AFC East Breakdown + Scariest Picks - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/13

What's going on, Foot Clan? We are back in the divisional breakdowns today looking at the competitive AFC East, all of the implications for Aaron Rogers' health and a whole lot more. Don't miss a minute. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in Saturday episode, Jason Moore. We get crazy on the weekend, boys. Do we? What? Well, I do.

I'm just saying. What do you have planned? Well, listen to the episode. Find out. We get crazy on the weekend with our AFC East takes. That's right. That's right. No holds barred today. Okay. Well, I'll be curious to hear who you predict to win the division. You're not curious who I predict to lose and finish last in the division? I'm not as curious about that. I, you're locked in for third guys. Oh, you want to find out who we have. Jason's third place pick? I had Kyle do the math. for last year one point per correct prediction in each division i didn't know what the results were going to be but i kind of you know you kind of know i ended up winning last year's competition so i have something to repeat you did it's tough it's tough to uh to nail these down because there's a there's a houston every year yeah and it won't be the patriots but um i do think that

Whoever is number one in this division, I don't know your guys's rankings here, but it's very interesting, a very tight division. We like to keep these competitive. And the truth is, on this show, when we do these divisional breakdowns, it's like, I don't hear from people on Twitter about, oh, cool, you pick my team to win the division. I just hear from the fans of the team that has to end up at the bottom and how dumb we are. I think you only hear that when it's a top to bottom difficult division. Right. Like we didn't hear it with Tennessee. No, that's fair. I heard it about Cincinnati. We're not going to hear it with the Patriots. So we're talking to AFC East today. I'd like you to believe in the back of your mind that I might pick them to win the division. I just wanted you to think that. Last year, Jason and I were apparently perfect in this division on the Buffalo, Miami, New York, New England order. So we'll see if that ends up being. You perfectly projected the demise of Aaron Rogers then.

Yeah, Jason and I had some inside information. Well, I was, I was a little sad if you, if you rewind the tape. I was devastated by the interview. Oh, I know why, yeah. Yeah, because I believe Aaron Rogers was already done. Like from his final season in Green Bay. Yeah, you were predicting a subpar year and now you didn't get to see it. Right. Well, I mean, it was a pretty bad year. Yeah, but a different kind of subpar. Yes. You wanted a selfish victory lap. Yeah, and I'm not going to victory lap on an injury. You're a man of principle. Yeah, now it's funny because now I want to root for him just to come back, like to, you know, come back from the injury. I don't think it's going to happen. But like, now that he had the devastating year. Wait, he's an underdog now, so you're on his side. Yeah, well, I am betting against the man, but I'm rooting for him. You could do that. I don't even know what that means. Yeah, but then you're like rooting against yourself to.

To lose. That's tough. I mean, we're going to talk all about it. How does one do that? I root for him to lose every day. A lot of therapy, Mike. Ultimate draftgit.com. Go check it out. Draft analyzer live right now. And you can jump in there. Check out all of our tiered rankings and a ton of tools and resources. Get your team graded import your mock draft. See how you did. This is the time of year as well. Obviously, we've got our tiered rankings there. That's how you want to draft is from tiers. But this is the time of year where you've, you've.

You know, your draft probably isn't tomorrow. And so you can watch all the player profile videos. It's like getting, you know, 100 more hours of this show, just talking about every single player. It's a great way to prep. All right, quick question of the day before we jump into the AFC East Divisional Breakdown. I think it's a fun one. As of right now, looking at where the landscape is in fantasy and where players are going, who's the player you're most scared to take? Who's the player you're most scared to draft? Yeah, Mike, go ahead. I will throw out Drake London because he, a great philosopher says all the time he was drafted to be great. I know that guy. And we have seen, like it hasn't been nothing from Drake London. Some guys at this point, I mean, look, Jameson Williams, we've really seen nothing. He's not Bershad Perryman.

Right. Yeah. We've seen a handful of games where he really takes over. He has a huge performance. He's kind of like a reason that the offense succeeds and then they win the game. But we have also seen lots and lots of failure. Like he did not, he barely surpassed 900 yards, which he did miss a game. But counting stats, he was barely over 900 yards. Meanwhile, Adam Thielen, Chris Godwin, DeAndre Hopkins. They all managed to surpass 1,000 yards. And they were also dealing with really, really bad quarterback play. So the fact that we haven't seen it. And now it's in this. You're giving a second round pick to get Drake London, which he's like, I think he's good. But you're betting on Kirk Cousins returning with the Achilles. There's so much up in the air. And it's such an expensive pick.

for a guy where you feel like you haven't seen enough. To me, Garrett Wilson, yes, we're going to talk about the Jets. But it's like, I've seen enough from Garrett Wilson to go, that's a dude. Drake London, I'm like, I think. It's interesting. So you're not necessarily willing to give him the free pass. Some fantasy players are giving him on quarterback play. It reminds me of how we thought of DJ Moore for a little while and how we thought of Terry McCorm for a little while, where, I mean, those are two really, really good players. that we had seen in little flashes. But everybody wanted to elevate them in draft in the draft ADP. And like for Terry, like DJ Moore, it finally happened. Or Terry McLauram, we're still waiting for it to happen. And like that's the path that Drake London is on right now. Jason, who are you most afraid to draft? Mine is wild. I mean, this should be like a wild card type of player. He gets crazy on the weekends. Yeah, I told you. Every single year.

There seems like there is a player where you go, we should have seen this coming. We should have seen how great it was going to be. It was clear. It was obvious. A couple of years ago, we were just talking about, like, it was when Stafford came and you have Stafford and McVeigh and Cooper Cup together. And you're like, their ADPs were really low. And it was like after every time we do a mock draft or something, it'd be like, you know, this might just work. You know, this is just going to work because you got McVeigh. There's a player out there that it's just like when he has a monster unbelievable season and is a top three running back, you can look out there and go, of course, we should have seen this coming. I'm imagining that you'd make a very complicated, robust argument and never tell the audience the name. And we move on. I hope so. And they just sit there going, did he say it? Because the other side of the argument is at the end of the year, there's always like,

Those players where it's like, we knew, we knew, you know, Alexander Madison was like, you know, that's not going to work. It's the. Take it easy. You bet I did. You bet I knew it was going to work. It's just like, it's like, you know, like Zimier White this year. It's like, you can bet on it, but it's not going to work. You know, it just never works those type of players. And this is, I have the same fear. I still haven't said it. But I have the same exact fears of the same guy where it's like, clearly this isn't going to work. And also.

Obviously it's going to be great. It's Devon A-chan. Yeah. It's the itty-bitty running back who dominated NFL defenders last year. If you had it, I had him on a bunch of rosters. Every time he touches the ball was like the defense can't handle this guy. They can't catch up with him. If he has any kind of crease, he is gone. He's in the perfect scheme fit. And you have to spin for him in draft. So it, it. It's the reason you'd be afraid to waste a pick. I'm terrified. So he's going right now as the running back eight. Oh, my gosh. Which. Oh, I want. You ready to spend? But hold on. I just want to give you. So top 10, the top 10 running backs, this was the average of opportunities it took that got these guys in the top 10. Oh, no. 240 attempts. Okay.

and 66 targets. That was the average? For top 10? Of the top 10. Now, look, I mean, you got Christian McCaffrey taking that thing to the limit, but it's an average of the top 10. And he's being drafted as that. 306 opportunities. And Devon H.N. is not the guy who needs 300 opportunities, obviously, because he, like, where did he, he was in. I was about to see his per game average of opportunities. He finished top 24 last year. with 100 attempts for 800 yards and 37 targets. So what, about 140 opportunities? Yeah, if you look when he can. It's 12.7 per game in the games he played. Did you take out the two games where he was like 5%? No, I didn't. Kyle said 15.1 opportunities and nine full games. Oh, there you go. So it's just it will. I want to stay healthy and then that's 250. Will he get all those opportunities? Where he most or it's great.

at least it was last year, will his body hold up to those opportunities? He does not need those opportunities. If he gets 250 opportunities, which was kind of what he was pacing as a rookie, he will absolutely return? It's will he stay healthy? And the thing is, is I want A-chan on my roster. Like, I'm in. I'm willing to pull the trigger. But I really want him as my second running back. And he's not. He's the RBA. You can't do it. So you've got to rely on a guy that is so dicey. as your first running back off the board, it just feels fragile. There was a time. That's because it is, Jason. There was a time that Austin Eccler felt that way, okay, to give you that like, you know, should be obvious but wasn't obvious. And it's players that at the running back position don't fill the prototypical mental image of what you have in a workhorse back. And H.N. is that guy. He's small, yes. But when you go and watch the film, I went back and watched a bunch of highlights from Devon H.

He bounces off a guy's great balance. He doesn't. He goes between the tackles. It's not like he goes down on first contact. Like there are attributes to the player regardless of the size that make you think it. I mean, I could see your face. You're like, I'm back in. Yeah. No, I don't know if I'm in or out. I am just scared. So you'll be looking for him to drop. You'll, you'll want. So take advantage if other people are scared to. Yeah, I need to scare people off so that I can have them. Oh, man, because you love him. I do, I do. But you love Moster too. You've talked about that this offseason at the value. You love Rheem Moster. Yeah, I mean, the last year's running back to going in like, what is it, the eighth round or something. Seventh, eighth round, yeah. Seems a little like the pendulum swung too far. I'll take the low-hanging fruit that is almost an inverse of A-chan to me. A-chan, hyper-efficient, been banged up.

Lower opportunities. Hyper. Hyper. No, I'm saying what's the opposite, though. Oh, I see what you're saying. This is a thyroid joke. Yeah. I think it is. I think it's a hypo, uh, hypo efficient. Um, it was just, you know, it was just a passing comment shouldn't be analyzed. Just a little prefix joke. Come on. That's the good stuff. That is the good stuff. Why they listen. Thank you. Did I at least get it right? Josh Jacobs. Don't check. Okay. I will answer. Yes, you did. I knew it. With Josh, inefficient is the word you're looking for. Please be quiet. Hypoefficient. We are trying to analyze these players. A efficient. Josh Jacobs should work, can work, great team, big money, feels scary. Because what you saw over the year last year was inefficiency, 47% of the time over 10.5 points, which is our metric for consistency.

for a running back. That's sub 50% obviously not what you want if you're spinning a high pick. Ended with an injury, 3.5 a carry, didn't look like the player that led the AFC in rushing the year before. So that's what defines a scary pick to me is you go into the season, not in love with last year's film, but in love with all the externals. At least when he went down his backup, who had not really started any games, came in and it looked terrible. Not true. That is. Strong ending for Zemir White. And there's some, you know, he was late to camp, Fat Thor. Fat Thor. I don't know if that was everything. It was a tough season. For the quarterback position, they rotated through. The fact that, like, Fat Thor was just. So he was hypo efficient. Fat Thor was such a throwaway joke that just. Yeah, it shouldn't have worked, man. I was so mad at it, too. Because I had Josh Jacobs.

And I was like, stop it. Stop the fat Thor thing. He just negotiated a contract. He's not fat. He's not going to be slow. And then I dressed up as Josh Jacobs for Halloween in a fat Thor costume. He kept on. So look, I know you agree that Josh Jacobs is kind of a terrifying pick. Yeah, he is. You know, there's a world, like, he's already done it. He could be a top three running back. He could get the kind of work on it. And what do we want? We want a team that's going to win ball games and the offense that we like, a quarterback that we like. He's got all those. He's got A.J. Dillon behind him. We love that.

Yeah, well, no. He's got Marshawn Lloyd behind him. Fair. We'll see if Dylan makes the team. Oh, how's that feel? How'd that sentence feel? Hey, feels bad. What could have been? We'll take a quick break. We'll get into the AFC East. A good prefix joke. That's what Mike is owning it on for 2024. That's what you've got to look forward to. I've got a lot more lined up. Good. Stay tuned. Good. Let's get divisional. All right, we are on our third divisional breakdown episode. We're in the AFC right now. We're looking at the AFC East. It's a fun division to talk about. A lot of very relevant fantasy football players to discuss. And as I've said on previous episodes, we're looking at some of the offseason changes for each of these teams, players, rookies, coaches, schemes, how things went last year, how we see things transpiring this year. And ultimately,

You know, we'll try to nail this division prediction-wise, but there are question marks. And we'll start with the team that has won four consecutive AFC East titles, the Buffalo Bills. And they still got it done last year. Miami, same record. Buffalo ends up with the division title. They lost the chiefs. The struggle right now in Buffalo is like, is the clock, you know, is time running out for Buffalo on this championship window? because the money that they're spending for Josh Allen is only going to continue to increase. His cap hit jumps from 30 to 60 next year. And his cap hit has already hurt the team. Their defense, they've lost some pieces there. For fantasy purposes, it's really, really interesting what's going to be necessary from this Buffalo Bill's offense. They're going to need to put up even more points than ever, and they've got Josh Allen to do it. I didn't see anything that said he's going to slow down.

But they lost so many weapons. They have the second most vacated targets in the league. I think there is a slight lack of confidence in the offense continuing to be the predictable provider of fantasy points that it has been in the past. Now last year they're projected Vegas had them at 10 and a half wins. They go 11 and 6. This year it's at 10 and a half again. You know, they had the office of coordinator change. That was a really key moment for this team where we saw Stefan Diggs fade into. irrelevance for an important part of your fantasy season. And they stopped throwing the football. I mean, with Ken Dorsey for weeks, one through 10 yards a game, they were 7th, but they threw the ball, the 13th most, 8th and points per game. Those numbers stuck. They were scoring a ton of points after the transition to Joe Brady, but the passing percentage dropped down to 31st in the league. It was the James Cook experience, a lot of plays per game.

They went six and one. They finished on a roll. And so is this a new identity? Like how predictive is, you know, a seven game sample when, you know, this team, they made investments in the draft bringing in Keon Coleman, Curtis Samuel. Do you see a balance or do you see them trying to run back what got them to six and one over the back half? I think you're going to see them try to run it back, especially when you look at what they did personnel-wise. You know, letting Stefan Diggs go. They took Stefan Diggs from the focal point of this offense to a more ancillary, almost irrelevant piece of the offense during those last few games. They won those games. And then they said, hey, let's get more of this short area work. You know, Dalton Cicade's going to step up. Curtis Samuel has worked with Joe Brady before. I think Curtis Samuel is the number one target in the wide receiver room here in 2024. And so I think they're going to try to do more of the same, which.

to me just means like the way that I started out the bills when I took a look at the changes, the splits last year, the personnel, I think this is going to be a running back and tight end team. I think they are going to have a lot of short passes, a lot of, you know, get the ball out quick. And, you know, I'm in love with both James Cook and Dalton Kincaid. And I'm, not really into most of the other pieces. So let me bring something up then because we've talked about the transition that Patrick Mahomes has made in Kansas City with the offense over the last few years. His average depth of target has changed tremendously. You just lost. Safon Diggs, who was a downfield threat, made big plays, 29% of targets. And then Gabe Davis, you know, yes, he can goose from here and there. But 15% of targets caught a ton of touchdowns in big plays.

Both those guys are out and it's hard to, like if you tell me I'm subscribing to short area targets, like that hasn't translated to number one finishes from a homes. No. You know, the offense has changed a lot. You don't have the over-the-top Tyree kill stuff there. So you have more variation in outcome for the quarterback. Is that what you are? Is that the extension or do you just throw it out because Josh Allen can run the football? No, Josh Allen running is going to keep him up near the top. He's still finished as my, I guess in six-point passing, he was my number two quarterback. But in four-point leagues, he's still my number one. And losing Gabe Davis, I've got to give a shout out to this tweet. Ian Hartett is just such a fun fact. Here's receiving touchdowns since 2020, including playoffs.

the best of the best. Gabe Davis with 33. CD Lamb with 33, Jamar Chase 32 and Justin Jefferson 30. Say it again? Yeah. So Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase and CD Lamb with 3032 and 33. They have fewer touchdowns than Gabe Davis. And Gabe Davis with 33. That's including playoffs. So it basically all came in that Kansas City game. Of course. Yeah. But where he had he had 15 touchdowns and they can. Yeah. It's a wild, wild stat. So no digs, no Davis. That is 284 vacated targets by the bills. That is the most associated with any quarterback drafted in the top by since 2018. That is a ton of vacated targets, nearly 300. Are you afraid, Mike? Are you afraid of the unknown here with the offensive changes? My projections came out very unafraid. But the more that the off-season has been moving forward. Josh Allen is mobile.

It's not a fear of does he like full on Patrick Mahomes from last year where Mahomes ends up as the QB8 is incredibly disappointing for fantasy football. I don't see that happening. But yet the stories of last year's Kansas City Chiefs where they really didn't have like there wasn't a wide receiver at least being drafted anywhere near the top of of ADP. And that's where Buffalo is right now. Keon Coleman, with the data I'm seeing, is going as the wider series of 45. So that's the first. But on top of that, like, it's up to Dalton Kincaid now of Mahomes has Kelsey. And despite the disappointing feelings of Travis Kelsey from last year because of the end of the season, he's the number one. The season as a whole, Travis Kelsey was actually fantastic. So does, is there a player on this team that can?

fill the void. Because you still need, while the rushing will carry you to at least have a really safe floor, you need tremendous, you still need passing to take yourself to being an elite, like a top two guy. Well, we know this from Josh Allen, a rookie, right? It was the, it was Stefan Diggs arrival that launched him into number one every year. This is the first time ever that the QB1 and ADP has his wide receivers drafted outside the top 40. There you go. But I am curious. Now, I like Keown Coleman. I liked him in the draft process. The bills liked him enough to make him a second round pick. I'm curious if your sentiment around Josh Allen would be different if they had taken Xavier Worthy or they had taken Ladd McConkey players that you liked more in the pre-draft process. Yeah, if they had.

been able to get their hands on someone, you know, like Brian Thomas Jr. Yeah, even Brian Tom. A first rounder. They traded back a couple times. They could have taken Xavier Worthy. They said no. They traded back and got, you know, the consolation prize. And they say the nice things and there's great press. I don't think that's what they called it, but all right. They've got, you know, good press conferences. Keon Coleman, delightful guy. You are our number three choice. How does that feel? I mean, if you trade back, that's who you wanted. But go on. You know, the, the.

The words out of camp are not that great. They're saying he's coming along a little bit slower, or not in those words. They say he's still got a lot to learn. He's, you know, we don't know how many positions he's going to be able to pick up, yada, yada, yada. You're going to have a slow start, I think, to the rookie year for Keon Coleman. And my concern for Keon Coleman is, like, he projects to play like the X. And I had a differing opinion of just Keon Coleman, the. the prospect coming than Andy did. He wasn't really my favorite guy. He was too hot, too cold for me. And does he come in? And is he now, for this offense, is he a rookie version of Gabe Davis? He's still the better bet to me than the Curtis Samuel bet. And I know we'll disagree on that. That's fine. I think the better bet, if you have all your wide receivers going outside the top 40, and you want to bet on upside at that point in your draft, Curtis Samuel is going to be.

a pedestrian option for your fantasy roster. He just is. You're going to like Dalton Kincaid more than Curtis Samuel every week. They're in the same area of the field. You're going to have to rely on gadgetry and things for Curtis Samuel. Look, we've been here with Curtis Samuel before. Yeah, I mean, Curtis Samuel will, I agree with what you're saying, but Curtis Samuel will dominate his average draft position. He'll beat it, but he'll beat it to a point that's irrelevant. That's what I agree. He doesn't have the ceiling. So if you want to take a shot, I have no problem betting on the bigger body, more athletic, young guy with a bigger body bet. A bigger body bet? That's what I would do. Personally, like I said earlier, my bet is on Dalton Kincaid and on James Cook. I believe those two guys are going to have phenomenal seasons. I like the James Cook bet. We know that RB 14 right now.

A lot of picks behind Devon A. Chan that you mentioned earlier. Last year finished as the running back 11. And he was a huge part of the offensive philosophy shift. When they made the offensive coordinator change, that's when things really kicked into gear for James Cook. He went from about 10 points a game to about 15. And his opportunities went up nearly five a game. And especially in the receiving game. And we know we've... We've had an article that came out a few years ago. The Borgogogan looked at. The what? Bagugugugurgan. Vacated targets, we want so badly to just take receiver, plug them into the vacated targets and say, look how many they're going to get. Doesn't work that way. But in the study, we found that, well, actually, you know, yes, they fill a void for targets, but the running backs often see an uptick in targets. So that I've.