PodcastFrom Establish The Run
Establish The Edge Simulcast - ETE Projections Special: AFC North with Mark Dankenbring, Jack Miller and Ben Gretch
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2 hr 19 min
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Jul 20, 2026
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Episode Transcript
0:00Hey, Producer Luke here, long-time editor and first-time speaker.
0:03The following is a simulcast episode from the Establish The Edge podcast Division by Division Projection Series, featuring Mark Dankenbring, Jack Miller and Ben Gretch.
0:10To hear the rest of the series, you can find the ETE podcast on all good podcast platforms or on the Establish The Edge YouTube channel.
0:17Enjoy! Hello and welcome to another edition of Establish The Edge podcast.
0:20I'm your host Mark Dankenbring and we'll be joined today by the Projections crew you know and love, Jack Miller and Ben Gretch.
0:27Jack and I are part of the projections team here at Establish The Run entering our fourth year together.
0:32While Gretch is our honored guest throughout this series, you can listen to his podcast, Dealing Bananas with Sean Siegel, as well as find his work at bengretch.substack.com.
0:40We'll continue to go division by division through the NFL, breaking down our season-long projections for each team across the league today.
0:46And today is episode six featuring the AFC North.
0:49Gretch, how's it going today? Good, yeah. We were pretty stoked at the beginning of the NFC North pod.
0:54Really fun division. It's kind of an imbalanced year for the different divisions.
0:58There's some divisions that are super fun, and this one has the Steelers and the Browns.
1:03Lots of turnover in this division as well. Three new head coaches.
1:06Meanwhile, Bengals running it back. But Jack, you excited to break down the AFC North?
1:10Not as excited as I was yesterday. Echoing what Gretch said, the whiplash going from NFC North to AFC North is pretty fierce.
1:17But, you know, we're here and I'm excited to break it down with you guys.
1:21Yeah, always some valuable stuff to unearth here. And we are going to start in Pittsburgh where the Steelers bring in Mike McCarthy to be the head coach.
1:29He reunites with Aaron Rodgers. Pretty interesting setups. We got Mike McCarthy and Todd Monken as new head coaches in this division.
1:35And then Jesse Minter, you know, is kind of like a young up-and-comer as well.
1:39So two, I guess, you know, new but old head coaches here.
1:43One being in Pittsburgh with Mike McCarthy, obviously, you know, had some time in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers.
1:48And we're starting with the Steelers because at ETR, we've been well above market on a lot of Steelers players this offseason.
1:54So honestly, I wanted to jump right in and kind of discuss our viewpoints and compare with Gretch and just see kind
2:01of, you know, if we feel confident in that coming out of this show as well.
2:05It's a spot we've spent a lot of time on already this postseason.
2:09On a team-level standpoint here for the Steelers, we're at 60.2 plays.
2:12Gretch is at 60.5. And then we're at a 61.1% pass rate.
2:16Gretch is at 61%. So essentially in lockstep there on the team-level inputs, that 60.2 plays per game right now ranks 30th in the NFL.
2:23For us last year, they finished 27th. And then our pass rate, 61.1% is the 12th highest projection we have across the league.
2:29So Jack, you know, I mentioned we've spent a lot of time kind of on the Steelers so far this offseason.
2:35What's your read on Mike McCarthy at the helm here reuniting with Aaron Rodgers?
2:39Yeah. So like you said, we've been high on the Steelers all offseason, but I don't think it's because we're particularly aggressive on the actual Steelers inputs.
2:47I think it's just the market is really negative on them.
2:50We have them for the second fewest real plays per game that excludes spikes and kneel downs.
2:55Last year, they had the fifth fewest. We have them 12th in dropback rate.
2:59Last year, they were 12th in dropback rate. And we have them with the seventh fewest offensive touchdowns per game, which is
3:05in line with their expectation in the betting markets right now.
3:08So I think that our Steelers inputs are pretty reasonable.
3:11And it's good to see Gretch. I mean, we are pretty much right in line.
3:15I mean, we're 0.3 plays per game off, 0.1% pass rate off.
3:18I assume that's basically as close as we're going to be on any team from a team level standpoint throughout this whole series.
3:25But yeah, I want to echo that our pro Steelers stance in our rankings, I think, is more a reflection of where
3:31the market is and how negatively the market is viewing them as opposed to us being actually bullish on the Steelers offense.
3:37Yeah, I think it probably comes back to Aaron Rodgers entering his age 43 season here.
3:42So hard to have, I think, too much confidence on an age 43 quarterback here.
3:46Gretch, what's your overarching view on the Steelers and Mike McCarthy in town here?
3:50Yeah, I mean, it's a concerning offense from like a macro perspective.
3:54When you work through the projections and, you know, I'm sort of looking at it from a bigger like health perspective or
4:00like a bit like this is things are going to go well for this offense.
4:04I think it's easy to see how things could go poorly if Rodgers is injured or is not playing particularly well.
4:10They've got a lot of young quarterbacks behind him.
4:12Things could go a little bit tricky. But in terms of just like, I think a lot was made about last year,
4:19Rodgers getting the ball out really quickly and underneath and not throwing downfield.
4:22There was like a narrative over multiple weeks about how long it had been since they had completed a 20-yard pass for
4:29like a decent stretch of the season, like six weeks or something like that, that I was just reminded of when I
4:35was going through some of my ceiling signals writing.
4:37But they did eventually complete a 20-yard pass. But at the same time, like against defenses that are trying to drop back
4:44into cover two shells and all these things, there were some, I mean, I don't know.
4:48I've heard some takes on that that are basically like Rodgers is so bad that the offense is like, you know, non-functional.
4:54I don't really believe that or agree with that, I guess.
4:57Guys, the running backs were the big winners in the passing game last year.
5:01They both had really good yards per out runs.
5:04They both were actually really efficient as receiving weapons.
5:07Metcalf had a career low ADOT as well, but some of the catch and run stuff they started doing with him worked okay.
5:13Some of the like Rodgers will give you a look and you'll run a quick slant and I'll throw it to you.
5:19They seem to have some of that and Metcalf had some of those kinds of plays.
5:24Now they bring in Michael Pittman. They get rid of Arthur Smith, whose offense is, you know, always going to be a little bit weird.
5:31Basically, Thorman did a great breakdown in the in his pace column for the season and noted that Smith Arthur Smith actually
5:37kind of likes tempo a little bit, but it didn't really matter for play volume because of Rodgers.
5:42And so if you're thinking, you know, McCarthy might be good because he's had some tempo in Dallas.
5:47Thorman's also always pointed out that Dak Prescott's really the one that drives the tempo in Dallas.
5:52And so you're going to get Rodgers slowing things down.
5:55You're going to get a low ADOT. You're going to get some boring stuff.
5:59I don't think they're going to be good or anything.
6:02I also think like the way he played quarterback last year, like it wasn't great, but it probably was like, I mean, it can be worse.
6:09We saw some situations where it was worse around the NFL, maybe only like five, but there's a few that it can be worse.
6:16Well, that's a spot I'm interested to talk through because last year, you know, the Pittsburgh and Rodgers specifically, he targeted running
6:22backs at the second highest rate in the NFL.
6:25And with the year prior with the Jets, you know, it wasn't quite that high.
6:29Like he had more targets to the wide receivers.
6:31And now you inject a little bit more wide receiver talent into this team.
6:35You, you bring, you trade and then sign extension with Michael Pittman.
6:39You draft Jeremy Bernard in the second round. You also lose Johnny Smith from that tight end room.
6:44And not that Johnny Smith was a, was a huge volume receiver last year, but.
6:48You are kind of replacing some, some tight end targets with some natural wide receiver targets there.
6:53And then you bring in Rico Dowdle who, who's receiving profile is, is decent, but you know, not quite like the, the
6:59Kenneth Gainwell level who, who has, I think shown or last year that he is one of the, you know, better receiving backs in the NFL.
7:07And Jalen Warren will, will continue that. But I think things will kind of even out a little bit in terms of
7:13like the target distribution among positions this year. Yeah.
7:15I mean, certainly potentially I I'm projecting a decent running back target rate again.
7:19And I, the Rogers running backs throughout his career have always been strong.
7:23Um, I do, I look at the team high value touches as one stat, which is receptions plus carries inside the 10
7:29yard line, which that side of it is not as relevant here, but they were second in team high value touches last year.
7:36There were six running backs over 85 targets last year that, and then Gentry had 73 and then no one else over 60.
7:42So it's kind of like the top tier of, of running back receiving volume, the top five and Gentry all have really strong ADPs this year.
7:50The other guy that was at 85 plus was, was Gainwell.
7:53Um, and obviously he's not with the rock with the team anymore, but this is the one spot where the running back
7:59targets from last year are not priced in at all.
8:02I mean, cause behind him, Jalen Warren saw at 45 more targets.
8:05Like when we did the Rams, I was talking about how they don't throw the backs a lot.
8:10Kyron gets like all of their receiving. He's their lead guy.
8:13He had like, I think 51 last year. So like that's, that's the RB one in one passing game, getting most of their targets in this passing game.
8:21That's the guy getting half as much as, as his teammate, right?
8:25I mean, you had 130 something targets to the running backs in this passing game.
8:29It's a, it's a huge vacated running back receiving role that I think is not priced in for PPR with Gainwell leaving
8:35either Warren's got to go up or Dowdle's going to get a bunch.
8:39He's got the, the Mike McCarthy tie in there.
8:41Um, I'm actually projecting kind of a lot of targets still to the running backs this year.
8:46For sure. I think we should go to the running backs right away here.
8:50You know, Rogers last year was, was QBA 28, uh, and fantasy points per game.
8:54So not, not really a, uh, a single QB league target by any means, you know, maybe the backend.
9:00Of, of super flex leagues and best ball. You can obviously use them as a stacking partner, but I do think it's
9:06just, you know, more, more interesting to talk about his, his past catchers and the skill group here.
9:11And, and they do bring in Rico Dattle sign him to a two year, 12.25 million dollar contract.
9:16He's got 5 million guaranteed. And then I was comparing that contract to Jalen Warren.
9:20They're essentially the same. Uh, Jalen Warren is also on a two year, $12 million deal.
9:25He's got seven mil guaranteed. So a couple more million guaranteed, but you do have the aspect that, you know, McCarthy, um,
9:31had Rico Dattle as his, his starting running back in 2024 in Dallas.
9:35And then, you know, his first year in Pittsburgh does sign him.
9:38And, and Jalen Warren, I think the knock on him prior to last season was he had never really handled much of a rushing workload.
9:45And so I was very interested to see where we came in on, on inputs here.
9:50And we actually kind of have it pretty flipped in terms of rush attempts on Jalen Warren.
9:55We're at 145. Gretchen's at 184. And then, uh, on Rico Dattle, we're at 181 and Gretchen's at 147.
10:00So essentially the inverse there, um, Gretchen did mention, you know, a lot more running back targets here and he, he does have that.
10:07We're at 54 on Jalen Warren. Gretchen's at 62.
10:09He's also at 62 on Rico Dattle. And we're only at 38 targets on Rico Dattle.
10:14So, um, pretty interesting split there, Jack. I think this is kind of a tough one to diagnose again, because Jalen Warren,
10:20you know, had only topped out at 150 or, you know, hadn't topped 150 carries in his career prior to last season.
10:26And then again, Kenneth Gainwell, you know, was just such an elite pass catcher.
10:30Like that was kind of his role. And I kind of think this year it could end up being flipped a little bit.
10:37So we have more carries for Dattle and then more, more targets for Warren.
10:41I'm curious how you see this, this duo breaking down.
10:44Yeah, I think you've got two running backs here who can do things in both facets.
10:48I think the decision to bring in Rico Dattle and why we have Dattle ahead of Warren and carries, I think the
10:54decision to bring in Rico shows that they want him in that role because of the familiarity with McCarthy.
11:00They signed him on the very first day that free agency was open.
11:03He has 235 carries and essentially 1075 yards in back-to-back seasons.
11:07He was good in Carolina. It was a, it was a weird year last year for Dattle where he had that monster
11:13stretch in the middle of the season. His full season numbers are good.
11:174.6 yards per carry, plus 0.63 rest yards over expectation per attempt.
11:20But in the playoff game, they did go back to Chuba Hubbard a little bit more.
11:24But I think that in signing Dattle and clearly prioritizing him because they signed him right away in free agency.
11:30I think that that to me signals they want him as their lead ball carrier.
11:34That's not to say Warren won't get carries. I think that it's going to be a committee as both a runner and
11:41a receiver, and they're both going to get chances to do both.
11:44But we've seen Warren before in that complimentary pass-down role.
11:47He did that for years with Najee Harris. And I think that in signing Dattle, they kind of signal they want to
11:53go back to Warren in that pass-down role. So that's kind of why we have Dattle ahead at the moment.
11:59But I think both are capable blacks. If there's an injury to the other one, I think both of them would slide
12:05pretty seamlessly into a pretty legit three-down role. That's a pretty interesting takeaway.
12:09I mean, I definitely don't just like reject that.
12:11I didn't really know how to approach this. The fact that they brought in Dattle so quickly, definitely notable to me.
12:17One of the things that will play in, especially as we go to wide receiver, is I do think Rodgers dictates a
12:23little bit of the skill position usage from the teams that he's quarterbacked the last few years and obviously has the relationship with McCarthy.
12:30And McCarthy would have known that coming in. And I think they hired McCarthy in part because they didn't want to get
12:36Rodgers back this year and all those things kind of tie together.
12:40And Rodgers has kind of been clear, like he's going to only play for teams where he has some say and some power.
12:46I don't think... I mean, I don't know anything about what he might think about Dattle, but I do think he seemed
12:52to enjoy playing with Jalen Warren last year to a degree.
12:56And so the fact that Warren has the familiarity there was part of why I was thinking a little bit of the
13:02leg and was the lead rusher last year and an effective rusher.
13:05But Dattle's been an efficient rusher the last few years as well.
13:09But one of the things with the McCarthy-Dowddle thing that...
13:11I mean, maybe I'm not seeing as strongly as you guys.
13:15He definitely likes Dattle. He's talked about like... He's been a part of Dattle's story.
13:19McCarthy was a head coach in Dallas from 2020 to 2024.
13:22Dattle was on that roster from 2020 to 2023 and got nothing.
13:25And then finally had the 2024 season. I mean, so he was his player for five years and McCarthy finally used him the fifth year.
13:32I mean, famously, Dattle has been really good the last two years after being a special teams guy for several years.
13:38It's a very abnormal progression. But I don't think like...
13:41I mean, I think he knows the system and all of that stuff.
13:45But I don't think it holds a ton of water to be like, Mike McCarthy loves this guy.
13:50Because I mean, he basically took forever to use him in any kind of a real way.
13:55So definitely, again, knows the system, brings him in.
13:57I think Dattle's going to play a ton. I think that Jalen Warren is one of the more talented runners in the league.
14:04His evasion rates have always been really strong. Dattle's missed tackles force per touch are like half of Jalen Warren's over the last couple of years.
14:11Or last year, especially. But Dattle still has relatively similar yards per carry figures.
14:15He gets downhill and he still gets stuff done, even though he's not necessarily evading a bunch of tackles.
14:21Warren is maybe a little more of like a scat back who's evading tackles, but not necessarily doing as much, although I
14:27mean, Warren's not a small back, but he's not necessarily doing as much as you would love with all that evasion.
14:33Well, I don't know. It's just kind of weird because different backs get there different ways.
14:37But he has some, like you go back a couple years with Warren, he had like massive evasion rates back in like 2023.
14:44And he did have a 5.2 yards per carry that year.
14:47It's been lowered the last couple of years, 4.2, 4.5.
14:50But he's always been an efficient rusher. But Dattle's been at 4.6 the last two years, which is also a good, efficient, you know, rushing number.
14:57When McCarthy's talked about him, he said, I love that Dattle and Warren's play styles emulate each other.
15:02He's talked about him as interchangeable three down guys.
15:05I, yeah, I kind of lean toward like Dattle has been good in the past protection stuff.
15:09And that's sort of where he started getting the role with McCarthy.
15:13And Warren wasn't doing as much because of Gainwell last year.
15:16I don't know. I think it's a very interesting take that you guys have that it'll kind of flip this year.
15:22But I guess I was looking at it more from the perspective of like how Warren was used alongside Rogers last year.
15:28And then maybe Dattle would do a little more in the receiving side.
15:32So I have him for the same amount of targets, but I have Warren for more rushes and sort of the more valuable overall role.
15:39You guys have them pretty much dead even in terms of like fantasy points.
15:43But we do. Yeah. That's the lead rusher. For sure.
15:46And that's what I was going to say is I think we like both, both of these backs and, and fantasy as
15:52targets, you know, in terms of just how we have it distributed right now, we slightly lean Warren and PPR formats and then Rico and half PPR formats.
16:00Again, just kind of how we have the touches distributed there.
16:03But I'm not necessarily like married to that, to that split.
16:06You know, I do think there, there could be reports or, or just more enlightenment on how, how McCarthy and Rogers plan
16:12to use these backs throughout the season. And, but I do think both are, are pretty solid targets, both on, you know,
16:19they, they should get, they should get work on the ground and they've, they've both shown to be like prolific or, you
16:25know, at least above average pass catchers as well.
16:27So there are great prices. I think that's a great way of putting it.
16:31I mean, I think it's, it seems pretty likely to me, as long as Rogers doesn't like get hurt right away early
16:38in the year, that one or both of these guys are going to be pretty good values at these ADPs.
16:43We're, I mean, especially in PPR, like full PPR.
16:46And I'm not trying to downplay the McCarthy Rico thing either.
16:49Like you had a 13 year, a hundred yard season, you know, with them just a couple of years ago.
16:54Like there's familiarity there for sure. And I liked the way you put it.
16:58It really doesn't matter how this splits. I think we like both guys and we think there's a lot of value here.
17:05For sure. And, and, and market is a little bit flipped on us.
17:08Jalen Warren, at least on underdog is going around of head around ahead of Rico Dattel.
17:13Meanwhile, we have Rico Dattel ranked about five spots ahead of Jalen Warren and that half PPR format on underdog.
17:19But then, you know, looking at like FFPC redraft rankings, Jalen Warren, we have six spots ahead and we're still, you know,
17:25above, above ADP on both guys there. So again, I think both are pretty, pretty solid targets.
17:30You don't necessarily have to have to, you know, pull our hair out over the exact split between the two.
17:35I think they're both probably solid targets at this point in time.
17:39And the Steelers offensive line is supposed to be, you know, a solid unit this year as well.
17:44I am pretty eager to see where, where Brandon Thorne ends up ranking them.
17:48But, um, I would say on pass downs specifically, um, and part of the reason we have Warren a good amount of
17:54head in targets is last year in Carolina, it was mostly always Chuba Hubbard getting the pass downs.
17:59And then I'm pretty sure two years ago in Dallas, Rico still had a decent target share.
18:04He had an 8.2% target share. But I remember Hunter Lepke, the fullback getting a good amount of the actual like clear third and long situations there.
18:11And that's something we've seen Warren get in the past when Najee Harris was on the team.
18:16So I was kind of thinking, I mean, like you guys have said, in the end, it won't matter all that much
18:23because Rogers, there's the running backs a bunch. They're both going to play a bunch.
18:27But I was thinking more that Warren would likely get the actual like third and long two minute drill stuff.
18:32Um, but yeah. That's interesting. I do think it's worth mentioning.
18:36Caleb Johnson is still a part of this backfield.
18:38He was a third round pick last year and, and, and it might not be, but, um, you know, people are probably
18:44out there thinking, you know, that we're, we're in the weeds here.
18:48So, uh, but he hardly played at all last year.
18:51It was one of like fantasy's biggest busts. I think he was going in like the seventh, eighth round, uh, most of
18:57draft season last year and, and, you know, hardly played at all, you know, seemingly didn't touch the wall, but as a
19:03new coaching staff, I think, you know, maybe something to keep an eye on, but considering they signed Rico and Warren is a good back.
19:10I don't think it's, it really is, is worth factoring in.
19:13Drafted Eli Heidenreich or, or however you say it, um, from Navy, right.
19:17The does a little bit of do everything, plays some running back, plays some receiver for me with Caleb.
19:22It's like, you barely played last year. Now you have some, frankly, probably a little bit of competition for RB three.
19:28Like you're not locked into that role. There's the potential that he grows into something.
19:32He did have a, a, like a, a day to, you know, draft capital, like type of prospect profile, at least as a rusher.
19:39But I go back to the Rogers thing. I don't, I mean, he had some drops last year.
19:44He made some special teams errors in the Seattle game.
19:47They got back into a game and he just didn't feel the kickoff and Seattle fell on it.
19:52They're, I think they were down three and Seattle got, uh, had scored and taken the lead and then got a touchdown
19:58on the kickoff and went up 10. And that was just it for that game.
20:03And it was like a key point in their season.
20:06It was like week six or seven or something.
20:08Um, for sure. And Mike Tomlin, pretty, pretty much like a shadow band.
20:12Uh, uh, and I think Rogers is still going to like not, I mean, Rogers, you don't ever get out of Rogers's doghouse, like Caleb Johnson.
20:19Good luck dude. Next year when Rogers is finally retired.
20:22All right, let's go to the wide receiver room here.
20:25DK Metcalf, uh, still the wide receiver one, you know, in name, I think, but Michael Pittman is, is traded for a six and seven throng pick.
20:32And then again, sign an extension here with the Steelers.
20:35They do draft Jeremy Bernard in the, in the second rounds.
20:38Uh, and Jeremy Bernard and DK Metcalf have been like the two, we've been highest above market at this point of the summer.
20:45So I was interested to see where we came in on this kind of trio of wide receivers on DK Metcalf.
20:51We're at 102 targets. Gretchen's at 109 on Michael Pittman.
20:54We're at a hundred targets. Gretchen's at 114. And on Jeremy Bernard, we're at 62 targets.
20:58Gretchen at 43. So quite a bit behind us in that department, which I have to say, I don't, don't love off the cuff here.
21:05Cause that's certainly been one of our bigger stands, uh, towards the end of best ball dress specifically is being high on Jeremy Bernard.
21:12And I think this comes back a little bit to the personnel discussion in Pittsburgh last year.
21:17Um, the Steelers were 25th in terms of 11 personnel usage when McCarthy was in Dallas, at least his last three seasons in Dallas, they finished a lot.
21:25They finished 10th, 22nd and 19th and 11 personnel usage.
21:28So a little bit better, you know, one, one year up at 10th, but mostly kind of like middle of the road there.
21:34So I do think 11 personnel usage will tick up a little bit here.
21:38I mentioned John who Smith out of the picture as well, and then just kind of investing more in the wide receivers.
21:44So, um, you know, but we still, we still may be high there.
21:48Um, a little bit. And then one discussion we've also had Jack is, is who to project for more targets, DK Metcalf or Michael Pittman.
21:55And, and Gretch actually comes in a little bit higher on Pittman.
21:58So curious, Jack, your thoughts initially on, on kind of this wide receiver room before we kick it over to Gretch.
22:04Yeah. The, the DK versus Pittman one is not one that I have a super strong take on from a target standpoint.
22:11We have them 0.5% target share ahead. We've been high on DK all off season.
22:15Um, he had a 21.1% target share last year.
22:17We're at 19%. We have Pittman at 18.5% right now.
22:20Um, I think if we, I'm not super opposed to flipping that 0.5% from Metcalf from, from from Metcalf to Pittman and putting Pittman ahead.
22:27I know Silva thinks Pittman will also lead the team in targets.
22:31Um, regardless, we're going to come out high on Metcalf.
22:34I think the Jeremy one is, is more interesting because a lot of our target share projections for rookies is based on draft capital.
22:40So we just, and then, you know, some, some level of adjustment for the level of prospect for the type of target competition on the team.
22:48We do have Pat Frymer with and Darnell Washington here.
22:51They just extended Darnell Washington. So I think despite McCarthy coming in, you're still going to see a lot of 12 personnel here.
22:57Um, but by virtue of being a second round pick, we have Jeremy as the very clear wide receiver three here over guys like Roman Wilson.
23:04And so we have them for a decent target share.
23:07We have his ceiling muted relative to other second round rookies because of the, uh, team situation that he falls in, but
23:14I'm, I am curious to hear Gretz's, uh, Jeremy Bernard take because he's, you know, a little more in the weeds on the prospect stuff than us.
23:21Um, and we are quite high on, on Jeremy at the moment.
23:25Well, I mean, I actually, I think he's an interesting guy.
23:28I mean, really good ball in hand guy. Yak evasion stuff is all really nice.
23:32The, I mean, the overall production profile is probably just okay.
23:35Some of this to me is again, like Aaron Rogers, like I'm probably overstating.
23:39But he just doesn't seem to like rookies like at all.
23:42There's a, like been a long, uh, I'm thinking back to, I guess, like, I mean, maybe Amari Rogers just sucked, but like Amari Rogers in green Bay.
23:50And then there's been other dudes. Um, I don't know.
23:53They're not all coming to mind, but it's been a long-term trend for Rogers.
23:57I think Bernard's interesting, but you, you hit on it as well.
24:00It's the 11% versus 12% I'll think probably for me.
24:03Um, I have a couple more targets for the tight ends decently more on fire.
24:07Muth. And then also a couple more on Darnell Washington, even though they lost Johnny, I think Washington's basically like a starter for them.
24:14Um, McCarthy loved, loves him has talked to him up all off season, called him a complete wide tight end, but I'm
24:20also like pretty high on, on Pat Fry. Muth.
24:23I don't mean to just jump over the tight ends, but he's had consistently huge catch rates, consistently huge depth adjusted racers,
24:29which I use for my efficiency stuff, but like his yards per target have been good as a result, really good touchdown rates, decent yak even.
24:36I mean, this is like a legitimately good tight end former round two pick was good in college at Penn state.
24:42Um, it just has been in some weird situations.
24:45Like Arthur Smith does so much weird stuff. The last few years has been weird.
24:49Um, the Steelers have not always had great passing games.
24:52And then you have Darnell Washington there, but to me, it feels a lot like Fryer Muth, Washington, Pittman, Metcalf is the
24:58type of four man, um, you know, wide receiver and tight end build that you'd really like.
25:03And so I'm seeing Fryer Muth as sort of the wide receiver three in some respects with a Washington.
25:08You mentioned the O-line there's mixed opinions on the O-line.
25:11I, I, I mean, I'm, I'm optimistic as well, but I think keeping Darnell Washington on the field is like McCarthy's talked
25:17about him as like a sixth alignment. Like you don't have that type of tight end anymore.
25:22Um, and then, you know, Fryer Muth can, can also block.
25:25He's a, he's a legit every down like tight end that could do everything.
25:29That's always been the scouting report on him, but obviously a very good receiver.
25:33Um, and so anyway, I, I'm seeing a lot of 12.
25:36They also talked about a fullback being on the roster and whoever they drafted Riley, Noah Kowski.
25:41So I'm seeing like those as, you know, potentially not three wide receiver formations whenever they get a second running back on,
25:47on, uh, maybe do some two tight end, maybe do some 22 personnel, two tight ends, two running backs.
25:53So I, for me with Bernard, it's just a question of, okay, he's a rookie.
25:57How quickly is Rogers going to be okay with him?
26:00How much are they going to actually get into three wide receiver sets and get this rookie on the field?
26:06I do think he's an intriguing dude. The ball in hand stuff is intriguing.
26:10I actually like minor note. I have him for 12 rush attempts.
26:13You guys have him for 3.9. Like, I think they're going to do some gadget stuff with him and give him, you know, some carries.
26:20That's obviously not a big gap, but I think they'll find ways to get up the scheme, the ball into his hand.
26:26But I basically don't think they're going to use enough of the 11 personnel in the format.
26:31And then he's just not going to get on in 12.
26:34Like it's going to be Metcalf and Pittman. You have two veterans.
26:38Yeah, that's totally fair. And you're also higher on the running back targets as well.
26:42Just, you know, an overall. So I think it's just a spot where we're, we're probably just a little bit higher on, on the wide receiver three.
26:49And that get, you know, has flowed to Bernard specifically, but I wouldn't mind, you know, after talking through it, probably, probably docking him a little bit.
26:57I will say like, in terms of the, the Rogers not loving rookies, like I, on Bernard, I felt like his prospects
27:03or, you know, the stuff I listened to was like, oh, he's one.
27:07He was one of the more mature, you know, like college prospects and, and like could make that transfer to the NFL a little bit more seamlessly.
27:15So maybe, maybe that's in my head a little bit too much, but certainly hear you on that.
27:20And then in terms of the, the Metcalf and, and Pittman, you know, kind of target distribution, I do think like, even
27:26if, even if Metcalf ends up getting fewer targets than Michael Pittman, he's still who I would want in fantasy.
27:32Michael Pittman, you know, his has a 7.4 yards per target in his career.
27:36Meanwhile, Metcalf is at 8.7 that held last year, even though he had his lowest a dot of his career.
27:41That was DK Metcalf. He has, has lowest AI of the, of his career by about two yards, but he also had
27:48his highest yards after catch per reception. So Gretch, kind of how you alluded to on, on more of like those short
27:54slants that allowed him some field to run afterwards.
27:56You know, I do feel like they utilized him pretty well there.
28:00So last year, my cat. That was an interesting new wrinkle for him.
28:03It was a lot more yards after catch per reception than typical for him.
28:07And you would think that like, would not only continue, but like, it makes sense for a guy with Metcalf's athleticism, right?
28:14To do some of that catch and run. And I think that stuff was like, they were on the same page with it.
28:20Some of that was just the glance routes and stuff that Rogers likes to do.
28:24And I think they were very much on the same page.
28:27I think it seems legitimately positive for Metcalf. I started with these guys at the same target share.
28:33The only reason I went Pittman ahead is that Pittman is a lower a dot player.
28:37Even at Metcalf's reduced a dot, he was like basically wide receiver average.
28:41Pittman's always been a below average guy. He operates more in the lower area.
28:45You're going to get more targets when your routes are breaking in shorter areas.
28:49Rogers is getting the ball out earlier. I do think Pittman's going to impact some of the lower a dot stuff.
28:55And that's Pittman's like profile. He's been a lower a dot target hog.
28:58But I do have his yards per target meaningfully lower.
29:01His TD rate meaningfully lower than Metcalf, as you're alluding to.
29:04Metcalf had a good year last year, man. 21.3 targets per out run was a three-year high for him.
29:10And you talked about the efficiency sticking. Solid 1.83 yards per out run.
29:13For a guy that, I mean, I felt like it might be kind of a tough situation for him.
29:19The routes weren't really there. But if they throw a little more, like I think there's room for Metcalf to have a pretty solid year.
29:26Yeah, and Pittman just doesn't have much juice after the catch either.
29:29So I think he's probably fine in PPR leagues.
29:32But I'm not necessarily like super eager in drafting Michael Pittman in half PPR.
29:36Especially just with a 43-year-old at quarterback and some overarching concerns on this offense as a whole.
29:40But Pat Frymuth last year, he only had 51% route share.
29:44In 2024, without Johnny Smith, that was up at 71%.
29:46Darnell Washington was on the team in 2024 as well.
29:49Obviously, a bit more season now. But I do think we could see Frymuth kind of get back up into that 65-70% route share.
29:56Which makes him a very viable end-of-draft tight end target.
29:59And Gresh, you'll love to hear that. We are a full two rounds ahead of underdog ADP on Frymuth.
30:04So you're going to absolutely love drafting him over there.
30:07He's pretty much free. He's going as the tight end 29 right now.
30:11So, you know, very discounted in drafts for sure.
30:13Love that. I think he's one of the best late-round tight ends.
30:17Because you're looking at routes at a certain point.
30:19And I think people see Washington and they get concerned.
30:22I think this is a great example of the different tight end roles.
30:26And the loss of John, who, like you said, is actually really big for Frymuth.
30:30Washington is going to do some stuff, for sure, in the pass game.
30:34But he's also like a sixth lineman. In some ways, he frees Frymuth up.
30:38And, you know, you get into the two tight end stuff.
30:41And then, yeah, I mean, how big of a...
30:43I think Frymuth's biggest concern would be how big of a role Bernard has.
30:47So if you're really into the 11 personnel stuff, you think Bernard's going to have a big role.
30:52It may be that the tight ends do split a little bit.
30:56I think they're both going to be on the field a decent amount together.
31:00And Frymuth's going to run kind of a lot of routes, which is pretty big.
31:04I think the Washington stuff is pretty interesting. Last year, Mark pointed this out when we were doing weekly projections.
31:10But Mike Tomlin had some quotes about... I believe it was when the opposing defense ran a 4-3 that that was when
31:16they wanted Darnell Washington on the field more. And if they were playing a 3-4, they didn't want Darnell Washington on the field more.
31:23And as the season went on, that trend kind of went away.
31:26I don't know if it's because the defenses were disguising more.
31:29It was getting more difficult to predict pre-snap exactly when he'd be needed or not.
31:33But early in the season, there were some really stark splits for Darnell Washington in terms of when he'd play a lot of snaps and when he wouldn't.
31:41So I'm sure there's some sort of ball-knowing angle.
31:44I think that, as we've talked about, the defenses are getting better at disguising a lot of stuff, which probably renders it a little bit less useful.
31:52But he's an interesting player because he pretty much is a 6th offensive lineman.
31:55And he was on the St. Brown Brothers podcast and said he's like 320 pounds.
32:00He's 6'7", 320. So he is quite literally an offensive lineman out there.
32:03That's insane. I do think that the dichotomy of him versus Jeremy Bernard's snaps are interesting to think through and likely matchup dependent.
32:10And Fryermuth is pretty entrenched there as the actual tight end one type role that we're used to seeing.
32:15Right. And that note you just made about Washington's weight.
32:18I mean, think about that in the context of Fryermuth, where I think people, again, are concerned about Fryermuth's usage because there's
32:24these two guys that have a tight end label next to their name.
32:28And it's like they're going to use this other guy, but it's 320 pounds.
32:32Like they're going to use him some, but he's not going to run 600 routes.
32:36That's just not practical for Darnell Washington. It may cut into Fryermuth a little bit.
32:40Fryermuth's a very traditional tight end size. If anything, he's, I think, a little bit undersized.
32:45But like a very solid receiving tight end profile as well.
32:48Like I said, like if you go look at his actual like per target stuff, very good.
32:53I mean, his catch rate's been over 70% three straight years.
32:56Last two years, 83% and 77%. And it's not one of these like really low ADOTs that some tight ends have.
33:02It's a little bit below average, but not bad.
33:05But like he's got mitts. They talked about this coming out.
33:08He was going to be a red zone threat coming out when he was a day two pick.
33:13And he's had three years with a 7.5% receiving TD rate or higher two that were low.
33:18But he's definitely capable of stacking some touchdowns. That depth adjusted racer number I talked about.
33:22He's been well above average each of the last three years.
33:25He's a, I think he's just like a legit good tight end.
33:29Yeah. Shout out Penn State. I think Levitan at one point, you know, has dubbed Pat Fryermuth put on this earth to score touchdowns.
33:35So hopefully we get a few more of those this season.
33:39All right. Let's transition over to the Cleveland Browns who did bring in Todd Monken as their head coach.
33:44And he will be the play caller here in Cleveland.
33:47You know, it's a tough team to talk about because in mid-July, we pretty much have no idea who the starting quarterback is going to be.
33:54Reading through the tea leaves, it sounds like it's going to be a battle throughout training camp between Deshaun Watson and Shadur Sanders.
34:01Most likely they also have Dylan Gabriel in the room, but he was absolutely horrendous last year.
34:05I don't think he really has a shot. Then they also drafted Taylor Green this year, who's more of an athletic freak.
34:12You know, it seems like more of a pretty raw quarterback in the sense, but could eventually get there and is like
34:18an interesting dynasty stash, I think, at this point.
34:20But in terms of a team level, you know, it is pretty difficult to talk about without knowing who the quarterback is going to be.
34:27And then they also are likely to start five new offensive linemen.
34:31They drafted two wide receivers, you know, in the first 40 picks.
34:34So there's a lot, a lot of new and interesting things going on in Cleveland, but it is pretty tough to dissect.
34:40On a team level for the Browns, we're at 60.4 plays.
34:44Gretsch is at 60.3. We're at a 62% pass rate and Gretsch is at 61%.
34:48So relatively in line there. In terms of the quarterback split, we have Deshaun Watson kind of as the favored quarterback at this point in time.
34:55In terms of a passion share, we're at, you know, 50% on Deshaun Watson, 40% on Shadur.
35:00And then we sprinkled a little bit on Taylin Green and Daylin Gabriel in the back end there.
35:05But I don't know if you guys even want to talk about this quarterback room at this point in time.
35:11I mean, the last time we saw Deshaun, it was, you know, a historically bad quarterback season.
35:16He was at 5.3 yards per attempt in 2024.
35:18He's since torn his Achilles twice. And, you know, so I don't really know if he has any NFL career left.
35:24And then Shudor Sanders, you know, had a tough season last year.
35:27But, you know, at least more of like a runway in front of him, I guess.
35:32So I don't know, Jack, any thoughts on this quarterback room or Gretsch?
35:36If you guys want to hop in here, I'll just kind of open the floor to talk through this Browns quarterback situation.
35:42Yeah, I mean, it's brutal either way. Watson was at 5.3 yards per attempt in 2024, 6.0 throughout his Browns career.
35:48And he tore his right Achilles twice since the last time he's taken an NFL snap.
35:52Shadur, 6.6 yards per attempt, seven touchdowns, 10 picks, and nearly a 10% sack rate last year.
35:57It sounds like Watson has been good in practice this offseason.
36:00I'm obviously very hesitant to buy that. And I think it makes more sense for them to start Shadur simply because he's
36:07younger and they're not going to compete this year.
36:09But I guess we'll see what they actually end up doing.
36:12But they're implied for the third fewest points per game.
36:15Todd Munkin has had very different offenses, mostly based on personnel.
36:18They were pass happy in Tampa Bay. They were very run heavy, obviously, with Lamar Jackson.
36:23We have them for very low in play volume.
36:25And then I assume they want to run the ball a lot.
36:29But with teams this bad, it's always a question of how much will they actually be able to do that given game script.
36:35I love that we – like, I didn't – I went into this thinking I would – well, I guess I didn't really think about it too much.
36:43But I probably projected Shadur Sanders to play more.
36:46And I went through the quotes and some of the stuff in the offseason that you guys were alluding to.
36:51And I wound up projecting Watson to get 60% of the dropbacks and Sanders 40.
36:56And then I don't have a system where I could project a third quarterback and I didn't care to.
37:01But I love that you guys have it similarly, like Watson leaning a little bit.
37:05Because I was like, I wonder what they're going to do.
37:08And I assumed I had it wrong. But we're actually pretty similar in terms of the split.
37:13But, yeah, that's the way that I'm kind of reading it as well.
37:17One of the things with Monken is he's always kind of liked athletic QBs.
37:21He comes over from being in Baltimore most recently.
37:23And he's been talking – one of the specific quotes he's been talking about saying that Watson's athleticism shows up.
37:29Which is interesting coming off the Achilles. But Watson has always been a really good athlete.
37:33Like, if you go look at his rushing, even though he's been a horrible passer in Cleveland, he's always had, like, good yards per carry.
37:41When he does scramble, he finds space. Like, he has always been good with the ball in his hands.
37:46I think people probably assume a little bit that Shader Sanders is because he's the son of Deion Sanders who famously, like, ran a 4-2 in Timberlands.
37:54Like, there's all these, like, stories about Deion Sanders who was one of the greatest athletes in the history of the sport.
38:00But Shader Sanders is actually kind of not a great athlete necessarily.
38:03Not a huge scrambler. Didn't do a lot of that.
38:06And it wasn't a lot there in his prospect profile.
38:09He actually had a decent yards per carry last year.
38:12But he also did it with, like, a 10% sack rate, as Jack was talking about.
38:16Like, Watson is a little bit better in that regard.
38:19He's taking some sacks for sure. But kind of that combination of, like, when you're holding the ball, are you evading some sacks?
38:26Are you turning it into positive scrambles? At least from what I'm looking at?
38:29The last five starts for Shader, he averaged 30 rushing yards per game.
38:33He didn't run at all in, like, the first two.
38:36And then, yeah, kind of started to scramble a little bit more.
38:39I think that was mostly just he realized, like, the passing game weapons were horrendous.
38:44You know, he didn't really have anyone to throw to.
38:46And their offensive line was absolutely crumbling at that point in time.
38:50So, I don't know. After analyzing this, you know, we have Watson ahead.
38:54I personally am, like, rooting for Shader to start just to see more of the unknown.
38:58And I think it was a really difficult situation last year.
39:01Who knows if he'll end up playing any better this year.
39:04But, man, I do not want to see Deshaun Watson play quarterback in the NFL at all anymore.
39:09So, I'm personally rooting for Shader, yeah. Yeah, I thought he'd be done.
39:13The big thing I would say is their passing efficiency.
39:16Like, Watson's was really bad. But, like, Shader's was pretty poor as well.
39:20Their passing efficiency was similar. Watson has not had really high interception rates either.
39:24Shader had some pretty huge interception rates as well.
39:26In addition to having... Watson has really bad sack rates, too.
39:29But, anyway. Yeah, I'm very... Like, I'm going through the projection.
39:32I'm very curious how it works out. I mean, frankly, I'd just like to see Taylon Green.
39:37This guy's 6'6", 227, elite jumps. I mean, you're talking about 4'3", 7.
39:41Like, this is Anthony Richardson. Yeah. Well, it's funny because...
39:44Yeah, at the UTR retreat this year, I always ask Sean Newsham, PSU fans, and Alex Harden, who are, like, our college football analysts.
39:50You know, I ask for, like, the rookie scouting reports, and I'm asking about some of the Browns guys, and Sean just
39:57goes, just draft Taylon Green on every team. And I was like, you mean Dynasty team, right?
40:01He's like, no, every team. Like, if this guy...
40:04You know, if this guy plays, he's going to destroy fantasy.
40:07So, I do think he is probably a pretty interesting Dynasty stash.
40:11It's crazy how good of an athlete this guy is, dude.
40:14Yeah. Yeah, and, like, the questions about him this offseason, I've been like, are you going to convert him to tight end or wide receiver?
40:21And they're like, no, we're going to keep him at quarterback.
40:24So, I do think that is, you know, one at least interesting quarterback nugget we can toss out for the Browns here.
40:30Let's go to the running back room, though. Headlined by Quinchon Judkins, who had, you know, an interesting rookie year.
40:36Certainly tons of volume. The efficiency was not there, but also had the lowest yards before contact in the NFL last year among qualified running back.
40:43So, again, just a pretty rough offensive environment and offensive line there for the Browns.
40:47And then he dislocated his ankle and fractured his fibula on December 21st of last season.
40:52Recovery seems to be going well. He's already was practicing in, you know, the spring minicamp and seemingly looked good there.
40:58So, in terms of projections, we're at 236 rush attempts on Judkins.
41:01Gretsch is at 259. We're at 36 targets. And Gretsch is at 39 on him.
41:05And then on Dylan Sampson, we're at 84 rush attempts.
41:08Gretsch is at 77. We're at 36 targets on Sampson.
41:11Gretsch is at 53. So, we have the targets even on Judkins and Sampson, Gretsch a little bit ahead there.
41:17And obviously, we have the lion's share of rushing work on Judkins here.
41:20So, Jack, it's a pretty tough situation once again for Judkins, but he does, you know, set out to see a ton of rushing work this year.
41:28What's your read on Judkins in this backfield? Yeah, Judkins only averaged 3.6 yards per carry, but I think if you try
41:34to isolate what he did, it was actually pretty good.
41:37He was at 0.3 rush yards over expectation per attempt, 14th out of 48 qualifying running backs in yards after contact per attempt.
41:44So, I think Judkins himself was pretty good. He didn't play a lot of the pass downs, but he still had a
41:507.7% seasonal target share, which isn't absolutely terrible. The problem for Judkins is that he's likely to be a two-down back on
41:56one of the worst offenses in the league and an offense that is going to be facing negative game scripts a lot.
42:02I believe we have Judkins tied for the highest share of design carries in the league.
42:07So, we have him dominating carries within his own offense as much as anybody in the league, and we still come in
42:13below ADP on him simply because those carries are not super likely to be valuable in this offense.
42:18Samson's a little bit interesting, too. He was really inefficient as a runner, but he did get targets.
42:23He had 29% targets per outrun, 6.8 yards per target, which is actually pretty good for a running back, and if you
42:30factor in the strength of the offense, that's really impressive to have a 6.8 yards per target as a running back on the Browns offense.
42:37Last year, the pass down roll is vacated. Jerome Ford is gone.
42:40So, I think Samson is interesting from a target share perspective.
42:43If Judkins were to go down, I think Rocket Sanders could factor in a little bit.
42:48We saw that near the end of the year last year.
42:51And then going back to Judkins, the big question, he has been practicing since May, but we've seen the fibula injuries impact players the following year before.
42:58It sounds like everything is all good on the Judkins front, but it's worth keeping in mind for sure.
43:04Yeah, and on an efficiency standpoint, we're at 3.9 yards per carry on Judkins.
43:08Gretch a little bit higher at 4.1, but for the most part in lockstep there, I do think Judkins had a couple games without Dylan Sampson last season.
43:16One of those games was played in full. The second game without Sampson is when Judkins got injured, but in that one
43:22full game that Judkins had without Dylan Sampson, he ran 55% of the routes, and he had six targets in that game before he got hurt.
43:29And prior to that game, he had a 27% route share on the season.
43:33So, it did double without Dylan Sampson. I do think those roles will be pretty distinct.
43:38And then you have Todd Mocking coming over from Baltimore who had, you know, kind of Justice Hill in that past game role.
43:44So, I do think like it can slot pretty nicely in there.
43:48And Sampson was a, you know, a pretty solid prospect coming into last year and did have good target numbers.
43:53So, I think he's an interesting kind of end of draft flyer in PPR leagues.
43:58Not a whole lot of interest in half PPR, but Gretch, do you have much interest in Judkins or this backfield for fantasy this year?
44:05Yeah, no, I would just echo what you guys said.
44:07I agree on Sampson. Ryan Heath of Fantasy Points had a great stat that a different running back has led the offense
44:14in rush attempts per game and targets per game in each of Todd Munkin's seven years as an NFL offensive coordinator dating
44:20all the way to 2016 with the Bucs. I was clicking through some of his time at Georgia and it was true there too.
44:27They had like Zemir White as the lead back and then they were like throwing to James Cook a little bit out
44:33of the backfield more and Kenny McIntosh. Which up until I think like the final season it was the same back had
44:39the lead in the run and the pass down stuff, but he kind of sees those running back roles as a little bit distinct.
44:46He was with the Browns in 2019 when Chubb was the lead rusher and Kareem Hunt was the pretty clear pass down guy.
44:52So, we've seen this from him in a variety of different offenses.
44:56You mentioned obviously Derek Henry, Justice Hill the last few years in Baltimore.
45:00So, that's where I come out with, I mean, I'm even light on you guys on the rush attempts for Samson, but
45:06come out with significantly more targets for Samson relative to a Judkins because of that.
45:10And then also just because of the receiving efficiency that Jack mentioned, 1.86 yards per outrun, very good as a rookie.
45:16He mentioned that the targets per out, yards per target, I have different source, slightly different numbers, but same general vibe, very strong for a running back.
45:24Jack Judkins was at about half of that at 1.05 yards per outrun, which isn't even terrible or anything, but Samson was really, really solid.
45:31And so, I do think we're kind of going that direction.
45:34And then what Jack said as well, I just had a note that I thought Judkins was probably better than the 3.6 yards per carry he had.
45:41He did have, like you mentioned some of the yards after contact, some of the rush yards over expected was good.
45:47He did have pretty poor evasion numbers. I was kind of disappointed to see that, I guess, when I was digging into some of the advanced stuff.
45:55I mean, there's a lot of times when he was contacted in the backfield, like when you were watching those games, and
46:01then eventually he would kind of hit for one.
46:04I don't know, like, enough about, you know, rushing efficiency to know, like, what was really the different stuff, but it seemed
46:10like when it was well blocked, he would get it, but sometimes he wasn't, you know, creating anything necessarily on his own,
46:16although it's hard to parse that from the offensive line being really bad, but the offensive line is expected to be pretty poor.
46:23Again, I was looking at a few different sources.
46:25They, I mean, some of them have them dead last, some of them have them in the bottom five.
46:31They have four out of five new expected starters that were not with the team last year, three veteran ads, two from
46:37free agency, one in a trade, and then a 2026 first round pick at tackle, and so continuity becomes a thing at
46:43offensive line, and so that's also, I mean, not great when you have two quarterbacks that take sacks and then some of
46:49the issues with Judkins, this offense, not a lot of reason for optimism.
46:53They do have the fourth easiest schedule, so we got that going for us.
46:57For sure, and just insane youth across the board here for the Browns, especially if Shadur starts at quarterback, like, almost every
47:03one of their skill players is going to be 22 or 23 and under outside of Jerry Judy, who's only 27, but,
47:09you know, you have Casey Concepcion, Denzel Boston, Quinchot Junkins, and then Harold Fannin, who are all really young, so it's going
47:16to be, there's going to be some bumps and bruises along the way, and I just find it a little ironic that
47:22Todd Monken gets his first head coaching job at age 60 and is like, you know, just thrust into an offense full
47:28of guys that are 22 years old. It's pretty interesting there, but let's go on to that wide receiver room because they
47:34did invest a decent amount of capital at that position this season, drafted Casey Concepcion in the first round, and then Denzel Boston high in the second round.
47:42Jerry Judy returns to this team as well, and then obviously you have Harold Fannin, who was, you know, rookie tight end
47:49breakout last year, drafted in the third round and was a young tight end at only 21 years old, so pretty interesting
47:55pass catchers to talk through here in terms of target distribution.
47:58We have Casey Concepcion leading this wide receiver room at 86 targets.
48:01Gretsch is at 79. We're at 71 targets on Denzel Boston.
48:04Gretsch is at 50 there, and then on Jerry Judy, we're at 69 targets, and Gretsch is at 100 targets, so massive discrepancy there.
48:11That is also a spot we've gotten kind of like bullied down a little bit, opened the offseason a lot higher on
48:17Jerry Judy, and there are some questions on what his role will be, again, just kind of given the draft capital invested
48:24into the other two guys here, but I don't know.
48:26Hilariously, I still have fewer receiving touchdowns for Jerry Judy than you guys, even with like 30 more targets.
48:32That is pretty wild. That has been like his biggest issue in his career, only a 2.8% TD rate throughout his career, but he has average...
48:3917 touchdowns on 607 targets. This team's not getting used in the end.
48:43I mean, QBs have always sucked, but like, whoo.
48:45Crazy for sure, and yeah, over 600 targets in six seasons.
48:49He's averaged over 100 targets a year, and people just do not want this dude at all in fantasy football.
48:54He's going as the wide receiver 73 right now on underdogs, so essentially free back there, but Denzel Boston is like the
49:00prototypical X receiver, and then last year with the Browns, Jerry Judy ran 80% of his routes out wide.
49:06He's been 64. He was 64% out wide in Cleveland the prior season, but was like a 60% slot guy in Denver,
49:12so I do think there is some potential change that could come there, and then Casey Concepcion has drawn some Zay Flower
49:18comps, you know, and especially I think with Todd Monken coming over here, that has like proliferated a little bit, and Zay
49:24Flowers has been two-thirds out wide, one-third in the slot, so I think we see Denzel Boston out wide for sure here,
49:31and then Concepcion and Judy could potentially be interchangeable out wide and in the slot, but I've been pretty into Concepcion, I
49:37think, just given, you know, he was one of the more talented wide receiver prospects, so Gratch, I'll toss that to your
49:43way a little bit, you know, in fantasy drafts, he's going 45 spots behind Makai Lemon at this point in time, and
49:49I think has a little bit clearer path to targets, obviously a much, much worse offense, but only drafted four spots behind Makai Lemon.
49:56I'm curious if you're, if you're excited about Casey Concepcion and his profile at all, or, you know, a little bit disappointed
50:02in the landing spot and looking more towards, you know, kind of like a dynasty pick more so than a redraft pick for this year.
50:09Well, he has a lot going for him. I mean, he's an early declare, turns 22 in September, so super young, really
50:16good evasion rates, ball and hand stuff. He went to two different colleges.
50:19They both used him on rushes a good amount.
50:22They had him out there on punt returns last year, which we've seen over the years.
50:26There's some signal in teams just trying to get the ball in guys' hands in different ways.
50:31He didn't test, but I think we can pretty good, get a pretty good feel that he's got the quickness and the
50:38ability with some of the numbers, the ball in hand stuff, the evasion rates.
50:41His targets per hour run all three years of college were really high, at least 24.6%, 88 plus targets all three years, two years over 100.
50:49I mean, it seems like a really good ball in hand guy.
50:52He's under 200 pounds, but he's going to be athletic and shifty and all those things.
50:57One of the really interesting things about his fit as it relates back to Shader Sanders and what this offense looked like
51:03last year and like one of the reasons I'm, I don't want to be in on Jerry Judy again.
51:08I had a lot of him last year when I wrote my field tippers article, earlier this off season.
51:14I mean, I outright was like this stat I'm about to tell you makes you want to like kind of get back
51:20into Judy and I was like, typically that would be due to QB play and then I'd have to make a case
51:26that Judy's longer track record probably makes him the one that you should consider a rebound from, which is not a case I'm going to make.
51:34So let's just say they all suck and move on from it.
51:37Like that's the way I ended that article and we're months later.
51:40This is, I did a little bit of a positive Calvin Ridley thing on the AFC South thing.
51:45Calvin Ridley's 32. Jerry Judy's 27 years old, has a ton of money on his contract for two more years.
51:51Every time they've asked about Jerry Judy this off season, the team has told you that they still think of him as a starting wide receiver.
51:58They asked after the draft how the wide receiver selections affect Jerry Judy.
52:02Zero impact on Jerry. Jerry. He's our bell cow.
52:05He had, they've had a bunch of positive stuff about him in the pre-draft in the early off season about how the offense let him down.
52:12The stat that I was alluding to within this offense last year, the running backs had really high target rates.
52:18The tight ends at low A dots had high target rates and then all of the wide receivers were suppressed.
52:23The quarterbacks could not get the ball down the field.
52:26Judy led the wide receivers in targets per out run at 17.4%, which was for him a career low, but it was
52:32higher than every other wide receiver on this roster.
52:35He had a terrible year. He had a horrible drops issues.
52:38He had a lot of effort issues. Again, he's owed a ton of money through 2027 probably on the team unless they
52:44do like a post July 1 cut next year and eat like still some money to do that.
52:49And again, still just 27 years old. It's not the same thing as the Ridley thing where he's like 32 and I'm
52:56probably out of my mind and they have Carnell Titan.
52:58He's a top five guy. This is a late first round pick in Concepcion who plays a different role in my mind.
53:05He's a ball in hand underneath guy, even though you said that they're going to move these guys around.
53:10Judy is a dot has been more, you know, legitimately vertical.
53:13I always kind of think about it because the concern for me would be more about Boston.
53:18I really like Boston. I'm a UW alum. He's a bigger dude.
53:21Praise for his physicality at the catch point. Some people don't like how dependent he is on contested catches.
53:27I think he's good. I think he's going to be probably solid.
53:30I do think it's probably a tougher role to succeed with poor QB play right away.
53:35He had kind of a high eight odd over 1100 yards both the past two years.
53:39I have a hard time seeing him objectively, but I like he was a later producer in college as well.
53:45We like to see early production, a hard time seeing him objectively again because I saw him live.
53:50I watch all their games. I'm a, you know, I went to school there, so I thought he was great and I
53:56think he's probably going to be good, but I've been wrong on a lot of UW.
54:01No, no UW players are ever good in the NFL in case you guys are unaware.
54:05But Judy still ran a ton of routes last year as well.
54:09I want to mention he was like deemed like a route merchant in 2024.
54:13He ran 591 routes again last year. His 17.4% target sprout and his 5.8 yards per target both career lows by a lot.
54:19You have the drops in effort issues. You have all that.
54:22His previous clear yards per out run 1.65. He was all the way down to 1.02 last year.
54:27His catch rate was way lower than career high, career low.
54:30His depth adjusted racer stuff that I look at tends to actually be positive.
54:34He tends to be efficient relative to his depth.
54:37It was very negative last year. Maybe he's just done at 27, but it looks like he was just like out on
54:43the season and they've been saying all offseason he's their dude.
54:46So I didn't want to project him to lead the team in targets.
54:50They got two rookies. I think they're going to play those rookies a lot.
54:54I'm still projecting those guys to combine for 130 targets.
54:57I think Concepcion is going to have the clearer early role as the first round pick.
55:01He's another one that I gave solid rush attempt volume to as well.
55:05I think Boston is going to probably play a good amount, but I have a decent a little role.
55:10I have a bigger role for Tillman than you guys and I probably don't like that.
55:15I probably just want to give that over to Boston.
55:18I just didn't, you know, I had some Tillman and some Isaiah Bond.
55:21You guys have more for Bond. I just think they're going to do some rotational stuff, whatever, but to me, Judy, again,
55:28as like this veteran, I don't think you just throw, especially when like Sanders is out there at quarterback, you throw all the rookies out there.
55:35The second you're tight end and the two rookie receivers and say, hey, you know, second your quarterback, all you guys go figure it out.
55:42Second year running back and Judy, that's why they called him the bell cow.
55:46He's their veteran. They're paying him a bunch of money.
55:49Again, ran 600 routes, even when he wasn't even trying last year, they kept running him out there.
55:54Different coaching staff, same GM. I don't know. I think he's going to run a lot of routes, dude.
55:59For sure. And best ball, he's Judy is almost a guy I'd be willing to put, push like all my chips in
56:06on if, if just get at his price. If I felt a little bit better about the quarterback play and then you
56:12do have like the TD rate kind of dragging him down a little bit in that regard.
56:17But, but man, yeah, I mean, you just, you just take the profile as a 27 year old, former first round pick
56:23who's averaged 100 targets throughout his career. You know, I think it's kind of hard to, to be any lower than we are.
56:29Like, I think we're as low as we can go and we're still above market there.
56:34And the case I made last year on this show was every quarterback he'd ever played with was terrible.
56:39You go back, like you put Brett Ripp in a bunch and like Russell Wilson in Denver when he was like bad
56:46was like one of the better quarterbacks he ever played with.
56:49Judy's never played with anyone decent. Not that he, you know, was looking like he was going to going into last year,
56:55but I was making the case last year that maybe because it was like Joe Flacco was going to start.
57:01Maybe that's going to be the best QB he's played with for fantasy production.
57:04And obviously Judy has a horrible year last year, but my point is the longer track record that I'm saying that last
57:11year was an outlier from was with bad quarterback play every year of his career.
57:15He's been able to still be a 1.6 He was awful last year, probably the worst individual football player of the entire season.
57:21I watch all the games for every team. It was like one of the worst individual seasons you'll see at any position.
57:28So I don't want to draft him and I have not like clicked his name at all, but I do think objectively it's probably a good click.
57:35Jack, we're above a market on all three wide receivers and Fannin here.
57:39And again, that's a little uneasy just kind of given the quarterback play outlook.
57:43But, you know, we have the QBs here pretty muted.
57:46I think we're at like six and a half yards per attempt on both guys.
57:50So, you know, quite low. But curious your thoughts on this wide receiver room if there's any guys that you're eager to take in fantasy this season.
57:58Yeah, I mean, I think for us being high on everyone versus market, I think it's a spot where the market kind
58:04of just decides not to draft certain players on these teams.
58:07But when you actually project it out, I mean, you can't project the rounds for like one touchdown per game.
58:13Like we can project them for among the lowest touchdowns per game.
58:16But even when you do that, we kind of end up higher.
58:19Whereas some people just decide, oh, they're on the Browns.
58:22I'm not going to draft them. We're higher on Garrett Wilson, too.
58:26We'll get to that eventually. But for this receiver room specifically, I'll say that Boston has been getting really good reviews from Brown's practices all offseason.
58:33I think that his lack of production early in the career is somewhat defensible because he was behind Rome, Jalen McMillan, Polk, and Jeremy Bernard as well.
58:41So I think that that kind of explains part of why he didn't produce for his first years.
58:46And then when he did get on the field, he was productive at the same time.
58:50He didn't produce when he was playing behind Jalen Polk.
58:53So I mean, take that for what it's worth.
58:56But I think that they're talking up getting Concepcion on the ball in a bunch of ways.
59:01I believe the phrase they used was a bevy of ways.
59:04So I think that he's going to get a bunch of design touches.
59:07He won the Paul Hornig Award for the most versatile player in college football last year.
59:12Gretch alluded to his kick and fun return abilities.
59:14I think they're going to try to get the ball in his hands a lot and let him make plays.
59:20And that's certainly a better fit for their quarterback room than Denzel Boston trying to win down the field.
59:25So I kind of agree with what you guys have said.
59:29Maybe a little higher Boston just on the offseason reviews that he's gotten so far.
59:33Isaiah Bond has also been talked about really glowingly.
59:35That's why we're a little higher. And it sounds like Tillman probably makes the roster but it's not a lock.
59:41So that's why we have Bond ahead. But I mostly think it's going to be these top three.
59:46I mean Bond was at 0.13 targets per route run last year.
59:49So I think targets could consolidate around these top three receivers and Fannin quite a bit.
59:54I'll have you guys know that while Jack was talking I just took half a percentage point of target share off of
60:00Jerry Judy and Cedric I'm going to move to Denzel Boston because I mean it's just embarrassing.
60:05What a world. Real life reactions to how great this Browns wide receiver room.
60:09But honestly when I was looking at this team last night I was like man okay Consessio in Boston I feel like decent prospects I like those guys.
60:17Judy I feel like has just kicked to the curb but he's a solid NFL wide receiver and then you have Harold
60:23Fannin if we get some quarterback play with Todd MF and Monken at the helm here I think this could be somewhat
60:29of an exciting team potentially but obviously I'm looking through rose colored glasses and it's likely to be another tough season for the Browns.
60:36And I'll rephrase I said targets could consolidate I meant snaps could consolidate within the wide receiver room I don't think this
60:42is going to be a super concentrated offense but I think because of how bad Bond was at earning targets last year
60:49it sounds like Tillman is completely irrelevant I think you could see wide receiver snaps really condense around the top three to
60:55the point that they're really just playing three guys.
60:57Let's go to the tight end room Harold Fannin mentioned he had a strong rookie tight end season volume wise he had
61:0472 catches 731 yards and six touchdowns he also had seven carries for 13 yards and a touchdown so clearly they were
61:10trying to get the ball into Harold Fannin's hands last year he finished eighth among NFL tight ends in receiving yards and
61:16he had at least a 19% target share in every game from week six to 16 so he was eased in routes
61:22wise a little bit with David Njoku there but you know really took over down the stretch and just given how brutal
61:29this offense was all around I think the Fannin season was pretty impressive they also drafted Joe Royer out of Cincinnati he
61:35also went to Elder High School which I have a few good friends who went there so shout out Joe Royer and
61:41Elder here but Fannin is you know is the bell of the ball here Gretsch had a strong rookie season and you
61:47know is now being drafted as a tight end seven and has much more target competition this year so I'm curious if
61:53you think there's much of a leap from Fannin this year we actually haven't projected for the most targets on the team
62:00we're at 102 you're at 110 so it looks like you're in the same boat there what are your expectations for Harold
62:06Fannin going into his sophomore season I mean I think he's a stud we talked about it last year on the show
62:12but 117 catches his final year at Bowling Green didn't lead a conference or all tight ends it led all of FBS
62:18at any position so did the 1555 receiving yards people who pointed out that that was at Bowling Green were missing that
62:25they played Penn State on the road and I think it was A&M on the road and in back-to-back weeks I believe
62:31it was lost by like six and seven and so they're like in these games and Harold Fannin was their whole offense
62:37in both games was like the other team should be trying to stop this guy he's the one that's like carrying a
62:43Bowling Green team to almost upset teams like Penn State in Happy Valley and then he comes in last year he's an
62:50age 21 rookie everyone's worried about it he's got duck feet and all this stuff production is production man he led the
62:56team in targets receptions yards and touchdowns in a bad situation his 23.9% targets per route run by PFS numbers it led
63:02all tight ends who ran at least 250 routes he was ahead of McBride and George Kittle I mean McBride ran a
63:08ton of routes we talked about that Fannin ran fewer but another notice in Joku in this offense had been over 23%
63:14two years in a row people a couple years back talked about how he was a Flacco merchant and Flacco's back and
63:21Joku's going to catch all these passes his targets per route when Fannin steps in as a 21 year old rookie goes
63:27from over 23% two years in a row to 16.6% last year with Fannin on the roster had a low ADOT his
63:33yards per target not amazing but if you adjust for that low ADOT solid 1.68 yards per route run not amazing but
63:39again for a tight end in a terrible situation leading the whole team in volume leading the position and targets per route
63:46to still put up you know decent efficiency on the back end his ball and hand stuff looked good made guys miss
63:52had some missed tackles force this guy's a stud they asked Todd Monken if you reminded him of any tight ends in
63:58his past Todd Monken was at Georgia I just mentioned a few minutes ago and Brock Bowers was there and Todd Monken
64:04didn't hesitate to draw that comparison and say he just reminds me of Brock Bowers just like that dude yeah I mean
64:10Harold Fannin's a legit stud like this guy he's going into his age 22 season the fact that he just did what
64:17he did at age 21 in the offense that he was in and what he had done at Bowling Green that I'm
64:23referencing I mean it can't get overstated I don't love the situation again this year but I mean I don't pass on
64:29guys that I think are this good I try to get exposure to them yeah and if Shadur does end up at
64:35quarterback Fannin's numbers were even stronger with him he had a 28% target per outrun and a 24% target share with Shadur
64:42at quarterback so maybe that connection you know could be become fruitful once again this year and you know we kind of
64:48talk about all the potential outcomes of the wide receiver room I certainly feel the most confident in Fannin kind of repeating
64:54his success from his rookie year given all you laid out there all right let's go on to Baltimore a fun fantasy
65:00offense finally here in our number two of the show they bring in Jesse Minter as the head coach and then Declan
65:07Doyle is over as the offensive coordinator and play caller he was in Chicago last year under Ben Johnson previously was in
65:13Denver under Sean Payton and then was with the Saints under Sean Payton as well so so a Sean Payton and Ben
65:19Ben Johnson product here in Declan Doyle heads to Baltimore in terms of play level or a team level play calling here
65:25we have we have the Ravens at 61.4 plays Gretchen's at 61.9 we're at a 55 and a half percent pass rate
65:31Gretchen's at 54 percent so a little bit lower on the pass rate but our 55 and a half percent pass rate
65:38projection is the lowest we have in the NFL so we're certainly not expecting the Ravens to throw the ball much at
65:44all this season it is the first season for Lamar Jackson without John Harbaugh though so it'll be interesting to see kind
65:50of kind of how that plays out this season Jack here's your thoughts on Declan Doyle coming over and and this is
65:56you know kind of we haven't seen him call plays before he was the OC last year in Chicago but Ben Johnson
66:03called plays so so rookie play caller here in Baltimore with with Lamar Jackson at quarterback what are you expecting out of
66:09Declan Doyle in this Ravens offense yeah we haven't seen a ton from Declan Doyle like you said hasn't called plays yet
66:15but I think learning from Sean Payton and Ben Johnson is one of the better come-ups you can have he's only 30
66:21years old so he's a part of this young exciting group of coaches that are kind of ascending into the head coach
66:27spot now but in terms of how that actually affects the Ravens team level projection we're kind of just assuming they're going
66:34to be what they have been in recent years from a play volume and and pass rate standpoint I mean we've seen
66:40this offense be hyper successful running the ball a bunch it makes sense they have Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry at their
66:46disposal so from a team level projection standpoint we're kind of just expecting Doyle to maybe add some add some new tricks
66:52but projection wise more of the same yeah and last year they were faltered quite a bit and plays per game we
66:59have them at 29th last season with about 56 real plays per game this year we're up at 61.4 which is 18th
67:05in the league and my my first thought was Doyle you know coming from Ben Johnson they the Bears and Lions have
67:11run a ton of plays under under Ben Johnson and then similar with Sean Payton in Denver so I was you know
67:17a little bit optimistic about the tempo upside Thorman also mentioned that kind of in his in his pace article as well
67:24that that could potentially be unearthed a little bit but yeah in terms of like raw pass attempts you know last year
67:30the Ravens finished 32nd in the year prior they were 31st and then 30th and 28th so you know certainly not expecting
67:36like a big pass attempt leap here anything but Gretchen any any overarching thoughts on on Declan Doyle here yeah no I
67:42mean I think it's I think he's a he's a tricky one like I've seen a lot of people reference the Ben
67:48Johnson stuff as if he's gonna run a Ben Johnson offense he's I believe the youngest OC in the league he's like
67:55six months older than Lamar Jackson he's just turned 30 years turning 30 this year his I was looking at him into
68:01his background and I mean like he started as a student assistant in college and then immediately out of college and his
68:07dad was like a strength and conditioning coach but he was hired by Sean Payton Saints back back when like they saw
68:13like Michael Thomas having his career year and stuff so he's been he's had a lot of time at the NFL level
68:20but he spent a lot of time with Payton he was with the Saints for several years and then moved on to
68:26the Broncos before the one year under Ben Johnson I do think both of those teams used a lot of motion a
68:32lot of different personnel a lot of multiplicity I'm thinking it's still going to be a pretty run-heavy offense with play action
68:38off of that and these different things that you know you guys are kind of talking through I was reading Dorman's pace
68:44notes as well and he was kind of saying you know there's some potential for some pace but also like don't get
68:51too excited because it's kind of the way that things have been with Lamar so I mean I'm I'm not expecting you
68:57know we both have them relatively low in play ball I'm a ton in play ball they do have the sixth easiest
69:03strength of schedule the Vegas win total quite high I think based on what people are expecting it's I mean these days
69:09you know there's a lot of juice either way I think it's set at 11.5 a lot of under juice and then
69:16you can you know pay a lot of juice on the over at 10.5 it's basically like 11 if you want to
69:22split the difference but yeah I mean I think I think it's a fascinating year because you also have a really young
69:28first-time head coach as the DC in Jesse Minter there's been some parallels drawn between him and Mike McDonald they were position
69:34coaches together for four years in Baltimore from I think it was 2017 to 2020 they they had different position groups linebackers
69:41and safeties or whatever it was when they were both very young dudes and Minter moved on and then I was back
69:47as the head coach for the Ravens I bring up McDonald I think he you know you go through his first OC
69:53name slipping me the the UW guy Ryan Ryan Grubb Grubb and he has like a half decent first year as a
69:59coordinator but he fires him right away and wants to install a different type of offense or at least this is the
70:05way I've read it that McDonald had a little bit more of a hand and like this is the offense I think
70:12you need to have you need to have the Shanahan tree offense they go to Clint Kubiak they've obviously now lost Clint
70:18Kubiak but stayed with that type of tree with their new OC hire my point being that I think there's some possibility
70:24that Minter has a little bit of a say in and based on this hire as well in where the direction of
70:30the offense is going to go and what he was looking for and to me looking at McDonald that it did lean
70:37again toward that run-based play action based sort of sort of offense it's a tough one for me to to figure out
70:43what we're going to see out of this offense because I think Lamar Jackson's skill set dictates a lot and again with
70:49the really young coaches a lot of optimism from the from the market it'll it'll be and then I mean heck let's
70:55talk about Derek Henry I mean turn 32 in January like just because we've been wrong guessing at an age cliff for
71:01years doesn't mean that's not potentially there but if he's on the field yeah it's gonna be run-based if he's not on
71:08the field is Justice Hill gonna be a power back is Adam Randall this rookie who just transitioned from wide receiver to
71:14running back in his last college year gonna be a power back is Rasheen Ali I think that changes the look of
71:20the offense massively whether Derek Henry gets through 17 games or not in his age 32 season and really he'll be 33
71:26in January of this year I mean like the end of the regular season this is a guy that as long as
71:33durable and great as he's been is getting up there for sure and running back years yeah and the and the pass
71:39catcher core is pretty top ever here with Zay Flowers and and but you know Mark Andrews had a pretty big or
71:45pretty brutal fall off last year so it's like you know questions around his if he's hitting age cliff at all and
71:51then they draft two rookies on Jacoby Lane and Elijah Surratt this year so there I do think there are some some
71:58decent questions about this Baltimore offense it is I honestly hadn't looked at the win total the fact that they're priced around
72:0411 I do think does does you know present a lot of optimism here because you know there are some I think
72:10some decent holes to poke in the approaches here but let's start with the Lamar of it all in terms of inputs
72:16we're at 475 pass times scratch at 482 pretty similar in terms of completion percentage we're close to 65 percent Gretchen's at
72:2266 percent but what I really want to hone in and talk about is is Lamar's rushing output because last year that
72:29that's really what took a dip he was QB 16 and fantasy points per game last year had never been you know
72:35below QB seven since 2021 and it mostly came from the rushing side of things last year he only averaged 27 rushing
72:41yards per game coming into last season Lamar had averaged 60 rushing yards per game in his career just just absolutely insane
72:47I honestly didn't realize it was it was that high that's that's absolutely out of control averaging 60 rushing yards per game
72:54for Lamar and honestly it came a lot from the designed rush attempts last year he had 27 design rushes according to
73:00our SIS data and only in 13 games in the previous season he had 98 and 17 games and the year before
73:06that 2023 at 84 design rush attempts in 16 games so last year he had like two design rush attempts per game
73:12and the previous two years it was at like five and a half so it's almost cut in third just a massive
73:18gap there so in terms of our rush attempt projection we're at 122 on Lamar Gretchen's at 115 so Jack this is
73:25a spot you know I think is is pretty impactful and important to get right in terms of projecting Lamar Jackson as
73:31as a you know fantasy asset this season we're currently a little bit above market on him and basketball have him as
73:37the QB to this year so what's your read on on this Lamar rushing output do you do you think the the
73:43design attempts will come back this year you know he is only 29 years old so I don't think the age is
73:50a huge concern but what's what's your level of confidence in Lamar kind of returning to his his rushing ways yeah like
73:56you said it was mostly from a design run standpoint his scramble rate was still 8.2% he didn't have any scrambles in
74:02his final two appearances of the season on limited dropbacks but when he came back from the injury he was still scrambling
74:08a decent amount he had five combined scrambles his first two weeks back from the hamstring injury so it was mostly the
74:15design stuff and it was pretty stark splits before and after the hamstring injury he had the hamstring in week four his
74:21first four design run rates to start the year were 18 percent 6 percent 25 percent and 15 percent that's very much
74:27in line with where he's been over the previous few seasons once he came back from the hamstring injury his average single
74:33game share the rest of the season was only six percent so I think coming off an offseason to get healthy I
74:39think we should see those design carries jump back up a little bit I will say there I think that 29 years
74:46old for someone who's as dependent on running as him and who has done as much running as him coming off hamstring
74:52injury there's at least reason to be non-zero concern but it's not like 29 is super old by any means and it's
74:58not like he's getting a true running back workload and he has been pretty good throughout his career at avoiding contact so
75:04I'm mostly expecting the design runs to come back and the scrambling was was still there at least in terms of scrambling
75:11volume so I feel okay investing in Lamar again this year personally yeah and we I don't know how you split out
75:17your like quarterback rushing projections if you do a designed and a scramble aspect to it but this year yeah this year
75:23we're projecting 3.4 designed carries per game I mentioned last year that was down at like two per game in the previous
75:29years it was more like five and a half so we're you know we're in the middle a little bit but kind
75:35of leaning slightly more into last year just you know cut to honestly be honest a little conservative there what what what
75:42are you projecting for his designed rush attempts per game this year so I do it as a ratio of drop backs
75:48I have it at I'm just converting it right now I have it at just over four 4.04 design carries per game
75:54what did you say you guys have it like 3.4 okay so I do have it coming back so and and this
76:00is a huge thing like in the projection he came out lower than for me than I expected him to I often
76:07have him come out high but there's also the element of his passing efficiency which like is even last year in a
76:13tough year his past year it was seven percent he had an 8.7 percent the year prior back in 2019 when he
76:19was a QB1 he had an 8.0 percent he's had several other years lower five percent six percent but even those are
76:25high for most guys and a big part of that gets back to the scramble rate sometimes high sack rate where when
76:32Lamar's actually putting an attempt up it's usually a potentially high efficiency throw Baltimore's offense is so fascinating to me because there's
76:38been times where under Lamar they've looked completely unstoppable on offense and people have set the expectations so high that then they
76:44talk about them as like chokers or they fail to meet expectations and there's other times where they don't look great necessarily
76:50I've long felt that at their peak people sort of under or overstate how dominant they are because they can just look
76:56so they can just lean on you so hard and win games and in a way that makes you think that they're
77:03unstoppable but it can be different a few breaks go you're in a negative game script a few breaks go the different
77:09way it's different and I think that's what last year was it's fascinating I'm with Jack with the age stuff and like
77:15being a little concerned about the rushing at the same time 2024 was the best season of his career from a variety
77:21of standpoints his sack rate plummeted that year when I was I was really high on him last year when Leonie and
77:28I did this stream because he got the sack rate way down and the passing efficiency up across the board yards per
77:34attempt up pass TDs up we talked with like the Caleb Williams stuff about how he got the sack rate down by
77:40throwing the ball away and taking hits on passing efficiency what Lamar Jackson did in 2024 to get the sack rate down
77:46he the scramble right came down but not by a massive amount it was still a lot not as much as the
77:52sack rate came down and he's getting the ball out efficiently when he is getting it out everything he was doing in
77:59the pocket so much better in 2024 than even it had been prior in his career which has been great at other
78:05times 2025 all that went backwards right but he's played hurt for a bunch of it as Jack noted he gets hurt
78:11like in week three or four or whatever it was sack rate way back up actually a career high at the same
78:17time the scramble rate is down so he's trying to extend plays but he's not getting into space right the pass efficiency
78:24comes down pretty much across the board completion percentage yards still pretty solid pass TD rate still pretty solid at the end
78:30of the day but not all of it I mean all of it pretty much did come down quite a bit and
78:36so I'm doing this like long view thing I'm zooming out again I mean his his fantasy points per game in FFPC
78:42scoring in 2024 as the QB1 was 28.2 Josh Allen as the QB1 last year was 24.3 I think that's part of
78:49why last year was a late round QB year where Drake May and Matthew Stafford and stuff were so close to Allen
78:55because there was nobody that was separating these elite dual threat guys but Lamar what Lamar did in 2024 would have smashed
79:01from a from a high QB ADP in 2025 and he had even higher points per game back in that 2019 season
79:07the other time he was the QB1 he's had some other years that have been lower and my point is we know
79:13this profile can can really hit when he's doing the things that whatever it is he's a magician whatever it is that
79:20causes him to both scramble and throw efficiently at a really high rate the playmaker vibe when he's holding the ball if
79:26he can get back to that in a new offense it almost doesn't matter what the pass volume is as well because
79:32it's been really low pass volume but again that's he gets the per attempt efficiency to such elite numbers the touchdowns are
79:38so elite I it's a really tricky one with Lamar that like I said the projection came out low for me and
79:45then I went back and was like I'm dumb in the scale I'm adding rushing attempts to this like I mean I
79:51looked at it again and I was like this is probably low the design run rate last year was so much lower
79:57than all the prior years as you guys talked about so I started adding some more design runs back a little bit
80:03also just thinking about the Derrick Henry fragility and like what they have at running back they gotta lean on his athleticism
80:09I think he's so good with the ball in his hands and he's not like old at all I just I don't
80:16know what you can do from an offensive structure standpoint to like not use Lamar Jackson's athleticism so I do think that's
80:22still going to be there he's a very fascinating one the main point just to drive it all home is like that
80:28I do think the ceiling is there like Jack was saying to justify a higher ADP and it's actually a little lower
80:34this year than some other years because he's coming off a down season for sure he is that's a great point too
80:41and that he is still going as the QB too but his ADP right now in underdog is 55 you know so
80:47going in the middle of the fifth round whereas previous years you have to take him in the third or fourth round
80:53for sure if you wanted Lamar so you are you are getting that discount even though positionally he is he is going
80:59as the QB too and I think you know just betting on betting on Lamar to be a sick football player sick
81:06fantasy quarterback long term is like kind of where I want to be so I'm trying not to get too hung up
81:12on on what last year turned into and you know kind of looking at the pass catcher core but but let's go
81:18to Derek Henry because that is another you know massive fantasy point to talk through on this team Gretchen mentioned he is
81:24now 32 years old but he's been the RB7 and RB3 and half PPR points per game since joining the Ravens he's
81:30averaged 5.6 yards per carry in his Ravens career and I was I was kind of looking at the the yards before
81:37contact numbers and he's at 3.0 yards per contact before per attempt and in his Baltimore career and it was 2.1 in
81:43Tennessee so he's basically added like a free yard per carry just just I think that's probably the Lamar effect and and
81:49you know Henry hasn't necessarily lost a step either so when you're getting over 300 carries and getting you know actually yard
81:55before contact per attempt that's a pretty solid pretty solid boost there he also led the NFL and carries inside the 10
82:02and 5 yard line last season he was second inside the 5 carries in 2024 so it's it's been a pretty bulletproof
82:08profile for Henry in a Baltimore uniform thus far but I you know I do think it really is age concern so
82:14I don't know if there's a a tough a ton to diagnose here necessarily but but Jack we are above market on
82:20Henry this year which has not been the case in previous seasons you know we have him ranked 13th overall and half
82:26PPR and on underdog he's going at ADP around 18 and I think it's mostly like we haven't really changed any inputs
82:33on on Derek Henry it's just the market has soured on him a little bit like he's been a you know one
82:39to turn pretty much if not higher the last several seasons and then and then for whatever reason he's down at at
82:45ADP 18 so I don't know Jack any thoughts on Derek Henry entering his age 32 season yeah I will say that
82:51compared to his first season in Baltimore his efficiency stuff did drop a little bit according to pro football references yards after
82:58contact per attempt was down 0.4 his attempts per broken tackle is how they do it that was down quite a bit
83:04I think part of the efficiency stuff though in general is reliant on Lamar so having either not having Lamar or having
83:10an injured Lamar kind of affects that on the whole but I also went back and looked at our 2025 season long
83:16projections and from a target and carry share standpoint we are almost identical in terms of how we're projecting Derek Henry I
83:23think there's an argument to be made that maybe we should take him down a little bit just because he's another year
83:29older but we were also he was also 32 years older whatever he was last year at this time so we were
83:35all we were baking in the age stuff last year as well and he just shoved it in our faces so I
83:41think that kind of juxtaposing the fact that we already had age age related risks built in last year combined with the
83:47fact that he had another monster season kind of offsets it and it makes sense that we're where we are projecting him
83:54similarly to where we are last year but you you said it that the market has soured on him this year I
84:00think his ADP is seven spots lower than it was last year despite a relatively similar situation beyond being another year older
84:06inputs wise we're at 269 carries on Henry Gretchen's at 263 and then we're pretty much in lock he also have the
84:12same efficiency at 4.7 yards per carry so nearly identical across the board on Derek Henry Gretchen what's your interest level and
84:19and in a mid-second round ADP on on Henry this season well I I mean I probably won't draft Henry all year
84:25but that's just because of my own biases but and he's dumped you know stuff me in lockers for years but because
84:31I think it's sort of the small hit big miss mentality I guess like I don't know that he actually can get
84:37to the RB1 overall ceiling he's probably going to be productive having said that when I go through the projection I had
84:43a hard time not giving him a massive number of touchdowns first of all I mean this is a team that actually
84:50projects for a ton of points because of the easy schedule and the high win total and like who's taking is Adam
84:56Randall taking touchdowns like who's and that's the other thing I had a hard time not projecting him for a massive number
85:02of rush attempts I think Adam Randall is really interesting apparently it was a pick by the owner Steve biscotti or whatever
85:08they were talking about like the GM and the coach that are all just like yeah it'll be interesting to see you
85:15know what happens with him he's versatile I'd say it doesn't make me feel great that it does not make me feel
85:21great that that was immediately dubbed as oh yeah this was this was the owner's selection on that right wide receiver background
85:27they've talked about loving his versatility but they've also talked about special teams a lot it's you know it's a Tyrone Tracy
85:33mold he is very athletic is like Rass was very strong he's 232 but he's also tall for running back at like
85:406'2 but he benched 26 times which is quite a bit like when I was watching some film on him like when
85:46he runs he runs like a bigger dude which is funny because Henry does too Henry's obviously thick too but Henry's a
85:52taller back most backs are six foot or smaller Henry's like 6'3 and huge but Randall's another tall big back but there's
85:58some some stuff in his film for sure where he seems like he should get knocked down he runs through some tackles
86:04or he's able to fight near the goal line so there's some stuff there like being 232 and being a guy who
86:11benched really good and then he had great jumps only a 4.540 but I think he's you know a bigger runner than
86:17the other guys than Justice Hill who by by the way is also 29 in November then Rasheen Ali who's closer to
86:23like 200 pounds Justice Hill I think last clocked it like just under 200 pounds so those guys are a lot smaller
86:29and then Randall again has the wide receiver background so could come for some of hills receiving work as well I think
86:36Adam Randall's kind of an interesting dude and I do think if Henry went down he's probably the guy that would get
86:42the bulk of the rushing but I don't think with Henry being healthy there's really any scenario where this converted wide receiver
86:48literally converted in his final season last year was his first year as a full running back I think he converted for
86:54the bowl game the year prior and then they're like yeah well you can be a running back the rest of the
87:00offseason and then he had a good good final year but not like great or anything especially the peripherals were kind of
87:07not not off the charts or anything but you can expect that for a for a guy who's converting to the position
87:13but yeah I think that's more of a long-term thing with Henry the other thing I would note is the fumbles last
87:19year and some like there was some of the inefficiency stuff he had some fumbles issues early on they actually lost some
87:25games because of some key Derek Henry fumbles which has always been something he's been really like reliable about not saying that's
87:32predictive at all I don't think it is but I mean I guess it's just sort of a reminder that like age
87:38is a thing like dudes guys do eventually age guys do eventually not be in their peak anymore I don't think Derek
87:44Henry in his peak like basically ever fumbled this guy would just like run over you and then laugh at you so
87:50I don't know I it's a really I think it's a tricky running back room for sure but as far as the
87:57projection goes yeah I threw a ton on Derek Henry if you're inclined to to be okay with the age and just
88:03trust the the outlier nature of Henry and and what he's always been then then I think you're you're totally fine to
88:09do that yeah I think Randall's a really unique case because he's he's well he was handpicked by the owner and it
88:15sounds like it was exclusively by the owner wasn't like a situation where they they asked the owner for input it sounds
88:21like the owner scouted this guy himself like talk to Dabo Sweeney himself call them himself and like me like did everything
88:28by himself which I mean doesn't sound great I mean it's a nice gesture that the owner can I guess do it
88:34every once at any time but I don't think that's going to be influencing Declan Doyle's like process on game day and
88:40he's actually even taller than six two he's almost six four which is really tall for a running back he was a
88:46good wide receiver recruit he was almost the top 100 guy nationwide out of high school um Dane Brugler says that he
88:53has inconsistent vision and tempo at the line of scrimmage which kind of singleton having bad vision um that's kind of a
88:59concern when you've been playing running back for a while Adam Randall has one year of of playing running back in his
89:05life so it makes sense that he has inconsistent vision and he can probably get better at that um as he adjusts
89:11more to the position but he does have the size I guess from a weight standpoint to be second in line for
89:17carries I do kind of think that if Henry went down I think I mean it's a new staff but I think
89:24that Justice Hill has earned so much trust within the organization that he would probably see a boost in carries as well
89:30and it would kind of be like maybe a 50-50 split where Justice is also getting the pass done work because they
89:36like his pass protection so much which is such a big part of of getting you know running back passing down snaps
89:42even though Randall has the actual wide receiver background um but Randall is they've brought in so many veterans like they'll probably
89:49go sign like Melvin Gordon or or Devonta Freeman again or maybe they'll call up that's like Elliot or something James yeah
89:55James yeah I was gonna mention yeah this could be another uh Cardinals uh running back landing landing spot because I I
90:01don't know if the upside is really there for for Justice Hill you know I think I'll be involved in the pass
90:07game for sure and yeah I don't I don't have a ton to add on on Randall so it is a spot
90:14where the fragility of Henry's age and his workload that if he did go down man it's it's it's really tough to
90:20to know kind of like where to go from a from a fantasy lens because we know this is an extremely valuable
90:26you know running back position to have in fantasy uh playing next to Lamar Jackson so um I don't know if I've
90:32you know if anyone here is necessarily draftable but behind behind him but um you know certainly a spot to to monitor
90:38as as the offseason progresses let's go to the wide receivers here again headlined by Zay Flowers they also bring back Rashad
90:45Bateman who had a pretty tough 2025 season they draft Jacoby Lane and Elijah Surratt in in the third and fourth round
90:51and then Devontes Walker also back here so kind of a lot of names uh to to throw out in this wide
90:57receiver room you know certainly start with with Zay Flowers 25% target per outrun and 2.6 yards per outrun last year according
91:03to our SIS data um you know pretty in line with his 2024 metrics just ticked up a little bit there in
91:10the yards per outrun um last year he was ninth in yards after a catch per reception also seventh and missed tackles
91:16four so he had a you know the same ADOT as as the previous year but his catch rate jumped up almost
91:22like 10 percentage points so really efficient year for Zay Flowers last season in terms of projections there we're at 108 targets
91:28on Zay Gretsch is at 118 at on Bateman we're at 50 and a half targets Gretsch is at 70 targets there
91:34Surratt we're at 37 Gretsch at 34 and Jacoby Lane we're at 32 targets Gretsch is at 34 so I'm not sure
91:41how much fantasy value there is to be had in this wide receiver room behind Zay Flowers Gretsch you're at you're at
91:4770 targets on Bateman we're at 50 and a half which is a pretty sizable gap there um and it was a
91:53rough you know 2025 for Bateman down to a 13% target per outrun and 0.75 yards per hour and he only had
91:59two games above 25 receiving yards so he's he's young you know only 26 years old was a first round pick but
92:06I'm a little bit concerned that like all the all the nagging injuries throughout Bateman's career have have caught up to him
92:12is Bateman someone that you know it's just kind of like I you think he's gonna be out on the field the
92:18most and and and therefore gave him the most targets or do you think a bounce back is in store for for
92:24shot Bateman he's a fascinating one uh I think going into last year or or you know during the season the year
92:31prior when Lamar was having that great 2024 season people were noting that the Ravens pass catchers all had these great like
92:37separation scores and all these things and I even remember there was some like implication that Lamar was being saved by the
92:43fact that he had all these great receivers or he was you know he was the beneficiary of that and was like
92:49maybe that's Lamar Jackson something he's doing that's affecting the way that you guys are charting this um in in 2025 with
92:55things not going well on a team level you see several players efficiency go the wrong direction all at once from Mark
93:02Andrews to Bateman to Isaiah Likely like significantly the wrong direction the one guy doesn't go the wrong way for is a
93:08flowers I get a beat jack on the fun note here that he had on Tucker craft that I'm sure he's ready
93:14to note that flowers has improved his both his targets per outrun and his yards per target every year and his yards
93:20yards per outrun has gone up this guy is getting better on more volume as he goes is in a bad situation
93:27last year where everyone else got worse he got better his depth adjusted racer that's that I keep giving is been great
93:33all three years the ball in hand stuff is great the catch rates are great Zay flowers Loki star like just absolute
93:39stud feels like it has to be a big Zay flowers year honestly for me and that's that was my big takeaway
93:45in the notes I am a little surprised I'm higher than you guys on Bateman but it's it's more just a like
93:51I'm looking at multiple years and trying to figure it out and when you look at him over multiple years it's just
93:58it's really hard it's it's all over the place one of the ways in that field tippers article I described it as
94:04he is a higher a dot guy so probably at the whims of deep efficiency you're in you know and you're out
94:10a little bit you go back to 20 so here's his yards per target by year go back to his rookie year
94:162021 even 7.6 10.2 6.6 10.7 5.9 and these are massive shifts in terms of going from well below average to well
94:23above averages his touchdown rate point oh like 1.5% then 7.1% then 1.6% then 13.9% in 2024 everyone to draft him last
94:29year it was at 5.3% last year which is like you know at least splitting the difference somewhat reasonable but the volume
94:35was way down as you said targets per game 5.7 4.7 3.6 4.4 then it was down to 2.9 last year just
94:41in terms of raw targets the catch rate all over the place was 50% last year it was 65 the year prior
94:48at a higher 8-0 15.2 8-0 in 2024 the ADOT was actually down a little bit last year I don't know what
94:54to make of Rashad Bateman like it's it is really all over the place year over year I do think the stuff
95:00I was saying about Lamar's numbers across the board getting a little bit worse and and I mean so maybe that's some
95:06of that's on Bateman maybe you know maybe the fact that he was able to Bateman's getting open and he was able
95:12to find Bateman early the year prior was what was helping the sack rate being down and the pro attempt efficiency being
95:19up certainly Bateman stuff spiked a ton in 2024 and then it was it was putrid last year it was way down
95:25at the other end of the spectrum so in terms of what he actually is I don't I don't I don't know
95:31I'll say on the rookies like I think they're both interesting I do think it's a little bit I actually tend to
95:37like Elijah Surratt a little bit more the Lane goes in the third round Surratt goes in the fourth it's interesting because
95:44he is going a little higher in underdog so that seems to be the popular opinion with Lane they've been talking a
95:50lot about it's all about catch radius he is 6'4 great jumps far better athlete than Surratt but Surratt had more than
95:56double the like collegiate yardage I like to look at the production stuff this guy gets open he's significantly at 15 TDs
96:02at Indiana last year won the national championship his production was close to Omar Cooper last year and then he was actually
96:08quite a bit better than Omar Cooper in 2024 Cooper the first round pick for the Jets Surratt goes in round four
96:15he's not seen as good of an athlete and some of the stuff that Cooper brings in addition to that Cooper's got
96:21some good ball in hand and stuff but Surratt yeah bigger body dude didn't test super athletic but I think that's less
96:27important for a wide receiver he seems to have kind of the skill set to just get open and draw volume Lane
96:33is this guy that you know again it's all about catch radius and it's it's this sort of skill set that I
96:40think is probably not great for fantasy contested catches are tough to live on it's kind of the red zone discussion and
96:46it's really what they use DeAndre Hopkins for I think in the offense last year Lamar they've talked a little bit about
96:52like liking Lamar likes a big catch radius guy and throwing into these one-on-ones and stuff but I tend to like Surratt
96:58a little more but I I guess I think Bateman is probably yeah the clear number two running routes and then I
97:05projected both Surratt and Lane for the same number of targets and you guys are you know right in the same range
97:11basically yeah and the volume is is probably pretty unlikely to be there for any anyone past the wide receiver to even
97:17if even if that wide receiver two does command much volume you know it's gonna be much lower than than several or
97:23you know the rest of the league for the most part just given the lack of past attempts Baltimore consistently has year
97:29over year and I you know I think my concern with Bateman coming off the really poor years is they do draft
97:36Lane and Surratt who are you know predominantly outside players and in college especially and that's that's where Bateman's been you know
97:42he's been 87 percent out wide in his career and then Devontae Walker who was a field stretcher kind of like sacrificial
97:48X last year was 82 percent out wide so I'm a little bit worried that the routes squeeze for Bateman on top
97:54of the inefficient year but I do want to round up here Jack on on Zay Flowers because he has he has
98:01been ascending the last few years and it is set up to smash I you know I think the targets really could
98:07condense around him again just kind of the lackluster other options in this wide receiver room but he is you know going
98:13as the wide receiver 14 which is which is where he finished last year or he was the actually the wide receiver
98:1913 and a half PPR points per game last year so I'm curious if you think there's much more meat on the
98:25bone for Zay Flowers if you're interested in drafting him just outside of you know the wide receiver one range yeah I
98:32did have the same note as Gritch on the yards per target and targets per hour run per SIS his targets per
98:38hour and actually dropped 0.01 last year but the yards per hour run has exploded 1.81 as a rookie 2.4 in year
98:442 2.6 last year he's gotten really really good and the fact that he averaged more than 10 yards per target last
98:50year despite Lamar missing time playing with backup quarterbacks and Lamar coming back hampered is is really really impressive the only thing
98:57with Zay is which we kind of talked about with Lamar is that the run heaviness of the offense enables everyone here
99:03including Lamar including Zay to be so efficient and so despite getting really really good he still topped out at 118 targets
99:09in 17 games last year so I don't know what the raw target ceiling looks like just in this offense that we
99:15know is going to run the football a bunch but I think that the potential for him to separate as a target
99:22earner is is certainly there this year and I think it could be a spot where we could even come up on
99:28his target share and then I'll add on Bateman he had in 2024 nine touchdowns on 72 targets on his other 190
99:34career targets he has six total touchdowns so I think some of the euphoria last year was just fueled by touchdown variance
99:40in 2024 his target shares before the high ankle sprain last year actually weren't totally terrible he had some really low games
99:46he had two games of six percent or below but every other game was 14 percent or higher which in the Ravens
99:53offense isn't awesome but it's not a laughable target share but during that stretch he only averaged 22 receiving yards per game
99:59which kind of goes back to the whole thing that you really need to separate as a target earner like say has
100:05to be fantasy relevant in this offense given the pass volume or you need to catch a bunch of touchdowns like Bateman
100:11did in 2024 I just took two percentage points off Bateman and put one on Lane and Surratt each when Dank made
100:18the point that they drafted two outside wide receivers you're making and I think I need to put more after what Jack
100:24said but no I think you guys are right about Bateman I think I was too high on Bateman for sure I
100:30hadn't really thought through that point but I do want to jump in on the the flowers note about the the target
100:36cap I think it's a really good stack situation because of the Derrick Henry thing if Derrick Henry does go down the
100:42pass rate could actually be significantly higher and again like the whole bet with the Lamar thing is I was going through
100:49all that to me he's like the CMC of quarterbacks he's like the Puka Nakua of quarterback those are two guys that
100:55when I go through the projections it's like I have to mute some of the stuff or else they can just project
101:01so much higher than everyone else Lamar's projection can wind up being like sort of silly if you like if you look
101:07at something I mean not last year's rates but if he's hitting at a ceiling Lamar and they're actually throwing a little
101:14bit more because maybe Derrick Henry's injured then I think say flowers targets could go pretty nuts as well I mean like
101:20I really like the the pass volume correlation for those two directionally yeah I think that's a really good point with this
101:26past game on the whole because from like a player level standpoint we're projecting player level ceilings like we have ceiling rest
101:32chairs on Justice Hill and Adam Randall if Derrick Henry goes down but we're not projecting anything from a team level standpoint
101:39ceiling wise so I think for I think this is probably the best example but league-wide like any other examples where a
101:45running back injury like maybe Jonathan Taylor going down could impact the Colts pass rate I think that those are probably situations
101:51where maybe the way our projections are set up at least where we don't have team level ceiling projections so the way
101:57that that's set up maybe we are missing a little bit of the upside with the pass catchers there yeah and that's
102:03just one of the natural limitations of of season long projections as well there's only kind of so many so many corners
102:10you can you can cover and and you know we are projecting Lamar to start all season and Derrick Henry to be
102:16healthy all season for the most part there and in terms of stacking partners I do think Mark Andrews is a really
102:22interesting talking point as well again just just you know they lose Isaiah likely to the Giants this offseason they do draft
102:28a couple tight ends but a fourth round pick and Matthew Hibner and a fifth round pick and and Josh Cuevas and
102:35then they bring over Durham Smythe who follows Declan Doyle from Chicago and Durham Smythe has had 23 targets and 34 games
102:41the last two seasons so shouldn't really factor in to the past game but like you know if you if you told
102:47me last year that Mark Andrews was going into a season without Isaiah likely as a counterpart and and is going to
102:53be you know drafted as as the tight end 11 I would be taking him pretty much every single time but last
102:59year was was a really rough rough season for Andrews he had career lows and and a dot and yards after catch
103:06per reception which is you know something like we talked about with DK Mechhoff on the last team that that was kind
103:12of inverse you know he had a low eight up at a higher yards after catch per reception for Andrews last year
103:18it was career lows on both which is obviously not a good recipe for production he still did though have a 22%
103:24target per hour run according to SIS and also had a 7% touchdown rate last year his 8% career touchdown rate is
103:31is really elite you know one of the best among tight ends and it's been consistent throughout his seasons or throughout his
103:37career so it's a guy I'd really love to get back in on he is he will turn 31 on September 6th
103:43so as you know above that that dreaded age age 30 season but we mentioned throughout this series that tight ends can
103:49continue to be productive into their 30s so I'm having a hard time not kind of getting all the way back in
103:56on on Mark Andrews I really think the opportunity is there and it could be a pretty monster season for him if
104:02we can't just throw out last year but you know in terms of projections here we're at 69 targets on Andrews and
104:08and Gretchen's at 78 in terms of yards per target we're about the same we're at 7.7 Gretchen's at 7.8 so man
104:14this is I again I would love to get back in on on Mark Andrews here I think think things are really
104:20open for him to have a big season so curious Gretchen your your read on if last year was the start of
104:27like a big drop off for Andrews or or if this year is kind of correctable and he can he can you
104:33know be back to being one of the better fantasy tight ends yeah I think you put it all really well I
104:39had in my notes the yak perception being more you know more than a full yard lower than any other year of
104:45his career at 2.1 yards after catch perception he's always spent at least a three or four yards per catch after the
104:52catch perception kind of guy not great the you know the evasion rate the missed tackles force perception down from the bulk
104:58of his career target spot run fell for the third straight year not looking good that going the wrong direction because of
105:04the ball in hand stuff the yards per target the PFF numbers I have are have him at 6.5 I mean he's
105:10typically a 9.0 or higher guy like the two years prior he was in 9.0 or higher 2022 is at 7.7 his
105:16previous career low but still you know more than a full yard better than what he had done in 2025 so a
105:23lot it's a little bit like the Jerry Judy thing that I was talking about like this none of this is in
105:29line with previous seasons of his career previous career low yards per outrun by the PFF numbers 1.88 in 2024 it has
105:35been declining a little since the early season stuff early career stuff when he was like over two every year but still
105:411.88 great for a tight end you'll take that the only issue with him has always been routes volume and it's like
105:48he's very efficient per route they went all the way down to 1.23 from that career low of 1.88 both on the
105:54targets per outside and the yards per target side it's the inverse of Zay we're losing volume and we're losing efficiency and
106:00when he's always been a guy who hasn't got enough routes but has been efficient per route and then we lose the
106:06efficiency and then the difference with the Judy thing I'm talking about him being 27 Andrews being 31 in September as you
106:13mentioned I am concerned that we're at the back that's why I go back to like it feels like has to be
106:19a big Zay flowers year but I do acknowledge what you're saying about it the opportunities available for him I think you
106:25guys are right about the Bateman stuff and then you have a lot of young guys otherwise you have two rookie receivers
106:31two rookie tight ends those tight ends are kind of interesting the fact that they went and drafted those guys is probably
106:37not speaking very well about their long-term view of Andrews either right they're trying to trying to do some things I I
106:44think both those guys look somewhat interesting they seem to really like Hibner they talk I have talked a lot about his
106:50athleticism they mentioned his his jumps and how he tested multiple times because they keep talking about like his numbers are great
106:56but like his receiving numbers were not necessarily amazing I mean he had some decent years at SMU but he was at
107:02Michigan for three years and did nothing and then basically had to transfer to a smaller school and catch a few passes
107:09and Quavo's sort of the opposite he was at UW and then he went to Alabama and did some stuff at at
107:15Bama but anyway both of them have limited receiving production but some you know Hibner looks like a pretty athletic dude though
107:21and they seem to talk favorably about him and I don't I kind of think that both those guys might be a
107:27little bit more of an issue for Andrews than it feels like when we're doing projections or looking at week one like
107:33by the time the season progresses but I it's tough to say I mean I think you're right if he's bounces back
107:40and he's back to who he is like the opportunity is definitely there yeah and I you know I think it's probably
107:46her I don't know I'd be curious your guys thoughts on if it's like a better bet in redraft or or best
107:52box it's almost like in redraft you know if you if you have Andrews on your team and like he bounces back
107:58and you're like oh boy you know I have a top five tight end at a at a tight end 12 or
108:05later price tag you know that's pretty awesome whereas in best ball you can't cut him if if like the season starts
108:11and he looks washed again so that might be more more of my angle but it's certainly again if it's if you
108:17just kind of take the long view of what Andrews has meant to this offense and the opportunity and then if Lamar
108:23does have a bounce back year it's it's something I think has a lot of upside just at his his current price
108:30tag but I am I am battling quite a bit on on if he's on if he's done so or not all
108:36right let's go on to the last team of the division here that is the Cincinnati Bengals we saved the team with
108:42with the most continuity for last year as they are bringing back their head coach and play caller and Zach Taylor Joe
108:48Burrow returns here and really no no I guess like big additions they did draft Colby Young in the fourth round at
108:54wide receiver but otherwise a pretty pretty status quo offensive environment here for the Bengals in terms of team level inputs here
109:01we're at 62.4 plays Gretchen's at 62.8 we're at a 64.1% pass rate Gretchen's at a 63.5% pass rate so as this
109:07division has been going we are are mostly in lockstep on on the team level stuff the the 64.1% pass rate projection
109:13for us is the highest in the NFL for the Bengals they finished second in each of the last three seasons in
109:19terms of raw pass rate did the Bengals and that's been you know with Joe Burrow injured for much of two of
109:26those three seasons so I feel like we can feel very confident in you know this passing game or this offense going
109:32through the passing game and Joe Burrow there also were some some positive notes from from Thorman and his pace column about
109:38how just how like that pass rate you know leads to such a high floor and ceiling for Bengals you know games
109:44and their raw play environment year over year they've ranked top 10 in combined plays in three of the last four seasons
109:50so you know pretty high floor and ceiling here just kind of all around and then they did bring back Joe Flacco
109:57as a backup quarterback which you know I think is a decent decent sign for fantasy just just given how much they
110:03continue to throw with Flacco under center last year you know led to some monster Jamar chase game so I think this
110:09is a pretty awesome fantasy environment here Jack what's your read on the Bengals running it back this season yeah I think
110:15we mostly know what to expect with Burrow healthy last year they had at least a 5% pass rate of expectation in
110:22five of the seven games they ran a bunch of plays as Thorman has alluded to with Burrow last year 64.7 real
110:28plays per game I think we know that this is going to be a voluminous offense from a play volume standpoint and
110:34that they want to throw the ball a bunch they have made some efforts to improve the defense this offseason they lost
110:40Trey Hendrickson obviously but they added Dexter Lawrence they added Boye Mafia I think they drafted a an edge rusher in the
110:47second round so I think they're trying to be better defensively obviously but it remains to be seen whether they can actually
110:53escape from the disastrous tier that they were in last year but I think mostly from an offensive standpoint we know what
110:59to expect with the Bengals especially as long as Burrow's healthy yeah let's get into Burrow then right off the bat here
111:05just you know in terms of our inputs we're pretty similar to Gretsch across the board we have a 55.7% completion rate
111:11Gretsch at 66.4% you know we're a little bit lower on the TD rate and efficiency side we're at 7.3 yards per
111:18attempt and only at 33 touchdowns whereas Gretsch is up closer to 37 that is a spot I do think we could
111:24potentially bump Burrow has been a 6% TD rate guy since his rookie season we project five and a half percent so
111:30that that might be a spot where we're a little light there on Burrow one thing I want to note on on
111:36him was that he had a career low 5.1 rush yards per game last season he's never been much much of a
111:43rusher but he's kind of you know hovered more in like the 11 to 15 range throughout his career which you know
111:49adds it adds a fantasy point per game and so that kind of evaporated last year obviously did suffer that turf toe
111:55injury and required surgery so I think probably that sapped his mobility and just interest in running maybe that bounces back a
112:01little bit we've kind of seen a wide range on Burrow outcomes over the last handful of seasons last year's Q the
112:07QB 15 and points per game was the QB 3 in 2024 QB 23 and 2023 and then the QB 4 once
112:14again and in 2022 so I think for a guy that gets drafted as high as he does in fantasy leagues you
112:20know he's going as the QB 5 right now an underdog he doesn't necessarily have kind of like the rushing floor component
112:26that that keeps his you know outlook very consistent there's a you know pretty wide range there in his QB finishes so
112:32Gretchen curious your thoughts on on Joe Burrow obviously if he stays healthy you know he should smash with Jamar Chase and
112:39T Higgins at the helm here is he someone you you'd be actively targeting this year in fantasy leagues probably not just
112:45because we've talked about the the number of later on QBs that are strong and if you're going to take a really
112:51high in QB I think you need the ceiling to be just so enormous but I do think it makes sense whereas
112:57ADP is because you talked about the past TD rate has been so strong the completion percentage so strong it doesn't have
113:04the rushing but he does have hyper efficient receivers that you know always carry the the passing efficiency I mean that works
113:10both ways obviously but Jamar Chase is going to add a ton of yak and it's going to add a bunch of
113:16stuff to what you're doing and then in Burrow is a very efficient passer and gets the ball to these guys so
113:22that there's run after the catches running backs have always had really good run after the catch like no matter who he's
113:28throwing to they seem to always have good receiving efficiency throughout his career Higgins obviously is a very efficient player I mean
113:35Burrow's an incredibly good quarterback and then as far as the past TD rates concerned 30 is the third easiest strength of
113:41schedule here strong Vegas win total this I mean we probably could have mentioned it earlier but this division lines up to
113:47play the entire NFC South and the entire AFC South this year as they're like divisions on each side that they get
113:53to play so all these teams end up with really strong strength of schedule ratings it's a pretty favorable division from that
114:00perspective and so you're going to have a high touchdown projection and they don't like run a lot in near the goal
114:06line like Chase Brown's going to have a decent you know touchdown season probably he actually tends to run a really hot
114:12receiving TD rate because the running backs do have good efficiency but I mean Samajit Piran's your backup maybe Taj Brooks I
114:18mean we'll get into the backs but they're going to skew they tend to skew when Burrow's healthy toward the past TDs
114:24and so you get a pretty good projection that way as well it's not it's not hard to get Burrow into a
114:31strong projection I just don't know that like paying top dollar from an ADP standpoint the other positions drop off so much
114:37like quicker that's the whole idea but behind late round QB you can take elite players at other positions or you know
114:43second tier players or what have you where Burrow goes but you really need to take your swings at running back and
114:49wide receiver and tight end when you can in those rounds you can probably get a guy who can spike a past
114:56TD right like we talk about like Matthew Stafford is Matthew Stafford I mean he's not going to have the same pass
115:02raise bro but is he going to look that different if he spikes a past TD rate again this year I'm a
115:08little skeptical so as far as the actual strategy of it probably out on Burrow but yeah the projection looks great yeah
115:14all right let's go to the backfield Chase Brown is going as a mid second round pick this year in terms of
115:21our inputs we're at 212 carries on Chase Brown Gretchen's at 232 we're at 58 targets Gretchen's at 71 there so a
115:27little bit higher in in both facets on Smoshy Piran we're at 73 carries Gretchen's at 47 we're at 20 targets Gretchen
115:3317 there and then he has Taj Brooks for a lot more carries than we do he's at 79 Gretchen's and we're
115:39at 37 on Taj Brooks so we kind of have like the the RB2 rushing workload flipped between Piran and Taj Brooks
115:45and that has been a spot that we've been well ahead of the best ball market on Piran kind of as a
115:52last round pick and I'm curious to or interested to talk through that just because Piran's role I think coming into last
115:58year you know re-signing with the Bengals after being with the Chiefs most recently and like Piran had always been a pass
116:04down specialist so we kind of thought okay Chase Brown will get vast majority of the rushing work and then Piran will
116:10supplement on pass downs and won't get much involvement on the ground but it was honestly a little bit the opposite whereas
116:17Piran Aiden Moore carry wise especially in the middle of the season didn't get a whole lot of run in the past
116:23game Piran was only at 28% routes on the season whereas Brown was at 53% and then Piran in terms of carries
116:29you know in the games that they played together after or starting in week three Chase Brown had 65% of the carries
116:35over over Piran and Piran had the other 35% there so only only 12 carries per game for Chase Brown and in
116:42that stretch so I you know just I only bring that up just because I again it was a different split than
116:48I think we're anticipating coming in to last year and so we kind of expect that to roll over to this year
116:54but maybe Taj Brooks in a second year does take more of kind of that RB to rushing work so let's get
117:00back to Chase Brown though just he is the the premier fantasy target here again going in the middle of the second
117:06round Jack here's your thoughts on on Chase Brown's outlook for this upcoming season yeah the receiving roll last year was amazing
117:1313.8% target share it was very strong for running back 24% target per hour run is it's good he had a positive
117:19a dot according according to our numbers he had 88 targets in total just a very strong receiving role for Chase Brown
117:25I think the rushing split was very interesting as you alluded to because starting in week three Piran did start getting legitimate
117:31carries and then he missed a couple of weeks I think it was weeks 11 and 12 that Piran missed and Brown
117:38had a good couple of games over 5.5 yards per carry in both games then he came back and the split was
117:44actually tighter than it was before he got hurt over the final six games of the season it was 87 Chase Brown
117:50carries and 52 Samajay Piran maybe part of that was like the the wanting to preserve Chase Brown a little bit but
117:56I think that we're kind of projecting it more Chase Brown than it was last year but still expecting Piran to have
118:02a role it looks like Gretsch is a little lower on Piran and higher on Brooks than us so I'm curious how
118:09he sees that split but in terms of Chase Brown specifically I think it makes sense to expect clear RB1 again should
118:15get a bunch of targets the rushing split I think is a little uncertain after how it went down last year but
118:21still he's going to get the lion's share of carries yeah Brown I mentioned the stat a little bit ago when we
118:27were talking about the Steelers six backs over 85 targets last year and then there was just one more between 60 and
118:3485 but Brown was one of those those six backs above 85 targets I mentioned all those guys have high high 80
118:40pieces here I think he's the lowest of all of them that are other than Gainwell which we talked about with the
118:46Steelers but that are that are top backs it's it's a great receiving role and and the I mentioned the catch rates
118:52always really high he had 69 receptions on the 88 targets now Joe Flacco played a bunch and he throws to the
118:59backs a lot so you can say that's sort of a Joe Flacco stat to a degree but he had 54 balls
119:05in 54 catches in 16 games the year prior Brown did and Burrow again always been really good for receiving Brown ran
119:11the fourth most routes of any running back they love him as a pass protector talk about him as a three down
119:17back and on pass downs and what he's grown into Samajay Pirine supposed to be a receiving back really had a 0.48
119:23yards per out run was below any of his recent seasons turns 31 in September September he's on an affordable contract he
119:30signed a two year contract last offseason when they brought him back so he's like definitely gonna be on the team but
119:36I'm a little skeptical he did total a decent yards per carry at 4.5 yards per carry it was actually a solidly
119:42negative EPA per attempt and he only carried from under center 9.5% of time it's mostly shotgun rush attempts and with a
119:48negative EPA even despite the 4.5 yards per carry it kind of suggests like give up carries on third and longs to
119:55a certain degree with him and with the yards per outrun really cratering his yak perception was way down his yards per
120:01target 4.4 way down he still had a decent evasion rate but again at this age it suggests that even when he
120:07creates some space the explosiveness is not there because the yak and the yards per target on the pass game just not
120:13really all that impressive as far as like I'm not like super clear that it's gonna be Taj Brooks I'm not really
120:19sure who it would be I do think thinking of P Ryan as a number two at this age after what he
120:26did last year because he was a number two last year means is potentially wrong there's potentially like the wrong way to
120:32think through how this year will go I did like you mean the two and in terms of like a handcuff sorry
120:38to cut you off do you mean like RB2 in terms of like a handcuff so yeah if Chase Brown goes gets
120:44injured then like Taj is probably more likely to handle the more more touches in that scenario I think P Ryan may
120:51still have a pass protector role or be a you know a receiving back but yeah I mean I'm kind of on
120:57a limb here like when I say that that's wrong so I'm kind of saying it delicately but like the fact that
121:03they like Chase Brown on three downs as well is kind of interesting like and the Brown ran the fourth most routes
121:09and all these things like I agree with Jack said Brown's gonna play a ton and then it's like what you know
121:16what role does P Ryan have does he have just like long down and distance and kind of like a very select
121:22role the Brooks thing again is a round six pick I don't know that it's gonna be him I did kind of
121:28like the profile is a little bit of a bigger back and could do some of the different things part of the
121:34reason I'm like reading the tea leaves on him is Chase Brown himself went from 58 touches as a rookie to nearly
121:40300 as a lead back in year two and a bunch of people and I liked the Brown profile back then it
121:47was in on Brown and he was a day three back a bunch of people were like he's not gonna do it
121:53I mean he only barely touched the ball at all I remember that discussion a couple years ago they kind of brought
121:59him along slowly into going into year two I think it's possible that Taj Brooks is that year to bet this year
122:05that kind of the fact that they didn't really add anyone they added some rookie UDFAs Jamal Haynes and Kentrell Bullock but
122:12their profiles don't really pop to me I'm kind of like want to keep an eye on camp news here but I
122:18feel like Taj Brooks might be like a low-key solid late round handcuff yeah I think it's a good point that he
122:24is probably the stronger upside handcuff that you would want I would be pretty surprised if P Ryan wasn't involved just as
122:30like the RB2 and in terms of kind of you know the the normal offensive flow next year just kind of given
122:36you know he was he was solid for them but again it you know as we've all alluded to it was kind
122:43of an odd deployment for P Ryan last year more more involved on the ground and much less so in the passing
122:49game and his metrics in the past game did did dip so there certainly is is a decent amount of risk there
122:55I don't necessarily love love being like way ahead of ADP on him in best box I don't I don't really know
123:01what what upside there is but he did they did turn to him around the goal line a little bit he had
123:08four carries inside the five whereas Brown only had seven you know they both had two TDs and in that in that
123:14sample so you know he was he was used a little bit and Brown did not miss a game so that was
123:20that was kind of playing alongside Brown there but I don't know anyway let's go to the wide receiver the key is
123:26you have a really good offense that are like potentially in plus scripts really good Vegas win total and there's like no
123:33depth behind the lead back that the market doesn't even like draft as high as his work like because they don't think
123:39he's a superstar or anything is basically my point I mean it's a good backup situation at target maybe I'm wrong on
123:45P Ryan but like it does seem like the secondary running back situation in Cincinnati is something to think about wide receiver
123:51room always always want to uh talk through as well just given how condensed the targets have been over the years here
123:57with Jamar Chase and and T Higgins leading the way Jamar Chase you know one of the one of the best tennis
124:04football bets over the last handful of seasons has finished as the wide receiver three wide receiver one wide receiver 12 wide
124:10receiver six and wide receiver five and half PPR points per game over the last five seasons um you know really just
124:16I think kind of quarterback agnostic we saw him we saw him blow up with with Joe Flacco last year and just
124:22one of yeah one of the best one of best players in the NFL as well as as fantasy assets in terms
124:29of projections here we're at 156 targets on Chase Gretsch is at 172 on T Higgins we're at 104 targets Gretsch at
124:35117 there and then Yoshivas Andre Yoshivas is is is the wide receiver three here we're at 46 targets on him Gretsch
124:41at 40 so Yoshi or Yoshivas I don't think necessarily you know fantasy relevant so let's just stick to the top two
124:47guys here you know Jamar Chase you're not you're not sneaking in by anyone going in round one but again kind of
124:53mentioned at the top just given the the pass rate that the Bengals have shown over the last few years I think
125:00and Chase's ability it's just one of the one of the most you know sure sure bets and fantasy you can make
125:06so uh Jack here's your thoughts on on Jamar Chase this season and then feel free to to add on T Higgins
125:12there as well who's been a great per game producer but has has struggled to stay healthy a little bit over the
125:18last few years yeah we have it like razor's edge margin between the top between picks two through five which is Bijon
125:25Puka JSN and Chase we have Chase fourth right now um in that group on underdog um I mean he's led the
125:31league in targets and back-to-back years we literally have those four within one point of each other um total we after the
125:37NFC West podcast we tried to get Puka up to three and to get Puka up to three we had to bump
125:43his catch rate by 0.05 percent so it's just like incredibly incredibly tight between those four I think you know exactly what
125:50you're getting with Tamar Chase if you wanted to take him second I wouldn't really argue with you if you want to
125:56take him fifth I wouldn't really argue with you either um T Higgins his target per outrun fell off pretty dramatically last
126:02year he had a 24 target share and basically matched Chase in targets per outrun in 2024 according to our numbers last
126:08year he only had a 15 target share with Burrow um the red zone role is still incredibly strong he had a
126:14career high 11 touchdowns last year despite Burrow's injuries um and he remains the clear wide receiver too and one of the
126:21best passing offenses in the league so I think that the role is is pretty entrenched there um but I did think
126:27that the drop off in target earning efficiency was notable um but yeah I think that these two we've seen a year
126:33over year with these guys there's been some fluctuation on the T side uh from a target share standpoint um but on
126:39the whole we kind of know what you're getting with both of these guys we have a pretty pretty uh standard gap
126:46here between Chase and Higgins we're about 15 targets behind Gresh on on Chase and 13 on on T so um you
126:52know I don't think massive there but it is interesting if you do look at the seasonal splits back to 2024 like
126:58Jack mentioned that T was much closer to to Jamar in terms of you know like the per route data so Gresh
127:04I don't know if you have any any lean there in terms of kind of like the seasonal splits um or or
127:10if you think T like could encroach much more on in terms of like the target earning potential this upcoming season my
127:17take on Chase is he always as an absolute superstar I always had a weird targets per out run that had never
127:23been above 25 percent on PFF which like the elites are like I mean who can it was like 32 like they're
127:29up around 30 at least like Justin Jefferson all of his prime when Chase and Jefferson were the one two for a
127:35couple of years it's like well Jefferson's at 28 29 percent targets per out and Chase is at 24 we're really banking
127:42on efficiency here but he also has a low a dot because they throw to him close in line of scrimmage kind
127:48of weird last year he got that up to 28.8 percent for the first time also had a career low 7.8 yards
127:54per target and I think those things go hand in hand to some degree from the perspective that Chase's own efficiency in
128:00prior years probably took some targets away from himself he's just housing stuff and it's like all right what we wouldn't need
128:07to throw anymore um what I loved about that is even as the inefficiency was a minor issue the volume just kept
128:13flooding in and you love to see that from a first round receiver that there's basically not situations where Chase is ever
128:19going to get like forgotten about or is anything other than elite Joe Burrow's out the offense is different he still leads
128:25the NFL and targets a different way uh the other thing about the Chase and T Higgins thing as I look at
128:31it you're talking about the the per route change we can make excuses for Higgins from a health perspective 523 routes last
128:38year Jamar Chase over 600 in the same offense 632 career high for Higgins 537 Chase has been over 600 in this
128:44offense each of the last three years he was at 579 as a rookie in 2021 was about 100 higher than Higgins
128:50that year he's blown Higgins out of the water in total routes four of the five years they've played together and then
128:56they were like close one year uh Chase's second year and Higgins uh third year in 2022 they were close in routes
129:03Higgins had a few more but at this point I mean with with Higgins I I I mean I don't I tend
129:09to fade some of the health stuff but when this guy's losing 100 routes every year relative to his team's pass rate
129:15I do have some real issues about that and it's in terms of like how much he's going to cut into Chase
129:21or any of those kinds of things I mean I guess I'm not that concerned about it from Jamar Chase's perspective this
129:27dude answers the bell every week he's out there he's going to run 600 plus routes and regardless of whether he's hyper
129:34efficient on the targets he gets or there's Joe Flacco in there there's some incompletions he'll just keep earning volume he's going
129:40to get his targets he's going to be super productive I think after what he did with Flacco last year he's an
129:46even better pick than he was last year when he was the 101 even though his ADP is going to naturally come
129:52down a bit and Jameer Gibbs is frankly just a better pick than anyone was last year and so I agree with
129:59Jack like he's right in there in that two to five range but I think what we saw last year that his
130:05ability to produce without Burrow and in a different way just makes him look even that much better going you know going
130:11to Jamar Chase is a superstar like just an insane player at the same time like yeah he does have Tiggins there
130:17there are these like thin razor edges I tend to agree I probably am going to write Puka ahead of Chase when
130:24I do my own rankings like um but yeah I mean he he belongs in the top five for sure for sure
130:30and and bottom line it's another really strong like top or first round and top half of the first round specifically I
130:36know Leonie was on that last year uh I think in terms of like Dash and Gentie fade you know we're a
130:42little bit lower than marketing he's like honestly I think it's just because the first round is extremely strong and I think
130:48we have a similar case this year especially like the top five or six picks I think you can feel pretty awesome
130:55loading up with with any of those guys on on your team yeah just just a note on Yoshi um while we're
131:01on the Bengals receiving room seeing that Gretsch is lower than us and we are right now three picks ahead of market
131:07I do think that that's a spot where maybe we could lower his target share um largely because there were some games
131:13last year without T Higgins where he was out targeted by Mitchell Tinsley despite out routing Tinsley so Yoshi was the wide
131:20receiver too as expected from a route standpoint but still didn't earn targets despite T Higgins missing time I mean that's a
131:26really bad sign we know he's the wide receiver three but what does the hit actually look like um and even when
131:32that's he missed time last year we didn't really that's exactly what I had in my notes on him he had his
131:38target sprout run the last couple years right around 10 percent his career high yards per run 0.84 and then I wrote
131:44that he could definitely see some threats to his number three role exactly what Jack just put it I see him as
131:51a number three but Tinsley made some great plays he was inefficient overall but he had some like really like some they
131:57were like throwing him like hero shots he was making some sweet catches on some plays he's like the Isaac Tesla of
132:03the AFC um and then they got the uh the rookie right Colby Young uh yeah and he's he's he's akin size
132:09wise to Yoshivasa as well like Yoshi is 6'3 2'10 and Colby Young who they drafted in the fourth round is 6'4
132:162'15 so that I think that's kind of been like you know the saving grace of Yoshi is that he's a big
132:22body and has trust with with Joe Burrow so he's had some some pretty solid uh red zone and touchdown production but
132:28I think that that profile is pretty fragile so I agree I'd totally be fine docking his targets a little bit because
132:34he's he's not someone I think really has much much upside in fantasy at all at this point you know he's kind
132:41of has kind of flubbed the the opportunities to show that he can be a target owner when any of the top
132:47guys are out yeah the young the young note I wanted to just throw out there he only ran 246 routes over
132:53the past two years for Georgia combined he was decent for Miami earlier uh big and athletic but I don't think of
132:59him as like a 2026 play because he didn't play a lot the last couple years I think they're probably trying to
133:05develop him a little bit but um to your point yeah I mean he could be a direct threat to to Yoshivasa
133:12by like the end of the year yeah and we'll we'll get into the tight end room but Mike Kosicki is is
133:18is one of those tight ends that's essentially a wide receiver and and you know practicality like he's he's listed at tight
133:24end and in fantasy leagues but uh since joining the Bengals he's had last year he had 97 of his past snaps
133:30came in the slot or out wide it was 91 percent in the prior season so he's not getting any inline snaps
133:37he is essentially a wide receiver for this Bengals team and we've seen his production really tick up when T Higgins is
133:43off the field specifically you know Jamar Chase has stayed mostly healthy so I I think that could that could be a
133:49contingency play as well if either of these guys go down but uh since the start of 2024 gets like he has
133:55an 11 percent target share and 16 percent target per out run with both chased and T on the field if you
134:01take T off that goes to a 15 percent target share and a 24 percent target per out run so you know
134:08he's mostly a contingency play I think fine and best ball not necessarily you know a redraft guy by any means unless
134:14they do lose some one of the top two guys and in this passing game but this tight end room continues to
134:20be a little bit muddled they also have uh uh third I guess now third year player Eric all coming back he
134:26he tore his ACL in his rookie season and then missed all 2025 so he he projects to be back in this
134:33tight end room uh Gasicki you know leading the charge target wise for us we're at 49 targets on Gasicki Gretchen's at
134:3961 on Eric all we're at 26 targets Gretchen's at 12 there uh Drew Sample is is in here as well we
134:45have 17 targets Gretchen at 18 and then Tanner Hudson uh team preseason MVP Tanner Hudson we're at 17 targets Gretchen's at
134:5128 there so it's you know it's really spread out a lot I think Gasicki is is really the only one to
134:58talk through but I did want to mention Eric all a little bit just because he is more of an in-line option
135:04uh 61 percent of his past snaps in 2024 came in line and he caught at least uh or he caught multiple
135:10balls in seven of his final eight games that season before tearing his ACL so he's kind of like a hidden you
135:16know I again I don't really think there's much fantasy upside but I do think worth noting that Eric all can can
135:22kind of take that in-line role probably over from Drew Sample who's you know essentially a blocker and uses like an H-back
135:29a lot for this Bengals team I think Eric all is someone that just keep an eye on if that role could
135:35develop this year I like uh that note I don't have very many targets on him just from a health perspective but
135:41I did see some positive I did this projection for the Bengals but pretty early in my process and I've seen some
135:47positive stuff on him since then so I was just tweaking that a little bit but uh the one note I have
135:54on the Bengals tight ends always is I mean to your point Gasicki plays a little bit of a different role but
136:00they've had multiple like the the whole heavy tight end formations thing that we're seeing the Bengals been doing this for like
136:06three four years I think I talked about it on the on the last couple years of this podcast but they had
136:12um Gasicki had 83 targets in 2024 because T Higgins missed a little bit more time but they still had three other
136:18tight ends over 20 targets that year last year Gasicki had 42 Fant was right behind him with 41 but they had
136:25Drew Sample at 20 targets and Tanner Hudson at 24 so they've had four tight ends at 20 plus targets two years
136:31in a row which is weird when you when you actually like most people are like I can't contextualize that at all
136:37which I wouldn't blame you but it's just a thing that they do like and the routes don't condense massively on any
136:43one guy typically other than Gasicki when Higgins was out was seeming to basically take over Higgins role in 2024 and like
136:50you said he kind of plays wide receiver so he's the one that I ended up projecting for a little bit more
136:56but like all sample Tanner Hudson I mean we both have them all projected for at least 15 ish I guess I'm
137:02a little lower on all but um you know some some volume to each of those dudes the tight end three two
137:08three four like that makes it tough for fantasy for anybody yeah I'll add on Gasicki um this he didn't have a
137:15whole lot of routes without T Higgins last year we have only 72 routes with with Higgins off the field last year
137:21his target per route run was only 13 which is drastically different than it was in 2024 that is a very small
137:27sample um so so take that for what it's worth and then just contextualizing Eric all a little bit more he did
137:33have four double digit target shares in nine games as a rookie and a 23 percent target per route run um but
137:39the injury was pretty nasty so I think it's something we're gonna have to continue to watch he re-tore the same ACL
137:46that he tore in college and then they had to do multiple procedures on it because the first ACL repair that he
137:52got after the college injury basically they acknowledged that it was done improperly and and it didn't really go very well um
137:58he missed all of last year because of multiple uh ACL procedures that he had to undergo um so I definitely think
138:04he can really factor in if healthy but it's it's one that we'll have to watch throughout camp and like Rich said
138:11I mean these guys have such segmented roles I mean I'm sure I don't think even if all is all plays a
138:17good amount that they're going to completely phase out Drew Sample I think they like his blocking so much um so it's
138:23it's not the most interesting tight end room for fantasy unless T Higgins misses time and then maybe you've got Kosicki they
138:29also drafted Jack Endres Andre's entrees uh in the seventh round and he's a a really good athlete as well and somebody
138:35that I know has his fans he was a Cal for two years and transferred to Texas last year and I mean
138:42he could factor in as a rookie to some degree yeah all right on the mention of Jack Entries that is going
138:48to wrap up our AFC North uh uh pod today we appreciate all you guys tuning in with us thanks again to
138:54Jack and Gretch for all the great insight be sure to find them on Twitter at Jack Miller 02 and at Yards
139:00Per Gretch I'm on there at Mark Dank we'll be back next week breaking down the AFC and NFC East division so
139:07have a great day everyone appreciate you all tuning in peace out