NFC East Breakdown + Michael Thomas Injury, Happy Days - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/24

Started 2 and 7 last year, though, with Dwayne Haskins, Kyle Allen. This was a bad offensive football team with a capital B. Really, really bad. Great defensive team. Second in terms of pass yards giving up, fourth and points against. Put it together to win over the last handful of weeks, enough games to win the division with a sub 500 record.

So I think we begin by really examining, I think, the upside and downside of investing fantasy-wise into this offense. Because on paper last year, 30th and total yards, that tells you what you need to know, 25th and points per game. It was led by Haskins. It was led by Alex Smith, Taylor Hineke for a moment. Kyle Allen. Yeah, Kyle Allen.

And this year the big additions, the two big additions are Ryan Fitzpatrick and Curtis Samuel. And so can those two additions take this from a dead last or nearly dead last offensive football team and put them on the map as the top half? 100% to me they can do that. And here's where we need to bust out a very interesting stat that differentiates fantasy football and real life football. You just illustrated how.

terrible this offense was overall, and yet they had two top 24 running backs, a top 20 wide receiver, and a top 10 tight end for fantasy football. So don't let the idea and projection that a team is going to have a bad offense completely scare you away from fantasy options on that team. They are not mutually exclusive. Yeah, Sequin, James Robinson. So it happens. But.

I think the addition of Ryan Fitzpatrick is gigantic for what this team can do moving forward and what this offense will be. The quarterback play was very poor for this team last year. And as fun as it is to talk about Ryan Fitzpatrick and sing his praises, he's not the greatest quarterback in the world. In fact, the last time that we had seen him, you know,

We've seen him with a full season worth of games once in the past eight years. He is just a spot starter. He's been a backup. But even with all that, he is much better than what Washington had to deal with all of last year. You get Terry McLaurin, who's one of the best young wide receivers in the game, in my opinion, the athleticism, the actual skill at the wide receiver position, and a player who is willing to...

force-feed him the ball with Ryan Fitzpatrick, a quarterback who's not afraid to let it rip before you know for sure that Terry McLaurin is actually open. He's trusting in the player and he trusts that he's going to make the cut and end up wide open. He will take some chances. Yes, it turns into turnovers, but it also turns into a higher-powered offense as a whole. So I guess the question then is Ryan Fitzpatrick, I think due to the history you just outlaid,

and the age, right? He'll be 39 during the year. Being drafted as the quarterback 25 in the 15th round right now. But every single time that he's been given the opportunity to start in recent years, Tampa Bay, Miami, the Jets, we end up, you know, two weeks into his, you know, the regime change when he takes over at quarterback, and we're all scrambling to pick him up on the waiver wire and he's winning you games. Yes. So why not go with Ryan Fitzpatrick then?

I think he's phenomenal when it comes to having fun and putting up big performances, but he's also known to completely implode from time to time. You know, he was on pace last year for 4,000 yards and 25 touch-up, but also 17 interceptions, even though a lot was made about how he was much more safe and secure with the ball. Okay, yes, but also still not great. So I think that there's...

There's fear of the implosion mixed with there's no chance here with such a great defense that Ryan Fitzpatrick comes out and really levels up at, you know, almost 39. 40 and becomes a top five guy. Whereas when you're drafting these late quarterbacks, you know, if I'm drafting someone later like Ryan Tannahill, you could easily be a top five guy. Yeah, Ryan Fitzpatrick is you have punted the quarterback position even later.

than Ryan Tanhill. I'm fine going into the season with Ryan Fitzpatrick as my starter. Chargers, Giants, Buffalo, Atlanta, but first two weeks at home, decent matchups. So you could start the year with him. Jason's projecting that the Chargers are a better defense, but we don't know that that will actually be what happens. So, I mean, those first two games, that's perfectly fine. In the seven starts last year for Ryan Fitzpatrick on a points per game basis, he was tied with Russell Wilson.

And fantasy points. I will say this. You know, if you play in a Superflex league, Mike, we're going to be doing a Superflex mock. We are. I believe next week. No, we're going to mock Superflex. Oh, fantastic. That's also my favorite. You got the order wrong. We'll do both. Yeah. We can multitask that. But Super Brooks over there. How are you feeling? Good. Yeah. Brooks doesn't care because we're doing it.

He is the official champion of the Super Flex League. Yeah, really like to have three quarterbacks in a Super Flex league. And when you're looking at your third quarterback, the Derek Carr types, the Ryan Fitzpatrick types, those are fantastic options. All right. Let's talk about Antonio Gibson, J.D. McKissick, and the running back room for Washington. I have a note here that, look, we're all pretty high on Gibson. He's our RB13 just outside of the RB1 range.

My note that I put in here was if his workload, if he knew his workload was going to be identical this year, upcoming, as it was last year, then he would be a bus candidate for me because of the disproportionate quantity of touchdowns that he managed to put up on a team that was, you know, 25th and points per game, 30th and total yards, 11 touchdowns on the level of opportunities that he had last year is a, it'd be a tough number to come back and say, hey, he's going to do that again.

excitement around Gibson is that he was a rookie. He's going to have come into a year or two with more experience, more trust of the team. And I think that that is what most people project. I'm the lowest of our group. I am at 15. I do think J.D. McKissick was valuable last year and will continue to be involved. 80 receptions for McKissick. And so when you look at this running back room, what can go right? What can go wrong?

Well, what can go right is obvious to me with Antonio Gibson truly becoming a top five type of back. I see that in his range of outcomes. I think he has a higher probability than a lot of the guys that are being drafted in his range to do that. You're right, Andy, it will take more usage. But the number one comp that he got coming out of college for a lot of reasons, we comped him to this.

is also the career comp that I now see for him, which is David Johnson. He was a wide receiver that turned running back. So he was pretty inexperienced at running back. He comes in his rookie year. If, you know, if you think about David Johnson, he magically finished as an RB1, just like Antonio Gibson did in his rookie year, even though, you know, David Johnson had 125 rushing attempts.

You needed that level up of volume, and it came. And the team is very much all about, you know, the OTA, there were two big pieces of information that came out on Antonio Gibson during the OTAs this year. One was that the toe injury is still lingering, and that does honestly scare me a little bit. And two was that it was, quote, night and day.

the difference that Antonio Gibson has and that he is ready to be the man. Like when they drafted him, they were talking about his three-down usage. He's not a rookie anymore. He's made a bunch of changes. And I fully, fully expect him to have a massive workload increase. I think he's going to be a phenomenal player this year. But that's the what could go right. The what could go wrong, I think we'll center around the toe injury.

Maybe, Andy, you think it centers around J.D. McKissick or the backfield. Very few teams, yeah, very, very few teams are willing to employ the McCaffrey workload for a player, especially when they've had great effectiveness with another back on the roster. So for me, what can go wrong is that, you know, everything out of camp is that Jady McKissick is very secure in the backup role. And nothing you said about Antonio Gibson.

All last season, the Christian McCaffrey hype. Look, all of that was true last year and he had 36 receptions. He was a rookie. Right. And he got injured. And he started getting more involved in the passing game before he got injured. He didn't really, though. Jady McKissick was one of the league leaders in receptions. And over the last couple weeks of the year, I think he had five receptions total. But I thought this was the part where I say what could go wrong, which is that they continue to use Jady McKissick a lot. I mean, Miles Sanders was a great.

pass catcher in college. He was considered to be a three down back. So was Josh Jacobs in college. He was considered to be a three down back. I don't know why we can't see a world where Gibson doesn't level up passing wise. You can't use the last two games of the season. That was when Antonio Gibson was coming off of that toe injury and he probably shouldn't have even been playing. The four games before he went down to the injury, he was seeing four targets a game. And that's a...

That's a very healthy pace. You would like to see more. But it's also, I mean, not many coaches are willing to use a player at the Christian McCaffrey work type, get him out there for all the snaps. Except the head coach for Washington is the guy who was doing that for Christian McCaffrey back on the Carolina Panthers. So we have the guy who's already shown he's willing to do it.

A little bit. The guy that also went out and pursued J.D. McKissick. I will definitely say that while he was the guy that, you know, obviously deployed Christian McCaffrey like that.

He had Christian McCaffrey. Sure. And I don't think Antonio Gibson is Christian McCaffrey. He would have been drafted top 10. So this is a guy that I expect to be far more involved in the running game and more involved in the passing game. There are no guarantees. But when you comp to Miles Sanders who could catch the ball and Josh Jacobs who could catch the ball, this was a wide receiver. Like this is a convert, just like David Johnson was, this is a converted wide receiver. And he's a guy who's 228 pounds sub 4-4. Okay.

Most of the time when you see, you know, a rookie come in, though, you're saying he's converted wide receiver and he made his hay on the ground. Yeah, he did last year. So this, you know what I mean? And they use somebody, like J.D. McKissick is not, I just want people to realize it was Alvin Kamara and Jady McKissick and no one else at the top of all.

running back wide receiver lists. It was 83 and 80 receptions. The next guy's down in the 60s. So you're talking about the second most prolific pass catcher is on the roster and secure on the team. Yeah, but that was with Alex Smith, where everything was a dump off. And also, just so you are aware, before his injury. That doesn't hurt, that doesn't hurt Antonio Gibson? What? I mean, if you're making, you're saying that was Alex Smith. Why would Antonio Gibson get more work under the same premise?

I'm saying that McKissick's prolific pass catching was due in part because he had a quarterback that wouldn't drive the ball down the field. They needed McKissick in the game to have those dumpoffs. But before the Pittsburgh injury, Antonio Gibson rookie year was on pace for 68 targets and 55 receptions. Those are phenomenal pass catching numbers. And that was with McKissick. Yeah. So I'm just saying I far, far cry from the.

The big boys in the top five area that you're talking about. Well, far, far cried certainly from Christian McCaffrey. And I do not think he has that ability whatsoever. Terry McLaren Curtis, Curtis, I don't think top five is possible for Gibson. That's my point. You do. Terry McLaren, Curtis Samuel. Ryan Fitzpatrick has not played with either of these players before. McLaren is sitting there. They're already friends, though. We saw the chalkboard. That they're friends, their buddies?

All three of them, though, right? McLaren's at wide receiver 11, Curtis Samuels at wide receiver 38 on our current rankings. That feels like too big of a gap to me. I don't think the gap is too big. I think that Terry McLaurin is at the appropriate spot for ADP. I think that he could provide a value there as well. But I agree if you're saying the gap is too big that Curtis Samuel shouldn't be that low, then I definitely...