AFC South Breakdown + Follow the Money - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/11

The offensive line, you can look at that in the equation of excuses where they had players that lost time in the beginning of the year, at the end of the year. But to be dead middle and points per game with what you thought you were coming into the season with, ETN, Ridley, it was disappointing. And you do have a little bit of a reworking of the offensive side, at least at the wide receiver position, where you lost 33% of your targets where Calvin Ridley and Zay Jones are gone. You bring in a rookie in Brian Thomas. You bring in Gabe Davis. Both of those players to some profile to be identical. I believe in Brian Thomas to be more than the deep threat that gets three targets. And if he comes down with him, you're thrilled in best ball. And if he doesn't, you didn't remember he played, which is Gabe Davis. But it's a little bit of unpredictability to factor here on what you expect from Trevor Lawrence and company.

Yeah, the wide receivers are very, very interesting. And I'm going to throw Evan Ingram in the mix as this conversation. Like I'm talking about all the past catchers because Evan Ingram, you know, he had, did he break, he did not break the record, right? But he got close to it. They were trying. He was a couple receptors short. They were trying. They gave him 13 targets in the final week to hit that number. Didn't get there. But if you look at the splits of Evan Ingram when Krisha Kirk was on the field and when Krisha Kirk was not on the field,

They were very, very significant. Christian Kirk is the primary target when he was on the field. And he also, I mean, we've seen him two years ago. Christian Kirk was the wide receiver 12 in this offense when he didn't have Calvin Ridley there. So Christian Kirk is, he's a really hard pick because I don't think anyone has ever. Kirk or Engram? Christian Kirk is a really hard pick because no one clicks draft and pumps their fist. Yeah. No one claps. Oh, yeah. Krisha Kirk fell to me. Like, I've drafted a lot of Krisha Kirk. And every time I do, I go, okay. All right. Yeah, I'm fine. Because he doesn't have that upside. He doesn't, you don't think of him. Oh, yeah. Let me quantify the lack of upside for you. Two times in the last 19 games he finished in the top 20 on a week. Two times. Okay. In the last 19 starts that he finished top 20 in the week.

I guess I should say top 19 based on how you define it. He's a 20 to 24 type of guy. That's why you feel that way. Yeah, but eight times that he finished inside the top 20 within the previous season where he was the wide receiver 11 with Trevor Lawrence and without Calvin Ridley. So I mean, we have seen. But it's been a long run. I'm saying a 19 game stretch is a long stretch to not see upside. And then they go out and bring Brian Thomas in and Gabe Davis. Christian Kirk is not. I don't think any of us would argue that Christian Kirk can hold the whole offense together without anybody else. He's not like, he's not Cedi Lamb and he's not Jamar Chase. He's just tried and true, reliable. He's a good player. He's a great player. But he's also, you don't pump your, you made the point, you don't pump your fist. No. Because you know that you can't put him in your lineup and win the week because of him very often. You can put him in your lineup and get 10 to 12 points and maybe a big play here or there, but he's also dealt with some injury, right? That is a factor. You are coming back off of that.

You know, it's just not, it's not sexy, man. It's not. And then you have to rely on Trevor Lawrence when you draft it. I think he's a great flex option. And when you're going to the sixth, if that's what you're looking for is just a reliable plug and play, there's, like I said, I've drafted a lot of Christian Kirk. But it's not when I'm trying to go for upside. It's when I'm trying to fill out the veteran depth piece. Here's a question I'll ask about Jacksonville. What happens if the Brian Thomas rookie experiment and then the Gabe Davis free agent experiment aren't on the good side of the equation? What is this team offensively? They throw the ball a ton. They're in the top 10 in passing, but you are having to bet on new contributors, right? That bet would be if that outcome would be spectacular for Kirk or Engram. I mean, they would see so many targets.

And I agree, you know, you have to think about Evan Engram, aka Schmeven Schmengram, on this show. You have to think about it in the right way where he turned into a league winning player, but that did, like Jay said, that correlated when Christian Kirk was out the field. But through that point, you know, Christian Kirk got hurt in week 12, so weeks one through 11 in 10 games, Engram was still pacing for 100 receptions. So he's still a solid. PPR fantasy tight end. But I don't think he's the, what happened at the end of the season, you would need some wild stuff to happen. They play Miami, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Houston to start the year. That's bad. Yeah, it's not. And not to mention Miami and Buffalo are on the road. I mean, that, and Houston, three or four games on the road. That is a, that is a scary start to the season. Like if you are looking at ETN versus somebody else that you have ranked closely, if you're looking at Kirk,

You're looking at Lawrence. If you're looking for how is a rookie wide receiver going to start his career in Brian Thomas Jr., you know, that doesn't look great to me either. It looks a little bit scary. And so ETN, we can talk about 340 opportunities. Most force-miss tackles, looks great all year, was way better against bad defenses. You mentioned the injuries for Lawrence. I'm going to mention the injuries for the offensive line over the back half of the year. He passed blocked more than any other running back in the game. Really? Most total pass blocks. He was a true workhorseback who I think the focus has been on the polarity of the first half and second half of the year. But look, I love Travis TN in drafts. I think that this offense cannot work without it. Yeah, he is a very, very explosive, good player.

And they need him. They talk all the time about we're going to dial back his carries, his utilization. But ETN is so significantly ahead of the rest of the running back core as far as just talent goes that I think ETN is a pretty safe pick. But you have to then assume, obviously you correlate how good ETN was in the first half of the year, how bad he was in the second half. But we talked about there were winning games in the first half. And they were losing games in the second half. It's really a matter of are they, you know, this is, he needs touchdowns. He needs the team to do well. So if you, if it kind of feels like you believe bad defenses. It kind of feels like Andy, you believe in ETN, but don't believe in the Jaguars. And I feel like that kind of doesn't correlate. I believe in the workhorse situation for him. And yeah, I mean, I, I, I, you're right. Last year he was much better in games they won.

but if he's the only guy back there with his versatility, I still have confidence in him the way I did with Saquan in New York the last few years. This is just a weird setup for this team, in my opinion, because Indianapolis, on the way up, we're talking about them now, Houston on the way up, Tennessee, we'll see. But the Colts were 9 and 8 as well. They were projected for 6.5 wins last year. They lose their starting quarterback in Anthony Richardson. They end up with nine wins, projected for eight and a half this year. They had it pretty easy over the back half of the year, faced a bunch of rookies and backups, weeks 13 through 18. It was a rookie or a backup every week. But really impressive job, I think, by the coaching staff, Shane Steichen. They did not have a defense. They got it done, 30 firsts and points per game giving up.

So they had to piece it together with Gardner Minshu, the return of Jonathan Taylor. I think the expectations are through the roof for this team this year. You know, I mentioned it seems like the Anthony Richardson hype is one of the key bullet points of the off season. Where are you with this team and having a breakthrough? I lean towards it happening. I really do. It's scary when you look at what their second half was last year and those quarterbacks that you mentioned. I mean, just reading the names of who they faced. Bryce Young, Mack Jones, Baker Mayfield, Will Levis, Jake Browning, Mitchell, Trubisky, Taylor Heinecke, Aiden O'Connell. Like, you should probably win some games. Yeah, you should win some games. On accident against those guys. But I believe in Anthony Richardson as an NFL player. Obviously, everyone believes in him as a fantasy football asset because he runs the ball so much should be good around the goal line. But I actually think he's going to be a...

a solid NFL quarterback. If that's the case, they have the seventh easiest strength of schedule coming out this year. I really like the offense that Shane Steichen ran. They push the pace of play. They're very modern. I think this is a team that is, I think it's going to work for them. I really do. We have never got to see Anthony Richardson and Jonathan Taylor together, right? Joe Flacko is a new backup, right? in Indianapolis? That is correct. So if Richardson deals with injury issues, that's who you have behind him. They drafted Adonai Mitchell in the second round, a player that I really like, especially for a team that runs 11 personnel, the fifth most in the league. Opportunities should be coming his way to get on the field, along with Josh Downs, along with Alec Pierce, along with Michael Pittman, who just got paid. Alec Pierce ran the most routes in the NFL. Alec Pierce did.

I believe, I don't have the stat in front of me. I believe it was the most in the last six years. That means he caught the most passes, right? No. He made Alan Robinson look like a good target per route run player last season. But my point is Adnan Mitchell is a player I was not like bullish on. I believe that he shouldn't have been a first round pick. He wasn't. But in the draft season, you know, it seemed like he was a lock to be a first round pick. But he is much better than Alec Pierce, who was on the field and running routes. There is opportunity, I think, there for Adonai. It must be annoying to run a lot of routes and take the top off of defenses and not get opportunities. That would feel so bad. You know, I know targets are earned, but backup quarterback, you know, an offense protecting. And he has to run down the field, Alec Pierce doesn't just. And you know you're not getting the ball. I'm going deep and you're not getting the ball. I mean, his.

But at the same time, his cardiovascular health has to be so wonderful. He's going to live a long life. He's going to live a long time because of that. He's a thanks, Steichen. They play Houston, Green Bay, Chicago, Pittsburgh to start the year. They get Jayloni Woods back, the big tight end, one of their big tight ends. And no more Zach Moss. So Jason, you have to, you know, get used to him in a different uniform. But there's a lot of, you know, if you have confidence in the coaching staff, the division's winnable. So there's a lot of optimism with Jonathan Taylor and Richardson finally getting a chance to start the season together. Yeah. Taylor has to deal with Anthony Richardson as a mobile quarterback, which traditionally is not great. Yeah, that turns into goal line vultures and then quarterback scrambling instead of extending the play and then dumping it off with, you know, Philip Rivers, the king of that, which was always delightful for fantasy running back. So he does, he has an issue with.

probably hitting a true ceiling this year. I still think that. Taylor? Yes. I think Taylor's still going to be great. But knowing when you draft him of like it's the true chance of him being like back to number one, it seems like it's a real low probability thing right now, which is not, that's not your favorite, but still great player. But his floor is really high too. It's like you assume he's going to finish between six and 12, which is really, really good. But yeah, I see what you're saying with the ceiling. The biggest conversation to me is it's Michael Pittman, who last year, for real reasons, when Anthony Richardson was a rookie and he was in charge of the team, Michael Pittman's ADP last year was, like he was, he was banished to the Phantom Zone. No one wanted to draft him. I mean, we, like, I have been a huge supporter of Michael Pittman, the player. It's why he builds the city.

Even I didn't want to draft him. In our League of Record draft, is it still around? No, I don't know. In our League of Record draft, it got to the point and it was like, okay, I'll draft Michael Pittman. And it felt awful. That is on time. And then it was awesome. Michael Pittman, even though he wasn't really a ceiling player, he was consistently very good for your roster. but so jay i'll throw to you because my belief in it in anthony richerson is fantasy related i still don't know if i'm in on him as a as a quarterback but do you like michael pitman going in the fourth wide receiver 21 just got paid are you comfortable with that price are you happy to draft in there is are you willing to to go up a little bit on pitman i i'm not willing to go up on pitman i i you know this is a team that

is going to look very different with Anthony Richardson than with Gardner Minshu. You know, this is essentially going to be Richardson's full, you know, first full season. But he is the alpha. To color it in of we saw his first game, Anthony Richardson's first game, which Pittman had a good game, he threw the ball 37 times. And then in his other full game, he threw the ball 25 times. Like we still have one of those is great. One of those is terrible. We don't know. This is why I do not, I'm not willing to use anything he did last year as any evidence for the future because he didn't have Jonathan Taylor and he barely played football. And it just feels like you need a clean slate here. He's going to have different wide receiver weapons. You know, it's going to be very, very interesting to watch. I think the big thing like you brought up with Jonathan Taylor, it's like the goal line, the shotgun. I mean, they were in the shotgun a ton. That's not something that.

Taylor's always had to do or done well. So I'll be honest. I'm not settled on this team. Yeah, this has probably the widest range of outcomes. You know, if you wanted to say which team other than Tennessee finishes last, I think the Colts would be next up to finish last because the range of outcomes is Anthony Richardson isn't good. You have as unproven a quarterback there as. as possible. I mean, you can't know less about a quarterback than him. Yeah, I mean, I feel like you do have the, there's like three buckets he can put Richardson in. He could be the, there's the bust bucket. I don't, and again, these are not proportional. That's a possibility. There's the Justin Fields bucket where he just isn't as a proficient. He's a fantasy quarterback. He's a great fantasy quarterback, but as a passer, you know, obviously the time ran out on Justin Fields, which we don't know.

You know, he had a game with a 40-something percent completion percentage. He had another game where he was good. So throw it all out. And then the other is MVP. I mean, the other is Lamar Jackson. The other is, you know, RG3's rookie year. Like there's those three outcomes. And I do like the coach. And I think he can stabilize things and put him in a position to succeed. So we'll take a break. We'll come back with Will Levis. All right. We are back. with the Tennessee Titans who finished 6 and 11, and it begins. Banana Ramas season begins. Will Levis. Last year the Titans, totally different looking team, different quarterback, seven and a half win total. They end up 6 and 11. This year they're projected for 6.5. They have a tougher schedule than they'd like for Will Levis. But they couldn't score. I mean, they're 26 points per game, 31st in pace.

Not a fun team to watch play football, and they're handing the reins over to Will Levis for his first full season in the league. Now, I watched all the Will Lovis plays two. And what I see in Will Levis is a player that if the offensive line can improve protections for him, I think he has a lot of the intangibles to extend plays and do great things down the field. Yeah, I can agree with that. And adding Calvin Ridley and having you know, Pollard out of the backfield and Sharp out of the back field, and Hopkins is a stabilizer still there, and athleticism at the tight-in position with Chigua. You know, his problem was getting himself into a lot of trouble by doing too much, trying to do too much, putting the team on his back. But I think the physical skills for Will Levis are there. And I think Tennessee is a team that I believe could surprise. Brand new head coach, Brian Callahan coming in.

tons of weapons on offense. I do believe that Tennessee has the potential to compete in this division. I think that they have the potential to compete as well. Will Levis, he's fun to watch. I am rooting for him to win. The offensive line was improved. They spent the number seven overall on J.C. Latham projects to be a... a very good offensive line and that'll help. This is the last place offensive line from last year. Right. Where he was under pressure 45% of the time. PFF has moved their ranking up from 32 to 30. So it still does not project to be. If these trends continue. It doesn't project to be a great offensive line. But also last year, he, you know, he didn't have Calvin Ridley to throw the ball to. He was a rookie. He didn't have Tyler Boyd to throw the ball to. So he's got a veteran group of wide receivers. I hope they're not too veteran.

No, that's a good point. There are some names that would have looked real sexy five years ago. Oh, man, five years ago, this would have been the Calvin Ridley, DeAndre Hopkins, and Tyler Boyd would be like, that's the best receiving core in the league. Now it's an elder statesman, but he can also dump the ball off to both Tony Pollard and Tajay Spears. Good pass catching backs. I'm rooting for them. I mean, you know, I do think they can take a step forward, but I don't believe they have a good defense, which could be great for fantasy. and I don't think their offensive line is fixed enough for Will Levis. It'll be interesting, Mike. Give me your take on the interchangeability of Tony Pollard and Tage Spears at running back and your expectations for fantasy purposes between the two because I don't want fantasy players to just wash them both out thinking that they're the same player or the exact same outcome because they're not. They're not the same player. They don't have the same experience, same explosiveness.

How do you see yourself approaching them in the drafts? Because they're late picks. Yeah, they are. Tony Pollard is going a couple rounds ahead of Tajay Spears, Tony Pollard in the 8th, Spears in the 10th. And it's just, you know, it's got to start with Roque, remembering Taj Spears' rookie campaign, which was, I think, really ended up much better than you would have imagined for a third round rookie to be behind. Derek Henry. He finished with 70 targets. You know, 52 for 385 through the air. 100 carries, only that makes more sense with Derek Henry, but for 453 yards. His issue, his long-term issue, I think it was like a knee. There's like a degenerative knee situation where he's probably not long for the NFL. He became the, I mean, just a dynasty darling for a

pretty small amount of time when it was confirmed. Derek Henry wasn't coming back, and you didn't know Tony Pollard was coming to town. So then just, but specifically talking between the two of them, I'm going to follow the money. They gave Tony Pollard enough that I believe that he's firmly the starter. And while we're all upset with Tony Pollard for not coming through last year for fantasy, he got better over the second half, still recovering from that injury. It's been, we... have said it a few times on the show of, you know, his rushing grade from PFF from the moment he said he was healthy. It was very good. His elusiveness was much better in terms of metrics of, you know, essentially juke's per attempt, those things. But where the concern comes in is that the coaching staff does talk about them as interchangeable, and I don't project this to be a good team. I don't normally want a running back.

from a bad team, unless I know that that is a workhorse running back. And if you have a platoon that is not the 60-40, then I think they both just probably cannibalize each other to the point of your, on a week-to-week basis, you won't be comfortable starting either of them. Well, I'll keep talking about Calvin Ridley. I think he's going to have a fantastic season. Brian Callahan has talked to him in the context of the Jamar Chase type of, opportunities and ability to be given the ball down the field. Will Lovis loves to chuck it. And so I'm excited about him. I feel like I'm doing good work here because I think Ridley and Hopkins were more neck and neck in ADP like a couple months ago. Now they're about a round apart. Are you guys still only three wide receivers? Are you taking the discount on?

Hopkins versus Calvin Ridley or am I doing any work here? No, I think if I'm if I'm that late, if I'm at the, you know, the eighth round, the ninth round and those two guys are there, I would prefer Ridley. Like Mike said, you follow the money. This is, they gave him an insane amount of money that says they are bringing him in to have him play that number one. A reckless amount of money. That is. Yeah. When I say insane, I don't mean like, whoa, so much. It's like, no, that is an insane person chose that. That's too much money.

Yeah, Calvin Ridley was like, I thought I was going back to the Falcons, but did you see that money? Well, Ridley had two of his biggest games against this team last year. Oh, that makes sense. I will say this. You have made me stop and pause when I'm on the clock and I see Calvin Ridley's name and thinking, okay, maybe there is an avenue where he has a very, very good season, those deep targets from Will Levis. But I usually still bypass him. I feel like. DeAndre Hopkins on the other side of the field, Will Levesant quarterback, Calvin Redley, a year older, new team. There's a lot of, I would rather invest in Pollard or Spears. I feel like those are, you know, more explosive younger athletes that if either one of them were to get injured, the other one becomes really, really, really valuable. And in the meantime, you could probably flex either one in a pinch. All right, I want to hear your predictions for the division.

I'm going to go Houston wins it. So they hold on. I'm going to take Indianapolis second. I'm going to take Tennessee third. And I think this is the downfall. Look, Doug Peterson teams don't get better over time. They get worse. He wins the locker room. He inspires them. And then over time, it doesn't get better. I'm going to take Jacksonville slip in all the way to the bottom, which Jason said the two teams that he thought he could potentially finish last were Indian Tennessee. I think Jacksonville ends up in the basement this year. Houston, Indy, Tennessee, Jacksonville. I think Houston is the best team in this division, but I'm actually going to take Indianapolis to finish ahead based on the strength of schedule and kind of some of the splits we saw last year on good teams versus bad teams with Houston. Houston will then finish second, Jacksonville third, and I'll have the Titans coming in and fourth. I'm going to be boring and I'm going to re-roll it the way that they finished last year. Okay.

So, but I'm going to make you pick a winner between the two nine and eight teams. Oh, because they're, oh, well, I mean, Jacksonville and Indy were nine and eight. So who wins a tiebreaker there then? Jacksonville. Okay. So literally the exact same thing. All right, that'll do it for today's episode of the show. Check out the Ultimate Draft Kit at Ultimate DraftKit.com. We do have a Saturday episode. We're three shows a week in July, so we'll have an AFC East episode then, AFC West on Tuesday, and we'll flip over to the NFC after that. with a mock draft episode in between. So lots coming your way from the fantasy footballers. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. If you want to watch it over there, click the bell. Find out when any new episode is hitting. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Man, that dream. I can't shake it, guys. You were here. I was there. Goodbye. Sounds scary. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Jointhefoot.com.

and follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers.