ETE Projections Special Part 3: AFC West with Ben Gretch

[MUSIC] Hello and welcome to another edition of the "SavvyC Edge" podcast. I'm your host, Mark Duncanbring, and we'll be joined today by the projections crew you know and love, Jack Miller and Ben Gretz, Jack and I are part of the NFL. Projections team here at "SavvyCerun" entering our fourth year together doing this full-time pretty wild there. But and then Gretz is our honored guest. You can listen to his podcast on bananas with Sean Seagull as well as find his work at BenGretz.substac.com. We are on to episode three of this series and we'll be going through all four teams in the AFC West today. Gretz, how you doing today? I'm good. We were talking before the show. Our first two have been a little long as we get used to this three-man balance and everything. But those divisions weren't even that interesting. I think the AFC West is the most interesting division this year. I mean, we got, I think the chargers are the most interesting team. I think a lot of people would agree with that. But I think we got some other really interesting stuff to talk about today. So if the people who clicked on this and are listening to the first minute have already seen that it's a three-hour podcast, that'll be the reason why. Absolutely. We'll do our best to condense it all into the actual knowledge you all need out there. But yeah, certainly not talk through today, Jack. How you feeling today? I'm feeling good. We did go I think 45 minutes on the Texans last show. And now we've got the chief chargers and Broncos to talk about. So hopefully we can condense it into some more actionable and streamlined information. But I'm excited to be here. I think the first two have been pretty good. So I'm happy. Yeah, corporate has yet to shut us down here. So we will continue headstrong here into the AFC West, as Gretz mentioned. The very exciting division here, not only for fantasy purposes, but also real life. Football here, Broncos, chargers and chiefs, three of the strongest teams on paper in the AFC West. And the Broncos, we will start there as they are returning almost everyone from their roster last year. So in that regard, seem relatively straightforward, but they do add Jalen Waddle in an offseason trade. And then I think probably the biggest thing from a team level standpoint is that Sean Peyton has decided to give up play calling. And we'll turn that over to Davis Web. So Sean Peyton remains a head coach here, but Davis Web is apparently going to be the new play caller here. Quote here from Sean Peyton, you know, he said when he was asked where he said in February that he was going to relinquish play calling duties because he was quote frustrated with some parts of the teams offense pacing during games, getting plays to next to get the team in and out of the huddle better and on an inconsistent run game. So, you know, no huddle there could potentially increase under Davis Web potentially. And then, you know, the Broncos and Sean Peyton have been notorious for rotating players in and out this season or the past couple of years. So I'm interested to see how that plays this season here on a team level standpoint for the Broncos at ETR. We're at 62.2 plays projection as 61.9% pass rate. Gretches a little bit higher on the plays at 63.1 and at a 62% pass rate. So near identical pass rates there, Gretches a little bit higher on plays, which again, I think could be, you know, a sign or or or an intention here for the Broncos as they have been a fast paced team under Peyton, but could maybe get even faster under Davis Web. So Gretches, I do want to toss this to you first, just since we have, you know, the coordinator change with Davis Web. What are your thoughts on on Sean Peyton relinquishing has played calling duties and turn it over to Davis Web here? Well, I think Web's going to be trying to, I think Peyton's a pretty firm hand and I think Web's he's a very young coordinator, first time coordinator that got promoted from within when he was getting some potential like coaching buzz and things like that. I do think it's a little bit of Peyton kind of throwing up a bone and I'm not treating it as if there's going to be a major change. I think it's going to be basically Peyton's had his tendencies and the ways that he's done things for a long time and they've been unique for a long time some of the rotational stuff you talked about. And the way that I talk about him is that the league is kind of moved toward him like a lot of the like, so far, he's loves the term of like the cocoon and a lot of the like retread coaches and stuff. They haven't been able to evolve with the sport, but Peyton has always loved the rotational and different personnel packages and all that stuff and that's what's actually becoming more. It's necessary to have a successful offense in the future and it's like, well, this is how I already designed my offense. So I think things have worked kind of well, but I do think Peyton's a really sharp offensive mind and I think they're going to have things. He's still going to be a part of game planning. He's still going to have the install and all the play calls that they come up with and what they're going to do. I mean, the way that these call sheets are like, here's our plays on on first and long and second along and you know, obviously first and 10, second along, third and long, second and short, third and short. All these things are going to be designed in advance. He's still going to be designing the red zone stuff, which I think he does really, really well or at least involved with, right? And then the calls will be what they are, but I don't think it's going to be that big of a difference. You mentioned the slight difference in play volume and we've had this as a trend. I've been a little hotter than you guys and I told you guys what I was like, I'm not down with my projections, but what my target was going to be was a little higher than yours. I think I'm going to come in above my target. I tried to look into that after we did our first two shows and see if I'm getting too hot on that. I do think it's interesting that the teams, like, there were some teams like pace was slower last year for sure, but there were some teams that were way low in pace. There was three that were down about like 56 plays per game, which was the Raiders. We'll talk about them today, the dolphins and Vikings, their offices that were really poor last year. And I do think some, I mean, I think there's a downward shift, but I do think some of why the play volume dropped as much as it did is these offenses that were just like, non-functional. We know that defenses are kind of ahead and they're non-functional. They're not able to actually sustain stuff and they're like giving up in some of these games. Anyway, I'm going to probably keep coming in a little hot because I do project these offenses like things go the way that they plan them. So I'm thinking a little bit more optimistically with some of my projections. I think that gap for us here in Denver is probably pretty similar to where our, in relation to where our averages will be, but like you said, they were 10th and seconds per snap. They were six then passed right over expected. They're fifth and total play volume last year. One of the things that I really got confused about with Denver is their implied touchdowns are like slightly below league average when you look at the light look ahead lines. And I just think this is a much better offense in the market does, I guess, with everything I just said about pay and they scored 43 and 42 touchdowns in Nexus first two years. My model wanted them at 40.5. So coming down, I'd argue they should be better. Like they were really poor in the first month of Nexus rookie year. Last year they had some really complicated travel stuff in the middle of the year that we can talk about, but I was writing about them every week as if people were getting the wrong idea about some of their poor offensive games. They were the first team to ever go from an international game all the way back to the mountain time zone the next week. Like the teams get the option of using their buy after they travel internationally. They declined it. So they went. They went. Road game and Philly didn't come home, went to England, flew back to Denver and hosted the giants the next week. And that was a game where they were down by a ton and came all the way back and won they won all those games, but they had a poor offensive showing against I think the Jets in England. A poor showing for three quarters against the Giants back at home. Couple weeks later, they had they had their Thursday night game against the Raiders and they had a poor showing on a short week, which they still had not had their buy and they're still probably. You know, struggling with that stretch in the middle of their season. They managed to win all those games. The way I set it on the Broncos and the way that I think they are a little misunderstood is people. I think hit them so hard for being 14 and three there. I think if they would have lost more of those games, people would have given them more of a pass, but it was like. They're a fraudulent 14 and three team because they were winning all these games ugly during a really tough travel schedule. And so anyway, there are often still a port times, but they. I mean, I have a hard time understanding why they would be worse and next is third season with Jalen Wattel on the roster. And I think this is a better team. And play volume and an overall volume for this team. Anbo Nix has been a big positive for them. Gretchen mentioned, you know, fifth and total plays last year. They were also six and pass rate. Over expectation only one of eight teams that that had a positive PR we last season and Bo Nix ended up leading the NFL and pass attempts last year, which you know is is is pretty solid for fantasy value. Even if he's not the most efficient on a per play basis. It continues to look like this is going to be a high tempo, you know, high pass rate offense, especially with the addition of Jalen Wattel. So Jack, let's get into bone mixes outlook a little bit, you know, recovering from offseason ankle surgery had that had that. Man, just one of the wildest swings ever. I was, you know, I'm living in in Denver now and now the Broncos win that playoff game to make it to the AFC championship against the Patriots. And then like an hour after the game, it comes out, you know, Bonax broke his ankle. I was going to require surgery and is out. It was it was one of the wildest, you know, swings just in terms of emotional, you know, sports fandom that I've seen in this city kind of losing out on that. But Bonax, you know, should be should be healthy and in the season what your outlook for next returning from this ankle surgery in his third NFL season. Yeah, well, I think the big thing with nicks is from pass rate and I wanted to bring that up as relates to the team level stuff because the Broncos were six then pass rate over expectation. Overall last year, but they had some really big splits within without JK Dobbins. Dobbins got hurt and we 10 last year in weeks one through 10 their pass rate over expectation. Their average single game PRO was minus 0.7 their average pass rate was 61% in weeks 11 through 20. They had a plus 4.6% pass rate over expectation, excluding the game instead of those are only the bone x games. and a 65.8% pass rate overall. So those are some pretty stark splits. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that Sean Payden didn't really trust RJ Harvey will get more into the running backs in a minute here. But it seems like the more recent stuff on Nix's ankle has been positive. So I'm not as concerned about that although we'll see once we get into training camp, how that looks, but I thought that the pass rate dipping back down to where it was in weeks one through time with Dolphin Telfi was worth bringing up and both us and Grads are closer to the 61%. But they were at last year, we're at 61.9 in Grads was right at 62. Yeah, that's a great note on the on the PRW split there with kind of before and after Dolvins. And then, you know, they definitely did not expect their run game to be super successful on the grounds. And, you know, I think back to this game against the Raiders they had in week 14 where they were up pretty much the entire game and BoNix just continued to throw and complete short passes. He was 31 of 38 in that game, but only through for 212 yards. So like they just essentially made the short passing game and extension, you know, of their on game. We've kind of heard that terminology used a little bit around the league and I think that certainly was the case for the Broncos down the stretch. So yeah, that's a great point there. Grads, I'm curious your thoughts on our BoNix inputs here. Obviously, you come in a little bit higher on pass attempts just again, given the little bit higher play volume. There for him, we are pretty even on rushing. You're a little bit ahead of us there. I'm curious if you think this BoNix ankle surgery, you know, affects his his mobility much coming into this upcoming season. Well, it's certainly a concern, but he's been pretty, pretty mobile. His I got through my projection and probably not a surprise based on everything I was saying about how I feel about the team. I was higher than the market number on like my expected model on their implied touchdowns. And so I had to kind of nuked them. And Nick's has had above average rush TV rates. I had to go below average for him on that and bring that down. I think the scrambling on the rushing side, I'm a little higher than you guys as well. I mean, like purely just yardage, but I feel like his rushing is actually a pretty big asset. I mean, it's not a massive asset, but it's definitely there. And then I also had to go below his average pass TV rate from the first two years, which again, he's going into year three and added Jalen Waddle and has had the first four games of his rookie year were terrible. And they they're a bad enough that it's a quarter of your season. They're bad enough to really hurt his rookie year overall numbers in a meaningful way. And but he got better from there. And then last year they had a bunch of these really poor games during the tough travel period of their season. And I'm going under those numbers. This guy's been a low end QB one both seasons. And I think they both arguably been negatively impacted by situational stuff. I think it's a fantasy friendly QB profile with the rushing and the even with the pass rate being a little lower with the jacket obviously, which is a great point from Jack. It's still a offense that throws with some intent. I mean, they they use the running backs intentionally in the past. We're going to talk about this a little bit when we get to the charges as well, because I'm really interested about the running back receiving stuff in their offense. But Payne's always done the types of play calls that are like first read passes to the running back, which I do think is something that's very interesting in the modern NFL where for a long time, it was like tight ends. You get a better mismatch. And I think the tight ends thing is like teams will put a corner back on a tight end or do different things to try to take with the tight end. Now we're getting to this point where if you get to the fifth eligible and you don't just treat them the running back and you'll just treat them as like an outlet. But you throw them with intent, which is something like McDaniel did is why I bring in the charges. Like I'm thinking of the Devon A. Chan like angle routes where two would get it out super quick. And it's like he's the first read. And you go back to Sean Payton with the Saints. You go back to the different sprules years. They did that a ton. He did that with RJ Harvey a lot last year. That's part of the pass right thing. They're using the run games and extension, or the excuse me, the short pass games and extension of the run. RJ Harvey's getting these swing passes. He's getting some of the little quick angle stuff over the middle where it's not, if my receivers aren't open, I'll get down to the running back. It's, I'm throwing to the running back immediately. And the reason that works is they can also keep the running back in. And if you devote too many resources to the running back, I mean, he passed blocks now we have numbers down field with the wide receivers. So it's this element of the of the of the offences that I do think it's one of the next progressions of all of this stuff for some of these different offenses. But Payton's been doing it for 20 years. Like I was saying, with go back to the sprules, go back to the Reggie Bush years, even with the Saints. He did it with Harvey a lot. That helps Nix's numbers. It's really weird to me that he's got Nix is going as low as he is. I honestly think he's one of the best fantasy QB prices because he's a boring player. I don't think people think he's as good as maybe he actually is. Frankly, a lot of sources have this as the number one offensive line in the league as well. And he doesn't take sacks, which helps the offense. It keeps him on schedule. It helps part of the reason I don't understand the touchdown thing or even their win total over under I've taken there over. This is my strongest win total over bet of the year is the Broncos. I think this is a great way to capture the upside of this offense as well. When we get to the receivers, we'll talk about it. But you mentioned it, the rotational stuff. Two years ago, they didn't have a single player other than Sutton over 400 routes. Last year, we got Troy Franklin over that number. And he was bad and he kind of was dropping routes late in the year. But he was one guy who consolidated that second number of routes. But they're very rotational behind typically that 1x receiver. It'll be interesting this year with Waddle. We'll get to that. But one of the ways to capture some upside in this offense, if you do think it's a decent offense that will score touchdowns again, and maybe even be better than the last two years like I'm describing, is Bo-Nix. I mean, this is a pretty straightforward. Got some rushing. Got some pass rate. Got some TD upside to him. So I'm pretty pumped about. It mixes price. Yeah, and then we're a couple of spots below. Mix is ADP on under. We're well above on draft Kings. I will add just to aid coaches bullishness on this offense that there has been a lot of buzz this year about Davis Web's offense, wanting to play faster. I will say that a lot of it seems to be getting to the line of skirmish faster and letting Nick's diagnosed the defense rather than we want to play as fast as we possibly can. But it certainly seems like pace is going to be something that they are emphasizing throughout the offseason. And to that point, Bo-Nix was QB8 as a rookie in QB11 in points per game last season. And so I was at the same thing you guys were kind of like, because we're at QB17 on the 100 dog. He's going at QB15. I was like, man, I feel like we should be higher than QB17. I looked at the gap between quarterback seven who we have as deck press got and quarterback 17 and Bo-Nix. It's 10 total fantasy points across the season. So it's a huge combined cluster. And so when you're talking especially in basketball about stacking, it's like, man, if you take Bo-Nix as the QB8 or QB9, even if we have him ranked as the QB17, the point differential there is pretty minuscule. It takes a couple of passing TDs or a rush touchdown here or there to really close that gap. So that's again, you know, kind of one of the difficulties of projections versus rankings is, man, it seems like a massive difference between deck at QB7 and Bo-Nix at QB17, but it's really not from projections and input standpoint. And so if we are, you know, just generally a little bit more bullish on Bo-Nix, then maybe the final projection, you know, maybe we can bump that up a little bit. But again, the margins are pretty small there. Let's get into the backfield here. Super interesting trio with Jake Hedabans getting resigned in the off season. You know, he was, he was seen as a priority investment for the Broncos, kind of noted throughout the off season there. RJ Harvey coming into his second season who I think a little bit similar to Woody Marx was kind of like thrust into a role that he probably wasn't ready for as a rusher and did not deliver on the ground either. And then they, they draft Jonah Coleman in the fourth round, 510, 228 pound back who, you know, Jake Hedabans is listed at 212 Harvey 205. So easily the biggest back in this room now should be kind of an interesting trio here. I honestly don't know if there's like a whole lot to talk about in terms of the split between Dobbins and Harvey just because I think it's, it's pretty straightforward. Last year when, when Dobbins was healthy, he outcarried Harvey 153 to 50. So pretty much three to one in the carries there. Harvey's per game, you know, rushing statistics when, when Dobbins was healthy, he averaged five rush attempts per game, 20, 21.4 rushing yards. And as Gretchen alluded to, he was more kind of like the first retarget in the past game. He did catch four receiving touchdowns in those first 10 games. But Jack curious, your thoughts on the split here between Dobbins and Harvey, you know, it's almost like how healthy can, can JK Dobbins stay this season, just given his, his efficiency last year in the, in the Broncos, you know, priority to bring him back seems like they want him to be the clear RV one. But how about you talk through the split we have there between Dobbins and Harvey because inputs wise, we are a little bit behind Dobbins compared to Gretchen, about 50 carries behind there and, and about, you know, 30 to 35 carries ahead on RJ Harvey. Right. Like you said, I think a lot of it comes down to the injury risk and with Gretchen not baking that in as much. It makes sense to me that he's at 213 carries where at 168 on Dobbins. But like you said, it was extremely clear that the Broncos didn't really trust Harvey much as a, as a rookie, as a runner at least, 153 to 50 carries cap. Dobbins was more efficient on a per carry basis over one yard per carry higher than Harvey. And Harvey was brutally inefficient from a rush yards over expected per carry standpoint. He was a minus 0.64. He was highly utilized in the passing game, even though he wasn't actually playing on passing down. He averaged 0.28 targets per out run. But it's an interesting needle with the red for Harvey where he's not playing pass downs, but he's heavily utilized. as a receiver. I think that's something we could see again this year because they clearly like getting the ball in his hand as a pass catcher, but they've already been talking up the fourth round rookie Jonah Coleman as someone who could play on pass downs. We saw Tyler Bade in that role last year. I think the most interesting question from a fantasy standpoint here is what the carries glit looks like if if slash when JK Dobbins goes down and if Harvey or Coleman would be the ones who are really get the ball could be really downwork. I think, you know, I guess I'm curious your thoughts on on the Dobbins projection and just kind of how you view him because it is it is tough with with players like this who you know the I don't want to say like the verdict is out, but he just hasn't been able to handle big volume year in and in year out. He has a crew high 195 carries with the charges in 2024 he gets her and then last year got to 153 before going down again we're at 168 you're at you're at 213. So just kind of take me through your thoughts on on this Dobbins and maybe your overall thoughts on on these quote unquote you know like injury prone players and how you project them from a seasonal perspective. Yeah, part of it as well as is concerned about Harvey's rushing in year one and then how Coleman impacts Harvey because I do think Coleman's going to play and so I mean I did my right up over it my stealing signals newsletter on the Broncos and then I got more questions about the Broncos backfield and I wrote a whole other piece called RJ Harvey is in a Nigma. I'm not really long thoughts from me on it go read that I'm not going to take us that a half an hour die try but Sean Payton's running back. Sean Payton's running back usage dating back to those darren sproles years even was the actual the topic of my first fantasy football article in 2015 it's something I've studied for the years since then quite a bit I've talked about it on this show in past years as well but he like Jack mentioned he'll have a running back that he throws to with intent in the passing game and you see the gap between the targets per out on Harvey and dobbins and I do think that shows the intent to get Harvey the ball in space that Jack mentioned I do think Harvey's going to have that type of a rule and the the receiving plus red zone is pretty strong for him. He also got some decent area yards they were doing some things to get him vertically although he was about as efficient in that role as you can beat he had so much on he hit on those big place he had 12 touchdowns his rushing was basically all with dobbins out and was not good. The one role that Payton didn't have last year was basically the Javonte Williams role from the year prior and if you go way back you know it was it was Pierre Thomas a long time ago and then it became marking Grum early marking comes career he didn't play he didn't he's basically a rusher only he didn't play on past and then as soon as Pierre Thomas aged out in Grum started doing both but it's this guy who can do a little bit of both who could be trusted to be in the past protection it's why Javonte even when he wasn't very efficient coming off the the multi ligament knee injury was still playing a ton and got a ton of work in 2024. That's what shown a common looks like as a prospect there's nothing about him that screams that he's in a leap prospect but they love the plat pass blocking he's he was efficient as a runner he was efficient in the passing game he didn't test the combine because he probably wouldn't have tested great. He's a bigger back but he gets yardage he's like a little bowling ball and he gets yardage with the with the work that he does get very efficient in college had more of a breakaway rate than you think for a bigger back had more of a receiving role I compared him to to Josh Jacobs and this is another one of these you dub guys that's you know I watched all this plays because this is my college. He reminds me of Jacobs obviously Jacobs is a very very good player I don't think Joan of Coleman is going to be that that player but in terms of like just Jacobs always has a better yards per carry than I think he should to me is a plotter and then you go look at it and he's got a 4.8 yards per carry like he's actually he gets yards he he gets downhill and he does everything he past blocks he catches coaches love it. And Joan of Coleman is going to play a little bit in that Javonte role if he's up for it and if he is and that Javonte role meaning on obvious past downs because of his past blocking ability et cetera if he is I think that hurts Harvey's rushing quite a bit. And then it kind of hurts Harvey's receiving but not quite as much because Harvey's not probably out there for past blocking is out there for the place where he's just going out into a route and they may throw to him with intent this like sort of Darren Spurls role. Joan of Coleman's the Pierre Thomas and then you know Jacob Dobbins is the the Russia only that sort of the market and if you go back to that mold from 10 years ago but it's they've had to pains had different molds and he's talked about it's tough to get three backs in once he had Camara he did things a little differently but the thing with Camara was Camara was always in a bit of a committee he never had like 80% plus snapshots even when he was like RB three and fantasy like a superstar he always still gave up more snaps than you'd think but he was the stud that played in all the high value situations again I don't I don't so I don't know how that's going to look this here there's a lot more to it but the to the Dobbins point Dobbins I think is definitely going to get the rushing work and I think that's where you can start I do think he's not going to he didn't get a lot of receiving last year and I don't think he's going to get a lot of time receiving I think he's going to be mostly rushing only he was fourth in the league in Russia is over expected per attempt out of 48 qualified running backs at NFL pro Harvey was 46 in the same offense right you got you got a guy that's top five you got a guy that's bottom three. I think Dobbins is clearly a better Russia I think he's going to be the lead runner whenever he's in and then the question is how much of the secondary rush is just Harvey even get I mean I think I want to get into that just just because the the fantasy outlook here is pretty convoluted in terms of like their their ADP right now are J Harvey is is the first running back getting drafted from this backfield and it sounds like none of us are very very excited about his kind of role in this offense with with J. K. Dobbins healthy and especially Gretzfi think you know Jonah Coleman's going to get some work you know he's going in in around 87 on on underdog so J K. Dobbins at at around pick 100 and then Jonah Coleman at 153 so you have you have these guys going all within 60 picks of each other essentially and and so I have a tough time kind of seeing where R. J. Harvey's like consistent fantasy value comes from especially if Dobbins goes down we think you know Jonah Coleman maybe is is probably the favorite for like early down carries in that spot I you know you maybe hit on that a little bit Gretz but curious if you do think Jonah Coleman given given the lackluster efficiency we saw from RJ Harvey as a Russia rookie season like if Dobbins goes down who do you think is the favorite for early down carries there. Yeah so I will depend on that's the that's where I went in I titled that one piece RJ Harvey's in in a nigma because he had a good rushing profile in college and he was so bad last year he's a year two player that was efficient as a as a rookie at least in touchdown scoring and some of the receiving they wanted to get the ball in the sand they showed real intent they used him a lot when Dobbins went down but I also think they went out and got Jonah Coleman specifically because when Dobbins went down they didn't have everything they wanted to cover in the running game. Some people are listening to why he's talking about a running back split for the Saints 10 years ago and that's very fair my point was like that sort of like a mold that I work off of our framework with Peyton but I think he's had a lot of different ways of doing it since then it depends on who the actual players are we talked about this with some of the other stuff with the multi tight and sets how good the talent actually is is going to dictate it. So is Jonah Coleman even up to being any of this right is a huge part of a he's a rookie we don't know about and then can RJ Harvey take a step forward as a rusher is another element and so I if if if JK Dobbins goes down I genuinely don't know but I do think based on Harvey having the struggles last year and then going out and getting Coleman that Coleman has more of a path to to being that then the market probably currently sees because that's sort of what his profile is as well as like I call him first rule do no harm running backs like they they can do everything. They don't make coaches mad because they get the yards that are there they get the blocked yard is they get downhill right like Harvey's whole issue is like the same thing that people get mad about with Ken walker and other things he's always bouncing he's not hitting the whole directly they're not getting these downhill yards that's what JK Dobbins is incredible I think JK Dobbins for all of his injuries is still an incredibly talented rusher which is why he's clearly going to be there lead water I think on early downs while healthy if he gets hurt I don't know I genuinely don't know you have two young backs and it depends on who's going to be the more effective. I think they're both going to play and then whoever's more effective will be the one that will get more work is the way that I'm looking at it. Yeah I will say we're coming quite a bit below ADP on Coleman just because it is so hard to get three guys significant volume. The market does like Jonah Coleman quite a bit at least four in RB three he might be the highest RB three grafted on under dog right now I'm pretty sure he is but he's going ahead of guys like Spheres, Al Jir, tank Bakes B who are pretty locked in as the hour. And just because of where the market is it's been a little tough for us to get to Coleman all off season 100% I think this is a tough tougher backfield for best ball than it is. Redraft like in and half PPR redraft leagues I feel pretty good about taking JK Dobbins you know if he's going in the ninth 10th round and confidently starting him though the weeks that he's available and then if he gets hurt you know you can drop him and and kind of move on whereas best ball it's you know you're kind of taking those zeros if again if he does get her it's not not a guarantee that he's going to be a good guy. And he's going to get hurt again but you know you kind of have to play that in and then with with RJ Harvey I'm just not I have a tough time seeing kind of the upside path and since he is he's the top. And then back drafted here I mostly avoided him and as Jack Lurid to wear a bit of behind Jonah Coleman so I haven't had much of him either so sadly I don't have like a ton of exposure to this bronchers backfield I think probably in in redraft is hopefully where I'll get get some more and and think like Jonah Coleman is probably a better you know stash there as well so at this point in time you don't have too much exposure there but I mean he's a day three rookie it's possible he's just not good enough you know I said the Javante rope maybe he's nowhere. where near what Javonte is in some of these, these different areas. It's just, that's, that's what his profile is. It's why you would go draft him, especially after the way last year went when Dobbins was out and you didn't have, I mean, you had Harvey and like, Jalilma Glothlin, like they didn't have the answers to do the different things in the different phases and all the rotational stuff that paint likes. Now, these are three very different backs as the way I'm looking at in terms of how I think he wants to use them. It reminds me a lot of that 10 year ago, Saints team, but it's not the way that he's done it every year of his career or anything, painting as a coach. And then health and development are huge elements here, right? It's always different personnel. You got an old injured back and you got two young guys that we don't even know what they are. It's kind of tricky because Harvey, I don't think we really have any idea what he's gonna be. I mean, I think he could still develop. He's an older prospect. I think there's real concern that he's like, not a good enough runner. He came from a smaller school, not a, not a, I mean, UCF's in the big 12 now. It's not like a super small school or anything, but you have some concerns that his collegiate profile was more just boom bus rushing and won't translate. Although, I mean, it's a rookie year. I mean, if he's a boom bus runner and he starts hitting on more booms, then you start to think that he's a good runner. You know, like it's for sure. - For sure. - Yeah, and just logically, you know, you laid it out the offseason moves. Just kind of indicate that they don't feel great if Dolbyn's went down having RJ Harvey as a Sardin Russia. That doesn't mean Jonah Coleman is gonna be capable of doing it though. For sure, you know, there's a lot of potential different outcomes here. Let's head to the wide receiver room here, though. It is another pretty, pretty convoluted spot just in terms of the Broncos rotated wide receiver as a ton last year. Cortan Sutton was, was easily the team lead at 83% of Rouse, Troy Fanken was second at 64%. But he only had 44% routes in his last four games. Marvin Mims was 45% route share on the season, but 59% in the last four games. And then we have Pat Bryant at 42 and a half percent on the season, but he has pretty wide splits between kind of the first half and second half of the year. So, and then they acquire Jalen Waddle this offseason. So I think my big question for you, Jack, is do you think that Jalen Waddle and Cortan Sutton, are they able to consolidate routes here and become like the firm top two wide receivers? Or do you think this rotation will continue? And we kind of see, you know, guys rotated in and the wide receiver three in four spots. So already, and like the top two are safe in Waddle and Sutton already think there's any threat to those top two guys. Rouse just given the way the rotation has gone here in previous years. - I personally think that they're pretty safe here. I mean, Denver gave up a ton for Jalen Waddle. I gave up a first and a third. All the reports, all offseason, have been that he's been awesome throughout their offseason program. He's averaged at least nine yards per target in four straight seasons. That's pretty incredible, especially given how inept the dolphins were offensively. Last year, I think Waddle's gonna walk in and be the wide receiver one here, us and Gretch both have it that way. Gretch is even higher on Waddle than us relatively. He's 22 targets ahead. 22 targets higher than us on Waddle, and only seven targets higher on Sutton. So I think that those two are gonna consolidate snaps are out a bit. And then it's gonna get even trickier with the rest of their receiving group because I do think they still wanna rotate guys after that. But they now have Pat Bryant. They still have Marvin Memes and that wide receiver for rotation or roll and they still have Franklin. And now if you have two guys up top who have really consolidated routes into an every down roll, you've got three guys now gunning for really one spot at receiver. - Yeah, and we have Jellin Waddle, pretty much right at market right now, one spot behind on Underdog. And then court and Sutton were a little bit ahead. And then no wide receiver gets drafted until Pat Bryant at, he's around 210 ADP on Underdog. We're about 20 spots ahead there. So I was interested to see where Gretchen landed on kinda like the wide receiver three roll here because we are a little bit off market and that we think Pat Bryant is kind of the clear favorite to be the wide receiver three here. But you do have Troy Franklin who, and his H-22 season posted 700 yards and six touchdowns had over 100 targets. Which I think if you told people with Troy Franklin that it over 100 targets last year, they'd be surprised. Wasn't inefficient 100 targets only 6.2 yards per target there. And again, his routes did dwindle towards the end of the season. So, you know, that's a part of it that I think is really interesting. He's kind of on a downward trajectory. I'm reading it as like he seemed to have missed his moment a little bit. They were giving him a real role most of the year. He was losing routes late in the year. As I was writing up the next stuff, one of the things I said is like, you can't play him one receiver for the inefficiency. But like when I go through the projections and I reduce Franklin's role a lot, it helps Nick's efficiency because Franklin was very inefficient. He was very poor last year. There was one game where he had like 10 targets and like two catches for eight yards or something. There was some, he had some other good games as well. But the fact that he was losing routes late in the year after he had consolidated those number two routes, I think is a pretty big concern. Bryant was really on an upward trajectory. And especially in the two playoff games, they seemed to really want to be unleashing him. He got hurt with a concussion in the first, came back and then hurt his hamstring in the second. Both of them right away. He only played 12 snaps in the two games, had five offensive touches in those 12 snaps. In the one game, they gave him like three quick screens right away and then he was knocked out of the game on the third one. The other one he had two touches right away. I think it's pretty clear that Bryant was the guy, he was on the more like traditional routes trajectory for a rookie. He was at like 40% or whatever early on. Then he was in like the 60% range, the next segment of the year and then late in the year was able to actually get his routes a little higher. He went over 50% for the first time in week five. Then he was between 40% and 60% for five weeks. Then he went over 70% for the first time in week 10. And he was over 60% in every healthy game the rest of the way from there. That's what I have in my notes. So anyway, it's sort of that trajectory, upward trajectory of the rookie gaining routes as it goes. And if you're looking ahead to next year, I'm glad that you guys have it the way I do. I thought I was a little bit out of line as well, but we're in lockstep that Pat Bryant is the guy that seems to be moving forward. They were talking about him in sort of that sudden role. And I do see him as a bit of a threat to sudden as well. In addition to everything Jack said, which I agree with about Waddle. I'm excited about Waddle. Waddle's a limited routes guy at times. And as Dolphins ten year, he left the field at times a little banged up this and that. We know Sean Peyton likes to do the rotational stuff and limit some of the routes anyway. A highly efficient per route guy with limited routes, meaning a coach who's actually really good at getting a lot of efficiency per route. Because he uses players to their strengths. We had the Marvin Mims year a couple of years ago, where he had like a 2.5 yards per route run. I feel like the efficiency could really pop for Waddle here on a per route basis, even though I don't expect this route. Counter-intuitively, I do think his routes could actually rise a little bit as well. Because of all the, from his Miami stuff, because he's been banged up and because of all the draft capital that gave up that Jack said. But even if they don't rise in a massive way, I do think you could see Waddle improve from the per route efficiency element and all that stuff. Sutton is still probably the role in the offense that is going to get more routes and all that stuff. But his yards per route run dipped last year. 2024 was a little bit of a spike year. And then 2025 looked like 2023 and earlier. And so you get to this thing where it's like probably 2024 was just a spike season. He's now in age 31. More routes dependent. I have him as like a small hit, big miss kind of a fade, where Pat Bryan is sort of in his rearview mirror as well. Because he talked about him in that extra-ceiver role a long time. Right when he was drafted, Sean Payton was comparing him to Michael Thomas to make another drawback to his Saints 10 year. And so I'm with you guys. I like Pat Bryan a lot as the sort of the Widers you were three. But they're all going to have roles. Marvin Mims is going to have a role. I mean, I think we know he's probably not going to consolidate routes at this point of his career. But that's the other thing. Mims is what, four years in, Franklin's three years in. Bryan in year two is the one that I think you have that potential for what Troy Franklin got in year two last year, which is you're still on the ascendancy. Yeah, I strongly agree with you on the Pat Bryan Troy Franklin thing. That's something we've been above market on Bryan all off season and low on Franklin. And underdog actually has Franklin ahead in ADP, which I think is kind of shocking to be honest. I mean, it's like the lowest stakes thing in the world. They're both going around pick 209. We think Waddle and Sudden are going to be the clear top through Widers' even. So it doesn't. It probably won't really matter. But I think Troy Franklin is like on real. It's crazy. As like, Pat Bryan should be drafted. And every draft, he doesn't even get drafted in some. Yeah, I think Troy Franklin's career is on like pretty real danger watch after Denver's by week. Bryan, I read it. I'm 36 to 30 in week 13, 27, 16 in week 14. Didn't play week 15. And then Franklin was ahead in week 16, 35 to 30. But Bryan was carted off with an injury. And then there were just so many games. Like you mentioned, both playoff games. He left early with an injury, which I think really obscured the fact that he was the very clear Widers' receiver, Widers' receiver 2 over Franklin's end the year. The issue is that Marvin Mems is still going to be in that rotational 40% of Snaps rule. So it's not like Bryan, in my opinion, has like a clear path to an 80% snap and route rate without an injury to Waddle or Sudden. Yeah. But-- It's a sudden injury or a sudden decline to such a degree that somehow-- Right. That's the only path. Right. But I think Bryan is exceedingly clearly the Widers' 3. Mems is going to be in the same role as the Widers' 4. And then Franklin, I really need to show that he can stick to me in a foul if he wants to be on the team next year. Yeah, it seems like Pat Bryan is a great best ball pick. Probably more so than Redraft at this point, just because you do kind of-- you don't have to worry about when the spike weeks are going to come for Pat Bryan. And in best ball, if we're confident, he's in the wide receiver three role and you know not getting drafted and and and every league then I think that is a great end-around target and or end-a-draft target and and I think we'll continue to be well above market there on him hopefully. But I mean the wide receiver three just a I'm very minor point of clarification the wide receiver three like Jack was saying it too it's not maybe the best way it's like the best third wide receiver bet but like Franklin and Mims are still going to run routes is the thing they're going to have five guys running routes like that's like at wide receiver alone like they're going to have a ton of dudes running routes. Let's have to tie the end here another room where you get some some decent mixing and matching here you have Evan Ingram as as the quote unquote starter but Adam Troutman from week eight on you know played played more snaps in Ingram and every single week there so Evan Ingram was was more so just like a trailing gamescript player for the Broncos so I think you know what the Broncos expected to be a strong team we could probably you know almost project Adam Troutman for more snaps but that does not lead to targets there for for Troutman necessarily so kind of a almost like a black hole at the at the fantasy tight end position here for the Broncos despite all the offseason talk last year of Ken Evan Ingram be the Joker I think I think that that question was answered you know I'm pretty negative light towards the end towards the end of of last year but in terms of of projections here we have 52 targets on Evan Ingram Gretchen a little bit higher at 69 you know Gretchen is Ingram any guy you're holding on hope for at all or or is this just kind of a spot to avoid you think in fantasy I think it's a spot to avoid he had 76 targets last year's another one of those ones were like I was declining in and not sure how far to decline it's always funny when I wind up like higher this is reminds me of all the years of me like somehow winding up higher than Leonie on Adam Thielin and then him giving me crap but in my little write up I you know I do the signal and noise I called Evan Ingram noise and specifically I wrote the idea that he's a lead tight end or fantasy play which is like the noise element of it's just what you said he's 32 it looks very likely to remain a rotation Adam Troutman got a new multi-year deal they also drafted two new tight ends that are both kind of interesting prospects then Justin Jolly and whatever's down and Bentley I think is the name they're pretty clearly signaling that they don't love Evan Ingram when they when they sign Troutman to this big deal and then go acquire a couple more tight ends I think we're going to see a rotation at tight end just like we will at some of the other positions I know we did the running backs ton when we got to move on the two things that I've seen on my notes that I wanted to mention on on Dobbins I do think like we just talked about him like he's going to get hurt I do think this idea that he's like old and broken down is overplayed he was so efficient last year there are the trap concerns we talked about like he doesn't get enough receptions he didn't get enough like goal line work but I think he's like a pretty good play in like 0.5 ppr like underdog if he does stay healthy and then on Harvey I mean guys still have 47 receptions last year despite the limited rule so as far as the intent I don't know if we threw out the real number on that but like the ball and hand stuff was there was intent there for sure so anyway I guess I not that that gave me any clear answer I had to play these guys but I did want to mention those two little notes absolutely let's let's move along to the chargers here though big news is that Mike McDaniel is coming over from as head coach of the dolphins to be the new offensive coordinator and play caller here for Justin Herbert and the chargers very exciting move here you know in fantasy Mike McDaniel has has led some of the some of the most you know fantasy friendly offenses and in Miami there with with Jan Waddle who you just discussed and Tyree Kale obviously to my H&N you know in McDaniel products so I think people are extremely excited about this charted offense and and rightfully so just some team level notes here I did get some some notes from from Pat Thorman who is is our great pace and and plays expert at at established around he gave me some notes on on kind of McDaniel so I did want to run through that a little bit before we get into the team level inputs we have here but he he has notes here that that Miami's contests ranked 22nd 22nd 25th and 32nd and combined play volume with McDaniel there and then the dolphins as a result finished 10th 21st 25th and 31st and offensive snaps per game mentions that McDaniel loves the the pre snap motion and for good reason but it also burns clocks and the dolphins finished first first first and second in motion rate during his time with Miami so you know he comes to the chargers we're expecting probably a bit of a slower offense but highly efficient here in terms of the plays per game projection at ETR we are at 61.7 Gretches at 62.8 there were about equal on the called pass rate were at 60.7 percent Gretch at 60.5 percent there so I think we're again we're expecting that we have their place for game middle middle of the league at 14th overall right now in their pass rate also at 14th so so with those notes from Thorman that we have Gretch how are you expecting Mike McDaniel to impact this chargers offense and play calling this upcoming season yeah I saw the some perhaps been tweaked some of those so I saw some of his notes on on Twitter as well and he's obviously the the pace goat we're excited to get the his full snaps and pace full season breakdown here pretty soon I hear it's a little birdie couple you couple birdies you guys are telling me that it's coming soon enough maybe we'll have it by the end of this series but we don't have a quite yet excited for that Pat's the go to this stuff the one thing I will note is last year they were still up near the top of the league in play volume in the chargers were despite being slow pace so he had noted as well that the the chargers were slow paced as well so you have Harbaugh coming in and slowing down the chargers after he took over they were faster pace before Harbaugh was something that Pat was mentioning and then obviously what Mike McDaniel's on the high rate emotion all of these things are going to to slow the chargers pace on offense but good teams run more plays and they still did manage to be third and raw play volume last year despite being bottom 10 in pace in L.A. and one of the really interesting things about L.A. last year was the gym Harbaugh they came out throwing it was very surprising even under Greg Roman it seemed like they really wanted to let Herbert win these games for them which I think is commendable and he played really well and then late in the year they have all these offensive line injuries and at times Herbert looks like a guy who's forcing it not really in a bad way just because like that's what he was they were asking him to try to win these games for them they finished eighth highest in pass rate over expected Miami during the earlier McDaniel years were a decently pass leaning team not so much in the later years but as we get McDaniel coming into L.A. with kind of a little something to prove and we get this element of it's a little bit more narrative based but we get this element as well on the Harbaugh Herbert side that last year they kind of wanted to get after it it seemed like then they had all these offensive line injuries and it became tough I do think they're going to be slow paced I do think the the marriage of McDaniel and Harbaugh is going to lead to a deliberate offensive tempo but I also think they're going to be good and I think they're going to be one of the other things with the McDaniel play volume stuff is that they were really efficient sometimes and so you get that element of the efficiency drives down play volume in some ways I'm I'm definitely concerned about play volume a little bit but in some ways I'm not trying to overplay it too much because I do really like this offense and I don't want to overplay in a way that's like okay yeah I mean if they're play volumes low because they're scoring a lot of touchdowns then that's going to be fine like because they're they're moving the ball they're getting chunk gains those things and that's going to be fine if they're not getting those chunk gains I guess I expect them to have the ball enough as a winning team to still be decent in play volume I'm not projecting a particularly way above average but I am still projecting them above average in play volume despite these you know very clear pace concerns but to the the way that I'm viewing it to to Pat's note is that it's really just an acknowledgement that the range of outcomes is worse than it feels on paper and I may be too optimistic with my play volume. And to that to the offensive line injury point where Sean Slater got hurt before the season so did not play a single snap for the chargers last year and then Joe Alt played the first four weeks got hurt came back and played a couple games so he ended up only playing six games for the chargers but in those six games five of them were a positive pass rate over expectation including four of their of their five highest marks on the overall season came with Joe Alt healthy so you know with Slater in and all projected to be back we could see I think that pass rate probably elevates even or continue to be high just given Justin Herbert's talent and kind of the some of the offseason coach week we've gotten from Mike McDaniel there on wanting to lean into Justin Herbert and just you know kind of have like career years for him and the coinciding wide receivers here. Jacqueline Salkthrough Justin Herbert specifically last year he had he had 31 rush yards per game had never been over 18 in his career so that was that was a big jump up from him and in his fantasy production but he also took 54 sacks so tons of sacks and scramble last year I think drove down Herbert's play on our past volume quite a bit there his 54 sacks last year easily a career high I think can be summed up to losing both starting tackles as well as some you know just not great play along the interior of their offensive line but in terms of Justin Herbert you know I was looking at this it's been kind of like a tale of two careers for him in terms of past on from 2022 to to from 2020 to 2022 his 17 game average was 682 pass attempts nearly 4900 yards 33 touchdowns and then the last three seasons that's been like 544 attempts you know under 4,000 yards in around 25 and a half passing touchdowns for Herbert so his fantasy value has has declined a little bit here do you think this is a good setup for him to rebound it and just thoughts on his his fit in this McDaniel scheme. I think it's a good setup for Herbert for sure I think the main question is how much exactly do we expect the efficiency to increase? I think to let the league in yards per attempt in 2022 under McDaniel, he kind of, his yards per attempt decreased every year, so you progressively turned more and more into a pumpkin. But Herbert has plenty of room for his efficiency to increase. He was only at 7.3 yards per attempt last year. We are projecting 7.4, Gretches at 7.6. We've talked on some of the earlier pods about how Gretches naturally comes in higher on yards per attempt, projecting more wide receiver health, which flows through to the quarterback. But I do think that it's worth talking about here. If, I mean, if Herbert can get up to like the 7.8 to 8.0 range, which seems within the realm of possibilities with McDaniel, that has league winning potential. The other thing is his touchdown rate. Gretches comes in three touchdowns higher than us. We're at a 5.1% touchdown rate, which is above his career average of 4.7%, but in line with what he had last year. So if the touchdown rate also spikes under McDaniel, there's certainly some upside from where we have him projected. Right now, we're a little bit below on Herbert versus market. The market is pretty aggressive or at least optimistic, given the McDaniel hiring. But there's certainly room for the efficiency to skyrocket here. And two of his past TD rate has always been a little bit higher than Herbert. And that was something else I was looking at there. I do think they'll do some of the passing in the red zone. I mentioned the running back, the passes with intent. They did that a lot with A-chan. I think we're going to see that with Keaton Mitchell. And as we work towards the running backs, I have a way more targets than Keaton Mitchell. So I would probably need to set you guys on this a little bit. But Keaton Mitchell is such an obvious fit as I went through this projection. I've been high on Keaton Mitchell offseason. I had not thought about this until I went to the projection. But the chargers have had really low running back target rates the last several years. And a lot of times that is the quarterback. Miami's had significantly higher. And it could-- it's certainly more of a two-as-scale set. And I'm not pushing the running back target rate in my projection to be clear all the way up to Miami's degree. But I am increasing it significantly over the recent chargers seasons. And I think that's because-- so when they-- some of the offices has been that they've been talked about, some of the mic-make Daniel discussion has been about Justin Herbert's footwork. And specifically to get the ball to teammates as fast as possible, they're talking about getting the quick game ramped up. It's really interesting because that's stuff that McDaniel obviously did with Tuha. And it was thought to be because it's to a skill set. But it seems like he does want to bring some of that over here. And you think about like, who's that going to be? Maybe that's going to be lad. Maybe it's going to be QJ. Like he's done some short ball and hand stuff, although mostly a vertical receiver. David and Joku's, the guys, has done some of that. I think it's going to be the running backs. And I think it's going to be very beneficial to him, Mari and Hampton. But Keaton Mitchell is the obvious one, the super fast player. Apparently, Mike McDaniel put up wanted posters for Keaton Mitchell and Alec Engel, this is the other one, which is hilarious. But there was some reference about that. That McDaniel wanted to get Keaton Mitchell. They paid him to bring him in because he's so fast. He's also very much undersized. How do you use a guy like that? You try to get him into space. That's what they've done with Devon H. And a lot, quick hitters and these quick angle routes, where they get the ball out and immediately into his hands in space as like a first read in the passing game. I think that probably is part of what happens with Mitchell. And then what it ties back to with Herbert is, to his passing TD rate was really strong because of a high pass rate in the green zone. A lot of that was the running to the running backs. HN would have a big receiving TD rate, basically, every season. Some of it was also some of the quick game stuff to like, Jhinon, Smith that one year. But it's using the quick game in the red zone in addition to running. They've also had their seasons the year with most hurt in HN. HN's rookie year, where most are at 20 TDs. HN had like 11. They had 30 something running back touchdowns. Most of those were rushing. I mean, I do think they're going to run in the red zone as well. But this is an offense. I think it's going to be good and score a lot of points. And I do think the Herbert pass TD rate that you were talking about. I mean, I think it could really spike because of some of that stuff, which is pretty exciting. You mentioned the online stuff. Obviously, both tackles were out last year. They get healthier. They draft the fourth round. Depth tackle as well. They draft the second round guard. They draft two more interior linemen in the sixth. They also signed two more interior linemen. They really have taken depth on the offensive line seriously this off season, which is another very positive thing. You talked about Herbert's sac rate being up the last couple years. I brought a sac rate way back down in this new offense. His scramble rate was way higher starting last year, which is really interesting as well. I brought that down some, but left it up a little bit. Seems like something they wanted to do more of. Herb Harbott talked about that. Like wanting to let him impact the game with his athleticism a bit more. But I do think this offense is what the quick game and stuff is going to bring down some of Herbert's sacs and scramble both in the offensive line improvements as well. So I'm pretty bullish on Herbert. I think the rushing is probably better than people realize. He was way up there. I think he was third in the league and running back a quarterback rushing yardage last year, if not like fourth or fifth, but very high. And even if that comes down a little, I still think that's good. And then the past TD rate could be really high. This is a clear, like another clear, like could be QB spike season. People love him for the MVP bets and things. And I'm very much in on that. Yeah. Last year Herbert eight and a half percent scramble rate. And he's still like a 5% career scramble guy. So certainly a pretty big departure there. I kind of think that was mostly due to, you know, poor offensive line play and Herbert feels like he needed to, you know, escape it and use his legs more as a weapon. I do think that it's pretty likely to come down. But if it does stay in that five to 6% range more so than, you know, he's had some seasons like in the three to four percent range, which is pretty much adding, you know, almost nothing per game scrambling. So hopefully it's somewhere in the middle there to keep up that level. Let's get into the backfield though, because I am really interested to hear your key and Mitchell, like targets, you know, projection take because for inputs here on a Marin Hampton at ETR, we're at 231 carries, graches at 221. We are at 55 targets, grach at 51. So we're actually a little bit ahead of Hampton, which is interesting because we've been behind market and the best ball, you know, all off season, which is just telling that grach is even a little bit below us on, on the inputs here. And meanwhile, on Keaton Mitchell, we're at about 79, rush attempts in 13 targets, graches at 96, rush attempts in 40 targets. So about three times the amount of targets here. And I had written down in my notes for Keaton Mitchell, grach kind of that, that term you had yet set on one of the earlier shows. Like I see a trap back, you know, is he going to only really get touches like between the 20s and then a Marin Hampton with the superior size is going to come in near the goal line. And then as Keaton Mitchell going to catch any passes. So, you know, I do want to toss it to you probably first before Jack discusses our inputs, mostly on the Keaton Mitchell receiving game and what makes you bullish that he's going to inherit that role here in McDaniel's offense. We I just shared some of it, but like last year, they only had 74 running back targets in this offense. The year prior, they had 59. It's been very low. There was like five running backs with 85 plus around the NFL last year targets individually. And Devon H. Han was one of them. He's obviously and some of that's H.N. skills set, of course. And the fact that they didn't have as much depth that receiver and tight end. And that's one of the things we'll talk about with the concentration. That's been a big thing in McDaniel's offense is in the past as concentration. I do think you have to recognize that there's a lot more depth in this offense at running back at wide receiver and at tight end than than any of the Miami offenses. Like they've got a better probably number three running back than Miami had as a number two, some of those years. They've got deeper wide receivers, no doubt. And they've got deeper tight ends behind, you know, Gadson and Joku and they even signed Charlie Kohler to a nice deal. So there's a lot more depth in this offense. That said, at least 114 running back targets, three years straight in McDaniel offenses in Miami is a lot more 114 than the, you know, 74 and 59 here for the chargers last year. I was looking at, you know, sort of where they go. I have 50 plus for Hampton, but I have 40 projected here for Mitchell. And it is that stuff that, you know, it's feel like again, it's like he's small, he's extremely fast. It's the idea of, you know, using him in space, stuff like those angle routes and then also the quick hitters, like they would split or running back out and throw to H and on, you know, on the edge. It's not an easy thing to, to, to, to like counteract defensively. If you just like put a guy way up on the line, then they throw deep like it, you know, that's, they can, they can fake that. And so that's why part of why H and had so many receptions over the last couple of years with the dolphins. And I do think that's going to be a part of the offense here. And particularly when Mitchell's on the field, rather than just running him into the line every time when he's 170 pound back, you know, I do think part of that makes sense. Again, it's some of its H and skill set, but they got dynamic running backs here too. And I think they're going to do that with Hampton and Mitchell. Yeah. Part, I kind of mostly attributed the H and target chair just to his specific talent and then kind of the lack of other, of other target options in Miami, especially after, after Tyrick went down and we have seen H and like, you know, targets just really spike when, when they were, you know, Johnny Smith, Jaylen Wadow or Tyrick were really out. So Grinch mentioned it. It's a very interesting needle to thread here in fantasy because again, we, we have some questions about the play volume just given McDaniel's history. And then we do have a ton of targets here in the offense or a bunch of talents, you know, to distribute touches here. So Jack Hampton, let's kind of dive in on him a little bit because he's, he's someone again, we've been behind market on and it's not that we like, you know, don't like on Marin Hampton. We have as the 19th overall player and half PPR right now. He's just going really high at 15 ADP right now on underdog. Curious your thoughts on this backfield split and if you're targeting any chargers back so far this off season. Yeah, I think that was a good point that Grinch just made it and makes me think that after the show, we should probably revisit our running back target style. because we only have 15.5% target share, actually 16%, we have 0.5% for Jared Patterson, allocated to running backs. And we're kind of projecting Keaton based on what he's done in the past, but it is a good point that McDaniel is likely going to be more imaginative with him than what he had. I do think it will be interesting who actually plays on pass-downs here because Baltimore never used Keaton Mitchell in that way. They even used Machine Ali over him down the stretch last year on pass-downs, but on Hampton he was pretty good as pretty good as rookie 0.66 rush yards over-expected per attempt first round draft capital upgraded offense and that kind of makes it a scary bet to be below market on, but we are below market on him right now and Gratch is even lower than us just because they do have three guys who need volume. They prioritize Keaton Mitchell this off season. I was really curious where Gratch was going to come in on the rushing split here and I'm not a really surprised given I expected him to be higher on Keaton Mitchell, but a little bit surprised that we come in higher on Hampton and it does make me feel better about our Hampton pay because I do think the split in terms of rush attempts is a little bit uncertain with the three-backs bet. So this isn't going to help anything, but my number one note on my running back running back line here is the running back rushing split feels really tough to dial in and then I think Hampton's a good pick. I think my projection comes in probably a little bit too light, but I think it's I think it's challenging to get the projection right. One of the notes I had is I think they'll have real intent to use Vidal, but ultimately won't really be able to find enough work for him if I'm already in Keaton or healthy because I think those two guys are just a lot better. One of the reasons I gave him a little bit more rush attempt stuff than I wanted is I was like I think when they win games and they like blow teams X, I think they're going to be good. I think it make my make sense for them to use come on if I dial and use a Mario and Hampton like or like cut a Mario and Hampton back a little bit. So some of the late game stuff, he may not just like compile extra rushing work. There's going to be a little bit of a rotation and then I do think Keaton Mitchell's going to have a real role. They gave him a really solid contract and they've talked a lot about him and it's something that McDaniel's always wanted to feature his speed like this in his offense. So I do think there's going to be a real role there. But I mean Hampton are really good. You mentioned the the rushers are expected, but like meaningfully better yards per carry evasion metrics yards after contact and breakaway run rate then Vidal in the same offense. Like he I some people have like detracted from Hampton and talked about like he only was good against like certain offenses or defensive or something. I have a really hard time seeing this as a failure of a rookie year, especially because he was playing through an injury. Like I think he was like good prospect profile and that was in a new very exciting offense. Like I want to be in on the tail outcomes for our mayor. I'm wearing Hampton. We've tried to bump or we have bumped our mayor and Hampton's efficiency from Algo as well here just for the Mike McDaniel effect and and agree with Greg. She know he did perform well as a rookie. So again, certainly a scary fade there. But man, it's going to be it's going to be interesting to see like who who ends up the big winners from this charge offense because I do think there are going to be some in fantasy. But again, kind of more more malls and more more players that it could land on compared to Miami where we've seen McDaniel in the past. Let's go to the wide receiver room here headline by Lad McConkey entering his third season. Kind of a tale of two seasons. You know, one of the best rookie wide receiver seasons. We've had in the last handful for Lad McConkey, especially down the stretch there. Really, really efficient rookie season. That got got dialed back in a second year largely due to Keenan Allen. I think coming in, but only a 19% target for outrun for Lad McConkey in the sophomore season. Certainly a big disappointment. I also have Quentin Johnston coming into his fourth year, which is which is pretty wild. But you know, these are are are likely to be especially with the tight end signing. Sears should mention, you know, they bring in Charlie Colar on a three year 24 million dollar deal to sign David and Jokou to a contract as well. So maybe some heavier personnel tendencies for the chargers and coming. We can talk through that a little bit, but let's talk let's talk to Lad and QJ first up top. Jack, as we expect those to be the top two wide receivers here in terms of target for Lad. We are at 112, Gretches at 119 on QJ. We're at 91 and Gretches at 82. Gretches actually has 82 targets on Tre Harris as well. So basically splitting the QJ and Tre Harris targets there evenly. We had we had kind of tilted that way a little bit. And then the market has really started to steam up on on Quentin Johnson, especially in best while we fall like 30 picks behind. So that that's kind of a spot we've we've you know, oscillated back and forth between Jack. How do you expect this wide receiver room to play out here under Mike McDaniel? Yeah, QJ. We are slightly low because the market has really come around. And I think Levitts and three to doubt this past weekend that his ADP is steam multiple rounds without a whole lot of news. I know Daniel Popper over the athletic did say that he was going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the McDaniel offense with his yak ability. So I guess that's a small piece of news, but not not something that should bump his ADP as much as it has. Two QJs credit he has gotten significantly better throughout his NFL career. 20% target share in 2024 18% last year. His yards pretty target his jump at least one yard in each season of his career and back to back seasons with a touchdown. So I think that we're kind of giving QJ a little bit of credit for improving their lack of wide receiver moves this offseason. I think this play some level of trust in QJ as their wide receiver to. And then lad, like you said, I think we can expect the target share to jump back up. Keenan Allen let the team in target share last year. He was at 0.27 targets per route run. So vacating those targets is Keenan Allen obviously still for you doing assuming that they don't resign him and really crush everyone here. I think we can't expect lad to jump back up. I am curious to hear Karech's Trey Harris standpoint because we have him as the clear wide receiver three Harbaugh has referred to having three elite wide receivers with Trey Harris being the third. So I certainly think that they have a lot of trust in Trey Harris going into year two down the stretch. They were playing him a decent amount of snaps using him as a blocker. So I think that they trust him in that regard as well. But they do have three tight ends that they are going to use. They also have alloc angled at fullback. So I do think that there's going to be a decent amount of plays where they don't have three receivers on the field. So I want to hear kind of the Trey Harris bold case because Gretcheson even with QJ. I kind of lean toward QJ just given the improvements that he's shown over the past three seasons. I would probably take some exception to the idea of improvement other than the idea that he was incredibly poor early in his career. I mean 2023 he was a sub one yards per out run guy. 2024 he got it up to 1.77 and then last year was back down to 1.51. You mentioned the yards per target has improved the target right went back down last year. He started off really hot last year. It was 70 plus yards in each of the first four games and four TVs in that span. From that point four to cross 11 more games including their postseason game. He went more for more than 53 yards just two times. He had 30 or fewer yards six times. He only had four more total TVs. We've talked about the idea of the primacy effect in the past. It happens a lot in fancy football guys a big first month and people rethink his whole season way better than it was. Quint Johnson had 55 catches for 711 yards and eight touchdowns in 2024. Last year he had 51 for 735 and eight touchdowns basically the exact same line one less game. I will I will not only play 14 games. But yeah, yeah, that really hot start and basically the same line going into 2025. He was a double digit round guy going into in a 2026. People want to take him in like the fifth. I mean, it's it's kind of crazy to me honestly. I there's been improvement. One of the big issues in 2024 was his contest to catch rate was one of the worst in the league for a guy who's so big and fast. It's never made sense that he can't win contested catches. That's what he should be doing like at a high rate. It did improve a little bit last year was below average, but it was better. They've come in. They've said nothing but positive stuff about QJ maintenance. Comparis physical traits to Julio Jones and Andre Johnson who he's had in the past, although that's not really in dispute. That is not the issue with Quint Johnson. And he's not as skilled as those guys period like it's not in question. The skill that it takes to be a wide receiver. He does not have on their level. Even if he has improved if if you're more on Jack's point on that, but the tray here's is a very efficient player in college was efficient last year. His I mean, catch rates not like the number that you want to look at, but his catch rate last year was 70% a little bit of a lower eight. Then then Quint Johnson. When Johnson has drops even on the short passes. If you watch his games, Quint Johnson's basically had a catch rate all three years right around 60% like a 10% gap. And that's like the logical range like 70% is really high. 60% is more low because you know, there's going to be a lot of catches that are more or less easy to make and some that are going to be very difficult to make. And most guys are going to be in the 60s somewhere. It's a pretty big gap. It's not again, not the only element in Harris. There's other things that the Harris, you know, isn't going to be able to do. Isn't going to have as much ball and hand probably as Quint Johnson and some of that stuff. It does seem like McDaniel wants to feature him. And he does feature rare talents like Quint Johnson. So I feel like I might be pretty wrong here. But my take on him is he's just a pretty limited player. I also think he's going to be involved but without a huge ceiling. And to me, it makes like that take makes the whole passing game a bit frustrating by splitting the production up a little bit. But Trey Harris going into year two was getting is a little bit like the Pat Brian thing was getting used late in the year. Developed a 13% on one wide receiver role, they used him in that role. They've talked him up all off season. Again, had a very productive college profile and some call it gimmicky, but it's like astronomical production, even if you consider that, like you had a five plus yards per out run in this final season. Like if you consider that gimmicky, you can give him twice as many routes and give him zero catches on all those and it's still a two and a half yards per out run. Like there's production. He's obviously able to catch the ball and score touchdowns and those things. And Quint Johnson had production in his collegial profile as well, but I just kind of think going into your two, Trey Harris can take a step forward and be closer to Quint Johnson in skill set than I think people realize. They've talked about this off season like Lad, Quint Johnson, Trey Harris, are the three guys. That's the way that I'm reading a lot of the team quotes is like they see these three dudes as the bulk of the passing game. Even Gadsden to me has not been talked about much this off season feels like a little bit of an afterthought. And I was interested to see here that you guys even have Gadsden lower than me. So you're thinking the same thing from that perspective of it, which you add in Joku and all those things. It's going to get tight somewhere. And I kind of think the Gadsden's, the guy that gets squeezed. I'm projecting him for fewer targets than he got last year. You guys are projecting him 11 fewer than me. So I mean, you guys are seeing the same squeezing as well going into year two for a guy who had a good rookie year. But he's a tight end, probably a limited role when you have these receivers. But yeah, as far as the receivers are concerned, the Quint Johnson, I mean, the hype has been confusing to me. The whole off season, I got to be honest, like it has not made sense that he basically had the same year as 2024 and was worse down the stretch was losing routes. Like was generally just not even playing as much in addition to not getting the yardage or the touchdowns or anything as that first month where everyone is really, you know, I think remember, not saying Jack, but I think the market is. And that's the part to me that's, I don't know. I think what Daniel likes him, but like, what do we think the upside is here? - Yeah, I think the fact that we're ahead of you on QJ and puts wise and still like well behind the best while market is probably kind of like a good indication that that being low QJ is where we want to be. This off season, especially, you know, Trey Harris second, second round pick, 55th overall. I think Retshe laid out a, you know, kind of a great campaign for him to take a step forward in year two, especially I think he has viewed as a better blocking wide receiver and we know compared to Quint Johnson and we know that Mike McDaniels is going to value that in the run game as well. So, you know, I think we don't necessarily have to bury QJ, but I think being below market is probably where we'll continue to be there. They also drafted, they also drafted Brennan Thompson who's a 5'9, 165 pound rookie who were on a 4'2, 6'40" or a dash to like, you know, I think when you think Mike McDaniel, we think speed and oh, QJ is going to be able to continue to rip off these big plays and touchdowns and everything maybe Brennan Thompson could even take kind of like that speed roll from him a little bit too if you know, that was a guy like on draft night, you know, McDaniel's like a bagging for them to draft Brennan Thompson kind of thing. So, you know, multiple avenues where QJ's playing time could potentially get eaten into. But before I move to tie dents here, Gretchen, I do want to get your kind of take on Lab McConkey just after like the volatile, you know, your one breakout to your two kind of decline. Again, only a 19% target per out run last year. Do you have any concerns over this profile heading into year three or, you know, 'cause he's going at the end around three right now in drafts. So the fantasy market is fully buying back into Lab McConkey being like the clear wider silver one here. - Yeah, he's tricky. I mean, his yards per target cratered last year. You mentioned that like some of it was Kenan Allen and his target rate fell, his target, target per out run fell, but his yards per target cratered as well. And so like there's a lot of different ways to get there with yards per target. Catch rate is going to be a big influencer of that. McConkey went from an incredibly high 73% catch rate as a rookie to 62% last year. I kind of feel like he was too efficient as a rookie but overregressed last year. So the yards per target was over 10 as a rookie. It was 7.4 last year. I put it at 8.4, you guys have it at 8.7. It looks like we both expect him to actually, you know, middle that basically catch a few more balls, do a little bit more efficiently on the target that he does see. Now again, like I catch rate is not like the most important stat. It's very relevant to Adot and a lot of other things. And like I mentioned like Tray Harris had a much higher catch rate. Part of the reason I was saying it that way is Harris was in a limited role. And to me, it's like he was able to succeed in the role that he was given. He brought in a lot of the passes that were thrown his way. But his yards per target were still meaningfully less than Quentin Johnston's because Quentin Johnston last year was hitting on a lot of big plays. And I do recognize that. That's the other part of this for lad is like he was not as productive with some of the big plays as yards perception came down just in the regular season. And then I know if we pulled the postseason day, that would be even more because in 2024, he had the huge play in the post season and the one huge game. But as yards perception 14 in 2024 down to 20 down to 12 in 2025. So as catch rate drops a ton, but as yards perception also falling, I mean, there's some real concerns there. But he was generally an efficient player in college. The issue with him was he didn't run a ton of routes. But on a per out basis, he was pretty darn good for Georgia alongside Brock Bowers. And alongside several other eventual NFL receivers, like Adnight Mitchell and Jermaine Burton. And a lot of these guys who ended up transferring away from Georgia. Bowers always dominated those guys in production. He also kind of dominated Maconkey. But Maconkey was a more of a number one, never had to transfer away and seemed to be more productive than those guys at Georgia. Kind of beat them out as my point. And was more of a route-based thing where he was getting banged up a lot in college. But when he was out there, his per-route profile was really strong. And it was both earning volume and efficient, the yards per target side of it. So I just, I don't know. I don't know what it was about last year, but I am, I'm definitely willing to be in on Lydon, Conkey still bouncing back. The tricky thing is, at his price is the volume there because we're both under 120 targets. People are really, really high on this offense. And I think rightfully so. But I do think it is going to be one that's deep and spread out. I think there's going to be stuff for Quint Johnson, like I said. But I think that's going to just spread things out more. I think there's going to be stuff for Tray Harris. And there's going to be stuff for the tight ends. I think there's going to be passing game stuff for the running backs in the quick game that I talked about. And I do think that just spreads a lot of stuff. Like I want to play Herbert. I kind of want to play the running backs. Have a hard time with where to play the rest of it. Tray Harris is probably like the late round cheap, interesting option of the pass catchers. But it's tricky. Yeah, so the lead catch rate point hit, did dip 11% from rookie season to sophomore season when his A dot was the exact same year over year. And then looking at kind of like the more advanced stuff, his yards after catch per reception was the exact same as well. So as yards before catch really took a dip, which to me, you know, the data's indicating that he just did not hit nearly as often on kind of like the downfield explosive plays that I got in his rookie season. You know, that kind of like evaporate a little bit in year two. So I do think that can rebound. And again, you mentioned efficiency wise, we're pretty much right in between like his rookie year in a sophomore season in terms of efficiency. So I think expecting that to balance that out. It is probably, you know, the right way to think about it going into your three there for lab. All right, Tyden Room here is another pretty tricky one to talk through just because, you know, Ronda Gasson broke out as a rookie, Tyden had 9.6 yards per target in his rookie season. Pretty much like Tyden's or George Kiddles, pretty much the only other Tyden that's up there in that efficiency realm for for Tyden Gasson was, you know, kind of kind of a glorified big slot. He played 51% snaps in line less last season, 47% were in the slot or out wide, just turned 23 years old, but they do sign Charlie Colar to a three year 24 million dollar contract, 17 million guaranteed there. And then they signed David and Joku as well. One year three up to three million dollar deer, but only 850 K guaranteed David and Joku turns 30 this July. I'm like, I'm like shocked that the market was not more in on David and Joku. I'm like, really interested to see just what happens to him this season. And the rest of his career, I cannot believe he, you know, only got 850 K guaranteed based on, you know, what the Tyden market has has done this off season. But I think it's a really tough projection to get playing time and routes split out here. So, Jack, take us through it. You know, this is a spot we've already tweaked a lot this off season. You know, what are your thoughts and notes kind of on this Tyden Room here? Yeah, Gretchen and the third to the season that Quentin Johnston had. Gadsden had a similar sort of Linsanity run. Only it was in week six to 11. He average 72 yards per game. And then over the final six games of his rookie year, he was only at 26 yards per game and his snap and round numbers really decreased over that time as well. The calling card on him out of college was that he was a good pass catcher, but that there was some concerns about whether he could be an NFL and every down NFL Tyden at his size. I think those concerns kind of came to fruition. At the end of his rookie year, and I think the charges of kind of signaled that they don't view him as their every down Tyden with the moves they've made. This off season, they gave Colour three years for $24 million. He's a good blocker. I think he's going to play a good amount. If we lump Alec Engel then here as well. He has played at least 33% of steps in three straight seasons as well as a full back. In Joku is really bad down the stretch last year. We caught five balls over his final four games after Harold Fanon took the Tyden one job, 6.1 and 5.2 yards per target over the past two seasons. So and didn't get very much 20 like you said. I kind of think that this Tyden room is going to cannibalize itself and that there's not going to be anyone. All that interesting. We're a little bit below market on Gatson, but I do think it's great to question the the snap and the route ceiling here, even if he is the best pass catcher of the three. Completely agree. The in Joku. Levitant had a great tweet on Enjoukou. I just pulled up from a couple of months ago. But he wrote, "Science of a Downright Bad for Enjoukou, "gets out, played decisively by around three rookie "hero fan in last year. "Yarts per run gone down each of the last three seasons, "bottom out at 1.06 last year. "It gets very little interest on the open market despite "a league wide craze on tight ends, "because he didn't sign until much later than the normal "free agent cycle. "And then it settles for a one-year deal worth up to $8 million. "Only got $850,000 guaranteed on a team "where he isn't the best blocking tight end. "That's Kolar and isn't the best receiving tight end. "That's Gadsden." The one, if you want to be optimistic about Enjoukou, the one thing you can tell yourself is he's good at the short catch and run stuff, the ball and hand stuff that John Smith did a few years ago. But when I say that, people are gonna be like, "Oh, John Smith was a fantasy monster in this offense. "He was a fantasy monster when they had no one else. "This team we've been talking about "has way too many other options. "So it's not like they're gonna go, "I mean, it's similar to that Sean Payton running back thing. "Like, you can't fit it right into the same role. "You could say that Enjoukou could get some design targets "or quick hitting targets, "but it's gonna be a very small sliver "of the amount of work that John Smith got a few years ago. "The upside comp for Gadsden, for me, in terms of usage, "is how McDaniel found a really good use for Darren Waller "as soon as Waller got healthy in a way "that he wasn't really using the other tight ends. "It's like he had been waiting for Waller to get on the field "and then they were immediately using him sort of vertically. "And Gadsden had a higher ADOT last year, "as ADOT was actually more than double, "or sorry, Waller's ADOT was more than double "dolcicch's in this offense. "Enjoukou would then be sort of what the Greg Dolcic was, "which is Waller had an 11.98 ADOT, "dolcicch had a 5.6. "I do think that's probably how McDaniel's thinking about this, "that Enjoukou's gonna get some catches "and some ball and hand stuff, "but I mean like a low number. "I haven't projected for 37 targets. "You guys have them at 42. "We're thinking like 25 to 30 receptions "on the season, Fern Joukou, as a rotational tight end "at this point. "And we've seen guys with high profiles go that direction. "We've seen it with Noah Fann over the last few years "in different offenses, former first round pick. "We've seen it with Evan Ingram. "We just talked about last year was not really "in that big of a role. "He's got name value, but I don't think he's really "that much of a threat at the same time. "Gadsden in a vertical wide receiver role on an offense "that has three receivers they can use vertically "is a little bit of a tricky one. "And as Jack mentioned, his production tapered off as well. "The other thing with the Charlie Cole of the thing "is they gave him a nice deal. "He's just a blocking tight end, "but he is a bit of a nuisance for Gadsden. "He's got limited targets the last few years, "but extremely efficient at a higher A dot. "He's been like this nine plus guy. "They're not gonna throw him a ton of targets, "but they're gonna leak him off the line "in some of these 12 formations in vertical routes "that would have otherwise probably gone to Gadsden. "He's gonna get like 15, "I've met 14 targets, you have mid 18. "But that's like 15 targets that could have gone to Gadsden "if Charlie Kohler wasn't on this offense. "To Jack's point about the way the tight ends "are gonna rotate in some of those different things, "there will be concepts that Kohler is getting out vertically. "And that's not good for Gadsden either. "I really like her on how to Gadsden the talent. "I think long-term he's gonna be a good player "and all these things. "He had a great rookie year. "You got to like the upward trajectory going into year two. "I have him on like a dynasty, best ball team. "I'm excited about it. "I'm just gonna hold him and see what happens "with the rest of his career. "But he's not a great best ball play in my opinion "because of these other tight ends behind him. "And then all of the wide receivers "and just the way that this offense probably will run." - Yeah, and we've been a little bit behind Gadsden against the market and even more like in Redraft. I think it's gonna be a tough thing to kind of nail down when you start Gadsden unless there are, you know, a decent amount of injuries either in the tight end room or in the wide receiver core there. It's a kind of open up some more playing time. All right, let's head to the Kansas City chiefs here. You know, it's wild talking about the chiefs. I think in a division just given their dominance over the last half decade there with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reed. You know, big news is Matt Nagy is out here. So Andy Reed will become the head coach and play caller. Once again, they do return Eric the enemy to the coaching staff as well. He has called plays. I believe a little bit in the past at points too. So maybe some interchangeable play calling duties. There are Andy Reed, the projected play caller for us as of right now in terms of team level inputs for the chiefs at ETR we are at 61.9 plays. Gretches at 63.4. We are at 64.1% pass rate. Gretches at 62 and a half percent. So once again, Gretches a little bit higher on, or quite a bit higher on plays. One and a half more plays there for the chiefs. And then we are quite a bit higher on pass rate. 1.6% above there. The chiefs did finish our first and pass rate over expectation. Last year we have them 10th in plays per game at 61.9. They finished 16th last year there. So Jack, we have Patrick Mahomes coming back from this torn ACL and Andy Reed still at the helm here. What are your thoughts on this chiefs play calling going into this upcoming season? Yeah, the pass rate will be interesting now having Kenneth Walker in the fold. We're projecting it not quite to where they've been over the past three years, but closer to that where it's Gretches I think is assuming more of a neutral tilt with Walker in the fold. And Brett Beach did say that they want to get the run game going a little bit more. They've been at least 64.3% in each of the last three years. So I'm interested in hearing this conversation. And I certainly think that there's a possibility we are not baking in the Kenneth Walker edition enough from a russ rate standpoint. And yeah, I do think that even with being a me back, I know Matt and Neggie was terrible. And I know that the offense literally did tank as soon as he became a C. I think they were top two in the Yardth per play for five straight years under the enemy. Immediately became league average or worse under Neggie. But I do think that there's some really real personnel issues that they didn't address. And so I'm not totally assuming that just because Neggie's gone with all of a sudden, this is going to be a really good offense. And even with the addition of Walker. The pass rate stuff for me-- this is another one where on a macro lens, I come in lower than I want to on the league wide trends. I come in with a heavier run lean because again, I'm expecting teams to be a little bit healthier. I'm projecting them that way. The pass heaviest teams every year are the teams that fall apart. The Cardinals went into the last year with Calamaria quarterback. And then they wound up being the pass heaviest team with Jacobi Berset. And they're season-- they went three and 14. And they fired everybody and they moved on. That's where you get the pass. So the league wide pass trends-- I wind up more run heavy with my projections because I'm assuming this ideal utopia world for all the offenses. I do have them at plus 3.5% PROE relative to what my win total expected pass rate is. 62.5% pass rate for me is on the high end. I'm definitely with you guys that they're going to be a pass every team. I do have them leaning a little bit back into a reasonable range for the reasons you said. And my home's coming off in ACL. They're going to probably run a little more with a new running back. But yeah, they've been top two in PROE every year for seven straight years or something like that. I think the sense my home's took over. The one thing, in addition though, that I'm thinking about is they have the 10th most favorable schedule this year. They've never had this. They've always played the hardest schedule in the league. It's always been this thing where their win total over under to me has always been low. It'll come in at 11 1/2 and the best teams will be 12 1/2. And everyone will say, well, they've got the toughest schedule in the league. This was the back. I remember when Brady was down the league, they got the box that year and people were like, well, they got the box on the NFC side and they still got to play the bills and the Ravens. Every year, they got to play the same-- they got to play the bills and Ravens. I think they get the bills again this year. But I don't think they get the Ravens maybe. But they get a third-play schedule. So they have one of the more favorable schedules. Probably the most favorable schedule they've had, like full stop in my home's career. The other thing about the play volume, I want to know, their play volume cratered after my homes went out. With my homes, low as single game was 57 plays. Without him, they had two games in 16 and 17, where they went for 42 and 43 plays. Through my homes, 14 games, they were averaging 65.3 plays. They finished at 62.4. I brought them down to three plays per game. That 65 number was actually up from 2024. They were at 64.2, 63.8, 64.5, the prior years. So I've got them as like a four-year trend of being at like 64-ish with my homes. And then cratering when they gave up in week 16 and 17 last year. That's why I have them at 63.4, a little bit regressed off of that. You guys have them at 61.9. I know you guys are going with a little bit of a lower target. But that's one where I feel pretty good about my number. I think there's a little bit of the post-mahomes injury probably pulling your guys as I'll go down a little bit. I would like recommend a little peek at maybe. And then the offensive line is the other thing. Last year's first round, pick left tackle, Josh Simmons. Good and pass, bro, but he missed some time. I think that's a good like year two upside bet that we think about in skill positions, but on the offensive line. There was a lot of people that really liked that pick for the chiefs. They have Creed Humphrey as a high end center. They don't have necessarily a great offensive line. But I do think those two could anchor like a solid unit. So I'm looking at this actually. I've kind of always been too high on the chiefs throughout the Mahomes era. And they've not been that fun of an offense. I feel like they've been trying to add pieces to get back to where they are a little bit more explosive. Like in the post-tirey kill era. And it's never really happened. Last year's where it all fell apart. They lose, they say, if you're worthy right away, they already didn't have Rishi Rice. All these things didn't work out. And then eventually Mahomes gets injured late in the year. It's a little counterintuitive coming off of that year and coming off of Mahomes entry. But like it really does feel like this might be the year where things actually come together in a way that I don't think. people are really factoring in, 'cause I do think the Ken Walker pick is pretty massive. I think their huge organizational failure the last several years has not been to get a difference making running back when defenses have been doing the cover two stuff and the more than anyone, the umbrella coverages and the safety's on the field. I think Pacheco has looked good at times because he's had space to run into. Now you add a running back with Walker success, sorry. Not lack of success rate, but boom, it's a boss ability, explosive ability, ability to run into space and you give him space. I think he may even be able to creep some guys down into the box and allow Mahomes to get some one-on-ones down the field that he's basically never had. Or if you don't do that, then I think Ken Walker is gonna be a really successful runner in this offense 'cause it's basically what he needs. If he bounces that outside, he'll have room to run. I don't think Isaiah Pacheco was particularly efficient with his movements either, but he often found space because that's the way the defenses play this offense. So anyway, I actually have like Mahomes passing efficiency rebounding this year, coming off in ACL and some of those things 'cause I think having a competent running game sort of between the 20s is gonna be really positive for the passing game off of that for the first time that they haven't had that in years in my mind. I mean, they used Kareem Hunt for most of the year last year. - Absolutely, let's get into the Mahomes efficiency though 'cause that was a spot when I was prepping for this. I was like, oh man, we have Mahomes for 6.8 yards per attempt and only project 229 past yards per game. That seems way low for Patrick Mahomes just given his career yardage outputs. He's never had a season below 245 passing yards per game. So I think we might be a little bit light on his efficiency, but it's not been great the last three years. He's been at 7.16.8 and 7.0 yards per attempt. And then when you look at this receiving core, it's for Shi Raizu as man, it's just really tough to trust him. You have Xavier Worthy who had a down sophomore season. And it's like Ty Quant Thornton as your wide receiver three who's an outcast from his team of drafting in the Patriots Cyrus Allen, if like a fifth round pick and then Kelsey in his age 36 season. So I have a tough time thinking the efficiency necessarily rebounds a ton from Mahomes. So we are low here at 6.8 yards per attempt. Again, this flows from our pass catchers back to the quarterback. That's essentially how our yards per attempt is calculated here. So Jack here is your thoughts on our Mahomes inputs. And I do want to mention too, just on the rushing side as well before it. Let you take it over here. Jack Lashier Mahomes had a career high with 422 rush yards and in five touchdowns and just 14 games. He had an 8.9% scramble rate last season. That's like a top five mark in the league. His career is at 6.6%. So he was QB2 last season and face points for game. The previous two seasons, he was QB11 in points per game. And that's where he's going this year. So yeah, Jack, any thoughts on this Patrick Mahomes efficiency input that we have? Yeah, I was looking at the yards per attempt, the little pre show. And I'm with you and that I think I'm not optimistic that he's going to return to where he was, let's say, four years ago. But I do think that our 6.8 number could be a little bit low. That's even on the lower end of where he's been over the past three years. But the rushing efficiency, I think, is pretty massive for what we can expect from him from a fantasy standpoint. He was at 6.6 yards per attempt last year as a runner. He had five touchdowns on 64 carries. His scramble rate over the four years prior to 2025 was 6.8% last year, was 8.9%. Now he's coming off a torn ACL. So I do think the rushing, which really helped his fantasy value a ton last year, I do think that that's a pretty major question coming off the injury and just another year older. So I think that that is going to have a big impact on what his end up season fantasy rank is. What the rushing looks like post injury. But I do think that we could probably end to his yards for attempt the passing efficiency and maybe bump that up a little bit. I do. On the rushing stuff, my note was that I have a lower yards per carry and a lower rush TD rate, but not crazy lower because he plays how he plays. If he's out there, I do expect to moving around is kind of what I made a note to myself. And I think it's interesting because we are close in the rushing stuff. I'm not like way ahead of you guys at all. I have a little bit more on the rushing TD side. But Jack, you see that kind of really pulling down the overall value if the rushing is not there. I mean, I think that makes sense. What, what, what are we going to ask Mark? I was just going to say you're, you're 450 yards clear of us and projection on my home's passing yards, but we have the same like touch or the same touchdown projection despite that, you know, we're at 29.5. You're at 29.3. And then yeah, I was just going to indicate we are pretty much in lockstep on the rushing projection, which I felt good about. We, you know, we kind of docked it quite a bit, just coming off the ACL and kind of the outlier season last year. So we are at 276 rushing yards projected on the homes. You're at 273.3. So yeah, essentially in, in lockstep there, which, which I was happy to see. - Yeah, part of the, and then I have the, well, I have their past TD rate. I had it ticking back up, but you guys have it even a little higher than me, which is interesting. But I basically have them. So you have Walker as a guy that I mentioned kind of the between the 20s thing, and I think he'll be great at that. But he struggled a little bit with the success rate stuff. Maybe he's not the ideal goal line back. They bring an Emory Demar Cotto as the secondary back. Demar Cotto's rate of carries from like the shotgun and was very high. And then against stack boxes very low. He's basically just a shotgun runner. It's some really interesting like efficiency stuff, but you do have to control for the fact that he's basically just a passing down back. They may use him differently, but I don't think he's like some star, Russia, you have Brechard Smith in this back field who had a 30% targets per route on just 108 routes. But I've done they put them out there. They basically used him like this team used to use like a Jerk McKinnon or somebody like they tried to get him the ball in the past game. And then they have the rookie Emmet Johnson, who's maybe the best backup to Kenneth Walker in terms of the actual early down rushing stuff. But the last time they had Eric Bianne me as the offensive corner of the running backs had 12 receiving TVs. This is back when they were doing a lot of the short passing by the goal line. And people when I was talking about my home's past TV rate being like artificially juiced by the ways that they would do some of the shovel passes in trick plays, they got away from that a little bit the last couple of years under negate. They've only had four total running back touchdown receptions in the last two years under neggy. And most of Bianne me's other seasons, it was more like four or five, but it kind of spiked. The other thing about the last time Bianne me was there pre-neggy was the lot was my home's led the league and passing yardage. It was it was I think his career higher, like 5200 passing yards in 2022. That's several years ago now. But I mean, there's a little bit of me that's like now that he's coming off the ACL now that he has a little bit more of a deficient run game and also now that just Matt negis not as offensive coordinate or anymore like maybe they're able to fix some of those things. Some of the yards per attempt stuff is well taken. But I also attribute to the volume of dropbacks where they ask him to throw into these obvious past situations. And then sort of he has to take underneath throws or throw balls away at his volume more than other quarterbacks. I often see people compare my home's per attempt efficiency to quarterbacks with vastly fewer dropbacks and be like these guys are better than Patrick Mahomes. It's not how it works. The fact that Patrick Mahomes is dropping back against obvious past coverages as much as he is is the point. Can the offense be more functional overall in a way with a good run of game in a way that improves Mahomes efficiency? That's sort of my bet here, I guess. But that's the big question as well. I don't I don't look at it's a guarantee, but that's how I'm projecting it is like the whole thing works better. And there's fewer of these like really inefficient like dropbacks into obvious past situations and throwaways and late game stuff that draw that brings down the per attempt efficiency. That's certainly fair if you expect the pass rate to come down a little bit that the efficiency would naturally kind of rebound. You know, a little bit for for Mahomes there. Let's get into the backfield. You you start hitting on it a little bit here. They do sign Kenneth Walker to the three year 43 million dollar deal nearly 29 million dollars guaranteed. Therefore the Super Bowl MVP last year there are 280 carries between Cream Hunt and Isaiah Pacheco neither of which are on the chief's roster right now. And then I think you do have you know kind of some pass down specialists and I'm already Mercado and Ember Shard Smith as you alluded to there. And then Emma Johnson as well. He is he is touted to be a positive in the past game. Also, he's also not necessarily a very big back at 511 200 pounds is Emma Johnson. So you know, it is I think Kenneth Walker like the very clear favorite for early down work. We have Walker at 238 carries. Gretches at 250. We're at 50 targets on Walker. Gretches at at 46 there. But overall, you know, relatively similar inputs. You're expecting Kenneth Walker to be, you know, the primary workhorse back here. And then efficiency wise we're about the same as well. We're at 4.27 yards per carry. Gretch at about 4.4. So a little bit higher on the efficiency for Kenneth Walker. I know I know that's something we've kind of struggle with like how with this high volume role can the efficiency be there for Kenneth Walker. So Jack, obviously Walker signed to this, this big deal in KC. Talk through your expectations for him since we are, you know, pretty, pretty aligned on, on the inputs there. And then looks like for Deamer Cotto, we're at 29 carries. Gretches at 73. We're higher in Emma Johnson. So, you know, do we think Emma Johnson is going to be the RB 2 right away? Or will that go to Deamer Cotto and then kind of who would be the handcuff back here as well if Kenneth Walker were to go down? Yeah, I think for Walker, a lot of it kind of comes down to what we talked about with the team level stuff and just how much they run. I think that given the money they signed them, given how much of a talent gap he has over every other running back on the roster, he's clearly going to be their workhorse at least on early downs as long as he stays healthy. The backup situation I do think is interesting because Walker didn't play a whole lot on pass downs in Seattle. D. Mercado did play a lot in that role in Arizona. you up Rashard Smith who was a 0.35 targets per run last year and Emma Johnson had a ton of catches over his final two seasons of college as well. It sounds like most things don't have for running max active on a given Sunday and it sounds like Rashard Smith is leading for return duties which could keep him active in DeMaricato I think likely has an early leg up on Emma Johnson for you know past protecting the home just the number one thing so it could be a situation where in week one I don't even know if Emma Johnson is like active on game day but if Kenneth Walker goes down he would actually be the guy that you want the most because DeMaricato has never had more than 58 carries in a single season for Shard Smith wasn't utilized the whole bunch as a restri last year Emma Johnson did have 251 carries in his final season at Nebraska so he's not huge but I do think that there's some chance that he would be second in line for carries if Walker goes down while potentially appearing forth on the left chart it does sound like there's been some buzz that Rashard Smith is even on the roster bubble he had a big roll on a per-row basis last year as a pass catcher but it sounds like he's leading for return duties like I said so I think that this running back room beyond Walker is one to watch in the camp but that's kind of how I see it breaking down as of now I like that breakdown I was saying oh good hold on grachy I just want to make one note before let you go and that is in the coach week index he when talking about Emma Johnson and he reads said he's going to help on special teams too we've got him in that up back position on the punt team which I thought was really interesting just in the terms of of roster you know confirmation that the image Johnson would be the up back on special teams which you know I'm out of my lane a little bit here talking about like special teams roles but I would imagine if you're the up back you're you know one of the main guys blocking for the punter there and so so put a rookie say a rookie is like you know that they've got him in that up back position on that was on May 2nd in the punt team I thought I thought was pretty interesting and maybe like a bullish sign that that Emma Johnson would make the roster there but again something certainly it's a monster you don't mean make the roster but be active on game days be active on game yes yes yeah I didn't know I'm guessing if Emma Johnson does have a special teams role it I guess they would have for running that for active then yeah it's really mostly just for special teams I mean at the end of the day it really doesn't matter for him at Johnson if he's active or not in week one if he's mostly a special teams guy what matters is that if he's the RB2 after if Kenneth Walker goes down and I think that I think that he might be just because DeMarcato has never sustained a long term wrestling role but it is interesting yeah the to the democlato point and even the bersharts Smith's usage last year with the really high target sprout and 35 targets 25 catches despite basically not playing I mean for anyone who drafted him like I drafted him a decent amount 35 targets at 25 catches you're like where were those I don't remember any of those happening but for both of these guys it's a bit like some Ajay P. Ryan and Cherokee McKinney before P. Ryan both of those guys had years in this offense with more targets than carries which doesn't happen a lot for secondary running backs I love the way you guys have a project that I ended up projecting DeMarcato for 73 rushes you guys only have him for 30 we have him both around like 20 targets you guys are basically saying that he's gonna be that way and then we both have bersharts Smith right around 20 rushes and 20 targets same thing you guys are you guys have that role locked in in a way that I agree with I only really did DeMarcato for that many carries because I I have a note here that I didn't know how to how to split up the the secondary running running back carries at all Johnson's a rookie I didn't know if he'd be active on game to everything that Jack just talked through you guys have a few more carries for Johnson I still have more carries for Johnson the bersharts Smith even though I have half as many targets Johnson had low breakaway rates but a decent evasion decent yards after contact given a lack of big plays he did have 85 catches over the past two years with okay receiving efficiency Jack noted a little bit of a receiving profile his rass suggests you know pretty average athleticism but like he's one of these dual backs again sort of similar to the Jonah Coleman thing he could play on all downs I like Jack's take that that he could potentially be the guy that would play more if kind of walk it went down the only question is the usage of rookies in this offense I mean it's been a little bit slow it was even slow for Rashid Ryzen Xavier worthy it was slow for Jalen Royals last year Amber Shard Smith and they got buzz in the offseason it's been slow for a number of guys over the years I wonder for Shard Smith may be the one to take a little bit of a surprise year two step because it's year two they were very slow with some other rookies that just ended up not being good like a sky more something so maybe I'm overplaying it but I feel like Andy Reed has always been a little bit deliberate with his young guys even the ones that have been become good he didn't play rice a ton until later in the year he didn't play worthy until later in the year were they had a great run into the postseason of that rookie year but they kept those guys held back a little bit so and that's the other thing with David Johnson I'm keeping in mind is just how much would they turn him loose I think Reed's offense is a little bit complicated enough that they don't love turning a rookie loose into a feature role think bottom line here is we expect Kenneth Walker to have a pretty massive workload here especially on early downs and just because he might not necessarily be in that third down pass role you know he's still going to get targets the screen game under Andy Reed has consistently been one of the strongest in the league as well so we've been a little bit ahead of Kenneth Walker in in ADP as of right now have him as a good like early second round pick so certainly think the runway is is very clear for Kenneth Walker after you know signing that big deal and again just not not too much competition on the ground here for touches yeah I could I could play the group that and just again if the path if they keep playing my homes the way they have with like the secondaries in that a lot a lot of nickel and a lot of extra second DBs on the field I mean Walker's rushing efficiency could spike as well I think he's really intriguing upside from that perspective but I had the same take with the backups like there's just not enough threat here like he's going to get a lot of work they paid him a lot of money can be interesting in the wide receiver room here Rishi Rice wide receiver one head liner and then Xavier worthy as wide receiver to Rishi Rice his his target route run numbers have been I mean just absolutely amazing in the chief's offense just hasn't been able to stay healthy the last couple of years or out of legal trouble but before he was hurt last season he was fourth in the NFL with a 32% target per out run he had a 35% target per out run in 2024 before he sustained that injury as well and then a 27% in his rookie season all you know very good the mid 30s numbers are our elite especially so in terms of inputs for rice we have 124 targets Gretches at 155 you know yards per target Gretches a little bit higher there at 7.75 we're at 7.34 so this is this is a spot that it's just really tough to pin down you have you have the obviously Rishi Rice hurt last year then he has a cleanup procedure on his knee and shortly after has a sort of 30 days in jail so he was you know partially re-abbing his knee and prison it's just it's just been a very interesting offseason and a couple years here for Rishi Rice and in the news but again just an elite target owner and I could I think lead the NFL in targets if he's healthy you know and plays all season so it's it's a very interesting Stan's be at Gretches go ahead on I'm way higher on the targets there and I'm way higher on worthy and then I scroll down and I'm still higher on Kelsey do you guys have a lot of on classified targets still we have a little bit of we have a little bit of unlisted there I was going to bring that up is something that potentially we could come up on on some of these guys mostly worthy there with Rishi Rice being jail I would we we have a little bit your 31 targets higher on Rishi Rice than us we have a little bit of the term we've been using in Slack is idiot attacks on Rishi Rice I don't know if that's the most correct way to phrase it but I'm not totally surprised that you're a lot higher on Rishi than us because we do have with you projecting kind of health and yeah I'm projecting that doesn't get into more trouble but that's a big projection it's just the way that I do it but it's not I think you're doing it more accurately I just don't have the all the algorithms and everything built into to factor in the idiot attacks it's a little bit tricky on my end. We do have 36 targets to an unlisted Ydrisie were here so that that's kind of just you know are they gonna sign so as I was looking through this I don't see was like I feel like Debo Samuel could be a decent fit here he's still a free agent Ydrisie right I wonder if if the chiefs are going to add anyone here because you have Rishi Rice and Xavier were the up top and then it's again Taekwam Thornton as as the projected wide receiver three here so lots of opportunity in this wide receiver room. I mean kind of that's I think a great way of framing it and to kind of start at the number three thing I think a stat that shocked me and I think would shock a lot of people is to learn that Taekwam Thornton had 19 catches last year this guy was not what we probably think he was he played a lot early he played 70% of the snaps in each of the first three weeks but then he was at 51% as a season high after that just like snaps he was running routes his eight out was 27.8 it's probably the deepest I can remember for like anybody like we were talking about it Alec Pierce on one of the recent shows being over 20 on some real volume this guy was purely a deep threat now he's good at ball tracking and he made some big plays and he did a lot of stuff that my homes hasn't been able to connect with Xavier worthy on I do think Thornton's going to have that role but this is like the Justin Watson role they had for years that that old receiver that was basically just a rotational wind Sprinter Thornton made big plays on it he actually wound up with over a thousand air yards on just a 19 reception or I guess I don't have the target number written down but yet 430 at actual yards and was actually somewhat productive But it's just it's just bombs basically he makes a lot of these catches and it's I don't I don't know how you play that I don't know how you play a guy who had 19 catches the next year and he's just completely relying on deep efficiency I actually have Jalen Royles for a really solid I have him for the same amount of targets as Thornton like co-wider see for three role because Royles was a guy Had a preseason knee injury, but he had an intriguing profile. They talked a lot about him playing all the different positions They really liked him coming in and they liked he's like he's a Catching and and run like talent like a yak guy, which is very similar to Rishi rice's profile actually There's some people last year that were like if rice gets suspended Jalen Royles is gonna be that dude He didn't really do it as a rookie at all and maybe that means he's just not very good I'm not sure but I'm paying attention to summer hype on him because he's the one or like you said Do they bring somebody in but he's the one that makes sense to me as the wide receiver three because he can move around a little bit Do some different things and they were pretty stoked about him last year before he had the preseason me thing Pretty intriguing prospect profile as well. They got the tune in rookies as well Cyrus Allen's a guy they drafted late Jeff Caldwell's his college teammate Caldwell's Rass is a second ever behind Negatron at wide receiver of 431 and sane jumps at 6.4 And a half 216 pounds, but he's still a UDFA despite that finished up at Cincinnati after some other Collegiate stops Not a lot of production there Cyrus Allen was also there with him at Cincinnati and also didn't have much production They played with Sorzby that the you know the guy that's been in the headlines and Sorzby only had like 3200 passing yards Despite the fact that they're talking about him as a first round quarterback if if you didn't have the gambling stuff and so these two receivers to me It's like how did they not get more production playing with that guy at that level? Allen is a is a 511 183 day 3 rookie. He did at least have 13 touchdowns at Cincinnati last year, but I'm kind of looking at Allen Caldwell is more developmental guys and then to me Jalen Royals is the one that looks like the potential wide receiver three But really this gets back to why I have so many targets on Rishi rice and and I have over a hundred on Zabia worthy as well For sure and and I I could definitely see get getting there at some point that the you know the unlisted targets Our stuff that we continue to like wind down as as the season approaches and the roster gets more We get more confident and kind of the the shaking out there But I think after is every worthy as wide as you were to I could see it going a ton of ways there Just on the Thornton note as well. You know obviously worthy heard a shoulder week one missed a couple games and in those games is really one important You know had had a size bowl role and then once worthy returned he topped out at 43% other routes for the season average 29% So you know not just like the just not even out on the field much. Yeah, the Royals thing I wanted to say is Royals to me. I'm viewing as like the juju smith Schuster role from the last couple years Yeah, and that's something we we probably need to talk more about is kind of how this wide receiver Room plays out Jack. I do want to get back to the top here real quick with with rice and worthy and and just your overall thoughts on them Worthy I think is is a tough one to pin down. I think rice we know is is going to be productive and you know heavy target earner when he's on the field worthy Kind of had that at late season rookie promise, you know had a great playoffs and then last year Was was derailed a bit by that early season shoulder injury You know he's going at the three four turn last year now he's he's around like pick a hundred and best ball stuff and and so almost just on that fact alone I feel like we should be more in on Xavier worthy But the target sprout run was was pretty low last year at 90% where do you sit on Xavier worthy specifically and his alloc on into year three? Yeah, I think we're these the most Interesting guy in this receiving room not not the best that would be Rishi But I kind of just don't think there's a whole lot to say about Rishi But worthy had six straight games with at least the 24% target share including the playoffs to end his rookie season And then last year you heard a shoulder and week one and you read his on the record saying that they were quote Afraid to do certain things with worthy after that shoulder injury. He's apparently been a standout of the offseason program so far Jesse Nuel of the athletics said that he would be the likely winner of a hypothetical team MVP award If if that existed for the Chiefs we're actually a little bit low on worthy at the moment Which is another one where it's kind of like the Brian Thomas thing we discussed earlier where I Do give I do believe that stuff where the player gets hurt and all of a sudden they're not themselves So I think maybe that's one that we could come up on especially seeing where Gretches and knowing that he wasn't himself last year After getting this older injury like basically immediately he got that you know five seconds into the season He got it five seconds in the season and then Mark Mark East Brown had 16 targets 10 catches 99 yards Ton of manufactured stuff in that game in the Xavier worthy Roll as Lisa's how it's gonna go down in my mind forever and then as you said read it seemed obvious that that his A dot Rose a ton in in a second season and he stopped getting all that manufactured stuff Which by the way everyone was hitting him going into last year as just a manufactured touch guy late in his rookie year He wasn't able to do anything down the field and it was like yeah I mean you better be right that he doesn't get some down the field production because if he does that rounds out a really nice profile Suddenly he didn't have any of the manufactured touch stuff last year. It was gone as eight out rows And I think Andy read really just said it like you said that that We didn't feel like we could do that with it and that's what caused The eight out to rise and everything else Over the course of the season my framing on worthy is this and I think it's a tough player to get right for all the people that Said he's too small. He just can't they succeed obviously this year was they were they were right they have the right to victory lap that I will also note on worthy one of the reasons I've always been really high on him He was a 21 year old your old rookie 22 years old in year two and even young for those ages His birthday's in April this dude just turned 23 like a couple of months ago. He's younger than I believe both Jeff Caldwell and Cyrus Allen the two rookies that the chiefs got brought into this wider seabird room Just you know you can always do that with the age stuff But in terms of whether you think this guy's career is already played out which a lot of people like he's a bust I would be skeptical at this age that I would already know that My framing on him would be Had he had a really productive year last year It would have been wildly impressive given the team issues the shoulder issue He had an ankle injury midseason as well and clearly didn't have the same burst for half of the for a few weeks in the middle of the season That doesn't mean he'll definitely be good But I think people are taking the poor second year as confirmation bias when they are sort of already out on him and my framing of it would be Man the poor the second year was like one of the hardest Hands you can get dealt I think for a young player that doesn't again mean that you don't still I still have Loss some optimism for worthy's career after the second year I wanted more even though he was playing through a lot of stuff But again, they don't have a lot of depth here I think they've had a lot in mind for him both of the last couple of years Especially going into last year and it just hasn't hit yet It's one of these players where I don't want to miss the post hype element of it either I do think when you look at the other receivers behind him and then Travis Kelsey We got to get to my perception on him is the efficiency rebounded due to like unsustainable big plays Where they were just not guarding him like last year traffic driver's Kelsey would run in like a leak play be wide open on the sideline And catch and run up the sideline for like a 40 hour touchdown happen like three times He also had like three plays where he tipped the ball to a defender for an interception that cost him games I'm surprised that he came back. I thought he looked pretty done his targets per out really cratered last year Had never previously fallen below 20% in any year of his career was all the way down to 17.9 percent again Despite being wide open in some of these coverages. They're not really looking to get him the ball like clearly But he's obviously still good enough even at this age with the different little skills to find space and zones It get open and gain yards when he's left alone. I do think he's still like Going to get volume and be involved But my point here would be there is nothing in this passing game really when you peel it back and you realize Tyke On Thornton again 19 catches. It's got and especially when you're talking about the the risk on Zayr a Rishi rice I mean, I think it's really got to be a lot of Rishi rice and Xavier worthy I have rice at 155 targets. I only have worthy at 107 I do like making the pet on worthy again I think he could beat that fairly easily if he starts getting more manufactured stuff in year three another note on him The sausage and apparently is put on weight Chalogue people don't like but again when the guys 23 he still needs to grow into his body a little bit like a Braille and Alan's another one he heard that on he was another really young player these are guys at most guys are age You're still in college and if they put on weight in college and then they test really well at the combine We have a different perception of them the fact that he's still putting on weight at this age is not weird I'm yeah, I'm willing to get back in on Xavier worthy here Yeah, you you looped Kelsey into the conversation we have Kelsey with more targets fairly Then worthy right now you have it flipped. I think that's probably one the post show we can get higher on worthy and I think At the point you made about the chiefs internally having high expectations about For worthy and then kind of Aligning that with with the re-quote about the shoulder injury and not being able what they to do what they wanted last year I think that that's pretty backed up by what they've done this offseason or more so what they haven't done I mean they know Rishi Rice has off-fuel concerns they know that Kelsey's aging They didn't really prioritize adding any pass catcher and they obviously have big additions at running back But in terms of Roger C. Rant Titan they didn't really prioritize that at all and I think that you could use that as is further proof that they have high hopes for worthy One aspect I'm interested to see this year is is Rishi Rice and Xavier worthy on the field at at the same time and in the last two years With with worthy on the chiefs they've only run 246 routes together with each other on the field in that in those routes Rishi Rice has a 33% target share is they've been worthy 19% and Travis Kelsey 21% so it's been really condensed on those top three guys, but yeah, go ahead, Gresh. That's those were mostly I think last year right after worthy came back from the shoulder. I guess he came back before rice, but rice came off the suspension and worthy was clearly not a 100%. So some of that where you see the you said the 33% targets were out for rice. It seemed very obvious. Rice would be featured right off his suspension because like worthy wasn't 100% of the ankle thing around that time as well. Anyway, I think it'll still lean rice pretty meaningfully, but I just wanted to add that caveat. It's a very small sample and it was during the time when worthy was like at his most banged up, I think, because then rice was was heard again later in the year, right? He was. Yeah. And it was more a point of they just haven't played too much on the field together. And I'm interested to see like what were these target baseline would be with with Rishi rice and Travis Kelsey, kind of all three of those guys out there on Kelsey, you know, Gretcher, your note that the efficiency did come up again last year. Maybe that was due to kind of like busted cover. It is or fluke who plays one thing that's that got to me about Kelsey that had me a low concern. He only has 11 touchdowns the last three seasons on 362 targets. That's that's a 3% TD, right? We, you know, I think I mentioned on Dull and Schultz. His has been like three and a half percent the last or since he joined the Texans, which is really low for a tight end. So Kelsey being at 3%, I thought was shocking. And in the little bit of a, you know, probably knock on him just age wise to not able to separate in those short areas as he, you know, previously was quickness wise. And in the previous nine seasons, it was 6% for Kelsey. So, you know, that's been cut in half. So even if the target volume can be there, I just wonder if like the touchdowns in real kind of like efficiency we saw from from Kelsey in his early years can rebound. But even with, you know, us being lower than you, Gretcher, we are above Kelsey in the best fall market. So again, that's a spot where it's it's kind of like, you know, we're probably in a good position if we're a little bit below you and above the best fall market there. But he's one of the classic ones where again, I wind up with a projection that suggests I might want to be on him and I don't necessarily want to because it feels fragile. It's like a projection based play, right? It feels small hit big miss. He was at just below 1.5 yards per out run both of the last two years up around two or above two every other main year of his career, 1.8 or higher every other year of his career. I mentioned that the targets per out was down to about 18% and it had been 20% plus usually up around 23, 24, 25 in his prime years. His yards per, sorry, his eight out in the prime years was up over nine many of the years. The last couple of years it's been down around seven. It's a lot more just underneath thinking dunk. It's not as much obviously attacking and no one's saying he's the same guy. But there's also like some some stuff with the yak. It did rebound his yards after catch perception rebounded a bit last year. But the Miss Tackle's force perception did not the actual vision. He always had some pretty solid numbers. They really created in 2024. Came back a little bit in 2025, but still way below anything 2023 or earlier, any of his main years. He's very clearly in the numbers, not the same guy. I just want to highlight that for people that are like, oh, everyone's forgetting about Travis Kelsey. In the touchdown right that you talked about in those elements of it as well. I think you can get volume and you can get like a floor of production for best ball and stuff. But I just, especially in Manage, I just want to take bigger swings and tie down personally. Yeah. So clearly tons of opportunity in this Kansas City Chiefs passing game. We're at ETR. We're a little bit uncertain on where it's going to go, but certainly a high ceiling there for these past catchers. And again, a spot I do want to just note, you know, they could be could be right for assigning a free agent wider seeber here, just kind of given the the lack of depth in that wider seeber room. All right, let's move on to the last team of the division here as the lost Vegas Raiders who bring over Clint Kubiak as the head coach and play caller from the Super Bowl champion, Seattle Seahawks. Their clu- Kubiak will get the NFL drafts number one pick in Fernando Mendoza under center. Also Kirk Husson signed here in the offseason. There's been a lot of, you know, offseason rhetoric around how they they want Kirk to play like, you know, more than half the season. Kind of I think some some outlandish claims there in terms of how much Kirk will play. But you know, it kind of sounds like they're going to start the season with him in terms of team level notes here. The Seattle teams last year were extremely slow pace, not many plays per game and had the third lowest pass rate over expectation. The Seahawks were also 31st in usage of 11 personnel last year. So we think a lot of two tight ends sets and coming here, especially with rock bowers and Michael Mayer as as the tight end room for the Raiders. You know, they signed Taylor Tyler Lindnerbaum in the offseason. But still I think it's supposed to be a below average offensive line. Obviously, they were one of the leagues worse last year, especially when Colton Miller went down the Raiders. Just could not block anything. So hopefully the scheme that that KUBEX brings as well as the Lindnerbaum signing and then Colton Miller health can can help out this offensive line. But still expected to be a bad team as well. They're over under is, you know, around five five or six wins here. So a lot going on here, Jack with the Kirk cousins, you know, potentially starting from Indomendoza. Split right now. We have an 80 20 split on Mendoza right now. But what are your thoughts on KUBEX coming to the Raiders and how the season outlook looks for Las Vegas? Yeah, I was curious where Gretz would come in on the quarterback split. Because I kind of, I kind of do believe the Raiders quite a bit that they want to start Kirk cousins. I think that head coach GM and Tom Brady there are pretty aligned on on wanting to wait for Mendoza to be ready. The pass rate, I think that they want to run the ball as much as they can. KUBEX has done that at both of his past two stops. They had a negative 5% pass rate over expectation with the Saints in 2024. And then there are two 40 point games to the start year when everyone was healthy. They were in negative nine and negative 13%. Massively minus peer OE last year. And now they have asked in Gen.D. running back and then Kirk cousins, slash Mendoza at quarterback. Gretz comes in quite a bit lower on the pass rate than us where it's 61.9%. Gretz is at 58.5. I think that that's another spot where it's just, I think there's agreement that they want to run the ball. It's just that given how bad they're expected to be, how much can they actually do it. So that's always a tricky one to middle. But I definitely agree they want to run it and that's one where maybe we could re-look at and maybe we're a bit too high even with how bad they project to be. But I think the quarterback split is pretty interesting here. It's interesting to me that Gretz is lower on Mendoza than us. We're basically right at basketball market. But I do agree, agree, directionally, that I think they really want Mendoza to sit and learn from Kirk cousins. But you guys have, you have a bigger split than even I do and I have it 75% Mendoza, 25% Cousins. So I mean, I'm hearing you, but I was excited to see that you guys won as a, because I'm seeing that stuff too. And I thought I went to aggressive toward Mendoza. And so I mean, the thing is they've had some quotes more recently that were sort of like, you know, there's some early quotes here like they'd like to let him sit. They want to let him all that stuff. But then more recently it was like, it doesn't always work out that way. And they keep praising his leadership and his approach. And I think they really like this guy's makeup and he's their franchise future player. Like, I do think Cousins is going to start week one, but he only got a one year 11.3 million fully guaranteed deal. It is a 10 figure deal, but like very obvious bridge QB contract for a guy like him. And then the other element of this is that Kirk cousins was was bad last year. It was like real bad. And like Kyle Peds brought we talked about on the pitch show like he broke out late in the air because it was just all checked out underneath like throwing short of the sticks and stuff, but he couldn't drive the ball down the field. The stats are not very good. When I when I get through the projections, I look at the efficiency for the quarterbacks. When I do a two quarterback team, I usually lower the efficiency for the rookie. In this case, I went ahead and raised Mendoza's yards per attempt and brought cousins down. Because Mendoza's also guy pushes the ball vertically more and has a good eight ought. And I think when he gets in there, they'll actually be able to push vertically more that's sort of the prospecting on him. But yeah, as far as the pass rate, my my win total expected pass rate is 62 and a half. I put him at 58.5 is of minus 4% PR. Are we you talked about some of those big KUBEAC numbers, words, even more negative than that? I'm basically saying like, yeah, they're going to be in throwing situations. They're still going to run, which is like kind of the way KUBEAC's done it. I don't necessarily know that he'll be able to stick to it as Jack was saying. I do want to give a couple stats on the Raiders as a team from last year because it helps contextualize Brock Bowers in Ashen Gentie and some of the skill position stuff. They had five games last year, whereas a team, they did not get over 100 area yards. The NFL, the rest of the NFL is a total a total 17 such games, a little more than a half a game per team. Most of those came late in the season. There were three and week eight team when teams are giving up a little. Through week 10, the Raiders had already done it four times like the early part of the season when they were supposed to be doing things right. Four games where they had they didn't have a hundred total area yards throwing down the field. The rest of the NFL had five total. So you're talking about like half of the Raiders games and like point something percent of the rest of the leagues. They scored 10 or fewer points seven times in 17 games. They had fewer than a hundred total yards multiple times. In week six, they ran 30 offensive plays and had just three first downs. In stealing signals, I tried to look up really quickly. What the most recent game was or season was where somebody had done that. The way that I wrote it was the most recent season. A team had fewer than either of those was 2000. There's probably my cheeky way of getting past there was probably some other team that had exactly three first downs or 30 plays. But the last time that someone had fewer than either of those numbers was 26 years ago. I mean, this is not just a normal outlier. A normal outlier game. Then in week 15, they had another game with at least seven first downs. I mean, they had so many games last year where they were not just a non-functional offense. There was nothing. It was and some of that was the offense. of line. And I think Geno just really struggled behind that offensive line was not getting the ball out, but they were dead last in plays. They were dead last in points by a lot, like well behind the Browns and every other team dead last in yards by a lot, dead last in first downs, dead last in rushing yards, rushing TVs and yards per carry. If you go look at Ash and Gentis profile, he actually had some pretty good evasion and did some things well. But again, if you don't have an offensive line and you don't have a functional pass game that can even get a hundred air yards to challenge secondaries, you're not going to have anywhere to run, it's really important context that this Raiders offense last year was future it. Love the context, absolutely. I mean, they're rough. Yeah, go ahead, Jack. Yeah, just a note on the expected improvement from the offensive line aside from the personnel stuff. I was talking to Brandon Thorne recently, the ETR offensive line guru and I kind of put him on the spot and said, what percent of offensive line play do you think is coaching versus personnel? And he thought about it and he said he thinks that it's about 55 to 60% coaching. So I think that getting to be at there is a pretty massive boost in terms of expected offensive line performance as well. I was reading about on the C-ox that a lot of their improvement in offensive line last year has been chalked up to the Kubi X scheme. I mean, that seems yeah. And for the Raiders last year is Pete Carlson, you know, infamously that was that was the offensive line coach who had I don't think had that like position at all in his entire career, you know, you want to talk about a cocoon, okay, cool. Yeah. Bye. Yeah. The old, the old nepotism in the Raiders building there. So so clearly, you know, hopefully expecting a rebound here and and just going back to like the Mendoza and Kirk Husson split and room in that plane. I just think these these first round picks let alone a number one overall quarterback selection is going to play earlier than like the team indicates almost almost all the time. I think last year we were, we were, you know, quite a bit ahead of market on on Jackson Dart and how many starts he was going to play and like Russ even had, you know, Russ was was not very good for the Giants to start, but he had a couple of solid games and then you kind of at the first sign of distress, you know, real distress was pulled there for Jackson Dart. So I just think just kind of the general trends, you know, despite what the team says, I always expect, you know, that these these new franchises to turn over to their first round pick again, especially if he's the number one overall pick. It happened the year prior with Drake May and they spent the whole offseason saying he was the youngest QB in the draft and he needed time to develop and all those things. That's not what they're saying about for man, what they're saying about Fernando Mendoza is he's the most mature rookie of all time. He's the already the leader in the clubhouse. The way that he does goes to his business, all of these things. I mean, you're right. It always, it always works out that way. Anyway, I feel like it's going to for sure in this case, especially with the fact that Kirk cousins off that ever since that Achilles injury. I mean, just don't think he's going to look good. You mentioned, you're like Russell Wilson actually looked pretty decent last year and then Jackson Dart came in quickly. For sure. And Mendoza is not the best like fantasy outlook. Again, we expect the Raiders to kind of run as much as possible. The weaponry here in the past game is nothing super special outside of Brock Bauer's and then Ash and Densy, I think you can throw in there as well. So even in Bestball, it's kind of like a late round target. Mendoza, not the most exciting, does add a little bit through his legs and on the ground there so it could potentially contribute some rushing output. But for the most part, probably I don't know, cameward. We saw was by far the worst, fantasy quarterback in the league last year. I'm not expecting a ton of fantasy output for Mendoza, despite us, expecting him to play. I think probably like 12 plus games this season. I said, I run a tight thing on him though. He just as far as what we can expect, he loved him on outrouts over the middle. He noted he can make all the throws. He doesn't take anything off the offenses menu and that could be actually be able to build the scheme around him. That was sort of the take on him as a prospect. He scrambles a little bit. But one issue is he did take some sacks. So if they're not able to protect him, we may get a few sacks. We may get some mobility. We may not turn as many of the drop-backs into pass attempts as we want. And then if they're also a little bit more run-heavy, just like despite the fact that they're trailing, like I'm kind of projecting it, you might not get enough pass volume. Like one of the things is whenever cousins plays, I was talking about pits in the check downs. Like Bauer's may get like a million check downs, which might be kind of nice. But Mendoza does throw downfield as eight odds a little higher. And he can hit into some of those spaces. I think like a bad version of him might be more like what Michael Penex has been for the fans. We talked about that I think on the NFC South one. But the ability to make all the throws to the sidelines and the deep intermediate opens up a lot in the scheme. And I think it's going to be something that Kubiak's going to be able to build this run and play action stuff off of should be really exciting for some of the guys like Bauer's. I mean, I'm pumped for Bauer's with Mendoza for sure. Yeah, I was just about to mention Kubiak's like play action, efficiency and how often he goes to that as well. He has a big play action collar there. So I do think that could help Mendoza's efficiency even if the volume isn't quite there. But let's go to the backfield here. I think with Kubiak coming over, we saw on this Seattle backfield, you know, the split between Kenneth Walker and Zach Sharbonay, Ashen Genstie handled almost every touch for this Raiders backfield last year about 70 or excuse me, 87% of the running back carries other Raiders to Genstie. Handle also had some good receiving production there. They draft Mike Washington this season, who's kind of an athletic freak prospect, but really struggled to perform in college. Fumbling was a huge issue for him. So I think people are somewhat excited about Mike Washington. We have things way, you know, tilted towards Genstie and the touch department have him for 256 Russia temps in 63 targets. Mike Washington, we have for 75 Russia temps and only 13 targets. We're actually pretty close on both of these with Gretchen. Gretchen's at 277 Russia temps on Genstie and 69 targets there. Again, Gretchen was, you know, a little bit lower on pass rate. So the fact that he's not even that much further on Russia temps on Genstie is very that much higher, I should say. I feel like we're we're decently in line there. So Jack, you know, is a pretty brutal efficiency season for Ash and Genstie. How are we kind of parlaying that into his second season here? Again, with the new head coach, hopefully revamped offensive line and in this environments, you know, kind of talk through us to thought presses of where we landed on Genstie's efficiency here going into a second season. Yeah, I think efficiency is the big question and Gretchen comes in point three, four yards per carry ahead of us. We're only at 4.1. Gretchen has them at 4.4. That's one where maybe we could look at closer because I do think he's going to get absolutely fed it. It really is just the strength of the offense, the strength of the offensive line and how many touchdowns he can get because I think he's going to get basically as many touches as he can handle. When Kubiak got hired, he said something along the lines that we want to get two backs involved. He did not hold that stance for very long. His more recent quotes indicate they basically want Genstie to be a workhorse. He said, we've got to get our best running back on the field as much as we can. We want to put a lot of pressure on Ashton. You look at Christian McCaffrey. His play, snap percentage is high. The great backs. They don't want to come off the field. Genstie quietly had a 14% target share last year. A lot of that is that they didn't really have anyone else to throw to. But they didn't make major add to running back this off season. Mike Washington in the fourth round, I think is potentially an early down jumper backup to Genstie. But he's not a huge. The thing on him coming out was that the past protection is supposed to be pretty rough. So I don't think he's going to get much involvement in passing situations. So it should be all Genstie. I think pretty much all the time you get the Christian McCaffrey comp directly from Kubiak. So I'm not concerned at all about volume. Any concerns I have would strictly be from an efficiency standpoint and how high of a season this offense can sustain. I had the same take on Washington. I had the same. I saw the same notes on the past protection. And then if you look at this collegiate profile, breakaway run rate is good. Some of that stuff is where the profile pops. The elite speed score. He had a great job. He had a 433 at 223. People were talking about I was the size speed freak. But that's what you're talking about is you're talking about a secondary change of pace. Probably outside zone runner, big play kind of guy. But like Jack was saying, he's not going to play on the past. I mean, maybe Dylan Loughby is playing some on past downs. But I had the exact same take that Genstie is going to play a ton. I was looking back at some of my writing from stealing signals last year just from watching all of the games because my feeling on Genstie is he was a disappointment for fantasy. That's what it felt like. He had some big games. I think we all kind of remember. But there was a lot of bad games there. And I was trying to contextualize that most of those bad games were him being brought down by the offense. But I think there are people that probably already think that he's a little bit of a boss. He had a 3.7 yards per carry last year. There's I mean, I wouldn't necessarily fault you for thinking that he's not that good. His prospect profile was elite in terms of like the evasion and the basically everything. And then he went in the top 10 overall. And then he has a tough first year. And people like always an extra richard sin or whatever. I mean, I certainly heard that comp. What I was writing in the stealing signals was when he actually did get into open field. I went red after a couple of his big games when he actually did get in the open field. I was just like really impressed with he like has this tendency to run at guys. I compared it to Derek Henry. I wrote he's obviously not the same guy physically as Derek Henry or not in shape or anything. But he knows that he's hard to tackle in a way that he's not afraid of contact. He just kind of runs dudes over. He wound up with a really strong. This tackles force rate anyway last year, even despite the 3.7 yards per carry. I mean, this guy's if you get him into space, I think is a very, very good player. He did have some breakaway plays last year and some key moments. And he 73 targets and 53 receptions as a rookie is the jack said on the people realize how much he did in the past game. He had a 60 yard receiving TD late in the season. He had that game where he had 100 plus rushing in a TD and he had the long receiving TV. He had an early game with three touchdowns where he had some break always as well. And so I don't want to be too in on a guy. I mean, I ended up getting through the projection. I had a nuke his touchdown rate as Jack was saying, it's the efficiency stuff with the bad offense. I had to go in nuke his touchdown rate from where I first set it because I had them scoring too many touchdowns as a team. I had a new bowers too. You know, you have to go back through when you do these projections and make sure that the team touchdowns line up. And it's like, yeah, that's why Gen T's projection is going to look a little bit worse. But as far as what he is as a player, I just wanted to emphasize their stuff on the film about him when he actually got into space. And now you put the Clint Kuwiak scheme there. If they're able to get him into some to some space, if they block better, if the scheme helps the offensive line, I think he could be in for a much better or much more efficient second. You that's why I went to the 4.4 yards per carry. These are really talented player. And he may actually in this scheme be able to show that a little bit more. One of the major problems with Gen T though and fantasy this year is he's getting drafted extremely high once again. You know, you're not getting a discount here, even even if like some of the public sentiment is, is he may, you know, be on that bus trajectory, which it just doesn't seem like fantasy community is buying into that at always currently going 11th overall and underdog and FFPC redraft. He's going at 10th overall. So we we've been a little bit behind. We're at like 15th 16th overall on Gen T and point. It's he's going to get the same spot he was last year despite the I know it's it's crazy. And he's like going ahead of Sequan Barkley and Kenneth Walker who you know, like at this point, I'm like probably taking Kenneth Walker over over Gen T just given my optimism over the offensive surroundings. I don't necessarily like think Kenneth Walker is a better player than Gen T, but in terms of just like the fantasy outlook, I feel a little bit better about it. So I don't know, it's it's been tough. Like I want to get in on on this guy with with Kubiak coming over and and just the profile prospect profile that you mentioned, Gretz. It's just man, you're not getting a discount at all. And and I don't I don't think it's like I don't think it's his price is going to drop throughout the offseason at all. If anything, you know, there there might be like concerns over a split backfield. I think you know, some of the comments, Jacqueleur, too. I think as we get closer to the season, they're going to be like, no, Gen T's are our guy. And so I don't know, it's going to be a tough time. You talk about a rookie quarterback. We're expecting to play 75% or more of the season. I mean, and maybe the offense is going to run even though they should in and some of these things because they're just trying to build something, start building something, right? Get their footing in your one under Clint Kubiak. I mean, I'm with you. It's the price is crazy. I want to be optimistic about him. And I, you know, I was kind of defending my my efficiency on him, but I don't I don't want to be drafting a ton of fashion, Jenty in the first round. To another point on his receiving as well, I kind of memory hold all the Raiders sucked like Gen T just got a bunch of garbage time dump off to end the games and looking at his splits. He had 13 targets in the first quarter and then 14 targets in each of the second, third and fourth quarter. So the distribution there, I thought was, which is one of those weird likes statistical anomalies, you know, he pretty much had equal targets across every quarter of the game last year. And so it wasn't, it wasn't just like a garbage time. Hey, let's let's dump it off to our our rookie running back and get in some touches. You know, it was pretty consistent throughout the game. Do you guys have any concern about the receiving under Kubiak? Because they didn't necessarily throw to the backs of Ton in Seattle. I was a little bit, I mean, I gave him basically all of the running back targets. So that's helpful. But it's a little bit concerned. It's a little bit like that Kyron Williams gets all of the receiving for the Rams. But it's like they don't throw, they only throw like 70 targets to the running backs in that Rams offense. I'm a little bit concerned that that might happen here where it caps him a little. Yeah, we have the team running back target shared not all that high. Just adding up it up quick. We're we're around 16% which is a little bit below average. I think if you compare it last year, but a lot of it is just we really expect him to condense the targets. I mean, Lobby has pretty much been a special teamer for the most part. You may have had some past catching chops coming out of college and we're not really expecting anything anything much past catching wise out of Mike Washington. And so we we get a decent receiving projection on Gen T even without that many running back targets. I think the lack of wider receiver talent has me more optimistic that more targets will go Gen T's way as well. But yeah, let's get into this wider receiver room. And we can kind of just add on Brock Bauer's and Michael Mayer here. I think as well because when you look at this wider receiver room, they sign Jaylen Naylor in the offseason, but he's a 27 year old. He's maxed out at 53 targets in his career. They have Trey Tucker here in the wider receiver room as well mentioned in Seattle that the the Seahawks were 31st and 11 personnel usage under Kubiak. I definitely think that that's going to carry over to this season. They also have Jack Besh in the wider receiver room who was a second round pick last year, but pretty brutal rookie season just in terms of of target earning and even being able to get on the field. And then Dante Thornton as well. I could pretty historically bad target pro outrun and yards pro outrun numbers there for Dante Thornton in the wider receiver room. So in fantasy, not much excitement around these guys. So Jaylen Naylor is currently the top draft of wider receiver at 151 ADP, which is pretty wild there. So Jack, it's not a wider receiver room that's earned many targets over their career. How do you see this one playing out here for the Raiders? Yeah, this is one where we've come to market throughout the offseason. Early in the offseason, we had it projected pretty similarly to Gretz where we had talker well ahead of Naylor. Right now we have Tucker at 65, Naylor at 60 target scratches at 81 for Tucker and 53 for Naylor. And I was pretty surprised early in the offseason. The Naylor was going ahead of Tucker just given the overall production last year. I mean, Tucker had an 18% target share. But Naylor is a little bit interesting. He got a three or 35 million dollar contract 8.4 yards per target last year. And in the three games without Jordan Addison to start here, he had a 15% 24% and 21% target share. So we have seen at least a little bit of an expanded target share when he's gotten the snaps. He just didn't get that many opportunities to showcase that in Minnesota. But like you said, on the whole, I don't think that this wider receiver room is all that interesting. Just given how many targets do we expect to flow through the Titans and through Astyn Zeddy? Yeah. Naylor had the 1.06 yards per out run last year, 1.07, the year prior, 0.55. I mean, very limited route. Right. Sampled the year prior to that. But like, this is not a guy that has some hidden like per route excitement in his background. His targets per route have been in the low, like 10 to 12% every year over the last few. Yes, he's played with really good players. And you mentioned that the yards per target side of it has been good. My take on this is there, these, this has happened multiple times. And I can't think of great examples right now. But multiple times over the years I've been covering the NFL where I feel like an individual team doesn't understand that production is really important at the receiver position more than they just think traits matter. I was really critical of their rookies on this series last year. They had drafted Jack Beschen the second round, also Dante Thornton and they also taught me a lot or whatever in the seventh round right. And I was like, they don't have any receiver talent. They've built a horrible receiver room. None of these guys have really strong production profiles. Then they go out and they they sign Naylor to a big contract. And he just looks like a secondary receiver. He's not like a dude. I think the fancy marker's just like, oh, yeah, they paid him. He's going to get a bunch of routes and targets. Like the guys got to be good. I mean, it's just a problem for the passing game if they're not actually good players. Then they they drafted a sixth round rookie Malik Benson. Another guy fast 40 time, 5 1189 pounds. He started his career at Bama. Then went to FSU. Then Oregon obviously viewed favorably within college football. But the production wasn't amazing. He's got a very limited like return profile. Maybe they'll use him as a returner. I don't know. But he's basically just a straight line deep threat. It's kind of similar to Deontay Thornton. Thornton I talked about last year. It's like, yeah, he's got the traits and he's a he's a deep threat. But he didn't have any production even in college. You can't just expect the guy to become a ball tracker and win against NFL defenses more designed to take away deep stuff. If you can't even be an efficient deep player at the college level, it's production is so key in understanding these guys to the next level. And I think the Raiders are just as an organization right now. And I understand like Tom Brady knows Waymore is forgotten more about football than all ever know. It was way more than I do. And everyone there is obviously smart guys. But I think their view of the past catchers, particularly the wide receivers, because I think Brock Barters is like the opposite of this. He's the guy who had a massive amounts of production all throughout college. But it's just so skewed and they're not looking for the right type of player. Said it's kind of bizarre. I want him to just get one good receiver so I can expect that guy to earn a million targets. But they don't have any. Trey Tucker has been all routes volume in the past two years. But I think maybe he can get some efficiency spikes with the better offense. They've seen to talk about him more when I read through the offseason quotes. I'm not that high on nailer, but maybe nailer can get there a little bit as well. And then Jack Bashes, the other one, I'm like, I guess I want to be open to him as a second year player. He had a little bit of efficiency. But again, a second rounder who only earned 193 routes and a 15% targets per out on an offense that had no right wide receivers is bad. Like that is a really poor rookie year. Because when you have the second round pedigree, the team's expecting more out of you. They often just give you the runway to be that player. It's a it's a concerning first year. His yards per target were at least a little bit okay in an offense that otherwise most players were pretty poor. Thornton looks like irredeemably bad. I guess this the way I would put it. I mean, he could be out there running off safeties and stuff. But as far as who it could be part of the reason I'm a little lower on nailer is I have best higher than you guys as well. I've best in nailer both at 53 and then I have Tucker at 81. That's kind of how I split it. You guys have Tucker and nailer closer and then bash pretty far by. behind and in that mix with Thornton and Benson. I mean, who knows? You guys could totally have it right. I have no idea, but that's the way that I thought about it. The one thing I'll say is, I mean, we might as well just talk about Brock Barrett's more. I got Brock Barrett's more than 30 in the heart. Before you get there, okay. Before you get there, I do just wanna like hit on this point of like this Widersy room is, it's really tough to give targets across 'cause it sounds like all of us think, no one necessarily has earned it throughout the course of their career to get into a high target role. And I always get concerned over like the dead zone running back, you know, conversation of, hey, well, this volume has to go somewhere. We gotta give it to this guy. Like I have a concern over this Widersy room specifically where it's like the guys that are on the roster. Now, you know, I think like when we look at our preseason projections versus the end of season projections, we could just laugh and be like, oh my gosh, we had, you know, we had Jack Bash for 60 targets and he only played, or ran 30% of the routes and had, like, 30 targets, you know, kind of thing. I think we could be way off there. And ultimately it does come down to, okay, how many targets can we give to Brock Bauer? So, Gracie, I'll let you take it away there on Bauer's Aceiling here seems pretty limitless in this offense where we are at input wise on Bauer's at 128 targets, Gracie's at 139. So again, he's, you know, naturally, leading a little bit higher, but I mean, it could be a massive, massive ceiling here for Brock Bauer's. But yeah, I mean, you say 139's leading high, he had 153 as a rookie two years ago. I mean, and some of that was, he ran a ton of routes in that offense that year, but last year we played a big chunk of the year hurt. And like, he got hurt in week one and was legitimately hurt trying to play through it for a while and then he had to shut him down. His Per Out numbers took a big dip as a result. His routes also did. He still had a 1.7, oh, yards Per Out run. He was still efficient. Like, like, I just talked about how best is 7.7 yards per target was like, okay, and this offense, Bauer's was still 7.9 at a lower 8.8 and like, I have this depth adjusted racer I use for my projections. And he looks like really good both years. Like, he wouldn't know that he was injured last year. And that's again, gets back to the prospect profile where he even had like the rushing production at Georgia. The ball and hand stuff was so elite in this guy's profile. He's playing with a bum knee and he's still way better than expected in terms of the yards per target and the efficiency when the ball's thrown to him. He just, you know, lost a lot of routes and was not able to be as dominant and earning volume in terms of like targets per out and those things. I didn't know where to put him with the targets. Part of the thing, I have this big bold thing here. Team tight-end targets getting out of hand. Like, because I have Michael Mayer for a lot as well. I have them at 37, 37% of the targets going to the tight ends. The last two years for reference, 30.5 and 31.3 by my numbers. Even at 2024, when Bauer's had the 153 targets, they were only at 31.3 because they had more targets. They had more volume over all that year to go around. Jacobi Mayer's was still in the offense. He had 120 for the wide receivers. What I have this year is such a low number for the total wide receivers. It seems like you guys have the same. I felt like that was uncomfortable. It seems like you're seeing it similarly. And I feel better about it because I do think they're going to do a lot of two tight ends. I do think they're still going to throw them there. But why would they ever take Bauer's off the field and I don't think they will. And again, this idea that, I mean, I feel like it's coming in hot at 139 targets that 139 is a lot is fair. But also needs to be noted that Brock Bauer's had 153 as a rookie. He's going into his third year. He's going into his prime. This guy's still profiles as one of the greatest tight ends. Literally of all time, I know that sounds absurd. But that's what his prospect profile was. And that's what he did as a rookie. Last year played hurt for most of the year. This is like Hall of Fame level player already. And I know what we talked about this last year as well. Like you have to understand the trajectory. We're looking for outliers and fancy football. I talk about it every year. We do this stuff. Brock Bauer's stats and numbers and all of the stuff is outlier stuff. And again, last year played hurt. So I want to be in on the rebound season for sure. This is a spot that the ball knows in our ETR Slack continue it continuously. You're like, man, we need to get Brock Bauer's higher in the ranks. I know Silva is super high on him. We had Tramik Bride over over hours for a little bit just in terms of tight end rankings. I think we've since flimped that and now have Bauer's as a tight end one. But certainly, I think the upside is there. You also have the efficiency for Bauer's at 8.1 yards for target. We're more like 7.8. So I think even maybe a little bit more room to come up on Bauer's just to try and be bullish and in above market on him. He's been 7.8 both of the first two years. But I'm like, well, he was hurt last year. And he's just going to get better. Yeah. And it's just hard. I think the efficiency is where we could come up. If we were to come up because we're fairly full on volume, you still are ahead of us on Bauer's targets. But you're just with the way we're doing this. You tend to come in ahead of us on most guys. And we are only 11 targets back of you on Bauer's. On the tight end one battle, we did recently move Bauer's, I guess you'd say, to tight end one. But I really think what happened is we were a little bit too high on Tramik Bride. And so we docked McBride recently on just expecting Bauer's to separate more in terms of what their respective targets should be within their offense. So we do now have Bauer's a tight end one. But it's not because we bumped Bauer's. It's just that we docked McBride recently. Although I think I do think there might be a little bit of room for us to come up on the yards for target expecting more efficiency in the Kubiak offense. When you say that you're pretty full upon targets, you're probably thinking rookie QB. I mean, because we're all tips of the fact that-- also that your projections come in a little lighter as well naturally, right? Yeah, that and the fact that we're projecting them for one of the highest target trees in the league already, basically. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tricky and grouchy. I'm trying to keep all the team level just historically bad results that the Raiders had last year. It is even though it is a new coaching staff. Sometimes it's hard to disassociate from that fully in projecting this upcoming season. So that's something I'll probably drill down even further on just on a team level. OK, how can we bring this up to a more appropriate level for the Raiders? But it's hard with these new spots with all the turnover. Totally. You guys do have more for mayor than me. And I thought about that a lot. He had more last year, but Bowers was hurt, right? And then if you go back to 2024, the rookie year, he only had 32 targets. I haven't had 39 for this coming year. You guys have not 52. So probably just take all those mayor targets and give them to Bowers. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's one, too, where again, we are expecting a bunch of two tight ends sets from Kupiac and just with the lack of wide receiver target earning ability. If we've kind of lapped it onto the tight ends. But I think Grouchy mentioned you're at 37% of team targets to the tight ends. That's exactly where we are as well. So I do think the gap is probably just a little from mayor to Bowers there. All right, that will do it for episode three of the divisional projections series. Appreciate all you tune in with us today. The next episode will be featuring NFC West. Thanks again to Jack. You can find him on Twitter at Jack Miller 02 and Grouchy is at yards per Grouchy. You can also find his podcast. He has been as with Sean Segal and find his work at bangratch.subsec.com. Ben blast recording with you two fellas again and excited for episode four. So again, that will be covering NFC West. Appreciate all you guys tune in. [MUSIC PLAYING]