Fantasy Football - Regress or Impress? 2nd Half Studs + Age Cliffs - Podcast for 3/27

championship games. That's why we have the truth series. Yeah, the bigger discussion is just do you want them as an every week starter or a streamer, and I think we're all in the streamer category. Jerry Judy, though, this was an absolutely amazing story. You're talking about irrelevance in the first half of the season last year. 7.2 points per game. Wide receiver 50, SOJ. Same old Judy. Yep. I had no idea where that was going to go. He was the wide receiver 50, the year prior. Ah. So. SoJ. But the buy week, after the buy week, wide receiver 5, 17.3 points per game. Pure magma. I mean, this was, this was one of, if not the best wide receiver you could have had during that time. So, you know, wide receiver 4, 21, 1, 19, 11, peak performances, consistency, target share, yards per game, over 100 yards per game from weeks 11 through 18.

James did not play in week 16 through 18, still had a top 24 finish with basically nobody a quarterback. This was the guy that when they went and made the acquisition of Jerry Judy and we're all kind of going, well, why are you doing that? This is what you hope you get from a player of that draft pedigree and talent. Drafted to be great. Top 15 pick in the first round. Who started week 17? Was that DTR? Or was it somebody else by there. Was it? I believe so. Jerry Judy had 18 targets. It took him 18 targets to get to 94 yards. That game? Yeah. Like that is, is anyone, is anyone going to make the case for him? Because I would be OUT. I'm not going to, nobody's going to make an impress if it means wide receiver five. No, not even wide receiver five. But I think.

But do I think he could be a wide receiver too? I do. I think it could be a wide receiver too in Cleveland. I mean, Marty Cooper is long gone. He showed from Weeks 11 on when he had that opportunity what he could do with target volume. This is not the Nick Chubb show anymore. I still believe Kirk Cousins will be a Cleveland Brown. Okay. So you're going with that. the projection. Yeah, I mean, I think we don't know who's throwing to them yet. Well, let's talk about a town. It's a far cry from wide receiver 50 to wide receiver 24, which would be a wide receiver 2. And I think he's in that kind of a jump. Well, he's been there. The year prior to being wide receiver 50, the SOJ, he was the wide receiver 20. So we know that's in his range of outcomes. He can finish as a wide receiver two. He's done it before. 25.9 years old? He is, yeah, he's young. He's not a bad wide receiver. But let's just talk about his talent. Did you see?

Did you believe that he was more talented during the second half of last year as far as his ability, did he grow up on the NFL field or did he just have different quarterback play? Like was it both or just one? It was definitely not just one. I mean, I think it was both. I think he was a more consistent player on a snap to snap basis. Yes. And I think it came with confidence. It came with big performances. I mean, he was. on pace for 121 receptions for 1,700 yards and 6.5 touchdowns in that stretch. 180 targets. He had 142-yard game, a 235-yard game, a 108. This was, oh, I can do that. Yeah. That's what I saw. The Browns threw the ball 661 times last year. Like, that's not, that's not Stefanski football. That's not Cleveland Brown's football. I would.

His ADP's got to be low. I will say this. His ADP right now is wide receiver 35. Okay. I'm happy. He should absolutely beat that. I'm happy with that. I mean, the real question here is is quarterback. And we don't we don't have the answer. That's like the kind of number. Whether it's going to be playing, whether it's going to be Shador Sanders, whether it's whoever we don't know who's throwing the ball. And it makes a humongous difference. Is there anyone... Well, has ADP changed with any of the answers that you just possibly said? Yeah, well, not with the answers I said. Right. But, you know, there's still rumors of Kirk Cousins being the one to eventually land there. If Kirk Couss were there, Jerry Judy should be great. I don't think he skyrockets, though, in ADP. Probably not high enough. I mean, I, I, if I could get him in the wide receiver 30 or below, I feel like I'm stealing. Because not many players being drafted at that level could perform on, at that...

at the rate we saw last year. And maybe it's just James. You could say that. But I think it's just James. Yeah, I'm more on that side of the James plus passing volume because the team was, the team had lost control of it. I mean, this was year five. I feel like Jerry Judy didn't level up halfway through year five when his quarterback changed. He just didn't become a better player. What quarterbacks did he have in Denver? With the, the Rust. Yeah, I would have to go back and look. Okay, not impressive so far. Well, the rush year, there was a lot of touchdowns, if I'm remembering it, right? Yeah, was Drew Locke throwing in the ball? Yeah. I would have to look all this up. I mean, to answer your quarterback question, he's not had it. No, that's fair. And he had been banged up and falling out of favor. I just think at 25 is not over. So Jerry Judy entered the league in 2020. So the leading passers since then you had Drew Locke, Teddy Bridgewater.

And then you had two years of Russ. And ripping farts. Good old Brett. There was quarterback carousel there for sure. So I don't know. I mean, the regress are impressed. I think we'd all be on the regression from the second half. I'm going to be honest, guys. I have no memory of Teddy Bridgewater being on the Denver Broncos. When I said it, I was like, I'm going to quadruple check this. Does anyone remember this? You verified it? Yeah. This happened. 2021. This was no one remembers this. I have no answer for you. Yeah, that was, it was sort of pandemic time. Who remembers anything? Was there a crowd in the audience? 21 there would have been, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you went seven and seven. Judy's, Judy's one of those. He played 14 games. He was their leading passer. Can I, I mean, look, this was a player that was on a team with Kendall Hinton starting a game.

Oh, the hinting game. With Jeff Driscoll and Drew Locke and Brett Rippin and Teddy Bridgewater and like there is nobody. I mean, Russell Wilson is the best quarterback he had had until James went wild. Yeah, man. Judy is going to be a tough one. But if the ADP stays where it is, then some of my teams I'll sprinkle him in. Sprinkle some Judy. Yeah. Chase Brown. Chase Brown was the running back 19 in the first half of the year, which was, you know, that was great relative to draft position still. However, he was the running back eight in the second half of the year with just a ton of top 10 finishes. Unless they stopped the Moss experiment. Well, Moss stopped it. Yeah, he got hurt, but it was kind of, you could see it happening by around week four that Chase Brown was going to take over. Let me put it in context for you. He has points per game was 17.4 points per game. If you stack that up on the year,

that would be good enough points per game-wise to only trail Saquan, Gibbs, Henry, and Bijan. That's it. Yeah, he was awesome. That would be running back five in points per game. Or maybe I'm wrong about the hold on. Let me double check. The points per game, the 17 was his points per game, I believe, in the second half. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm saying the second half that we're talking about would put him in that category. Yeah, it would be running back five in points per game. So do you believe that that continues with what they have on offense? They're spending money. The odds of them, I mean, they're not adding somebody in free agency at running back. They could add a rookie, but this is a team that is probably not entrusting a ton of backfield share to a rookie who has to pass protect for Joe Burrow. And, you know, Chase Brown proved that he could play with Joe Burrow and be that outlet and be that effective player. They need defensive players. They might be spending more money on.

By the time the show releases, who knows, maybe Trey Hendonkstein has a contract. There's some rumors abound. Everything is the NFL draft. I lean that they're not going to actually spend any high draft capital on a running back. Like early on in the off season, Chase Brown was a player. I'm like, I think I want to trade him away because someone's going to be out there and they will give me a ton for Chase Brown over the last month. You know, like, I've revisited that and I've changed it. And my stat for Chase Brown is I went back and looked at all running backs drafted since 2014. Okay. So that's my, that's my player pool. Running backs who broke out in year two, meaning they finished as a top 24 running back, the next year, their hit rate at ADP is 68%. That's great. This is one of the best bets you can make at 80. And when I say ADP,

I'm talking about they're drafted as running back 10. Like, what do I expect the running back 10 to score on points per game? And guys who break out in year two, they hit at a high rate. And on top of that, 40% of that pool exceed their ADP by two points per game. Like these are big time hit players. So Chase Brown, assuming the NFL draft goes, as I'm now feel it's going to go for the Bengals, Chase Brown will be. one of my premier draft targets. There are players that enter this strange draft position category where they kind of, you know, his ADP is RB 13. That's fine. I'll take it. And they kind of, they kind of either are going. Really? Is that low? They're either going to disappoint off of it. I think that's low. I, for the way that he finished. And I think it's high. And he's on the Bengals. But a lot of the times, because we're not willing to crown them on half a season.

They're ADP slots into this spot where it's like, okay, it's not really representative of what they could do. It's just representative of risk. And it's like if Chase Brown is the starter, that RV 13 makes no sense. He will be higher than that probably. But if Chase Brown is supplanted, he'll probably be lower if he underwhelms. But being RB 13 doesn't seem like it's the range of outcomes. Yeah, it's a really, really tough situation because in, you know, if this was last year's NFL draft, I would be very bullish going in on Chase Brown. It is worth noting that Chase Brown was really a volume king. He wasn't, he wasn't efficient. Ah! Oh, that was high volume. I like it. I like it. Swish.

Okay, he called the switch for you. Yeah, I mean, you know, among 46 qualifying running backs with 100 or more carries, he was 33rd in yards after contact, 26th and forced miss tackles. And then as a receiver, he had a good stat line, but it really was middling, you know, 35th out of 67 running backs in yards per outrun, 61st out of 67 in... yards after catch per reception. So it was volume. Is this on the whole year? Or was that on just the second half? That's the whole year, but it's efficiency numbers. So it really shouldn't. It should be worse as he gets more volume. The thing is, is he had over the second half of the year 24.4 opportunities per game. Yes, sir. Only Sequin was higher than that. He was averaging 86% of snap. Does that remind you of anybody? Kyron.

No. Oh. The guy who used to be the running back for the Cincinnati Bengals. Joe Mixing? Yeah. Yeah. Inefficient, but got all the volume and finished. Great. The question is with this year's draft, like, let me, let me just throw some names. Also, Kyran. Let me throw some names out there because this is a deep draft class. And they don't have to spend a first or second round pick. They could get Devin Neal. They could get Quinn John Judkins. They could get... Ah, you're not getting Judkins on... Are you talking on day three? No, like a third round. Third round pit. But that's what... Caleb Johnson? I think it'll be wild for the Bengals to use a running back. But keep... Sorry, keep going. So Caleb Johnson, Cam Scataboo, Devin, Neal, Judkins, and let's throw RJ Harvey in there as well. Okay. If they grab one of those five, there's just a lot of options. If they grab one of those five, will you still be bullish on... Impress. You're going full impression. I watched him.

Right is beyond the stat lines. Like if you just look at the second half stat lines, the volumes there, the Chiron numbers, like you said, you'd be over 1,300 rushing yards. This would be the more impressive number of me is seeing what he did in the passing game for Joe Burrow. On the second half of the season, he's on pace for 80 catches. And he will do that again. And so to me, this is like, this is like Echler before he's Echler. If they believe in him. Those names you said don't scare me. If you say Omari and Hampton or something that I'm scared. But those names don't scare me because I don't believe that the way that this team is organ. I mean, people thought that Khalil Herbert was going to get play on this team when he got traded over. He's had good performances for Chicago. Couldn't see the field. They don't want to do it. They want the guy they trust. So I'm trying to do my best to kind of talk you out of it to see if you're not there. I'm.

equally on the impressed side. Oh. I remember. You fooled me. Tricky man. I remember last year watching as a, as a, as a Bruce Hall manager, watching Chase Brown play and being like, dude, you could make some plays. Why? Like he did things that looked special. And I realized some of those efficiency numbers might not be great. But when you watch the film. That's a fifth round pick on the field. You stink. When you watch the film, it was like he was making moves. He was reliable. He was. a very important piece of an offense that had great success. They don't look at it and see these inefficiency numbers and think that he was not effective. I think they look and they say this was a great player for us. He's only in year two. They've got him two more years under his rookie contract. I think they're going to roll him next year and he should be great for fantasy. We will take a break momentarily. We got a couple more names to get into before we close things out. But yeah, I'm with you and I think.

None of us went into last season thinking Chase Brown was a special talent necessarily. Well, he had juice. He had juice, but not a complete talent. And I think that changed for me watching him, and it changed for the team. I don't know if they knew that they could trust him to the degree that they did last year. Sometimes players got to get it on the field, and then all of a sudden you're like, wow, that is, that's like a legitimate running back. I think we thought undersized, complimentary back. Yeah, I mean, he, it's funny because he looks undersized, but he's like, he's 210 pounds. He can take the workload. That's fine. That's better than Chiron and some of those other backs. So I, he's, he's bigger than Chiron. The weight wise. Interesting. I know it doesn't. It doesn't look like it. Dude, it called the color of your uniform messes with you, man. I'm, I'm serious. Like, it was like when Pierre Garsohn went from the Colts to Washington, it was like, that guy gained 50 pounds. What?

I remember that. Interesting. What uniform should we be wearing? Kyle. Well, it's usually a black polo. This would if you want to be slim. Oh, yeah. Kyle, deep dive on uniform color about who looks bigger. It's right. The people need to know. Find the database of, you know, looks. I guarantee Carl has this database. Yeah, give him 10 minutes. All right. Let's take a break, and then we'll talk about Bucky Irving and another interesting name that we didn't think would be relevant, but was super relevant. All right, we are resuming our regress or impress segment. Just to rehash here. Jared Gough, we were all on the regress side. It's just a high bar. I don't want to be, but I think so. Jerry Judy, I think we're all in the regress compared to the second half wide receiver five, but I am, I certainly believe he'll be much better than the first half numbers. Mm-hmm.

Chase Brown, we were all on the impress side. We think that the RB one season is in store. Current landscape of the Bengals, don't play that sound bite if they draft a superstar running back. Jay, where are you? When I heard the RB 13, I just, I felt like that was low where the market would place him. I, but like thinking through it, so I'm going to, like, because you're on, we're all on the same side here of we want Chase Brown and our teams. And it's like Chase Brown or Breece, Chase Brown or Johnny Taylor. Like, I think I'm taking Chase Brown over those guys. I would definitely take Jonathan Taylor over Chase Brown, but I can't do Breece anymore. It's just, uh, okay, can't do it. All right. You know what would be a really good drop for Breece?

If I could. No, no, I was going to see if I get, I mean, I got to go to archives to find this thing. Oh, we're diving deep? Yeah, I'll see if I can find it later. Okay. But let's talk about Bucky Irving first. Bucky Irving in this, in this category is a little weird because first half, I expect it to be pretty vast, right? Even if you're a premier rookie, you should have. We've seen progression, right? We've seen players that they get more work, they get more opportunity. He was the RB 27 in the first half. That's not bad as a rookie that wasn't expected to do great things. You're not a day one or day two pick. But RB6, that was the second half, 17.9 points per game. And, you know, do you believe as a player being drafted now as the RB9 that you're going to get the same type of performance?

So we know that the offense is, it's going to be, I mean, O.C. with notwithstanding of that, but the offensive pieces, it's going to be the same guys. And I am super bullish on Bucky moving forward. It feels kind of like a weird place to be of that player with his archetype, his body size, and then his draft capital. Draft capital. And then. and the combine numbers for him were not, like you didn't blow anybody away with how overly athletic he was, just got on the field and was an absolute stud among all running backs was 75. Like Kareem Hunt as a rookie? Kareem Hunt was a third round pick at least. What was Bucky? Fourth. Okay. He was a fourth. I feel like we can still compare them. And Kareem Hunt was a sturdier fellow where Bucky was a 195. But from the run in the 40.

The combine numbers. Sure. Obviously neither player sold themselves into the first and second round. And yet on the field speed and agility stuff translated differently. So he's fifth in yards per carry. Uh, are, uh, yeah, an eighth and explosive rush rate. Third in force miss tackles per attempt. And that stat I was giving you the, the ADP study of the year two breakouts for running back. It is only bested by. year one running back breakouts guys who break out in year one who finish in the top 24 heading into year two they hit their ADP expectation almost 70% of the time and 42% of the time you get the big time breakout so it and that has to include injuries like you when when a player goes out and at no fault of their own gets injured and they don't return on ADP you would expect those no numbers but these are these are points per game

This isn't just your finish. When you're on the field, how are you actually performing? Well, people don't want Philip Lindsay. They don't want Steve Slayton. They don't want one year wonder with Buck Irving. And you don't expect it to be a one year. I do not at all. And then a hat tip to Matthew Barry, who every year at the combine, he gathers as much intel and rumors as he can. And he often brings us really good stuff. And he said, I'm talking to people who are associated with the Bucks. And their love for Bucky Irving is through the moon, as it should be. But it's just, it's great. That's not through the roof. That's through, that's way up there. Yeah. You know how much further away the moon is than your roof? He said through the moon. Yeah.

The moon cannot contain their love. No, no rocky core planet. That's a big rock. A roof can normally contain the love. Sometimes you break the roof. Now you can go through the roof. Can you imagine how much harder it is to break through the moon than a roof? Yeah. If anyone could do it, at least three times harder. Three. Yeah. But he's going to be awesome. So RB9, regress are impressed. I'll take him in Arbyn. Impress. I'll take him. So 5.42 a carry. When you talk about Chase Brown, Chase Brown was at 4.2. I often caution people from going to hot on. Damian Pierce. Exactly. So Damien Pierce, it's hard to remember now, but going into his sophomore year, everyone was hot and bothered for him. He was such a sensational rookie, but he didn't have the draft capital. And it was like he's going to break out. And the thing is, is we've seen it a lot, like the data on that.

is very, very bad for, you know, Andy, you talk about you think you compare the third round and the fourth round. It really is massively difference because that's the difference in draft day, right? Like day two picks when general managers are putting their boards together, the way that they value a day two pick versus day three, four, five, and, you know, the rounds four, five, six, seven. They're all, you know, lumped together versus two and three on day two. Day four and beyond picks rookie running backs who break out do not often repeat. And so I was banging the table to like be cautious with Damian Pierce. To me, Bucky Irving is too good to do that. I am retracting the data and saying he is an outlier on talent. Data retraction? Data retraction. He was just, he was genuinely the best running back on the team by a wide margin.

The team had a guy that they trusted, that they liked in Rashad White, and they just were forced to continue to put Bucky Irving on the field more and more and more. And now this offseason, you're hearing that that's their dude. I love the Buccaneers offense. Yeah. For fantasy, I love it. Yeah. I love watching it. It's not just one that gives you numbers that you don't like watching. It's just fun. They are. They are very fun. Baker's in complete control of the offense. It's not just luck. Yeah, it's funny. when I watch the Buccaneers offense. I like watching the Lions. They're great. But I don't have as much fun watching the Lions offense, which scored more points. I enjoy the Lions quite a bit. But Jared Goff doesn't give you the shenanigans of Baker Mania. Baker's, he's fun to watch. All right. Let's make this one quick, guys. Regressor impressed Johnny Smith, who went from the Titan 20 to the Titan 1 over the second half of the year. Yes, that is the Titan 1.

14.8 points per game in the second half. Tied in 2, 3, 3, 5, 2, 10, 13, 5 to finish the year. 7 top 5 finishes. The old year 8 breakout. I mean, there's part of it. He was top 10 in 2020. I was going to say, there's part of me that always, you know, on a per play basis, we always have believed in Johnny Smith. Yeah. It's just that Johnny Smith somehow never profiled as in every. play kind of guy. And, you know, the signing in New England was supposed to be exciting and fun because of what Bill Belichick had done with tight ends in the past. And we didn't get that from Johnny Smith. And part of it was, you know, sharing time. They brought Hunter Henry in at the same time. They brought him in. And then in Atlanta, we're like, why is he getting snaps ahead of the superstar Kyle Pitts? And now we're like, oh, that's why because Johnny Smith's good and Kyle Pitts isn't. So, you know, this Miami offense, if we either.

We either have to believe that they'll return to something that we saw two years ago. Throw the ball down the field and then Tyreek and Wada will be great. Or we have to believe that they're intentionally going to protect that this offense of 70 plus percent completion percentage is the way that they want to do things, in which case I feel like you have to say you believe in Johnny Smith. I do believe in Johnny Smith. Really? So you're an impressed. I'm an impressed. What's his draft position at the tight end? Can't be that high. I don't have. Well, that's, that's, I'm surprised he's that high, but the, we saw this before once ever. And it was when a year nine breakout happened for a tight end who switched teams. And it reminds me a lot of the same because it was a player that was good, but just wasn't given the opportunity. It was Delaney Walker. Talking about, uh, Hubert.

Hubert? I just found out that his name is Hubert. Delaney? Hubert. Delaney Walker. Wow. Eat that, Kyle. I see why he would go by Delaney. You know, when Delaney is an upgrade. I mean, Delaney's not a great name. Oh, Delaney's a good name. It's not great. But Hubert? Hubert's worse. I feel like Delaney's not her. Delany's a better last name. I agree. Delany Walker. Would you want to be Hubert? I mean, no. That's not how you say it, is it? Or is it Hubbard? Well, that doesn't sound right either. H-U-B-E-R-T. That's Hubert. That's Hubert. I mean, I've said it so many times it doesn't sound right. That old arcade game. Yes, Hubert. Yes. I thought of it immediately. But Delaney Walker had a year nine breakout. You could maybe say a year eight when he switched to the Tennessee Titans and then had a long stretch as an important pass catcher for them because he was a good player. And John who was.

a good player and he proved that. He switched teams. He's under contract. I think that I was impressed and I will continue to be. All right. So, you know, obviously you're not going to impress above Titan 1 over the second half, but you're saying you'll buy in at that ADP. Yeah, Titan 7. I don't usually. I'm right at the, what is the halfway point between regress and impress? Neutral. There you go. The Hubert breast. The Hubert. Guys, I have. Horrifically bad news. Oh, no, do you need to retract? His name is. No, no, it is. His name was Jonathan. No, no, but Delaney, like, how old do you think Delaney Walker is? Is right now? Yeah. Oh, right. I bet he's our age. 40s. He's younger than us. What? What? Delaney Walker is so old. Delaney Walker has a, has a Walker. I mean.