Early Breakouts & Busts - Fantasy Football Podcast

instead of 132. So I've got him with 166. You and I see him with the same. There you go. Three rushing touchdowns. But I have him with 77 receiving targets and 60 receptions. That's the big difference. So obviously. That is, that's the difference. If you've got him at running back 11, the difference there is that. And based on my research on both history and then the projection forward of the quarterback change.

If he's down in the 70 targets, you're not going to be happy. Now, how many of those guys in your research, when you looked at the guys who had the 100 plus targets, went 100 plus targets straight into the bag of money to be the starting running back? I do not have contract details attached here, Mike. He just got the bag, man. And he was signed as an offensive weapon. And I think you guys are...

I think you're being very low giving him 160-something attempts when last year he had 132. And once Melvin Gordon came back, he's averaging what, like six or seven attempts? He's not getting six or seven attempts per game. He'll be up in the 10 to 15 range every single game, in my opinion. Like 10 would be 160. So we've got him at 166. I'm saying he will be there, like at minimum.

At minimum he'll be hitting 10, and then he'll have the games where he's up with 15 or more carries. I just, I believe in the talent. Where do you have him, though? You probably don't have him much higher than I do. I have him at running back 7 right now. You have him much higher than I do. I have him, and I'm with you guys. I have him losing 30 targets. This is his, like you said, his stats are his own. They are. This is an early bus show. He is on record as.

potentially incorrect. And you talk about, you know, the contract situations of these running backs where, you know, I don't have those details, but these are great running backs. This is not a list of like, these guys got 100 targets for reason. You know, it's Ladania Tomlinson and Matt Forte, Chris McCaffey, Reggie Bush. Shout out to Lamont Jordan. I miss him. Well, no, I took Lamont Jordan out. He is not in this day. I'm saying I took out the people that were injured the following years. No, I wasn't giving him grief. I love Lamont Jordan. It's been a minute.

Since I've heard that name. Yeah, yeah. All right. I'm going to throw a name out there that I think is a boring early bus pick, but one that's worth surfacing based on where he's being drafted. And that's Tyler Boyd. Tyler Boyd is a good, reliable NFL-wide receiver. But over the past couple of years, due to what's transpired in that offense, you had Andy Dalton, you had no AJ Green. You don't have any guarantee of AJ Green this year, but he is returning and he is at full health today.

You also drafted T. Higgins and you have a rookie quarterback in Cincinnati. And we looked at the average draft position in Tyler Boyd right now. It was something like wide receiver 32. I have him in the 40s this year. I just don't know what his real ceiling is going to be in a rookie-led offense with A.J. Green returning with T. Higgins involved with Joe Mixing out of the backfield. I have my concerns. He's been a very strong, reliable wide receiver.

He's been over 1,000 yards the past two years. That is not, you know, that's a nice benchmark to say 1,000 yards. It's not really special in the NFL to get over 1,000 yards at the receiving position. I just don't think that Tyler Boy is going to represent for your fantasy team what he has represented over the past couple of years. Last year, he was the wide receiver 23 in 16 games without A.J. Green.

I know we've had the discussions on the show before about whether Green helps or hurts him, but I like T. Higgins personally. And we've talked about kind of the ceiling, the limit of a rookie quarterback situation there. I think Tyler Boyd is just kind of me this year. Like, I don't think he's going to be on my teams because I don't think the upside is there with the rookie quarterback in AJ Green. And what's wild about, like his ADP, I don't think is too extreme. It's not crazy. It's not crazy. It's not crazy. But it's the fact of.

on average in bestball drafts, according to fantasy pros, best ball ADP, going behind him, Michael Gallup, Will Fuller, Deontay Johnson, Brandon Cooks, like guys who... All four of those I'd have over Tyler. Guys who have ceilings. All four of those guys have a ceiling, especially compared to Tyler Boyd. So I think it's interesting to me that people are taking that safe pick. Tyler Flore.

Yeah. Oh, that's not bad. Yeah, that's what he seems. Tyler floor, he's got a good floor. He has it. That's the thing. He's got a good floor. No, I will not. His floor is like 800 yards receiving. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yes. You won't stand for it? You feel like that is insulting or something? He's going to be the 800 to 886 range. Yeah, it'll be between 830 and 850 yards. Oh, my goodness. And also, I just want to point out while you talked about A.J.

Green coming back and, you know, you brought up T. Higgins. Can't forget about. What, Rodney Anderson? No. Oh, I missed a chance to talk about Rodney. No, I was going to bring up John Ross. Absolutely. He's also there. We need a bet, and I don't know what the bet is yet, Jason. Whether Rodney Anderson makes the roster. Not that bet. That bet, I guess I lost a live bet on Tuesday, so I'm not going to make any quick ones. But I just want a situation where.

When you're wrong about AJ Green, you have to wear his jersey for some period of time. That is very important to me. I'm in on that. If AJ Green is a top 15 wide receiver this year, I'll wear his jersey for a week. That's fine. That's a one way bet. That works for me. Great. Because I love AJ Green. I hope he is. I just don't believe it at all, and I'm never going to draft him. All right, Mike, it's time for you to maybe pay back the Echler. Yes. A little bit. From Jason's nonsense to my sensical data. To my perfect analysis.

Stefan Diggs, love the player, do not like the destination, do not like the destination at all for fantasy purposes. I think Stefan Diggs is going to be a fantasy bust. Here's the thing. Last year, Diggs was the guy, the guy for Minnesota. Adam Thielen played full snaps in basically seven games. Do you guys recall on Minnesota who had the second most targets on the team?

Man, second most targets on the Minnesota Vikings. On the Minnesota Vikings last year. I would guess that, I'm dealing. No. It was Delvin Cook with 63 targets. That's what Stefan Diggs was competing with for target share. He ended up as the wide receiver 21 overall. He was a top 24 receiver in six of 15 games. He did not help your team. And now he goes from Kurt Cousins.

to Josh Allen. It's two teams that have very similar offensive philosophies, not very high volume. Stefan Diggs was used as a deep ball player this last year, but the difference is Kirk Cousins, one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the league to Josh Allen. And they were both very similar on their deep attempts. Josh Allen threw a deep ball on 14.6% of his attempts. Kirk Cousins, 13.7. I wish you didn't have that stat.

That's a good stat. But it's not just about efficiency on the deep ball. It's how often he does it. My counterpoint would have been, well, Josh Allen's come out and said he's never going to check it down. He's always going to chuck the ball. But you just said so did Kirk Cousins. Very, very similar. But here is what is not similar. What? Yes. They're adjusted completion. You can really dance. They're adjusted completion percentage. So Josh Allen's adjusted completion percentage.

So that's factoring in things like drops. It was a stunning 28.4%. Meanwhile, Kurt Cousins, an adjusted completion of 47.8. Because Kurt Cousins is great. He is a very good passer. Last year, Stefan Diggs, had 32 deep targets, and 20 of them were deemed catchable. John Brown had 28 deep targets last year, the number one wide receiver, the go-to deep threat for the Buffalo Bills.

11 were deemed catchable. So 32 to 20, 28, down to 11. Josh Allen, he's got the cannon. Maybe the accuracy finally shows up. I'm not betting it is. And on top of that, what I was saying of Stefan Diggs was the guy for this team last year. John Brown's not going away. John Brown was 24% of the targets last year. And they're both excellent route runners. Like you can, if.

If that's where you want to go and attack this situation of saying, well, Stefan Diggs is an elite route runner. You know, also is an elite route runner according to reception, John Brown. Matt Harmon's write-up of Stefan Diggs basically says, well, now Buffalo has two number one wide receivers because that's how good John Brown is at running routes. He gets open. Having to deal with other places, and then I even, and Cole Beasley's not going away either. He was over 20% of the targets.

I'm just not in on Stefan Diggs. Where do you have him? Because when you say not in, he's being drafted about wide receiver 25 right now. Fantasy finishes for Diggs since 2015, 46, 38, 20, 11, and 21. I have Stefan Diggs right now ranked at 35. I have him at 24. So right about where he's drafting, not as an elite option. But I would counter with this. Last year, John Brown was the wide receiver 20. Sure.

Now, you can make the argument of, well, John Brown's still there, and now there's targets. I just did. Great, but I'm, but you, you started by making the argument that Josh Allen can't support. He's just not as good as Kirk Cousins. Well, he had a wide receiver 20 in John Brown last season. Diggs is better than John Brown. And I just want to point out that when you pay the amount of money and you try to change your team that what you've done with Diggs,

Those other players who had great stretches the year prior, they can easily become irrelevant. I know it's weird and difficult to think about Robert Foster the year prior, but he was the wide receiver 20 from weeks 10 on with Josh Allen. It was like, oh, but he's great. And then it was just like, poof, you're done. You don't matter to me. We got John Brown and we got Cole Beasley. He was an undrafted free agent. That is correct. Foster? But no, I think that can happen. Look, we all call a spade a spade. We all grimaced when Diggs was traded to Buffalo.

Yeah, it's not the best landing. Just the way you did last year when Antonio Brown was a Buffalo bill for 30. For a day. Because you knew that the identity of this team, the defense, the big play. I mean, Stefan Diggs is going to have some monster game. Yes, he will. In Buffalo. And he's going to help Josh Allen. If he's being drafted as the wide receiver 25. That's fine. I feel like that's fine. I mean, busting on that, you got to suck. Well, let me ask you a couple questions here, Mike. Then that means you have players like Sutton.

Probably Devante Parker. I have Parker ranked higher, yes. What about a guy like Marvin Jones or Tyler Lockett? Let me pull up the rank. Well, Tyler Lockett, I would for sure take over Stefan Diggs. So yeah, I have Lockett at 25 and Marvin Jones right now at 28. Marvin Jones would be...

similar, like a similar tier of how I view the player where Jones is going to have games where he goes off and games where he just disappears. That's another part of the problem why I was highlighting that Stefan Diggs was actually only good for your fantasy team last year about six times out of the whole season. It's been so painful. In those games, he was great. But now will he actually have that many of those explosive games when it could easily go over to being John Brown? And when you're talking about

Robert Foster, as the comparison, they gave John Brown a good amount of money. Exactly. And that made the other options irrelevant. But I'm saying so Stefan Diggs doesn't come in and just replace an undrafted free agent. Stefan Diggs is coming into pair with a player who has the fourth highest cap hit on the Buffalo Bills this year. Yeah, Diggs helps the quarterback. I mean, it helps Josh Allen tremendously. And Diggs will have his games.

He has never been a pillar of consistency. It'd be interesting to see if he was able to do that with the inaccuracies and troubles of Josh Allen. Alan will have his games. Diggs will have his games. I'm comfortable with his ADP. Yeah, I'm comfortable with his ADP. I think the strongest issue here is the consistency because that's where it's like if you're not a high volume team and they want to be a run first defensive-minded team, then you are going to have volatility. You're not going to have consistency.

for digs. And so if you want to call him a bust for that reason, I mean, you know, Amari Cooper last year, you could say it was a bust for your team because even though he finished great, he didn't help you win games at the end of the season. It's really shocking. Mike didn't just go with Amari Cooper. Right. I mean, that's just honorary, right? Like, that's like our honorary doctorate, our honorary doctorate that should be in the mail soon. Someone that's listening, please, we're all.

asking for an honorary doctorate from some university. Oh, yeah, we are. We would like one. I want one pretty bad. But his honorary bus certificate is also floating out in the ether at all times. It feels like Mike has an honorary Cooper bust at all times. I've got an honorary juju bust at all times. Who's Jason's honorary permanent perma bust? Apparently Austin Echler, big dumbface. I was not anti-Eckler last year. This is a brand new thing.