Explain Yourself! + Rankings Debates, UDK Releases! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 5/31

I never want to see that introduction video again. That was not approved. That was the worst video I've ever seen. I was fine with it. I thought it was very good. Yeah, it was great. Some of our best ones. I am not joking. All right. Explain yourself. We both have, or all three of us have a couple of players that in our initial run through, projections, walking through the teams, the rankings seem interesting.

They seem out of the norm, out of the consensus. And so. For one of us. For one of the three of us. And these are situations in which we demand that you explain yourself. We'll kick it off here. Much talked about. Yeah. Gabe Davis. Gabriel. Wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. And, well, look, I'm not surprised you would call him Gabriel instead of Gabe because you're the one projecting him to grow up.

That's right. And you go by the more formal name as you grow. So, Jason, you have him ranked significantly higher than Mike or myself. I don't think it's an unreasonable ranking if you're stepping out and taking a leap on Gabriel Davis. You have them at 28. It's still outside the top 24 wide receivers. Mike and I have him in the 40s. But, I mean, you have him taking a leap forward. 69 receptions, 925 yards, eight touchdowns.

Right now, he's being drafted in this range. So, I mean, you could throw it on to Mike and I is why we don't like him. But you make us the argument for Gabe Davis taking a step forward. I would love to. Gabriel Davis is a player that when he's been on the field, he's passed the eyeball test to me. I've actually really liked the way he looks. I think he gets open. He's a big-bodied guy, you know, 6-2-2.

10 plus. That's the type of wide receiver I like. The offense is great. But I want to talk about what he's done because a lot of hype. If you are a football fan and you are, you're listening to this, you remember the Gabriel Davis playoff game, the AFC championship game that was one of the best games of all time, not, I mean, both for Gabriel Davis, but also just for football. It was amazing. But in that game, he had 201 yards.

four touchdowns, and a lot of fantasy hype came because of that game. But I want to get rid of that game. I want to look at, okay, that was an outlier. That's the best game he'll ever have in his career, even if he becomes a Hall of Famer, like 204. Right. That's an all-timer. He was only in his second year, right? He was a sophomore player last year, and the team went out, and they signed Emmanuel Sanders. And

signing. If you remember in fantasy football. Oh, yeah, I traded for him right before he stopped doing it. Absolutely. He, you know, he was an elder statesman and he had some juice left, but the gas tank ran out about halfway through that season. In fact, it was week 10 when you saw basically the bill say, okay, Emmanuel Sanders, you've been up in the 80, 90 percent of your snaps. Maybe why don't you take a step back? And all of a sudden, that coincided with Gabriel Davis being the next man up.

And he had five games where he had more than 50% of the snaps. This is just regular season throwing out the outrageously great playoffs. In those five games that we already saw in his second year as a player, he averaged seven targets, 3.8 receptions, 62.4 yards, and over half a touchdown a game. So his pace was 119 targets, 64 receptions, 1,000 yards, and 10 touchdowns.

The touchdowns. What games are being extrapolated there? Those are all the games where he played more than 50% of the snaps, which is the majority of games from week 10 on. Those games are where he averaged just really nice full season numbers. But the specialty of Gabe Davis.

is touchdowns. He has the second most touchdowns from the 20 class behind only Justin Jefferson, despite the fact that he has not been a full-time player, and this might blow your mind, but Josh Allen has had more end-zone pass attempts than any other quarterback. That won't blow your mind, and that means when the wide receiver is standing in the end zone and you've been targeted. Over the last two years, Gabriel Davis, who has not been a full-time player, and this does not include the crazy playoff run,

has 23 red zone, in-zone targets. That is more than Devante Adams or Cooper Cup. It's the same number as Justin Jefferson as a part-time player. This is a guy that the great offense, great quarterback Josh Allen, looks for because he's a big-body player in the end zone. If you want to talk breakout, he's going into his third year, the opportunity is there. They didn't really replace him, but they lost Cole Beasley and replaced him with...

James and Crowder, and they lost Emmanuel Sanders and replaced him with Gabriel Davis going into his third year. So I think the targets go way up. He is of value around the end zone. The offense is great, going into his third year. I think he has the chance to be a true breakout player, and he is the wide receiver, too, for this team. Like, in those games where he played more than 50%, and he was averaging seven targets a game, you know, Dawson Knox was four targets a game, 4.1 targets in those games.

I think the opportunity. I like the talent. I think going into year three, I love the offense. I say you two need to explain yourself. Yeah, I don't have any problem with what you did with Gabriel Davis in the upside. You know, Dawson Knox missed a few games last year. He obviously scored a lot of touchdowns. Stefan Diggs is still going to be a go-to target in that zone. But Gabriel Davis has an opportunity the same way that, you know, probably more so than even a Josh Palmer because you have two wide receivers in Los Angeles.

there's a lot of potential upside. I do think it's going to be spiky. I mean, I think that's going to be the, you said it. It's touchdowns, right? Yeah, that's fair. Touchdowns, it's a spiky thing. So, but I don't, I don't really have any, you know, you explained yourself and I accept your explanation. I look forward to your guys' new rankings. Yeah, I'll take a look when you were giving your full projections there. I'm actually not that far off from where you are. And that's a hard part of.

Just a list of guys of this is my, these are my wide receivers one through 50 because like I have Gabe Davis at wide receiver 44 currently. And the, what separates my wide receiver 44 from Jason's wide receiver 28 is really not a ton of points. So when you're looking at guys in this range, you do, you have, what is the story? What is the narrative of you can see this player truly breaking out? And I don't disagree that.

Gabriel Davis is one of those players that could have a massive breakout this year. Yeah, last year, just for context, I know we saw the AFC title game, 35 receptions over the course of this season for Gabriel Davis, 102 fewer targets than Stefan Diggs, needs to take that step forward, needs to not have like, you know, Khalil Shakir make a role for himself and things of that nature. But...

I see it. I mean, you want to be connected with a great quarterback. Yeah, he has to take step forward. This isn't just like, oh, progress a little bit. This has to be you play way more snaps and are a different, more involved player. All right, let's take a quick break and then you guys can grill me. No matter what triumphs are in store this season, legendary game days start with a Miller Light. Miller Light is a true American Pilsner and the original light beer brewed since 1975, made with simple ingredients including malted barley for rich,

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We'll get a $75-sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast. That's indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now. Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. The next player we want to talk about is.

The great Michael Thomas of the New Orleans Saints. Look, we'll get it there. We'll get it there. Michael Thomas, who went on the field, a dominant wide receiver won, has taken some time off recently, has had a quarterback change also. Jason and I still giving the season veteran some respect, have them inside of our top 20, while Andy.

has him outside of his top 25. And explain yourself. Well, I mean, you said the great Michael Thomas. Yes. That's kind of like. I managed to say that. That's like the faces on Mount Rushmore. Look, I don't mind you giving credit to things once done long ago. Mike, I want to share something with you. December 22nd, 2019.

That was the last time Michael Thomas finished inside the top 15 on a week. What was that a long time ago? That was the last time he scored a touchdown. It was 891 days ago. So not 1,000, which I mean, if you want to count that into it, look, you guys should both be more afraid at 17 than I am at 30. I'm terrified. Yeah, I mean, here's the problem. Michael Thomas, I don't think, look, he's not peaking, right? Like physically, he's not getting better right now.

as an athlete. He's almost 30 years old. He's almost 900 days removed from a touchdown. He wasn't impressive on the field when we saw him briefly in 2020. He's fine. I think he's still mostly Michael Thomas. But Michael Thomas is 11.7 a catch. Michael Thomas is Tyler Boyd in his per catch metrics. Michael Thomas is volume.

So if you tell me that the last time we saw him on the field, he was competing with Treyquan Smith and he had Drew Breeze as his quarterback and he's 11 a catch and you're telling me you need 10 touchdowns from Michael Thomas for him to hit that 17 mark and then you tell me he's never done it in his career. He's never had a double-digit touchdown season, ever, even with Drew Breeze. So when I look at this situation, there's just no way Michael Thomas approaches historical success.