they're in the Matt Ryan, Baker, Mayfield, Carson wins Marcus Marriota tier. To me, they 100% are. It's not that they are bad quarterbacks. It's that they are not going to heal a franchise and take a player who's been mediocre and turn them into a superstar. That's the sentence right there. Derek Carr isn't going to make them into superstars. Jimmy Garoppolo isn't. Daniel Jones. Wait, but what about Gary Wilson?

Well, so my notes here, my notes here say even Aaron Rogers isn't going to fix anything. Oh, boy. Asterix, unless he's replacing Zach Wilson. Okay. If the barometer is Zach Wilson, yeah, you can fix some stuff. Other than that, quarter blocks don't fix anything. Okay. Moving on. Number four. All right, I'll call this one ending and trending. Oh. Because look, here's a good thing to remember. The end of season rankings for players do not tell the whole story on the season. You need to keep a list of players who maybe ended the season with momentum in either direction. And it really tells a different story than their end of season rankings. And I have some numbers and some names on both sides of the equation. Here were some players that ended.

much more positive than their end of season ranking. Nizhi Harris ended as the RB 14 was the RB4 over the last eight weeks. I'm just looking for first half, back half. Cam Acres, RB 33 on the year, the RB7 over the back half. Keenan Allen, wide receiver 41. The wide receiver four over the last eight games likely to stay in Los Angeles. Chris Godwin went from the wide receiver 20 to the wide receiver 10 over the last eight. Jerry Judy, I wanted to put him in here. Jerry Judy from the wide receiver 21 on the year was the wide receiver 11 over the last eight games. Don't sleep on Jerry Judy. Dawson Knox completely forgotten over the first half of the year. Surprisingly, the tight end six over the last eight games, so it was still involved in the offense, even if you seem like a complete.

waste all last year. So in general, you're saying Najee, Cam Acres, Keenan Allen, Chris Godwin, Jerry Judy Dawson Knox, these guys are people to look at as probably being better than where their average draft position will be this coming season. It's very likely that that will happen. And maybe players like Najee who are so young, you know, people might still be all about them. He's going to be fascinating. But Keenan Allen, he's an older player. Cam Acres. Oh my gosh, what we've been through with Cam Acres. Jerry Judy, are we tired? At this point, Chris Godwin, who's the quarterback? There are some players, though, that ended very strong. Godwin coming off the injury, pay attention. And then on the flip side, I'm going to give you five names that were kind of disasters over the last eight weeks, but their fantasy finishes looked great. Aaron Jones, Joe Mixon, Leonard Fournette, Christian Kirk, Gabe Davis. Aaron Jones was the running back 24 over the last eight. Joe Mixon, the RB 34, Fournette, the RB 35. Christian Kirk was the wide receiver.

35 over the last eight. That one will be difficult to determine what to do going into next year. And then Gabe Davis, the wide receiver, 49 over the last eight weeks. That's not good. And we just had, I think it was Billy Bean, right, coming out and saying he's fully confident in Gabe Davis. We'll see how that confidence carries into the free agency and NFL draft. But those are players that will probably be drafted maybe higher than they deserve. Because of the name value and the value they provided your team in the first half of the year, not the second half of the year. Number three. The late round quarterback strategy is changing. The landscape of getting the super sweet quarterback. What? I know at the end, which it's hard to even utter those words because back when our show started, it was a.

a truly difference making strategy to let everyone else be a schmuck and draft use early draft capital on a on a quarterback knowing that you can just keep waiting keep waiting because there's going to be quarterbacks at the end of the draft who are better than those early round guys and just an early round quarterback was not actually safe even though it it seemed like they should be the data said that they were not now last year look streaming the quarterback position, it can still work. I mean, you still have the crazy number of you end up with the 40 plus quarterbacks who hit at least one QB one week on the season. But it's getting harder, especially getting harder to find that streamer that's going to turn into a starting quarterback that you just set and forget last year. You had Justin Fields, and it took quite some time for the Chicago Bears to unlock him. And then the other one who you can even...

sort of talk about was Daniel Jones and he wasn't a he was not a difference making a quarterback for your team he just he was okay like I said when we started it was completely the opposite advice early round quarterbacks hurt you but now the community of fantasy football players as a whole we're smarter we are getting absolutely better at this game in the past three years The difference-making quarterbacks. By that, I mean, you know, the guys who finish on the top four who truly have a points per game advantage over the rest of them and QB-5 through 12. It's just a clump where QB-11 is not that much worse than QB-6. But the true difference makers in the past three years, they have all been drafted by round eight. Where...

In the past, you could get a running quarterback like Lamar Jackson and the double-digit rounds, a running quarterback like Josh Allen and the double-digit rounds back before the breakout. So this is something that we need to adjust. You're not registering middle-round quarterback.com, are you? Oh, that's a nice. That's a pretty good idea. Someone get on that? Someone get on that? Middle-round quarterback. And for me, like, I've lived and died by that strategy for so long of like that. That's how I played fantasy football. And even I'm looking at the data and I'm like, I need to adjust. I need to be willing to take that quarterback in the fifth round who I think has the upside. Like, you know, I think like Kyler and or so was going to round five before he got hurt, he was pretty good for fantasy football. And these guys, they've been identified by the community and especially the guys that run. The cheat code is no longer a hidden fatality.

that you have to find your friend at the ball to tell it. Everybody just knows running quarterbacks produce. So this is more of a keeping your options open where you would have formally had that door shut. Yes, absolutely. Back in the day, round five, it was no way. I'm not taking a quarterback here because it won't make a difference to my team. But the top quarterbacks in the last three years by round eight. They're already gone. And Fochlam, we're going to need to adjust. We're going to need to be prepared. I'm watching these drafts that I'm in right. I'm in two drafts right now. Both drafts. You have Hertz, Josh Allen, Mahomes, gone in round two. Wow. Round two. I'm on one draft. Pick 20. They're all three gone already. So the, the, the.

consensus is going to change. Strategy is going to need to change, and we're going to need to adapt and make sure we know if that's the right place to pick them or not. Yeah, it's a really difficult thing because you think of those three names specifically, and you remember playing fantasy last year, and when you, if you didn't have them, and you matched up against them. Trouble. That feeling of trying to pick the right week and the right guy was a trepidacious thing. You had to overcome it with a lot. from your other positions if you couldn't find that perfect week. So it is something that we'll continue examining. You know, I didn't hear Mike say early round quarterback.com. No. I think it's just a keeping awareness. I think in home leagues, casual leagues, you're still going to see the benefits of later round quarterback come to the forefront, stacking up your running backs, but not believing that the rest of the world is not in on the secret anymore. Right.

Number two. I call this one, lost players aren't found. Okay, these guys. I'm very intrigued. We've known this a little bit inherently for years, but we always can convince ourselves that the situation was the problem and it wasn't the player. Maybe this time. Maybe this time it'll work. I'm talking about players who lost a step. Players who just had a down year and later in their career. If a player is later into a career and he has a down year, It ain't coming back. I'm just telling you right now it's not coming back. It almost feels like you're saying the down year is something we need to say he did lose a step. Yes, we need to just, oh, it's a down year. Exactly. We need to just say, yeah, he's lost it. That's fine.

Maybe I'm wrong, but again, it's about taking these bets. And the odds are that he's never going to come back to what he was in the past. And so I'm going to bet on a young guy breaking out over an old guy coming back. The comeback player of the year is almost always won by a guy coming back from an injury. Sequin Barclay was a young player who came back from... Not from coming back into youth. Right. Getting younger. I found the fountain everybody. He got injured as a young player and then had a down year as a young player and was back. That makes sense. But guys like Alan Robinson, Cortland Sutton, Darren Waller. They're all further along in their careers. And in 2021, they had a down year. But their situations all seem like they were vastly improved. Oh, my quarterback's better. My team is better. My situation is better. And so I'm.

I'm going to be back into these guys because they were studs. And we give reasons why they were bad. It wasn't their fault. And so we expect them to bounce back, but none of them did in that case. And they usually don't. They're worse than their previous years. And historically speaking, it's very rare for a player to have a bounce back year after losing a step. So in 2022, you had Adam Thielen. Oh, yeah. Look, he's done. Oh, man. All of these players who lost something but are still playing, you're going to have positive news about them. I promise you. I promise. He's going to look like his youthful self. Have you seen Alan Robinson in camp? Best shape of his life. You see Alan Robinson in camp? He looks mighty fine. Oh, I'm sure he's going to be great.

I didn't pay him so much money. You tricked me. Adam Thielen is going to be tearing it up in camp, making these, you know, defenders look silly. The Aaron Rogers one is. Yeah, that's where I'm at. That's going to be. And for you to make that decision, I think it's going to be very impactful if the probabilities play out because that's just going to. be too easy for players to buy into the hopes and dreams of Aaron Rogers. The real tough ones are going to be Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, Cortland, Sutton. The easy ones will be the Jarvis Landry and the Adam Thielen. But when I look at this, I'm going to say that I'm going to bet against Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, Cortland Sutton coming back just because their team changes or their head coach changes. And we want to excuse what we saw on the field from these players playing football.

Aaron Rogers had a chance. Okay, he lost Devante Adams and now he's going to get. No, he could have played better. He didn't. Russ could have played better. He didn't. I'm going to bet that they don't come back. It's like they need letters from the parent to turn into the teacher as to why they got the bad grade. Right. We're all like trying to write the letter for him saying, no, no, no, no, no. He'll be better on the next test. But they're rarely better on the next test. Aaron Rogers' first ballot Hall of Famer. He's awesome. Russell Wilson, I think, should be in the Hall of Fame. I think he's been awesome in his career. I'm betting against these players who sucked. We're supposed to get some darkness retreat information here soon. Yeah, yeah, very excited. Vision coming back, and we're supposed to get a decision. So I do see a couple names you threw in there that scare me. Deontay Johnson had a drop, right, and targets per route run.

That was significant, which can be one of the signs of what you're talking about, Michael Gallup as well. Is Deonté Johnson in that category for you? Well, Deonté Johnson's never been great. No. Wow. This guy. Look, it's just on brand. Deontay Johnson's a very good wide receiver. This guy. Deontay Johnson. Why go Deonte Johnson when you can go Kyle Trask. That's what I've always said. Thank you. No, Deontze Johnson, I don't think counts. Deontze Johnson is 26 years old. To me, he's not at the end of his career where you're going to have problems, you know, rebounding. We decided against their better judgment, of course, as is always the case. We leave our better judgment out of it. That Kyle was going to take the number one thing to remember this year. So I'm going to tee you up. Number one. See, I teed you up. Well done.

I'm calling this one, get your tight ends checked out early. Whoa. Oh, man. Like hit the doctor? Yeah. Let me ask you gentlemen a question. You guys are older. Okay. Talk to Mike. Yeah. There's some things that you guys wanted to get checked out as you hit your 40s. There's some rule. Yeah. The doctor asked some different questions. My tight end. Yeah. Yes. But the things you wish you would have known earlier on. And Mike brought this up, and he brings it up on the show, that tight-ins are the hardest to predict. It's really hard to figure out what are the sticky stats? Do they come out of nowhere? Or do you find a season like Robert Tunian, where you get, you know, 10 touchdowns, like just out of nowhere? So are there sticky stats for tight-ins that we can look at earlier on? Some signs and signals that may clue us in on the next great tight-in? Yeah, some tight-in symptoms is what we're looking at here. So...

So we actually, I don't know if you remember this on the show a couple years ago, we pointed out a couple of tight ends that we thought could make the jump. George Kittle was one of those that we talked about in 2018 and then he made the jump. Mark Andrews was another player. And the key is finding the sticky stats that really matter for those tight ends and can we use them moving forward? And there's two that I've found for tight ends. Okay, I'm ready. It's can they get yards after the catch and what is their yards per outrun? For tight ends,

It's nice to see their snap counts, but they're also blocking a ton. So the routes are really what's more important. And we want tight ends that can get down the field and that can have big plays. We don't want Jack Doyle. Dude's out of the league, right? Yeah, yeah, baby hands. We don't want Austin Hooper that runs a five-yard drag and just falls over. We're looking for tight-ins that can get down the field. So here's what I did. I looked at every titan over the last decade and said, what do they do in their first two years? Are there any signs in their first two years that they could be great?