AFC South + Gordon Drama, Breaking News

to take a late. I know you're talking to Andy. I'm not talking to the foreman truth. Because I believe Foreman is a great running back and the ability to take over the backfield I think exists. The problem is he's in the ninth round right now. Like that's not that late. I feel like Deonta Foreman, who last year had negative seven rushing yards coming off of this injury as a backup, he shouldn't. I like, like I want to take the shot the same way with Balaj, Belage sitting in the 13th round. Right.

even before the news of him being, you know, they should be going around the same place. So I'm not sure why Foreman's draft cost is so high right now. It's because of the meh feeling of Lamar Miller. And I do think that the team would love to hand the job off or part of the job off to somebody more that they'd view as more explosive and dynamic than Lamar Miller. The problem is we don't know if Foreman can do it coming off the injury. He sure looked like he was going to before. We got to move on.

The Colts at 10 and 6th. The Colts start on the road this year. A couple games. Tough one to start the season against the Chargers. Then they go to Tennessee, another good defense. That'll be an interesting. We might be buying low on some Colts after a couple of weeks. Then they come back home against Atlanta and Oakland looking sunny. That looks a lot better. Looking sunny for those. But look, this is a great...

Passing offense. Sixth in football, 278 a game. It's also an offense that has an interesting amount of vacated targets, 23% gone. A lot of that has to do with just injuries and turnover at the wide receiver position outside of T.Y. Hilton. The wide receiver court, Hilton, Funches, Paris Campbell, the ever-present Dionne, off-season hype train of irrelevance. I think the GM, Ballard, there, just really.

wants to be right that he was good. Like it's going to be irrelevant. He knows it's going to be irrelevant. But he's like, yeah, see, see, he's good. I drafted well. Right now. Does it, go ahead. Does the name Dion Kane being so close to Dean Kane, right? Former Superman. Does that have any impact on the way that people think about it? It certainly makes him more handsome. I mean, you know, Dean Kane, he up that bar. You, you carry that name.

Dean Kane was sending the bar for all of us in the mid-90s. I remember, still remember when Dean Kane stepped into the Monday night football booth for a game and was like a guess. How did I miss this? This was at the peak of Superman with, uh,

With Terry Hatcher. With Terry Hatcher and Dean Kane. He stepped in. They interviewed Dean Kane. That show was fabulous. And I thought how cool that Superman was in the booth. Oh, he could see the field so well. Oh, he really could. I mean, it's unbelievable. For review, we go to Dean Kane. The kryptonite here is that Dean Dion Kane appears to be approximately eighth in the kind of pecking order.

Hilton, Funches Campbell, Ebron Doyle, Heinz, at a minimum above Kane. And so this team. And maybe Moe Allie Cox, this team is going to be great. So good. I mean, this is the team that I believe is, you know, right now I've got them as my Super Bowl champions. I think now you've gone to champion. Yeah, no. That's not just appearance. It was, it was, you thought, you know, they get there. Now they're, you've given them the title. Look, they have a great.

underrated head coach in Frank Reich. He is he's fantastic. The only question at all is Andrew Luck and his health. Right now he's out with the calf injury and I know they're taking it slow and easy because they saw what happened to Kevin Durant and they don't want to rush him back. But.

This is the same calf injury that held them out of OTAs like a month and a half ago. That's not normal even for a heavy calf strain to be this long of a process. So I'm not worried about it. I just said I think they're going to be great when the Super Bowl. But keep an eye on it. If another month from now he's dealing with a calf issue, that's weird. Worth bringing up, I would contend that their defense would be the one thing that could get in the way of that Super Bowl title. They were good last year. Yeah, they were all right.

They're all right. To me, that's what's got to step up. Keep protecting Andrew Luck. What a transformation between two years for this team, not just with the offensive line. With Brian Kelly and Quentin Nelson, things. And I would say, improved rapidly. And I would say Frank Wright, because he's utilizing Andrew Luck in the short passing, get the ball out quicker. You know, beforehand with Pagano, it was, it was.

hold the ball and launch downfield every time. And so I think some of the play calling is protected Andrew Luck, made him a better, safer option. Hilton is going at 302 right now. Mack at 303, Luck at 502, Ebron at 611. Do you believe that, one, this will be a top five offense, and two, whether Andrew Luck can repeat the 39 touchdowns? I believe yes on both.

I don't necessarily have him down for 39, but can he? Yes. I mean, Andrew Luck has already finished as the number one quarterback in football before. He was drafted to do it. He has the most weapons he's ever had. I mean, he, last year, his wide receiver two. I know, I know. You guys have done.

That was the end of the year, too. He was a free agent edition because they had run out of people. They had nobody. But now, I mean, you look at the weapons. And not only do you have Paris Campbell as this electric speed guy who can get it afterwards. You've got a big target in Devin Funches that they brought in. He's great at being big. And now they have.

They have four big targets. Well, he's tiny. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's, he's not the big man on the team. Sure. Funch is a little tiny guy because Gigantor, Moe-A-Cocx. How much time am I allowed to spend talking about Moe Alley Cox? 20 minutes. Yes. Well, we're going to start a separate podcast. Sure. It's called the Gigantor podcast. Let me ask this. The podcast is over eight feet tall. You guys are big fans of T.Y. Hilton's. Yes, I love the ADP. I was going to say when you said T. Yilton three.

What a 302 or whatever? Yes, please. If you think I'm going to pay for Tyreek Hill, pay up for Tyree Kill where I can get Hilton at 302, you're crazy. But should there be worry here, the fact that if Funches and if Doyle's back and Ebron's there and Paris Campbell is there, T.Y. Hilton has been the only guy in town for long stretches of most of his seasons for Indianapolis. Shouldn't those people?

cause T.Y. Hilton to not have the same market share. Not at all. Because T.Y. Hilton's fantasy value has never hinged upon touchdown efficiency effectiveness. He's always been a 6-7 touchdown guy at most. He's a yardage guy. I don't think those guys will have any effect on T.Y. Hilton being a go-to yardage accumulator in the offense. I don't bank on any. Look, T.Y. Hilton to me is a guaranteed, if he's healthy, 1,400, 1400-yard guy.

And then you just roll the dice with the touchdowns in Andrew Luck. That's how I view it. I don't think this offense is any different from a touchdown threat standpoint. He's going to throw it to Ebron. He's going to throw it to Doyle. He's going to throw it to Doyle. He's going to throw it to Moly Cox. But yardage-wise, Mike, do you have concerns? No, I don't because Andrew Luck is a 4,500-yard quarterback in the mid-30s of touchdowns with the ceiling of being even higher. So, no, I think that T. Yilton is absolutely locked.

locked in and he's one of my he's one of my favorite draft values at the wide receiver position would you be comfortable with him as let's say you go i mean 302 if i go r b rb exactly see are you happy with him as your one i would be yeah okay all right um let's talk about got to talk about marlin mack yeah let's talk about marlin mack and the running backs let's talk about marlin mack and naeem hines mac you know what is his ceiling how many carries do you expect

And then Heinz last year had the 10th most targets for a rookie running back in NFL history with 81 targets, 29 first down receptions. It's interesting, though, I did see a little weakness in Naim Hines' statistical output that I noticed this morning. I like the fact that he's going to be targeted. But when you looked at like yards after the catch from the running back position, it was not great. It was not good. Somebody, you know, who's number one in football is Melvin Gordon.

Melvin Gordon was better than Austin Echler and better than everybody else in the NFL. A yards after the catch of the running back position. Naim Hines was near the bottom. And Hines was, I mean, he was a product of opportunity. We talked about how the wide receivers were gone. Ooh, now you're talking about DeVoreas Allen type stuff. And then Marlon Mack also missed a good amount of the season. So, I mean, Heinz, I think he will still be used, but I don't expect anywhere near the target share, especially with the addition of Paris Campbell where you.

Campbell excels at getting the ball at the line of scrimmage and making something happen. For Marlon Mack, after he returned from the injury, he was averaging 17 carries, 80 yards, and a full touchdown per game. But he was also only putting up one and a half receptions per game because Heinz was the past catching running back. Where that's troublesome for me is Mac will have to maintain his touchdown pace.

in my opinion, to fully pay off of what his draft price is right now. So, Jay, do you, I mean, with all of your huffing and puffing and getting hot and bothered about the Colts offense, do you think Matt can maintain that type of a touchdown production? He's not going to maintain a touchdown game. I don't have him as a 16 touchdown guy, but I do think he maintains a great total.

touchdown count on the season because he is their clear guy. If you look back at the season, we have to take context of how the Colts got off to such a terrible start. They were losing games. Andrew Luck was throwing way above his normal, even his normal high volume count. Then Mack comes back. They start running the ball. They've got a good offensive line. Andrew Luck goes to a lower than his average on a 16-game pace.

passing attempts, they win nonstop on the back of Marlon Mack. And then they have all the extra picks in the world in the draft. They don't go after a running back. They have the most cap space in the league. They don't sign a running back. And why? Because they have their running back. It's Marlon Mack. If he is healthy, I truly believe Marlon Mac is a great value. Like...

I know we've talked about the fourth round running backs, Carry on Johnson, and that's pretty much it, but to me, I throw Marlon Mack in there as a good value in the fourth round. Do I wish that he caught more passes? Yes, but he's not one of those players that just doesn't catch passes. That's going to end the year with 12 receptions. He could end the year with 30, 35 receptions, and he's still, he's not game scripted out, out, although his...

Production comes when they win games far more. But I have the Colts winning a lot of games. Sure. So if you're telling me, I've got a guy who, once he was back from injury, his third game on, was on pace for 277 carries. There's not a lot of guys in the league that have that. All right. We do need to get into the Titans and the rest of this division. But first, Eric Ebron is double-digit touchdowns for Eric Ebron still on the table with...

the passing game additions. No, not at all to me. I think Eric Ebron will be one of the most disappointing picks of this year's draft. The natural regression, the tight ends who have put up a season of 10 or more touchdown since the year 2000, it's 13 players, and I'm not going to go through all of them, but the vast majority of the Hall of Fame level players, tight ends that followed up that season with at least seven touchdowns the next year.

Only five players, and that's Gronk, Graham, Antonio Gates, Vernon Davis, and Tony Gonzalez. And we were talking about, do all the new weapons there hurt T.Y Hilton? Andy brought up the fact that he's not a touchdown-based guy, so he's going to get his yards. Whereas Eric Ebron was a touchdown-based guy, if Devin Funches soaks up a couple, Malawi Cox soaks up a couple, you've got Jack Doyle back.

Yeah, I mean, he's going to take a hit at touchdown. And here's one more crazy Ebron efficiency stat. Eric Ebron had 12 red zone receptions. Eric Ebron had 11 redstone touchdowns. So he caught the ball 12 times inside the 20 and 11 of those were touchdowns. You know what? He did it all for one man and that would be Jason. Thank you, Ebron. He had a magical season for one reason and that would be the vote of confidence.