Fantasy Football - AFC North Breakdown + Partying Thoughts - Podcast for 7/3

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1:11Welcome to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your hosts, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

1:29Welcome in.

1:40Thursday, July 3rd, we are the Fantasy Footballers. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. The crew is back together.

1:53We are 10 Sundays from football. Oh, 10? Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Like real football? Yeah, from like the season. Oh, okay. Like the first week. I think it was Scott Hansen that tweeted that out. It's the first weekend of the red zone. I mean, if you're like, hey, 10 weeks till the Hall of Fame game. Get out of here. Get out of here. I'll be excited, but I don't need a count out for that. That's fair. I mean, we are still very close to meaningful football. The Hall of Fame game is this month. We're in the month of the Hall of Fame. It was last week. Right. It was a heck of a game. Have it gone that long?

2:35Is it this month? Yeah. Yeah. It's in July? July 31st this year. What is happening with the world? Like, my daughter. Yeah, they're going back to school in July. I've got a real problem with this. My daughter starts school in July. No, that's. What are we doing? We're trying to psychologically destroy our children. You can't put them back in school in July. When we were the youths, it was. So long ago. But it was like you go to school around September, wasn't it? And then they started scooching it forward for us. All of a sudden, we're going to school in August, and now we're starting school in July?

3:12Why? What are we doing? Why even stop school? Just go every day, year round. I like where your head's at. Ruin these kids. Oh, no, I was giving me more free time. Yeah. You go learn, kids. Dad needs a nap. Yeah, I mean, technically speaking, we're under 10 weeks if you count NFL kickoff. because Hanson's worried about his red zone. So we're nine weeks from today exactly from the kickoff of the NFL season. And so, appropriately, we've got our July episodes. We're three a week in July and then five a week from August through December. And we're getting into the divisional breakdowns. They begin today with the AFC North.

4:00So we're going to get that kicked off here in just a moment. And our quick question of the day is from Matt. He says, do you focus on best player or best value when deciding a keeper? For example, should I keep A-chan at 210 and gain a little bit of value? Which Jason and I, we talked about A-chan being right on the edge of that first tier, kind of into the top of the second tier. But that's value, right? He's going to go ahead of 210. Or do I keep Rashi Rice in the seventh round, which is several rounds of value, I would say that the most common question we get for advice in the offseason is keeper questions like this.

4:41It's this guy in this round, this guy in that round. How do I look at the value proposition versus the player I want? Sometimes you just want a certain guy on your team. In this situation, what would you do? And then how do you view that question in general? Usually I'm looking for a difference maker. I'm looking for someone like if this is my keeper, I want someone who's great. And if I can get any kind of like sometimes I'll I'll prefer to keep Jamar Chase for a first. You know, it's like that's no value. But also I get very good value. Right. Exactly. And I think, you know, the goal here is to get the best players.

5:24Sometimes a value can be good enough where I go, OK, this is still this is still a good player. and my better player is not Jamar Chase. So this is a legit question here of like A-Chan to 210 or Rushy Rice. I know my answer on this one's pretty easy. Yeah, in this case, I'd take Rushy Rice. Wow. Oh, wow. What just happened? I'm not really sure. I'm on the A-Chan side. Wait, what? You're Mr. Anti-Rushy Rice. You hate Rushy Rice. You're A-Chan? Yeah, I'm on the A-Chan side. No, I mean, it doesn't make sense to me to be on the A-Chan side of this one because he's a mid-second round pick already. And the way I always look at it is who do I get in lieu of that pick?

6:06I mean, at 210, I could take Josh Jacobs. I could take Bucky Irving potentially. And then I'm not getting Rashi Rice in the seventh round or anything close to him value-wise. So to me, that one is fairly clear on my side, and I don't like Rashi Rice as much as you guys. Putting names to the, like basically the two players, looking at who you would get in each round in lieu of is... Khalil Shakir is who I'm going to get instead of Rashi Rice if I don't take his value. I mean, I'm always factoring, look, it's a keeper. So the ADP names who are at 210, those guys are going to be up at the top of the second.

6:44That's true. But yeah, your opportunity cost, I think that's kind of the starting point of, I like to put the names like you did for Shakir or so in the seventh. Ridley in the seventh and in positional value matters as as well so it's not just a along with everything else in fantasy football this is I'm not focusing on one thing I am I have a a homebrew concoction of things that I'm factoring in and sometimes like we said at the top sometimes I just want that guy because that dude's cool and I want him on my team yeah I think there was one we got yesterday in the footcast jason it was jamar chase in the first or trey mcbride in the fifth right oh and we both went mcbride on that one yeah because we felt like you you know you're getting a big time difference maker much later you probably miss out on chase because i go one-on-one but you know a onesie but i wouldn't have blamed anybody to go chase there so um yeah it is a it is a brew like you said mike it's nuanced it does depend on your league how many keepers right we know it's a keeper league is there is there more you know how many players are off the board yeah it comes to value i mean maybe hn here at 210 is a tremendous value because there's four or five keepers well and and knowing your league's tendencies so i know when we used to we've changed kind of the rules of of how we keep keepers in our league but it used to be everyone kept all the running backs so like if you're not keeping a running back you're just you're you're just you're really screwed it's like it's not like oh well a chance in the 210 i could get josh jacobs or i could get these other guys if everyone kept the other running backs then that's that makes it more difficult um okay yeah yeah there you go there's a lot of ways to think about it we're going to we don't have any big time news really i mean we had the panthers talk about chuba hubbard getting all the carries this i like chuba hubbard we've talked about chuba hubbard getting all the carries but we'll jump right into our divisional breakdowns

8:51let's get divisional

8:55well this is our first divisional breakdown show it's an opportunity to kind of gather all the data from the offseason and give you a general overview of teams, our expectations for them, offseason changes regarding players and rookies and coaching changes, how things could function in their offenses this year as it pertains to fantasy football, and then just some personal takes of where we think these teams are headed. So we're starting with the AFC North. Last year, Baltimore won the division at 12-5, Pittsburgh 10-7, but lost their final four games. Ravens won their final four and then the Bengals were nine and eight they needed help in the final week if you remember they won their final five but didn't get enough help I believe wasn't last year the year they lost to New England in week one that sounds right and boy they are such a slow starting team and you know you you kind of you see that bad loss and then you it came to bear in the final week of the season they didn't make the playoffs but they won their final five and then the browns they lost their final six games the final three games were started by dtr and bailey's zap zap zap under center and here we are going into we're trying to win it's unique uh i think because we'll go through we'll start with the ravens but first divisional breakdown show first team we talk about is my super bowl champion that's who i think will win the super bowl this year so i'm i'm extremely bullish on what the ravens have put together and what i think they're going to do this year they were 12 and 5 last year their projected win total in vegas last year was 11 and a half so they beat that and it's 11 and a half again a friend of the show warren sharp has their strength of schedule for 2025 at 21 so we're not intimidated by most of the time when i'm looking at strength of schedule there's a lot of turnover in the NFL.

10:56There's a lot of change on defense. I'm not putting too much emphasis on it. But if it's extreme, I might pay a little bit of attention. If you're projected with a top five easiest, top five best, that's kind of the way I look at it, Jason. I don't know about you. No, I agree. The outside edges of the strength of schedule are what matters. And the nice thing is the way that specifically Warren Sharp does his is it's not just looking at like pure well last year's ranking versus this year's ranking he factors in a lot of detailed work with future projections which is a much better way to go about it Mike last year they were the third ranked offense and points per game number one in yards per game Lamar was a league winner Henry was a league winner your initial perspective on baltimore i'm sure it's fairly positive but do you have any initial thoughts there's not a lot to add there like if if you project that the baltimore ravens are i mean like andy's a super bowl uh they're gonna win the super bowl they're i can't imagine anyone out there saying that they don't they aren't one of the favorites for a Super Bowl run that means they're going to win a bunch of games that means Derrick Henry will continue to be absolutely incredible I think the the question for me is just it's with Lamar of what do you do with a guy who threw 24 touchdowns two years ago and then through 41 this year and surpassed 4 ,000 passing yards for the first time in his career like are we anywhere close to 41 passing touches or or do we get all the good running stuff but then now we're back down to like 31 because that makes a really really big difference if you're going to talk about detroit in the nfc as a team that should regress offensive efficiency wise it's not fair to not talk about baltimore in the same way because they're one of only seven teams in the last decade to average 3.8 or more touchdowns per game so they were they were definitely an outlier offense in terms of how effective they were number one in yards per game like I said number three in points per game number one in rushing yards per game um a bin don't break defense but they bring back basically everybody everything so that this is what is the most impressive thing to to me for the Baltimore Ravens is usually on these shows what we are discussing is what has changed from last year you know it's easy to just look at last year and say well that's what's going to happen this year that's not what happens it never does because because there's so much turnover offense defense special teams coordinators head coaches there's so little change for the Baltimore Ravens personnel wise like they brought in DeAndre Hopkins okay as as you know like okay whatever he's going to be their wide receiver three or four whether they paid Rashad Bateman yeah he is I think I think he's the most fun guy to talk about they're they're from the rave to try to find year three with with Todd Monken I mean that there's their offensive lines ranked the same year to year yeah they they gave another contract extension to Derek Henry even so it's like you just expect more of the same this year a Mark Andrews catch away from yeah maybe winning it last year and um You know, I do not expect Lamar Jackson to be able to throw for 4040, but he doesn't need to throw for 4040 to be the number one quarterback again this year.

14:31If he were to throw for 3835, he's probably still the number one quarterback. Top two questions then. You know, you talked about the regression potential and how it doesn't necessarily – he can have some variance and still be an impactful fantasy player. But the number two question to me is, who's going to be second on this team in targets? Zay Flower's probably going to lead the team in targets. Yeah, he should. But you have some tight ends in the mix, and how do you handle them in the draft? Because Isaiah Likely, younger, more athletic at this point in his career, faster. But Mark Andrews still has an alarm that goes off when he's around the red zone that Lamar Jackson pays attention to.

15:17and rumors did not turn into them moving him. He's a Baltimore Raven. So you talk about running it back. How do you approach those guys in the draft? And then, Mike, I guess to your point, the Bateman stuff, is he that second target or is it one of the tight ends? The most likely outcome is just sadness. Was that a pun? Oh, okay. No, no, no, no. No, it's sadness of you don't have a true number two target. the the tight ends I feel like this is an area where I'm just okay watching it happen because I don't want to bet on Mark Andrews at this point the experience was pretty rough yeah I know he caught all those touchdowns but do you guys realize he had 15 red zone targets that turned into 11 touchdowns like that is that is bonkers off the chart efficiency mark andrews great touchdown score historically but even that is playing above his pay grade that's his career high wasn't it in touchdowns it was it was the uh is it first time he's been double digit since 2019 where he had 10 yeah so you know this is a guy who had he's had his his numbers have declined year after year in terms of effectiveness but point being he's still there he's still going to be a part of that in the game plan and we all like saw what happened in week one with Isaiah Likely and we're like holy crap dropped the entire fab because he took over for Mark Andrews he did not I know we're getting you know puff pieces of the coach saying I Likely should be a pro bowler or or but I don't know that I want to jump into those waters.

17:07When there's two potential tight ends, it feels like you're going to be playing roulette of who actually gives you fantasy points, so I'm going to try to find someone on a different team. If Andrews was a double-digit pick, if he's in round 10, 11, 12, I'm happy to take that on. But he's a seventh rounder, and so to me, you're touchdown are unhappy the target totals were actually very close last year between the two players i think it was 69 targets to 58 targets and i do feel like somewhere somebody will be like should i take them both and and try don't do that out and i don't know yeah please don't do that what's what's insane about that is you know likely was 12 targets in week one and you know we had those It's like we had the back-to-back goose from Andrew.

17:57So that's – I mean, I expect something somewhat similar in terms of fantasy output. And this team's goal is, unfortunately, not our fantasy team's production. It is to win a Super Bowl, which they got close to doing. And so, you know, Bateman, 45 for 7, 56 and 9 last year. He's a best ball player to me. yeah or a or a emergency start in the right match right exactly for a home run he's not someone i'm looking to draft in any of my redraft leagues i don't want to know you don't see a world where he becomes the true number two nine touchdowns the number two last year he was second in targets on the team and it still was on a year where lamar threw 4040 he was mostly irrelevant for you know an every week player you're not going to plug him in and be happy but I agree he's someone you could always take a shot on you know as the season goes on injuries happen you need someone to play off the waiver wire I think Bateman is that guy yeah nine touchdowns on 45 receptions is a little Westbrook Akine of him yeah well yeah Akine was like one catch one touchdown per week yeah yeah But I think those are the major questions.

19:18Do you think there's going to be some aggression? Do you pass on players because of it? None of us are – I mean, I would say Henry is pretty – like people are not hyper-aggressive on Henry in drafts. If anything, he's the guy that kind of gets kicked down a little bit. I mean, Mike, you took CMC three times over him. I mean, it's one of those things where I don't know why we do it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. They paid him again. He's going to score a million touchdowns. It's all about passes because everyone else in the world, not named Derrick Henry, to hit that true ceiling, they have to catch 40-plus receptions, and Derrick Henry's just not going to do that.

20:00They were leading or tied on 81 % of his carries. That makes sense. And they will be again. It seems like that's what they will be again. We will get a very fun opening matchup because you'll get the Sunday night game in week one against Buffalo. Oh, baby. Which already makes me very excited. And then Cleveland, Detroit at home. So they're in Buffalo and then at home for a couple games. Then Kansas City in week four. So it's going to be – I mean, Detroit, Kansas City, Buffalo in three of the first four weeks. Those are some tough matchups. Are you guys good with the Flowers ADP? I don't think any of the three of us are in love with Flowers.

20:39That's fine. fifth round wide receiver 24 somebody that's a guaranteed like i'd be happy to flex flowers all year long i mean yeah if he's your fifth player that's that's fine i'm not in love with flowers but he is still a young guy with a great quarterback talented if he were to step up on target percentage you know two percent he could he could uh be a weekly relevant starter. Was he the last 25 % last year? Was he that high? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, cause you had a couple of games, uh, he missed some time, didn't he? Uh, no, he played every game. Uh, but the final week, he only played 20 % of the snaps, which is that's week 18.

21:21So we don't really count it though. The one real clunker would be in week seven against Tampa Bay, where he only had one target, but he played really the whole game. I counted on him in championship week. I guess that's not his only clunker that didn't work but he was a little bit banged up did he miss a playoff game then? yes I think he got hurt in the final week and then Kyle are you there? do we have Kyle today? Kyle come in over and out Kyle you're supposed to know this stuff is he coming in on a ham radio?

22:02he didn't play in the playoffs Any partying thoughts on Baltimore before we move on? Partying thoughts? Yeah. I think Super Bowl party is the thoughts for the Ravens. Thank you, Jason. You're welcome. Really appreciate that. We'll take a break and come back with a team that is just there. I don't know what they're doing.

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24:39All right, I don't know, Jason, if you have partying thoughts on the Pittsburgh Steelers, but they were the number two team in the division last year, 10-7. Their projected win total last year was 8.5, but of course they surpassed it because they won six of their ten one-score games. But they ended in a really depressing way for Steelers fans. And, you know, they lost their final four games. Then they lost in the wild-card game. You know, the story of Tomlin, and they haven't won a playoff game since 2016. So you're talking about, what, almost ten years at this point. The projected win total this year, it's eight and a half again.

25:19and the division's tough. They were playing with Russell Wilson and those final four games they lost. Do you remember their schedule? It was the Philadelphia Eagles, the Baltimore Ravens, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Cincinnati Bengals. I mean, it's like that's tough sledding. Obviously, they play in division two of those, but the other two were the two teams that got to the Super Bowl. So are you excusing that? I am. I'm saying that's the Miami Dolphins can't win games against good team situations. But those aren't just... Miami Dolphins is against above 500 teams. Teams just with a winning record.

25:56These were the Eagles and the Chiefs were literally the Super Bowl. Okay. They still didn't end the year well. Five straight losses.

26:08Aaron Rodgers is a better quarterback than Russell Wilson. I would agree. What? I mean, this isn't a pro Aaron Rodgers take. This is an anti-Russell Social. No, no, no, no, no. Hold on. Cut that for sure and post it and make it all like a partying thought from Jason. But second of all, so far, so far we've got he completely dismissed their five-game losing streak and endorsed Aaron Rodgers. So just to be clear, that's where we're at on the Steelers so far. They were 20th in points per game last year, 23rd in yards per game. So when you look at the bar on offense, it's set very low. 28th and passing percentage.

26:49You've got an Arthur Smith issue because one of the things coming out this week, Aaron Rodgers and Arthur Smith are going to talk about how to balance the offense, the running game versus the passing game. I mean, okay. I mean, the running game versus the passing game, literally it's Arthur Smith versus Aaron Rodgers. They're already in battle. It's going to go great, guys. Arthur wants to run the ball way more than everyone else in the league and Aaron Rodgers doesn't, he's not coming back to hand the ball off. He's coming back to chuck it. There's an aspect here, and look, it's hard not to give Mike Tomlin a tremendous amount of credit.

27:26He's at 18 seasons and 18 seasons of over 500. So if that's your bar, amazing. If it's winning a playoff game, it's been a while. It does feel like some of the moves this offseason, Ramsey, Rodgers, the big changes at wide receiver, DK Metcalf coming in, big contract pickings out the door now johnny smith it does feel like okay it could work you could be going all in and you could get a good year you gotta avoid injury but it also feels a little bit like you know the sun's traded for shack you know and kevin durant and you're spending the money and you're going all in but you're you're kind of at a breaking point like nobody in pittsburgh is going to be okay with this offseason coming back and re-rolling what got them five losses to end the year and losing another playoff game so you had to do major things they're shaking it up man there's very unstealer z it it does feel that way and and look i i liked the move for ramsey personally um ramsey's older but minka's done to me like minka's he he's he's he wasn't the guy he he was previously he hasn't been an all pro for three years uh he was beat a ton last year all over the field.

28:39So to me, I like that move. I think Aaron Rodgers is a better quarterback. I like D.K. Metcalf in fantasy drafts. No more Najee. We didn't even talk about the backfield. That's completely redone. Caleb Johnson, Jalen Warren. Their second pick overall, as they didn't have a second rounder, they brought in Caleb Johnson to replace Najee Harris. So you're hoping for a lot more juice, a lot more breakaway plays, breakaway runs for the offense, and you can't stack the box as easily against Aaron Rodgers as you could with Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. I feel like looking at this team and their ADPs, I know you guys like DK, but...

29:25Loved, loved, loved. Oh, you loved DK. Oh, I apologize. Yeah, you misspoke. I forgive you. the well I'm about as the opposite of that is possible the only guy I really want to draft from this team is Caleb Johnson and I don't know what his ADP we're quoting it right now I assume this is from sleeper of a late eight that won't happen right like that that's when we get to August rookies will fly and the casuals come back and the fever is in there Caleb's gonna go up so where does he land I think that's that's my biggest question for the Steelers He's on my team. Yeah. That's where he's going to land.

30:03Yes, we know. So love Aaron Rodgers. Do we have any monologue shows coming up? Loves Caleb Johnson. I need a full refresh on Jason Caleb. Loves the Steelers. But he's really the only guy that I have true interest in. If the other guys, if they're on my team, I got backed into it. Yeah, I mean. This is a fantasy show. Yeah, I like DK Metcalf. In the fifth round, I was wide receiver 24. who is the clear number one target here for Aaron Rodgers. I feel like he just downgraded from love to love. It is. You love DK Metcalf. I like DK Metcalf, and Mike dislikes DK Metcalf. He has disappointed his ADP for like four straight years.

30:44Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And a move to Pittsburgh with Arthur Smith and Aaron Rodgers does not give me super confidence in – I'm fascinated to watch how it happens because DK Metcalf, he could still be a dominant player out there but this is not the like Aaron Rodgers is is a general who demands that you be exactly where you are supposed to be exactly when you are supposed to be there and like Rodgers likes a tactician and that's not who DK is DK is just a bully can have what you like but you only get DK because they don't have anybody else to catch the football uh it will be johnny now i mean you don't they don't make a trade for johnny unless they plan to give him you know at least a good 600 yards or so oh for sure yeah i mean yeah we call that uh yeah i mean that was not an endorsement no i i i realize it yeah and fryer muth is there and they'll run two tight ends and we talked about it on tuesday but um no i like Metcalf.

31:51I'm still unsure of what the work distribution is going to be with Warren and Caleb Johnson. That's still an issue. I think you will start the season with Warren as the starter. He's a better pass protector for sure. Aaron Rodgers is going to love Jalen Warren. But I do think as the season goes along, Caleb Johnson and his ability to have explosive plays out of the backfield will just be too important for the offense to keep on the side. I'm looking at their schedule. They'll probably start 3-0. Who do they got? Well, they're going to play the Jets. Okay. Aaron Rodgers. Oh, revenge. So they're going to play the Jets on the road, but that's a very winnable game.