Regress or Impress + Get Off My Lawn!

Here's the truth. Carry on Johnson. I know, I was super impressed. I know the players were yet to cover. Everyone else is a regress for me from this point on. Whoa, people got to stay tuned to the episode. Hey, well, they want to hear the deets. They want to know who I'm regressing on. But, you know, this is, you look at his splits with Matthew Stafford. He was awesome last year, and he had garbage quarterback play for a lot of it. Kenny G is the clear number one for.

the team, and I think that, you know, Stafford, if he can play 16, how does, how does Goladay get worse? You know, he's, he's super young, very talented, just still becoming a better wide receiver. If his quarterback play improves and his saxophone play improves, how does he go backwards? He was averaging 80 yards a game with Matt Stafford. Like, he was four PPR points.

better per game when Matt Stafford was playing and he's still finished as a monster. So, yeah, I'm in on Kenny Gull. What do they, what do they call that? You know how saxophone players can keep the note going? Like they can cycle their breath? Circular breathing? Yeah. You think he can do that? You can definitely think I can do it? We don't care about your breathing, Mike. I'm talking about Kenny G, man. Is that why he's so good? He can just keep it going. Like he always has oxygen. He's not.

He's not huffing and puffing. There's always fresh oxygen coming in. It's science, Mike. He does the opposite of most saxophone. He never exhales. It's all inhale. Drink it in. Drink that air. That's like inward singing? Yes. Welcome to the show, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. This is great. My background today is a salute to Jerry Stiller, by the way. Oh, yes. If you're watching on YouTube.com slash the fantasy football. Is that the, is that the URL fantasy footballers?

It is YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. It's been five years. Five years. That's the address. But shout out to Jerry Stiller, one of the funniest. 92 years old. You live long when you're funny. Oh, man, I'm going to be anything. Jason's going to outlive us is what I was saying. Mike. Wait. Yeah. That's fine. I accept. He's funnier. Plus, he makes all these. Hey, oh, yes. I don't. Dimp a dip.

I think the fat... Jay Siller wouldn't have made that joke. I think the fat comedians don't live the longest of his... Yeah, but the track record is pretty rough. Just laying this out there. Like, you know, I'm in a healthy BMI right now. You know, Mike's been working out. Yet we do the jokes. Jason, you do the jokes about yourself. And then the blood work comes back and you're fine. Oh, I'm healthy as a horse. I mean, you're healthy. I have a bison. Yeah. Yeah.

Devante Parker, regress or impressed. Last year, the wider... Well, I know what Jason thinks. Seven. Yeah, because he said he's going to be impressed with everybody. There is... It's a tall task. It's a tall task for Devante Parker to repeat what he did. I want to... I'm not taking anything away from him. The talent. But the consistency at the quarterback position, you talked about...

The start to the season for Ryan Fitzpatrick, there's going to be, I mean, you want to talk about an intestinal fortitude situation for fantasy owners. You make the bet on Devante Parker. Then you watch him slow down for a couple of games to start the season and wonder if you've got the bet wrong. Then there's a quarterback change somewhere during the middle of the season. These are all variables in place. So I have them projected for a lower total stat line next year.

I think it's going to be a good season, 65 for over 1,000, 7 touchdowns. That's nice, but it's not what he did last year. He's still outside of that top 12 for me. Yeah, I've got him, you know, as the wide receiver 18. So it's a regression from last year. He projects to be the one for Miami. But if I have to bet, you know, on Devante or against.

Parker. I'm betting against Parker for sure. There's way too many variables. Here's a player who took five years to break out, has only broken out, you know, for a short period of time. While that happened, he had the gun slinging Fitzpatrick on a team that seemed like they were kind of taken, just going nuts. You had Preston Williams go down to injury. There were...

not a lot of other options to throw the ball to, and Parker had an excellent season. Now you've got Preston Williams coming back, a sickie kind of developing over that same time period into a good target, the terrible beginning of the schedule. I mentioned earlier this episode, because I expect the Dolphins to get off to a slow start with that schedule, I think you see Tua come in earlier than they would want to have the rookie come in. And so if all of a sudden now you've got a rookie quarterback,

you know, more other other weapons there that weren't there when Parker broke out. I'm betting against Devante Parker. I see him as a regression. I have nothing to add. All I started doing was thinking about if a team could combine Fitzpatrick and James. And you know how sometimes they have it and sometimes they don't? If you could get that signal that one of those guys doesn't have it and just put the other one in, just rotate back and forth?

Believe they had that in Tampa Bay. It's a strong point. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. It was a QB2 on the year. That was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. QB2 on the year, but they torched you sometimes. Slip my mind. All right. Last one here. I want to talk about Tyler Higby. Oof. Because I know it will be an interesting discussion. Higby last year finishes the tight end eight.

But the story was really from about week 12 on. He had two weeks where he was the number one overall tight-in, weeks 13 and 17. He finished at five, three and nine, the other three weeks. It was a complete transformation for a player that had been there for a long period of time who had been paid in the off-season. But you're talking about more than 700 yards receiving at the tight-in position. And we've talked a lot about the Rams. But what...

Are you a regressor impressed with Higby? He ended up outside my top 12, but he's at 13. Yeah, I mean, when you talk about regress or impress, it's not the season long numbers. It's the end of the year. It's when he was basically, you know, the best tight end or up there in the top tier with with everybody the last five weeks of the season. Is that going to be what the Rams do? We've had a lot of internal.

discussion today, the three of us and the rest of the team here about Cooper Cup and the Rams offense and the offensive line and are they going to run two tight-in sets and all of those things. The reason I see Tyler Higby as a regression is really Gerald Everett. I do think that they're going to have both.

tight ends on the field. I think that Higby will be very involved. I've got him as a back end tight-in one, but we've said this a lot. Like when you're a back-end tight-in one, that's not, that's, that's, that's, that's a still a streaming option. Um, you know, Everett went down to injury after his little breakout. That's when Higby went nuclear.

And I think you're going to see these guys eat into each other's volume to where you don't have one superstar for fantasy. So I'm, you know, a little bit weary of just imbueing those last five games on Higby going forward because some of the things that have been said from Sean McVeigh talking up Gerald Everett and his talent and wanting to get him more involved. I just don't think it's going to be the Higby show.

Yeah. That's about where I weigh into, Jason, in terms of the, you know, we've talked about Everett being McVeigh's first pick, and you're going to have weeks where Everett will outperform Higby, and that will be disappointing. Higby is very difficult to figure out and try and project. He's in my top 12, like you guys, but he's at 11. Okay. The nice thing for Higby is I don't think his ADP is going to be.

two out of control. I think he will be one of those late round guys. And when it comes to those late round players, there's quite a few that we like this year. But when a player is at the end of a draft and has shown you that he has top three potential in his range of outcomes, it's hard to not take a shot on him, at least in a couple leagues. What you said about his average job position is interesting because when I posted my first

run through of rankings and I showed just the top 10 at every position. Am I wrong? Is he going early? He's not going, I'm not saying he's going early, but the reaction to not having Higby in that top 10 from the general Twitter sphere. Of your ranks. It was very strong. Each position, you know, there's one player that, oh, wow, that guy's not there. That was Higby for the tight end position because of the impact he made for, you know, you talk about recency bias. The impact he made for fantasy owners from weeks 13 on was, you know, difference making.

league winning type of performances. But that's what I mean where it's how do you not take a shot? How do you not take a shot on a player who won, five, three, nine, one. That was just positional finish. Two times against the Cardinals. That's very fair, but five against Seattle, who was also terrible against the tight end, but nine against San Francisco. I mean, like, I don't know, man. I don't.

I struggle so much on where I go with Tyler Higby. Those discussions Jason was talking about, it started with a tweet from Good Friend of the Show, Rich Rebar. He pointed out that in weeks 1 through 12, the Rams were in 11 personnel 76% of the time. That means three wide receivers are on the field. And then at the back where Higby really had his explosion, that percentage dropped to 59%, meaning that they had more.

beef. They had more tight ends on the field, and there was a noticeable effect in the pressure rate to Jared Gough, and I don't see their offensive line as improved heading into next year, and if it's not improved, I would see them going back to this set that's going to feature the tight ends. It could come down to that. I don't think McVeigh wants, I think he wants to run 11 personnel.

Yes, I think he wants to. I think that's his best case scenario because that's when his offense was clicking and things were going the way he wanted him to go. Eventually, I feel like he conceded. He just said, okay. And that's why McVeigh is actually a good coach. Fair. Where a lot of coaches in the NFL will just be so hardheaded and stubborn saying my system is the way that we win games. And McVe, he conceded. This isn't winning. Let's try this other thing. And Jared Goff.

took off. In those final five games, Jared Goff was back to the fantasy stud he had been for most of two years ago. All right. Well, we'll sneak one more in here because he opened the show for us. Darren Waller. Oh, gooogoo. But let's make it quick because I want to get into some mailbag as well. But Darren Waller last year, 94, 1145, and 3 on 1117 targets. Things I like about Waller.

Any given week he can take over. He's the kind of player with that athleticism. If he's the feature focal point of the offense in any given week, you could have a week-winning week from Waller. That being said, I mean, that's a high bar tied in three. I've got him at six, so I guess I'm going to regress. I think there are just more weapons, more options in this offense. They added rugs. You saw the growth of Hunter Renfro, who I couldn't help but project for a high target total. Tyrell was injured.

on and off the field last year. He's still going to be part of the offense. And Waller's even come out and said, look, hey, I might not catch as many passes. That's fine with me. Come on, Waller. You got to get up team fantasy. Yeah, it's really just a matter of, you know, last year there were there were times where he was the clear primary target. Renfro took some time to break out, had a struggle with injury at, you know, at one point. When you add, okay, Hunter Renfro is getting better.

You spend your first round draft pick on Henry Ruggs. Tyrol Williams is back. You signed Nelson Agilor, you know, for some reason. You draft Brian Edwards. Yeah, my man, Brian Edwards. They're bringing in a lot of, they want to be able to throw to the wide receiver. They just couldn't last year. And so, you know, I can't imagine that he, maybe he still leads the team in targets, but it's not going to be with as many targets as he had last year. So I think he's a.

He's a guy I would take on my fantasy team, but certainly regress from last year's peak. He'll regress on receptions and yards, but three touchdowns. A dude having 1,100 yards and three touchdowns. That is completely anomalous. So while there will be regression there, I expect his touchdowns to rise to that, I don't know, six to seven range where I went into my projecting.