Hype Edwards-Helaire + NFC West Breakdown - Fantasy Football Podcast

The last two years, right now being drafted as the wide receiver 22, would you rather have Tyler Lockett or T.Y. Hilton? Lockett. Oof, that's a tough question. They seem similar to me. Oh, yeah. They do. But, and I was going to join in with Jason. I'm not doubting Tyler Lockett. But when you're playing fantasy and looking at the range of outcomes, it is possible that Metcalf becomes the wide receiver one. I'm not projecting that at all.

Meanwhile, for T.Y. Hilton, I don't think anyone else on that team can surpass him. And that just almost outlines what happens with Tyler Lockett every, I almost combine them, T.Y. Lockett. Right. With Tyler Lockett every year. He's being drafted as the wide receiver 22. He finished at wide receiver 13 and 16. Yet I bet I could name 21 other wide receivers and have you picked them before you pick Tyler Lockett. Probably. And that's, that should not happen. And part of that, I, look, excitement for D.K. Metcalfe, no question. But.

there's a mind meld there with Russell Wilson and Tyler Lockett the past two years when you need a big play. I think we were coming into last off season, what Tyler Lockett was this? The passer rating, right? It was a perfect passer rating from Russell Wilson to Tyler Lockett? Two years ago, it was just what he did was not sustainable. You did an AWS commercial with a catch in the back of the end zone that was not possible, but Tyler Lockett pulled it off. And that's what I liked about last season for Lockett was he was like,

Well, that would, what he did wasn't impossible like what he did two years ago. So that's why I'm far more in on title locker versus draft price. And, and I still think so to me, when I look at draft it back to back by the way. Lockett and Metcalf? Yes. Yeah, I, I have no hesitations, no doubts. You know, sometimes you've got to take and you feel like, well, I totally recognize that the opposite could happen. I would be shocked if Metcalf.

is the wide receiver one for this team. Now, if it's on the back of more touchdowns, but he has far less targets and at the end of the year, sure, but Tyler Lockett's ceiling is higher than what we've seen. We talked about, you know, let Russ Cook. If the passing volume goes up, Tyler Lockett could be dominant for fantasy. You look at his last 180 targets. It's basically what.

You know, it's better than Julio's. It's better than, you know, it's what Michael Thomas has been doing. He is a great wide receiver for a great quarterback. If they throw the ball more, I think he's a safe baseline, still with upside that people just don't see. The troubling part, I'm looking at the Tyler Lockett, D.K. McCaff experience from the buy on last year, it's not pretty. Not many weeks that you wanted to play them. I mean, there was one. That's because you had the Russell Wilson.

disappearing after fantasy he disappeared yeah yeah and i guess it's a little bit scary and maybe that's why their draft you know everybody respects russell wilson yet his top two receivers are in the fifth round right that's probably that correlation greg olson do you have any hope for greg olson at the tight-in position on a team that continuously finds a way to make the tight-in position relevant i do look how does it feel though it doesn't feel great

Greg Olson, his former team, the Panthers have said, we need to part ways. But the Seahawks... He's already signed a contract to be an announcer. Yes, but the Seahawks use the tight-end position. Hollister, Jacob Hollister and Will Disley last year combined for 18 red zone targets. And if you want to compare that, George Kittle at 17. So if Greg Olson is the starter for this team, as he should be, I mean, they paid him to be the starter.

for this team. I don't believe that Will Disley can return this year from his injury. Greg Olson has, the ceiling is not great, but as a late round tight end, I think he's going to be safe and you can play him every week and get enough from the position. I tend to agree. Greg Olson, Jack Doyle. Ooh, probably Doyle. Probably Doyle. Probably still Doyle for me.

I mean, if Desley can't come back, it's easily Greg Olson to me just because of the touchdown upside with Russ around the red zone. Do you see Frank Reich talking up Trey Burton today? I don't doubt it. He's completed the full round. Every player has been talked up by Frank Ragnon. They've worked together. Every time I've brought up Trey Burton, I've been shut down. I'm not in on it. Well, yeah, you should be. No, I shouldn't. He may hurt Jack Doyle, but he won't help us. Well, all right. The nice thing about fantasy is we'll see. Greg Olson in 14 games last year. We saw.

14 games for Greg Olson last year with the terrible quarterback play still had almost 600 yards. Greg Olson and Johnny Smith. I'm going to take the upside. I'll take the upside for Jonah. All right. The L.A. Rams were 9 and 7 last year. It was tough. It was tough. It was. Jared Gaugh, dealing with the offensive line play. They ranked 31st last year. That was a bit of a step back to 31. The O line?

Yeah, and, you know, that's according to pro football focus. Tied for the league lead in past attempts. Jared Goff was back there chucking it. But dealing with a troublesome offensive line, he looks skittish at times, he made mistakes. You didn't see the same kind of production on a consistent basis out of this offense. Didn't throw the ball to Todd Gurley. Todd Gurley's now gone. Brandon Cook's now gone. They invested two second round picks on offensive players.

Cam Acres running back out of Florida State, Van Jefferson, wide receiver to come in and help. But what are your expectations for this offense in a very tough division after seeing what you saw last year, right? Like the armor was broken down. And it was broken down in the Super Bowl the year before. Right. And then we came back and we said, well, this is, this is Sean McVeigh. He'll have things figured out. And, you know, they weren't bad.

And he did. It took him some time, and that was what was unfortunate. But towards the end of the season, he figured things out. He got it right. And I love a coach. I'm always going to side with a coach who can adapt, who can change. And of course, we want to get off to a hot start in fantasy. We want to start week one great. But I trust McVeigh still. And with Brandon Cooks being gone and new personnel being there, when I look at Cooper Cup and Robert Woods.

I love both of these players. Like I love them for fantasy. I think that they are going to be outstanding this year. They're going to have to rely on the passing game a little bit more, going from Gurley to a rookie and a committee backfield with an offensive line that isn't going to be able to open up holes the way they would want them to. More than passing more than every team in the league last year? I mean, or similarly? A continuation. Exactly. A continuation of that.

And both of those guys were very fantasy relevant last year. And that's with Robert Woods only getting two touchdowns on the season. Yeah, I expect that number to obviously change. There were a lot of heads-up questions on the live stream today about Robert Woods or this guy, Robert Woods or that guy. I love Robert Woods. Robert Woods or A.J. Brown in a PPR. Well, I'm going to side with Robert Woods in that equation. Robert Woods is as close to a lock for, what, 85 receptions as almost anybody in football.

on a team that passes the ball more than anybody in football. I have both guys inside my top 12, which is probably one of the hot-takey wide receiver ranking. I don't think it's hot-taking. I have Woods and Cup at 9 and 10, and they're going in the fourth round. They're being drafted as the 8. I have Woods one spot higher than Cup now. All right. In a half point. But they're being drafted as the wide receiver 18 and the wide receiver 14. Why is that? Why are they down there?

Well, I would say let's take it one at a time, right? Because there are different reasons. With Robert Woods, he's lower because he's not a sexy pick. He's not a 10 touchdown top five wide receiver upside. He's just solid. He's just going to get 130 targets. Be really, really good. Unfortunately, not have a high enough touchdown volume to get him to elite that you don't want him. But he is as safe as it comes. And then with Cooper Cup.

The issue there is range of outcomes. I mean, you want to talk about a guy who I believe has the ability to be a top five wide receiver, has shown it. I mean, he's been a top five wide receiver for massive stretches of his career. But then you have the fear of what happened last year when they changed kind of their scheme. And all of a sudden, Robert Woods was still on the field, 98% of the snaps and Cooper Cups down there in the 60s. And they're trying to change how they're playing.

Cooper Cup was still good. He had touchdowns in those games. He kind of bailed. He was bailed out there. But I believe this coming season, those two players will be on the field 90% of the play. So I am in on Cooper Cup. But is that in 11 personnel or 12 personnel? I believe that all of the data on where Cooper Cup thrives and struggles, I think is a misnomer because of...

how much they've played a certain way. And so, Mike, why don't you give the data that you're worried about of personnel usage? This is over that five-game span that we're going to bring up again? It's important. I don't know why you doubt it. Like, it's, they went, their offense was, was not great for most of the season. I mean, you still, you brought up how he had to throw the ball more than anybody else, but he wasn't.

Jared Goff was not dominating. And then those final five games, when they made the switch to really being 12 personnel, having two wide receivers on the field, they featured Tyler Higby. Then Jared Goff just, he went off. In those five games, he was throwing. They played Arizona twice. That was the worst tight-in coverage team in the league. They played San Francisco in Seattle, which was the second to worst and third-to-worst tight-end team out of the five games. So they exploited.

A situation in five games there. And that would be my counter argument. That's a good counter. And it's not that they won't do it. And I picked Tyler Higby in a bunch of heads up today just for the upside because if a player like Tyler Higby can do what he did in five games, a lot of tightens can't. Right. My thought is just, you know, my point for Cooper Cup being great is that you can't run this offense without Cooper Cup. I mean, you cannot. They have nobody else. I mean, they have Robert Woods and Cooper Cup and they throw the ball more than everybody.

You know, I don't know what they're going to do on offense. I know that they dominated in that form, but we sat here and talked about T.J. Hawkinson against Arizona in week one last year. And I just don't like overemphasizing that. That's my only point. Okay. But you're willing to take the chance on Higby in the back of the seventh or the early eighth? He's being drafted as the Titan 7 right now? Yeah. Wow. A lot of Higby respect right there.

Yeah, I think this is both, where I see people say that's way, it's still way too early. But like you're saying, not everyone in that opportunity is going to dominate like the way that Tyler Higby did. So without question. I believe they saw, they found something. Tyler Higby is paid right now as well by this team. So I like him. I like taking the chance on him as the seventh tied end off the board. I.

think that the tight-in position will be valuable, but Gerald Everett does scare me. Gerald Everett was not around when Tyler Higby really went off. Everett, Everett in his own right had a really nice stretch right before he got injured. So I think they're going to utilize the tight end more, and it's going to be productive, but I do worry about it. I don't think it's going to be a one-man show at tight end barring an injury from either one of those guys. Everett.

had a number five finish in week four, a number two finish in week five. That's what I mean. Five finish in week seven. You put the tight end position together. If you put those together. They're great. Yeah. But, you know, when they're both healthy. Can they both be effective? I mean, we talk about Ertz and Goddard and you lose Brandon Cooks and you have what you talked about in the backfield, which we'll talk about here briefly, you know, with Acres and Henderson and Brown. Will they have to rely on both and will that be?

It's possible. It is possible. We saw a couple years ago when Brandon Cooks was healthy and this team ran through the wide receivers. You saw multiple people. Three wide receivers all have fantasy value. So I think that it is possible that they can, that both tight ends can do something. But I'm still taking the chance on. Do you hear of you have this team finishing ahead of Seattle or San Francisco? No. No.

Cam Acres right now being drafted is the running back 26th. They ignored Gurley in the passing game last year. I think one of the big question marks out of Acres and Henderson, are they going to throw the ball to the running back position again? Darrell Henderson, only 43 touches in his rookie season. Malcolm Brown is still around. That's his actual, that's the quote. Malcolm Brown's around. Round town of Malcolm Brown. He'll probably get, you know, he'll probably get the goal line respect.

He will definitely annoy fantasy owners from time to time because he's a solid veteran back, but he's not good enough to be fantasy relevant or get the usage. So for fantasy purposes, it's just someone eating into the share that we hope goes to Cam Acres according to average draft position. Are you willing to take Cam Makers in the fifth round right now? No. With the good offense, not knowing the situation? I guess it's just, do you believe?