AFC North Breakdown + TD Scorers - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/6

and then saying, oh, man, I like that, I like that. And then all the other receivers saying, no, you don't, you always tell us not to do that. Yeah, well, I was going to be shocked. And then he goes, but him, for him I do. Yeah. I say the coaches, I mean, I mean, they cannot like that at all. I was like, I guess, look, if you ever hear that story with Peyton Manning? No. If one of his wide receivers caught a one-handed catch, he had him benched. That's funny. But unless it's O'Dell Beckham, Jude. Unless is O'Dell Beckham? Who earned, I guess, he earned like tenure with one catch. But it's like, look, sometimes there's your only attempt at a ball is a one hand to catch. But catch with, you got two hands, using both. I'm very excited for this team with the switch of the offensive coordinator. We have Todd Monkin, who's coming in. He's been in college the last couple years, you know, Georgia. You may have heard them having some.

Success recently. A couple of championships. But we're going to have a pass-heavy approach. So here's what has happened. Todd Monkin, in his time in the NFL, has been very pass-heavy, very high on the passover expectation. So like if it's a neutral situation, Todd Monkin likes to pass. You know, he likes to air it out. That's what we, the information we had coming into it. Now we already have confirmation from the small amounts of practicing that the Ravens have been doing from Lamar saying, Oh, yeah. We're going to be throwing the ball a whole lot more than we were with Greg Roman as our offensive coordinator. That's huge because we want more points coming through the air for Lamar Jackson. On top of that, Todd Monkin's offense is going to move faster. You had the snail pace of Greg Roman where we're not throwing enough. And on top of that, we're intentionally trying to slow the game down. Let's get more plays in there. More passing attempts will turn into.

That won't take away rushing attempts from Lamar Jackson. You're going to have Lamar still do his things of the first read, second read is not there. I'm going to go. Like Lamar Jackson is still part of who he is as a quarterback. I think he's going to run a ton. I like his wide receivers. Very. We're at the point, yes. We don't know who it's going to be. We aren't sure that these guys aren't fully proven in the NFL, but we've seen. Enough from, I've seen, I should say, enough from Rashad Bateman to know this guy can play, he can make some things happen. Odell Beckham, I'm less bullish on. I think that that time has come and gone. But with Rashad Bateman, Mark Andrews, and then Zay Flowers getting some time to acclimate and be a super stud route running wide receiver, I am very, very excited for all fantasy possibilities for not just Lamar Jackson, but the Ravens as a team. Yep.

The possibilities word is important, and I think I'm the least excited of the three of us. I see the path. There's no doubt. I mean, he had a 36 touchdown year in 2019. However, the performance on the field hasn't been, I mean, you can blame an offensive coordinator all you want. He's still made mistakes. He's fumbled the football, 16 touchdowns, 17 touchdowns. He's a D and our consistency. 35% of his games. are in a place where fantasy players are excited about him in his last 17. Sure. So there's a lot of things that you can blame, but this is not one year. This is three years where people have been disappointed. They've been disappointed in the pick, three consecutive years in Lamar Jackson. So I can see the path, but I don't want that to be ignored. Like I feel like we have been wanting good for Lamar in personnel and coaching for so long that we're imbueing.

Only a good scenario and I guess I'm saying like what's the I mean how do we get the same that we've gotten from this team? because he's been 10, 15, and 14 the last three years. Well, he's missed games. And obviously, if he misses games, he's not going to be a top 12 quarterback on a per. And that's a huge risk. I mean, massive risk for him. Sure. I mean, it's a massive risk for a lot of mobile quarterbacks. But the mobile quarterbacks are the ones we're taking the risk on. You want a guy who can finish as the number one quarterback. And Lamar Jackson absolutely can't. On a per touch basis, he scores a ton of fantasy points. He doesn't touch the ball enough because they run so slow.

brought it up, but it's worth, you know, repeating. The pace of play to me is the most important thing on the... 28th in pace of play last year. Exactly. I mean, this has been a team that has run one of the slowest, sluggish offices. And when you listen to the players, talk. Yeah, I know that some of the quotes were, oh, we're going to throw more, run less. But most of the quotes, if you really are listening, they're all about playing faster, about pace of play, about speed, speeding the game up. That's what I am so excited about. And yeah, we don't know if Bateman is great. We don't know if O'Dell Beckham still got it. We don't know if Zay Flowers is going to be good enough to be worthy of that first round pick. But what we do know is that those options are way better than what he has dealt with recently, especially last year. When he had Mark Andrews and Hollywood Brown, he was the number one.

you know, quarterback in fantasy. We know he doesn't need a ton. He's got Mark Andrews. So now this trifecta of options at wide receiver, like I am fully in on Lamar Jackson. I completely understand what Andy's saying, that there's risk with injury and that he's disappointed for a couple years in a row. But when I'm trying to play fantasy, he's going to play this entire season, age 26. He is a young prime athlete who can run the ball, is going to play faster. And I think he'll turn the ball over a little bit more in this new offense. But we've seen that before with this coordinator where it works out pretty well for fantasy. Maybe not as well for winning football games. But I'm completely in on. I'm not spending a third round pick on the mark. I'm not doing that. Would you take any quarterback in the third? Who's going there, I should say. Are you willing to take Burrow in the third? I think that I'd take Burroughs going like a 3-11.

So my, if you had asked me that on Burrow, I would have said if he slips into the fourth, I'm thinking about Joe. I'm thinking about Joe Burrow. The target is like Herbert later. Yeah, yeah. I'm not, I'm not saying the, don't think in the third. I'm looking at teams that ran the most plays last year. And it's not like a laundry list of fantasy quarterback champions in terms of total plays. I mean, you have to have both efficiency and pace of play. You need both. But that's where I'm excited because Lamar Jackson is efficient on, on his. fantasy value. But, you know, just because you play fast doesn't mean you're a good team. Yeah, I mean, like the Chargers, they were like number two. Tampa is number one. We struggle with both of those quarterbacks. Arizona was number three. Obviously, Kyler eventually went out. Washington was four in total plays per game. Washington didn't have a big performance. So you're right. It has to be efficiency. But I guess the area of excitement with Baltimore that confuses me is that everybody's going to be great. Mark Andrews is going to be great.

Dobbins is supposed to be great. Lamar's supposed to be great. Bateman's supposed to be great. That's not going to happen. No, it's not. And not in this division. This division is brutal. We just talked about that. That's where to me I'm in on Lamar Jackson, because I don't know if it's Zay Flowers. I don't know if it's Bateman, if he's healthy. I don't know if Otto Beckham still got it. They sure are paying him like he's still got it. I'm not sure. But I know that all their fantasy points goes back to Lamar Jackson. If any one of them is great and Mark Andrews is good.

So I'm in on the Ravens in general, but that doesn't mean I'm in on every single player. To me, it's Mark Andrews and Lamar Jackson are the two that I want pieces of. Do you think there is a chance at all that it's not Bateman, it's not Flowers, it's not Beckham, it's Isaiah likely. Yeah, I mean, I love Isaiah likely. It's my case against Mark Andrews being guaranteed elite. It's because he's a talented player that'll demand some targets. Because he's coming into his second year. Isaiah likely, yeah, he's the other tight end in Baltimore. He, he had, you know, just very athletic player. Yeah, he had a few games. You know, you had week eight, six for 77 with a score. You had the final week. It was the Andrews missing. Yeah, yeah, the final week of the season. But that's the point of if in your first year as a rookie.

when you are thrust into being the main guy for that team. And then you come through, it's, he is, he's interesting to me. And I'm, I'm curious if we'll be talking about him, like in the middle of the season. We have not talked about Nelson Aguilar, but he has been talked about by the coaching staff as well. So to Jason's point about liking Lamar, distribution of targets may be more difficult to predict. You're just trusting Lamar to put up numbers with whomever he's given. Last year it was like DeMarcus Robinson was the player. He were starting because that was the last man up. And they get to open against the Houston Texans. They do at home. Part of fantasy, if you want to play the just the mind game of. He will not have a bad game in week one. He will not. That was my point of sometimes it's tough when you have these guys. You love them long term, but you know that drafting them. Oh, my.

Gosh, look at these first two games. I'm going to have to suffer through this. I'm going to have to deal with the mental attack of going through those two weeks of, wait, did I screw this up? Was this a bad pick? Because the schedule was so tough to start. I believe last year, Lamar had a monster week one. He started. He started. He started. He started. I guess I am just, I am fatigued because that you can, after an MVP year. You can always look at the next season and say he's going to be an MVP again. It's just been a long, long time since we've been happy with it. It has been. I think it'll come through, but it's worth at least bringing up, because we're talking about the Houston Texans schedule. Last year, the Houston Texans were one of the absolute worst teams to play a quarterback against because they were so bad and running backs had such an easy time. And by halftime, you were up multiple scores. I remember.

eventually learning the lesson of, yeah, the Texans suck, but you cannot play a quarterback against him. I remember it was Trevor Lawrence at the end of the year had just a great match. Four points or something. And not because he played bad because they didn't need them. They played a half. All three wide receivers that we talked about, and I'm going to make it brief. Bateman Flowers back on. We're just going to call them exactly tied in ADP because they basically are. Lock one into your lineup today. I think I still lean Rashad Bateman. I don't like the fact that he's coming off the Liz Frank injury talking. We talked Rashad Bateman on the Dynasty podcast and Matthew Betts, our injury guy was on there saying, expect a slower start to the season for Rashad Bateman, especially with the news that he had the cortisol shot into the foot. Betts was saying that is not normal for the recovery of the Liz Frank. So that is something to pay attention to. But I did like that.

Lamar Jackson was quite vocal of saying Rashad Bateman is my number one wide receiver. I'll take the last one drafted. That would be Odell Beckham right now by 80P. Whatever happens in my draft, I will take the last shot. It's ironic. I will take Zay Flowers. And in truth, I'll take none of them. I don't want one of these wide receivers. I don't believe one of them will have a phenomenal year. J.K. Dobbins, right now, he's going to be the guy. We're talking about this team completely transforming their offensive philosophy. You have a quarterback that can score around the goal line. You have Jacob Dobbins that doesn't catch passes. I have them much lower than both of you guys. I think you are trusting the offense to just provide opportunities throughout the year. It's not necessarily going to be predictable, but he'll have a big run, he'll have a big play, he'll have a big touchdown.

I don't love drafting guys that can be touchdown vultured and don't catch the ball. So I get it if you want to be out on J.K. Dobbins. Why I've got him ranked higher is because I believe the offense is going to be good. They've got an awesome offensive line. And what we've seen from Dobbins has been great every time he's been on the field and now two years recovered from that injury. I think we're going to see the best version of him. But I don't mind pass it on him for other guys if you don't, if you want a pass catcher. Yeah, it's offense talent. And you love Mark Andrews.

I do love Mark Andrews I'm in on. Like Mark Andrews. And Jacob Dobbins. No, I don't love J.K. Dobbins. I thought you just said I love J.K. Dobbins. That wasn't the quote? I don't know. I don't listen most of the time. Okay. Yeah, no, I don't blame you. But I don't believe I use those words. Maybe you don't like the wide outs. I don't like the white outs. Steelers are nine and eight. Preseason win totalized year seven and a half. This year is eight and a half. I still think it's going to be a rough road for this team. But I mean, look.

If you need to fix a problem, bring in a guy like Allen Robinson to your roster. Subtraction by addition. That is the big offseason addition, including a third round tight end. Kenny Pickett is the quarterback. Went six and two in his eight starts, his final eight starts. Posted a 1.8% touchdown rate. Nice. Was clutch at leading them to field goals over those last eight games. So. You know, the average for a sophomore, first round quarterback is 4.6. So he should go up because what he did was... Impossibly low. Defying all logic. I can tell you, and it's going to kill Steelers' fans because I've talked to them. They truly believe that Kenny Pickett is going to be the future. I'm not willing to say that right now. I think you're going to need a lot more from Kenny Pickett to remotely compete in this division.

Can he beat Joe Burrow in a shootout? No. Can he beat Lamar Jackson? No, not in an offensive shootouts, no. In a game where you need a big score, that was his biggest weakness last year. This team won on the defensive side of the football. They were 26th and points per game, 23rd in yards, 32nd and passing touchdowns like we're talking about, 24th in passing yards. I mean, you take eight and a half wins. How many other wins? That's their line. I think they win more because Tomlin will find a way to win more than he loses, which would require nine victories. Is that your, so you go nine? Yeah, exactly. I mean, sure, nine's fine, but, you know, you just talked about all the confidence you have in Lamar with the system, finding the weapons. I don't have that here. So I'm trusting the players that I know have produced in the past. I'm not going to, I'm not really excited about George Pickens because the.

Volume of opportunities is worrisome to me, and they did bring in Alan Robinson. Remember, Alan Robinson gets targeted a lot. He may not catch it, but he's going to demand time on the field, and I love Pat Fryermouth. So from a target perspective, Deontay, Fryermouth, and Alan Robinson, I think we'll have more targets than George Pickens. Do you guys, do you have a different view where you see Pickens as a sleeper? I don't see Pickens as a sleeper. He obviously had amazing highlight real performances as a rookie. But when you look at the pecking order and the target volume, I do believe that he is down a little lower. I'd have him above Alan Robinson. You know.

Even still, there's not enough volume for me to really want to go in on him. The way that I view this offense is a middle of the pack offense and the way that they were last year was a bottom of the pack offense. So that still provides value. This isn't a team like the Bengals where you're saying this guy can be top five and this guy can be top five. You know, just absolutely putting up 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns from the quarterback. That's not going to happen here. You're not drafting them like that. You've got, I think, Nerfed draft capital in the Steelers because of Deontay Johnson's bad year. You're drafting him basically at his floor because of Najee's bad year, Jalen Warren's showing people aren't wanting him. I've grabbed Najee a lot in the fourth round where I think that's an excellent value for a guy that I believe is going to be much improved with an offensive line that made.

massive improvements. Huge contracts in the offseason, first round draft capital, and they had the sixth offensive linemen in their rookie tight end, Darnell Washington, who's going to be added to the line. I think there's a well-run team that's going to do enough, and they're going to score fantasy points, and they don't cost a lot. So I see them as small wins. San Francisco to start the year for Pittsburgh. Then they're Cleveland. They're both. home games, luckily. And then Raiders in Houston after that. But week one will be the ultimate test for Kenny Pickett, possible? So trade for Najee after week one. Got it. Potentially. Yeah, Najee, we've talked about him and Jay and the Warren in the past. Naji is a volume play. That's what he's been thus far. Year one, it was a tremendous amount of receptions that really launched him.

into, I think, top five finish, right? Was he five or six? Yeah, he was way up there. Efficiency on the ground hasn't been there. Jason likes the offensive line. He was number four and number 14 last year. Good into the season seemed healthier. Still nervous about a team that was 26 points per game, me personally. Like, that's just not part of my draft recipe. So if I have an opportunity to take a running back at a similar range that I think has a higher offensive potential, They were still 11th in rushing touchdowns. Like it's balanced out by the 30 seconds in passing touchdown. Well, that's what I was going to say. Like you can't have you can't have the efficiency of can he pick and improve unless the entire team gets much better in total touchdowns and still have nausea score that much. But he's going to get the ball around the goal line. Who's going in his range? I'd be curious about whether I'm telling the truth about who I'd take.

I will pull that up for you. Right now he's 306 in drafts is what I'm seeing. Yeah, so right around Naji, you've got Travis E.TN, Kenneth Walker, and Jemir Gibbs going right behind him. Yeah, I mean, two of those three, I'll definitely take over Naji, E.TN and Gibbs. The other one was. Kenneth Walker? Probably. I lean Naji over all of those guys personally, but you can make easy arguments both ways. That is. Man, I think of those four guys, I'll still take nodgy. I won't argue with Jalen Warren looks great when he's on a football field, but Mike Tomlin, just for the entirety of his career, there is something about having a big, durable back that you can have on the field for the majority of snaps. There's something about that that Mike Tomlin likes for his offense. The Browns.

They went seven and ten last year. That was their preseason win total with seven wins. This year is nine and a half, which puts them a game over the Steelers. I'll take the under. No, I'm in. I'm in on this offense. I think, you know, Deshaun Watson is a proven commodity at quarterback multiple years of success. You have an outstanding, maybe the best running back in football. You have a probably underrated wide receiver room right now, although. There has been some talk about frustration that they didn't bring in Hopkins. We didn't really talk about Cleveland as a destination, but that would have really, I think that would change the way we look at this receiver room in general because right now it's a Marty Cooper, the potential of Elijah Moore, Donovan People's Jones. David Njoku is somebody that I think we all believe in the athleticism and the potential of this year. So a sleeper tight end is in the works there.

This is year four for Kevin Stefansky. He has done the opposite. Eleven wins, eight wins, seven wins. But no, I may stand alone, but I, oh, no, Mike and I both have Deshaun Watson at QB9 right now. But I think he is tremendous upside. Tremendous. Well, he certainly does. I would not argue with anyone that he doesn't have the upside. When you look at a guy who started his career sophomore year was the quarterback five, then the quarterback five, then the quarterback five. Obviously, we know his potential. It's to be the quarterback five. But that's three years ago now. What we saw last year was a rusty version of him. No offseason program. No practices just thrown right into it. So I don't blame him for looking bad. But it has to be said, he looked bad. Like individual throws.

Just not at a professional quarterback level. This is a team that, you know, if they were hot, they were playing well, they were winning games, and then Watson came in and, you know, it just didn't go that well. Obviously, they're invested in him. If he gets it back with this offseason program, you know, a full year under his belt with this franchise, his upside is there. It's just a matter of, do you believe it's going to happen? That has to be pure speculation and projection. I... I am on the side where I don't believe he's going to be an elite quarterback this season. You two believe he'll get back to his old ways. Yeah, I mean, it's just such a small same. Nine is not his old ways. Yes, a small sample last year, too. Like you said, I mean, the last two years, the last two games was eight and six, managed to piece those together. Played Houston. You just talked about them, the worst matchup for quarterbacks in week one, played in Cincinnati, played against Baltimore, played against New Orleans defense.

I think he's being undervalued. But QB9 is not QB5, like Mike was saying. I think that they need to let him throw the football. And we may be very happy with, you know, him being able to, like a lot of his value was elusiveness. And so can he get back to doing that? And what will that mean, Mike, for the wide receivers? I mean, Amari Cooper came through last year. He had a big year. Wasn't nearly as good. Nothing, nothing was nearly as good as soon as Deshawn Watson was on the field for the Cleveland Browns. But you have a lot more time now to get it going. Amari Cooper, I think he's a perfectly acceptable pick at his ADP, wide receiver 18 in about the middle of the fourth right now. That seems fine, you know, fourth and...

Wow, fourth and receiving touchdowns. I was going to say, third and end zone targets. That seems like if Deshaun Watson isn't a complete disaster, that seems like the absolute floor for Murray Cooper. That's the wider year 18. That's the question of like Watson was so good because I think he had just his perfect situation. I mean, he was younger, you know, at the peak of his athleticism. And he had Hopkins and. Will Fuller sometimes. Will Fuller. But I mean like the Will Fuller never became, I don't know, he didn't reach his potential. But when Will Fuller was on the field, he was usually the fastest guy there. And he could do certain things so that I think that office was just was perfectly set up for what Watson could do. Do they have that true field stretcher? Because let's say Amari Cooper plays more of a Hopkins role. And I don't know that you.

I don't know that you have that guy that can really take the top off for the Cleveland Browns. Where's the DPJ? Respect, man. It would be People's Jones. You used to love him. Oh, yeah. And then Deshawn Watson ruined everything. But if People's Jones would be the guy, if anyone could do it for them. I just, I'm, I'm, I think I'm, I'm in the middle of you guys where Jason seems pretty out on the Browns bounce back. You're in, I'm. I guess I'm in the middle. And for my draft pieces, that means like I'm not really, I'm not forcing any of these guys onto my team. I'll put it that way. Nick Chubb was the number one quarterback, the first half, or running back the first half of last year. This is the biggest question. This is the biggest question. Because this is the hype train that is starting to, to take off here. Nick Chubb, more passing work. Because if Nick Chubb,

actually got passing work, he would be a top three running back at the end of the year. It will happen. Not the top three, but he will get more passing work. That's a guarantee. What is more passing work? More passing work means that he's going to be 45 plus targets, and I think it could go north of there. I think he could have 40 receptions. He almost had 45 targets last year, so that's not really a massive increase. If you look at the depth chart here, There just isn't, you know, it's kind of like we were talking about with Mixing. They let Kareem Hunt go. They have not replaced him. There's Jerome Ford there. There's no draft capital, no money, equity, no talent or things that we've seen on the field yet. And then there's a superstar. Nick Chub, they're paying him a lot of money. And I think he'll be on the field more. They've talked about him getting more involved. And I just think it's a necessity. So if he's almost there last year, maybe it's something like,