ETE Projections Special Part 2: NFC South with Ben Gretch

[Music] Welcome to establish the edge. I'm your host, Mike Lilloni. This is take two of this intro. I have a little rough time here. I get prepped for this off-season projection special with Gratch Ben Ken. I'll test to my spreadsheet issues prior to the start of this show. Ben, thank you for joining me here on episode two where we will be breaking down the NFC South projections. Yeah, the spreadsheet socialist, the freaking the sheet has been working hard trying to figure out some minor team level issues. I'm excited for the NFC South. It's a super fun division. Really good receivers. Tampa's really loaded. I think all the other teams have a number one who could be really interesting. I think the first round wide receivers, it's a fun division. I think the division's wide open to bucks won it last year. But the Falcons were in decent position late in the year. They might get better QB play out of panics than how cousins played last year. I think the Panthers are kind of a dark horse. It's a fun division. Yeah, it's a fun division. Before we get started, do want to make sure you check out Ben's work at bengratch.substack.com That this is an eight part series we're breaking down each division by itself. We kicked off the first episode at the end of last week with the NFC South. So make sure to check that out. Hopefully get a little briefer as each episode continues at first ones always a little bit long. But thanks for all those that paired with us. Ben, let's get into it here with Carolina. Interesting season last year. Bryce Young struggles. The gate kind of seems like he's toast gets a break from starting comes back and then look like a completely different player. The second half of the year making this team seem a bit more exciting. From a play calling standpoint, both of us have Carolina running a below average amount of plays. We're at 61.6. We're at 60.8. We've got them with a 62.2% called pass rate. You are at 61%. So we're pretty close on the play calling, but we have them slightly more up tempo and slightly more pass heavy, but definitely not pass heavy overall, especially considering their win total. Yeah, this is a good time to talk about a league wide trend from last year where place per game the three prior season starting in 21. This is what I have in my spreadsheet 63.3 63.0 63.1. So we've always used 63 as kind of this benchmark last year is down to 62.2. And a big part of that was because of the new touchback rules. The drives were shorter. I believe this is what a part of the reason for it. Drives were shorter overall. The scoring percentage on drives actually went up. A big reason that there was more touchdowns and more points last year was just that higher number of drives resulted in points as opposed to something significant with the way that the offenses were played or plays per game or any of those types of things on a league wide level. And so I do think it had a lot to do with just the touch pack starting a lot farther. And they're going to go out even further this year. So I kind of think the league wide average may stay down in the lower 62s. And so when I look at a team like Carolina who I do think has legit pace issues that's part of why I get down under 61 plays per game. It's in part because of the league level thing. But the pace issue for them didn't play fast last year. Because they were a bat on defense and bat against the run. They were 31st and plays overall. They weren't that slow, but teams were able to really run the ball against Carolina, keep them off the field. But even when Bryce was playing well, he wasn't operating fast. Another data point is under Dave can Alice in Tampa. 2023 was a clear four year low and play volume for them. Some of those four years was at the end of Brady's career. They were playing quite fast. But as soon as can Alice left, the canals was good enough as an OC. Obviously that he gets ahead coaching job. So let me see left. Liam Cohen takes over. Tampa shoots way up in 2024 in plays per game and plays a little bit more aggressively with the same QB three play per game bump across 2023 to 2024 for Tampa. So I think it's kind of a canalist thing as well. Maybe a little bit of both the QB and the coach. Liking to work a little bit methodically. There's a lot of things I like about Carolina this year actually, but the pace is not one of them. Yeah, we had them last year in our internal pace metrics. Six slowest in terms of neutral pace over expected and ninth slowest overall. So most of our increase in plays from last year's 57.8 is just kind of a natural regression type of thing because plays can be wonky, but certainly agree with. Gratges that they're going to be on the slower side of things that were still about over a full play below average, but a little bit closer to two plays below average. How that breaks down for Bryce. Gratges is at 3,800 past yards where 3670 were both between like 23 and 24 pasts and touchdowns. So very similar there, very similar in terms of the rushing output. Having him getting just over 300 rushing yards somewhere between two and a half three rushing touchdowns. So that puts Gratges at 283 fantasy points us at 270. So very close on Bryce overall. I guess the question that's most interesting is if you think Bryce can make, you know, a meaningful leap. And then he goes in like the QB 20s range. So it's kind of just a matter of like, is there meaningful upside for him this year? Yeah, he's a really fascinating one. Obviously year one was terrible. The year two numbers are much better. And yet because he played so bad early that he got benched and then doesn't have a full season sample. Those first couple games. Do still drag down his overall year two numbers a little bit to the extent that even though it was completion percentages is quite a bit better. It's still not amazing. Even though his TD rate is quite a bit better in year two. It's like 3.9% which is not amazing. And so you're like, what is a full season of him playing at a good level look like in 2025. I do think he can play quite a bit letter, but quite a bit better. Given the way that he closed the season, he was really, really good. One of the interesting notes I have here is his sac rate fell from 10% all the way to 6.4% from year one to year two while his scramble rate jumped from 5% to 8.2%. So what I wrote is that he effectively extended plays. He got a lot more comfortable being able to extend plays and scramble as opposed to take sacks. He had five Russian rushing touchdowns in his final six games to close the season six overall rushing TDs seems pretty significant. Although he basically had no design runs. It was mostly all just scramble and I'm a little bit hesitant to like project that over a larger sample. We both have him between two and three rushing TDs next year, which is more normal six rushing TDs. I believe tied for third most in the league at quarterback. You have Josh Allen, Jalen hurts every year and double figures are for the last few years, but most every other quarterback isn't up around 10. So six was was a lot for Bryce Young last year. I'm very curious to see whether he can take the next step forward that rushing side will matter a lot. I do think the receiving weapons are really improved. They return the whole same offensive line that finished kind of middle of the pack last year has some decent depth pieces, some chance to be in a five average unit, I think. I kind of like their over on like sick there. They're still in Vegas, not looked at great at six and a half wins, but they have an easy strength of schedule as well. So kind of like their over put and I do kind of like betting into to Bryce as a later on QB option, but there's a lot of uncertainty with a guy who played really bad for a year and a year plus. Yeah, and I think you covered the nuance there really well, which is like we're excited because the end of the season, but you can't just erase how poor he played for a year and a half. So I think his ADP is probably about right probably not draftable in a single QB redraft league right now. We hit on the last episode with guys like Lawrence and Stroud going QB 18 to 20 that it's pretty deep in that top 20. I don't think Bryce has you know, it's someone you could pick up quickly if you see signs and that scrambling ability happen early, but probably not draftable in those formats. Someone you can backdoor stack with in best ball pretty easily, especially if you buy TET, McMillan is a rookie, which we'll get to. So we're the running back position. Chuba Hubbard lead back here. We both have him as kind of the clear lead. You've got him at 239 carries where it 213 you've got him at 43 targets, what 47. We have Rico with a lot more volume than you do and that comes a little bit from both Chuba and from Trevor ETN. So we've got Rico at 108 carries you're at 53. You've got ETN at 71 carries what 47. So we have the breakdown there a little different. I want to talk about Chuba first though. I'm a little bit worried about Chuba. It's not a terrible price tag in best ball at like that five six turn. I do find myself preferring like Kenneth Walker there. I know JJ Zacharyus has done some work finding that you know yards per out run for running backs. When you have a really poor metric there can often lead to a decline in target share the next year and Chuba did catch I think around 43. I think it was 43 balls in 15 games last year, which is important part of his value. He was terrible in terms of receiving efficiency and one of the guys, JJ, has flagged for a potential drop in target share. Which is a little concerning when you're talking about a mediocre team, a mediocre Russia. How do you see it, Ben? I saw that same research from JJ and Chubo was the one that it applied to the most for me. It's largely looking at dead zone backs, guys that are not going at the very top of drafts. To me, Chubo is that dead zone profile. I think you could do it in best ball, especially on underdog warts 0.5 PPR, where the receiving is not as important. But if you look at his advanced metrics, he mentioned it, his receiving stuff is poor. This yard is for target 3.1 last year. The average from running backs about six. His catch rate was actually above average. It was yard's perception very, very low in the past game. It was below average. Also in 2023, it was blodge average as a rookie. It was a little better in 2022, but it was a small sample that year from that mistaken. You're looking at a guy for his career so far who's receiving metrics show some real concerns. Now, fairly straightforwardly, he's a very good Russia of the football. I think that, but a bad receiving back. He's not hard to figure out. Even if you look at the advanced metrics, his yards after contact stuff, the two main sticky stats are kind of like evasion rate stuff, and then yards after contact. Yards after contact stuff is pretty decent. The evasion rate mistackles four stuff, not as exciting. And I think that also gets to this style of back where he's pretty downhill. He's going to read a hole. He's going to go. He might run through an arm tackling, get you yards in the rushing game. You throw it to him out in space. He's not necessarily the guy that's going to make dudes miss in space and be really seamless. Out on the edge in the passing game. And I think that's a problem because of the guys they brought in. That's something that Rico Dattles actually did pretty well last year. And it's actually something that Trevor Eats yet did pretty well. He's probably a pretty capable receiving back, just having 20 catches in a college season is good. He had 20 plus for running back. He had 20 plus both of the last two years. 32 last year was across two different offenses because he transferred. So 32 with Georgia last year, 21 in Florida, the year prior. He's probably okay, at least not great, but okay in yards per out run. They drafted him higher than I think people are giving him credit for. He's going undrafted in a lot of drafts. He went to wealth with the 12th pick of the fourth round. I think people mentally realize that Scataboo and Tutan were right off the board there at the beginning of the fourth round after the six backs that had gone by the end of day two. First round was Gentian and Hampton, you had the two Ohio state backs at the early part of the second round. Trivian Henderson and Junkins Junkins went ahead of him. You had RJ Harvey later in the second. You had Caleb Johnson in the third. That was the six backs that went by the end of day two. Then Scataboo and Tutan went right after that in the first three picks of day three, round four. Trevor Eats was a next back takin. They took him over every other back in this deep class. Some of them called it a generational class. The Panthers chose him over Jarquois Hunter and all of these other backs that we're all excited about from a profile perspective that are getting drafted. A lot of them are getting drafted. Some of them are getting drafted very highly. Some day three backs. But ETN for some reason is not getting drafted at all and has a pretty interesting profile. If you actually dig into it, his Mistakele four stuff is actually pretty good. Like I mentioned, he's got a little bit of a receiving background. I think the capital. This was something that you talked about. I was really on Bucky Irving last year. This is one of the reasons I was in on him was he had a bad combined, which is why people were down on Bucky Irving. But he was ranked about like 10th consensus back in the class last year. He went, I believe, RB7 in the draft. It was evidence that Tampa viewed him better than the other backs that were in his tier in the pre-draft process, which was evidence that they liked him. They saw the good things in his profile. He had really good production metrics. Better profile over all the ETN, like great evasion numbers and all that stuff. But the draft capital is really like team buying. And for me with Bucky the exciting part of it was we saw that Tampa wasn't concerned about the bad athletic, you know, metrics and combine. It's similar to ETN there. I'm not saying he's this year's Bucky, but it's similar to ETN in that he goes higher in the class than I think was expected. And yet people are not really buying into that. They're not, I don't think given him enough of a bump for that draft capital and that Carolina seemed to really proactively want this guy. So yeah, I think he's pretty interesting, man. I don't think Rico Dattle can keep him off the field necessarily. And with Chuba having some issues, the way that I projected this, you mentioned it. I have ETN for a little more volume than you guys. I projected it as like Rico's going to be the number two largely early on, but that ETN will grow into a role and that Chuba's limited in the passing game in a way that, I mean, Rico and ETN I think are going to combine for a solid receiving role. So I like ETN late. The fact that he's going on draft that is bizarre to me. Yeah, I think if Rico wasn't there, it's just this bias of like, if Rico wasn't there, I think ETN would be like one of the hottest names in drafts. You know, you're looking at, maybe a somewhat fragile RB1. You're looking at a rookie running back that we love to push up. I think as soon as you throw someone out on his name on the death chart, people get a little spooked. I think you're guilty of that, but I think you're right in that it shouldn't impact us as much as it probably has been because Rico is also, you know, he's just a guy. He's Jag. So yeah, this is a guy that didn't have, he had basically no offensive role for his first four years in the league and then as a 26 year old, he finally has an offensive role and then the team that gave it to him, let him walk. He's now 27 years old, mostly a special team's player for the bulk of his career. He did have a good year last year. And 1300 yards and scrammage. But I mean, not somebody that I'm overly concerned about at 27 years old after that background. Let's go to receivers. Get another rookie here, Technic Millen, who was the eighth pick in the draft, second-wide receiver off the board, arguably first-wide receiver off the board, depending on how you want to call Travis Hunter. He's in a great spot. And receivers that go on the top 10 and have that sort of draft capital generally get pretty solid target shares right away out of the gate that is especially the case here. There is nothing in his way. You've got a couple guys they've drafted who have disappointed. You've got an aging Adam feeling really nothing keeping that off the field. You've got him at 128 targets, we're at 115 targets. Overall, in terms of PPR fantasy points, you're at 215. You're at 196. He's a guy that we were maybe slow to have him as high as we should have right one our projections were released, our ranks were released, post NFL draft. But since then, we've gotten him a little bit higher and have him as a viable pick at that three-four turn. I think this is the guy that I don't understand some of the takes on the most from this rookie class. I have the least understanding. There's people that are really down on McMillan for reasons that are hard for me to understand. I think some of it goes to like the Nikhil Harry and the Traylon Berks and some of those guys that had these great quote unquote analytical profiles, really great production record in college, these early to clear types that didn't end up producing well. But McMillan's not similar to them in the sense that he didn't get a lot of manufactured touches and a lot of short area yardage. There's some concern that he didn't run a lot of deep balls. I know Matt Harmon's reception perception charting has him well below average on the nine route is very, you know, the straight deep go route, but also below average on all the underneath stuff. And so he was above average. He was green in his charting and all the routes that break at 10 yards so that in out post corner, come back curl all of these 10 yard intermediate range routes. I think that's really significant because that's what Bryce Young's actually had success doing with Adam Thielin a little bit with Jalen Coker. He's actually been really good into those intermediate ranges. It's also what defenses in the modern NFL are allowing. I'm going to talk about this a little bit with Drake London as well when we get to Atlanta. But sometimes I don't think we talk about the macro enough in football, the cover two shall, the taking away explosive past plays. The route for me to big receiving yardage seasons in the modern NFL, it used to be a man. You can get there quickly with some huge plays, but it's a lot harder to do that. But if you can get, it's a harder to do that when defenses are putting an umbrella over, you know, the deep all right, with the, with multiple safeties rolling over the top and all these things. And to consistently hit on deep targets is hard. And that's part of why only two guys had more than 1,300 receiving yards last year. Brian Thomas was starting to lead in the, I think it was like 1,250 receiving yards last year. If you can consistently hit in the intermediate range in the 15 to 10 to 15 yard, like chunk plays like that and be a volume guy, I think that's how you're going to see the receivers in the modern NFL really rack up yardage, right? And that's what's interesting about McMillan is even though he didn't run a lot of these deep routes, which people are using as a big knock on him. And people were suggesting he might fall out of the top 20 in the draft. And maybe that was a real threat, but he goes top 10. We get the capital. We have a three year early declared profile. We have a guy who went for 700 yards as a true freshman and then like over 1300 yards, each of his next two years, great age adjusted production. And again, running big boy routes is. people like to talk about, right? Like running 10 yards down field and breaking. And his A dot as a true freshman was 16.2. The next two years, 12.9 and 13.7 on higher volume. It comes down. But all three of those numbers well above a wide receiver average, which is typically around 11, his Ariards, 1300 plus as a true freshman on 80 targets because of that high A dot, then 1677 and 1781. Again, without running a lot of deep balls. The thing that everyone's saying is that he didn't run enough deep balls. He didn't run enough deep balls. He still had 1700 Ariards the last couple of years. So at 1400 receiving yards, because what he does in the intermediate range of the field is so dynamic. And so with rookies, I want to see a transferable skill. I want to see that they were able to do that from a production standpoint at the college level. He passes all that stuff. And as far as like a three year early to clear, strong production profile, how is that going to translate with a top 10 wide receiver draft capital element? And then you talked about it with the rest of this passing game. I don't think any of these guys can challenge the ceiling that Ted McMillan's profile offers. I mean, for me with the target share, I was pushing, like you mentioned, I went a little higher than you guys. It's hard. I was pushing it up and up and up. I do think there's meat on the bone. I think it's potentially even higher. Maybe he doesn't start out that way. Maybe he has to grow into it a little. Like we see rookies kind of be late season hammers. But I think that that transferable skill of how dominant he was at earning volume and then producing after the target was earned, targets per out run fantastic, yards per target fantastic, in the intermediate range specifically. He did all of this without having the deep balls. What if the deep ball was a system issue in college or a quarterback issue in college, which people have talked about, his college quarterback, maybe the issue that he doesn't have the arm strength and couldn't throw the deep ball particularly well. Maybe he's actually better at the NFL level because Bryce Young's able to throw that ball a little bit better. But regardless, what he's able to do in the intermediate range and the fact that Bryce has found that success with other guys in the intermediate range, I just think it's a perfect fit. Leget struggles as a rookie, but still athleticism and like a deep profile is going to help run off safeties and open up that intermediate range. I really like the setup for McMillan doing my projection. Just got me even more excited about how he fits with the rest of this passing game and the layered routes where he's going to be able to just operate in the intermediate if those skills can translate. Yeah, absolutely. I like that. And just I know I'm pricing. A lot of times you see situations where guys go earlier on the site they should go later and vice versa just because of the types of drafters on those sites. We get that dynamic with him being pushed up a little earlier in the fourth round on an underdog half-PPR site. Do start to get a little bit of efficiency, touchdown concerns on a team that's not that great. But as you said, meet on the bone in terms of the volume on the full PPR sites, whether it's draft games, basketball or FFPC, redrap. He starts to go more like the back end of the fourth round. I think FFPC actually bleeds into the fifth round and that's where very strong bargain. Not that he's a bad play on underdog, just particularly strong on DK and FFPC right now. Okay, beyond him, Gretch, we have three guys that go pretty late because none of these players have really separated. We got Zevery LeGat, Jalen Coker, Adam Fjoln. We're pretty close on LeGat stuff. You have 82 targets, we're at 73, which we've always talked about. Gretch's projections run a little bit higher, maybe close to a 60th percent how it comes. So I'd call that basically viewing him the same, where we differ and people will not find the surprising, no, my brand. We've got 47 targets for Jalen Coker, 65 for Adam Fjoln. Gretch is much, much higher on Coker with 76 and then much lower on Fjoln with 42. I'm, you know, torn on that. Always kind of want to favor the younger, more exciting, - I'm doing. - I want to favor Coker, the younger, more exciting player who had kind of flashes, but there's not, you know, a ton invested in him. And Fjoln was at 2.1, 1, 1 yards per out run last year. Like he was good. He's been good two years in a row for Carolina and people kind of keep wanting to write him off and just seen some deck chart rumblings and stuff in terms of like, I highly doubt, you know, Coker does not make the team, but it gets into a weird numbers crunch at a certain point if you assume Leigh-Get and Thielin ahead of him. - And I think Leigh-Get's clearly ahead of him with the draft capital last year. So Leigh-Get had kind of a tough work here, didn't really earn volume. High A.Gai wasn't really efficient either. I think that he's kind of the matchup issue with the physical traits, but that probably can't win enough targets is sort of the thought. So I'm not really into that type of profile. I like to see guys that can consistently win volume over the course of, you know, whatever the role is. There's different types of roles, but I think he's gonna be more of that sacrificial wide receiver that's the retening areas of the field, but not getting the ball as much. So I'm not super in on him. The question does become a little bit about Coker and Thielin. Thielin was really good last year, as you said, 299 were out sample though we missed some time. I would suggest that that smaller sample that he probably wouldn't have been able to keep that up over a full season at that age. I think it's a really tough needle to thread now at 35, right? Like we've been doing this for every year, but he's gotten a year older every time. He's 35 years old this year, just to be clear about how old he is. He was quiet to start last year when Deonte was still on the team, then got hurt, then closed really well. It was his best yards per out run since 2018. And I think he's, they're probably competing with each other. The thing I like about Coker is as a UDFA, he had only nine targets across his first four active games, had a breakout against Denver, and then beyond that he had five plus targets in five of his final seven games. So his overall season numbers don't show a guy who earned a ton of volume, but down the stretch, it's like his efficiency led to more volume. We know that from year one to year two, efficient receivers often see a spike in volume. I think that happened for Coker a little bit within his rookie year. And then the other part of it I want to highlight is he initially got his chance in the slot when feeling got hurt. Then he got hurt himself right about when feeling got back, and feeling was being, was starting to produce in that slot rule while Coker was out. And so the concern was that when Coker came back very late in the year, he wouldn't play, canals did not hesitate. And this is where I think the efficiency leads to increased role stuff happened within the rookie year for Coker, canals did not hesitate to move him to the outside and replace David Moore's role, kept feeling on the field, played Coker with him and Lee get, now he prioritized the element in the slot, feeling is the veteran, feeling probably is just starting slot week one. And Coker probably is your rotational fourth player. And it is weird, as you said, that he, they're talking about him not making a team, they also drafted this Jimmy Horn later, who's gonna do some special teams return stuff, probably get a lot of like end-or-rounds. I have him projected for like nine rush attempts or something, probably not a huge volume guy either, but he's gonna be on the team almost certainly, and so it does start to become a numbers crunch like you were talking about. I just, the way that they liked Coker and the way that they found another spot for him after he came back, that was beat speculation that was talking about, I don't know if Coker is a certainty, but I think he'll probably make the team. And he's also been a little banged up this spring. And so I think that's part of why it's easy to be like, yeah, Coker hasn't even been out here. He may be behind a little. I think Canal really likes him. I think you look at the way that he used him in 2024, found him a different role after he came back and feeling had retaken the slot. And then the numbers overall, particularly the efficiency, after the target efficiency, like his yards per target were way, way better than Lee get. Didn't earn volume like I said overall on a massive way, but it was progressing later. I think he's the most intriguing. You said there's these three guys to bet on. He's the one I actually think is a year two guy, a late round pick. We often see those guys break out later, is a better bet to potentially really take a step forward based on what we saw in the rookie year, than even Lee get. And certainly the 35 year old Adam Thielin, who's just, you're just hoping can hold on. And this is where in basketball, you can play it a little bit based on, you know, what your room looks like to an extent, your wide receiver room. If you've done, you know, more like a zero RB, wide receiver heavy start, probably no need for Adam Thielin late, who's gonna, as Ben said, you know, even with his pessimistic projection, probably starting week one, you don't need that production out of the game. That's where you'd rather take a chance, I co-cur. If you've got a kind of maybe you went, heavy running back early, you got any lead QB, lead T in the mix, you got to make up wide receiver with quantity over quality, then you might need some Adam Thielin. Maybe you took some rookie wide receivers early and just get some of that early production. But yeah, I agree. And redraft, co-cur is probably the one guy to maybe make a bet on. I feel like I don't end up taking wide receiver a ton in this spot in general and redraft, if it would probably would just wait, skip over Thielin like get for like zero RB, target guys, get co-cur a bit later. And even with our projection on co-cur, which is way less than Ben's, we're actually ahead of ADP and underdog. So, one make that no. - The key point of what you've highlighted here is, well, number one, Tatmik Millen's number one target role is probably pretty secure, but that I was gonna say the number two target role is, there's probably upside, right? Like if it is co-cur, you guys are still ahead, even with your more conservative projection. If it is him, if it's Thielin, if it's Leigh-Gat who takes a step forward, somebody could be the second target owner in this offense. and be pre-productive, right? - Yeah, and then you do have Jettavian Sanders with a bit more of a role than us. We're at 57 targets, you're at 71. It ends up being about a 30 point difference in tight end premium scoring, going from 143 with your projection 112 with our number. I think you've got slightly higher TD rate than we do on Sanders. Some of these guys who've historically had low TD rates at the tight end position are a little bit big, a little bit difficult to figure out. I'm sure we'll talk about it in depth when we get to Arizona and Tremick bride, but just one touchdown for Sanders in his rookie year on 43 targets. I don't have a ton of interest in Sanders, late in drafts. I think it would be a best ball only type of pick. And generally, I'm at a point in the draft where I'll correlate that third tight end late. So I don't really have much Sanders outside of if I've got Seattle Carolina stuff going on in the playoffs rounds. - Yeah, I think you want to be careful because he wasn't very good in year one. As you kind of talk through some of the raw numbers who weren't there, the advanced numbers, like I talked about like targets per out or those things weren't great either. But he was only 21 and we know tight end can take a little longer to come along. The ball case would be that he did have a pretty good prospect profile, was intriguing with the draft capital that he did get, which was in some, for some people a little surprising, a little better draft capital than he was expected to get last year. And again, he was pretty productive at Texas. Tommy Trembl, there are other main tight end that they did bring back this off season, has a back issue, had a surgery. They're talking about like he may not be ready for camp. He may not be ready and so closer to week one. He's gonna probably miss a lot of the off season. And on the flip side of that, Dave Canals has been giving Sanders a bunch of praise so far this off season, talking about how well he knows the offense, he's in great shape, called them a man on a mission. And so there's at least a little bit of an intrigue with his profile for me that maybe in year two, we can step forward 'cause the college stuff was a lot better than year one. - All right, let's jump over to Atlanta. We have, Gretchen and I each have Atlanta about 63 and a half plays per game, puts them a little bit above average. And in terms of pass rate, we're dead on. We have 59% called pass rate. So we're both in lockstep on Atlanta. It's about as close as we're gonna get for a team level projection. They do play a little bit up tempo. And I think both of us are expecting that pass rate with Penex to come up a little bit, this year as opposed to when he stepped in for the starting job of the talent of last year. - Yeah, I think his first game they went slow. And then his next two starts, they actually pretty quickly started adding tempo. I think he only started three games, but I think what the way Cousins played last year, I mentioned this at the top a little bit, but they're ready to do things a little bit. Last year, I think we talked about this on the last episode where I talked about it, I think with Cam Ward and Will Levis and how Ward might allow Brian Callahan to do things a little bit more, even though he's a rookie. We know rookies, offenses tend to be a little slower and they kinda get held back a little Penex as a second year guy, obviously. But I think it's a little similar to like the Bownex example I made when we were talking about Ward, Bownex coming in place of Russell Wilson and how he could run Sean Payne's offense a little better. I think Cousins really struggled last year to drive the ball down the field. He was not able to really move around the pocket, all those things. I think you saw a team in the last three games last year that was like, all right, now we have a quarterback that can do some of the things we want him to do. And Penex has some limitations, but he really throws, I mean, he throws, a really good spy on if it was a ball hard, but particularly throws those intermediate routes really well that we just talked about with Tet in Carolina. And that was something that Drake London feasted off on just a few games with Penex last year and I expect to kinda be there as well this year. And then it also kinda opens up the run game and stuff. And so it'll be interesting to see, yeah, like you said, we're gonna go through this position by position, but like you said, got him as like a slight run lean, but I actually haven't a lot closer to neutral than last year you do too, because thinking that kind of Cousins was the one holding him back last year a little bit. - Yeah, especially after Cousins kind of had issue with that shoulder injury, I think he still played a few games before they ended up pulling the plug on him. Do you like Penex a little bit better than Bryce Young as far as the bet in the QB 20s? I just think there's maybe a little wide range of outcomes for us to be wrong on that pass rate and just the skill players around him in terms of Drake London, Darnow Mooney had a great season, Bijon Robinson obviously, very athletic tie down. I don't know if you've heard of Kyle Pitts, but I was hoping to get a chuckle out of Ben on that one. - Yeah, sorry. (laughing) - I'm just terrified. - Like all Kyle Pace. - You see us, D. - Blinds up, blinds up flat. Yes, I like him a little bit more than Bryce Young in that range, but we'd still have him behind like the Stroud Lawrence-E type guys, which again probably keeps him out of the redraft player pool in most circumstances. Of course, he's gonna be playing basketball and there's the decent amount of stackability in basketball. We'll talk about the secondary wide receivers in a second, but our total projection for both of us end up around 277 fantasy points, around seven and a half yards per attempt. Yeah, we have him running a little bit more than Ben does, which is why we're so close on fantasy points even though Ben's stuff runs a touch hotter. - Yeah, and he didn't run a lot at Washington. I'm pretty familiar with him. I went to the University of Washington as well and watched them a bunch for anyone who doesn't know. And so he's very athletic. We're in like a four four or five, which is really fast for a quarterback, but he just wasn't a scrambler at Washington and the reason I buy that he's not gonna scrambler a ton at the NFL level is that it also correlates with the fact that he does not take Sacks. Incredibly low sac rates at Washington and then also last year and his few starts a rookie starting just three games basically did not take any Sacks. Very good at soccer avoidance, gets the ball out, just doesn't, had a lot of injuries earlier in his college career and I think it just doesn't wanna take a lot of hits and has learned to play that way. And it's fine, I mean, that's what Tom Brady played for the whole second half of his career after his ACL is like, you just get the ball out. Don't take hits, don't take Sacks or negative plays. I think that's the way that Panics plays even though he's very athletic. He will scrambles some, but I don't know that there's gonna be as much rushing upside us, his athleticism suggests. - Let's go to running back position. - Bijon Robinson, great season last year. As expected, they leaned on him heavily still Al-Jear in the mix somewhat annoyingly at times. I think we'll see that a little bit again, but Ben has a much wider disparity than we do. Ben's got Bijon 292 carries to 107 for Al-Jear. We're a little bit tighter, 259 for Bijon 133 for Al-Jear. We're generally a little bit more conservative, especially on that really high volume though, but each of us have really strong efficiency for Bijon, double digit rushing touchdowns around 50 catches. So really bullish numbers for him overall. 288 half PPR points for you, 252 for me, and full PPR that's 314 for you, 275 for us. Main question, I guess with Bijon really, where do you, like how high do you have him? You've got Chase, Sequan up there. I was interested to see on FFPC, the market actually seems to have Bijon ahead of Sequan if I'm looking at it, the ADP correctly, yeah. So we actually have Bijon ahead of Sequan there, 'cause we have him so tight that the ADP ends up a tiebreaker in our rankings. I think for people playing on a local leagues, that'll seem crazy to them. In half PPR, I think the adges a little bit more clearly towards Sequan, but in full PPR, you could see Bijon ahead of Sequan. Just curious if you have thoughts on if that's too cute or if you actually like Bijon ahead of Sequan. - I don't think it's too cute from the perspective that I think is profile. Bijon's is pretty straightforwardly great. There's like nothing wrong with it at all. The only minor concern is he doesn't have a 40 yard carry so far in his career. Some of the like mistackle force and yards after contact stuff hasn't been elite at the NFL level, although it was in his college profile, which is why he had the draft capital. But the question would be like, does he have enough big plays for a top five running back where, but the weird thing is, even without those, he's had a 4.6 and 4.8 yards per carry the last two years. And like Jumir Gibbs, for example, is a guy that I come to mind. I was like, yeah, he has a ton of big plays. People were telling me like mid season last year or one person reached out to me and was like, maybe Jumir Gibbs just doesn't have the potential for big plays because I think he didn't have a 40 yard run to that point in his career either through like a year and a half. And then he like closed the season with like sex of him. After somebody brought this to my attention, I was like, now it's all I could see. Is Jumir Gibbs scoring along touchdowns? We know those rates are not particularly sticky, but that would be the big thing that would tilt you towards Sequon if you were Sequon over B-John, is that Sequon can score from anywhere at any time and he did last year and that's why I ran for 2,000 yards. and all those things. But also if you regress his long TD rate at all on the ground and you think that Bijon has the potential to break some long touchdowns, I think you're like, probably have to be, Bijon, with the perspective that, you know, we'll get to the Eagles when we get to them, but the receiving stuff is going to be so, so different. Bijon's receiving profile over two years has been really strong. It was down a little bit with Penex, who is going to push the ball down field more than cousins, but he did still have 12 targets in the three games. Maybe a possible efficiency dip. You only caught seven of those. I think that's probably just really small sample stuff. He had 72 targets. Elgir had just 13. No other running backs had any on the team. He was the clear, clear receiving back. And in the three games, Penex played because Penex is able to throw to those intermediate ranges in a way that cousins probably wasn't that softened up the boxes a little bit. Bijon had 90 plus rushing yards and two rushing TDs in all three games. I mean, really broke out as a runner. He didn't have those types of games throughout most of the season with cousins. He was relying on the receiving stuff more. But soon as he had a quarterback in the that could push the ball down field and threaten defenses, suddenly his rushing stuff was actually really opening up. So I mean, I don't think it's crazy at all. I don't think there's a ceiling on what Bijon can do. We talked about a last year. The office of corner came over from the Rams. They really like to concentrate things. And so we see that with Kyron Williams in the Rams offense for the last few years. When you have a player like Bijon, this was my big case on him last year as being an interesting option sort of over Breeze Hall because they're going back to back in the first round was just that you have a guy who has top 10 draft capital and has a coaching staff that likes to do the workhorse stuff. That's part of why I leaned into this gap so much. But I like your guys out of your projection as well. We should talk about him real quick because there's not a third back here. The guy they had was Jason McClillin last year that got a few touches. It was very concentrated. They had really good health last year. McClillin, they just recently cut to sign the best running back out of the U.F.L. once the U.F.L. season ended. Jisun Corbin, who might be the RB three. I mean, whoever's RB three this year was not on the roster last year. And they didn't draft anyone. They didn't bring anyone in free agency. It's like, I think it's going to be a lot of Bijon. I also think Al Jir is like the clear number two in a very strong handcuff from the perspective that there's no real threat to him from like third or fourth on the deck chart. I don't even know who third on the deck chart is right now. Right. And as you mentioned, they do like to concentrate things. So Bijon goes down. It's probably not a split workload. It's probably pretty heavy Al Jir. And it's a good team. It's a good offense. There's going to be opportunities of mentioned the double digit Russian touchdown projection on Bijon. So I do like Al Jir in all formats. I think in basketball, he's going to run into a few of those weeks where it's just a ground heavy game plan in Atlanta scores well. And in Al Jir can find the box and he gets double digit carries. And then he also has that contingent upside that will play in redraft as a bench stash. So I do like Al Jir where he's going right now. I think sometimes honestly just having very clearly be the number two in a clear like this is going to be the guy if the top guy goes down is valuable. Even if you don't think that player, you know, is particularly exciting. And he did bounce back in terms of some efficiency metrics on the ground last season after kind of a bad sophomore year. At wide receiver, London, opportunity to just be an absolute massive target hog, very concentrated offense for Atlanta. London, Mooney are out there just all the time. You've got London with 159 targets where 136. That's a pretty big number for us. You've got Mooney at 113. We're at 88. And we still like Mooney, you know, relative to ADP at, you know, our number, which is a little bit more conservative than yours. I'm looking at the FFPC ADP and we're like 16 spots ahead of ADP, you know, even with our number. Mooney with someone that did flash some good downfield ability with Chicago and they just did not have a quarterback. And then things seem to click with Atlanta. So I think London's fine at the one two turn. We hit on a kind of ad nauseam last week, but it's kind of a stacked one two turn. I think he's certainly in the mix there. So yeah, thoughts on London and Mooney. Yeah, I mean, my notes were that this was again, a really healthy skill position group last year and they'd like to really concentrate things. So again, with the Ram stuff, they did a ton of 11 personnel. Like I actually would probably attack this from the cow pits perspective where last year, the hope was that they would treat him a little bit creatively like, you know, a wide receiver matchup problem, probably have a different tight end on the field as the traditional tight end and then pits can be your third receiver and three receiver sets. They didn't do that, right? And so instead they just said we like to run 11 personnel so much that we're going to have rear him a cloud on the field all the time as a slot receiver. Maybe that was going to be run down more who got hurt, but it ends up being rear him a cloud all year. And so then pits is now kind of out of position as a traditional tight end, career high inline percentage. And then a lot of the time they decide, well, we actually just want Charlie Warner on the field because now he's a better blocker and he's the better tight end for this type of offense where we have three receivers running routes every time we have a slot receiver out there every time we don't need cow pits athleticism. So instead of using his uniqueness as a strength and this flexibility, they highlighted his weakness, the lack of blocking by making him the one tight end and 11 formations, 11 personnel formations and then decided they needed to. But the point of that is he gets back to the receivers. It's the same three receivers every snap. It's you go, I look at last year's stats when I start from my projection, you go look at their stats last year, the volume is more concentrated than any other projection I've done so far. I haven't gotten to the Rams, but they're pretty concentrated too. But particularly because they were so healthy, the volume was probably more concentrated on it, Lanna than any team in the league last year. What that happens for me is I project it really aggressively in that regard. I'm a lot higher than you on the clouds targets as well. Even pits can come out looking good in a projection, but I also feel like they're pretty fragile projections. I kind of feel like there's asymmetrical downside in some cases and I'm kind of projecting near the ceiling of the profile. Like Mooney was good last year, but largely because you ran a ton of routes didn't earn a ton more volume. He was better on the per route stuff than he had been prior, but he wasn't a guy that looks to me like he's got big like top few round ceiling, right? Like production, he still looks to me like this secondary receiver, high A dot explosive play, gonna be out there for a lot of routes, good and best ball, kind of a roster clogger to me in most managed formats. But that gets back to what you said about London that London could really, really consolidate. He's graded it at all the intermediate routes that Penox is great at throwing. He had eight targets, then 13 and 18 in Penox's three starts last year, 100 yard games in the last two. He only had one other 100 yard game all year. So two of his three best receiving games of the season come in the three games that Michael Penox played. His overall numbers in 2024 were a breakout season though. He had a match to his career high targets per route and a match to his career high yards per target, which go together to make yards per route. But they came from different seasons. But he matched the component parts, a career high for him on both component parts. So 2.32 yards per out run was a career high for him, mostly with poor QB play for the majority of his routes. And then the other big thing for him that I think is super bullish is all the way even until going into last year, I don't think we knew for sure that there was a big gap between Drake London and Kyle pets. I think we comfortably know that now. Drake London is gapping the other players in his passing offense in terms of ability to really earn volume and concentrate. And so as you said, I mean, I think he's really interesting at the one two turn. I maybe don't have him quite as high as some of the receivers at the very top of the one two turn, but I think he's a really nice consolation prize if you miss out on like Almanar staying brown there or like Nico Collins looks like just a superstar as well. But London is a really good fit with Penox too and looks like he could be a star too. Yeah, and he got up to nine touchdowns last year after only having six in the first two years of his career. I think like big body guy like that, you talk about Penox's accuracy. And I think the touchdown upside that you're pretty strong here, especially with how he's developed on Mooney. I mostly agree in terms of redraft like being a roster cager. I am trying to be a little bit more open to these types that sometimes I've overly dismissed in the past. I think of like this day Jones year for like Jacksonville where he like really out of strong year. So kind of depends on how you're starting. Ben and I are generally building pre-wider super heavy teams early and it's just tough for Mooney to crack the line up. You want to be taking RB chances at that point. But I would be a little bit open-minded on him. Now the McLeod vs. Hodge stuff is interesting for late stacking and best ball. He's not really a relevant conversation for redraft. I know we were initially higher on McLeod where at 51 targets now, Ben's at 72. We're a little worried. Just some comments they made on Hodge and then also like at the end of last year Hodge seem to be getting a little bit more of a look. And he's been a very efficient player in a very small role for the last three years. But he's over 10 yards per target all three years without Atlanta. So that's the reason we're a little bit lighter on McLeod. I say that and we're still ahead of ADP on the best ball sites which is again where he's that's where you'd take him. It's really as a stack partner I think to panic son of that Atlanta stuff in best ball formats. My big note on him is he's a routes based producer only 1.25 yards per route, but he ran 547 routes. So it's kind of empty. And I have the note I wrote was that he's at risk of losing the role. That makes it pretty fragile, right? But that gets, I mean, I think that dovetails with what you were saying would be a concern. I think he could still produce as a late round receiver though. Like he's a worthwhile stack, like he said, stack partner. If he runs 500 routes again, he's going to be worth an 18th round cost, you know. Kyle Pitz, which just don't listen to last year's version of the podcast. You don't need to listen to the hot takes from last year. But yeah, big let down. Obviously, for pits. It's hard for me to not still hold a little bit of a light on for Kyle Pitz, given how concentrated the offense is. And there were spurts from last year. I mean, like through two months of the season, it actually looked like it might be happening. You know, he had that huge game against Tampa. And then the tail end of the season was a bit of a disaster. He was the one who really struggled when cousins started struggling pits in particular. And they started running Mars, Ben noted. They stayed in the 11th personnel and just put one or in for better blocking. And that, you know, is at risk again of happening this year, where he goes in drafts, like probably going to have some Kyle Pitz again this year. I hate it. But I guess my process process on it is kind of like, it's very low probability. He like breaks out at this point. But I do still think the ceiling there compared to the other tight-ends going around him is still higher if it were to happen. I think you have to be right. I've been just ignoring him. But when soon as you said that, I was like, "Kyle, you're making me back." And Warner did run some or did play take some snaps. He didn't run a ton of routes. And he was a little bit of an impact on Pitz's ceiling, but Pitz still ran more routes just to make sure, you know, anyone listening is clear on that. Pitz is still out there a bunch. And I think what you were saying about cousins is what you just kind of grabbed me there where it's like, I think it's the same case with Mooney. And I liked your take on Mooney as well as probably dismissing him too quickly. If Pinnix is a better fit for this offense and is a better quarterback and is able to do some things in the intermediate ranges and some of those things that I was talking about, Mooney and Pitz are the guys that would benefit in my opinion. If Pinnix doesn't have a real ceiling, I think London can still produce. If he does have a little bit of a ceiling, I think he can bring along Mooney and Pitz in a pretty meaningful way. And I mean, especially Pitz, that's the range where Pitz needs to be able to hit a little bit deeper eight out than what most high-ends are doing. And like you were saying, when cousins was really struggling, that's when Pitz really went down. The production really dropped off. So I mean, I get it. I get it. I also, I hate to too much do the best ball versus redraft thing and like player archetypes, but you can justify it more on a best ball site because I do think the inconsistency issues are probably going to hold. Like they get into run heavy scripts and they play Warner. There are a lot of like, like, goose-eyed games from Pitz last year. So it might be tough that he breaks out in such a way that he's, you know, an every-week starter in redraft. But I still think there's an opportunity for some spike weeks, given his athleticism, the offense being pretty good and that he is the receiving tight end, you know, even, you know, we're talking going tight end 17 right now. We're basically projecting him to replicate last year's production, both Ben and I in terms of our projections there. So at the T-17 price, that's really what does it as it's not so much that we want to keep pounding our heads against wall with Kyle Pitz year in and year out. Let's go to Tampa. This is another one where we are in lockstep on the play, calling 63.5 plays per game. We're right around there. Both of us were right at about a 60% call pass rate for Tampa that puts them about like close to a play per game above average. And then in terms of drop back rate, it's pretty neutral in drop back rate. And I think, you know, we can expect to see that last season in terms of drop back rate, they were right at 60.3%. So, or sorry, 60.1%. So we're basically just assuming not much change for Tampa. I do think Baker is a little overvalued, particularly in redraft leagues and basketball. I kind of get the stacking components based on like how you fill out the roster early and just knowing you're taking multiple quarterbacks in redraft. I think there's a tendency to chase the pocket pass or success from the year before. You see it with Baker and Gough. You see at the opposite direction, guys like CJ Stroud and Dac. But Ben and I do have Baker over 300 fantasy points. I'm still expecting him to be very good. I just don't love the cost proposition in redraft. Yep. Couldn't agree more. New opposite coordinator was a pass game coordinator last year. Many and bowls have both breached continuity this off season. So that's probably why we both like there to be some continuity in the play calling tendencies. We both have their plays coming down a little bit. The way I wrote it is they weren't super fast paced and any regression in like success rate might cost them some plays, which I do think there will be a little bit. I wound up really light on touchdowns at the end of the projection. This is a team where I had to kind of push the past TD rate up because he was at 5.3% last year. 7.3% or something I think the year prior or sorry 7.3% last year 5.3% the year prior. I've got them all up to like 5.7%. I'm usually not projecting a lot of quarterbacks above a 5% past TD rate. That's 7.3% number is one of those that you look at. Talk about this in the past. Like those past TD rates at spike. They can happen in one year. They almost always regress back. Like Matt Ryan did it one year and one MVP and then it came back and several guys have had those kinds of years and then the past TD rate comes back. That's what you're looking for in cheek pocket passers is to see that their past TD rate could maybe spike one season. Usually after it spiked they're expensive. As you said, the other tricky thing with Baker is that last year's rushing was new. It was more than double his previous career high for rushing yards. He scrambled quite a bit more and added a lot of yardage and it was also his second season with multiple rush TDs. He tied his career high with three there as well. So if you see any regression in that maybe he'll bring all that back. But you see any regression in that that's pretty big hit to the fantasy production as well. So I think he's pretty clearly one of the biggest over values in early quarterback ADP. He's going in the top 10 scored incredibly well last year. Still behind a good online has great receivers. A lot of reasons why he should still score well. But when you do the projection you're like, this is he's over value. At running back, Bucky Irving again shout out to Gretz last year my highest home player in Bess, Bomania and I owe that to Gretz's confidence of him having the number two job and having that explosiveness to him paid off in a huge way. Gretz has him for a very big role this year 244 carries 58 targets, 274 PPR points where a little bit less on the rushing volume at 213 carries pretty close on the past volume. 54 targets puts us at 223 PPR points. But noting again, there's another spot where like we're lower than Gretz probably even after adjusting for Gretz's projections right a little bit hotter. But we're ahead ADP on Bucky, you know we have a good upside case on him and have him kind of belonging in that early second round conversation. Our ranks actually have a little bit higher than H&N personally. I like H&N more, but we have him on a full PPR site like ranked right with Derek Henry, H&N and Drake Lunden who we just discussed as part of this and AJ Brown in that mix as well as part of this deep start of the second round. Yeah, this is going to be my first sort of, might surprise you a little bit, but I don't think I'm on Bucky this year. I love his Bucky little surprise. Yeah, it's one of those ones where you got to be cost aware and it's tough. When you really hit on a guy late, you can see it kind of clearly. I think I see it more clearly. You don't feel like you missed out or anything. He was my highstone player too. I don't think at this cost, he makes a ton of sense. I think this is where you don't want to chase him up. His point 3-0, Mistakl's force per touch is elite a translator from college. He's incredible. I don't really expect an elite workload. He's more like a 15 carry 3 plus target per game guy even in the second half of the year when he really had taken over. And then the other side of it is he does have some athleticism concerns that the other really elite running backs don't. He doesn't have high end speed. He didn't finish off his long runs with touchdowns. My single bananas co-Sean Seagull shared a stat with me a while back and I don't have it in front of me. But it was something like there was like seven runs on the season where it was like a 40 yard run that didn't end in a TD and Bucky had like three of them. Because he can make dudes miss and get into space and run, but he also was getting run down a lot. He isn't necessarily the Seagull. And I was just talking about it with Bijan. Even Bijan has that potential. But Bijan's tested athleticism is on a whole other level than Bucky's. Bucky's impossible to hit squarely in tackle. He's going to make guys miss. He's going to get into space. He's going to gain yards. But he's not safe. one Barclay or Jonathan Taylor or Bijan Robinson or Jameer Gibbs or a lot of these guys. He's going behind these guys, but he's not going way behind them. And when you take him running back that early, you want the ability for him to just get some ridiculous number of, you know, the ridiculous efficiency is what really wins. That's what a league winner is is when they can stack efficiency like Barclay did last year. I don't know the buck he's going to be able to do that necessarily like really improve on the efficiency that he already showed last year, which he did have good efficiency overall. And then the workload stuff that the funny thing is Mike, I sat here and told you last year, I thought Rashad White was massively overpriced. He's the one that's probably still going to have a role and has probably underpriced this year. Like, they're probably going to still use him. I like this offense in general to support running back fantasy points. So in Levitans, really into Bucky. So again, we're a little bit ahead of ADP were. I probably don't like him quite as much as our rank, but probably like him a little bit more than you. So I was able to rattle off 80% rush shares through the last four weeks, get into double digit target shares. So even with white mixing in, they were able to generate a lot of the touches going Bucky's way. But it's possible we scout back some of our efficiency stuff. Listen to you talk about it because I think you definitely make some good points there. But the Rashad White early on, he was one of the best picks in basketball. I still think he's probably pretty solid. Let me just double check where the ADP is going. It's definitely moved up a lot. I know an FFPC and redraft. It's moved up a lot. Draft Kings, basketball, it's about 140. But we're ahead of ADP for what you said. You know, he's the, you talk about L's year being a guy that like has some usable scores with him plus the contingency upside. That's where Shot White, except he catches passes, which for PPR leagues, you know, lets you get those usable weeks at a higher clip without him taking over the top guys. So just like this backfield in general, but do you have any concerns about Sean Tucker being a thorn here? I guess more to Rashad White than Bucky. No, I mean, Bulls comments us off season. He talks about Bucky and White and then he brings up Tucker. But he brought up Tucker a bunch last season. We need to get the ball and Tucker's hands more and they never really did. I do think Tucker is a decent handcuff from the perspective that he's the clear three. There's no four. They do always talk about him positively. And if either of the other two missed time, I would expect Tucker to have like a pretty meaningful role. He might play a little more naturally, but I guess I don't expect that. It would probably come at White's expense. The thing that's the big thing in White's favor is he grades really well in past protection. Much better than Bucky. Bucky's not a very, so Bucky got a lot more like targets per route and is going to get passes. Bucky's not going to because they'll throw to him at a high rate when he's actually out in routes. But White's going to stay on the field for the ambiguous. Like, oh, it's just a passing down. We won't wait on the field, right? Like we don't know if we're going to pass or run or whatever because that's their new OC highlighted at this off season. Call them near the best running back in the league at it. They think he's an incredible past protector. He's bigger and he is a good receiver as well when he releases out into the flat catches and runs. That's what he does. I think that's what he does. Smith who was a true freshman last year. And yet, Jeremiah Smith, and just got tweet today that he's already a 99 overall in the NCAA game as a true sophomore. He's the new Julio Jones. So you say that Jefferson comp and I immediately am like, well, you know, a book is taking a backseat to other guys. Jefferson was less productive than Jamar Chase. And that was part of the knock on him was that he kind of took a backseat to his teammate. But Jamar Chase was exceptionally special. It was very possible that the guys at a book who was taking a backseat to are we thought that about Harrison, at least after his draft, uh, capital last year, maybe not after his rookie year necessarily. Yeah. And like, just to interject quickly, part of it too for me when I make the comparison is more like a macro thing of like being overconfident that a guy doesn't have a ceiling based on his archetype or something. Like even you think like I'm on Russ St Brown, we think of like the guy who wouldn't have a ceiling the NFL level. Like if the guy's just really good, it could play out in a lot more ways than like the narrow path that that sometimes visualize. Yeah. And I think that's a great point. And I think it is a very valid point. And I don't have a strong disagreement. You're obviously not saying he's going to be Justin Jefferson, but Justin Jefferson is a good example of a similar player who did hit a real ceiling. And that would be the concern with the bookas that the profile doesn't show you a strong ceiling. That would have been the concern with the LaVay as well. But LaVay has shown real target earning ability at the NFL level. Maybe not a massive ceiling yet. But I would argue more for situational reasons than some of the like concussion stuff scary. But like the guy had two plus yards per hour and three straight years to start his career at LaVay. Um, he's been better at the NFL level than I thought he could be. He's a guy that you were higher than me on coming out, you know, those three years ago. And I'm worried that I'm doing it again at the bookas. I'm not super high on him. I was telling you before the show, I, I, I, I, I mean, I think he's got more upside than I'm probably giving him credit for it is a crowded room. I do think Godwin's contract is just so bizarre because Godwin's got so much guaranteed money for two years. And then they could get out of the deal. But they just signed him to it this off season. They love Chris Godwin. He is rehabbing a serious injury. But I think he's going to be the focal point when he's back. And yet everything they're saying about a booka is a so cerebral. He can play all the different positions. That was another big thing with Jefferson was that he had played multiple inside and out, uh, multiple alignments across multiple years in college and was very good at playing a lot of different ways and was going to be on the field regardless. And so even if Godwin's in the slot, a booka can split out. It's not a key needs to be in the slot. And so that's his numbers are fine, by the way, as well. I mean, he took a back seat to some of these guys, but the targets per out stuff, still very good yards per target. Good yards per out run good. It's not amazing, but it's not bad or anything over the course of his college career. So he's a, he, everything just looks fine. But that was again to your point of a guy like Justin Jefferson. The big thing about him was that he checked every box. He didn't have a red flag, you know, his profile was probably overlooked in that regard. It may be the case that the same is true for a booka who again is getting a lot of praise out of camp from the coaching staff from Baker. You're starting to hear the drum beat. And when you start to hear that, it definitely makes my ears perk up. It's a drum beat too for, I used to solve prospect, really good draft capital. I mean, this was what the third wide receiver off the board. He goes before golden. He goes 19th overall. And typically what happens to me with the rookies is I'm the one who's buying the rookies that people are disenchanted by for like landing spot reasons. That's the guy that I want. It was Brian Thomas a little bit last year. It was also guys that did not work out last year. So it doesn't happen without fail. But for a while there, like, Burton was going ahead of a booka with vastly different draft capital. And I'm trying not to, obviously you got taken to counter-target competition to an extent. Tampa's not a bad landing spot. That's an offense that's going to, we've got them above average in tempo. They're going to score. They've gotten really solid quarterback play from Baker. So our rank on him right now is pretty similar to ADP. But if I'm at a point where I need a little bit of rookie upside, I'll push them up half around to around. So definitely some of that. I've been drafting more than Godwin at their cost right now. We'll see in a month or so how the Godwin injury shakes out. Nick Mellon is a basketball only guy for me at this point. But I do still think he's okay in basketball late, just because he can get there in some big plays. He's probably going to have a high touchdown rate. And like the other thing, Groucho, we talked about when we do this projection podcast, like all these guys have contingency upside. So sometimes the market is viewing these guys too much of like all four of them. How does it shake out to these guys pay off their ADP? Like you're trying to make a bet on a specific player with their range of outcomes at their cost. And all four of these guys have in solid upside case. I agree with that. And I think the strongest case there is probably for a buka because Nick Mellon had that last year or both Godwin and Evans got hurt, but still seemed to be sort of in his role. That's why I say he's maybe just an ancillary guy. But a buka. And then because you're usually when you're thinking about that, I think you're adjusting for cost as well. There's probably ceiling to Evans target share if the young guys don't come on or get hurt or something to your point. It's it goes both ways. But Evans is very expensive. All right. You're already paying for that ceiling in some regards, right? But I when you make that point, it's probably there for all four, but probably I guess strongest for a buka as well. I mean, I'm really concerned. I'm too low on it. On a mecha buka. Yeah. Let's go to tight end. Talk about a routes play. Kade Aoden is the routes play. You can have it 71 targets. We've got them at 62. But he's priced like a routes play. So honestly, someone that I take a decent bit at the end of basketball drafts as like getting a starting tight end for for Tampa Bay is going to be out there a ton. You're not going to get a breakout, but yeah, I think he's a solid T3 in basketball. In past years, I was off him because his data was like it was purely just the routes. His previous his first two years his career high target sprout was 13.5%, which is very low. He did have the good playoff stretch the second season. He's the inverse of McMillan where he actually did step up to fill that target void last year. He had an 18.1% targets per out, almost 5% points higher than his previous career high and showed some real like target earning ability. He ran at least 460 routes for the third straight season. That's very good. You do not have a lot of tight ends that run 460 plus routes. An example I used when I was talking about him and my target sprout run series was talking for years about Noah Fant, one of these days he's going to have a year. We actually run some lot of routes. It's probably not going to happen. He's never done that. He's never run 460 routes. Othens done it all three years of his career so far. But yeah, I mean, I think you said it well. He's cheap enough. He's a routes play, but he did show at least a little bit of target earning ability or upside when the other guys route last year that he's another one that's got that contingency value. It's not great that his target bump came with other guys injured and it's a crowded. It's crowded again in 2025, but he's going to run a lot of routes, as he said. All right, let's move on to the final team in the division, New Orleans. I've got them at 62.4 plays. Grature at 61.2. I've got them at 61.3% called Pass, right? Grature at 59%. Not a huge disagreement. Probably our biggest disagreement on play calling of a team in this particular division, since we're so close on the other ones. Very difficult team to figure uncertainty and poor quarterback play is almost a certainty. This is a team that has a low expected win total and you can definitely see things go south for them. But you also get a new coach in Kalenmore who has been up tempo in the past and has run some pretty good offices and I think is a sharp hire for them. So it's difficult to try and place all that. In terms of the pass rate, we're both expecting a negative pass rate over expectation when you look at the Vegas projected margin here is plus 5.4 on average for them. Yeah. I was just making an adjustment to move them a little bit more fast pace. You have Kalenmore talking about wanting to be fast pace. That's always been a thing. I guess my concern is very often we see QB play limit what a coach is able to actually do as it relates to tempo. I would probably use Brian Callahan as an example last year. I think he was talking about it a little bit and Will Levis was just bad. In the second half of the year, he just started to hide Will Levis. I do think it's tricky when the season goes awry. You're just trying not to get embarrassed. I think teams start to play a lot slower as a result. I don't see a lot of ways that the season doesn't go that way. It's going to be tough. I'm expecting them to run quite a bit as well because of the young QB issue. I think because there's three of them, there's some potential that want to shock Ratler or Jake Hainer as a surprise. but Hainer, a very small sample was bad last year. Ratler, bigger sample was really bad last year. I think your best bet is Schuck. But the concern with him is like, that's a seven year college guy. I played it three colleges. Didn't have 200 pass attempts in the season until seventh year. The one other year he was the primary QB. I mean, some of that was injury, but that's why he got seven years. But the one other year he was the primary QB. He was for Oregon in 2020 and they're shortened year. But he went four and three as a starter with all those resources that Oregon has. And then he transferred away the next year. And he was at Texas Tech. And then he eventually transfers away from there. He winds up at Louisville. Stuff like his TD rate, past TD rates, good over his career. He seemed like a decent scramble or win he ran. Actually, he's pretty athletic. But his interception rate also tough completion percentage, pretty underwhelming overall for a past first QB prospect. His final season numbers, even, which was the one year where he actually had real life. We're still not great. You know, volume adjusted. They're pretty good, but he didn't throw a lot. He's in kind of a low volume pass offense, which is kind of weird for a guy. So advanced in age and all that. Like if he's going to go this high, why weren't they throwing more when he was, you know, 25 year old seventh year college player last year. So anyway, I he's got a high eight out throughout his college years. He his eight out was over nine in all five seasons where he had at least 90 pass attempts. So he's. Probably going to be willing to push them all down the field. And so I thought that was interesting. As far as a pf grades it, he had more turnover worthy plays than big time throws across about 550 attempts. And his first six seasons most guys have way more big time throws to turn over a worthy plays. He did have a real gap where he had more big time throws than turnover worthy plays last year. And that one big season of volume. But across those first six seasons, 550 pass attempts, he didn't look like an NFL quarterback. And then now he goes high in the second round. It's kind of. I'm trying to see the silver lining here. Mike, but it doesn't look great. No, the silver lining is if you're just hopeful that a Kalamor to wizard and can find something here. And I bet on that a little bit probably more than I would have liked. Shock desperation, QB 3 and best ball. If I've got some New Orleans pass catchers, literally no other format that you're drafting. I guess if you're in superflex, these all the QBs are going to get drafted. But you know, not even Guarantee starts day one, but Ben and I are both expecting him to play the majority of the snaps. Just because there's not really a big reason not to. That's going to running back. Alvin Camara is definitely an interesting one. He's someone that last year I really fought the projections on and he ended up having, you know, a pretty solid season. It's difficult again this year where you're like, this is an aging running back, you know, where the efficiency isn't. Where it used to be on a team that's not going to be very good. This is like a clear avoid. But it is tough to give volume. So, Gretcheson at 224 carries and 74 targets. We've got them at 184 carries and 70 targets. Put Gretches at 235 BPR points. And us at 207. Gretches, what are your thoughts on Camara? I think you put it really well. He's going to have a good role, but he's a year older now, more expensive than the bet last year, which was already tough at, you know, whatever it was age 29. He probably had a 75, 75th-ish percentile outcome last year, where things ran well, even though he did so get hurt late. And so that's why I would say it's not higher because he missed a little bit of time. But it was a career high in touches form. And so, a lot of volume last year was really efficient as a receiver 1.75 yards per out was as high as since 2020. So, not just volume. There's some decent metrics too is evasion stuff yards after contact stuff rebounded a little bit. And yet, everything you said is my concern. And I think at the higher price now a year older, I don't want to make the same bet off a 75th-ish percentile outcome. Shift away from Derek Car as the other thing I'll mention. Derek Car has always been good for his running backs receiving. I do think quarterback plays a big role in this stuff. I think for the most part, rookies, the 10 take sacks at a higher rate and stuff, they don't process quickly enough to get the ball down to their running backs as well. I still have come here getting a bunch of targets because where do they go on this offense? I don't know. I do think he'll catch plenty of balls, but I do think not having Derek Car will cost him elite receiving ceiling potential. And so, yeah, to me, he's just a small hit big miss at a little bit of a price here costs. Same bet as last year. It kind of hit last year. So, he got he got more expensive now that he's older and that's just tough. Yeah. I know we've got him kind of right around his ADP across format, but I agree it's tough. You can maybe just use him to churn out some volume weeks at running back in best ball, but probably someone that I'd want a pretty big discount on if I was taking the gamble in redraft. As far as behind him, they've got the rookie Devin Neal. They brought in cam acres and then Kendra Miller remains there for who things just seem to not happen. Any interest in the Arby's behind Camara, you know, if we're worried about an aging Camara. I think Neal's the bet that I would want to make acres. I couldn't find contract details on. He just signed recently in the detail seemed to be a little bit conflicting. And I wanted to see if he got any real money. There was one report that made it seem like he got some decent money in it. I think he'll be in the mix for the RB two role. He's a decent runner, but not going to plan the passing game. Guys like C.E.H. Marcus Yarns as far as depth pieces are hard to parse. I don't think Kendra Miller. I mean, I did that a lot last year. I don't think I can do that. Yarns is interesting, small but fast, explosive receiving back. He could be a little bit fun as a depth receiving guy. I feel like Miller's not going to be there if acres is because I think they're going to keep Yarns. So anyway, there's a lot of names here, but I guess my point is I think Devin Neal can probably rise above that. And the thing about him is that he's one of these prospects that kind of did everything. He ran over a hundred routes all four college years. He didn't see targets as a freshman, but he had 20 plus receptions, three straight since then. His yards per out scaled up each year. His yards per reception and per target were good. He makes plays in the passing game. Also had over a thousand rushing yards, three straight years. Decent but not great mistakels force in yards after contact numbers has a little size good jump numbers. Little weaker on the 40 and shuttle stuff, but there's like a little bit of athleticism a little bit of the advanced metrics makes guys miss a little. There's plenty of production overall. He looks like a guy who can come in. Now, when I see a guy who's had over a thousand rush yards, three years straight and caught 20 plus balls, three years straight. I see a guy that can come in and perform competently in probably what's going to be a bad offense where they just need to fall. He's a tough offense where they just need to find somebody to take a lot of snaps later in the year. And I guess I think that probably happens in a lot of the outcomes for this season that the devaniel is like a 70% back in the back half of the year for for certain weeks. And so that's certainly appealing for the cost. Yeah, he's pretty much free. I was taking him a lot of few weeks ago at the end of drafts in basketball, kind of just like rookie running back in a Friday. And in a fragile room, like give me that upside where it's like price much higher and better offens is. I had backed off a little bit, just kind of like some concerns overall how that's going to shake out. But yeah, not you've kind of talked me back into it. Let's go to receiver. This is a spot we are higher than the market on a lobby and she heed some of that goes back to the play calling that mentioned at the top where. You know, it's a push and pull between like what can count more want to do and make work versus what is just practical with the quarterback situation. Chris Alave and Rashid Shaheed both not playing full seasons last year. It's possible our efficiency on them to high. The offense got out to an absurd start last year if you remember car and they were clicking on all cylinders. So the yards per out run stuff for them looks great, but it's a decent amount of those routes was the first couple games when the offense just looked fantastic. And then they missed a lot of the you know, the playing time when things went south. Rashid was good the year prior. Like an okay yards per out run at 1.7, but a big yards per target. He's definitely your big play guy. Alave continues to earn volume. Do you want to address one thing that people ask a lot about what we don't have a lobby projected for like elevated concussion risk. I know some people are worried with the history of concussions that he'd be more likely to either get one or to miss significant time if he does get one. So we're a little bit ahead of any piano lobby, but if you're worried about the concussion risk, that's not baked into our stuff. We've got him at 110 targets, 185 full PPR points scratches at 129 and 217 full PPR points. You don't have it baked in, but you have the option of having it baked in or you don't have it baked in. We just don't really. We have the option to have it baked in in a sense that like sometimes if we're particularly worried about for whatever reason, age and injury. Yeah. We'll just bake that in by reducing the total target share and be more conservative. for the season, we're not really doing that with a lobby. You know, it's definitely open to bait us to whether or not we should be. But our number right now for him in terms of target share. And again, keep in mind that like we naturally run a little conservative. We're just not extra conservative on a lobby. We've got him at like a 20% target share for the season. So I was asking that because I have the basically the same take and I love when we kind of independently come to these kinds of things. I've been making the case that people are significantly overvaluing the concussion risk that I mean, concussions are very scary, but the real risk is more like long term on on humans health issues. After a full off season, he's not going to have any swelling in his brain anymore going into this year. We do have a couple of comps that I've brought up on a talks about this. Brandon Cooks who's actually on the team now. A few years back, I avoided brain and cooks because he had multiple concussions a year prior and looked like that was going to be a potentially debilitating thing. And I thought, no, one more concussion could end his career. He's basically been fine since and he did have another concussion at one point and it didn't end up being something that cost him significant time. The other guy is Tuah who had the really scary concussion season in 2022 played all 17 games in 2023 had another concussion in 2024. They immediately put them on IR. But at the end of that, I, people were talking about, oh, is he going to play ever again? At the end of that, I are there was basically no discussion. He was back. He was ready to go and only missed the minimum four games. I think they were kind of protecting him from himself. I think you could say if Elave gets a concussion, he is at elevated risk of missing more like four games or three games or two games, multiple games, just to be sure that it's not something super serious. But I think the big reason he missed so much time last year is he got a second concussion. He missed I think just the one game came back and got a second concussion right away and they were both pretty bad ones. The big note on him first from a staff perspective, I want to mention, he played eight games. The two that he left with the concussion were after two snaps and eight snaps. So he basically played six games, but his per game data is dividing everything by eight because he was active for eight games. He had one catch in both of those games, but barely played. So he shows us having 5.5 targets per game down from 7.9 and 8.7. He really had 7.0 in his six full games. There's a little bit down, but nowhere near as low as 5.5. That's one stat. If you're looking at per game stuff, keep a note on that with Elave. He was still very good last year. His yards per route was a career low. His targets per route were down a little bit. His eight out was down a little bit, significant decline in his weighted targets per route, but it was nice to see him getting some volume at a little bit of a lower eight out. That's a pretty small sample overall. But he was over two yards per route for the third straight year. That's a really positive thing that puts him in a strong cohort as a guy who can produce on the volume that he's playing. Another really exciting thing for him, as far as Kenny can solidate volume, Kellyn Moore specifically referenced the RPO this off season. I've talked about this before, but that positively impacts number one wide receiver target share. It could be big for Elave. For me, it brings 150 plus target outcomes into play where they could be running these RPOs and going directly to Elave. I don't think there's any threat for who else would be getting those first read looks, basically, in those situations. Be a little similar to Michael Pittman two years ago when he had the 156 targets, something like that. A high RPO offense could be very positive. I think Elave does need to get there through volume, for sure. I do think the paths are there for him to get there, especially at a seventh round price tag. I think he's pretty egregiously mispriced, mostly because of the concussion stuff for a guy who's been so good on a per out basis to start his career all three years. You mentioned Shaheed. The other thing about Shaheed that I'm a little concerned about is he's so good at the deep stuff and the efficiency and the explosiveness. He's coming off a torn menace guess. It's not an ACL, but if he's like 5% or 10% away from his peak, that seems to be what has made, what has made Rashid Shaheed so good at converting long touchdowns and a league that's trying to take those away and no other deep threat can do it because Shaheed was still doing it last year at a really high rate. To me, whatever that is, I'm concerned about you maintaining that more than almost any player returning from the type of an injury. That's the health stuff gets really concerning for me on him. Conversely, or not conversely, but in addition to that, the extension of that is that it's even better for a lave's potential because Shaheed was taking Target Share away from a lave a little bit last year, but I think it's even better for a lave's potential because again, a lave's injury, not one that's going to necessarily lead to a production decline. It's a concussion, right? And that Brandon Cokes looks very done. He's going to probably run some routes. Bub mean, Cedric Wilson, those guys were not good last year. Taseem Hill also coming off a major injury in ACL late in the year. So you don't have his, you know, at some point in the year, they've talked favorably about him. At some point in the year, he may take volume out of this offense, but you're not allocating 10% of snaps to whatever the heck Taseem Hill is doing when you're doing your projection this year because he's so banged up. John Johnson, Foster Merot or Fine Rotational Titans, there's not a lot here. I really have no idea what happens with the depth pieces. There were five dudes that had between 15 and 30 targets last year that are back on the roster this year between like, Bub means and Austin, Wilson, Tipton, Dante, Pettis. They've also brought in Donovan people's Jones as well as Cooks. So there's all these guys that are there, but I mean, none of them is going to be a big target earner. So the real, for me, the real play is just like, how aggressive do you want to be on a LaVe? That's what I, that's where I land. Yeah. And we're in lockstep in terms of, I don't know at what point he would become over price, but he's certainly underpriced right now. So very in to LaVe and all formats. Each of our ranks a little bit higher on Shaheed, but I think, you know, talking through probably scale back a little bit, just think, maybe our ceiling stuff with him gets tripped up because he's just been so efficient in base that like, we might be like overly extending his potential ceiling case on the efficiency side. So we'll probably make some edits get him down a little bit. Still think it's interesting in basketball with them. Just there's not much other target competition. And if he is able to come back fully healthy, having that big play ability, but he's sort of in that mooney range we talked about in terms of not doing a whole lot for you in a redraft sense. All right. That's going to do it for us on the NFC South edition of the offseason projection special. Make sure you check out Ben's work at BenGresha at substack.com. You can watch this on the established as YouTube channel. If you're listening to it on podcast, just know that the video format is up as well and just make sure to check out all of the established to run basketball and redraft rankings over at establishedrun.com. Appreciate everybody tuning in for this series. We'll be back with another division either over the weekend or early next week. [Music]