NFC South Breakdown + Tier Talk, Gamblin' Man - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/23

A cajillion targets. And the RB2 from week seven on. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy with him at ADP. I took him, I think, in our last draft. And I wouldn't push it up. I wouldn't be striving to get him at a higher, like in the third round, but I'd take him in the fourth. Godwin, you mentioned Godwin. I'm very lukewarm on this team as a whole. As a whole, I think they over exceeded expectations last year. Usually when those mediocre teams far. exceed their expectations. Think the New York Giants two years ago when they got the Coach of the Year award and no one expected them to be as good as they were and then they're like, yeah, we, you know, we are going to be good. It's like, well, no, you're probably not. It's probably a good comp. Tampa does feel like the Giants from the year before. The consolidation of targets to Rashad White and Mike Evans make it valuable for fantasy football. But for the most part, I think this team is not as good in 2024 as it was in 2023. New Orleans was 9 and 8 last year.

with a projected wind hole nine and a half going into the season. Now it's down to seven and a half. And that's despite having the fifth easiest schedule for 2024, they were, maybe this surprises you, 10th and points per game last year under Derek Carr. It does. Did not feel that way? They became the third team, this is from Rich Rebar, since 2000 to not have a single running, to have a running back with a single run of 20 plus yards in the season. They had a player, though. Take some hill. So he didn't count? He did not count for that because I believe he had three runs of over 20 yards. Tateham Hill scored a lot. I think maybe Taysam Hills the reason I didn't feel like they're a top 10 scoring offense, but they were because I didn't have your eyes when Tassam Hill scores? Yep. Yeah, I do. Because it's so unpredictable and he just doesn't fit into your little box? Well, said it. And also when you don't fit into my box, you don't end up on my lineup. And then.

Yeah, nobody benefits from Taysam Hill success, ever. Like, it's very rare. There's Saints fans out there plugging them in every week or they're in best ball leagues when you draft them. But outside of that, yeah, I mean, for the most part, you're like, oh, there's the tight end one on the week that no one had. Yeah, and then you chase it, right? People chase it the next week when it doesn't happen. Might surprise you for that running back room. They didn't have any 20-yard runs. They are counting for $28 million against the cap, the running back room. Most in the NFL. That is the Camara contract. That is Jamal Williams' contract. And that's an insane amount of money. I mean, the Panthers are number two, believe it or not. And that is almost half the amount. So this is one of the reasons why Alvin Camara in a contract reworking seemed possible. Could still happen. Clink.

Clint Kubiak taken over, offensive coordinator. Usually has, I mean, baby cubes usually has a great run scheme, but it's going to be really difficult with this offensive line. They were the 23rd ranked at the end of last year, according to PFF. To start this year, they're the 32nd ranked. And they just lost Ramcheck? Yes, they did. They placed them on the IR. And it was so funny how it was reported. Because it was pup. Well, I couldn't tell if the team. Like they made a mistake? I couldn't tell if the reporters were saying the team goofed because what happens is he's a vested veteran. And so if you go at this time of year on the pup, you're ineligible to play again the rest of the season. And they placed him on the pup. So he's done. He's gone for the year. But the way it was a reporter was like, wait, was this breaking news to the Saints? Did they just find out that like, oh, oh, crap. We lost, we lost Ryan all year.

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, they knew what was going on, yeah. But still, they lost them for the whole season. Their offensive line projects to be terrible. I think that could be, as surprising it is, that could be great news for Alvin Camara. It really could. Because the same way, Breece Hall, behind an awful offensive line last year, it's just, you know, check down, check down, check down. The quarterback's, you know, running for his life. And the running back just leaks right through the leaky. And Derek Carr loves a good checkdown. Yeah, I mean, Alvin Camara is going to have a ton of targets. And I think he's a wonderful value in fantasy football this year. He is going to be the worst version of Alvin Camara. He's ever been on a per touch basis, just like he pretty much was last year. But his targets are going to be so high that for fantasy, any kind of half PPR, full PPR, he's going to be very valuable. He's not being drafted like that. Where's his ADP right now? He's in the fifth round.

So you've got to spend a early fourth on Rashad White, or you can wait around for Alvin Kamara. Yes. And you probably have a similar view of them. I do. So tough offensive line situation, really uncreative offense. We want to see more motion from Kubiak this year. Carr played better with two tight-in sets. Juan Johnson, I think, had a, you know, it's tough when you look at the tight-in room. You got Tayson Hill involved. Foster Rose there. Juan Johnson. There was a lot of hype. Then he was hurt. Then he ended strong. I believe he was a tight-in, nine, four, and one for the last three fantasy relevant weeks. So if you started him, congratulations. But he had a foot injury early in June. He's on the pop. So, you know, if you want to play around with Tayson Hill, honestly, you can this year because there's a lot of rumors that he's going to be used a lot more at the running back position. If that's the case, if he's actually integrated, you know, I think they're stopping the whole quarterback.

you know, backup quarterback thing. In which case, if he ends up with, you know, 20 extra carries through the course of the season, I mean, that's just more touches for your tight end. Are you willing to take a late gamble on him? Or there's, I mean, would you take him ever over a Pat Fryermuth when you're talking about, you know, the last round tight ends that you pulled the trigger on? Probably not. Yeah, me either. I tried to talk myself. No, you did. You did a good job. Jamal Williams, Kendry Miller, and Tayson Hill will be. factoring into the running game behind Camara. We talked about Kennedy Miller a little bit on the last show. The vibes have not been great from a consistency standpoint. I brought up probably a month ago. This team loves Jamal Williams. Miller does not have good vibes right now in terms of carving out a reliable role. I'm not saying he doesn't fit some deep sleeper category because if Camara went out, I think you would have to find explosiveness at the position and they might turn to him. But I don't think in the current healthy

organization of this lineup, Kendra Miller has a lot of room. I agree, because Alvin Camara will get everything, and you've got a cremugin and Dennis Allen running the show. You're a big... I'm a big anti-Dennis Allen guy. I think he, you know, does not belong as a head coach in the NFL. He was gifted that by Sean Payton. And he's still there. For a minute. And I think people were disappointed he is. Michael Thomas is gone. No more Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, Jimmy Grandpa is gone. You don't owe me any more money? Man. Yeah, he's gone for a minute. I'll bet he signs midseason makes me. And no more James. Oh, that's sad. Like if Carr goes out for a player or two, you don't get to see James come in and sling it around for Olav. That was always fun. Yeah, so Alave is the big question, Mark. He was actually, he was much better than you remember last year because.

When you're drafted, like him and Garrett Wilson and these guys were drafted pretty high, second round picks, you're hoping that they take that step forward and they become this top five elite, elite option. And he didn't. Chris Olavie finished as the wide receiver 19. So it's like, oh, that's disappointing. But he was actually an A inconsistency. He's very involved. He's the clear number one target in this offense. But you still need him to step forward in that role. This has to be an upgraded year. The touchdowns need to come. He needs to get on the same page with their car, which they clearly were not for a lot of last season. I think it happens. I think that they develop, and he is closer to the wide receiver 12 than the wide receiver 19. I hope so. It was a good summary. He is on the NFI list. So he was one of probably a bunch of players we could have mentioned in the news. He's not practicing right now. But look, they don't have a lot of other options, a wide receiver.

Rashid Shaheed is there. If you play in a league that's going to have kick yard returns. Yeah, I mean, he should be returning kicks in the new format. He'll be the wide receiver one. He might. In that format. The one thing I saw in film last year was that Derek Carr and Chris Olavay were occasionally out of sync. And Derek Carr on the sideline in the game loves taking shots to Rashid Jihad. It was one of the things that as an Alave manager was really annoying is because there were a lot of deep shots. that weren't going to alave. Well, and he was so in sync with Shahid. So it's like, come on, Carr, it's not that you can't do it. Just do it with the guy everyone wants you to do it. You know, just complete the, complete the passes to a lave down the field. That's what you're saying. That is what I'm saying. All right, quick break back with another team. All right. Let's, let's talk about Atlanta. Seven and ten last year came in with eight and a half wins as their projected win total. This year is nine and a half.

And there's excitement, right? They have the easiest schedule according to Warren Sharp for 2024. That's the number one. That's what you're looking for. So, you know, in honor of Michael Pinnock's Jr., we got him on the back wall today. Some lucky fan out there has a signed Kyle Borgianoni, Michael Pinnock's Jr., uh, jersey. So Rahim Morris, Zach Robinson. Ooh, Zach Morris? This coaching staff is led by Zach Morris? I guess more of Zach. Man, I wish it was like. Time out. Zach Robinson was the head coach. Kurt Cousins. Welcome to the squad. Zach Robinson, welcome in. Donnell Mooney, three years 39 million. Ron Dale Moore, they acquired him for Desmond Ritter. Ritters out the door. Arthur Smith. Out the door. Edition by subtraction, for fantasy at least. We hope, right? I mean, we are expecting better than the 25th ranked.

Points per game offense, right? For sure. I mean, you know, the 11 personnel league-wide, last year it was insane how rarely the Atlanta Falcons used 11 personnel, which is three wide receivers on the field. They were last in the league, 14%. The league average, you know, is well above that. And if you look at the 11 personnel that the Rams have done, which is where Zach Robbins is coming from, You've got 92%, 90%, 89%, 84%. Like, they are an explosive offense, obviously. And this is really exciting for fantasy. This is where you're, you get everything you want. You get a humongous quarterback upgrade. You get a humongous offensive coordinator upgrade. How big is Kurt Cous? He's so large. He's humongous. He's the largest man I've ever seen.

You know, I a couple years ago had one of the things to remember episodes, which was these mediocre quarterbacks changing teams don't change. They don't fix it. They don't ever fix it. And I included like Derek Carr in that style of a list. But the one guy I excluded from that because I don't think he is an average quarterback is Kirk Cousins. I think he is an actual top 10 NFL quarterback. Now, the Achilles injury? Maybe it adds a flag, a scare that you don't want. But if he's healthy, Kirk Cousins is an actual really good quarterback here that this offensive coordinator will be able to use to success. These and no setbacks yet for Kurt Cousins on their recovery, these situations are some of the hardest, I think, to sift through for fantasy players, like the wind tolls at nine and a half. And part of that is like they were not, for fantasy, Arthur Smith was the worst.

Right. Yeah, because of Bijon. And it was a talking point. And Bejohn and Pitts. And it was a regular weekly talking point about how Arthur Smith is holding this offense back. Because these weapons that we have, we need this to be fixed. Now, the easy human nature thing to do is that when Arthur Smith leaves and Zach Robinson arrives, it's like it's fixed, right? Like you just have to switch this one man that does not run the football or do anything on the field. You switch him in everything, all of our dreams. All of our expectations for Kyle Pitts and Bidon Robinson and Mooney and cousins in the office, they're just fixed. And it doesn't happen that way very often. Like in the off season, we have lots of changes. The changes happen because you failed. Now, this is a team that won seven games. They were not as bad with Arthur Smith in reality as we felt in fantasy. Like they were four and six and one score games. They were in a lot of games. They were probably a winner two from Arthur Smith staying there as the head coach.

Yeah, I mean, usually when there is a big change at head coach or offensive coordinator, it does not just fix all that ails it. That's why I'm saying this is like it's the perfect storm because it's not just the head coach or the offensive coordinator. The fact that you're changing the quarterback, quarterback is the number one thing. I don't care who the head coach is. If Arthur Smith was still here and you add Kirk Cousins to this lineup, you'd feel different. I'd feel much better about Drake London. I'd feel much better about Bijon Robinson. Now you do the addition of getting in, you know, a faster pace of play. This is a team with a, you know, a top five-ish offensive line. So you've got the ability to protect, the ability to run. You've got weapons in definitely Drake London, and then you hope Kyle Pitts, I expect huge things from this offense. And I think a lot of people do, but like sign me up to the side. Like Bijon, RB2 right now on ADP. Yep, he's my RB2 as well. The Drake London discussion we've had it a lot of times.

In two years, he's got six touchdowns. He's had eight top 24 performances across two seasons. Darno Mooney brought in to be a compliment. And then you have pits and Moore and Dijon out of the backfield. Like, is there a chance Drake Lund doesn't get as much volume as we'd like? I don't think so. I don't think there's a chance he doesn't get as much volume. The wide receiver core is him and Darnel Mooney and Jack Squat. He is going to have the target share. No, Rondale Moore, not Jack Squat. Okay, busted. Yeah, Ronnell Moore is Jack Squat. I mean, Kyle Pitts is going to line up as a wide receiver? Yeah, that's fine. But my point is, you don't have a lot of other people to soak up targets. I can't imagine Drake London having fewer than a 24% target market share.

And if he's got that, then he should be like, do you like Kyle Pitts? Because I feel like you're one, like, you're one badge away from being a Falcon stand. And I, and I am one badge away because I have bypassed Kyle Pitts in every draft. Everything that I'm saying about the Falcons, about the system. What about all that stuff about them having no receivers? It all. It all applies to Kyle Pitts. 100% of it applies to Kyle Pitts. And I don't have any problem with someone saying. I think Kyle Pitts is going to be the number one tight end, and I'm going to take my shot on him. But, you know, we're going into year four. And he has the talent, not the ability. I, I, I, I, I just don't want to do it. The ability, not the talent. I don't want to do it again. When a guy fails essentially three years in a row, it's really like let someone else be the hero who calls the right year.

You just don't want to take the risk. I don't want to take the risk. He's not that cheap. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Where he's going in a draft is assuming that he's going to be good. And there are plenty. There's five, maybe six if you want to include George Kittle, really, really outstanding tight ends this year, I believe. And so I want to take one of those other five guys and let Kyle Pitts go to someone who's more of a gambling man. Let me just excite the Bijon managers, those that look to draft him. Last year, they're 25th of points per game. Only five running backs had more total yards than Bijon Robinson did that on 50% of the touches in the backfield. Great as a receiver second and routes run fourth in yards. He's unbelievable. So this could be the, like it's not impossible for Bejohn to be.

the number one running back in fantasy football at the end of this season. No, I have said it before. I think that if every running back played 17 games, the only person that could outscore Christian McCaffrey is Bijon. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be fun to watch. Carolina was 2 and 15 last year. That's not great. Projective win total was seven. They got the number one pick, right? Yeah, no, the Bears did. Seven and a half was the projected win total for them going into the season. Woof. Two and six and one score games did not have a fourth quarter lead during any game according to Warren Sharp. What is their projection this year? Do you not know? No, I don't know. All right. Don't look. Okay. Guess. Five and a half. Lower. Oh yeah, baby. Four and a half. Four and a half. Okay. And currently looking at the lines that we have today, they are favored in how many of their 17 games? Well, if they're only...

projected for four and a half. I'm going to say they're favored in two of them. What if we said zero? That would also make sense. That would also, math would check out. So it's not been a fun ride, Panther fans. I'm sorry. You had the fun with Cam Newton a while back now. You've had Ron Rivera for a year and a half. Wow. Mount Rule for two and a half years, Frank Reich for less than a year. And Dave Connellis is into the lion's den. I don't think you said this, but this is. Maybe you said this. If you did, I apologize. But I'm seeing this and this is the craziest stat I've ever seen. They did not have a fourth quarter lead during any game. Yeah, I did say that. But I mean, that's crazy. But yeah, that's wild. That's wild. They won two games. Yeah, both on field goals as time expired. They were that close to being winless and not favorite going into the year. This is all about can Bryce Young be repaired psychologically. Like I think physically.

Like Bryce Young was the number one pick for a reason. Like people saw the accuracy in college. They saw the consistency at a big program. But ironically, you took his coach away halfway through the year and you struggled to build an offense around it. I think he was the number one pick because of the psychology. It wasn't the physical traits. He's not a big, strong quarterback. He doesn't have a powerful arm. He's not a mobile, you know, incredible scrambling quarterback. It was, it was. above the shoulders that made him the 101. And so if above the shoulders has been rocked, that really frightens me to have this fixed. Yeah, you don't get to overcome it by just running around for a couple of years as you fixed it. Yeah, Josh Allen sucked as a rookie. He came in and looked like, you know, maybe he wasn't going to work out, but he could always rely on the physical tools. Same with Trevor Lawrence. Trevor Lawrence came in and sucked as a rookie just as bad as Bryce Young, but he had.

physical traits he could rely upon. So the question is, can Dave Canales put some kind of system in place to elevate, you know, because I don't think, I don't think Bryce Young has the tools. Last year, Bryce Young threw for 2,800 yards, 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. And if you go back to his college days, like he threw 12 interceptions over three years and 80 touchdowns. He was a 47 and 7 and 32 and 5. So last year was a disaster. Now, he did not have a lot of the weapons that you would hope. He didn't have receivers that were outside of Adam Thieland to start the year. You didn't have anybody you could rely on there. You had a running game that Miles Sanders crapped out in. And Deonti Johnson's going to make a huge impact on this team. But the offensive line was a disaster last year. They had injuries. They were 29th in the league.

You talked about Deonti Johnson. He's a huge addition at wide receiver. So is Xavier Leggett. And they traded up for him. He is a special athlete. Those two guys alone majorly help Bryce Young. Jonathan Brooks, when he arrives for duty, helps Bryce Young. Yeah, I mean, a couple years ago, you had Metcalf with a great season with Gino Smith. Xavier Leggett is someone that kind of is that big bodied. can go make that jump ball catch similar to Mike Evans last season with Dave Canales. So Xavier Legate, Deontay Johnson, and then allowing, you know, allowing Old Man Thielen to kind of just be the third. You shouldn't be the best. You should not be the number one target. And that's okay. Maybe like five, ten years ago you could have. Absolutely. He could have. But at this point, I mean, they have done everything to to help fix Bryce Young.

He has weapons now. I think Jonathan Brooks is an excellent pass catcher. As soon as he gets on the field and starts playing that Rashad White role, it'll be amazing for Bryce Young. Do you think this gets fixed? I think it's really hard and it's even harder when Carolina's been in the boat of optimism with like Matt Rule, right? Matt Rule, offensive genius. We're going to get it fixed in Carolina. Matt Rule, how did that work? Did not work well. What about Frank Reich, a guy you love, a guy who's had success, offensive mind. Let's go. It did not work well. So when you bring Dave Canales in here, he's up against it. And by up against it, you mean up against David Tepper? I think, yeah, I think up against. Sometimes organizations, when they're run poorly from the top and they're mangled and, you know, when the ownership has their dumb fingers and every little thing, it's hard to succeed in the environment that's created by that. A reasonable owner of a team.

would find a year where they go out and win six games maybe and Bryce Young looks competent and they're in some other games. That's a successful year. Now, Dave Tepper, I think, wants them to go 15 and 2. Like, that's the standard set and the patience level. And to me, it's like, are they going to fix it? Like, to me, if they went, if they went 7 and 10. Oh, that'd be an awesome season. 6 and 11, but Bryce Young looked like a quarterback. I mean, there were dead last in points per game last year. and 25th and points per game given up. That's a good recipe to not having a lead in the fourth quarter. You've got a long way to go, is all I'm saying. Well, at least they have Brian Burns, just a superstar defensive athlete. Oh, wait, they traded him in this offseason. So that's not going to help. Although for fantasy purposes, it might help. I will be paying close attention to Deontes' involvement. League at, like you said. Who do you want on your team? Like we're at ADP right now.

Are you wanting to draft Deontay Johnson? He's the water shear of 42. You know, in the eighth round, would you, do you want that? Here's my problem with Deontes is that Adam Thielen's still there. Like Adam Thielen was a target hog last season. Yeah. And this is not like we, as fantasy managers, we swap one dude for another dude in our lineups, right? We take Thieling out and we put Deontay Johnson in because that's how we manage our teams. They don't do that at the NFL. Like Thielen brought value to the roster. He shouldn't have been the one, but he's going to fill up the target. Like he's going to be a piece of the puzzle. And like, Deonte, I just worry about the combination. Like, what do we see from Thielen over the back half of the year? We saw things slow down. Yeah. And I'm worried that like the back half dealing, there's going to be two of those, Thielen and Deontay. Legett with the, you know, gadgetry and deep balls. Mingo's still there. Brooks. Chuba catches the ball.

and this team will still be in the bottom third. So if you say bottom third offense with seven different options and a reliance on Bryce Young did not look incompetent, it's challenging. And like Dave Canales is going to have his fingerprints all over the offense, but your offensive line stinks. Yeah. And you are going to be, I don't know if Idzik's going to be. doing play calls or Canales, I should know that. I don't know that off the top of my head. I would, I don't know for sure, but I would imagine Canales is the play caller. Yeah, yeah, he should be. But yeah, look, it's a mountain to climb. Let's call it a mountain to climb. And you get to start the season on the road against New Orleans, then go play the Chargers, then go play in Vegas, then play Cincinnati, Chicago. Yeah, I mean, there's a reason the team is projected for four and a half wins. They're betting against Bryce Young being fixed.

For fantasy purposes, like you said, there's a lot of mouths to feed now, which is a good thing, hopefully, for Bryce Young, but not good for fantasy. You want to double his total? Give him 22. Now break it up. Now, did you see his longest touchdown passes last year? Oh, gosh. So he had a pass of 66 yards, 49 yards, and 30 yards. Here was the problem with a pick six to the Colts. Oh, no. A pick six to the Colts and a pick six to the Cowboys. I thought you were done. Nope. His longest one is a, as a Panther was 18 yards. His next longest was 11. I'll just read them all to you because he only has 11 total touchouts. 10 yards, 8 yards, 5443-1-1. I can almost see the out route by Thiel and sneaking into the end zone form.

I wish that I could have said I watched the film and thought Bryce Young showed a bunch of potential. He did not. Bryce Young missed players frequently when he had off-platform opportunities, opportunities to make a play when the line held up for him. It's the psychological thing that you said. That has to get repaired. I think Dave Canales is a sharp, sharp guy, and there's not, I mean, we've seen him make a quarterback out of Gino Smith, make a quarterback out of Baker Mayfield. It's the best opportunity to redeem that pick. But he missed. He had some horrible misses last year. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, for my taste, Jonathan Brooks is the only player I want on this roster. And the reason is the reason I'll still take him is because I think the second half of the year, he's an explosive athlete. Because of his age, he's so young. I think he's going to recover from the ACL just fine. We've seen young star players early in their career, you know, Todd Gurley, Jamal, Charles. Like when they are.

coming out of college and they have an ACL injury, they bounce back really, really quick. And so I do think at the end of this year, you're going to have a ton of dump-offs. They're going to be using him in the Rashad White role, but he is going to be far more efficient. So he's it. It's the only one I want. Give me your divisional standings. Who wins it? Who wins it? I assume. Let's go. Since it's just two of us, let's just go one by one. All right. First place, Falcons. Yeah, I got the Falcons. Second place. This is where it gets tough between the two. I got Tampa. I got the bucks. Yep. Yeah. And then New Orleans, Carolina? Same Zies. Okay. All right. Sorry, Carolina truthers out there. Hopefully you see some progress. I want to watch Xavier Liga. I want to see him explode. I love Xavier. I mean, not physically does like his performance. Yeah. Xavier Liga is the weirdest guy. If you weren't listening in the early off season, never seen a fifth year breakout from a guy who was a barely.