Fantasy Football - AFC South Breakdown + Pessimistic Hope - Podcast for 7/8

All right, we will move on, talk about the Indianapolis Colts. It was a bumpy eight and nine season, to put it mildly, all eight of their wins were one score games. It's an impressive eight and nine season to me. And that makes so much sense. I'm like, how did they get to eight wins? I honestly felt the exact same way. Doesn't it seem like they won four or five games last year? Yes. Yeah, eight, no, eight. Yeah, they did not win four or five games for fantasy players. That was one of the challenges. The projected win total was eight and a half. This year at seven and a half. Feels like it a very crucial maker break type of year for at least Steichen and Anthony Richardson. If he, you know, one shot to kind of stay a starter or earn a starting job, middle of the pack and points per game last year.

tremendously bad on defense. So they said goodbye to Gus Bradley. Shocker. You love Gus Bradley. As a head coach, Mike. Oh, yes, of course. As a head coach. That guy, that was the problem in. He needed more responsibility. Yeah, I mean, sometimes more is less, right? But they bring in Anirumo from Cincinnati, who's, he had ward out his defensive welcome, whose team was awful on defense, but, you know, personnel problems for both of these teams. It's going to be, yeah, there's a number of questions, I think, around Indianapolis. Quarterback is going to be one of the biggest ones. And, you know, what is that really mean to us when it comes to other fantasy players being relevant? We have a prolific rookie tight end, a first round, top half, Tyler Warren selection. And then we've got, you know, Pittman and Downs. Oh, man, Josh Downs. And then you've got to say, hey, do you care if it's Daniel Jones? Do you care if it's Anthony Richardson?

Um, that's, you're going to get one of those guys. Like there, there isn't a third door to open where Joe Montana walks out. Monty Hall's not offering you a, the third door. No, you don't even have Joe Flacco waiting in the wings like they did last year. So, um, you know, to me, those are some of the bigger questions about this team. Who do you think wins the job? Uh, the injury to Anthony Richardson currently, I, we have to wait because they're like, yeah, I think he'll be ready by training camp. Does that mean the first day of training camp? Does that mean a like five days in where Daniel Jones is already building up a rapport and they're already focused on that? Now you have to steal the job? Yeah, we'll know ahead of time. And really making that call right now feels foolish the more that you read from beatwriters because people around the area are.

It seems like every week they're very confident that the exact opposite guy is going to be the starter. I've seen a lot more Daniel Jones. I have seen more Daniel Jones. But then after the Daniel Jones, they come and say, no, Anthony Richardson is probably going to be the starter. And then a little bit more. If you timestamp it, then you're like, no, look, I told you. I'm not sure that, and maybe this is kind of like we talked about last week, but I'm not sure that it's going to impact the draft position of these players very much. It won't.

And in that case, you know, we like Josh Downs. I like Josh Downs quite a bit. I think Pittman's still a player that's going to be out there all the time. He's not had a real nose for the end zone in his career, but he can be a PPR guy. It's hard to imagine a world where both of them are good. I think that's why you see a lot of people making the choice. Both of them being great, yeah. When it doesn't feel like it should be this real dynamic of this guy's the one, that guy's the one. I think people are choosing one because they don't think more than one can do anything.

Yeah, and Josh Downs is the better value in drafts because he's later. He costs you nothing. He's had some explosive. He's not later. Yeah, him and Pittman are right next week. They're five picks apart right now. Wide receiver 46 and 48. And I know both. They're both very late. Both of you guys are like very, very on the Josh Downs is better than Pittman's side. I think he's a better fantasy player. Like just his usage. I mean, though. At least the way that the quarterbacks played last year, they preferred Josh Downs and going to him very frequently. Yeah, I do like Downs and would pick him over Pittman at that spot in the draft. You're also going to have Tyler Warren, who's guess what, right there, same spot in the draft. So you get to pick one of three Colts or two of three Colts at that point in the draft. Warren is so difficult because this is.

If you're just coming back to football, Tyler Warren was a first round tight end selected this year. He is a, he's a beast. I love Tyler Warren, but I don't know what to make of drafting a, he's a tight-in one right now in current ADP with all of that stuff going on. You missed the Too Hot to Handel episode. Is that correct? And I think Jason and I were both very much on the not too hot to handle. Not too hot. Not too hot at that place. No, because you're at the very, very bottom. I mean, this is lower than where Bowers went last year. Yeah. And people were passing on Bowers. I think it's the right gamble to take in the ninth round. Yeah, there's not other tight ends that are, you know, if you're that late, you're getting a bad tight end, take a chance at someone that could be special and then stream the position, which you'll do if you don't draft Tyler Warren anyways. So I'm fine with that. The issue here with Tyler Warren.

is last year this was a team that threw. Tyler, like Tyler Warren or Dalton Kincaid. Tyler Warren. I think we asked that question. Oh, did you? Yeah, I think that was actually the name that came up. And we bought, I would go Tyler Warren. Because Dalton Kincaid is, he's the next guy up. And then you got Ferguson and Tucker Kraft. Man. Some of the indifference around Downs and Pittman can, I mean, be an encouragement towards Warren. I mean, Warren is. going to be the most quarterback friendly for two bad quarterbacks. Warren is what scares me for those wide receivers. Yeah. Like last year, 71% of the targets went to wide receiver for the Colts. Only 15% went to the tight end position. Those are both kind of out of the normal type of numbers for their positions. They didn't draft a first round tight end who's a talented pass catcher to not throw him the ball out. They saw this hole and they said we've got to we've got to get a tight end who can open up the field for us.

That's going to siphon a lot of targets away from probably both downs and Pittman. So I'm not quite as bullish on the passing game here as I think the two of you. The second question that I think stands out for Indianapolis is how we view Jonathan Taylor and whether we view him as elite or continuing to be an elite option. Some things that stand out about Taylor, it was a prolific into the season. We've seen the reception numbers decline. after a, you know, the beginning of his career, it seemed like they were going the right direction, but the last three years has gone down, down, down, under 20 receptions. I don't think adding Tyler Warren's going to help the target totals for Jonathan Taylor. He had the fifth most rushing yards ever over a final three games of a season. He was unbelievable. To push him towards. He was averaging like, what, like almost 30 carries a game. Yeah, when you watch those games, it literally felt like the team said, we don't care what's happening anymore.

as long as we hand it to Jonathan Taylor. And yet he was also stuffed the most of any running back on third and short last year, which is a weird thing. That is so weird. For so many breakaway runs. So do you think elite is the word you'd use with Jonathan Taylor? I would. I would certainly use the word elite. Now, if you're talking fantasy elite, he's not tier one for fantasy, but this is a running back who should be an overall running back one in fantasy football. And... You know, I think he can be top five in fantasy this year. Obviously, the passing has to be there. If it is Daniel Jones, I would expect more volume in the passing game than if it is Anthony Richardson. Obviously, Daniel Jones was able to do that with Sequin to a good enough degree where Sequin was very relevant. But the Sequin numbers went down from Eli. Oh, for sure. Yeah. This is not Eli. I mean, man, those guys who can't move in the pocket. Yeah. Give my running back to those quarterbacks.

Jason, you probably have the ability to look this up pretty quickly, though. But where was Jonathan Taylor, if you just look at where he was in points per game before the three weeks? Because that was the majority of the fantasy season. That was before they gave him 29, 32, and 34 carries. So weeks one through 15 points per game, where did he slide in? Because I've got before the buy week, which is. Okay. Yeah, one game different. But he was still awesome. He was averaging 13 and a half fantasy points per game. 80 rushing yards again. Yeah, no, it was, it was, it was, it was just really truly magnificent what he did at the end of last year. And if you don't remember, you know, this, this eight win team should have been a nine win team, right? When Jonathan Taylor had that breakaway touchdown run and dropped the.

Oh, my gosh, I forgot all about that. In the Giants game? Yeah, that was brutal. Tennessee, New York, Jacksonville, three very good defenses to face to finish the year. And I'm not trying to take that away from the, you know, from him. But for the majority of the season, I just wanted to see where it was when there was tumulted quarterback throughout a really difficult year. If he could play those. Bad defenses every week. Because he finished at nine with those three games. I got some good news. Those three games he was on pace for 2,946 rushing. He will play a lot of those teams again. That is true. Okay. I feel like we covered the Colts pretty well. They start at home back to back, Miami, Denver, then Tennessee and Los Angeles on the road. And yeah, I mean, there's some other players there. Alec Pierce will be involved Adonai Mitchell.

involved but those are the main the main guy so we'll take a break come back with two more teams from the south oh jacksonville four and thirteen last year a season in which they were projected to win eight and a half games whoops they were four and ten and one score games they have a seven and a half win total this year they have a nice strength of schedule at least on paper sixth best and it's a lot of change, right? There's a tremendous amount of change in what this offense is going to look like, new offensive coordinator and head coach, Doug Peterson, goodbye. They were 26th and points per game, 25th and yards per game. Liam Cohen comes over from Tampa Bay. And so, I mean, horrific on both sides of the football. You get to 4 and 13 through really ineptitude on both sides, dealt with injuries. That's why they drafted a guy for both sides of the football.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. They did. They are trying to, two birds it with Travis Hunter. He's one of the big additions, obviously. No more Evan Ingram, no more Christian Kirk. And you add Travis Hunter and you add a play caller that, you know, is well respected in Liam Cohen. Do we still have Liam Cohen's... Do you still got his... Yeah, here we go. Duval. That's pretty close. Oh, man. What a goober. I was going to say, are we enough weeks removed from that? Never. We'll never be. Sure. That is, yeah, that is an unlimited time span. Yeah. That's like, uh, playoffs? Yeah. You know, that's decades or however long. Oh, it's infinite? Yeah, this is. Will wins erase it? Um, I think so. It will not erase it, but they will look back on it and smile. So one of the biggest bust in fantasy, Travis ETN came from this roster last year. One of the biggest surprises and positives.

Brian Thomas Jr. came from this roster last year. And we still can't get our heads around what in the world Trevor Lawrence is as a player. But first question, do you think Liam Cohn will be a fix-all for this offense when you have Brian Thomas, Travis Hunter, Trevor Lawrence, with Liam Cohen. I don't think Liam Cohen is going to be a fix-all. I am excited. We had a quick question earlier this year of like what team would you wish you could see how they perform. And this was my answer because. There's a path here where it's a good offense. I mean, if Trevor Lawrence comes in, he's much better than Mack Jones, and he adds, you know, the hopeful greatness of Travis Hunter as a second wide receiver, Brian Thomas Jr. going into his second year. And then they've got enough running backs. I know E.T.N sucked. But you get him the ball in space. He can be a good asset. He was the running back three two years ago. This could be a good offense. I don't, I don't personally.

That was a long two years for Travis ETN. I mean, no one's had a longer short period of time than Travis ETM. But, you know, it could be an exciting. Are you pessimistically helpful for ETN? As easy, you would say. I'm optimistically doubtful. Okay. I feel that. I get that. That one makes sense. More positive. More positive. Optimistically doubtful, right? I will have to get back to you. We need the English majors to let us know which one is. Almost like these words shouldn't be combined. So, you know, with the question, no fix all, Trevor Lawrence questions, can he support more than one target in a way that you're happy? Yes. Can Travis Hunter? I think I saw Travis Hunter's yardage number right now is set around 750. That is very, very low for happiness and fantasy football.

Like if he, you know, if he crushes that and gets to 800 yards, you will not be happy in fantasy football. Yeah, I didn't know how you'd react to that positively or negatively or how conservative they were. Do you remember where Marv was? Marv was a thousand and a half. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, 750 that was like Rome, Dunezay was right around that range, wasn't he? I think he was above that. Yeah. And you don't look back. drafting Rome like 734 no you're right he was below yeah and yeah you would not have been happy no and you wouldn't I mean he's not going to score enough touchdowns to where that kind of yardage will make you happy or total receptions to get him that amount of yards will make you happy so yeah you know you need it to be it's just kind of confusing for me if I'm honest I look at Brian Thomas Jr and how much of a dominator he is and I'm just trying to figure out what Travis Hunter can contribute I think you could contribute quite a bit you have Evan Ingram

gone. You have Christian Kirk gone. There is a very large hole to be filled here. They need other pass catchers. You know, we were just talking about the same thing with the Houston Texans where they really need someone to step up at wide receiver too. Well, both of these teams have a rookie that has the opportunity to do that. But if you're going to ask me which rookie wide receiver is just a better, who's a better wide receiver? between Higgins and Travis Hunter. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's clearly Travis Hunter. It will be very interesting to see what kind of consistency we get out of Travis Hunter. Yeah, especially in the snap count department. Because that 700 yards could come with five or six games that you would have wanted to start in him in fantasy.

you know what i mean but it could be a little less predictable at least with with trevor lawrence he is a very big wild card pick um i hope he's at the seventh round wide receiver 35 i am personally fine taking the shot at that point rookies usually go up in drafts nearer august if he climbs too far though you can't be having you can't be taking him in the fifth round no way you know No, he feels like a fun gamble in the seventh or eighth. Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, I mean, that's the kind of player versus a low-ceiling option that you could draft in that same spot. Yeah, and I think we need to give a shout-out to Brenton Strange as well, their tight end. The hole left by Evan Engerleap. Deep sleeper. More likely to be filled by a tight end. They will still throw the ball to the tight end. I think Brenton Strange is actually decently good.

Didn't he have a game? He had like one big breakout game, but he's got the opportunity now. And so if you're in, I mean, obviously, this is a deep sleeper. He's going to go undrafted in all your redraft leagues. But if you're playing best ball where you're getting three tight ends on a roster, I think he's like my favorite third tight end. And the, uh, if Travis Hunter doesn't get a ton of snaps, then even more so. The, I just, it's impossible. How you can't give the number two hour we'll pick not snaps. Not snaps. Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know how to phrase it. No, I mean, you can give him a reduced snap count and target him when he's on the field and let him play some defense, though. That can happen. And the days of our lives, that is the entire running back room for Jacksonville because it's just like. Yeah, I was going to, yeah, that's where we need to go. The soap opera of that thing. E.T.N. Biggsby and. And Basial Tutin, who was getting a draft Twitter was.

very infatuated with Tutin. And recently, if you're just going on the way that the coaches are talking about him, things have shifted pretty away from Tutin. It was too early to be, I think it was too early to be enamored with Tutin. I think it was a proportional reaction to how disappointed people were with ETN. But you got a, you got to kind of reset here with a new offense. A new offensive system. Which one of you two is drafting Travis ETN in the ninth round? I would. At what point does he become someone you can't not draft? I think it's the ninth round. Yeah, but depending on your build, the ninth round is pretty late. Because it's like I came into this offseason thinking there's no way I would draft Travis ETN. Like I don't, why would I possibly draft him? Bro, I will pay you to have Greece Hall and Travis ETN as your two.

league of record running backs this year no no thank you he's we will let both guys everyone in the league will combine to let them slip as far as i i believe that and that's that just shows you full league collusion whether league collusion that's to help someone everyone's going to is it collusion but everyone agrees it's helping i don't know what i mean it's like oh yeah this is we're going to help you out sucker right gotcha Tank Bigsby could have a huge role. That's the hardest point of ETN in the ninth is Tank is in the 11th and just doesn't catch passes. I, yeah, I get that. So they will, I did mention they have a schedule that looks all right. They do start the year against Carolina at home. Then it's on the road against Sensi, then at home against Houston, then at San Francisco. I was reading today. San Francisco, I think has the easiest schedule.

since 2015 of any team. Oh, man. I wonder who's going to be good on that team. If you look at the schedule and you just take out the divisional, because those will be tough games. You know, the Rams, Cardinals, maybe Seahawks games, those could be tough. But everybody else they play, it's hard to look at San Francisco and not see a really good year. Yeah, I know. It doesn't mean it will be good and he'll be healthy. But if he's healthy, he will be good. That's what it means. And that's the hardest part. Goodness. All right. Tennessee. I said it at the top. Worst point differential in the 26 years of the Titans franchise. Negative 149. They went 3 and 14. I don't know if there was a head coach that I saw more frequently because we watch every single game, every single week.

But the level, like I was scared for his personal safety and health. There was no player more at risk of a sideline heart attack than Brian Callahan last year, his debut as a head coach, and he gets to watch Will Levis on a weekly basis turn his plans for this team into mush. He kept putting him out there. I mean, eventually he's like, screw this, we're with Mason Rudolph out there. That was it. It basically had no choice. for a good portion of the year. And it's like, it was so difficult to watch. You know, if you listened to this show last off season, a bet on Ridley was a bet on Will Levis working out. It was also a bet on Brian Callahan fixing problems. If you want to look at can it go right for Liam Kong, can it go wrong. It can go wrong if your quarterback can't play football. Callahan was a very, you know, exciting name to arrive in Tennessee with the potential of making things better.

if you had a quarterback. Instead, you got a new quarterback because you have the number one pick. Well, so, Andy, do they have a quarterback this year? They have a good quarterback. But I will not accept the this year part of your question. I think they have a quarterback for the future, but I think for this year when it comes to fantasy, we're going to have a hard time. Will rookie Cam Ward put up more than Will Levis did last year? Yeah. This depth chart says that Calvin Ridley is still a value. He is lower than last year, obviously older, but he put up a thousand yards last year despite what how that felt. It felt awful and it was very inconsistent as the quarterback play was. But when I see Calvin Ridley late in these drafts, I'm really, really surprised how late you can get him in the drafts with humans. I don't know where his ADP is, but in the ones where you're actually doing them, feels like people don't want Calvin Ridley too much. They don't want any Titans.

Yeah, and I'm fine if that's the approach you want to take, honestly. I think Ridley could prove to be a value. I think this team could also lean on the running game and keeping Cam Ward into in situations that are going to protect him. It's really tough. I mean, how great can a rookie, what kind of numbers can a rookie provide? Usually not great. What's the feeling, you know, the touchdowns and things like that. Like Calvin Ridley, I think, was okay on the field, like on the film last year. It was okay. Didn't blow me away. Got frustrated, obviously. Targets were, you know, all over the place and he couldn't, you know, they invested in a lot of rookie wide receivers in this draft, at least a pile of them. Oh, you have them all in Dynasty. Yeah, I'm so happy. You know, D.K. and Gunner Helm in the 4th and Io Manor.

They added Tyler Lockett and Van Jefferson. So those guys... Strepo. Yeah, they might not even see the field those rookies because I think Lockett and Jefferson could be out there a lot. No more Westbrook-Kine. A touchdown a week. But this was a really, really, really bad team on offense last year. And so it's going to get a reset. Cam Ward is going to get every opportunity. But you're still looking at this team as the basement of this division. Right? I mean... Yeah, I mean, it's tough. This team comes down to Cam Ward, period. Like most teams, the quarterback is everything. But if you're looking for a team to take a huge leap forward, you know, a la the Texans two years ago, a la the Washington commanders this last year, it's always on the back of, wow, the quarterback was better than we thought as a rookie. And so that's where I don't mind taking the shots on some of these players because, you know, look, Calvin Ridley's probably not going to be great. But also, he was the wide receiver 30 last year.

and he's being drafted as the wide receiver 38 this year while having the potential that Cam Ward comes in and has one of these excellent rookie years, which we're seeing more and more and more. You know, it's like go back five years ago and the hit rate on, you know, wide receiver succeeding with a rookie quarterback coming in, very poor. But if you look in more recent history, basically since Justin Herbert, you've got a lot of examples of, you know, someone coming in and, you know, Nico Collins being great or Tankdell being great or Terry McLauran being great. The rookie. The rookie's coming in, yeah. There have been some of those. The data still says that the peak for that wide receiver one is pretty low. And the most successful ones have been the super hyper elite players over the last 10, 15 years. You almost never get double digit touchdowns, things like that. But the price you pay for Ridley is not a lot.

I think the question marks for fantasy that are going to be more relevant to people are going to be which, you know, is Tony Pollard going to prove to be a value? That's the question is, do you believe the coaches when they have, they have, they're saying it yet again of we want to have a time share with Tony Pollard and Spears? Like, do you actually believe that? Because if you don't, then Tony Pollard should, Tony Pollard is a, like, Where is he going in the seventh round? The seventh round. It's like, I know E.TN's a little bit later, but it's like Tony Pollard or Travis E. I would much rather have Pollard than E. I would much rather have Tony Pollard. Yeah, I mean, it's very difficult to have someone say almost the identical thing that they said last year that was not true and believe them this year. That feels like a fool's errand. Yeah. I mean, it, um, it was not close.

For the first part of the year, Spears had a nice finish to the season where he had more opportunities, finally. But it wasn't, you know, it wasn't the year. People drafted Tajay Spears last year. Yeah. And it was worth nothing. So Chica Conquo gave you a little splash. in the fantasy playoffs dude i do not remember that well that you don't remember when andy made him oh yes yes yes okay yeah wider or a tight-in three in week 16 nine for 81 um that was the britain strange v chigacconco this is where you get in fantasy you have all these exciting prolific names and then when you get to week 16 we're sitting here and we're every year it's like that's the good was it jaret patterson the running back yeah for the for washington yeah or years ago