AFC North Breakdown, Surprise WR1’s, Courtland Sutton

What have you guys heard about John Brown, Willie Sneed, Michael Crabtree, and the past catchers this off season? Are you excited about one or the other? I'm not a Crabtree fan. I brought this up on the live show. He's a player I'm sunsitting. He's a player that I'm treating like Eric Decker or Jeremy Macklin this year. He's been traded to a team with 189 yards of passing per game, and I think he's been traded there. And all of his metrics. He wasn't traded. He signed there. Sorry, yes. But he's now arrived at a team that isn't a pass-producing team.

and his major metrics all went down significantly last year. I don't like him. He's still a touchdown guy to me. The yardage may be down from what we're used to. We're not going to hit a six-round pick right now. But guys like Tori Smith had a year of seven, a year of eight, a year of 11 touchdowns. Anquam Bolden, who at that time was considered old, considered very old. It's been a while. Considered sunsetting.

He had seven touchdowns, his first year with Baltimore. Are you going to be happy with seven touchdowns from Crabtree in the sixth round? In the sixth round, if you give me seven touchdowns and... 600 yards? It's not going to be 600 yards. It'll be around 800. If you're saying 800 yards and seven touchdowns from Crabtree in the sixth round, then I'm probably happy with that.

Yeah, it's okay. I think John Brown also provides, you know, the early camp report. The Choo Train, the toy train is been rolling. Andy, we're going to need that hype train on John Brown because here he comes. Whoa, John Brown. This is, that's honestly. Of all the players that the toy train hype train fits where I was going to go, I really hope that John Brown is healthy. I really, really do.

Yeah, I'm rooting for him. I will say this for Joe Flacco. This is the best wide receiver core he's had in, since Steve Smith is left, this is the best wide receiver core he's had by a mile. So there is an opportunity for him to step his game back up and be one of those, you know, two quarterback league late draft pick steals. You know, if he can do that. Now, Lamar Jackson is electric. And for fantasy, because he's so, such a.

a weapon on the ground. You know, if he gets in, he's going to be a top five weekly option. So, you know, you got to keep your eyes on Lamar Jackson. And speaking of keeping your eyes on Lamar Jackson, we get to do that tonight. Oh, yeah. Lamar Jackson will probably be seen quite a bit more so than Joe Flacco because it is the Hall of Fame game. This is the, I want to see Anthony Miller on the field. Yeah. I want to see.

Lamar Jackson. I want to see Haydenhurst and I want to see Mark Andrews. Yeah, I was going to bring it up. The tight end position, Joe Flacco, at least in the past, we've seen it with Dennis Pitta, massive volume, massive volume of the tight end position. I miss Dennis Pitta. He misses. I'm not going to go there. No, you're not. But the tight end position, we've wanted someone to emerge. We wanted Max Williams to emerge. It didn't happen.

What is your level of comfort with a rookie? None. Oh, okay. Zero. I would agree. I'm excited. I want to watch. If there was just one of them, I would, I would, you know, that's why I want to see tonight and through preseason, because if someone does emerge, you know, maybe I, maybe I look sideways at him in the 16th round. I mean, I just don't have a lot of excitement for that. Fair. Bangles. Oh, farewell, Brandon Lafell. Let's talk bangles.

So John Ross. Seven to nine last season. I guess seven or nine was enough to keep Marvin Lewis around. Kind of a lost year. I mean, that's kind of the, there are no metrics that make me excited about what happened on the field last year for the Bengals. Seven or nine with the 31st ranked rushing yards per game, the 27th ranked passing yards per game. This was a team that ran the fewest plays on offense in the entire NFL. Hmm.

It makes sense considering it felt that way. If you owned a Bengal, you felt like they were never on the field. The stats that I gave in my argument for Joe Mixen as a fire player, the fact that the Bengals only ran the ball 377 times is, you know, it's outlandish. It's crazy. Never happened in the Marvin Lewis era. And I, you know, this team is going to be.

improved this year offensively. Getting Brandon LaFelle out, I remember early in the offseason reading the reports on John Ross, hearing how players and coaches were talking about him. This is well before mini-camps or OTAs, just the off-season work. I started sunsetting Brandon LaFelle in my early projections. And I think getting Ross out there with A.J. Green, a better left tackle, which...

is monumentally important if you go back and watch the film. Getting the ball to Joe Mix and more. This is actually one of those sneaky offenses that I'm excited about and I don't think that there's...

any buzz for the Bengals. I don't think, I haven't heard anybody excited. The Bengals are like, I don't want a piece. AJ Green's getting too old. The offense is bad. The offensive line is bad. Tyler, I for gets heard. Right, exactly. John Ross didn't do it last year. I think that these players are all representing pretty good values for where they're being drafted. AJ Green is personally for, in my opinion, personally responsible for the reason why a top five pick is so incredible this year.

Because you're in the top five. That means you get one of those five running backs who we all won on our team. And then AJ Green is going in the back of the second round. If you can start your draft with David Johnson and AJ Green, AJ Green has had over 1,000 yards in six of his seven seasons. He has had seven or more touchdowns in five of his seven.

seasons. And last year, he was still able to get over 1,000 yards, even with the lowest catch percentage of his career. And I put that more on the offense and Dalton than I do put it on A.J. Green. I have an incredible stat credit to a Redditor that I noticed this. It was about A.J. Green. And he posted it yesterday. It compares Julio Jones and A.J. Green. And if you look.

at seven seasons, right? The seven seasons that AJ Green and Julio Jones have had. And you take all of their statistics, their career yards, everything. They have averaged exactly 166.257 points, fantasy points on the season for their careers. Both players. And these are guys that came out together. They're players that came out of high school together. It's just crazy. They've had the exact same fantasy production on average over seven years.

I thought that was nuts. Yeah. That is nuts. And to Julio's credit, he has more missed games than a per game basis. It's a little different. So where's the secret value on this roster? Is it in a player like Mark Walton, running back, rookie behind Joe Mixin and Gio Bernard? I like Mark Walton a lot long term, but.

Joe Mixon is going to be given every opportunity to be the starter. And Giovanni Bernard is still there, at least for this season. I think next year the Bengals may move on from Geo Bernard. And then Mark Walton becomes interesting. But Joe Bernard showed that he still had some stuff this past year. He was, he's still an excellent pass catcher. He can't be the guy, which is why they drafted Joe Mixon in the second round. So Mark Walton isn't.

He's not interesting to me, but it's John Ross, the draft capital. I was fully out, fully out on John Ross this past year. You've changed. No, the only reason I was out on him was because Marvin Lewis hates rookies, and he doesn't give them playing time. You're talking about last year. Yes. This was not a, my John Ross last year, which hopefully I was emphasizing was this is not a...

I don't like John Ross the player. It's, I don't like his situation. He's gone to a team that will not use him despite drafting him in the top 10. And then he finishes the year with negative fantasy points because Marvin Lewis punished him. And now we know that we've heard that maybe John Ross was playing with an injury that he did not tell the team about. So all reports have John Ross as healthy.

All reports have John Ross is still being the fastest man in the universe. Oh, he's unbelievable. And he's getting open and he's making plays, and he's going very, very late. And you have to keep in mind that if you don't remember the first two weeks of the Cincinnati Bengals year last year, they didn't score. It was great. They didn't score a touchdown for two consecutive weeks. And that's when Bill Laser took over as the offensive coordinator. He didn't get training camp. He didn't get to install his system with, you know,

prior with a preseason. This is Bill Laser's first training camp and going through installing his system. So, yeah, I like Ross. I love mixing. And I'm staying away from Tyler. I feel. What about Andy Dalton? We've talked. I'm not building him up this offseason again. I'm not. He burned me last. I think he's a great late round pick. He was great when he was playing with Gruden. He was a great late round pick last season.

That's what we said. Yeah. And he started his first two weeks horrifically bad. That was a swing and a miss, a strike. What do they call that? A strikeout? Well, I know it's strikeout, but like when you, it's like you fool me once. No, strikeout looking or something. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's a bad reference. That's a really bad reference. I'm trying to make a baseball reference. It's a bad sport. You need three strikes, Jason.

If you get two strikes, you are still up to bat. You can still make it happen. Andy Dalton had about 16 strikes last year. We're not talking about bowling. No, we're not. Browns. Speaking of 16 strikes. Hey. Owen 16. Hugh Jackson and company got it. Oh, no, they did not get it done last season. I feel like the quote should go over because you talk about 7 and 9 was good enough to keep Marvin Lewis's job. Owen 16.

was good enough to keep Hugh Jackson's job. It's all about, you know, the momentum in the locker room, not on the field, Mike. They know what Hugh Jackson is, and they brought in Todd Haley. They're going to, new offensive coordinator. Negative wins this year. One, zero. They're going to find a way. Life finds a way. Oh, my gosh. Totally different team. Is that when we get to take the picture down behind Andy? Honestly, the picture behind Andy. This picture only went up recently.

That wasn't up last year, was it? Yes, it was. Not during the season. I'm just wondering, when can we take that down? You cannot take it down. You can take it down when he's fired, which will be never, because he's a genius. Next year, this year. All right, here's the summary of the Cleveland Brown's offense. We'll paint a rosier picture than the one that we introduced. I'm just being jocular over here because I think that the Browns are interesting. It's fun to make light.

You have to. Of those at the bottom, because that's how you survive. Just a totally different team, though. No Isaiah Crowell. He's in New York. No Deschon Kaiser at quarterback. He has been traded to the Green Bay Packers. New players arriving. Rookie quarterback, Baker Mayfield, the number one overall pick. Tyrod Taylor acquired to be the starter in Cleveland at the quarterback position, getting all the first team reps. They drafted a running back. Nick Chubb. Draft Capital was not something they were missing.

Victories? Yes, draft capital, no. Nick Chubb arrives. Carlos Hyde arrives. Jarvis Landry, welcome to the team. Antonio Calloway. A lot of hype on Antonio Callow. Swing away. Wide receiver. Rookie. Rookie. Look, there are a lot of new pieces on this roster. Todd Haley, offensive coordinator. I mean, that's a huge addition to this team. David and Joku, year two, tight in. Year two of getting Josh Gordon back. They're going 16 and 0, fellas.

No, they can't because they have Corey Coleman, Jason. Well, they do. Dragging them down. But let's talk realistic expectations for this offense. That's what the fantasy owners want to know. They want to know what can I expect from Duke Johnson, who has been consistently a great pass-catching PPR running back. Now Nick Chubb and Carlos Hyde are atop the depth chart. Duke Johnson will seriously have a role, obviously. But his role takes a hit.

Does it? Yes. Jarvis Landry takes a big chunk away from Duke Johnson, in my opinion. Duke was, I mean, he was the feature pass catching running back. I think he can still be that. But they were moving them all around. I mean, Duke Johnson was taking snaps out of the slot this past year. That's not going to happen when you have given Jarvis Landry Supreme slot wide receiver $75.5 million. That job, that part of your job description is now gone. Yeah, I agree.