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

Maybe he's up there. What was his total receptions last year? Total receptions. In the 20s, I'm guessing? I lost. Hold on. 27. 27? Yeah, 27. So 37 targets. Can you get to 40? Can you catch 40 on 58 targets or something like that? I think that that is in the range of outcomes. We've kind of seen this with Derek Henry. Derek Henry. Over the last couple years, they've just, he's not a pass catcher, and he's not just going out there getting 100 targets, but more and more and more design plays getting him in space. And guess what? It works. Yeah, good players, they give them the ball and then they do good stuff. Who wins the division? Give me your winner. I've got the Bengals. It's going to be the Bengals. Okay. We're all agreed then. Yeah, but if you. Let's order the final three. I go Bengals, Ravens, Steelers, Browns.

I'll go Bengals, Browns, Ravens, Steelers. Bengals, Ravens, Steelers, Browns. So, I mean, I'm in with Jason. All right. Best Ball Breakdown, presented by Underdog Fantasy. All right. Back into it, Best Ball Breakdown for this week. There's a new segment every week leading up into the season looking at positive touchdown regression candidates this week. This is a topic that comes up frequently in fantasy. It's very relevant for best ball draft position and the opportunity to take a player that you look at as a touchdown regression candidate, positive regression candidate. And we're going to identify some names. I see you went real bold.

Well, it is. It tied in with the divisional breakdown, Mike. Yeah, no, it's, it's worth, it's, I think it's a worthy mention because it's going to happen. Deontay Johnson's 147 targets and zero touchdowns. He needs one. Well, no, that wouldn't be, um, okay. That wouldn't be, uh, success by this metric. It would technically be positive regression, but not, but also no, it wouldn't really because, because you'd be looking at his career average and you'd want him to. positively regressed to the mean, not to one. That's a problem. One would be a huge problem. But what I believe about him, and we didn't talk about the wide receipt, we didn't talk about him as much in the Steelers section of the show. What I like about him is he's the best player. He's the best player in that room by a wide margin. And he has been for a while. And so when that player, that player demands targets, he makes it easy on his quarterback. And then you're just going to end up with that season where they're in the end zone, just like he's always been.

Last year was just really just an anomalous year for the quarterback. And so in best ball, you know, it's a format that lives and dies with touchdowns. You can swing for the fences on some of these guys to bounce back to where you want them to be. So my candidate was Deonté. Who do you have, Jason? Yeah, you're going to love who I have. You've talked him up a lot this offseason, and I find myself coming around on his. basically on his touchdowns. That's what's really, you know, the more research that I'm doing, the more that I see D.K. McCaff should be at nine touchdowns, 10 touchdowns. He should be north of that. You look at his last two seasons, and yes, it was with Russell Wilson, but he had 10 touchdowns. He had 12 touchdowns. And then this last year, only six. And you go, oh, well, that's Gino. Gino was great. Gino threw 30. Gino threw the fourth most touchdowns in the NFL. And if you look at the opportunities, I mean,

He led the NFL in in-zone targets, 24 in-zone targets for D.K. Metcalfe, for some reason, just didn't reel those in. And that's not normal. That's not going to continue to happen forever. The next closest in the league was only at 18. And yet somehow DK Metcalf only scored six touchdowns. This isn't Julio where he just never got it done. This is a guy that's had 12. He's had 10. Exactly. And if you want to know the best way to project positive regression, it's those really valuable opportunities that are sticky. And if you want to know how sticky they are, Andrew Cooper had a great tweet on Twitter. Here's the players that have seen 14 plus in zone targets the last two years in a row.

Justin Jefferson, Stefan Diggs, Jamar Chase, and D.K. Metcalf. Here's the players that have done it three years in a row. D.K. Metcalf. He's going to get his. Yeah, because he's a monster. He's humongous. And if I was a quarterback and I saw him running up against these tiny little men, I would throw it at him. Absolutely. And normally it works out. You know he's going to get his opportunities around the goal line and he's going to come down with him. So I actually bumped him up. Did you? In the UDK for his touchdown number. Yeah, right now we have a wide, you know, it's tough to bet on the, with your rankings, it's tough to bet on that touchdown category. When that's the predominant category that the player makes his contribution in, those are tough bets. Like I did it with Mike Williams before. And it didn't work out, even though Mike Williams was very involved because those touchdowns are hard to project and predict. So, you know, I've got Metcalf up at 10, but obviously I'm betting on him.

returning to this level. Mike's got him at 28, which look is where he's going to be if he can't get into the end zone. So I do want to say this before Mike shares the name. I have a feeling we're going to hear from the positive regression crew on Twitter. Oh, I don't care. Because that language has already, it's been brought up so many times. I'm just warning you guys. No, it does not bother them. And if for that crew, the reason we use that verbiage, because the correct verbiage is simply to say regress. But. When you are having conversation and you say the word regress, it has a negative connotation in our everyday life. When something regresses, it is bad. It technically means either direction, but so I think there is nothing wrong with just specifying positive regression. Deal with it. Yeah, it's a normal math term, but people hear it and they get angry. Yeah, no, get out of. Mike, give me your name.

The round amount of touchdown, baby. We're going with Ramandre Stevenson. I am just, I am all in on Ramandre. He had 12 carries inside the five that only turned into two touchdowns. I watched him, Mike. Yeah. And I watched him fumble like three times in a row and I wanted to die. Hey, because he was giving him those opportunities, like you said. I think the opportunities will still be there. And he, so he underperformed in terms of, uh, yards to touchdowns, rushing yards to touchdowns, and he slightly underperformed in receiving yards. He should have had another receiving touchdown with how many receptions and receiving yards he put up. And he was still, he was fantastic last year. And you just convert a couple more of those carries inside the goal line into a few touchdowns. And you're talking about a true difference maker at the running back position. Mike, I'm very terrified at that proposition.

Because you traded him. Because I traded him and I traded him for a player that performed in the other direction. Josh Jacobs, that, look, if I was betting money, I'm betting on Josh Jacobs well ahead of Ramandre this year. Which is understandable. I do see the path to them being much tighter and fantasy finish at the end of the year. And this is just another bullet point into that effect, the fact that. He only got in the ends on two times on 12 attempts inside the five, which is kind of insane. Yeah. It happens because it happened to ETN, 23 carries inside the five, only four touchdowns. Mixing, legendary performance of 28 carries inside the five, only six touchdowns. It happens, and then that thing can swing the other direction. Now, all of this is, as of this recording, Dalvin Cook is not a New England patriot. Yeah. Should Dalvin Cook become a New England patriot?

I do not stand by this analysis. Yeah, I think Zeke would get those opportunities too because obviously, Remandre is not the case like Metcalf of a history of doing it a bunch of times. Right. So you could look at it as a team and they could go, he can't do it well, so we'll give it to somebody else. That's still a possibility. For the confidence in mixing, you know, to go back to that conversation, who else on the Patriots is going to do it? Right now it is Remandre. At least we think. They do have a history. Yeah, yeah. Kevin Harris's and Pierre Strongs and we're, I mean, they've used small guys around the end zone before. Danny Woodhead. Yes, yeah. So shocking. Bill's a little crazy. He, yes. Oh, yeah. Uncle Bill is a little bit crazy. But it was, it was so shocking that they, to this point, they've still done nothing. Like, they, the only thing that they've done is they brought in James Roberts and they went, nah, man. Not it. And then they. And then they.

They caught him. Like they've improved the opportunity for Ramandre. They do seem like one of those places you're going to be holding your breath all off season. Yes. And then if Ramonda makes it through like you did the draft, congratulations to all of you. It's going to be good. He's still going to be the guy because the longer you wait, the less important that player is to the team when they bring them in. All right. That was best ball breakdown presented by Underdog Fantasy. Get your first deposit match up to $100 using the code. Ballers. That is it for today's episode of the show.

I hope the show positively regressed to our mean of success. But we'll be back with another one on Saturday, three a week right now. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers.