NFC West Breakdown + Annoying Players

You know, and obviously Cooks is not to that degree of hot and cold. But that's where if those guys are going next to each other and they're going to both finish great, but one is going to be the more consistent first read target for golf, that's the guy I want. And Robert Woods, he's just disrespected, man. He's great. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Isn't he going higher than the other two wide receivers? Didn't you just say that? No, Cooks is three points higher, three spots. And also. Right, than the other two guys. Yes, Cooks.

Oh, you said Cook's. Yes. Three spot higher than Wood. It's going Cook's Woods Cup. Yeah. I don't, you still got a chip on your shoulder for Woods. I've got a big chip on my shoulder for Woods. He's not getting drafted two rounds behind the other two guys. No, he's getting drafted two rounds behind where he's going to finish. Well, that you could be right about. In 2015, Cooks was 14th, 2016, he was 9, then he was 12th, then he was 13th. He's going to be in that range, which is like not really the one you want for your team. Right.

Right. But a wonderful too. An interesting little nugget here I wanted to bring up about the running backs and Todd Gurley. This is not to take away from Todd Gurley, the player. I think as far as running backs go, he is among the elites in the league right now.

But we've talked about frequently the NFL next-gen stats, running backs, how often do they face eight defenders in the box, you know, talking about how Royce Freeman had the second highest percentage of his runs at 36%. You know where Todd Gurley is on this list? It's got to be at the bottom. Third fewest. Of course. You can't. 8.2% of the time they're able to stack the box against Todd Gurley, which is why.

They can be so... If you can't say we're selling out to stop Todd Gurley, then they're not going to sell out to stop Daryl Henderson or whoever is in there. The C.J. Anderson went on. You're saying it's a very comfortable situation for any running back. Yes, Rams running back, regardless of who it is, will put up real fantasy points. I was reading this morning, the Rams had... They had a first down on 35% of their plays, like on first downs. So they...

produce, you know, they're passing the ball on first down all the time. You can't stack the box against Gurley. It's a good point. Yeah, it's play design. Sean McVeigh is a better offensive coach than you. Wrap it around to finish the Rams. Gerald Everett, any chance to break out this season at tight end? No. Yes, minimal. Well, I want you to weigh in here since we were split. No.

I don't think so. Not with the offense being exactly the same, not with 1.4% vacated targets, which we believe is probably all of the targets that went to C.J. Anderson. No team has a more consistent target expectation than the Rams going into the new year. Offensive line supposed to be the rank number six. They'll be elite. By the huddle. So let's talk about the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks, 10 and 6 last season.

I want to emphasize this is a running football team. You know it, but do you know it the way these numbers know it? If you don't know, now you know. All right, the Seahawks last season, 2,092 rushing yards. Mind you, that is running backs. That is not rolling Russell Wilson into it. The Rams, the 49ers, the Saints and Broncos were behind them. They...

ran for 160 yards per game. 130 was the running back, so 30 of that was Russell. This team wants to run, run, run some more. There is more than enough opportunity for multiple running backs to have top tier fantasy value. Chris Carson, Rashad Penny, we want to split them up. Mentally, we want to pick a favorite. Maybe the answer is both.

Yeah, it very well could be both. When I was doing my rankings at the beginning of the season or the beginning of the off season, I took a look. You know, we're not putting players in order. We're actually statting out the entire team and looking at all their matchups and everything. And at the end, I looked at where I had these guys in my rankings and I was shocked that I had them Chris Carson and Rashad Penny.

back to back as far as their finish on the season. Because while I still give the lion's share to Chris Carson, who if you don't remember how much he got the ball when he was healthy, he would have topped Zeke on total carries if he played a full 16 games. So he's going to have the lion's share there. But on a pass catching basis, I think Rashad Penny has the skills to do that. You have Mike Davis.

Mike Davis last year had 42 targets, 112 rushing attempts. Those are gone. And you have Chris Carson with a current injury and an injury history. So I think both backs are good picks. I'd be happy to scoop up Chris Carson and hope I've got a lead dog. And I'd be happy to scoop up Rashad Penny and say, I've got a pass catching option who's a weekly start. And if Chris Carson goes down, which we've seen him do several times, could be a league winner.

Would you rather in the fourth round, though, knowing that you like both of these guys? There currently is a two-round difference between Chris Carson and Rashad Penny. They're both going at the back of their respective rounds, fourth round, six round. Would you rather take somebody else in that fourth round that you really like and then just reach a round? Yes. I would... Whoa, now. I had my face perked up. Oh, you got to go to YouTube for that one.

The YouTube on that one is special. Right now, YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. He wants to know if you're willing to reach around. Are you willing to reach around? Edit undue. I am willing to, I'm willing to reach two rounds, I would say, just to be safe. Just to be safe. You are? Yeah, so, no, no, no. I just had to. This is all just wordsmith here.

Here's the reality. So, like, I say Chris Carson could be a value. He certainly could be a value in the fourth. That being said, other great players are in the fourth round. I mean, we just talked about some of those wide receivers that are in the fourth round. I mean, you tell me if Robert Woods and Chris Carson are there, I'm going Robert Woods all day. Two rounds later at the back of the sixth to be able to get Rashad Penny, I'm very happy to do that. But it's a roster construction thing, right? If you start with wide receivers.

I think in the fourth round, Chris Carson isn't necessarily a bad pick, is my point. There was no, there were no other running backs in football that finished three consecutive weeks to end the year in the top seven. And that's what Chris Carson did at the end of last year. And thank goodness for it. That was like a deposit that he was able to cash in on for my injury doubts or like concerns about being usurped.

I'm thankful that he was so good to finish the year so that I could have confidence in him. I think both players are going to be very valuable. I believe that Pete Carroll has a great trust in Chris Carson. Yes. And I think you're going to see both players with huge opportunities because obviously Pete Carroll invested in Penny in the top of the first round. But let's talk about more of this offense. 17% vacated targets. Doug Baldwin retired. Tyler Lockett.

Hot Lockett. DK Metcalf, David Moore, Geron Brown, Will Disley. These are some of the pass catchers that could step up and take some of that. I'm concerned about predictability. I'm concerned that Mike will be 100% right from his quick question, where we will be coming in and you will be chasing fantasy points in the passing game, maybe outside of Tyler Lockett. I think Tyler Lockett may be able to give you enough.

If they're moving them around in the formation, Doug Baldwin's not there. Lockett should be consistent to some degree. That might be saying Tyler Lockett's a wide receiver, two, three, fringe guy all year long. But from a consistency standpoint, he's the only one that I can, I think I can look at and get something out of. 504 is his draft spot right now. That's pretty high. It's high, but he is.

He is, you know, look at reception for Tyler Lock and take the quarterback, take the passing offense out, even fantasy out, and just say, is he by himself a good wide receiver, average, above average? He's great. He is actually a super talented wide receiver. He's got a super talented quarterback. He's got all the opportunity now that Doug Baldwin is completely out of the way. The only hardship here is that they don't throw the ball a lot.

I am going to take the number one wide receiver for Russell Wilson, who is a great wide receiver. I'm not taking any of the other wide receivers. I'm sure D.K. Metcalf will have an awesome long bomb touchdown or two. But, you know, I've got to only rely on the number one guy. That's Tyler Lockett. I am, I know you guys aren't as high as Lockett as I am. You're at wide receiver 20 right now? Yeah. Mike is at 22. I'm at 23. So we're not, we're not burying him. He can win you a week. That is for sure.

I mean, we saw last year, obviously, his touchdown numbers were out of control. Impossible. Yeah, it's not going to stick there. But he's been a guy that obviously has dealt with injuries in the past, was not the lead dog on the team. And, you know, he's a 70 target guy in the past. I don't see him staying at 70 targets this year. That's the big question. Where are you projecting his target volume to go? Because if he's used similarly,

then he will be a, but he will bust. Absolutely. Yeah, if he ends up with 70 targets, I agree that he will bust. I've got him at 95 targets right now. We cannot leave the Seahawks without talking about Russell Wilson, mostly because Jason, you have at QB5, I have at QB8, and Mike has him absolutely shellacked at QB 16. Yes. I have, I've reached the point, and I guess Jason, you have two.

We can talk and talk and talk about efficiency metrics and what's sustainable for a quarterback. But at the end of the day, and this is something that any statistician, analytical person, you know, for me, when I look at numbers, it's hard for me not to look at the fact that every situation is unique. Russell Wilson is an efficient quarterback, period, end of sentence. That's what he is in the NFL. He is always going to be efficient.

He's going to make the most of the attempts he has. He was one of the few players. I mean, he was a top 12 quarterback, 62% of the time last year. There's only a handful of guys that could do that. I tend to just believe he's going to end up in that top 10 category again. I don't know which one of you guys want to talk. Based on nothing but data, historical modeling, looking at the average NFL quarterback, those things. Russell Wilson should suck this year. But Russell Wilson is great.

His rookie year, he was the number 10 quarterback. He followed that up by being the number eight quarterback, the number three, the number three, the number 11, the number one quarterback in fantasy football last year, the number nine. He's just going to get the job done. That's my belief. Like at some point, I'm much more on Andy's side. At some point, you have to weigh both the analytics and the averages along with the specialty of the player. It's like if Mahomes puts up six straight years of 40.

or more. I'm just going to concede that he's a 40 or more guy. Sure, but that's a pretty large sample size. The problem with Russell Wilson is it's not just you're betting against, you're betting against regression, you're betting against the analytics. You're betting against historical, like very high level history. Since the year 2000, there's been.

Eight, only eight times that a quarterback with over 150 attempts has sustained that 8% touchdown rate. And I went through all of them. And where did they go to the next year? Peyton Manning dropped 2%, 3% the following years of his outrageous touchdown percent years. Nick Foles, his 2013 season was awesome. He dropped four. Who is the first name? Peyton Man. Peyton.

Yes, and he's the only one who, he's on this list twice. So Nick Foles saw his touchdown percentage drop 4%. Tom Brady, technically he saw his touchdown percent drop 8.7 percent, but that's because he got hurt. And I won't hold that against him. But the actual following up season to his monster year dropped nearly four points. Aaron Rogers dropped two points. Deshaun Watson dropped four points. Those are the times, the only other times that people have.

have had that 8% touchdown rate in their following season. Aside from Patrick Mahomes, because we don't have data on him. I'm not going to dispute the data. But can you concede the fact that based on his historical finishes, Russell Wilson has the ability because he has like three or four special skills. Like if he was a video game character, he's got like three power-ups. He can compensate for an off, you know, maybe he's not hyper-efficient.