Explain Yourself! Ranking Debates & Hot Takes

multiple tight-ins on every single play. I'm not worried about Hayden Hurst. You know, last year you had Nick Boyle stepping up. You had Dosec's Max Williams, who's now gone from the team as well at the tight-in position. So, you know, whatever you gain in Haydenhurst, you lose elsewhere. I loved watching Mark Andrews play. It was good. I talked about it a lot last year. I loved watching him play. He can stretch the field. So it'll be interesting. I didn't have the courage to rank him that high.

A little sleeper tight end out there. Yeah, I like it. I like it. I'm going to move him up. Sweet. Well, he's free. He's free. So, like, it's just do you want him for free or not? Sterling Shepherd, Mike. You are burying Sterling Shepherd. I don't understand how he could be this low. If he is the number one receiver on the outside in New York, maybe he's not. Why don't you explain yourself? Mike and I or Jason and I have him.

High 20s, not even in the wide receiver 2. I don't feel like we're giving him too much love. 29, 27. But you got him at 39. Splain yourself. Pretty much got your middle finger up, pointed at Sterling. To be fair, I went in, I took another look because I wanted to be sure. I gave him a little boost. I've got him all the way up now at number 37. Oh, that's very good. He's got to feel great about that. So I just, yeah, here's the thing. Sterling Shepard.

In 2018, here were his fantasy splits with and without Odo Beckham. 12 games with OBJ, 11.38 PPR points a game. Four games without him, 11 ppr points a game. Really took advantage. Let's open that sample up. Let's get 2017 in there as well. 16 games with Odo Beckham, 11.26 points. We're seeing a theme here. And 11 without, he got up to 13.

So you saw a bump of two points. Some guys are just not made to be Batman. And Sterling Shepard is not. The problem is Batman has left Goth. There is no primary hero on this team because Golden Tate is not. He's not a number one to me. Golden Tate's fantastic. And I think Sterling Shepard is a good receiver as well. It's almost like they need Odell Beckham Jr. It's only.

It's almost like they need a number one wide receiver on this team. Well, and I made many of the arguments about a potential fantasy wasteland for New York when I talked about Golden Tate being my ice player last week. So I can certainly understand where you're coming from. Do you believe, I would imagine you have Tate rated higher. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I just, I don't think that Shepard is.

I should say the New York Giants passing game. I don't think is going to step up to a point where Sterling Shepard is going to be fantastic. And now when you look at the dice week to week on those guys. When you look at guys who are ranked 28 to 37, this is not a huge point differential. So I slip one more touchdown in there and Sterling Shepard is going to rise. But for me, he's at a point where I am effectively saying, I don't care. I'm not letting the allure.

of Sterling Shepard. Oh, is he the number one? Oh, no, Beckham's gone. That's 150 targets in 1,300 yards every single season. I'm not going to let that siren lure me into the island and wreck my boat. You know, it's actually interesting because I think there are teams. Tennessee comes to mind. Jacksonville last year comes to mind where you didn't really want to start any of their receivers. Right. But the fact that you have a hole that was once filled by Beckham

The best receiver could trick people. You know, if Beckham's not out of the equation, if you're just looking objectively at Shepard and Tate and whatever else they have, you might make a better decision than thinking, oh, man, he's going to step up and be the Beckham that they need or be 80% of Beckham. Right. He's not Beckham, is your point. Exactly. And Golden Tate is not Beckham either. There is no Beckham. No. There's only one. He's on the Cleveland Browns. You traded him away, Gettleman. I'm Beckham.

for your Batman reference there. Yeah, we get it. Oh, I thought that was Dave. Hey, it's me. I'm Gettleman. This, that's been his, the long con the whole time. We're going to look down and we're going to see a number zero and you're not going to know who it is. And he's going to, oh, Gettelman's going to be out of the field. And he's going to go in there and he's going to take some snaps. He's going to take the helmet off. It's me. Gettleman. Dave. Oh, okay. We got a couple more to get through here.

Nick Chubb? Jason, you want to talk about Nick Chubb? You know, I do and I don't because the reality is I'm uncomfortable with where I have him ranked. And I'm a little uncomfortable where I have him right. Mike has him at 13. I'm at 14. Jason at 23. Mike, are you uncomfortable because you want to move him down? Yeah. Wow. I don't want something's happening here on the show. I don't want to, but I don't know, man. All right. Well, here's a little worried. Here's the case. Here's the case for Nick Chub.

Because I feel like your whole case is just like Cream Hunt's going to come back and I don't like him because of that. So on a season long basis, that is a major portion of this case. I want to let people know. I want the folkland when they're at their draft to realize, like I've ranked these guys on a season long basis at the draft.

Chub would be ahead in my rankings because I like guys to get off to strong starts. I think that's, you know, going to happen for Nick Chubb. So my ranking will look stupid the first couple weeks of the season. But the question is when Kareem Hunt comes back, what happens to Nick Chubb the second half of the season? And I think what I chose to do when I looked at the paces of...

All sorts of different factors. But, you know, I took a look at the high end of Chubb. When Chub took over and was excellent from, you know, he didn't really get to start until week seven. From week seven on, he was on pace for 282 carries. That's awesome. That's 17.6 carries a game. You don't see that too often anymore.

There's a few guys that have that, and Chubb looked like he was going to be one of those guys. So what I did is I gave him that pace, that incredible pace of 282 carries when he's the guy. But when Creamhunt comes back, I took away six carries a game. That's it. Just six fewer carries for Nick Chubb. And what it does is it gives him a grand total of 233 carries on the season, which is well below what I think he paces in the first half.

because he's not a pass catching back, because he's not a guy, you know, you talk about Leonard Fournette, not being a pass catching back. You know, Chubb was on basically that pace, about 30 receptions last year once he got to start. The offseason has been very, the Cleveland Browns have been very big fans of Duke Johnson saying he's a big part of this offense. Well, they're saying that he's not going to get traded. Well, but they're saying he's not going to get traded.

Because they have plans for him. That's the rationale they've given is like we're going to use him. We want him here. So my point is if he's not the past catching back and he's only a true behemoth carry volume guy in the first half and then a decent carry guy the second half, if every running back in the league plays 16, Nick Chub's going to be lower in rankings. And right now I've got everybody statted out.

416 minus known suspensions. Well, I see a few problems with the comparison to 4-net. One, it's not 50-50, first of all. It's 66% of your fantasy season for the regular season, right, for Chubb is going to be there. But he was a 5.2-a-carry, not a 3.2 a carry guy. He's on a team that should win the division, not a team that should lose the division. He's younger.

He doesn't have an injury history. Fortnet does have the injury history. Nick Chub has a major injury history. In the NFL? No. Oh, okay. Eight touchdowns last year in limited work. 192 carries eight touchdowns. He could have 12 touchdowns before Hunt ever touches the field. That's the thing is this is a great offense. They do not. Look, you're going to say whatever you want to say about Duke Johnson. Even when it was just Duke Johnson and Nick Chub that didn't use Duke Johnson enough last year.

They're not going to all of a sudden like, oh, man, you're throwing a fit on social media. You want to be traded. We're going to use you more to really show you. That doesn't make sense to me. So here's the thing. You bring up the great yards per carry, the great touchdown. He had a number of super long breakaway runs that really... I like those. Oh, no, no, no. They're great. And if he does them again, you'll be happy. But those are not usually those things that repeat year after year after year. Otherwise, there would be guys that just...

this is his eighth year in the league, and every year he gets four or five breakaway touchdowns. Like, those don't really exist. Tyreek might have been the first guy that, like, looked on pace for something like that. Otherwise, I, you know, I'm not going to just assume he gets those every year. And a couple of those came when he was the change of pace back early in the season. And it was like he had a game where he's one carry for all of the field. That was what he did. So.

And I like Nick Jobb. I think he gets off to a good start. I'm willing to draft him. But I think at the end of the year, he's going to be lower than most people, certainly than where he was drafted. So if you draft them, use them, trade him. That's what I would do. Okay. Fair enough. I'm supposed to talk about Will Fuller now. Okay. What do you got? What are you got for Will Foote? I feel like I should just accuse you both for 39 and 36 for Will Fuller.

You have to be banking on injury, right? No. How can you not? In 11 games. Oh, here we go. He's played 11. He's played 1137 yards, 16 touchdown. 65 receptions. When he plays with Deshaun Watson, who we all believe, what do we have him? Three? Deshaun Watson, the number three quarterback in fantasy? Fuller's either hurt or he's well ahead of both of your projections. Or he's playing.

Again, sort of like yours, limited number. Or he's playing with Kiki QT on the field, in which case his numbers are drastically lower because there's three wide receivers that could catch the ball. And just about everything across the board ends up going down, loses about a half a touchdown. How many games did they play together last year? Four. So four games when QT was a rookie and before Fuller got hurt? Yep.

I said it's a small sample. No, no, no. I mean, you know, I don't have him projected as low. It's really nice playing across from DeAndre Hopkins. Yes. Yes. When you're the only other guy. When he's playing with Deshaun Watson. So I just think that you have an extreme situation where he's either going to finish better. I have a hard time believing he's going to finish as the as a wide receiver four in that offense with Deshaun Watson if he's playing 16. That's my point. His targets.

get cut near, or we're cut nearly in half. The three games where Kiki was done on the field, he was averaging over eight and a half targets and that drops down to 4.75. I mean, it's just the opportunity goes down. He's not a player that lives on PPR. So I agree, but you still need, you still need the opportunity. You still need that actual targets to go to the house. I am curious here because I think this is where Mike and I probably chose, I mean, while we're projecting, you've got to make decisions as to,

who's going to be the one, who's going to be the two. I'm curious where your target projections are for Will Fuller compared to Kiki QT. Because I've got Kiki QT well ahead of Will Fuller in targets. Granted, they're not nearly as valuable targets. I have Kiki ahead of Will Fuller in targets. What are your numbers? Show me yours. I'll show you mine. I gave QT 109 targets. Okay. I've got them at 115, pretty similar. But I gave Fuller about 100.

And I've got him at 82. So that's probably, I've still got him with eight touchdowns, 750 yards. And last year, I mean, last year he was pacing at about 100 in the games that he played, even though the QT factor that you bring up. So that's what it comes down to, is your point. I mean, it makes sense. If Fuller is not on the field, he will not produce. If Fuller is not receiving targets to the tune of 100, he's not going to have enough receptions to be hyper efficient and, you know, do anything with it. I will say this. I have not.

redone my stats since losing Ryan Griffin, and while, you know, most of those will be going to other tight ends that are on the field, they don't have a veteran tight end, I think, that's going to take up and just soak that up. So there will be a little bit more to go around. And more importantly than the, okay, Ryan Griffin, whatever, if Kiki QT and Will Fuller actually stay on the field this year, which is a big if. But if that happens, Deshaun Watson is going to beat.

unbelievable in fantasy this year. I mean, I really believe he has shown us nothing but being an elite fantasy option, an elite real-life quarterback. He's just been great. And if he actually has those three weapons, right. All right. Let's close it out with this. Pristine deal of the day. All right. And we're very exciting.