AFC North Breakdown + Julio Signed, It’s Complicated - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/28

On today's episode, training camp is going. The news is a buzz. We are going to break down the AFC North and give you some more bestball tips. Make sure you subscribe to this channel. Like this video. Leave us a comment and enjoy the show. Once I lost so badly in my fantasy football league that I had to eat an entire kind of dog food covered in wasabi. It was unpleasant. But now I've found the fantasy footballer's element draft kit. The days of dog food are gone as I dig into their breakouts, values, tiered rankings, and much more. If you want to join me in the winner's circle where you don't have to paint your butt cheeks like an elephant's face, head over to www.OllumadraftKit.com and prepare for your fantasy draft. A fantasy footballer's podcast with your host.

Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the podcast, and that's the Fantasy Footballers podcast, if you are nasty. Is that a low-grown? Oh, that's a low-grown. I'm jacked. I'm so excited for this show. I'm your host for the day, Mike the Fantasy Hitman Wright, joined by my best friend of the moment, Jason Moore. How are you doing, best friend? I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Fantastic as well, because we have a awesome live show here in a couple days. Indeed, we do. It is July the 28th. We are on episode, Jason. Do you know this? Oh, my goodness. 12. I would have preferred a 1,200 and then 55? Like, 1255 sounds like a time of day. Okay. Well, it was that time at one point.

Checking your watch. Well, I just thought if it was 1255, it would be pretty cool. Look behind you, Jason. Welcome into the podcast. Today we are breaking down the AFC North. If you want to follow us on socials, please do, where we're putting out a whole bunch of free content over there, Instagram.com slash fantasy footballers. Or you can find Jason and myself on Instagram and Twitter at Jason FFL. I am at FF Hitman. You can find it at Andy Holloway. You can find Andy at Andy Holloway over there. And of course, as a great friend of the show, we'll call him CW because he's such a good friend of the show. Yeah, Cdub. Yeah, Cdubs was in the house. Talk about the Ultimate Draft Kit. Ultimate DraftKit. That is our product. That is the tool that you need. The only tool you need for the offseason to get ready for your fantasy football draft. It's two mice.

All right. We got a gym-packed show because training camps are underway. A lot of things are happening. So let's get to it. News and notes from around the league. All right. The big one, well, a lot of big ones came through, but the biggest one that came through, the Buccaneers and Thomas the Plantman Brady. Platt Man, no. Things just keep getting better for that guy in Tampa Bay. They have signed Julio Jones to a one-year contract. I feel like not everyone that makes a deal with the devil has it go as well as Tom Brady has. I mean, it was like a month ago. It seemed like Tom Brady was low in my rankings. Right. You know, Russell Gage getting a little bit artificially inflated and, you know, because his situation, Godwin's not there. Antonio Brown has gone. Gronk has gone. And now they've really done a nice job retooling. I don't think Julio Jones is.

D-U-N. I don't think he's washed. His body might be. Going back, I mean, he might get injured for sure. I mean, he obviously dealt with injury last year. But when you... In the year before that. I went and watched the film just to compare, you know, I've been pretty vocal anti-A.J. Green over the last, you know, 12 months at least, if not longer. 24. Yeah, probably 24. And when I watch that film, Julio still... had a lot more to his game than AJ Green did. He just didn't have enough time on the field. So given what AJ Green did for the Cardinals last year, I think Julio can at least add that to the Buccaneers. Then you have the report that Chris Godwin, not placed on the PUP. Now, he was not, this is a little confusing. I'll be completely honest here. I don't get what's going on with the PUP with training camps.

I know, obviously, you go on the training camp PUP, you can come off the second you're, you're, you know, recovered. Clyde Edwards-Alaire was on the pup for about 12 minutes, and then they took him off, he's back at practice. Whereas other people, like James Robinson, who was not placed on the PUP, but they're hoping to have it practice, like by mid-August. Yeah. And this is kind of similar to Chris Godwin. He was cleared for training camp, not placed on the PUP, but also was not participating in, like, the practice. because he's not ready. So I don't really understand why some teams are utilizing the PUP and some teams aren't. It's still good news for his recovery timeline. Everything has been very, very positive. But for Brady, if you get Chris Godwin healthy, Julio Jones added to the roster, Mike Evans is already a star. You know, they even added Kyle Rudolph, who obviously is not.

you know, moving the needle in massive ways. But that's just another, when he's the fifth or sixth option at the back of the end zone being gigantic, Brady will find him. Looking historically speaking, wide receivers who are 33 years or older and they changed teams what happened for the following season. Because Julio Jones, he is over 33. Essentially, the results are Anquan Bolden balled out because. Because Antiquan Bolden is in an all-timer, which Julio Jones is. However, then you have like AJ Green, Jordi, Mani Sanders, like these guys where it was just, it was mad. Yeah, you know, like, I mean, it's not, it's not nothing because these are really talented wide receivers, but they're clearly at the end of their career. But a lot of those situations were wide receivers going too mediocre to bad situations. Right. This is a wide receiver going.

to Tom Brady, who's going to throw the ball 700 times. So I do think this will be at least as good as, you know, if he plays the season, it'll be at least as good as AJ Green was last season. In Seahawks news, Chris Carson running back, he has retired from the NFL due to his neck injury. I mean, a really unfortunate injury. Chris Carson was awesome and a delight to watch him play football. But, I mean, Hats off to that career from a seventh round pick, basically the last pick in the draft, into a starting running back, 24 touchdowns and five seasons. Thankfully, he got himself a bag of money a couple years back and the NFL will miss him. Yeah, regarding Ken Walker and Rashad Penny, it was already assumed, I think, by most analysts, most fans that it was just those two guys. Now it's kind of official that Chris Carson is gone. And it is official in the sense like,

Check your dynasty rosters. If you forgot like, oh, yeah, I had Chris Carson on there. He's done. There's no comeback happening. So drop him, make a transaction, move on. We got big news out of San Francisco, Jason. Oh, okay. 49ers coach, Kyle Shanahan, says he, John Lynch and Jimmy Garoppola, they all spoke and they're all on the same page. Quotes, we have moved on to Trey. Trey Lance. Your boy. I don't even need, now I don't even need to say it. We can just call him Trey. Is that his, you're not going to refer to him as Mr. Lance under any circumstance, no respect? Well, we'll workshop some things. Yeah, I mean, this was another one of those situations, right? It was assumed, but it is so nice to have the clarity, because if you keep going on and the Garampalo's there and yada, yada, at this point in time, I believe that they will cut.

Jimmy Garapolo, I don't think they can go into the season with him on the roster after saying, you know, Jimmy knows, Trey knows, the team knows, this is Trey's team. And if that's the case, you know, the Seahawks are out there. I don't think they would trade him to the Seahawks. No. But if they cut him, Jimmy Garaplo can. Well, they might be willing to. I mean, if you're the 49ers and you see the writing on the wall that no one is coming to get him, if you cut him, he has his choice of where he can go. a few spots like to me it's Seattle Houston and I we talked about a little bit I think Atlanta makes sense functionally that no coach ever ever wants to say we're fully in rebuild mode sure but because if like the Falcons add Jimmy Garoppolo that is a much much better team than going out there with Marcus Marriota and then seeing if Desmond Ritter has anything yeah I mean not really though because that team is so bad that Jimmy Carapolo I feel like

You would need to add Patrick Mahomes. If you put Patrick Mahomes on that roster, I don't think they make the playoffs. I'm not saying they're a playoff team, but I'm saying they are a much better team. And I think Garoppolo is a starter. I wouldn't say he's a top tier starter, but he's a starter in the NFL. He can manage a really good roster. So like, honestly, another situation that could come up and we don't know the information. And right now all the rumors seem to be probably about an eight game. But if Deshaun Watson were to lose the season,

They have the cap space, and it would make sense to me to have a good roster led by Jimmy Garoppolo there. But it's Trey Lance's team. And there shouldn't be any fear about that. Draft them where he's going right now in your home leagues in that ninth, tenth round every time. Yes, very excited for Tray Lance. The Saints have activated Michael Thomas. He let everyone on Twitter know that your favorite fantasy doctor was lying to you. I'm not really sure what. What he's doing calling out the fantasy football community. You just missed two years with an ankle injury, Michael Thomas. You can't be like, I've got no medical problems. Yeah. For a man who was the last time he caught a touchdown, it was December of 2019. He was the one that had a surgery right before the season started and then ended up missing the whole year. Weird stuff. Michael Thomas, interesting character, but he is back.

Uh, there's value. Will he be good? I don't know, man. I, I don't believe that he will be awful. I, I, I, I think he'll be, uh, probably the leading target. I said, will he be good, though? I didn't say, will he be awful? Will he be good? I think he'll be good for fantasy at the value for where he's dropped. Like, depending on, now, I don't know, you know, if he's back at training camp back in preseason games and he starts skyrocketing up boards and he's in the fourth round. No, it's probably not that great. But for where he's going right now, if you're in drafts going on or you've been taking him, he will certainly be a value for that spot that he's been landing. Out of Washington, Antonio Gibson, my champion, former champion, not really sure at this point. It's a, it's a complicated relationship. You've decampioned him? I'm not going to say that.

But it's a complicated relationship with me and Gibson. You choose a champion to fight for you for your life. That's usually the role that that's my understanding of choosing a champion in most. Game of Thrones rules? Yeah, Game of Thrones rules. You choose a champion. They're going to fight for you. You live or you die. I would not put my life on Antonio Gibson. So I would be looking for a new champion. That might be Trey Lance. Yeah, we'll see. But anyways, he's not practicing right now. He is being held out with an abundance of caution. It is a hamstring. So at this point, nothing, but keep an eye on it. Yeah, it's same with the Cardinals' Wider Super Marquis, Hollywood Brown was placed on the active non-football injury list with a hamstring issue that was caused while he was running routes on his own. These.

Two issues are something where, man, it sucks, but it's also nothing. This is so early where usually a hamstring injury has the highest risk of re-injury within the first few weeks after coming back. So hopefully they're gone for a week or two weeks. They come back and it's still enough timeline before drafts are happening where weeks past them being back from the injury, in which case it is absolutely nothing to me. With the sole exception of like Antonio Gibson, the one problem of him missing camp is that Brian Robinson, the third round running back is now getting work with, you know, the first team and he's playing the Antonio Gibson role. So no matter what, that is a negative for Gibson's potential fantasy value. News out of Green Bay rookie wide receiver, Christian Watson. He had a minor knee surgery. He's going to miss a bit of time. This was very recent. He just had it in June.

For fantasy value, immediate fantasy value for a rookie playing with Aaron Rogers, this is potentially catastrophic news. I know that they put a lot into Christian Watson in terms of they moved way up in the second round to go get him. They came out and they said, we're not looking to add any veteran wide receivers. This, of course, said after they were linked to trying to get Julio Jones on the team. Well, they're not anymore. Well, yeah, I know. They, they missed out on that. But now you got Aaron Rogers talking about my dude, Alan Lazard, a little bit more. He had a funny quote when asked how, you know, how's it going to be going from, you know, Devante Adams to Alan Lazard as your wide receiver won. He said, it's always hard when you go from a Hall of Famer to a Hall of Famer. And to which Mike was, he liked that joke. I mean, it.

I understand it's a joke, but I think there's a little bit of truth in there. It's a little bit. I mean, look, we don't like all jokes. There's some bad jokes out there. That was a good joke for you. But I agree with you. Like the Christian Watson, I like Christian Watson. I have been. He's an interesting prospect, yes. I've been pro Christian Watson as a prospect. I know that there are some red flags in his profile, but I like the talent. a lot. I like the athleticism a lot. But the issue we've always had is like, okay, is he going to get the trust of Aaron Rogers? Because that's all that matters. It doesn't matter where you were drafted. It doesn't matter what the GM or the coach wants. Yes, as Alan Lazard, not drafted. Yeah, exactly. Does Aaron Rogers like you or not? Well, Aaron Rogers doesn't know if he likes Christian Watson. And it's going to get to a later start. And so this is just bad news for him being able to, he's already got quite a few things to overcome. You don't want a knee.

is a minor knee surgery, which is just, I prefer no knee surgery. Yeah, I prefer that. You know what Watson should be doing while he's laid up. He should be on a Nicholas Cage movie bender because I don't know if you realize that Aaron Rogers showed up cosplaying as Nicholas Cage and said some very complimentary things towards the actor. Just saying, Christian Watson, if you want to get in the good graces, I think that's a professional move to do that. All right. It is AFC North. We held off as long as we could on the AFC North because there is a team that has a quarterback situation. A slight range of outcomes. That is at the time of this recording is still not resolved, but we will do our best. Mike, don't worry. As soon as we release this. Yeah, I know. The information will come out. I know. Let's get divisional.

All right, the AFC North, the Cincinnati Bengals, they took home the division on their way to a Super Bowl appearance. The Bengals were 10 and 7. They dominated their projected win total of six and a half. They were four and five in one score games, and they were only favored in two games all season. No respect given to the Cincinnati Bengals. Respect taken. The respect was absolutely taken. Do remember Joe Burrow was coming off a devastating knee injury. You had no idea if he was going to be able to bounce back. What is this team going to look like? But seventh in points per game, seventh in passing yards and passing touchdowns. Their rushing totals not as strong, despite Joe Mixing being excellent for fantasy football. So let's start at the top, Jason. How are you feeling about Joe Burrow? I...

I feel both good and bad about Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow, the player, the talent. Coldie hot. Well, it's really, it's the game. We're playing a game of fantasy football. So do I think Joe Burrow is a great NFL quarterback? I absolutely believe he's a great NFL quarterback. Do I think that we have not seen the best of Joe Burrow? 100% I think he is going to get better. I think we'll look back. I believe Joe Burrow will be a Hall of Famer and not just for the NFL, but for fantasy. I think he's going to win people fantasy titles. It's rough.

for me at this point in time to think that this is the year where he's being drafted with this current setup of coaching like they got to the super bowl so you can't really well here's the thing you can't criticize if you believe if joe burrow is the dude that you believe he is that this is his coach Right. I know that. At what point do they move on from the coaching staff if they just keep winning? I know. They don't. Well, I think what's going to happen here is that if he keeps winning and Zach Taylor is there with his slow pace of play and his cowardice, I think that at some point, maybe that'll be this year. I don't think it'll be this year yet. But when he becomes, you know, one of the top.

three or four widely known quarterbacks in the league. If that happens, he takes over. He calls things at the line of scrimmage. He runs the offense. Sure. And it changes from, it doesn't matter who the head coach of Tom Brady is or Peyton Manning or whoever. You could put in, Adam Gase could go with Peyton Manning, just as like a random hypothetical. Yeah, exactly. And he crushed. So I do think he'll overcome the coaching staff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But right now, I don't think he's in that position. And Zach Taylor runs such a slow offense. where, I mean, obviously last year he was, Joe Burrow was good because he was so unbelievably efficient. But he's being drafted as the quarterback five right now in fantasy. And he's not a guy that's going to be up there in the five, six hundred rushing yards, six rushing touchdown type. So for fantasy, I don't think I'm going to be drafting him much this season. Joe Burrow is tough. This team is so bizarre because.

I agree. They're a very good team. I think Joe Burrow is excellent. But Joe Burrell, tons of questions here. Joe Mixen coming off a monster season. I mean, like, when I think about Joe Mixon last year, I think of, oh, I, you know. The Bengals were pretty good. He was solid. He had a, like, he came through. He's a running back three. Yeah. He had 1,200 rushing yards, nearly 300 attempts, 13 rushing touchdowns, 42 receptions for over 300 receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns. Like, the dude smashed. And he had like a stretch run in the middle of the season. We're running back 4, 2, 4, 3, 2. Like, he was winning you weeks. And yet.

I'm still, meh. I haven't drafted Joe Mixen anywhere because he's in that range of like, to me, he feels like he's not a top tier running back. So I'm going to go, I'm going to pivot. I'm going to go grab one of the elite wide receivers because they're available. So am I wrong with that for Joe Mixon? In rankings, I'm the lowest on him, but my ranking. I don't think you're wrong. My ranking just reflects other, I prefer other guys. It's not that I. dislike Joe Mixon for fantasy. Andy has him as the running back four overall. And when I, so Andy is all in. When I first statted out, uh, everybody for the ultimate draft kit, he was, I think my running back five. So I was all in. Over time, he is currently my running back seven. And it all comes down to pass catching. Joe Mixin came in to the NFL, I think as, as an excellent pass catcher. Uh, they do not use him in this way. They're putting some Ajay P. Ryan ahead of them.

as a past catcher. You brought up, yeah, he had 42 receptions. He only had 48 targets. I mean, like, that's pretty normal. That's almost a 90% catch rate. That is, that is extremely efficient. And it goes back to Joe Burroughs efficiency. But my point is, he's not one of those guys that profiles to be thrown the ball 70, 80 times. And for fantasy, when you're talking in the first round, the top of the second round, It's really hard to draft a guy that you basically need 13, 14, 15 rushing touchdowns. And so I like him. I think he's going to be solid. But I don't think he has the chance to be the running back one. Okay. Jamar Chase and T. Higgins, they are both being drafted extremely high. I mean, we all know Jamar Chase, the rookie sensation.

But just to highlight what he did the third most 20 plus yard targets since the year 2000, only three wide receivers have had 18 yards per reception and 13 touchdowns in a season. Jamar Chase, Jordy Nelson, Randy Moss. That is some excellent company to be in for a player coming off of his first season in the NFL. So I don't think there's a ton of to discuss about Jamar Chase. T. Higgins to me is. far more interesting because like the same is similar to joe mixon right when you think about joe mixon you think about it was an okay season you know and he finished crazy high much higher than i think most people really remember when you think about t higgins you think

He absolutely dominated. Like, you know, I had him in the playoffs. And, like, he carried me in the semis, like, 194 and 2. Your memory of T. Higgins is the second half of the season after the by week. Not remembering over the first half of the season, people were calling in and writing into the show saying, What do I do with T. Higgins? Should I drop T. Higgins? Because he's killing me. And he's like, where is the path forward for T. Higgins? Of course, then goes right on his monster run. So how do you handle the guy who's perceived to be the number two target in the Cincinnati Bengals offense? When like, make Jason, make some sense of this. Yeah. Well, just as a reminder to your story, a little additional gunpowder. During the.

season, if you're if you're new to the footballers, you haven't been with us through the season, uh, our producers will put out a post like, who are you, who are your biggest questions about like, should I drop? And he was the number one. Yeah. There was a week where he was the number one name where people are like, do I drop T. Higgins? Should I drop him? And it was, it was tough to not drop him, you know, going after the first eight weeks of the season, he hadn't done much, but he got injured early on, came back from the shoulder injury and wasn't really good until it.

you know, several weeks later after their by week and then dominated. To make sense of T. Higgins is to believe in the talent of him and the quarterback. I wish that this was the Chargers coaching staff that would allow them to throw the ball 650 times and 5,200 yards, in which case T. Higgins would dominate. In this situation, though, most fantasy years, basically every year, there are multiple wide receivers from the same team that finish as a wide receiver one. So two from the same team in the top 12. Yep. There are several every single year that are top 24 from the same team. I can't envision a world where these two guys, these young stud wide receivers, aren't both top 24. So I don't worry about him being the wide receiver two for the team at all.

It is expensive, and you have to have Joe Burrow continuing to be efficient. But, I mean, my anti-Joe Burrow takes for fantasy have nothing to do with, like, if you throw for 4,800 yards and 35 touchdowns, I mean, your wide receivers are going to be outstanding. Yeah, it's a great year. But for fantasy, that doesn't do it alone at quarterback. If you're not also rushing in six touchdowns, you've got to be like that 5,040 to be a top end. quarterback. So I think that Burrow, what he does this year will support T. Higgins and Jamar Chase as two great picks. And then you also have the slot receiver. You have Tyler Boyd, who he also had, you know, four good games. The other, it wasn't very consistent for Mr. Boyd. He has a C grade on his player profile at the Fantasyfootballers.com. But you still saw.