ETE Projections Special Part 4: NFC West with Ben Gretch

[MUSIC] Hello and welcome to another edition of the "Establish the Edge" podcast. I'm your host, Mark Dengamring. Enjoying today, once again, by the projections crew you know and love, Jack Miller and Bang Gretch. Jack and I are part of the NFL projections team here at Establish, Iran entering our fourth year together, doing this full time. Then Gretch is our honored guest. You can listen to his podcast, "Ceal and Bananas" with Sean Segal, as well as find his work at Bang Gretch.sudstack.com. We are on to episode four today of this series. We'll be going through all four teams in the NFC West. So the peak behind the curtain, we are recording this on the same day as as episode three, the AFC West, which we just hit. So, you know, Sarah, Sarah down five hours of content in the face today, Gretch, how you feeling about that? Is that a new personal record for you? Or what's going on? Yeah. I wish it was a new personal record. But with all the different, I mean, draft streams and things I've done some five hours streams before. But yeah, I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot to go this deep on all these teams. We should know, at the top here, that part of the reason we're doing two in a road today is we have a little bit of a break coming up. You're doing a little traveling. So there might be a little bit of a break in our release dates with the pods. But we'll be back early to mid-July. Like a little later, just enjoy your fourth of July weekend before that fifth one hits your guys' feet. Well, that's why we're making these all two plus hours in length. So the people have all the content they can handle. As yeah, I'm heading out on family vacation and in early July over the four. So we'll be back July 11th and we'll continue recordings from there. But yeah, Jack, how you doing here? Entering the second part of the day. I'm doing good. Yeah, I think the break that we've kind of organically fallen into is probably a good thing, like you guys said, with the our inability to keep these podcasts under two and a half hours. So people need some time to actually listen to them instead of dumping, you know, 20 hours at one time. But I'm excited to be here for the NFC West. Absolutely. Super fun division to talk through here. Obviously, the reigning Super Bowl champions Seattle Seahawks, the LA Rams in this division as well as San Francisco 49ers. And then of course, Arizona Cardinals kind of bottom of the Barrow here. But three of the best teams in the NFL in this NFC West division. So it should be a fun one to talk through here. We are going to start. And we have just on the the division point, we have all McVeigh, Shanahan tree stuff, right? Like that's that's branched out throughout the league. But you obviously had it with Kubiak in Seattle. He leaves and they hire from San Francisco when they're trying to replicate that in Seattle. You obviously have Shanahan and McVeigh here. And then the Flur taking over in Arizona. So the whole idea of like this, this tree is that the forefront of offensive innovation in this sport. All four of the teams here are part of and obviously the top of the tree. They both make Bay and Shanahan. So a lot to discuss there. Yeah, that's a great point. I honestly hadn't fully put that together. That that, you know, like Seattle, their offensive coordinator came from San Francisco this year. And then obviously Michael for a new head coach of the Cardinals comes from from the Rams. So that is a pretty, pretty interesting intersection there. We will talk through the Rams here. First play collar will be Sean McVeigh once again this year. And the Rams are interesting team because they kind of led the 13 personnel charge that we saw last year. So that kind of headlines. The team notes for for the Rams. This obviously, and they also brought in Cliff Kingsbury to be, you know, on the offensive staff here for the Rams. I got some some pace notes here from from Pat Thorman. He noted that with Cliff Kingsbury as an offensive coach, he all six of his teams have been, have ranked first in no huddle rates. You know, when Cliff has been on staff. And so that's something when we're trying to predict kind of like some of the new trends in the NFL. I do think this Rams team could kind of return to more of an uptempo style McVeigh. And his, in his first handful of seasons was more uptempo as well. Thorman has has a note on that here. Just, you know, kind of commenting that when he first got his first five offenses ranked top four in no huddle rate did McVeigh. So, you know, bring in and Cliff Kingsbury here to, you know, potentially kind of have like a new meta trend. Or kind of lean back into that tempo for the Rams. It is something, you know, we'll certainly keep an eye on this year on a team level projections and put. We have 62.7 plays for the Rams. Gretches at 63.2. We're at a 59.8% pass rate. Gretch at 59%. So pretty aligned there. Jack, I'm curious your thoughts on this Rams offense who had, you know, a picture of health last season like a, in August and training camp, you know, we saw, we saw the immortal chamber for Matthew Stafford at at training camp people were saying, "Oh, this could be, you know, it's absolutely brutal season hands up plan all 17 games and looking great turning down the MVP season." So, which I'll look on this 2026 Rams offense. Yeah, I think as long as Stafford stays healthy, they're probably looking to run it back. They jump from 20th and pass rate over expectation in 2024 all the way up to 3rd last year and that obviously worked out great. One note on the Rams is that they are implied for the most points per game in the league. We have actually docked them a little bit down to the point where they're tied for fourth. And as we get into the players here in a minute, we are still pretty much above market on every Rams player despite being lower than, than we're Vegas has them from a scoring expectation. But Gretchen and I, Gretchen Elser are pretty in line here. And honestly, we are kind of throughout this whole division. But pretty close on both play volume and pass rate, which is good to see. Yeah, not only one of the best offense, but one of the most condensed. And so that's kind of what has led us to be ahead of market this year, I think, too, is just that condensing, you know, expecting those targets and opportunities and offense to remain condensed. Well, that will be really interesting because when I write one of my end to see the season articles, I do this. This series called field tippers where I look at the the Per Out run stuff and I, I look at every team go team by team, and I use a hundred routes as a minimum to grab anyone who played a decent amount. Just a couple of years ago, the Rams had six players who ran a hundred routes. This past year, they had 12, just like the very low end of the spectrum, the very high end of the spectrum. I mean, you have five eligible zone given play. They had 10 guys who had 23 plus targets this year. It's still concentrated at the top with Puka and Devonte Adams for sure, but they did a lot more with the sub packages and all that stuff. When asked back in March, about the 13 personnel again, and we've talked about this. We talked about it with the Liam Cohen quote when we did it with the Jigs McVeigh gave the quote that I think just speaks to the whole league and everything we've talked about. He said, yeah, I think if you have the guys that can bring it to life, we had depth at tight end spot last year. So it was favorable for us. I think the thing we've learned over nine years is that we can't kid ourselves into thinking the same things are going to be successful again. We've got to continue to adapt, adjust and evolve. It's that point we made in the very first show. The offense, the defenses are trying to figure out new solutions. Good coaches like McVeigh are not just going, oh, hey, 13 personnel work last year. I'm going to build my whole offense out of 13 personnel and not expect them to be doing things. So you self scout and you evolve on your own as well. You guys just talked about tempo with the addition of Kingsbury as a potential next evolution. I think that's a really interesting point. It is interesting to think about where this team's going to go at a really hard time figuring out the concentration element, for example, especially behind Puka. They have one of the better offensive lines by all accounts. And I grew a jack that I mean, as long as Stafford stays healthy, I am a little bit concerned about. I mean, going to last year, the Stafford's back and all that stuff and then now he's an MVP and we're all just kind of, I think, assuming that he's going to be good, but they do feel a little bit fragile in that respect. They have a really old quarterback. And I think if you and then also I think behind Puka, they're relatively fragile because we'll talk about Adams, but Adams, you know, profile looked a little concerning last year. So you kind of need those two guys out there, but as long as you out mouth there, much higher pass right last year, I expect them to have a high past TD rate. They were throwing a lot in close the past TD rate when you go like position by position, we talked about how that stuff feeds back to the quarterback. The running backs had huge receiving TD rates and Stafford often throws to him the tight ends had huge rates last year, all of them. They use a bunch of them. They all had big touchdown rates. And then obviously you have to want to Adams and then Puka. So like I got dead with my projection for a team that has a high touchdown expectation. I was actually above it. And I was like, I got to bring this past TD rate down. It's too high. You know, Stafford get throw this many touchdowns, but he threw a ton last year. Yeah, well, let's talk about that a little bit too, because you know, Stafford through 46 touchdowns last year had a 7.7% TD rate, just, you know, pretty astronomical numbers there as you alluded to. And so expecting and projecting regression, I think is, you know, is pretty practical here, especially as he enters his age, 38 season here. And for Stafford, we have a, we have cut him down to a 5.5% TD rate. Jack kind of mentioned like we started the offseason. And you know, we typically align our projections to the implied team totals for these guys as well. And doing that for the Rams just got us like way above markets on the entire team. And we are still above market, but that's even after down things back a little bit. So, Grach, I was curious where you would come in. You're actually at a 6% TD rate on Stafford, project him to throw 36 touchdowns. We're at 5.5% as I mentioned in more like 32 touchdowns. So certainly, you know, expecting it to dial back a bit, but it is kind of tough to find out where we're like the through line. The middle line is going to be here for Stafford because he's kind of oscillated season by season. You know, when the Rams won the Super Bowl, it was really high touchdown rate kind of dipped the last couple of years. And then certainly last year, a massive spike there. And it's also tough to know too. Like I think the narrative throughout the season was, was, oh, they want Stafford to win this MVP when they're at the goal line. They're going to continue to throw fades to the Montay Adams and, and, and like lean into that. So just curious, Grouch, your thoughts on, on kind of handling that statistical regression for Stafford specifically. Yeah. Really tricky. Seven point seven percent was the number last year career high by nearly a full percentage point. We were at six and five point five. You mentioned so we're regressing between, you know, one to, or excuse me, two and a half ish percentage points. But what's fascinating. So he's a, he's QB 14 right now. When you get into pocket passers in that range, you're, you're kind of looking for a guy who's going to spike a past TV rate because they're not going to add a lot of rushing. And that's how a guy like Stafford winds up the late round QB that's interesting. Usually coming off a, a spiked past TV rate like this, you have to pay like QB eight prices the next year. Like Baker Mayfield last year was like QB eight coming off the year prior. We have him at QB 14. This is still a team projected for the most touchdowns by look ahead lines. The most points as you noted, you guys kind of brought them down. I end up pairing my touchdowns straight to that number. And then I just kind of make a mental note. I do like, I wonder if their look ahead lines are so favorable because their team is so strong. Their defense is so much better with miles. Garrett like, and I kind of like that you guys brought that down. I was like, I don't think they have the single very best offense or anything like that. But like, like way above everyone else, but their look ahead lines kind of make you feel that way. But as far as like a QB 14 that might spike enough touchdowns to be like the dude outside the QB ones who goes on to, you know, be a top five quarterback or something just off past TV rate. Why wouldn't we bet on the guy like, this is one of these things in 2026 where like regression's been such a thing in the fantasy football market for 20 years that people overregress. Like we're just like, no, we talked on the last show that the QBs in this range are very tightly compact. And I understand that some of the other profiles probably have more ceiling. And there's a little bit of element there. But this is a team that's expected to score a lot of touchdowns. And they just do a ton of touchdowns. And they have a lot of the personnel back. They don't have a great like hardcore running game in in tight probably. It's a bit surprising to me that that he's, you know, not as cheap as he, like he's not that cheap. But yeah, no, I mean, it's not a bad price. Yeah. Again, coming off quarterback too and points per game last year. And yeah, getting drafted right now at quarterback 14 certainly think, you know, probably some, some opportunity there. Let's get into the backfield though. This is, this is a, I think, highly contested backfield every single season. It's been since, since kind of Williams, I'm old enough to remember. And when, when kind of owns was just going to be the punt returner for the Rams and his backfield duties were, we're going to get taken away. And, and he rattled off, you know, a top five running backseason there. So coming into this year, you know, kind of, you kind of have those rumors again, I would like to call him is, is looking more like a 50 50 split with with Kyron in the backfield. I've always been in the camp like Manchamik, and the Rams just absolutely love Kyron Williams. He's, I think, going to have to get injured to, to see his job or any more meaningful work to, to a backup, just given what he provides us team. But in terms of inputs, we are at 212 carries on Kyron in 45 targets, graches at 230 carries and 48 targets. So slightly above there on Kyron and then on Korn, we are at 154 carries, about 20 targets, graches at 137 carries and 16 targets. So again, hotly debated split here, Jack, take us into, you know, our projections here at ETR and how we're viewing this split heading into this upcoming season. Yeah. So, so the Rams definitely do still love Kyron, but it did settle into more of a committee last year. After week five, Korn had at least a 33% designed run share in every game except one. The Athletics NAACCens recently wrote that he thinks it's going to be more of a 50/50 split this year. Korn was more productive in the same offense on a per carry basis. He was at 5.1 years per carry versus Kyron's 4.8. On rush yards over expected per attempt, there was Korn at 0.85 and Kyron at 0.57. I think Kyron has the pass down stuff all knock. Kyron also outcarried Korn from inside the five. He outcarried Korn 18 and 9 from inside the five last year. And I don't know if it's quite going to be a 50/50 split, but I really do think that Korn made some serious progress at Kyron's rushing rule last year and given how effective it was, the combo, I kind of think that that's going to continue in kind of a 60/40 split if both are healthy. And then the upside case for both is truly massive if the other one gets hurt. I think both have really elite contingent upside because Jarkas Hunter has showed nothing to this point. And so I think that we're actually above market on both backs, a little bit more so on Korn, projecting maybe a closer rushing split than the market has. But I think both are pretty interesting just given the contingent upside if the other one goes down. You mentioned the 60/40 number. That's I just want to say that's essentially where we have it right now. We have 58% for Kyron 42% for Korn if you're just looking at those two specifically and ignoring any any touches we have for Jarkas Hunter. Yeah, I I like that. That's that note about how Korn cut into Korn more. I kind of just mapped it to the end of season stuff, but it makes sense that if you're looking at sort of where they were, like even just from like week five on for most of the season that I'm a little too wide on the Kyron rushing stuff on the receiving stuff, they had 65 running back targets last year. It was I think their fifth or sixth straight season with like under 76 targets. I'm trying to find the number in my notes, but I don't have it in front of me. Anyway, they for the entire running running back position. Yeah, seven straight season 76 total running back targets or fewer. They had 65 last year. Kyron did get 50 of them. He basically gets all of the receiving work so you can get a little bit and you noted that. And Kyron's over 250 ppr points now in three straight years, but I do think there's some clear like dead zone running back tendencies to him too. He's not necessarily going in the like the the dead zone. The running backs are being pushed up a little bit. He's like a late third. But the fact that a guy would be three straight 250 ppr point seasons and be in the best offense in football and drafters are still not willing to take him in the top two rounds is like a classic sort of dead zone type thing where the market is kind of telling you something about what they think about this player. And I think that's sort of what you're saying as well with the split on Blake. Quorum taking a lot of that work. Quorum posted as far as the receiving stuff, a future 2.6 yards per target and 0.31 yards per out run. So again, I still think Kyron's big routes lead feels pretty safe. But the fact that he could like see a lot of rushing is not I mean, I I have a tough time with Kyron. I do like he's is a compiler. He's been he's been really productive compiling a lot of great stats and a great offense over several years. Um, I so I'm kind of different. I kind of I'm out on both to a certain degree. Like I have a hard time with the Goran profile as well with no receiving. I think it's okay and like an underdog. But there's like a tricky element of like you're not getting all the rushing work in your you're not necessarily getting goal line work and you're not getting really any receiving work. And so that part of it now to to Jack's point of Kyron were to miss time or vice versa. The hunter thing I'm maybe not discounting as much as you guys just because of how little Quorum did in your one and then just was out of the blue in a much bigger role in your two. They did that with Kyron once upon a time as well. Though he got hurt for most of his rookie year. But they they talked about hunter in a very favorable way last year. I'm a little bit when we get to tie that and Terrence Ferguson's another one that they really like and they really didn't use him a lot last year. But he's another one that I'm like they're just going to like unleash him in year two. I just I don't make very in the Rams do things a little bit differently in the way that they made it that famously the one team that doesn't go to the combine and the way that they identify young players and who they draft and all these things. Obviously like Puka was in a huge role right away. So you know this is not a universal point that that has fit to everything that they've done with rookies or anything. But if one of them went down I do wonder if hunter would play a little bit more as well. It's a tricky it's a tricky back feel because it is a very valuable backfield and I do I do take that point. But on on Hunter he had really good collegiate rushing profile. Great evasion breakaway yards after contact like far better than like corums for example. So I don't know it's just a tricky yeah it's interesting to hear in that that you're not super in on either Kyron or Quorum just because you know our inputs are more conservative on Kyron. We're still above market on him and then we are you know a little bit hotter on Quorum inputs than you and in our above market on on him as well. But I just think you know if if if the touches remain consolidated on those two and in what we expect to be you know a top five offense in the league I think probably in bestball you know I feel I feel solid drafting that might be more of a headache and in in redrafts especially if if Quorum I think that's a big part of it too. I tend to think about things more from a redraf lens but I think it's a great point. Yeah yeah and I don't know I just I feel like I've I've been a consistent person to stand up for for Kyron last couple years. I just feel like the fantasy community is eager to see him get passed by for for whatever reason and the Rams continue to go to him and I feel like we've we have it projected in a conservative enough place that the fact that we're still above market like he he has been a draft target to me despite despite the potential you know kind of dead zone concerns there. I think I would be more in on him than Quorum to be clear at cost because to me the Quorum profile is just really tricky that it's all based on Russian efficiency you mentioned yet over five yards per carry last year like I don't want to just bet on yards per carry rush efficiency unless I think there's like looking at I was looking at kind of like the yards after contact stuff as well between the two and profile reference has has Kyron as better in yards after contact for attempts as well as as pff in terms of Kyron over Quorum which I thought was an interesting just given that I feel like people have labeled Kormas as the more efficient and explosive back, whereas Kiron has consistently kind of turned out very solid yards after contact metrics despite, not necessarily being the most explosive guy. - I do think the pass catching stuff is fair. I still think Korm, if Kiron were to go down, would have a pretty valuable role because he would presumably be getting all of the goal line stuff I mentioned that Kiron occurred in 18 to 9 inside the five last year. So Kiron was ahead there, but that's basically just in line with where the overall Karies were. So it's not like Kiron was the goal line back. It's just that he had more Karies in general and I kind of blended itself to having more Karies inside the five and then in college Korm was a touchdown machine. So I think it's fair to say that he'd be the clear goal line back if Kiron went down on a top three or four offense in the league conservatively, which I think would be a pretty valuable role. - One more counter note to my pessimism. Both of these guys got some ariards last year. I've talked to what they're running back ariard stuff. A lot of times it's negative for a running back. Their A-dot is literally negative or it's between negative one, their A-dots may be point one or point two. Kiron had 170 ariards last year. That's a lot for a running back. And Korm himself had 30, despite basically no real pass down role. I don't have his A-dot in front of me, but it was like, I mean, we talked about this on the last show, but the next evolution of some of these offenses getting the running backs involved in the past game. The Rams were doing that last year and doing it vertically using these guys on some wheel routes and things. That could be something that I'm not playing as well. But I mentioned the running back target numbers aren't huge, but if the targets are valuable, if there's a potential for chunk plays in the past game, that's pretty huge. - The Wider Super Room here, led by Pukinakua and Devante Adams. And then it's kind of a trio of throw-ins after that. In terms of projections here, we have Pukat 148 targets, Gretz is at 173. And then Devante Adams, we're at 114 and a half targets, Gretz is at 96. So pretty massive gap there. Devante is a guy I have been taking a ton. There's certainly some age concerns there, but he was seventh overall in the NFL and targets for run last year was Devante. Adams Pukinakua first in the NFL and targets for our run. So just elite concentration of targets here on the Rams, top two guys. Jack and I have been talking through this throughout the offseason in Pukka as a guy that Jack you can hit on this too. Like when we first started out, he was like the clear 101 for us with the amount of targets we gave him. It's just his parametric star are out of control. So Jack toss it to you and take us through your thoughts on Pukka and then Devante as well, who we have been well above market on this offseason so far. - Yeah, I'll start with Pukin. Then I want to kick at the grits for Devante, just since he's quite a bit lower than us. So I want him to talk about that. But yeah, the Pukka stuff is, I mean, when he's on the field, it's just ridiculous. 0.37 targets per hour on 9.9 yards per target. When I did these projections originally and like February, just doing a first run, I had Pukka's our 101 by like a landslide, especially on draft games and then kind of dialed it back, getting more feedback from everyone else on the team. And we do kind of have-- - Is that feedback mostly that, like he might be crazy off the field? - Right, I know, we do have a little bit of that pick. Then we mentioned it with the Rishi-Rai stuff, the idiot tax. We have not as much as Rishi because he isn't at quite the legal troubles, but we do have a little bit of both an injury stuff. Injury tax because he's left so many games early as well as kind of the idiot tax for some of the off-field shenanigans. So we have dialed it back on Pukka. But if you purely project out the numbers from when he's on the field, it's truly ridiculous. And I mean, he could be the most valuable player in fantasy when he's on the field. - Yeah, we'll get to JSN later this pod, but like the top three Pukka, JSN and Jamar Chase, we all have projected very, very close. And I think it's like, just in fancy drafts right now, the top five with those three wider receivers as long as B-john in Gibbs. I think the top five is just kind of an awesome spot to be this season. I would be pumped with Pukka or JSN Chase. Any of those top three wider receivers, I think it's kind of hard to parse between the three and all our great picks. But yeah, Gretz, take it away on Devonte. And again, you came in about 20 targets less than us on Devonte and typically you skew a little bit more optimistic. - Yeah, and I do want to just note on Pukka. I came in with him as my clear number one wider receiver in the projections. And I think I'm just going to play it that way personally. Like in some of the higher stakes, seasonal stuff that I do. As far as I'm concerned, because I mean, I think that's one of these things of where upside is so massive in fantasy. As far as I'm concerned, Pukka is the guy who are like, if he can stay healthy, he can do things statistically that are unreachable by any other wider receivers. In since 2006, minimum of 200 routes, his 34.6% targets per out run last year was the third highest among any player. His 2024 targets per out run was number one on that list. So his last two seasons are top three in the last 20 years. He's sometimes limited on routes because of health. But when he's on the field, he's earning so much volume per out. And then the other part of this is like they are very rotational with some of the tight end stuff and everything, but they don't have a lot of talent behind him. And so we can talk about Adams. Adams is getting up there in age, right? Like he'll be 33 for most of the season, turning 34 in December. And we've already seen the age related decline in my opinion. The targets per out run still very strong, as you mentioned. The yards per target has now been really poor for three straight years. In 2024, it rebounded a little bit. That was the year that he got traded mid season back to the Jets. And yet a couple long touchdowns that were like broken plays. I thought it was a little bit more fluky and I kind of made note of it because the yards per target wasn't all the way back to like his career seasons, even with some of these explosive plays, it was still down. And the year's sandwiching it, 2023, 2025 have been really pretty poor on the yards per target side. And then early in the off season, they were talking about potentially wanting to move on from him. They basically, my understanding is they told him they were, they were thinking about a trade that kind of gets out in the public sphere as agents going to find out sources are going to find out that's going to get known. But they wanted to be fair to this veteran. They have a lot of respect for it. But they basically were trying to move on from him. They were kicking the tires on AJ Brown and some other things. My read is like Adam's red zone prowess, mask, not only age related to climb, but also how some of his elements of his offense, like they weren't a big hit for the Rams offense. They did a lot of area vertical area. And he had a lot of stuff with him. His ADOT was really high. And he just wasn't good downfield. Like he was actually really pretty poor. He had over 1,500 area yards. He had 789 actual yards. Like just not-- to me, it's a little bit like Cooper Cop a couple years ago, where they really love the player. They eventually just phased him out. And I think they're there with Adams. I mean, I don't have Adams being completely phased out or anything. I still have him clearly ahead of a lot of the other rotational bits. But I see him as more situational this year, or as them seeing him as more situational this year. And one of the notes I had when I was kind of right, like going through this and doing a write up on it as well, is just trying to think about who would benefit from that. And I don't have a clear answer at wide receiver. And they don't have a clear answer at tight end either. But Terrence Ferguson had a really high ADOT and we'll get to him. But like there's some minor optimism that he could potentially be a little bit more of a vertical thing. There's going to be ariards in a vertical role available. Xavier Smith had a little bit of a role, but he's like 29. He had like some interesting efficiency last year on a limited role and he's a burner. But he's like in the last year, he's been around the block. Yeah, last year when Devon Tay was out, they kind of said like, "Canada Mumfield was going to be in like the Devon Tay Adams role," you know, which is a little bit hyperbole. But he did end up kind of replicating that deployment a little bit. So maybe Mumfield who is quite a bit younger. But he was like super inefficient. For sure. Yeah, for sure. So. I do want to put back on the yards per target a little bit from 2025 specifically. Not the prior years, but Devon Tay led the league and targets from inside the 10 yard line with 23. That was three clear of the next colossus player. Even though we only had 114 targets. I don't know how many of those were like inside the five, but just watching it seem like a lot. I mean, those are targets. Great point. The best possible outcome is like a three yard touchdown, which is going to artificially push down the yards per target a bit. That's a great point. But it is quite a bit lower still than it's, but it's, it is a great point. Well, for sure. And the touchdowns can mask like the inefficiency a little bit, you know, and that is, it is a spot where like, is that what regresses with with Stafford and the Rams in Devon Tay this year? Like does it kind of, you know, hit them in that way with with Devon Tay leading the NFL and targets inside the 10 like how many opportunities will they have inside the 10 to throw to Devon Tay? You know, maybe that can get dialed back as well as just like his effectiveness on those routes. And I do, it is his deployment this year in terms of like, you know, pretty much career high eight out or at least since 2018 when, when we contract this stuff and career high eight out and then, you know, a very low catch rate as well. Like I wonder if, if there's, you know, a bit of a bit of a, I don't know, correction to that this year, where they were, or if that's just kind of how they, how they wanted to boy Devon Tay. Part of it is like this dude's gun, again, it's going to be 34 during the season this year. Like I remember like a couple years ago, Duane McFarlane wrote a good piece on on Devon Tay Adams, how like his production started getting more shaky and like he was on the decline. We're like, we're three years beyond that or two, two years beyond that where, and the, and the efficiency last year with the touchdowns was really, really strong. It just, to me, it's a, it's a, it feels very small hit big miss. It's interesting that we both have the same number of receiving T-D. where I have a lot fewer targets. So I kept the receiving TD rate a little higher than you guys like, I didn't know how much to regress that. I do still think he's gonna probably be used in that specific way. I think he's gonna lose a lot of the air yards. And I feel like that was the other side of the yard's perturget thing is like, he had a, like I look at depth adjusted efficiency when I do my projections. And he had like a really high A dot. And so as depth adjusted, the yard's perturget was like, it was really pretty poor, right? Even though I think Jackson just makes a lot of sense with the touchdown side of things and the red zone stuff. But yeah, and so then it gets back to Puka, right? If it's not Adams, if you're buying my perspective on this, it sort of has to be Puka, right? Like he has to do everything that he can handle. Everything else in this office, I think there will be other projection in this office, but everything else in this office is a little tough to play 'cause it's gonna be, or it looks like it's gonna be very situational. I talked about how like 12 guys had 100 plus routes and like 10 of them had like 23 or more targets or whatever it was. We talked about some other teams where like the sixth guy on the team was at like 16 targets. I mean, that's like, when I think of concentration, I think like the five, well, there's different types of concentration certainly. But like the five eligible receivers, how much are you just keeping those same five guys out there the whole time and like no one else rotates in? Or do you have 10 dudes that are getting 20 plus targets? Like that doesn't seem like a lot, but when you go through a projection, you start to project four tight ends for 20 plus targets. Like that cuts into the ability for like a third guy to do anything or even potentially a second guy, which is kind of where I come with atoms is, I'm higher than you guys on Xavier Smith. I'm higher than you guys on Jordan Wittington. I'm higher than you guys on Cunata Mumfield. Like that doesn't mean that I'm like drafting those guys, but I do have more targets going to these rotational packages and usages that I think the Rams may do more of this year. And I don't think it's necessarily worth talking through the rest of the wide receiver room here for fantasy purposes. Gretchen mentioned he is a bit higher on Smith, Wittington and Mumfield. And I do think that's just kind of directly correlated to our Demonte Adams difference there as well. But I do want to get into the tight end room a bit here because the Rams obviously led the league in the NFL or led the league last year with 30% deployment of 13 personnel. But it was funny because they didn't really run any 12 personnel. Only 9% 12 personnel, all season 31% 13 personnel. Just kind of interesting that they just didn't really go with the two tight end set much at all and straight to the three tight ends. So sure enough, they had to bolster that room and drafted Max Claire this year on top of having a room of Terrence Ferguson, Tyler Higby, Colby Parkinson and Davis Allen here. So five legit bodies to deal with Colby Parkinson was kind of the one that emerged down the stretch of last season. Tyler Higby was kind of like the tight end one enrolled to start the year he got hurt. Colby Parkinson ended up taking more of the inline role. And then Terrence Ferguson was just, man, I don't know if I ever seen a profile like this at tight end before he had, we have him close to an 18 yard A dot on 31 targets last year. He was slaughtered out wide 70% of the time, only in line, 28.5% of the time there was Terrence Ferguson. So I almost view him as like a glorified YG3 for the Rams here. He's probably the one I'm most excited about in fantasy this year. But Colby Parkinson also had an amazing touchdown rate. He's a massive dude, 6'7", 265. They're highest paid tight end as well. So I think Parkinson and Ferguson can have some value. But it is tough to distribute touches here. Jack, how are you viewing this Rams tight end room as we head into the upcoming season? Yeah. So when the Rams drafted Claire, Nate Atkins, they're there be right over at the athletic set that they are hoping he basically red shirts this year. And it's a larger factor in a year, which I think makes sense. And although Claire and Ferguson are very different players, you mentioned the utilization for Ferguson and the monster A dot. I think maybe that's what the Rams basically had in mind for Ferguson last year. And there have been multiple reports this off. He's the one they basically want Ferguson to take on a bigger role. He was only at 0.16 targets per hour, run as a rookie. But he was efficient with 9.2 yards per target. And even that targets per hour, run, given his A dot isn't that bad. He scored three touchdowns on 25 targets. So we've been ahead of market on Ferguson all off season. We recently bumped him actually within the last week or two as well. So I think if you're looking for a breakout, I think he's the one to look for. I think the Rams really want him to take a step forward. And they're hoping that he can-- I think that the runway is open. And now it's up to him to basically seize that opportunity. And the Rams are hoping that he establishes himself as the clear lead tight end here. We're super aligned here. This was the one guy that I wanted to highlight among the incillary pieces as the dude that I wanted to have action on. McVeigh in February said, he's got the ability to basically play every skill position on our offense. That's every receiver spot. That's every tight end spot. He started with receiver. You just talked about, think. Couldn't find the wide receiver-- transactions they wanted where they would maybe trade atoms and acquire AJ Brown. They didn't acquire any new receivers. They end up drafting another second round tight end. I mean, we always talk about, oh, this tight ends may be going to be treated like a wide receiver or whatever. I really-- I think they like Mumfield, Wittington, Xavier Smith, whatever fine. I do think they're thinking we're going to have a lot more tight ends active on game day and Terrence Ferguson's ability to basically play these wide receiver positions, allows us flexibility to continue to do big tight end packages, et cetera. Because they use Parkinson, they use Higby, and they use Davis Allen. In addition to Claire, they didn't need a fifth tight end. Even if Claire is a red shirt, you still have four other ones. Davis Allen played a meaningful amount last year. He's one of the guys that got targets on this team. He had 33 targets last year. Davis Allen, we don't even have him on our comparison sheet as one of the top four tight ends. I mean, it's like a crazy thing here. But the really high adot that you mentioned to me is really intriguing from the perspective that, again, Devoncy Adams had 1,500 area yards and just didn't seem to have the ability at age 32 going into 33 last year to consistently make the plays vertically that they were viewing for him. And then it's not that Ferguson's going to line up and run the same routes as Adams. But you design different types of plays. You can run routes from different areas. I always think about it in terms of how different route combinations attack depths of the field. They're going to use Ferguson to attack vertically. And then potentially you use him also in the shortened intermediate ranges as you make that multiple. And you make that less predictable that when he's on the field, he's the deep option. It's a low probability bet. I do think there's a potentially really high ceiling here. If his versatility is the next evolution of this offense that we've been talking about, he could be like, you don't, it's blasphemy to be like, remember when Pukinakoo was a sixth round rookie and then suddenly was got 190 targets or whatever as a rookie. But like, remember when Kiron Williams in year two, like, K.M. Acres was the lead running back. And then by week two, Kiron was the lead guy. Like Sean McVeigh has kept things close to the chest. But you hear the little buzz like we're hearing about Ferguson right now. And then the season starts and it's like, oh, they just, they just have a really big role envisioned for this guy and how they're going to utilize him again. I don't know that like, this is definitely going to happen. Again, I think it's a low probability bet. There's probably a really low floor here as well where he gets like 20 targets. But I mean, seems fun. Yeah. I think that's a really good point on the Kiron and Pukin breakouts. And probably one to kind of keep your, keep your to the ground going training game. Because those work, both cases where kind of, you know, May, June, it was a little bit of buzz, but nothing crazy. And August September was around and all of a sudden the buzz gets really out of control on by week one. Like we know that these guys are going to have super legitimate roles. So I'm curious if that kind of evolution also plays out with Ferguson. Even the Blake Korm thing last year, we got a little bit of buzz and they were like, they're excited about him. And it was like, are we really going to pay attention to this? They didn't use him at all last year. That's what we're at. That's you are here on Terrence Ferguson's timeline. Doesn't mean we're going there. But that's that's where we're at. It seems crazy because he didn't do very much last year. But I agree with you guys that Parkinson is really interesting too as the more like the best more traditional tight end. And I have him like, he was really efficient last year. I have him looking pretty good just not on a ton of targets. But yeah, I think like both Parkinson and Ferguson could potentially coexist if this is sort of the scenario. It's just tricky because you know, you know, Higby, if he's active, we'll get some targets. You know, Davis Allen and his role will probably get some targets and just like how they use different guys. And they'll still do some 11 personnel. They'll still get other receivers on the field. But yeah, the optimism for Ferguson and Parkinson. And I really do think they're going to do a lot of the multi-titan stuff. We talked about how like not every team's going to do that. McVeigh had the quote, we'll see how it goes. A little bit later in the summer, he was like, yeah, we're going to do a lot of that. Like he basically was like, that's that's what our roster is. That's that's where we're headed. So again, that ties right back into my pessimism for Adams. It's just kind of deprioritizing the rest of the receivers as they focus on their versatility at tight end. One note on Parkinson, he had 36% of his targets came inside the red zone. He had more red zone targets than Puka last year. So certainly that's that's where they're looking for Colby Parkinson. And he's essentially free right now in bestball drafts, like even if Terrence Ferguson does does breakout. I think Parkinson's still going to have that in line, you know, probably red zone role a little bit as well. So I think he's an interesting kind of just, you know, and a draft free stack partner and and redraf fantasy. I'm not sure he'll look. So necessarily be that, but he had that stretch last year where he scored six touchdowns and in six games. And I remember going into the fantasy semi as they played Seattle on that Thursday night. And I was getting just like so many texts like, do I start Colby Parkinson this week? You know, like he's he's he's amazing. Like he's crushing it and then he posted two for 21 no touchdowns and let the whole fantasy community down. But you know, certainly certainly could run back the touchdown production this year, I think. All right. Let's move along to the San Francisco 49ers here. This is always one of the most exciting offenses to talk about in the NFL. Kyle Chanahan remains at the helm here once again for another season. Rock pretty should be back at full strength after missing parts of last year due to a turfto injury there on a team level. We are pretty pretty aligned here in terms of plays per game. We are at 61.9 and ETR. Gretches at 61.8 in terms of pass rate. We are at 59.4% Gretches at 58 and a half percent here on a team level. You know, I did want to note that the last year they had the sixth fastest neutral pace last season. But that the pace was way, way different under Mac Jones and it was under Brock, pretty, you know, in 2024 and 2023. They were dead last in neutral pace when when party started 15 and 16 games and kind of when you look at the breakdown from last season, you know, just just between one that when the two quarterbacks started was a massive difference there once again. And then just in terms of like the the unique personnel, the 49ers have led the NFL in 21 personnel, which is two backs, one tight end on the field each of the last two seasons. A lot of that comes with obviously Christian McCaffrey in the past game, but also Kyle used check out there is is, you know, kind of used as a chess piece. So not necessarily like the traditional heavier tight end. So that's what we do get some different personnel looks here from the 49ers. So Jack, curious your thoughts on the play calling here for San Francisco? Obviously, I do some on continuity, but I do think the the quarterback or at least Brock pretty being in there and kind of the Swiss league saw between him and Mac Jones last year were notable. Yeah, I kind of think we have a good idea of what to expect with Shanahan and Purdy. So I'm not super surprised at Gretchen and us have pretty similar projections here. The Mac Jones starts did, I believe, coincide with their defense completely falling apart and then it kind of figured it out a little bit near the end. So I wonder if that had something to do with the pace where their defense was just getting scored on. So easily that they played a little bit faster. I think the big thing if we trickle down from the team level into Purdy is the scramble rate uptake that he said over his career. He started with a 3.5 and 3.9 percent scramble at the last two years. He's been 8.2 percent and 6.5 percent. So a lot more running over the past two years. Led to him being a more interesting fantasy option and it seems like it's something that's here to stay. And it's very great. And the second grader last year, which was really optimistic in addition to the scrambling being higher. If you look at some like EPA based stuff, he was really, really good last year. He didn't play a ton. But like if you go to runbacksdon't matter.com, rbsdm.com, Ben Baldwin site, third best in EPA per play last year, even losing EPA on a. He actually had a really high interception rate last year. So you're going to lose EPA on that. But he had the. He was second best completion percentage over expected as well among qualify QBs. Had the top success rate on dropbacks of any QB just ahead of May, well ahead of Stafford as the QB3 and then the rest of the QBs behind Stafford. And that gets back to that that sacrate being down, but still being able to scramble is a tricky thing. If you're holding the ball, like how are you navigating the pocket? Maybe some impressive improvement in Pertie as they put more on him. A couple of years ago when he was like first being touched by this like an MVP candidate, I thought it was fascinating that like defenses were putting more guys in the box and trying to take away McCaffrey and like Debo Samuel at the time. And making Pertie beat them. And I thought that was this like huge dichotomy between him supposedly being the most valuable player in the league. And not even defenses don't even think he's. They think he's the liability in the offense and Brinneye, you had the huge year because he was getting one-on-ones down field and Pertie was taking advantage of it and he was hitting on those plays. They put more on Pertie's shoulders these last couple of years. Obviously with CMC being such a talented receiving back when he's on the field, they were closer to neutral and pure. We last year while the league shifted toward negative, like they're throwing two amount of the back field a lot more than maybe they're trying. He's still ran a ton obviously, CMC, but this is not like your dad's. How shanahann offense that would be negative 6% PROE, this is putting more on Pertie's shoulders and he was good. He was good. He was good. He was and this is very bird's-eye view and he only played nine games and it's easier to have outlier level statistical performances and when you're playing less than a full season, but he was the QB2 by fantasy points per game. So very legit production at a pretty last year. I don't think the rushing gets talked about enough with Pertie specifically, so I'm glad you brought that up. Jack has in the last two seasons, he's averaged 20 rush yards per game. He also has eight rushing touchdowns. He's averaged four points per game on the ground over the last two years, which is a massive boost to quarterback scoring and then you get the typical efficiency out of a Kyle Shanahan offense and that really compounds when we saw Brock Pertie essentially be the winning quarterback for Sam Sherman who took down the $2 million top prize on Underdog last year. This absolutely went nuts and the fantasy playoffs there. He was someone I was really high on last year and we were as well just like at ETR and once again we are above market on Pertie that I don't think people are fully factoring and kind of the added fantasy bonus that he gives with his legs these days. All right, let's get into the backfield here. Christian McCaffrey obviously headlines as coming off another overall RB1 fantasy performance did. CMC, the rushing efficiency I feel like has been the biggest talking point on McCaffrey. This offseason dipped down to 3.9 yards per carry the last two seasons. But the receiving game is really what unlocks CMC here in terms of projections. We are at 212 carries on CMC. Gretches at 268. We're at 79 targets. Gretches at 107. So just a massive volume gap there and CMC is one of the toughest players to project. I think just because it's a kin to the Puka situation where it's like, man, if we really lean into the per down or per rate stats, like CMC would project I think as the clear 101 for us, almost every season. But he is coming off of close to a 400 touch season entering age 30. It's a little bit of a tough breakdown. But Gretches, you are a little bit more optimistic there. Curious your thoughts on CMC coming off his massive RB1 season. Yeah, 517 routes by PFF last year. 80 more routes than any other running back, most for running back since CMC himself in 2019. It was his six season over 400. That's all the six years where he's played at least eight games. So it's not even like that crazy of an outlier for him to get to 517. He's done this before. Basically no one else does it. He's just different. You read Chanhan's quotes this off season and shout out coach speak index as always. It seems like he never really considered how much he was using CMC. It kind of sees with hindsight that it's crazy that he used him that much and that he actually stayed healthy and didn't get hurt. He's kind of like, yeah, I understand why you guys are asking me this question. I didn't really think about it. At one point he talked about you send a play in and it's specific to having CMC on the field and you realize the backup running backs out there and now you're left with an option of calling a timeout or letting them run a play that they haven't really. But they can't execute because he's talking about how his game plan is built through the dynamism of his running back and no one else has that on the roster. So you're kind of screwed. But he led the league and touches again with 413 touches. His age 29 season he had 37 the postseason for 450 total. A lot of people say we overstate this stuff. The year after he had 10 to 90 issues in his Achilles and I've had 10 to 90 semi shoulder that stuff comes back. This is not a thing that goes away forever. Obviously he's got a lot more ways to cope with this stuff and deal with this stuff. But he's going into his age 30 season now. I think he turned 30 here in June and you're talking about a lot of touches the last two times. I mean, I'm not saying he's definitely going to get hurt. The last two times he led the league and touches and went over 2000 yards. He played a combined seven games in the N+1 seasons. We know this about him. He's had season ending injuries as well. I don't know how to project him. You guys are doing it with a pretty big injury dock, which is probably the right way to do it. Hit on the different range of outcomes and the probabilities here. But at the same time, I know you guys, like you said, Mark, don't think that this is what his full season would look like. If he's healthy, it's just an element of splitting the two possibilities, which one of the possibilities is that he's just out for the entire year. I want to believe that he's not going to do that. I will say his rushing efficiency was not quite the same. His 1.79 yards per out run right in his prime, still an awesome pass catcher had an actual vertical A dot just talked about running back area. He's been around three, both the last two years because he runs routes. He's a freaking slot receiver. He splits out and he runs at guys and runs his option routes like Westwelker. He's doing all of that stuff. So he's going to have a higher yards per target than most running backs. He can carry a yards per out run that's close to two. But also his like mistackles force perception is yak perception. Those are not declining or anything. He still looks really good in space when he gets the ball. Again, 29 last year, I don't think like you can't continue to produce at age 30 or anything like that. It's a really impossible thing to figure out. What do you do? Last year, the whole fantasy market was probably too low on Christian and Caffrey. We're taking him the same range this year because he's just a year old. There he's coming up. half a ton of touches. Like, what does that mean? - Right, it really is more of an art than a science. Last year, McAfry had a 22 and a half percent target share, 74 percent design rough share. We're at a 15.5 percent target share and a 52 percent design carrier share. So those are massive deviations from where he was last year. But in terms of why we have him at exactly 15 and a half or exactly 52 percent, it's kind of just a field thing on how much we want to adjust for age, for workload, for injury. It's not like we have, it's not an exact science in knowing how much from his previous year workload, we should detract. And if we did project him anywhere close, the way he was last year, he'd be a clear 101 or at least if we were projecting everyone that way, he'd be right there with Puka in this world where there's no risk. But yeah, so it really is difficult to project McAfry because the workload is just so monstrous and it's so unclear how much to take away from that to account for the age and the injury risks. McAfry scored 21.5 PPR points per game last year. 10.9 of those came from as a receiver and 10.6 came as a rusher. So the 10.9 half PPR points per game, if you compare that just to the wider receivers, I would make him the wider receiver 17. Overall, he scored ahead of guys like Cortan Sutton, Alec Pierce, DK McCaff, Tepp McMillan last year, just as a receiver alone. So that's the same thing. Or it's like you kind of want them to take like a lot of rushing off of his plate because you know that the versatility with the receiving is so strong. You don't need a lot of rushing. And he'd still be so good in fantasy. All you want is the goal line role for him. And so I did like, and I feel like people are claiming know his, his like rushing efficiency dipping last year is like a sign of a downturn. It's like I don't care about his rushing efficiency. Like on, honestly, at all, even if you made him a 3.0 yards per carry guy last season, he still would have tied Jonathan Taylor as with 21 points per game as, you know, as a fantasy score just given his receiving output. So I almost don't really care about the rushing efficiency output. Obviously, like, you know, if he's more efficient as a rusher, that's going to lead to more first downs, more yards, more opportunities, you know, in theory. But it's really just if the receiving role can stand for CMC, that's really what unlocks him as, as like the best running back in fantasy. 102 catches last year, 129 targets. I got him down to 107 targets in my projection. You guys have him, as you mentioned, at 79, which is, I mean, not really assuming like a 17 game, like the route stuff that I was just saying is like, he's going to run 450 routes if he plays 17 games. And no other running back in the league will get close. It's like, anyway, it's impossible. Like, what do you do? Just the showcase a little bit of how ridiculous CMC's workload is, we have him, we have his workload regressed as much as I just said, and we're still a spot ahead of underdog ADP. Yeah, that's insane. Let's talk about the backups here, because, you know, we are mentioning the high injury risk with CMC, especially coming off this high touch season. And last year, the backups hardly got any work. And, you know, one of the, I guess, minor storylines of the draft was the 49ers selecting Kaelin Black in the third round, who, you know, wasn't even invited to the combine, yet the 49ers said they had Black as their second rated, running back on the board. So he was a massive surprise pick in the third round. They also have Jordan James returning to the roster this year. He was a fifth round pick in 2025. And then Isaac, or excuse me, Isaac Grendo remains on the roster as well. So I kind of want to get into a discussion on mostly Jordan James versus Kaelin Black as the RB2 here. I've kind of personally been leading Jordan James. He just had the much better collegiate profile. He's actually a past, past catcher in college. He caught 41 balls in 28 games at Oregon. Meanwhile, Kaelin Black had eight catches and 29 career games at Indiana. And again, just consensus on him as a prospect was pretty low. So, Gretchen, I'm curious your thoughts on the backups here. And if, you know, if you would lean one way or the other as a potential handcuff for Sam Seer right now. Yeah, I sort of didn't. I just projected him for the exact same amount of rushes. And then I have Grendo very low. I guess he, like, tore his pack in, like, weightlifting and he did, that's a great note. So he's probably going to miss almost all training camp and maybe bleed into the season as well. And so the fact that they didn't use him at all last year was so weird to me. Because if you go back to the rookie season, he was really efficient. They've struggled to find a good backup and like different guys they've drafted have not necessarily been good and they haven't played him. They played Grendo quite a bit in 2024 as a rookie year. He's like five plus yards per carry. And like, very efficient as a receiver to like seven point something yards per target. I don't have it right in front of me. But the average for a running back is about six. I mean, he looked really, really strong. Yeah, five yards per carry, seven point, sorry. No, he's 9.5 yards per target way above the average for a running back. As per touch efficiency was through the roof, there was a shanty hand quote this off season that he had quoted late March. I always thought that Isaac would come in and take over the game plan of Christian got hurt but Christian stayed healthy all year. 'Cause they were talking about the receiving stuff and like how he can play in the receiving game. And it was like, oh, he's the guy that you see as the handcuff to do all the dynamic stuff that McCaffrey does. 'Cause they had Brian Robinson as this like Russia only. When they talked about blacks receiving, when asked about it, Shannie comps him to Elijah Mitchell and Jordan Mason and says that you know, it was kind of like those guys who didn't do a lot with receiving but they got a lot better. Not great company in that regard that he starts with guys that are like, he's like, yeah, but you guys don't realize they were doing really good behind the scenes. So they basically said that he's not a receiver. He had only eight catches in two years at Indiana. He did have some receiving early in his career at James Madison before transferring. But as you noted, the peripherals just okay. He does have good athleticism but like, I don't know what he's supposed to be. His breakaway rate was like better than some of the evasion stuff indicates. So I think they think he just like hits the right hole and doesn't waste movement and it actually gets downhill, which is fine. But like, I don't know, man, like he just, he's a, they like him. Obviously they drafted him. They already had Jordan James on the roster. They like him. They talk about him favorably. To your point, James does have a little bit more intrigue in the prospect profile. I think, you know, if it's me, but I don't know what Kyle Shanahan's doing with running backs ever. But if it's me, Isaac Grindo is the one that looked the most interesting when you got him on the field a couple of years ago. Now he's hurt. So that's not going to help him out. But I don't really know what to make of Jordan, James and Caleb Black. I'm taking notes that you're more interested in Jordan James. I think that's a good note. I think generally just I try to lean more into like second year or more experienced players to than the rookies. And your Grendo quote, I love that you brought that up from the coach weekend next just because I thought that was really interesting because a lot of times we see like running backs that have the RB2 role in the offense. If the starter were to go down, almost like the RB3 in line would kind of use Serpentham for that running back one role. And I think like Caleb Black may get more touches early on than Jordan James. Like he might be kind of that Bruser-Brindramson role that we saw last year to handle. I don't know, five to eight carries a game or something. But then if CMC went down, I kind of think Jordan James probably fits the profile better to be more of the every, you know, handle the pass down work and then get some carries on top of that. So I just think probably the upside there is as a handcuff with James is a little more exciting to me rather than like, you know, expecting Caleb Black to have a receiving profile kind of come out of nowhere. Yeah, we have Grendo for 24 carries. Gretchenli has him for two. That Grendo usage is basically just as a proxy for RB4. Like I think there's a decent chance Grendo ends up getting caught. It's just that he's currently on their roster. So we are projecting him as like some onlisted RB4 type. I also lean Jordan James. Like Gretchen said, Caleb Black was basically a zero as a pass catcher in college. 12 targets in 29 games at Indiana. Despite the difference in draft capital, James was a better prospect. I think even if the 49ers seem to disagree. And Shanahan in the past has had very basically no problem. Ignoring draft capital or running back. You've got TDP, you've got Tracerman. I think there was one even before that like Joe Williams or something who just never even played. So I'm kind of leaning into the iOS, a year of experience in the system who was a better prospect, who's a better pass catcher by default basically. So I do think this is one to watch in camp. I'm very open to being around here. I think that if we get reports early in camp the Blacks, the RB2, we're going to just fast. But if we're playing with the information we have now, I lean James, the RB2. Part of the reason we have to talk about this though, and part of the reason I was kind of leaning Black is they went and drafted Black. And they already didn't give James a single touch for his entire rookie year. No, we talked at some of this is the CMC thing. We talked about some other teams who are like the third running backs didn't get much work. There was no third running back who got a carry in this offense. Kyle Eusechek got two if you want to bring the full back in. But it was CMC and Brian Robinson who's now gone. They didn't give Grando a touch all year. They didn't give Jordan James a touch all year. At any point in any garbage time, it's really bizarre to see two running backs, like true running backs get touches all season long. But that's what they did. They didn't give this guy a single play. Like it's, was he an active most of the year? Do you guys remember he played? He played he played on special teams in the last leg. I think three games and then in the playoffs as well. But yeah, he did not he did get a touch in the playoffs and that blowout loss, but did not get one in the regos season. So I think it was the last three games of the regos season. He played special teams and then in the playoffs as well. He was he was against special team snaps was Jordan. Seven touches in a 41 to 6 loss to the Seahawks. They are getting him some work. I can't believe he don't. remember that. Yeah, that's not saying. All right, let's go to the wide receiver room here, headline by Mike Evans coming over from the Tampa Bay Buckingeers, also Ricky Peersawl entering his third season to Sean Stribling, another kind of surprise. Well, less of a surprise then, then Kaelin Black, but you know, a little bit of a surprise at the top of the second round, they take Sean Stribling there and then Christian Kirk. Yeah, but if you ask them, they'll tell you that they heard that there's some teams that had Stribling number one on their on their board. Yeah, 100% and then Christian Kirk here, one year, three million dollar deal, they they have a DeMarcus Robinson in the room as well. So relatively deep wide receiver room here, I think, you know, all these guys kind of have some question marks one way or another, but let's start with Mike Evans in terms of projections at ETR. We're at 97 targets, Gretch at 113. So this one I've been struggling with and like obviously Mike Evans season last year was was cut short, but he has played, he did play at least 13 games in every season of his career. I feel like he kind of gets labeled as as injury prone, but he hasn't missed significant time before last year. Obviously, that helped contribute to his, you know, 11 straight, 1000 yard seasons to start his career as well. So when I was looking at this, I was like, man, are we are we discounting Mike Evans too much because of the injury that he suffered last year, he still had, you know, pretty elite target per out run numbers 29% last season, those 29% 2024 and 26% in 2023 as well. So you do have a, you know, he is going to be 33 in August. You do have the little bit of age concern that, you know, we had on with the Bonse Adams as well. So I think we might be light here, but Jack here is your thoughts on Mike Evans as he transfers over to the 49ers here. Yeah, well, here's the age concerns we mentioned with the Van Te Adams, but he also has the yards per target concerns that we mentioned with Adams. It's not as much of a multi year trend as it was with Adams, but he was at just 5.9 yards per target last year. He was terrific at earning targets. Like you said, 0.29 targets per out run, but under six yards per target is really bad. The injuries have started piling up over the past two seasons and it was a hamstring in 2024, which we know has a decent recurrence rate. I certainly think there's reasons to be optimistic about Evans, the gold, the red zone rules should be really terrific here in one of the better offenses in the league. And the target competition at receiver, at least, is nothing special. But I do think that there's reasons to not be mega enthused about him, just given the downturn in your its per target last season. Yeah, I didn't know where to get his volume to. You mentioned the really high targets per out. The other thing about him versus Adams is he's brought in this year. And last year we saw Adams get 1500 area yards when they bring in a guy like that. We're going to make him a focal point. Like they sold him on something to lure him away from the box. They paid him. Like there's intent. I share your concerns about the yards per target cratering in his career low 1.62 yards per out run. He's age 33. We talk about Purdy though. Another thing I want to notice, like his TD rate could spike with Evans there. It almost feels like Shanahan copying McVase to want to Adams move for more red zone answers there. We talk about that from a fantasy lens of it being sort of gimmicky or trying to get staff for the MVP. It was efficient. You've got to be good in the red zone. A lot of the modern NFL. We talked at the very top about what the increase in field, starting field position. A lot of the modern NFL is can you turn threes into sevens and get in the in zone. They lined up. And when they got one on one's on the outside, they said, you're our man, Peter. You'll beat him. Some of Shanahan's quotes on Evans this offseason. Or like when you ever want to one on one with him, you just go to him. Like that's he's still way bigger than you. And that's kind of what Mike Evans things that was been. It's not the smoothness of the route running of the fauna Adams. It's that Mike Evans just like sons people. Like he just like beasts people. And that's what he's done his whole career. So I mean, Purti might wind up just like spiking the TD right here. And I'm not probably going to take a lot of Evans. I don't usually take 33 year-old receivers. But I do get being optimistic here. One of the elements that was tricky for me with the volume as well is that Evans has always been a huge volume. Or as you guys mentioned, continuing into last year. And one of the unique things about him is it's always been at a pretty high A dot. And so you get the ton of area. So you get high targets per route at a plus A dot. Pure souls optimism this offseason. If you're going like I was out on Pure Saul on this show last year. And I felt like I got lucky that he got hurt a lot last year because he made some big strides. His targets per out run jump from 14.4 as a rookie to 18.2. One of my concerns off the rookie year, even after getting shot and everything else he dealt with was that when he was out there, he got a lot fewer targets than Joanne Jennings. He really closed that gap in year two at a higher A dot. So he had a yards per target jump as well. He jumped all the way to 1.85 yards per out run. But what I was so pumped about here, Saul is this Evans thing of okay, your your targets per out run is taking up and you have a high A dot. It's a lot of area yards. It has a potential for these splash plays. They're not going to play the same position or anything. But I do think there's some like overlap in those areas of the field, whereas like a lot of the like shorter targets are going to be a calf. Are they going to be kiddle when he's healthy? Some of that stuff. Stribbling, we're going to talk about as a ball and hand physical guys, sort of the new Joanne Jennings, probably going to get some shorter stuff. But it looks to me like pier saw on Evans. Both are going to be guys that could command target at higher A dots. And I don't it's tricky for pier saws. Well, I wanted to be in on pier saw this year. I thought he was really overlooked in the early off season. And now he's kind of stayed cheap because Evans ends up on the roster. But I thought he was over looked early just because he didn't catch any touchdowns last year, but his yardage was was very strong in like a per out stuff. Like I said, I think I was wrong on pier saw last year. But the Evans pier saw push and pull with the targets was tough for me. We have the gap sort of similar. I'm higher than you guys on both sides of it. But Evans being about 20 targets higher than pier saw. It looks like it's the same for both of us. Yeah, we you guys have more little bit of stripling. Yeah, we've been a little bit behind market on on all of Evans pier saw and and stripling in in bestball at least which you know, it's kind of tough there because you have Kittle and CMC who have been huge target owners as well. And in the past, so it is a little tough to know. You mentioned just, you know, Evans per govity their certain targets too. Like you have you have CMC Mike Evans George Kittle in an offense. You know, it's it's kind of like, okay, how much can can pier saw realistically carve out there. So and then you throw it. That was my concern about pier saw last year. And it's been the concern last few years with the Niners, what's weird is with all the injuries that wasn't a concern last year. Like it was, you know, you had a potentially a you coming back. Obviously, Debo was gone. But we wind up with 360 Kendrick born routes and 263 from DeMarcus Robinson last year, which is not they they've been the opposite going in in projection season going into the year. Like we've got too many great players coming in. They're kind of back to that though. I had a hard time fitting Evans into this projection. For sure. And yeah, so inputs there, you again, you're 16 targets ahead on Mike Evans. You're also, yeah, about 16 on on Ricky pier saw and then we're 15 ahead on Dijon Stribling. We do have Christian Kirk for a similar amount of targets were two ahead on Kirk. And when I was kind of looking at this, I was like, man, I wonder if Kirk is it's almost going to play at all. You mentioned Dijon Striblin, you think could kind of fit into that big slot role that Juan Jennings has played in the Channie system. And pier saw also got 40% of his routes from the slot, his rookie season two. So I kind of think it's going to be a top three. And then there are any injuries Kirk in slot in. So I was a little bit concerned, especially coming off a career words career worst yards per target for Christian Kirk, all the way down at 4.6 last year. I'm like, man, I almost wonder if Kirk is kind of buried here until there's an injury and we can condense on the top, you know, four or five guys here even more. Because that's kind of how it goes with the 49ers, at least on like weekly DFS projections. Like, okay, how can we get all these targets to the top five guys? And then if someone's injured, it's like, okay, then it even condenses even more on whoever's healthy, plus, you know, Shanahan, it's a marketing Robinson or Kendrick Bourne or whatever that gets like eight to 10% you know, the target share. But then the one week like Kendrick Bourne, whenever one was hurt last year, it's like Kendrick Bourne might be the guy that's going to get 10 targets. We got Shanahan, like totally game plans that way. He thinks players not plays and he's like, right, this is my guy for the week. I'm going to build everything around him. But yeah, I'm with you. Christian Kirk's yards of target so low last year, he just looks done to me. I love that you guys are higher than me. I didn't know what to do there. I think it's an interesting way of doing it to have him a little higher and Evans and Pierce all a little lower. Struggling good ball and hand stuff, physical guy, good yak, did enough through a long five year college tend to be interesting for me. I don't think he's a great prospect. I think people talked about him as a huge reach and then they're overlooking some repossibility here as a result of that. They put draft capital into this dude and I actually think he's like not nothing. Back in dynasty draft rookie draft season, people were like completely out on him. You got a really good price on him relative to the draft capital because everyone's so convinced that they massively reached the draft capital is what it is. Like they they went paid up for this dude and they they talked about him as being this physical blocker and can do the jaw and gending stuff. So it seems like he may play a little bit this rookie year. I like that you guys have him up over 50 targets. I got him at 36. We both have Kirk around like 40 low 40s. I think their best player or see where sets got to be Evans pierce all in stripling. Right. We we've talked about how these teams want to get their best players on the field and how the wide receiver role stuff can kind of evolve throughout the season. And I do think that that's worth bringing up because Evans and pierce all have both played primarily outside. Stribbling primarily played outside in college and Dan Brugler even noted that he mostly just played on the left side. Ed Olmiss, Grant Cohn who I know 49er fans don't really like him as a B-writer but he wrote that he thinks tripling is going to be on the field right away in the slot which would push Christian Kirk out which we all sound like our in agreement that makes the most sense after the horrifically inefficient season Kirk just hadn't used him. So I think that there's a decent chance that stripling does push Kirk right away for that slot role and then and you still have Evans and Pierce all in the outside as we expect. And the one consensus on, on Stribling as a process as a prospect was that he was, you know, argue or the best wide receiver blocker in the class as well. So that that should help him hopefully get on the field there. Right. Despite his, you know, his receiving profile that that was at least, you know, a strong kind of consensus of, at least of the prospect analysts out there. All right, let's talk through. Let's talk through the George Kittle of it all who towards Achilles, this January 11th in the playoffs against the Eagles. He turns 33 in October this season. So, you know, 33 coming off in Achilles, injury mentioned on, on like a, aFC, Weshaw about a rendez-gad since yours for target, you know, kind of nearing George Kittle. He's at 10.0 yards per target in his career, just absolutely out of control. There is George Kittle in the efficiency market. Also, it's 38 touchdowns over his last five seasons. He's, he's never been lower than the tight end five in points per game since his rookie season. So, just been, you know, an absolute model of consistency and in the fantasy space. But again, did Terry's Achilles on January 11th, he's someone we started out a bit lower on, expecting him to probably miss like a month of the season. But reports on him have been pretty strong, you know, the Achilles tears is the cleanest Achilles tear of all time, apparently higher up in the calf. So it was an easier surgical repair for Kittle. And then he's also been out at, at tight end. He has this tight end you. He was out there doing some drills, you know, seem to be moving decently. There and like, you know, seemingly on track for week one. So terms of targets, we are dead even here at 77 targets on George Kittle. We're a bit higher on the yards per target at 9.0. Gretches at 8.3 yards per target there. And this spot I think is going to be really hard just because again, with the Achilles, you know, you introduce a lot of, you know, compensation injuries. I think are very common posted Achilles as well. And then Kittle just, just 33 and what's made him such an elite NFL tight end is his explosiveness in yards after catchability. And it's, I think it's fair to question that coming off the Achilles. So Gretchen, curious your thoughts. Just here here on Kittle who again has been one of the best fancy tight end scores over the last decade or so. How do you view his outlook coming off this Achilles? Yeah. I think you hit on everything. And there's people that are really excited about the injury return timeline. I think the one sort of framing that has stuck for me is it's not just when he gets back on the field, but can he be the same efficient player? You're talking about the 10.0 yards for target as a career number. I do think he'll have his moments, but I'm concerned in the first season off in Achilles that he's not going to be able to be the same guy. Last year's 9.1 yards for target was basically already a down season form as well. I mean, he is 33 now. I'll be clear that at tight end, 33 is not that old. I mean, there's like the elites have been able to produce like Travis Kelsey's last massive season was at 33 Tony guns all is did until that late in his career. Guys, the Antonio Gates had seasons that late in their career. It's definitely happened at this position. It doesn't take quite as much athleticism. It's more about like the nuance of some of the route running and some of these things. And kiddo, we know can block really well and stay on the field and do all of that. I think he's going to play when he's healthy and I don't think he's too old. But we did already start to see a little bit of it a client in his mishakles forced and yak numbers just in the last year or two. And some of the ball and hand stuff, some of the yards for target maybe already starting to dip it just a little bit before. And Achilles injury. That's the part of it that I'm having a hard time with is like, can we expect him to come back and be George Kittle because the profile for him has always been he doesn't get as many routes and as many targets as we want because he's such an elite blocker to the offense. But when he gets the targets, you get such elite per target efficiency. Are we going to get that? Is the big question. Yeah. His yards after catch per reception hit a career low last year, only 4.4. He's at a seven seven on the dot for his career. So that dropped like two and a half yards based based on his career average. You know, I'm certainly a little bit concerned there on Kittle. He's one of my favorite players in the league. I hope he comes back smoothly. But I know just posted Kittle is like again, the compensation injuries can can kind of stack up a little bit to. And so in that vein, if he does miss time, I did want to shout out Jake Tonjes here who in six games without Kittle last year had 40 targets, 29 receptions and three touchdowns. So a per game average there of a 4.8 catches 45 yards and and half a touchdown. That was good for 9.9 half PPR points per game, which you know, if you sent that over the full season would have been the tight end six overall. So if Kittle does miss any time this year, I do think Jake Tonjes is pretty interesting, but he's an absolute zero when when Kittle is in there. He had two catches for nine yards and healthy Kittle games. So it's it's purely like a handcuffed tight end scenario there more more for read draft leagues. One stat note on on Tonjes. Well more on Kittle, even though Kittle was a little bit down in efficiency last year, I will note his yards per out run was about a full yard better than Tonjes. They both ran over 200 routes. Tonjes mostly was running those routes filling in for Kittle. Yeah, these two different tight ends in the same offense in a very similar role. And Tonjes had some fantasy viability, right? But Kittle was that much more efficient, even in a doubt efficiency year than his teammate that that was in his you know, was his replacement when he was missing some time earlier in the year. Yeah, all of that we've kind of been slowly bumping Kittle up as the progressive news continues or positive news continues to trickle out. And I think that is current price. It's our risk worth taking on underdog. The two tight ends going after him are Travis Kelsey and Mark Andrews. So it's not like the market is really expecting Kittle to be himself. I mean, that's a significant discount from where we've seen Kittle go in his pre-injury years. And it sounds like he's going to be ready very early in the season. I know they play an Australian week one. I don't know if that'll complicate his availability for week one specifically. But it sounds like week one, if not week one, then probably week two at this point. And I think when he's going outside the top 180 p even with the concerns coming off the injury, the slightly decreased that's still very good efficiency. I think it's a risk we're taking at the cream cost. Let's go to Seattle where George Kiddell's tight end coach from the last four seasons was just hired to be the offensive coordinator there. That is Brian Flurry. Certainly didn't didn't know much about Flurry beforehand. So looked at him. He was a college quarterback, but was mostly a defensive coach when he entered the NFL in 2013. And then from 2014 to 2019, he was over on the defensive side of the ball, then switched over to offense and was the four to enter tight end coach for the last four seasons. He added run game coordinator title to his to his list last season. So Brian Furry comes over to replace Kubiak who's in Las Vegas now as the head coach. Seahawks are an interesting team to discuss because they were very, very run heavy and pretty slow pace last year, despite, you know, J.S.N.'s breakout season. In terms of team level here at ETR, we're at 61.8 plays and a 57 percent pass rate gretches at 60.6 plays and a 55 percent pass rate there. So, you know, probably leaning a little bit more into last year with a little bit of lower play volume there for gretches as well as a lower pass rates. When Flurry was asked how is going to approach this offensive season. He said, "It looks very similar to the one that just won the Super Bowl. One of the advantages of taking this job is that there's going to be a lot of continuity. I've already started diving into everything that Clint Kubiak was doing here and the goal would be to maintain as much of that as possible. There's also areas where we can supplement that with things that we've developed and done in San Francisco under Kyle Shanahan." So again, limited background for Flurry. Hard to know exactly what to expect from him. Gretches, you know, toss it your way to see how you're approaching this. Do you believe Flurry in that? He's just going to try and kind of replicate exactly or as much as of what Kubiak did as possible last year? I think so, but I also think Mike McDonald is a part of the equation here where what was so interesting to me about McDonald last year was after year one, they didn't have a horrible offense. He fired his first offensive coordinator. He went out and got Clint Kubiak. He went out and got pieces that fit into that particular scheme. It seemed like there was a lot of intent from a guy who's thought of as this defensive wizard to build out what he thought was the right offensive. It's just evolution and step for the, and that's what we saw actually was with a lot of different things across the league, but obviously Seattle's offense to go win a Super Bowl with Sam Donald and your, you know, PROE is very low. Third lowest PROE, fifth lowest seconds per snap. They're basically trying to hide their quarterback most of the year. I'm not saying Donald didn't play well, but I always thought it was very fascinating when people looked at like EPA per play stuff. And I'm like, yeah, they're running every single play. And he still ended up leading the league in giveaways if I'm not mistaken. I think that was the stat that came up like in the post season, even though they had that low of a PROE. And that was against an expected past rate that was very low because they led in almost every single game. They were constantly ahead. He still had a lot of giveaways. He had some, some, some damn Sam Donald moments, but they were able to build an offense that worked for him and took advantage of his strengths. I'm not saying he's like a terrible player or anything. I do think Mike McDonald as your defensive coach or as your head coach is going to be an elevator of the offensive scheme and understands a lot of things. I think it's very fascinating that he went and got a guy who was a run game coordinator tight end coach, probably not like the hottest name on the market. Why did he do that? Like especially in relation to his quick decision to fire Ryan Grubb and go get Clint Kubiak and what how we wanted his offense to look after you. One, my thought on it is it's both like they want to do the same stuff, but also that McDonald is trying to find ways to continue to iterate the same way that McVase quote was that offense needed to continue to iterate. And then you hear that quote from Flurry that he says, you know, we want to try to add some things to Kyle Shannon did. I think he like went into these interviews and was like whoever can impress me with like, how do we iterate this offense to the next? Now, I don't know what that next phase is. So one thing is that Flora. has been talking about, it has been tempo a little bit, that they want to be a little more aggressive. I still have them as a pretty low play volume team, like a really low play volume team, even lower than you, but I'm concerned that I'm gonna be wrong on that because it does seem to me like, and especially if they have to trail a little bit more this year, they were so comfortably ahead. Jack might have some better notes on that. I don't always have great data on that stuff, but I do know just from writing some signals last year and watching the games, it felt like every week I was writing, they're gonna have to throw more when they get behind, and then they just never, they never trail than any games like all year. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens here. I do think this offense may iterate more than, I think they're gonna look similar to the Clint Coobey offense, but I think a lot of people are projecting it to be the same offense. They just, they hired this no name guy so they can install the same offense or whatever. No, I think they hired a guy that they think can do the similar stuff, but has bright ideas about how to iterate on that. You can't just do what you did last year, like the McVeigh quote said. - Yeah, and San Bernard was in San Francisco for a little bit when Flurry was there. I don't know if they had any relationship really with Donald in the quarterback room and Flurry as the tight ends coach as the time. But at least in the same building and maybe some of that familiarity to kind of knowing a little bit more behind the scenes on Darnal and how to get the best out of him could factor in there. But yeah, Jack any thoughts on the team level stuff here? - Yeah, we're basically projecting it as if, like Flurry said, as if they're going to try to emulate the Clint Coobey offense as much as they can. I do think Coobey actually is sharp. The Saints offense in 2024 was unbelievable before Injury started to pile up and then last year was obviously a superbowling season. So I think it's interesting how they're going to try to follow that up and if Flurry can keep the same level of efficiency. But I do think that Gretches point on McDonald being one of the sharpest coaches in the league and his decision and even higher Flurry likely both well for Seattle's chances of succeeding again. - One thing I think will be interesting to monitor. You mentioned this on the FC West Pad that you asked Brandon Thorn about his thoughts on how much coaching affects the offensive line and scheme and he said 55 to 60% comes with coaching. Now Coobeyac is gone there and I think that did help Sam Darnal out a lot last year. Darnal had a career low sac rate and that led to, or he had the lowest time to throw of his career as well as the lowest pressure to sac ratio. So I think probably a little bit on Darnal and a little bit on the offensive scheme there. I wonder how much that can transfer over. Darnal did have an eight and a half yards per attempt last season but only led to the quarter back 23 and fantasy points per game again. Just not a whole lot of pass volume as Seattle did play an positive game script there a lot. In terms of Darnal inputs this year, we are nearly identical to Gretches. We're at 522 pass attempts. Gretches at 514, pretty much same yards per attempt there as well as same completion percentage. So almost identical across the board on Darnal. We're essentially just in line with market where, he's priced at the quarter back 23, which is again where he finished last year. That's where he haven't ranked as well. So I don't think a whole lot of single Coobey appeal but maybe some super flex and just like best ball stacking with Jaxson Smith and Jigba up top four Darnal. So Gretches sounds like you weren't as I guess inspired by Darnal's season last year. Before we were coming into last year like Jalen Milro was getting some, I remember like the detractions of JSN and his break out season. Well, you don't know if in the fantasy playoffs like Jalen Milro might be starting then sure enough to environmental lead to the Super Bowl. So I don't think there's necessarily any questions about his job security, but I don't know. Any concerns on Darnal and then two year two here for Seattle? No, no major concerns. I do think that, I mean, so a lot of people are like, okay, one of the sets that went around is he's the first quarterback I think and then fell history to win 14 games two years in a row, right? And it was like, okay, and he did it on two different teams. Like, oh, okay, so he's obviously good. I mean, my response, so last year I was one of the people I think on the show talking about, I think Milro was going to make some starts. I think I projected Milro for certainly some dropbacks in the offense. Darnal was much better last year than I anticipated and I was wrong on that and I certainly owned that. Still from like where I'm at from an analyst perspective, I do still think he was, he basically is a guy who was in two really great situations two years in a row. When we get to the NFC North, I'm going to be optimistic about Kyle Murray because I still think Kevin O'Connell is a good coach, even though the JJ McCarthy thing didn't go well. And then I think this past year, what they were able to implement in Seattle and how good the defense was and how they were able to run the ball to the degree they were, their pass rate was 51.3% very, very low. Talk about passing into obvious and non-obvious spots. This is the guy last year that's probably the best example of somebody whose EPA per play was elevated by only passing on play action and non-obvious spots and off of, and then they would run on like third down and pun it knowing that their defense is just going to get the stop. They didn't make him drop back and throw on third down because we don't want to pick. The one time they asked him to go win a game form early in the year against the Bucks, it was a tie game late. He threw a pick in their own field. They lost a game on a field goal. It was literally just getting a field goal range. We win this game at home. He threw a pretty bad pick in the double coverage. Pretty much from that point on, they were like, we're going to win games by making the other team pun. And then eventually we'll have you throw. He's not that bad. But he is not somebody that I see a massive fantasy ceiling to. I do see him as somebody who's probably going to regress statistically over time, especially if the Clint Cubiac effect hits somewhere. I think it'll hit right here with Sam Darnold. But they're going to stay-- their defense is going to be great. I think Mike McDonald's going to continue to build the good defense even though they lost some person on that side. They still have a really high win total. They're going to stay ahead of games. And he still has JSN. JSN is going to be wide open. And that's going to be helpful. Let's get into the backfield here. We have the Seahawks at 29th in past race. So certainly expecting a lot of running back carries here. And they also have Kenneth Walker who departed in free agency to the chiefs in Zach Sharbinay, Taurus ACL on January 17th. So that led to the Seahawks drafting, Gidarian Price, 32nd overall. And the draft they also bring in the manual Wilson as a free agent. He signed a pretty modest contract, 1-year, 1.6 million with only 550K guaranteed. And then you have George Hylani. He was mostly a special teamer for the Seahawks in years past. But as kind of getting some offseason buzz, as maybe they'll look to get him some more touches this upcoming season. So this is a really like, I think, tricky projection just because you have to factor in what Sharbinay's role is going to be when he comes back, when exactly is he going to return from that ACL? Was a clean ACL tear at least. But he didn't have surgery till February 20th. So if you factor that into the start of the season, he only has six months to fully recover from surgery date before the start of the season. Typically, I think we would say probably like nine months from the ACL surgery date, which would get him back mid-October even into November. So you're balancing that as well as them drafting Gidarian Price in the first round. And so I was very eager to see where we ended up on the touch distribution here. And while they enough, we're almost like even across the board on Price Wilson and Halani, which I am just pretty shocked by. For price inputs, we have 183 carries and 28 targets. Gretches at 167 carries and 26 targets. So a little bit lower on the rush of temps, but at least in the same vein there. Emmanuel Wilson, we're at 76 rush of temps. Gretches at 75. And then George Halani, we're at 57. Gretches is at 58. Gretches is a little bit higher on Charbonne at 117 carries. We're at 98. Again, that's kind of a tough one to pin down just in terms of like, OK, one is he actually returned. And then when he does return, what the role is going to be. So Jack, this has been a tough spot. We've been higher on the market on Gidarian Price, kind of all off season to this point. He's going at the end of the fifth round, which in this back field that we expect to produce decently in fantasy. I think is a solid discount. We have the end of season questions. Like when Charbonne comes back, is Gidarian Price going to have meaningful role at all? So it kind of take us through the projection distribution in this back field. Yeah, so I think Halani is going to get the pass down stuff early in the season. And then Charbonne takes that over when he gets back. That's kind of what we saw last year when Charbonne went down. Halani played 34% and 33% of snaps in the NFC championship game and the Super Bowl. He only had five total carries in those two games. In total last year, he had 22 carries, 20 of those came in game for the Seahawks won by 20 plus. So I don't think that the Seahawks went in a big role. I think that if Gidarian Price proves worthy of a big role in training camp, that he can-- I don't think he'll have a whole lot of trouble pushing Halani to the side. I think maybe there's some chance that Halani gets some better indefference in the first week or two of the year before Price establishes himself as the superior talent on early downs. With that being said, Price is not a huge pass catcher in college. That was Jeremiah Love. So I do think Halani is going to get the third down as much like Charbonne did when Kenneth Walker and Charbonne were both healthy over the past couple of years. And then a manual Wilson, it kind of sounds like might push for some story yardage roles, but it doesn't sound like he'd get much beyond that. He's been running with the third team so far this off season. I think that once Charbonne is back, he could really fall down to zero. But Price is a really interesting rookie because most of the time with these rookies, we talk about them having progressively more value as the season goes on in the latter half of the season breakout for Price that almost might be inverted if Charbonne comes back mid season and really forces a committee here. Like you said, our biggest difference is really just Price for Charbonne. We have Wilson and Halani pretty similar to Gretz. And so if the Charbonne timeline, the recent news has been pretty positive. If that starts to pick up more, maybe we come down on the other side. price. And I know that they have been publicly optimistic on Holani's role as a rest of this offseason, but I'm not totally buying the Holani stuff. The area where I think we could be lying on prices if Shreverney comes back earlier than we expect it, and if he has a bigger role than we expect, but at the same time, price, I know his college production profile wasn't massive playing along so I love, but he was a first round running back, first round draft pick running back. That's pretty serious draft capital investment. And so for now, I feel okay about the price production. Gratio, I know you haven't done a ton of drafting so far this summer, but I think this is like a really interesting just discussion in the backfield on how to approach them and fantasy drafts. So I am curious your overall take on Jardinian price as a prospect since he did split work and was kind of like the secondary back to Jira, my love at Notre Dame, you know, we don't have a ton of touches on film for him to dissect. And then you have the aspect that that Zach Shreverney, who's coming off a strong season last year is likely going to be back towards the end of the year. Where do you see just kind of like the fantasy value and where you want to invest any capital if at all this offseason in this backfield? Yeah, my concern with him would have been that I think being a work course is a skill. And we haven't gotten a chance to see that. That doesn't necessarily mean, I mean, he's behind Jira, my love, who we're going to talk about with Arizona's, you know, just this uber prospect. And so it's not like, like, people are like, I don't want to knock that. But at the same time, you can't give him credit for something that's not there. We don't know about whether he can maintain a big workload. And I do believe that being a workload is a skill, being able to handle a lot of the work. I mean, a good, another good example when he go to Arizona's Tre Benson, this is a guy who didn't get a lot of work throughout college, hasn't been able to stay healthy when he's gotten the opportunities to be a workhorse in the NFL level. And people are just second round pick that people are completely done with after two years. And I actually think Tre Benson is like a good player, but like he can't stay healthy, right? He's not a workhorse. That doesn't mean Jira in price isn't going to stay healthy either. I'm not saying that his limited usage has not necessarily been health related or anything. It's just we haven't seen it. He did a lot of kick returning in college and was good. They've mentioned that part of it. I actually, it's funny. I have a little more sharpening a little less price in you guys. I actually went back and changed that today. Because there was a quote just today as we're recording this about like price isn't going to be the workhorse or something. And I was kind of tinkering with that a little bit more, moved a little bit off price. It's like, I'm probably high on price. I bet we were even closer before I did that today. But as far as price is actual profile, I was concerned about that going into the draft. Then you draft him in the first round into this backfield. And we have sharpening like Kenneth Walker's gone. The thing about this act sharpening, he's he's good, but he is not a dynamic like player. Like he's not an incredible running back by any means to do everything good, stable runner. And he's been very efficient in this offense and in the scheme. Jiraire in price could be very dynamic. That is the other part of this. He had really good rate stats, good evasion, really good breakaway rate all three years, good yards after contact. Again, the return stuff, I think is interesting. He led, I think we maybe led the nation in kick return at yardage average, which again, speaks to like some of the vision stuff. Again, very limited receiving is you guys talked about, although they don't really throw the backs in this offense anyway. And I don't know who would get the receiving. It's funny. You guys did a little bit more receiving for Hullani, about 15 targets in 7.6 for Wilson. I have 16 for Wilson and five for Hullani. And I just was going to look at a Holadi's profile. Just the re targets it is career. Like, but I mean, it could easily be him. Like there's, we don't know. Wilson did a little bit of it in Green Bay. He had 17 targets last year, 14 the year prior. It's a bigger back, but kind of does everything. I thought of him as like the the Charbonne, like one for one replacement. Like they're thinking of this guy can do a little bit of everything. You can play in the past game. So we both have Wilson with a little bit more rushing. I have him with a little bit more receiving. I thought Wilson was pretty intriguing when they signed him. But I agree with Jack's point that like now that you have price in here and Charbonne coming back, you can wind up like completely phased out at the same time. If they're not going to make price on every down back early, I kind of think the Hullani stuff is just a little bit of like veteran deference, like he was saying and like the incumbent thing, 25 career carries three career targets for this guy. He's 26 years old. He was really exciting at times last year, but he's not like a, he's been a special teams guy mostly for his career over the last couple of years. He's not like a big running back. Wilson is a guy who had over a hundred carries both the last two years in that Green Bay offense. And and basically had to be do like his best faxsimile of Josh Jacobs at times and would get like all the work that Josh Jacobs got a couple of times for like individual games. And so I don't know, it's a really tricky one. There's a lot of different profiles here. The Charbonne timeline, as you guys talked about, I've been pretty concerned about too. I'm not sort of how I'm playing it. I'm not wanting to take much charbonne. I'm wanting to bet against a guy coming back that quickly. And I don't think he's an exceptional talent. It's probably a tough thing in year one coming back when you're not even like, in elite, like you're not Adrian Peterson coming back off in ACL or a breeze hall or one of these guys. I liked Wilson, but I also liked the price thing. It is, so I initially was like, you can't give this guy credit for things he hasn't done at the same time. Once he lands on this offense, and especially as if Wilson's not a real threat, I just, I mean, he seems like the most talented player and they really liked him. They brought him in. I do think like some of the skills are probably there with like, and I took up the kick return and all this like the yards after contact the evasion, the breakaway rate. He probably has really good vision. Like, I mean, if he's just a really good runner, one of the things I talked about with him right after the draft is that he doesn't bounce runs outside, which is that was the knock on Ken Walker. I think that's why they like to charbonne. I mean, engineering price is probably just better than Zach Sharbonne. Like if we really get down to it, it's not crazy. If he's the stuff that they liked about Sharbonne, that he's not bouncing like Ken Walker, but he's better than Sharbonne, like you're gonna, it's gonna be a valuable role. You and after Sharbonne comes back, he's gonna be a big part of a good team. So anyway, I came around to him pretty quickly after they took him in the first round onto this offense. They obviously really like him. It seems like the price can be good. It's kind of a tougher pick, I think, in these bestball tournament formats where like all the money is in weeks, you know, 15 to 17 and 17, especially just kind of knowing what price his role will be. But again, we have been above market on them all summer. I've been taking a little bit of him. I think, you know, if kind of price is hold into the redraft season, we are still, you know, we are even above his FFPC redraft rank, which is pretty wild for running back on FFPC for us, we're typically trailing behind all the running backs on FFPC. But like he's someone I think, you know, like I'll probably end up on some decent redraft teams. If the price holds just because, you know, certainly they're saying, oh, they aren't expecting to be a workload or a workhorse right away. But the fact that they used a first round pick on him, I think, is, you know, more like a stronger indication to me that that that he'll probably end up in that role, even if that's not quote unquote what they envision right away. And part of the bet with the rookies is they progress into more work, even though this does look like it could be the flipped version of that. But part of the bet is we don't know what they are yet. They don't necessarily know what they have yet. They get some opportunity and they perform and they earn more. And it becomes a little bit undeniable that they need to be on the field. He's going to have that runway when Charbonne is off. If he's good, if he's actually as talented as they think he is, and he's very productive, they're not going to rush like they're going to slow Charbonne's timeline. Like they're not going to rush Charbonne back to get him off the field. That's sort of the, I mean, you have to think about when you make the pick, you're betting not on Charbonne not coming back or anything. You're betting on generic price breaking out as a rookie, right? Like having the runway early, breaking out and then being undeniable. He's there starting running back because he's having a great year. He's already at, you know, 800 yards when Charbonne comes back. They're not going to bench him. Yeah. And Gretz mentioned his name when he was talking about a manual Wilson and any mention Trey Benson is someone who didn't have the workhorse profile in college and couldn't really sustain it in the pros. But Josh Jacobs never had more than 120 carries in a single college season. He went in the first round despite that. And then as a rookie, he had 242 carries. So there is some precedent for NFL teams kind of actually watching these guys and seeing the skills that they have in looking past the college workload. And then immediately trusting them with a bigger workload than they actually had in college. All right. Let's go to the wider seer room here, headline by Jackson Smith and Jigba. Jackson led the team with 177 targets last year. That includes the playhouse, but the rest of Seattle wide receivers had 153. So just a very JSN centric offense last year, pretty, pretty outrageous. You know, yards per out run target per out run numbers. And despite his average depth of targets going up from two and a half yards from the year prior, he still maintained a 73% catch rate on the season. So after talking about Lab Mconki earlier, they obviously think JSN is better player than the Lab Mconki, but I have some shades of just like man, JSN while he's an unreal player, absolutely sun ran a little bit on some of the deeper targets last year to perform that efficiently. And we mentioned, you know, kind of Seattle playing from ahead a little bit, but again, not to detract from from JS on it. I'll absolute absolute beast at wide receiver. But the Cocks in that wide receiver room this year have Rashid Shaheed, who they signed to a three year, $51 million contract. This off season $35 million guaranteed there. They bring back Cooper Cup, who's in the second year of a three year, $45 million dollar deer with Seattle. And then Tori Horton remains in this wide receiver room as well. He is still recovering from an off season shin surgery that that caused him to miss time towards the end of last year. And he did not participate in any of the spring practices, which I was a little bit concerned about the commentary around him was that you might not even be ready for a day one of training camp. So I think that probably puts Tori Horton clearly as you know, the YVC were four here. So talk through JS and Shaheed and Cooper Cup up top on JS and we have 144 targets. Gratges at 158 there on Rashid Shaheed. We're at 61. Actually, on both Shaheed and Cup, we're at 61 targets. Gratges at 71 on Shaheed and 60 on Cup. So a little bit further ahead on Shaheed there, that's certainly something we've been way ahead marking on Cooper Cup and the best all-market. And I've kind of taken away some targets and given this Shaheed as well. Again, we have them even, but Gratges them ahead. So I guess, you know, kind of bearing the lead here with JSM. But I do want to get to the Y2C for two battle here between Shaheed and Cup. Gratges curious what you see there between those two. And again, Shaheed signed this big three-year deal. This off season, do you think that Seattle is going to feature him more? He only ran more routes than Cup in one game since he was acquired last season. You know, Cup remained in that Y2C were also curious your thoughts there on that gap between them two this year. Yeah, Shaheed basically did nothing. Played in 12 games with Seattle, fewer than 30 receiving yards, 10 times. Fier than 10 receiving yards, eight of those 12 games. I mean, just absolutely no role. I do think the deep efficiency that he's shown and the ball and hand skills that he's shown are worth chasing a little bit. And then just this, this old Mike Tomlin quote that I always go back to, it's hard to board a moving train. I mean, it's like they're successful offense when he comes in. Now you get the whole off season, you get the new contracts as you talked about. I think it's going to be a little bit of a different situation there. Cup's 15.8% targets per out last year, career low by a ton, even below his early career seasons. Despite JSM being out there. And I mean, JSM's taking a lot of the targets. You can say that for sure. There was a mean of time stat that I loved in the post season that I may not get the stat exactly right. But I believe it was on deep targets when JSM was on the field, Seattle receivers averaged double the separation of the league average. So this gravity stat that you get single coverages down. So Tori Horton had the five touchdowns on just 13 receptions. I think it was helpful for Shaheed. It's helpful for a lot of different guys. I think it's a notable thing for Cooper Cup that if he's out there not able to draw a lot of targets when JSM's drawing all this attention, that's a little bit tricky. I do think he's still going to be out there to really like him. I think if he runs another 400 routes, I basically have that as good for JSM's consolidation. The JSM element, and I don't, I mean, basically, I think Cup is too far into the decline face of his career to be super interesting. Shaheed maybe is interesting. But the JSM thing is really like how, like what's, so with Puka, it was like he's done this really high targets per out thing over the last couple of years. And it's a profile that I can see is more sustainable. JSM's efficiency looks unsustainable. You just talked about it with the deep efficiency and everything. The Zyards Per Outrun looks unsustainable. His efficiency, I will note, it carried the offense to quicker drives in fewer plays. This is one of those ones where the long touchdowns are hurting his own routes total. So I think there's a lot of people that are like, he can't be in the same tier as Puka or Chase because they don't throw as much. Well, they didn't throw as much last year in part because JSM had that Yards Per Outrun that he had. Every time he was out there, he was scoring super quick. So if you're regressing all of his efficiency out, you do have to expect a little bit more plays and things. But the really crazy stat on him, which is even a lot higher than Puka Nakuwa, JSM had 44.1% of the team's receiving yardage. Nakuwa was like 39%, just still crazy. But like 40 plus percent, when we used to look at the dominated rating back in the day, as the main college stat, like small school guys would still, if they went over 40% in a year, it was like, holy crap, that's amazing. In the FPS, JSM did this NFL season. I wasn't gonna do a huge study on it. So I just asked Google AI. It said Josh Gordon's season was the most all time. I bet that doesn't include when the Ford pass was just starting 'cause those guys were like, they had one receiver that caught 90% of their passes. I'm pretty sure. But JSM's 44.1% was just behind Josh Gordon's 44.2%. There was only like three other seasons that were over 40%. Like Calvin Johnson's 1900 yard season was on there and a couple others. Like I said, Puka was down at like 39% even though he had more receiving yards. JSM was this whole passing offense last year. We did see in the postseason, two of his games were a lot lower in production. I think it was like 20 yards and 30 yards. Samwaged with a monster game against the Rams in the NFC championship. So it's not like every team could just shut him down. But he and teams are trying to stop him during the regular season as well, obviously, right? And he had like 90 plus receiving yards. I think in like 13 of his first 15 games or something absurd. I mean, every single week, they found a way to get him very involved and very productive even though it was a very low volume passing game. So I mean, I just think that speaks to JSM. I think as good as he is, he was able to create separation. I was a little unfair to Donald earlier. I know Seattle fans listening are like, I mean, you're talking about a game in week five when he threw a pick and he went under when it's super bowl. But I do think Donald is a good enough quarterback to continue to sustain JSM. JSM, I think was very helpful for Donald in creating a lot of separation, a lot of the like deep overrounds and things that they ran. But Donald delivers those balls well. I mean, you give him a clean pocket. He makes all those throws that you need him to make. So I mean, I'm still very into JSM. I have a hard time projecting him because I this type of efficiency, 44% of the teams receiving our edge, this type of yard sprout run. I want to regress it all. But I also like, I think he's very good. He's going into his prime and the specific way this offense is set up as a very run heavy offense that throws off of that. I do think is very likely to still feature JSM to like, he's, I think he has one of the highest floors out there. This guy's very, very good and going to get a lot of volume and production. I just don't know if the ceiling came out to Puka and Jamar chase. So I do think he should be going behind them, but you have to feel really good about him. If you get him in the middle of the first round. In terms of the efficiency, potentially coming down, JSM was at 11.0 yards per target. Last year, just outrageous on a 163 targets there. But we kind of landed in a similar spot here right 9.6 yards per target. Gretches at 9.5 there. And I mean, there are just so many JSM stats that are insane from last year. You could continue to draw them off. I do want to add one more. He had the same amount of games with a 50 plus percent target share. That's 50% as he did with a sub 22% target share for the Seahawks last year. So just like the, like the weekly floor, or I guess weekly share, floor of targets at JSM had was just out of control as well with the, with the ceiling. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I ever remember seeing like a single wide receiver getting over 50% of their team targets in a game, let alone twice in a season. It's just just absolutely outrageous. Not to take away from Pukin, Akua, who I do think is the better fantasy player, but people were really mad about the offensive player of the year thing because Nukuah had better raw numbers. And like these are the numbers. JSM was the whole offense. He should have been in the MVP discussion. Like literally, I'm not saying he, like Sam Darled was nothing. Like Sam Darled's throwing two over 50% of the time that often like 44, like throw to someone else. Do something like show me something. Oh, man. Well, Jack, you know, we are after talking through this, you know, I think we might want to shift some, some work off cup to Shaheed that again, that's been a spot we've, you know, we've kind of been targeted at all off season as man, why are we so high on Cooper Cup? And then the back end of drafts, it's not not like we're very high. You know, we're at, we're at 60, 60 targets on the season. And I do think Cup is a valuable piece to this offense, even though he may not be an elite target earner there for, for the Seahawks, but I don't know, any, any wrap up wide receiver thoughts here before we head to the tight end route, Jack. Y'all just said that once she got acquired, obviously Shaheed's routes were down. But Cup was also ahead of him in targets per run. Cup averaged 0.18 targets per run. Shaheed was at 0.15. Cup is probably one of those guys where it just doesn't feel good, but he's a fine best ball pick because he's, we know he's going to play. We know he's going to be on the field. And we know he's going to have a not completely insignificant target share. And so if you can get that safe floor and someone who's not going to be a zero, that is pretty valuable and in best ball. And right now we're literally 39 picks ahead of his underdog ADP. So we started out. What's it like to dog ADP? It is 200 and 205. 205.1. Yeah, so you can get him in basically the last round. We know he's going to play. So we have rooms to shift more to Shaheed and still pretty much have Cup as someone you should be drafting as much as you can. I'm super out on Cup, but I love that take for best ball for sure. I mean, in redraft, the upside is probably just not there at the stage of his career. And you want someone who has legitimate upside, but you'd be fine dropping if he doesn't pay now Cup is probably just going to be seven, eight points per game, which has zero value and redraft, but some value in best ball. For sure. Let's go to the tight end room then AJ Barner and Elijah Aroyo headline the room here. Aroyo was a second round pick. Last year got injured mid season and then you know, it didn't really get much opportunity down the stretch as AJ Barner had kind of seized control of that tight end. One spot Barner a little bit more of a traditional inline tight end though 83% of his snaps came in line last year, whereas Elijah Roy was 58% in line and then 40% in the slot or out wide. But Barner was probably a better like real life football player than than fantasy asset here in terms of projections. We're at 56 targets on AJ Barner. Gretches at 65. We're at 35 targets on the Elijah Royo. Gretches at 37. So pretty much in lockstep here. Again, not a whole lot of fantasy appeal there. AJ Barner is going at like 175 overall on underdog. We're at 204 in the ranking. So about 30 spots behind there. I don't know if there's really much much target upside here for for Barner, but he's again, he is one of those guys that like, you know, the coaches love, you know, probably will be on the field a lot, but yeah, take it away, Gretchen. I love that position you guys have. I, um, yeah, how to hide TD receiving TD or eight last year and did some push stuff. So I think people are probably excited about some touchdown potential there. But he had an offseason cleanup thing as well and has missed some of the offseason. O'Royal is a year two guy who could cut into the split a little more. He only ran 361 routes, Barner, 1.44 yards per out run on that number. Like of routes is not really a fantasy viable tight end role. I think people also remember that he famously scored the first touchdown in the Super Bowl. After we would like three quarters to figure out who was going to be the first TD score. And he was a popular prop bet. He had two catches in the first two playoff games combined. I mean, that's what AJ Barner's role is. I don't know, like people like, ah, Super Bowl hero, but like he didn't do anything in the other games. Um, I do think, and then you have a new offensive coordinator as well. Who's a tight ends coach at the old place and may have a different read on how they want to utilize the different paths, the weapons, but you're really just betting on the touchdown rate. I mean, I think Barner is interesting, but I think O'Royal is maybe interesting as he goes into year two as well. It's probably just to split. There's not enough pass volume. If you want to go to the secondary pieces, I mean, I like Jack's point about Cup and basketball or she he'd, I mean, like, or else just play Jaysent. Like this can be a very concentrated passing. The Siox also have this dude, Robbie Outs or Outs or something who is, you know, kind of like a hybrid fullback. So he's, he's a part of some heavier personnel. He also missed some time last year. Um, I imagine that, you know, coming over from San Francisco again, you know, Kyle Euse check is, is used a lot there. They use a lot of 21 personnel. I could see that, you know, tendency tilting over to the Siox. Again, this off season to there with with Robbie Outs as a, as an honorable mention here as we close up to see Siox. All right. Let's go to everyone's favorite team to discuss in the division. That's the Arizona Cardinals. You know, last and certainly least in my opinion, I, man, the Cardinals kind of broke me last year. Honestly, that's your Kobe brisette stretch down the tail end of the season was, was a little bit too much for me to, to comprehend projection wise. But I digress. Let's get into the 2026 projections here. They bring in Mike Laflore as the head coach here and he will be the play caller for the Arizona Cardinals on a team level. We have for Arizona 60.4 plays at ETR. Gretches at 60.1. We're at a 63.2% pass rate. Gretches at 63%. So near lockstep there on, on a team level, which is, you know, I think, I think probably a good thing with it with a new coach coming into town. Just a reminder, you know, the Cardinals were led, led the league in pass rate last year at 69.6%. So nearly 70% pass rate. Therefore, the Cardinals, that was 4% and raw pass rate clear of any other team in the league. So there's a lot of aggression there. Our 63.2% pass rate for this season though is the third highest projection that we have across the league. They led the NFL and raw pass attempts last year with 649. They had 277 more pass attempts than the Ravens last year. That's 16 more per game. I just thought that was, that was pretty wild discrepancy there. And then you also have the quarterback, Konundrum here where it could be per set. Again, was the starter down the stretch last year, but it's kind of holding out this spring in summer for starters. Money. He is a 33 year old journeyman back up at this point. They drafted Carson Beck at the top of the third round and also Gardner Menshu in the quarterback room, who I feel like is, you know, pretty on par with with brisette here. So I was curious to see where Gretchen landed on kind of the split in this quarterback room right now. We have Chukobi brisette with 60% of the starts and the other 40% on Carson Beck. We don't have any on Menshu right now. But in terms of raw pass attempts, Gretchen is even lower than us on Chukobi brisette at 283, we're at 342. So, you know, curious your thoughts just on this QB room, Gretchen and how you kind of have it projected. How many starts are you expecting for Carson Beck? Do you think Menshu will get in there at all? Does this hold out from brisette leads to anything? I mean, it's a, it's a, not super fun quarterback trio to discuss, but certainly one that I think is meaningful to projecting this upcoming season. I, so I had it at 6040 the way you guys do with brisette. And then I went to 50, 50. Yeah, it's definitely different than like the Mendoza one that we talked about on the other show where it was like, yeah, they're going to get this number one overall pick in as soon as possible. This is a third round quarterback prospect that there's concerns about decision making, accuracy. Polarizing comes up a lot in the prospect stuff, which with him seems to mean some people hate him because I can't really find anything on him that's like really optimistic. So the polarizing is like either he's a third round talent or he's undraftable. Like that seems to be the difference of opinion on him. I, I don't. And then they have the hardest schedule in the NFL by look at lines we were talking about. Like Warren Sharp does that thing and it's like way harder than everyone else are going to play from behind a lot. The, the, the, the back thing like I, yeah, I guess I don't know how much he's going to play. I know people are really concerned about some of the passing weapons because they'll have a rookie QB in there. So it's important to dial this in. I will say that even if brisette plays a lot, I don't think we can expect the same pass environment under new coaches. It was too much of an outlier even controlling for the quarterback and really last year for the Cardinals is a really good reminder that like when we talk about team play volume and a lot of these things as we go through the projections, a lot of it is really tricky. They added over a hundred pass attempts year over year to the year prior. They were going into the year with Kyler Murray. He only plays five games and then they bring in brisette and it changes like all of it, right? And it makes them way more pass everything we expected. They throw more passes than any team in the league. I'm going to jump ahead to the tight end. So I apologize, but I think this is helpful. Tramik Bride ran 695 routes last year. It was more than a hundred clear of all other tight ends. This is on PFS data. From their data all the way back through 2006, the closest season by any tight end was Jason Witten in 2012 at 628, which is still 67 route shy of McBride. That's obviously back when there were 16 game seasons, but you're talking about like that's the next highest of any tight end in 20 years. So like even a high volume tight end season is like a hundred routes clear. Or maybe even a little more. I mean, Bowers was the guy who ran the most tight end routes in 2024. He was at 592 and the whole thing going into last year for Bowers was like, oh, we ran all these routes. Is that going to regress? McBride was more than a hundred clear of that. I mean, he had like multiple games worth of additional routes over what we would consider like three games worth over what we consider other high volume tight end route seasons. I'm a huge McBride fan, but you do have to understand that and that goes back to Michael Wilson. It's going to go back to everything that we talk about on this team. This past environment was insane in terms of how much they actually threw the ball. And so yeah, what are they going to be this year? Like they're going to have a court, a rookie quarterback for some of it, right? And then they got a different coach and I don't really know what to expect with with La Flore. A lot of McVey assistants have gone on to build like 11 personnel offices, which is what McVey was always doing. McVey has been doing different stuff in these last couple years with La Flore there. I guess my guess is that we're probably going to get some mirroring here too when he'll do things a little bit like LA was last year. So I'm projecting, you know, a similar kind of lean in that regard. Bad teams going to going to lean toward the pass heavy side. Obviously their play volume is going to be low because they're not going to be good enough to sustain drives. And that's one of those things that we see. So I mean, it's not just that they were an outlier last year on the pass attempts one direction. It's also that now you look at it this year, they're probably going to be, I mean, they have the lowest projected points per game by look ahead, Len. So you're talking about it in an offense that's not going to hold the ball. It's not going to score a lot of points. The whole thing goes all the way to the other side very drastically, which is a concern for Tremac ride. It's concerned for all of the key pieces. I think it's a really interesting spot in the market because it's just so so easy to get, you know, the recency bias of, oh, this happened last season. It's, you know, that that's a likely thing to happen again. Last year was just such such an anomaly in the past temps. And, you know, we are belaboring the point a little bit, but I think it's worth it just because of all the compounding factors that led to it. The Cardinals were also eighth and third down conversion rate last year, which I thought was interesting. You know, they were able to sustain a lot of drives, which, you know, they finished six and real plays per game did the Cardinals. So, you know, I think with weaker quarterback play, again, the tougher schedule, their average spread this year is Cardinals plus 8.6. So, you know, it's looking to be big underdogs in every game. And again, I don't think that will continue to lead to like high, high play volume and high past volume. We also had this backfield just get decimated last year. I mean, they're running out micro Carter and BAM night and then a Mario D Mercado, you know. And it's kind of like that that led them to throw a ton with Berset and Michael Wilson and Tramick Bride, you know, they're up top. So, it is hard to disassociate from what happened last year, but I think this year just outlook and a new coaching staff helps us disassociate. But man, I think it's just going to be a drastically different offense than we saw down the stretch last season. All right. Let's go to the backfield here. I don't think any of the quarterbacks are necessarily fantasy viable. Jacobi Berset is getting drafted and best ball stuff, but I don't know. I think he's pretty much untouchable at this point, just given the tough strength of schedule to begin the season and then the competition behind him there. So I do want to start in a running back room here where they drafted Jeremiah Love, third overall, lead running back profile here for for love, you know, akin to the likes of Sequan Barkley, B. John Robinson, you know, the current leagues, best backs out there. It's initially set up though, because they did sign Tyler Ozzyer to a two year, 12 and a quarter million dollar contract. He got eight million guaranteed in the off season. They also resigned James Conner to a one year, three million dollar deal and they have Tray Benson still on the roster who, who gratch eluded. to earlier. So it's, I don't know, an on set up. I really don't understand kind of like the decision making this offseason from the Cardinals brass here. But in terms of inputs, we're pretty close on on Jeremiah level at 216 rush attempt scratches at 219 right 59 and a half targets. Grutch at 59 there. So nearly identical projections and an output were at 189 half a half VPR fantasy points. Grutch at 195. So a little bit higher on the receiving touchdowns is kind of creates a separation there. We are quite a bit higher on on Tyler Algera at 108 carries. Grutch is at 52 and then Grutch is a little bit higher in James Conner than we are. He's at 52 carries. We're at 29 there. So again, a lot of potential mouths to feed here. Jack, you know, we're recording this on June 29. It wouldn't be shocked this offseason if one of these backs gets moved to another team. It seems like that's probably the most likely outcome. But you know, given Jeremiah level was drafted third overall and, you know, take us take us into your thoughts on his touch rejection and outlook for the upcoming season as well as this backfield. Yeah, I think when you invest that kind of capital into running back, he's basically going to be the clear workhorse. I know that they just sign Tyler Algera, but love is just a superior talent than him. I mean, it's really unlucky for Algera that he goes from beef on robinson gets this new deal in Arizona and all of a sudden they graph are running back third overall in these derby to again. I think I mean, love is a good pass catcher. He got 55 balls over his last years and under game. I think that he's going to be the clear pass down back here. The only question I'd really have is just the extent to which he controls the carries. I think that when you invest that kind of capital in running back, you know that he's going to be the bulk early down guy, but is it going to be a two to one split? Is it going to be a 60 40 split? We don't really know. Interesting like you said, interestingly, like you said, we do come in pretty similar on love carries to Gretz. The other thing that I guess you could raise as a concern would be what Algera's involvement looks like in the red zone around shory artichy match B-john with seven carries inside the five girl line last year. Does he have any type of goal and roller? Does that all go to love? But generally, I think love is I mean, when you've got to get third overall, he's going to be the clear workhorse. It's just the exact percentages that are a little trickier to nail down. We are getting a little bit of a discount from where Ashton Gentee went in last year's draft. He was more at the one two turn Jeremiah that love this year going more at the two three turn. I do think Gentee's lack of her lack luster rookie performance probably impacting that a little bit, but curious Gretz, your thoughts on Jeremiah love here, you know, kind of a tough, tough landing spot and maybe a little bit more competition in the backfield than we typically see with other, you know, highly drafted rookie backs. You think that is going to be much of a factor at all or you know, to kind of take us to your thoughts on on this backfield split. Well, I think it's a little bit of a factor. I agree with Jack that with this type of draft capital, the guy is going to be the clear workhorse, but it's a question of, I mean, Gentee got all of the work. Are you getting like all of the all of the work or not because you're in the worst projected scoring offense in the NFL. And so you kind of need to get all of the all of the work. The offensive line shouldn't be terrible or at least they've tried to address it. They've signed some new guys. They drafted a second round guard, probably still expected to be a little bit slightly below average, but there's some optimism and some of the stuff I was looking up. The outgear thing has been tricky for me. Maybe you guys can help me the two year $12 million deal. I mean, it's a decent deal. But like as far as free agent deals go, like guys get paid, he has played on special teams all the way through all of last year. Like he's always been a special teams guys. Former converted linebacker famously in college. When they brought him in and they still had Connor and Benson, I wasn't even really sure why he was getting the like he's going to be the RB one vibe early in the offseason. Because to me, I was like, yeah, they're bringing in a wrote like a guy that will add running back depth and a guy that can play in special teams and things. But if you look at, I guess peripherals, yeah, three point six yards per carry last year is peripherals were not great. They've been up and down. They've been better some years. He had a really good rush to the rate last year. And Jack's going to chime in and remind me that when a guy gets 5.6% rushing TD rates is you can't run for 20 yard gains when he's going touchdowns every time. And that's very valid. But and he was very efficient as a short yardage runner. And so there are there are like there's things that I do see in the profile, but he's not necessarily a great receiving back or he had a limited receiving role. It's never caught 20 passes in a season. And like they also went and signed James Connor and James Conner has been the guy that's been there do everything back for years and also had a huge red zone role and been a really good goal line score. And he's got that like cap in energy like, oh, you go give him those touches. I mean, as far as love's concerned, like it is a problem that there are multiple of these guys behind him. I don't know what it's going to mean, but they paid both those guys this off season. And then Benson to me is probably the most talented of the three backups. He's had really big yards per carries his first two years. He's actually been good. I know everyone's like, I'm sick of that, dude. We drafted him. He wasn't good for fantasy. But like his his evasion has been as advertised, it was really good in his prospect profile. He was at 0.33 mistakels forced per touch last year, which is a elite stuff. And like before he got before James Connor got hurt, he was playing a lot more than he had been as a rookie. This is now under a whole different regime and everything. He was starting to play more. He was starting to cut into Connor. He was starting to play more on pass downs. It was like, ooh, this is interesting. Then Connor got hurt and it was like, oh, trade Benson wheels up. And then it gets hurt like the next week. And we now were like the second round pick going into year three, who actually had really good evasion, good breakaway rates, good 5.5 yards per carry last year. Like looked like he was like a legit breakout candidate before that injury. Yeah, I mean, the best of it ability is availability and all those things. But he actually looks interesting to me. So like before the love pick, I was like, I kind of want to play trade Benson to end up beating out out here in Connor a little bit. Now it's like, man, you have three back Benson's probably going to get caught or traded or something. But I'm going to be in on him wherever he lands, probably. Like I actually think there's an intrigue in the profile. Yeah, I agree with you on Benson. I think that he is the most interesting from a talent standpoint. I do think that given the timing of them signing out year with this new staff, I mean, Benson has no connection to the new staff, the new staff signed out year basically as soon as they got hired. So I think that you can clearly say that the staff values LG over Benson. That doesn't mean Benson can't be good elsewhere. It just means for this specific situation. And then on LG versus Connor, Connor didn't sign an extension. He restructured his deal. I think it was very, very likely that he was going to get cut if he didn't restructure his deal. I think that he basically agreed to the restructure and to a pay cut so that he could remain with Arizona's 31 years old. I don't know what his priorities are. If he didn't think he'd have a market in pre-agency, but I feel pretty good about LG is the RV 2 here. That doesn't mean I think he's like some awesome fantasy pick. He's going to be an early down guy at best with love, healthy, a love go that goes down. He doesn't have a pass catching profile. He's on the worst offensive football from an implied team total standpoint. So it's fair to question what the actual workload is worth even if love goes down. But I do think that he's pretty clearly an RV 2 here. Okay. Yeah, that's a fair point. It seems like what the Connor restructuring that Benson can't be active on game day. Like because Al Jaze is going to play on special teams probably at least a little bit, even if he is still sort of the RV 2. That's been a skill set of his, like I said, he's been doing it even behind Bijon and Atlanta as the clear RV 2 there for years. So it's kind of an odd series of events this off season. Yeah, Joe contract isn't a ton, but he did get 8 mil guaranteed, which is the same that JK Dobbins got guaranteed with with the Broncos and you know, Dobbins was like their prize or their, their, you know, key target in this off season. So, you know, it was I think like decent meaningful money again, you know, not something that we saw like Travis ET with the Saints or anything. But, you know, 8 mil guaranteed is nothing to sneeze at I think in this current right back market. Oh, sure. I wasn't trying to like, yeah, I wasn't trying to downplay it too much. He sounded like the first day of a free agency. And so sometimes like, you know, you get a little more money on those very first contracts and it, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're, well, anyway, I like Jack's note and I don't have a clear read on this. So, I mean, I'm glad that he's got a clear read on it that I was just going to be sort of the number two. Regardless, the bigger thing that we all think is that love is going to be pretty clearly the lead back. My issue and our projection sort of reflected is like, where's the ceiling within this offense? He's got to be really dynamic on his own and like elevate the offense above what the market is seeing for the offense. And the market is factoring in that they have Jeremiah love and they don't think they're going to score a lot of points. So it's, it's, I mean, even even from that perspective, like you were saying, you don't really think Al Jir is a great pick. I'm going to probably adjust my projections to give Al Jir more as a number two. I don't think I want to play him as the back like the handcuff in this offense necessarily. I think it's kind of a stay away. And maybe if if one of these guys gets moved or cut or, you know, whatever happens, the rest of this offseason, that'll maybe provide some further clarity. But at this point in time, I think it's hard to really see much fantasy upside beyond love. Even even with you know, as you say, you kind of have to consider taking a few stabs at love because he is cheap enough and you're like, I mean, he's a super prosper. Yeah. All right. Let's go to the wide receiver room here. Another kind of tricky tricky one to talk through as as Marvin Harris and junior and Michael Wilson headline the room. They also brought in 31 year old Kendrick born who's been the college handahan system. A lot of his career also spent a few years in New England as well. But you know, big story. along with Tramick Brides, just absolutely monstrous close to the season was Michael Wilson's as well. And he kind of benefited from just that pure route volume. Also, he was second in the NFL among wider receivers in total routes run last year behind only Jamar Chase. And the splits there for Michael Wilson are pretty dramatic when Marvin Harrison is on and off the field with four Michael Wilson with with Marvin Harrison Jr. on the field last year. Michael Wilson had a 13% target per out run that jumped all the way to 29% with Marvin Harrison Jr. off the field. If we go back to when Marvin Harrison was drafted in 2024. So the last two seasons, it's just a 14% target per out run for Michael Wilson there. So it really was just a massive breakout with with Harrison off the field. But this Wilson profile isn't it is interesting. You know, he just turned 26. He's the legit, you know, pretty big wide receiver 6 2 2 13 pounds. He has 8.3 yards per target across his career. So, you know, relatively decent there. But do you think Marvin Harrison, you know, still should be viewed as as wide receiver one here in terms of inputs for the Cardinals. We have Marvin Harrison at 105 targets. Gretches at 109. We are at 95 targets on Michael Wilson. Gretches at 109 there. So he kind of split the two evenly. Jack, do you, you know, kind of agree with me on the Harrison Jr. and Wilson split. And then we can get Gretches thoughts since he, uh, since he has them even currently in targets. Yeah, it's a new staff. So I'm not even sure how much we want to weigh this. Um, but even after Michael Wilson had two massive games without Marvin Harrison last year. When, when M. H. J. came back, they each had seven targets in the first game. Harrison came back in. But Marvin Harrison left early again. And before he left early, it was seven to three Harrison. And then Wilson had four targets in the fourth quarter after he left. So every time Harrison was available, they kept going back to him as their wide receiver won again. It's a new staff. So I don't, I don't totally know how much to weigh that. Um, I don't mind where Gretches has it with them both just them both just even with, uh, Harrison having the higher pedigree and Wilson showing more last year. Um, I think it'll be interesting. I think the wide receiver snaps will be really condensed around these two. I think that this is a team that's going to play their backup tight ends quite a bit. So I'm not super worried about the wide receiver three and such eating into them. Um, I mean, this is a good time to ring up one of my favorite quotes of the offseason when Michael Flora said that Marvin Harrison Jr. will play the Devontite Adams role and Michael Wilson will play the Puka role, um, which is, you know, just if you need a baseline expectation for these guys. Um, but yeah, I think it's, I think we're leaning into with the new staff, the fact that Harrison had better target earning last year when they were both on the field and the fact that he was still the fourth overall pick and they still have some level of commitment to him because of that. But Wilson in those games, Harrison missed last year certainly showing more than the image they ever has. And it's a, it's a really tough one to figure out. It's like the way that you're talking about it is exactly the way that I'm thinking of it, which is like this is a classic like example of how much do you weigh different splits? I mean, I think part of the Michael Wilson thing was a real connection with Chicobe Bersat. I feel like there's like real stuff there sometimes with the QB things. Michael Wilson had 18 total targets in five Kyler games. He later had an 18 target game with Chicobe Bersat. He had two more at 15 targets. He like you said, he ran one route shy. If you look at his full numbers, 19.7% targets per out was a big bump from his previous career. High, but clearly impacted by Marbon Harrison missing time. I put in my notes, which Jack just, you know, obviously laid out very well. And then I have, in my other notes, that Marbon Harrison Jr. has a very similar yards per out run to Wilson just way fewer routes. And he ran all his against Wilson, whereas Wilson had a bunch of his routes with no Harrison on the field, which is helpful. And yet it is tricky to not like how much do you want to look at splits? How much do you want to consider the fact that the quarterback that's likely to start week one Chicobe Bersat targeted Wilson 15 plus times in three separate games last year. Like a lot of their late game stuff was just like quick outs and things like that. I mean, I do think there's an element there. The reason I split them at 50 50 gets back to, well, one, what Jack said about Harrison being better when they're on the field together. But I don't think we just throw out what Wilson did obviously when Harrison was off the field. Cause I mean, it was so insane. But to the point that Jack made about Harrison's pedigree, which I do think still very much matters. And and should matter. He's I was up with a long view stuff. He's a guy who was very productive in college, like very, very productive. And I I don't think through two years that we should like think of him as a bust or anything like that. I mean, this was a guy that did a lot at Ohio State. The one thing that they have gone for is it does seem like it's going to be very concentrated. They brought in Kendrick born. The floor is excited about that. Looks like the clear number three. They drafted this Reggie Virgil guy. Doesn't seem super exciting as a rookie fifth rounder. We both have born for about 50-ish targets. This is the closest projection we've had across this team. This whole series. But we have a very concentrated one on the top two receivers then born for about 50 as this White receiver three. That's not even that much of a threat. And then we both have Virgil right around just under 20 and then Diverne is the fifth guy at like six targets, like not doing. So not a lot for White receiver four and White receiver five is what I'm getting at. And not even a lot for White receiver three. And then obviously you go over to Titan. You have Tramack bride and you have a bunch of there. But it really is going to come down to those three guys probably. And then what love gives you as a receiver in the past game, which we had 59 targets. Both of us right on the nose. I didn't know how really high to go on him in the passing game considering that the Rams offense. We talked about a little bit earlier on the show didn't do a ton of passing to the backs, but they're going to get love the ball in space. I think so anyway. It seems like it's going to be these two guys with Mick Bride as the main dudes to get the volume. It's just really hard to figure out what you want to do with the different splits with the Wilson thing being also if you go first half second half. And like again, 18 total targets in the first five games. Wilson's yards per out run first five games was nothing. And then after that, it's incredible the rest of the way. Like can you put that genie back in the bottle? Like it is a new staff as well though. Like what are these things mean? I might know it on Wilson. His 2026 is likely to feature some combo of fewer routes. You mentioned he's got one away from Jamar Chase. Some combination of where's my now fewer routes. More competition because Marvin Harris is going to be on the field board. And potentially we could connection with the quarterback because I do think the percent thing is very notable. The fact that he only had 18 targets in five college games. How does that play with Carson Beck? If Carson Beck's plan half the year is just a percent thing that really made Wilson as far as the ceiling goes. I don't really know about Wilson, man. It's like last year, I like to chase that type of ceiling. What he was doing on a weekly basis for a while there with percent. I have a hard time imagining drafting him based on just that, I guess, for a lot of the reasons that Jack just laid out as well. And then Marvin Harris and Jr. fits more what I want to think about on long-view stuff, which is like this guy's better as a prospect and has a better pedigree than what his last couple seasons have said. And so maybe the market's just over reacting and we're getting a we're getting a price now to bet on a guy who's potentially a future star. I mean, there are guys who have started worse than him over the first two years and come around later. Devont Adams is a great example of that we were just talking about. But the other keynote again, his yards per out run over the whole season is still similar to Michael Wilson's. It's just that Wilson ran a ton of routes. The whole thing is tricky. I was expecting Marvin Harris and Jr. is like per routes, stuff to be way worse when I looked into I was a little surprised. He's had a 21% target per out run in his career. He has 12 touchdowns on 189 targets. That's good 6.3% TD rate. So has been performing there. And then I do think you have the optimism of a new coaching staff being able to deploy him in that. Devont Adams role that Jack alluded to there that that'll officially unlock him. But no, I think that the market is just so down on him and it's obviously an expectations thing. When you get drafted fourth overall and you're the best wide receiver price actor ever to come out of Ohio State and who's just continued to turn out high level wide receivers in the NFL. The expectations were just out of control. There and he certainly fell short. But I think he's probably had a better career start to his career than most people would anticipate. I do think your note on Wilson's connection with Versette is is an interesting one because looking into Wilson stuff to he was fifth last year and contested targets and then was second in terms of his contested catches converted on the season. He had so had the second highest percentage of converting those contested targets behind only Pukka Nakuwa who was first in the NFL. So there's just another feather in Pukka's cap there. But Wilson really excelled in that department. I think Versette ended up trusting him a ton. When he's dropping back, he's like, "Man, I'm throwing it to Michael Wilson or Tramick Brydon." One of those two are going to come down with it. I think it's a pretty fragile profile. But as you guys have alluded to, the upside, what Wilson did display is tough to ignore overall. It feels a lot like the Parker Washington Brydon Thomas thing too. But Marwan Harrison has an even better prospect profile than Brian Thomas did. But it's like, "Man, what do you do with?" I don't know. You get the 2025 hit didn't have as much of a long-term profile in Michael Wilson. But there's some interesting stuff. He's always been an efficient player for target and stuff, which is sort of similar to the Parker Washington thing. And then I don't, I mean, I don't, I don't like, I should want to play Marvin Harrison. But Michael Wilson was was was really good last year. So it's tricky. All right. Let's wrap up this receiving group and look towards the tight ends here. Obviously Tramick, Brydon headlines. The cheer of the else have Elijah Higgins at tight end tip rhyming at tied in three they were. We're also be healthy, 12 personnel team last year. I do wonder if LaFlough brings over, you know, some 13 personnel tendencies. They at least have the, I think, you know, the base personnel to do it here with Higgins and rhyming being somewhat capable, you know, second and third tight ends here. Now we talked about McFragis, outrageous routes run last year. But what really set him off in fantasy was the touchdown spike. And that was the knock on McBride coming into last year. It was man, this guy can't score touchdowns. He's never going to be able to score such a chance and sure enough, he ended up with 11 last season after scoring only six in his first three seasons. So last year was a six and a half percent touchdown rate. He had a 2% touchdown rate in his first three seasons. This is stuff that is kind of tough to pin down exactly where, where to project for the upcoming season. So, you know, at Tramack Ride, we're at four and a half percent touchdown rate. Right, it's at 4% in terms of overall targets. We're at 130 targets, Grash at 134. So honestly, the TD rate was something I was interested to see where Grashy Lane, I don't know if you put a whole lot of thought into that, just kind of given the explosion from last season. But that's really, again, what separated McBride as like the very, very clear tight end one last year in points for games. So like, can that continue? You know, it's, it's to be determined. But right now we're at, we're projecting about six touchdowns receiving four McBride and Grash has more around five and a half. Yeah, I was tricky. No, I put a lot of, a lot of thought into it. I think I'm on the, this series last year, I was projecting McBride to score a lot more touchdowns and Leoni was not happy with me because he was like, you can't just project a guy to do something that he's never done before. And you know, I think Leoni was right because he only had one TD in five games with Kyler Murray and that you get the surprise, no Kyler Murray. And then suddenly he's got 10 touchdowns in 12 games the rest of the way with a different quarterback than you're expecting to be in there. And we find out that maybe it had more to do with Kyler Murray than it did with Tremick Bride. He tied for the top of the position with 11. Like you said, it wasn't just that he improved a little bit. And it's funny. I went over that in my field tipper series where like I did, I was like sort of proud of that that I did the little more of the art than the science and did project this guy who's an elite talent to score more than he had shown because I felt like it was, you know, there and that was a fair thing to do. And even still I think I only projected him for like five or six touchdowns and then he goes on and scores 11. And so like I didn't even have him close to being the tight end one in my projections last year. It's just gets back to this thing of like we're looking for outliers and these crazy things that are sometimes often unprojectable. It's not something that I for saw at all that he would go out and score 11 times. But it's tricky to know what we're going to see this year. I mean, I did give it a lot of thought this year as well. And I was telling you guys actually a little bit. This was the last team I was doing before we jumped on that my initial run of Arizona had them scoring too many offensive touchdowns, which often happens with the teams that are away on the on the tails. And I had to nuke McBride's touchdown rate a little bit. I wanted to keep like I wanted to regress him less, but I ended up regressing him more than I wanted to just to get the team touchdowns a little lower. I also had to take touchdowns off of Jeremiah Love from where I would have liked to have his numbers. But yeah, as far as McBride's the rest of his profile other than the touchdowns, I still think there's a lot there to like one of the things I thought with the routes. I think the routes are going to come way down. What's interesting is when you run that many routes, you get a lot of empty routes, right? His yards per route run was 1.78 last year in his massive breakout season. He had been over two, both of the first two years. So he was meaningfully lower. His targets per route run fell 2.5 points in 23 and 24. It was a matching 25.9%. It went all the way down to 23.5%. In the season where he had 51 more targets than any other tight end, like that's what happens when you run that many routes as you do have the empty routes and everything. And so it's actually there's a little bit of per route meat on the bone. I don't want people to be too concerned with the route regression because as the routes do come down as the offense looks different. He's already shown an ability to get more targets per route and more yards per route. And so it should offset that sum. It's going to be tough for him to match the number. I will say it's very fascinating to me on Tramik Bride. He was an early third round pick last year, about like 25 and 80 p. On underdog, I checked this a little while ago. I haven't checked recently where he's at, but he was basically at the exact same spot this year. Despite coming off one of the greatest high-end seasons of all time that confirmed like a huge upside and long-term positive on Mike Bride, it does speak to the offensive environmental situation here and the concern about what the environment was last year. But this also to me feels a little bit like one of those things where I talked about like over-regressing sometimes in one of the earlier teams that we talked about. I think the fancy market is smart enough to know we need to pull the routes out. We need to do all that stuff. He's not going to run 700 routes again this year. At the same time, like, dude, at 160 targets last year, he had 50 more targets than any other tight end. I don't think you want to be so over-regressing yet that you're like out on a player who was the focal point of their offense. And even though they have a new regime, I think he's going to be the focal point of that offense because he's just a superstar. He also doesn't really have super notable splits with Marvin Harrison Jr. on and off to field. Like we talked about with Michael Wilson, the huge gap there. The Traimic Bride has been very consistently in the mid 20% in terms of target for our out-run regardless of who is on the field alongside of them. So I think the role is a little bit impenetrable in that regard. But, Jack, we just start the off season with Traimic Bride as the tight end won and have since flipped hours ahead. We alluded to that on the AFC West pod as well. But just curious your thoughts on the inputs here with McBride. Is that something I know you've been tinkering with a little bit as the off season has progressed here? Yeah, we lowered McBride recently mostly just to get bowers ahead in target share. I think given the competition that they both have, when one guy has Marvin Harrison, Michael Wilson, Jeremiah Love, and the other guy has Trade Talker and Jalen Neller to compete with for targets. I think even if McBride has been such a dominant target-ernic force over the past few years from a target share perspective, he's been 28 and 26 percent the last few years. I think given what bowers did as a rookie combined with the inferior target competition to make sense to have him ahead in terms of what percent, how much of the pie each of them are getting. And so now with that and with both of them being on projected terrible offenses, we now have bowers ahead. But like Rich said, it's not a knock on McBride at all. I do think the touch-dinered stuff is interesting. The splits with Kyler and with Percent and the narrative that Kyler, given his height, kind of struggled to hit McBride in the red zone. That's kind of what I believe just because of how stark the splits are. So I think with Percent and Beck, maybe we start to see not quite the level of touch-down scoring in such a bad offense as we saw with McBride last year. But I do think that the stuff we saw with Kyler earlier news, Kuerz, is probably partially based on that narrative going around about the height. One note I had on the, you mentioned on Bowers is that his 2025 represents some of the concerns from McBride's 2026. And I mentioned Bowers ran the most tight-ed in routes in 2024. And so going into last year, if you're trying to find knocks on Bowers or trying to visualize like what his season could look like, I mean, the injury obviously was part of it for Bowers, but also just the different team environment we talked about in the last show about how the Raiders just had a really poor offensive season. If this team is just really bad, if LaFluffler is not it as the coach, if Carson Beck is not it, obviously we saw a brisette was able to at least sustain some things for them, but maybe brisette gets hurt or something and he's not able to play. You could get into a team environment situation that's, and that's what the market is projecting for these guys. So that part of it is really concerning for me for McBride as a huge fan of McBride's. I'm worried that his, I mean, I also just got done saying we don't want to overregress, but I mean, it's probably going to be a very different season this year for the Cardinals. Yeah, I think the schedule is worth bringing up here. I think maybe if people aren't aware of the schedule, they're thinking this offense has these great skill pieces, how are they implied for so few points. They just have an absolutely unbelievable schedule. Like the worst I can ever remember the first time that they are less than a touchdown underdog is in week 12, which will also potentially contribute to how long brisette can remain the starter. It's just a terrible schedule and that really drags down all of the offensive pieces from us, scoring expectations standpoint. It's also super funny for the perspective of like they're always worried about what do we throw the rookie into the wolves or whatever. When do we start it? Like he's going to be a touchdown underdog regardless. It's wild. Yeah. I mean, the NFC West, one of the best, best converts or divisions in the NFL. So they play all those, all those teams twice, you know, San Francisco, one of their games in week 18, so not in the fantasy season, but in terms of out of division schedule, they also play the Lions, the Broncos, the chiefs and the Eagles. So again, just, you know, all those opponents are stacked up. They have a late week 14 by as well. So it's going to be an absolute gauntlet until they get to their by week, you know, pretty much their softest opponent. And the first 13 games is a game at the New York Giants in week four, but that's going to be a one PM Eastern time start, you know, for a team traveling from Arizona. So even a really difficult setup there, just just traveling on the road. It's going to be, it's going to be wild to see like I was the fact that we're, you know, kind of like so and locks up on a team team play calling level and even across the players. I think it is just truly wild. And this is, I just like I'm so eager to see this play out for the Cardinals kind of given the setup coming off. of that liar year they had in 2025. - And I will add, if you somehow make it to the fantasy playoffs with some of these cardinals players who faced the NFL's worst schedule of all time through the first 14 weeks, they do get the Jets, Saints, and Raiders in the playoffs. So you do get a little bit of a payoff if you can make it to the playoffs. I think they have the biggest difference between, they're their first or second and their difference in their implied team total in weeks one through 14 versus weeks 15 through 17. It's not like they're suddenly implied for a bunch of points in the fantasy playoffs, but it is a pretty significant difference from the fantasy regular season. - That's dope. - Absolutely, yeah. So don't try to be serious. - Trade for him ahead of like week 10 or whenever the trade deadline is, I know Jack and I will be all over the season top on 50 show this year for sure. All right, that will do it for episode four of the Divisional Projection series. Appreciate all of you tuning in with us. Thanks again to Jack and Gretz for doing this with me and providing all of the great insight. You guys have had over last two and a half hours here. Be sure to give them a follow on Twitter at JackMiller02 and Gretz at Yards per Gretz. Really appreciate all the support here for this series. We are officially halfway through FALAS. That is pretty awesome again. A little bit of a gap here as we handle some family vacations and other summer, summer, you know, dealings to happen over the next couple of weeks. So we'll be back on the airwaves here in a couple of weeks. Have a good day, everyone. Peace out. (upbeat music)