Fantasy Football - NFC North Breakdown + Upside Players - Podcast for 7/18

Hey, see, now we've got to talk about a man. Oh, Tucker Craft. Bully. Oh, it was happening. It was. He was their wide receiver one. It was happening. The breakout, you know, week two, the tight end one with six for 124 and a score. Has a couple down games, but then after the bye week. So it's just, we talk about that a lot. Coming out of the bye week, like that's where teams can start making some adjustments. Out of the bye week, Tucker Craft, tight end nine, seven, one. Gets the unfortunate injury, tears his ACL, so he's out for the remainder of the season.

How I have kind of proclaimed, I'm just, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to say screw it. I think he'll be ready at the beginning of the year. I can handle a couple slower games at the beginning of the season while Tucker Craft is re-acclimating, you know, starting trying to figure out if he trusts his knee or not. He's just, he's so dominant. He, his athleticism is off the charts. And I said, I like Jordan Love. They're, I think the most realistic expectation for the Packers is, you know, a wash, rinse, repeat type of thing where it's, we try to win with, with the running game.

But should things change and they call on Jordan Love, you know, you had the, Jordan Love had that season, you know, his first season, let me pull up the numbers. His first season as a starter, complete 64% of his passes, throws for over 4,100 yards and 32 touchdowns. Like, Jordan Love is very capable in this, especially in this offense, to get it done. And there's a chance that that could open back up. But so where are you though, Jay, with Tucker Craft? Look, he's probably their best weapon. If he, if he didn't get that injury with the knee, he would be drafted ahead of Colson Loveland right now.

Because what he was doing. Yeah, probably. What he was doing last year, he was on pace prior, prior, including before the bye week. So the whole season prior to the knee, he was on pace for 1,139 receiving yards. That number, last year, only one tight end, Trey McBride, got over 1,000 yards. And he was on pace for 1,139. You look back, there were some injuries last year. Go back two years ago to see like, okay, what is 1,139 receiving yards? How does that factor in? Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, and George Kittle were the only wide receivers, or only tight ends at 1,100 yards.

So he was in the alpha A tier. Right. I think when we talk about this nebulous wide receiver room, the answer is probably Tucker Craft. The whole issue is the knee. The whole issue is the timeline to come back. I don't think he will be at full strength week one. It does seem surprisingly, I mean, it's less surprising now, but for the timeline and the expectation when the injury happened and then the offseason seemed like, well, Tucker Craft's going to start the season on the pup. Doesn't seem like that. Seems like Tucker Craft will be playing football in week one.

I do think he gets off to a slightly slow start. But if it's like last year where it's like, eh, you got to deal with four down weeks from a tight end. And, okay, you have to, whether you get him or not for most of them. Right. But then you have the opportunity to have a true breakout. I am totally fine grabbing Tucker Craft. He was truly a bully out there. Right now he's going in about the end of the sixth or middle of the sixth round or so. I think that's truly, that's acceptable for the amount of risk. Their first six games, Jay, they are favored in all of them.

That is nice. Even starting. They're favored on the road against Minnesota. On the road against the Jets, almost a touchdown favorite. Oh my gosh. Jets, Atlanta, Tampa, Chicago, Dallas. Yeah. And without Micah Parsons for that stretch. That is juicy. That is an interesting opening schedule. For, man, when you combine everything that's going on fantasy football-wise in, like, draft cost for these guys. I mean, that is. That's very intriguing. To me, that's a feather in the cap of Josh Jacobs. If you're favored in all those games and you're winning those games, that's touchdowns, that's leads. That's the running game. All right.

We're going to take a quick break and then we'll talk about the Vikings. Foot Clan. Building a winning fantasy team is not all that different from being an MVP pet parent. Both take planning, swift maneuvering, constant vigilance, and more than anything, care and attention. Good thing PetSmart has a roster of convenient solutions to keep you in the game and your pets covered. Let's talk scenarios. Let's say your time crunched to make that trade, but your dog needs food, toys, and attention. Well, PetSmart offers ways to shop straight from the couch, like free same-day delivery or in-store pickup in two hours or less.

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So trade offers, when you're on the go, all the news that's breaking so you don't make a mistake. And my favorite thing, maybe I'll mention it. Look, you're sitting and you have a quiet moment somewhere out and about. You want to jump in the UDK. We got the player profiles. You can watch all of those in there with T-Mobile. You can jump in on the player projections and our stat projections and all the 130,000 words of content. Again, T-Mobile making that easy to do. Every bit of news. Things are changing all the time. New player contracts, all that good stuff.

So from offseason to game day, every play is better with T-Mobile. What you got to do is visit T-Mobile.com slash network. Fastest is based on analysis by UKLA of speed test intelligence data of national speed score results for the second half of 2025. The best mobile network in the U.S. is based on analysis by UKLA of speed test intelligence data, second half of 2025. Minnesota, 9-8. 9. Yeah. It's a curse. It's a blessing. 9 got them to 9-8, beating their projected win total of 8.5. In one score games, they were 5-4. And unfortunately, after week 13, or I'm sorry, not unfortunately, the opposite.

They were 4-8 and then they won their final five games. That was enough for... Four of those five games with J.J. McCarthy. I say that was enough for the team to be like, eh, let's go get Kyler Murray. Yeah, we'll see what he can do. They played 10 games versus teams with a winning record. That's the most in the NFL. The Vikings season, what they were able to accomplish with what was going on, I think that's solid. And that's a big shout out to KOC. Kevin O'Connell is a great coach. The coaching in this division is unfair to this division.

It's the only division in the NFL that is returning all four head coaches, I believe. And the reason they are is because they're all just so dang excellent. Like, I mean, I don't even know which one I'd... Like, who would you want the most of these four... Of the coaches? Of these coaches. I think I got my pick. But, like, if you get one coach to start a franchise you can trade from any of these four teams... Man, I think I'm taking O'Connell. Oh, okay. I think. Where are you taking? I think I'm going Dan Campbell. But, I mean, there's no wrong answer here.

This year, their projected win total is 8.5. So, that's not too shabby. Warren Sharp has them with the 17th toughest schedule. The defense was top tier. I mean, the defense is what was keeping them in games as their offensively points per game, 26. The yards per game, 28. Their last two wins they scored... Well, with J.J. McCarthy, they scored 16 points in each of them. Wins. Nice. Yeah. That's getting it done. Defense very, very strong. But let's start with the quarterback position. Oh. Gross. It is almost certainly going to be Kyler Murray. I... Did you see the interview? I think it was...

No, it wasn't Eisen. But it was an interview with him. And they were talking about the... He was talking about his competition at quarterback. McCarthy was? Or Kyler? No. The head coach, KOC. O'Connell? Yeah. O'Connell was in an interview. Oh, okay. Okay. Who's Andy's favorite guy? I can't remember why. I can't think of the broadcast name. Not Eisen. Dan. Dan Patrick? Dan Patrick. Thank you, Held. Sorry, Dan Patrick. You're amazing. Dan Patrick was interviewing. And Kevin O'Connell's like talking about the... You know, they're going to have this competition. And Patrick's just like, yeah, I think Kyler Murray will be a very good quarterback for you

this year. And then Kevin O'Connell just stares at him for five seconds like death ray. He doesn't know how to respond. It was so awkward. So there is going to be a competition here. Kyler Murray will win it based on seeing J.J. McCarthy. What I was saying is it's almost certainly Kyler. I don't think it's impossible. I know. I've been running a bit of like, well, what if J.J. McCarthy wins the job? It's not impossible. It isn't. To me. Like if you're in training camp and Kyler is like... Kyler can lose the job. Yes. We've seen him do enough. He's just sort of better than McCarthy.

Well, at that point, I don't know. If I'm the coach, I'm just going to put McCarthy out there and see what happens for the first half of the year. But what we know is before J.J. McCarthy, quarterbacks for Kevin O'Connell are awesome. They're awesome for fantasy football. In terms of their pass percentage, they were 11th. Like this team throws the ball. O'Connell doesn't really care. We had Carson Wentz had a couple games this year where he was just out there slinging it before he was just absolutely sacrificed on the field. Okay, let's move forward. They would rather have put a dead, battered, broken, beaten down Carson Wentz out there than

nine. I remember it was like... Well, yeah. Nine... He was hurt. And then we had, what was it? Brosmer? Max Brosmer? Mm-hmm. Which... Oh! Then we got to see why he didn't... He wasn't put on the field. I mean... To remember... And I don't know. Maybe this was totally 100% fully legit. It felt like towards the end of his ankle injury, J.J. McCarthy, that it was like he could be back and they just don't want... Do you remember? Yes. It was like... It was a soft benching that they were hiding behind an injury. Exactly. There were rumors of that. Yeah.

And we don't know for sure, but it certainly seemed like that. I mean, that was a long time for that injury. It's probably... Yes. And that was definitely possible, but also in the... Because people are like, well, I didn't even see him get hurt. But then we saw the play where what happened to his ankle. You're like, oh, no. That definitely... He's hurt. It's just how bad is he hurt? Okay. So, Kyler, let's say he gets the job. He does... Since 2019, he has the fourth most rushing yards per game with minimum 50%. You have Lamar, Fields, Hurts, and then there's Kyler.

Mm-hmm. With even... He's got more on average per game than Josh Allen. He's got amazing talent in the legs that if utilized, if coached well, he should be able to very much dominate for fantasy football. He's got better weapons than he's had in many, many years. And I think he's got a better coaching setup than he's had in many years. If Kyler comes out and is the quarterback seven this year, shouldn't be surprising to anyone. He's a late-round dart throw right now. That when you look at the values, if you don't want to take the Josh Allen early, what you...

You know, you don't want to spend a third, fourth, or fifth-round pick on one of the known studs, then the normal strategy is what late-round mobile quarterbacks are available. Because those are the ones that could really leapfrog to breaking fantasy. And so you got Jackson Dart. Kyler Murray is definitely in that category. If he can get coached to run the ball better, more, and less like a coward, then he should be good for fantasy. But he did run last year. I mean, he was right there with his average. He was averaging 34.5 rushing yards per game. So if it's Kyler, how do you feel about Justin Jefferson?

You got to feel better. You know, it's one of those things where, you know, when Carson Wentz came in with Justin Jefferson, Justin Jefferson was fine. He was on pace for like 170 targets, 1,600 receiving yards. That was a five-game stretch, and you don't remember that because it was kind of mired in what was a terrible season. He finished as wide receiver 22, didn't miss a game, still had 141 targets, and it was just out of sorts. We've seen Kyler support Hopkins in the past, and this is, you know, Hopkins in his prime. And Justin Jefferson in his prime is better than Hopkins in his prime.

So I do think that if Kyler is the quarterback, I'm much more confident in Justin Jefferson being back to a top-end wide receiver. Now, the one thing worth knowing, Kyler does not throw touchdowns. Like, you know, he is going to be someone that you're hoping for 20 passing touchdowns. And so the yardage should be there. The targets should be there. That is true. Kyler, over his career, 26 was his highest in terms of passing touchdowns for a season. Yeah, so I don't view Justin Jefferson, obviously, as a talent. You can put him right up in that top-tier, upper echelon, maybe the best wide receiver in football.

For fantasy purposes in 2026, I see him as a back-end wide receiver one. Okay. Like, seven to 12. And what if it's nine? Are you even drafting Jefferson? I'm certainly not drafting Jefferson at cost because he's not going to plummet in drafts. He's Justin freaking Jefferson. You know, he's going to be up there high. And we had enough evidence last year. Not that J.J. can't get better, but I think where he's going in drafts, unless he's plummeting to a value. I mean, he's going every, you know, every place I've seen, he goes ahead of A.J. Brown. I would rather have A.J. Brown than Justin Jefferson by a country mile.

The running back position, there's guys there. And you need to take a shot. We got Aaron Jones. He is back. He's going as the running back 36. Jordan Mason is going as the running back 43. Now, when Aaron Jones returned from, like, he got a little bit banged up. But from week eight on, he averaged over 15 opportunities per game. That's a 32% workhorse rating. Like, he was getting a bunch of opportunities. This is a team you want to take a shot. I still fluctuate between the two of them, who I really prefer between Jones. Jordan Mason's just – Jordan Mason's the better on the ground.

But we know we want our fantasy running backs to catch the ball, which Aaron Jones can still do that. But even – I mean, he's – you want to talk about old. Aaron Jones is 31. So it's Aaron Jones Sr. now, and he didn't have a kid. He just got old enough where they said, okay, you want Sr. on the jersey? Okay. Yeah. That's fine. So I – this is going to be a good offense, is my projection of – so I would be taking shots on those two guys. In the draft yesterday, or the last episode in our mock, you – we both took these guys towards the end of the round,

and you had the first opportunity. You chose Aaron Jones. Yes. Had I been in your spot, I would have taken Jordan Mason. Okay. I think some of the quotes that I've seen coming out – not just – I saw a quote from Matthew Collar, a Minnesota insider, that was talking about how this is Jordan Mason's backfield. Aaron Jones will spell and eat into passing notes. But Matthew – He responded to me on Twitter, and he's like – he wanted to walk that back a little bit. Sure. Those aren't the quotes, though, that make me believe it is going to be Jordan Mason.

It was actually Kevin O'Connell talking about how they have to fix the running game this year. They were really, really, really upset with the running game last year, and they need to figure out a more permanent solution. And I just don't know at this stage of the career if you can fix it and really have a permanent solution with Aaron Jones Sr. at 32 years old being the cure. And I think Jordan Mason could if they could figure out how to utilize his skill set a little better. And so that's why I'm putting Jordan Mason ahead. But both should have a shot taken on them.

Other wide receivers, Jordan Addison, he's still there. They did bring Jawan Jennings into the fold on a one-year deal. I honestly don't think there's a lot to talk about here. No, it's Justin Jefferson. And then – and hey, TJ Hawkinson. Oh, man. He got old so quick. He got old so, so quick. It was. It was really, really fast. He is 29 years old. No. Man, he feels like he's 43. He really does. I haven't seen him recently, but I assume his beard is entirely gray. It's got to be. It has to be at 29 years old. You know, he was always Hoccules or Hawkstrap.