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

I think he's Hawkstrap now. This is a guy who served his purpose. He was a top five tight end three times in his first five years. But, you know, he just doesn't have – I mean, 8.6 yards per catch last year. I see more of the same. It's dink and dunk. It's volume. He's just – 8.6. Yeah. I mean, it's – I don't care. I don't care about Hawkinson. Detroit Lions. They were 9-8. They did not meet their projected win total of 10.5. They were 3-5 in one score games. They were the second most injured team in the NFL. Number one when you're talking about the defense.

Oh, man. It was so – They were really, really beat up. And then already this offseason, they cut a guy for kidnapping. That's a new one. Yeah. I mean, it's like their curse on the defense – I feel like this is a couple years in a row where you look and you go, wow, they could have a really good defense. Nope. Psych. Like, it's just – I think they'll be much, much better on the defensive side of the ball. Vegas agrees. Projected win total, 10.5. And Warren Sharp has them listed as the easiest strength of schedule this year. They are favored in 14 of their first 15 games.

Yeah. I mean, this was one of the advantages that the Chicago Bears had last year. They had the fourth place schedule. When you finish last in a division, you get the best schedule. And when you're, like, second or third in a division, it really doesn't matter. The meat of the NFL teams are – You know, there's so much parity in the NFL that any team can beat any team. But when you get the fourth place and you get the – You're getting the losers. You're getting – A couple of your extra games that you get that other people don't get

are against the losers. And those guys are – Yeah, they get the Giants, Tennessee, and Arizona. Yeah. So, spoiler, I'm going to put the Detroit Lions first in the division at the end. Because I think that their schedule – All these teams are good, and their schedule is easy enough where I expect them to win the most games. Jared Goff always puts up incredible passing numbers. Sometimes he's really, really good for fantasy. Last year he finished as the QB 9. I mean, he just – He'll finish in the top 10. Yes, but it's – He will accumulate enough stats by the end to be a top 10 guy.

And – Don't draft him. The last two years, like, his bust games, they're very low, but they're great games. He just – He lives in good for the most of the time. He will have some spike weeks from time to time, but he's really more of a – His consistency chart, his consistency score, which is the percentage of games where you exceed basically just a good total in four-point passing touchdown leagues, is 35% of his games he does that. It's a D. And this is for a guy who, ironically, his season-long consistency is always there. He was the quarterback 8, and he was a D in consistency.

You don't want him as your weekly, every-week starter. What you do want is pick him up off of waivers, play him in the right barn burner matchup against great offense at home, those type of environments. And, yeah, we'll see. If their defense fixes, it'll be even tougher. But if their defense kind of collapses and gets hurt again, then Goff will be more in play. Aiden Hutchinson is healthy. Yeah. Jameer Gibbs is the talk of the offseason as David Montgomery is now on the Houston Texans. He is – Jameer Gibbs is electric. He is either – everybody's either running back one or running back two.

Honestly, I don't have a lot to say about Jameer Gibbs because he's just – he's that good. He's either the first or – like, he won't make it out of the top three. You know, we had a – we did a three-wide receiver mock. I can't believe you got him third. No, I got – wait. Did I get Gibbs or Bijon? I thought I got Bijon. Well, it doesn't matter. But he's going to be great. Just draft him. There's really not a lot to break down here. But let's talk about your guy, Jason. Sam Laporta. Your favorite tight end. Yes.

From someone you just were dunking on nonstop for the beginning of the offseason to a player you can't stop drafting. Well, it really is opportunity cost. I refuse to take a middle-round tight end. It is terrible strategy. You are deleting opportunities to take players at wide receiver and running back who can really end up making an impact. They don't all make an impact. But you get more opportunities, more lottery tickets to grab that running back or wide receiver in the middle rounds who does break out. Who was George Pickens last year. Who just really makes a huge difference. Whereas Laporta in those rounds will not make a huge difference versus the field.

I've talked about that analytically ad nauseum. But he's not in the middle rounds anymore. He's not the fifth tight end off the board anymore. And he is talented enough. He is on an offense good enough. He has the touchdown opportunities enough where he checks all the boxes. This was never an anti-Laporta. Laporta's not a difference maker over average tight ends to give up opportunity cost in middle rounds. He's been slipping. I've got him in the ninth round, the tenth round. I love that. I love getting Laporta. If I'm near the double-digit rounds where I'm not giving up that much, now he does make a little difference.

I would much rather have him than Kyle Pitts. But it doesn't cost you much. So I think if Laporta stays cheap, I am in. It's so funny. Which transitions nice into this conversation about Jameson Williams because Jameson Williams, when Laporta is off the field, is an absolute demon and puts up huge points. We're talking a split from 48 yards per game when Laporta plays with Jameson Williams. And then when Laporta is off the field, Jameson's up to 85 yards per game. The issue with that statistic is that there were two things that happened. One, Laporta got injured, and so J-Mo was way better.

And so it looks like, wow, when he's off the field, that's what caused it. But the other thing that happened was Dan Campbell was really unhappy. They lost Ben Johnson, and they didn't have an answer at offensive coordinator or play calling. He took over the play calling duties. He did not like how they were involving these weapons of theirs. And all of a sudden, they involved Jameson Williams. He was great. And so it's probably a both, but it could be an either or. It could just be, look, with Laporta not there, Goff looked to his next read, and that next read was Jameson Williams, and he exploded.

It could be solely that Dan Campbell was like, we've got to get the ball in this explosive player's hands more, and so I'm going to call plays for it. We don't know, but I don't think we can just assume it is when Laporta's off the field. Andy would be upset. He's missing here. Yeah, wide receiver 27. Are you interested in Jameson? So I have a really difficult time with Jameson. I'm not, and Andy would totally be in. I don't know. Fantasy philosophy, talk to me about this, Mike, because I find that I don't really love the boom-bust guys. The guys who will win you a week, but they'll lose you a week, and that is Jameson Williams.

He'll finish way above wide receiver 27. Like, he will. So if you're drafting him as the 27th wide receiver off the board, and all that matters is that he finishes higher than wide receiver 27, that's a great pick. The process of getting to those fantasy points is not always fun, because you're going to have games where he just disappears. I don't know that I enjoy those types. Andy does enjoy those types. Where do you stand, and who's, like, what is the right way to think about it? I mean, you can build your teams in different ways. I like those types of players, because when they aren't.

I think I'm a chicken. When they're not an early pick, you know, like when my draft capital is burned on them. But in the back of the fifth or the early sixth round, Jameson Williams, I think he's a really solid pick. I like to have players, you know, the nitro. You put him in the flex, or it's your wide receiver. He could be your wide receiver three. And that would be, like, that's a scary combination of if you have two better receivers and then Jameson's your third. Yes, yes. And with just roster construction. So that's how I prefer to construct my roster.

So I'm in. I think Jameson Williams is, I think he's a good pick. I don't mind it. I mean, look, this is an offense that should score an absolute magma amount of points. You know, this is, like, we talk about the Packers. The Packers are a good offense, a top-half offense, maybe a top-third offense. This is one of those teams where I expect them to score a ton of points. You want players on here. The team should be somehow even more explosive without David Montgomery, you know, at no fault to him, and all credit to Jameer Gibbs. I saw a stat about, like, the per-game fantasy points of every player in the history of, and I don't remember who tweeted this out.

It was neat. Sorry, I can't give you credit, but I also can't even quote you accurately because this is just off the dome. But it was basically the per-game fantasy points. Are you saying anything right? Not really. Per-game fantasy points for, like, all players. LaDainian Tomlinson, Christian McCaffrey. And then one of the players was Jameer Gibbs in games without David Montgomery. Oh, okay. And he was lapping the field. The LaDainian Tomlinson, Christian McCaffrey, they had nothing on him. So it is a really exciting prospect with this offense without David Montgomery. It's also worth saying, and I talked about it on the mock draft at the end last episode, Isaiah Pacheco is not good, but this offensive line is good.

If Gibbs goes down, someone will have a ton of opportunities to score touchdowns. David Montgomery. Montgomery is vacating 34 red zone carries. Exactly. 14 inside the five. He's vacating 158 rushing attempts as well. You cannot give Gibbs all that the Lions did last year. The running game of the Lions cannot all go to Gibbs. He'll die. So there will be someone else of relevance and then certainly an important insurance back, which right now appears to be Pacheco. All right. So put the other three teams in order of the division, Jay. For me, it's going to go this one in what is maybe the most difficult division seems very clear cut to me.

It goes Lions, Packers, Bears, Vikings. That's how I have it, too. Oh, all right. Clear to both of us. Sorry. We can't argue about it. That's going to do it for today's show. The NFC South on Tuesday. Andy will be back. Reminder, if you are in New York and you see us, come check us out. Come say hello. But thank you for listening. I hope your lawn is finally manicured. Enjoy the weekend, everyone. Talk to you later. Goodbye. Bye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers.