ETE Projections Special Part 6: NFC West with Ben Gretch

[Music] Welcome to the Estelle Fee Edge Podcast. I'm your host Mike Bihoney here with spendgratchoffungratch.substack.com Back for episode 5, episode 6 of our offseason projection special with the NFC West. We took a week off that people have been clamoring for this division in particular. So yeah, Ben, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, we were here in that it's been too long. People are getting itchy for these final three divisions. We'll knock them out. Once they're done people, they're done though. Let's start with San Francisco. To me, it's the most interesting team in the division. For some macro reasons, some micro reasons. Let's start with the macro, which is the play calling and can kind of see the differences off the bat a little bit. We're at 62.2 plays per game. Ben's at 60.6. Both of those are below average, but ours is pretty close to league average. Ben, I'm assuming your 60.6 is one of the lower ones you have or bottom 10, I would assume. It, yeah, I could look that up, bro, it's got to be on the lower. And that while you looked that up in terms of pass rate, we're at 58.5%. Ben's at 56.5%. You'll notice the correlation quite often when we're different. We're, you know, the person with a higher pass rate is higher on the place total, which obviously makes sense. You're going to wind the clock much less frequently when you're throwing the football. The reason they're difficult to project is they had a pretty big for them spike in pass rate last season compared to what they normally do. I believe they finished at like 60%. But in previous seasons, they've been more like like mid 50s, like a very low called pass rate. So there's kind of two school thoughts there. One being, KCMC is going to be back. They had lots of issues last year. They're projected to be much better in terms of win total. This pass rate is going to come down quite a bit. The other kind of flip side is in terms of PROE, their password over expectation was only negative 2% last year. That year, they were kind of mid 50s in 2023 in pass rate. I believe it was more like a negative 6% PROE out double checked that it was around it there. So it wasn't just GameScript related. Now of course, CMC plays a big factor in terms of how much you're going to run the ball to. So it's an interesting kind of angle to figure out and it's tough and important to figure out because this is a team that is very efficient will score the ball quite a bit projected to score the ball quite a bit somewhat concentrated, but like not a ton of like catch volume on the team. So like the password in the play coin does end up matter in the decent bit. Yeah, and so I do have them close to my lowest number. There's a couple interesting things here. We've beat around the bush on one little stat that last year the league average place per game was 62.2. You and I have always used the low 63s as league average. But it was and so the three years prior working back 63.1 63.0 63.3 for the entire league average of place per game to drop basically a full play to 62.2 last year is pretty meaningful. I think I mentioned it on one of the earlier shows, but I think that's because of the touchback rule changing and the drive starting at the 30 and also just the general increase in rushing rate, which has been. So we're getting more running clocks and we're getting fewer plays per drive and you get into situations where you know you went up with a few goal drive on fewer plays and it does kind of just overall affect the the total number of plays in the game. I think and so I'm projecting about 62.6 as my league average this year, which is probably a full half play per game lower than you guys. So I've got one note and then I've got the Niners at 60.6 so about two plays per game below average. You guys at 62.2 I do like that number. I think I'm too low. That would be their highest number in five years. I have 60.4 60.4 61.8 and 60.6 the last four. I don't bet at 62 and four straight years. So it's it's a what I had in my notes after 2023 was that it was about regressing their elite 2023 efficiency, but knowing that that was going to mean more play volume because when you're not we've talked about this with the other elite efficiency offenses when you're not scoring quickly. So you're going to run more plays on your drives and those things they did have to run a lot more plays and their pass rate did go way up as you mentioned and they still didn't see a lot more play volume last year. There's still at 60.4 despite their efficiency and really that's because of mistime if you go look at, you know, CMC misses the whole year and I you miss the whole year and debil probably plays through pneumonia to some degree and you know, you saw Mrs. the first half of his rookie year and like all their players and then Jordan Mason's hitting and then he misses time that so much missed time in this offense last year. And so that that hurts their efficiency. I just thought it was weird that that didn't lead to more play volume. Yeah, I mean, the low play volume regardless if they're really efficient or if they're not. And I think that's odd. Yeah, as you're talking about it, I think we'll probably come down on plays a little bit. I'm just remembering from DFS them sometimes being a team our algorithm would have tough with have a tough time with. I think we improved our play calling there a lot better last year, but in previous years when we did have as good of a model. Generally, the offense is that score like they do run more plays so the model picks up on that, but teams like I think San Francisco and Miami and they both kind of have some similarity with the pre snap motion stuff do end up not running nearly as many plays as you kind of would expect. But did you get really concentrated as you were saying and so it can be it can still be okay for for fantasy, even with the lower play volume as well. Because you know part of the low play volume, even when they were bad last you mentioned them being bad last year, maybe when they're a good part of the reason is just efficiency and even last year like parties yard for attempt was very strong. Generally moving the ball in chunks. I'm just checking our pace stuff to add some things in that, but if you we did kind of a combined pace for the last two years and the shana handoffens is are both the past two seasons are very low in terms of pace over expected in basically any situation no huddle basically any metric that feeds into pace. But I'm going to come up because you're right I was close I don't check it, but I do think San Francisco is going to bounce back be a good offense and I have them. I think just a point one higher than my lowest projected team and you just can't have a double a team with a double digit win total projected is what if you're very low I mean that's that's the rob with San Francisco for sure and why it's why it's difficult. The teams so this situation that we did we kind of ranked the teams last two years like out of 64 teams so San Francisco is in their twice once we're 20 23 once for 2024. But if I just look at the teams in terms of motion and then taste like most of the teams that you're using a lot of motion are pretty slow paced. I mentioned Miami so like the date is kind of backing up my matching there Miami's in there kind of the one exception is just Atlanta from last year as a team that used a lot of motion and still had a bit better pace but that was you know they were kind of just made the top 10 there in terms of the motion ring. And that's another thing that's impacting play volume because motion's been on the upswing overall as you're talking through that that's really interesting as far as the league level trend as well more teams are using more motion to you know what the ways it teams are defending them now to get into better spots and then that's going to lead to fewer play. I mean there's a lot of make shiny offenses out the make vase offense probably is a ton of motions also slow and pace I imagine with the Rams. So let's move along to party who I like from a fantasy perspective decent bit in basketball in particular we kind of have hit on the theme in the redraft a lot about how I do like I got like party relative to cost but sometimes there's just so many of the QB's 13 through 16 that we like that you might just be better off waiting in the redraft setting. I say that with his FFPC ADP is like 138 so I think even at that cost he's probably a decent investment he scrambled more what I liked with pretty last year was some run more we also saw the way he achieved the high yards per attempt which was strong for you know a second straight season was but he did it in a much different way than the year prior you know the year prior when people kind of like naming him for being an MVP conversation was like it's all the skill players it's all yards after the catch is all scheme stuff last year a lot of his players got hurt he was making a lot of plays out of structure it was higher a dot stuff down the field much more much higher conversion of air yards as opposed to just yards after the catch and he still comes in at 8.5 yards per attempt. which is really strong. The TD rate, of course, fell. The team goes six and nine and just doesn't score quite as much. So I was pretty encouraged with pretty season last year. I think you described that perfectly. I don't have much to add. I think in some ways this year last year was better than the year prior because of all of what you just said. There was so much less there to support him and he had to do so much more as a vertical passer and was challenged. Some stats to back up your point. Rush attempts per game, 4.4 last year after 2.4 and 2.8 in the first two years. On 66 rushes last year, he had about double the rushing yards that he had had across his first year and a half combined, which was 61 rushes. Relatively close to the same number of rushes, but he had about double the rushing yards. He had three rushing TDs in that first year and a half, five last year alone. I am projecting to keep some of those games. I do think if he has a lot of talent around him, he'll be able to distribute better. Probably doesn't have to scramble as much. Probably that was somewhat of a response to a lack of separation earning in his past catcher group and that type of stuff. Why did he use as well? Yeah, some line issues. But I also think maybe it was a little bit of evidence of training. He was taking off a little bit right, allowing him to develop his skill set and his playmaking a little more than what we saw in the first two years, where it was somewhat system based and distribute. As he continues to progress, I like some of that scrambling to stick. Probably not all of it because that was a pretty big jump from the first couple of years. Yeah, and to put numbers on it, we got very similar per-tea projections where both in over 4200 yards passing upper 20s and passing touchdowns were right around 60 rush attempts about 250 rushing yards, three and a half rushing touchdowns. We had very similar numbers on per-tea, both over eight yards per attempt as well. Going to CMC, grudges at 252 carries and 80 targets were at 218 and 69. We are very conservative on our CMC inputs. I would say both on base and even like we give each player an odds of hitting a ceiling and we kind of dock his a little bit just on like injury risk stuff that we don't normally do. I'm not sure if that's right or not. It's just the first rounds. We feel so good about the top five or six players. We've been afraid to fully put that on him. My point being that the discrepancy between our numbers and grudges, if CMC plays a full season, he's probably hitting grudges numbers. We still have him top. I think we have about seventh overall in most formats. This is a player that once again, if he stays healthy, he could easily be the top return to being the top player in all fantasy. Like I said, our inputs are extremely conservative and we have them inside the top ten. We've always talked about this, but I come in a little hot because I like to look at it. I don't have as much research into the missed time and the things that you guys have built into your projections that make them way more accurate. Your numbers are going to reflect a better range of outcomes. For me, it becomes a thing of like, I would just be guessing at how much missed time he is. I want it to be consistent. I like to just do pretty much assume health basically. When I pretty much assume health, he comes out as my RB1. When he's healthy, it changes this whole offense. It changes this whole projection. The running back target rate spikes when he's healthy. It also suddenly becomes very difficult to dole out targets to all the positions because the running back target rate spikes. So if he's out there, I think it meaningfully impacts the receivers in the tight end. It changes the whole thing. He looks healthy this offseason. They're talking about him very favorably and they're saying that they expect him to be done everything he can to take care of himself and all those things. So I mean, I'm I guess I'm not taking a lot of him, but he's like such an enigma. I don't even know what to say about him. That's what you just said. If he's healthy, he's probably going to be value. Probably going to be pretty dark. Yeah, and it's just tough because I if I felt worse about the top five or six names on the board, you know, I might be normally I'm the guy that's like it's tough to predict health. We know what this person can do. Let's be in on that that upside. But you're talking guys like CD, Jefferson chase, B. John, Barclay, even Jemir Gibbs in there, like it's a pretty good group that said, I think we'll probably on wine, like kind of like our ceiling odds, doc that we have on them as we continue to get closer to the season and the reports continue to be good on. And I think that's what I think for you on him because I the one I think about with him is Barclay because I think the Barclay, the really hard to quantify thing is he had what was it like 482 touches through the post season. Yeah, and I don't know how to quantify if that increases his injury risk the next year. Obviously, there's been a lot of research done on that. I do know that if I project them both to be healthy that the way that McCaffrey is using the passing game probably gives McCaffrey a better statistical ceiling in like a PPR format. And more injury prone to I think McCaffrey is and do I just think that because he got injured last year and Barclay didn't like is it like a little bit of recency bias in that regard. They're both older backs. I keep putting them in the same head spot in my head in terms of injury risk and acknowledging that CMC statistical profiles probably higher ceiling the way that they're receiving plays. I'd say a couple things there one JJ's agrees and in his newsletter had a good explanation on the Barclay thing which a lot of it is these players with high touches do generally see less touches and sometimes get hurt the next year. But a lot of that happens to all running backs that are just getting touches a lot of touches within year and also generally they're coming off huge touch seasons because the season just went really well in all aspects team did well players they'd healthy and there's some regression that has nothing to do with injury that just generally tends to happen with these these top backs. So I think if you just look a list of like the really high touchbacks in the year after you could scare yourself a little bit and think oh my god I can't take sake one it's a lot it's too risky and I think that's probably that analysis is is not nuanced enough as far as the CMC stuff it's definitely a little bit recency bias. I think especially the way it happened last year in terms of like the team being a little coy and like we kind of thought he was fine I was honestly like kind of making fun of people for not being willing to take him in drafts in August. I'm like and then you know I got my face with how that turned out. But he's also had you know three seasons in his career where he's missed you know a chunk of time although one of those I think was like because of he just didn't return from the previous years in jury. So I just think there's a couple of seasons on the books but that's sad. I think as we get closer to the season and the reports are good on him I'll start to move him up it's just it's tough for me to break the ties. I do agree with you like if you just gave me full health on say quan and full health on CMC in a PPR league and you guaranteed both these guys play a full season I'm taking CMC you know the past catching is just such an enormous difference. It's not like he's not efficient as a runner and didn't have breakaway runs with San Francisco either like he led the league in rushing in 2023. Yeah. So let's not like in rushing touchdowns to the upside I think is just as strong as say quan so yeah it's. It's a tough conversation I think it's everyone's risk tolerance and I wish I had a better answer for you as far as like quantifying how much more risky as in say quan but I just really don't know it might be zero I think it could be as low as zero percent more risk and it could be as I as like you know 33% more risk I really don't know right. But we agree there's definitely more risk with CMC and I think rightfully so but I'm the big part of his profile that you just mentioned with the rushing being really strong is that he has had a really strong receiving TD rate as well. And I do think if he's healthy it helps Brock parties ceiling because they've done some stuff with him going back to 2023 and earlier when he was healthy in the red zone splitting him out doing some things that he can be a matchup problem and then it helps the past TD rate a little bit when you have him on the field I will say with as far as the backups Isaac Garendo sometimes I talk about the targets per route for running backs in terms of whether the team was getting the ball to that player with intent versus just like a check down Jordan. Jordan Mason ran 170 routes had a 9% targets per route. Garendo was up at 15% CMC is usually around 20 but what we got with Garendo was closer to to CMC than like what Mason was doing which was just not being used in the past game at all they they did seem to really like him he was really good with his efficiency as a receiving back as well limited number of routes only a hundred and seven routes but had a 9.5 yards per target. Just generally speaking, grand as five yards per carry a 9.5 yards per target is a really strong efficiency profile that I'm guessing would will be rewarded like I'm guessing that deserves like a kind of a road. role and maybe that cuts into CMC's total volume because I did end up projecting him lower than like, if you just look at his healthy games, I would be projecting him for even more volume than I was. But I'm projecting him to have a second running back be more involved than there was in 2023. And for that guy to mostly be Garendo rather than the rookie Jordan James whose profile is okay, but one of the notes I had on him was that Lynch right after the draft said that James doesn't necessarily have top end speed. And then he did go on to compliment his burst and his hands and his physicality on this stuff. But like, most GMs are saying really positive stuff. Like, you know, the play speed is super fast and the time speed is deceptive. He's like straight up being like, no, that's a limitation. Like, I got the impression that kind of CM is more of a role player. But you never want to be completely out on a rookie running back with the Niners. Let's go to wide receiver, which is, I don't want to say a mess to figure out, but you know, it's important to try and figure out given the upside and the efficiency that we've talked with Perdi and this team likely to score more touchdowns and that swinging back to, you know, a decent amount of passing touchdowns. Joanne Jennings, we both have as the lead in targets. I don't think either of us are seriously factoring in any of the holdout rumors that just recently, rumors might even be wrong word, but the threat of a holdout right now, not factoring that in. So we've got 103 targets. You're at 98 targets. I talked to 1% target share to comment on that. Yeah, we're probably, I don't think we docked him at all or maybe half a percent. The, no, I did want to make on Jennings is he was very good last year. Like, he wasn't just a routes play. Like, in my mind, it was like, oh, they had a lot of injuries and they needed to throw the ball to someone. He had a 28.7% target per out run with 8.6 yards per target. That's just phenomenal to do that type of efficiency on that type of volume. Yep. Yeah, I mean, turns 28. I have a note that turns 28 this month, which maybe he already did by the time we're recording this. And so my, the target per outstuffs can be a little different depending on what is classified as a route. I have it at 25.7% a little lower than the number you just gave. But on my numbers, pierce all the way at 14.4%. It's people have, and I want to hear your take on pierce all because you told me you have a take it. I don't even know if it's good or badness. I'm very excited about this. But my thought on, on pierce all was when he first got back from the gunshot, which obviously cost him a ton of time, they got him some manufacturing volume in his first couple of games and then he went several games and was really doing nothing but was playing a lot. And I, I think the people that are really in on him are maybe over like looking that stretch a little bit is the one point I want to make. So he had targets of five, four and six, a game target totals of five, four and six. And then while playing at least 50% of the snaps, he went to zero, one, and then he played 49% of the snaps to there's a four game stretch where he has five targets and four games where he's, he played 30 plus offense of snaps every one of those games. And then four in each of the next two games and then it closes the season with the two games that a lot of people have talked about that when he was finally ready, he has his two game stretch at the end that's awesome. He had a ten target game eight catches one forty one in a TD and then an eight target six catch 69 in a TD game as well. Now that was after the Niners had been eliminated and in my opinion were sort of again seemingly trying to get him involved in sort of force feeding him to a certain degree. We want to build on this now he was very good when he was being quote unquote force fed, even if you buy that. I think he was very productive in those games in a meaningfully positive way when I look at the full body work and see the targets brought that's basically half of what Jennings had and he was running a lot of routes at that same time that was after I Yook's injury most of his routes were after I Yook's injury. They were without CMC in the offense and they were after Dibo had had the pneumonia was struggling and so they needed somebody to step up and I felt like they were trying to give him every opportunity to step up and I guess I was a little bit more disappointed in Pierce Hall's rookie year than I think most people were and so a little bit concerned about that middle stretch where he really didn't earn a lot of volume and that it really consolidated at the beginning when he first came back and then the last couple games. So we have probably had our most I don't want to say contentious but I'll go with contentious arguments and slack over Ricky Pierce Hall probably more so than any player. Adam and Silva kind of football guys are very on Ricky Pierce Hall. This is what Evan told me in slack hyper-expulsive first round pick in a hyper-efficient offense with question marks about virtually every other member of the past catcher corks not sure what's not to like isn't this the type of guy you want to aggressively get on your fantasy teams. The listeners are going to note that you just changed your voice to a silver voice and it was pretty great. I think I did like quarter Silva. Yeah, it was a quarter Silva. My response to that is kind of like I don't think any of that in the vacuum is not necessarily wrong but when you're making like purely qualitative arguments you can really make anyone sound pretty good or pretty bad. The difficult job is like trying to look at the whole picture and wait everything properly. So yes, I think there's a lot of upside to Ricky Pierce Hall. He's very athletic. He was a former first round pick. It's just an offense. You kind of can see upside happening on and there's just a wide range of outcomes on Ricky Pierce Hall. The thing I come back to which I think is matching with what you're saying is it does feel a little bit like people are overconfident that he's good and their misremembering last season. I went in this off season and I mentioned this on the Bills podcast but I'm seeing Keon Coleman with a higher yard per out run on more routes than Ricky Pierce Hall and no one cares and everyone's acting like Pierce Hall like oh we got to react to this first season. It wasn't that you know it was fine. It was like a normal kind of production and I'd also push back against the and you did it and noting this as well. It wasn't just that like oh he started slow coming back from you know the gunshot injury. He had a stretch and JJ Zacharyerson and in his prospect guide is a year two model noting that Ricky Pierce Hall's year two score in his model is decently below Keon Coleman's and in line with Xavier Leigh Gets and he notes that Pierce Hall had this stretch which was after he was clearly out of the woods with the injury and playing of three games where he ran 63 routes and didn't gain a single yard. So yes he finished the last two games very well but you can't act like this stuff before that didn't happen. And the big point about that is that his what everything Silva had said which I do think is really meaningful and as wide we're talking about this so much because talk about that high breath let us in in this offense where they can create yeah opportunities it could be really exciting but the big issue with his profile was that the production in college wasn't necessarily there he didn't earn big volume he didn't there's a five year guy that didn't have the like typical analytical production profile it was a projection on athleticism and then you see in year one yes he missed a lot of time and practice and stuff last year but I'll note he has a hamstring injury this off season that's already costing him more time this off season and it's that's concerning to me when he you know we want to see this guy getting reports right now that he's back in perfect health and looks amazing in camp and instead we're hearing that he's not practicing yeah part of the reason he didn't rate as high in JJ's year two model like you said like it wasn't a great production profile he's an older prospect and he did get drafted earlier than he was you know expected by consensus so yes he was a first round pick but it's the very end of round one and it went earlier than kind of he was supposed to so the other thing I want to add digging in a little deeper because people are talking about like how it's a mess around him and obviously Debo Samuel's gone like we haven't brought that up I ever listening knows that but like that's part of it too is like Debo's gone if you look at only routes when Debo was off the field last year Pierce all was a distant fourth in targets per out run behind IUke behind Jennings behind kill we haven't even brought up that all this time's happening without CMC playing now we've got CMC who we've already talked about really increasing the amount of target shadows can go to running backs that didn't happen last year but maybe even changing the play calling of the offense entirely in a way that's less plays and less passes so all this is probably making us sound probably more anti-piercer than we are it's just trying to look at the whole picture because you don't want to stop at ton of upside for a year two guy who's super athletic in an offense where there's opportunity for that to shine yes that's true but you do want to look at the whole picture I don't think he's like the worst pick at ADP or anything, but I do think like he's about at as rich of a cause right now as I'd be willing to bet that. - Yeah. - If he got more expensive, I'd be out. - Yeah, I'm not taking a lot of him here. I could see taken him, especially with the gending stuff. I mean, if gending's, that's the other part of it for me. You do the math. I'm like, okay, well, last year there was a lot of names ahead of him and that's why I wasn't really as in on him, even as a, you know, a double digit round pick last year. It was like, prying his a lot of injuries in front of him and he kind of got that to be clear. Obviously, you know, I keep mentioning the gunshot thing 'cause the counter you'll always get is, well, I mean, probably you're just being, you know, too harsh on a guy who had a gunshot wound and didn't get a practice and all that. And like, if your whole case is that he was this bad for two months of the NFL season because he missed so much practice time last year, then, I mean, you do have to recognize that that's your whole case 'cause he was that type of a prospect as well to a degree and not earning huge volume. Like, I do think you can give him leniency on that but you also would have liked to see more, right? And the playing time that he actually had is, I think the point that we're making, you don't want that to be your whole case is sort of what I'm trying to emphasize. So, but the other thing I was gonna say is he had all these guys ahead of him, the John Jennings break out, which we're both saying, the numbers look really favorable. And as long as he does get the contract stuff sorted out and isn't, you know, holding out, if McCaffrey's back in impacting their running back target share and Jennings and then especially later in the year when I yukes back and kittle, you're still fifth on the team. You have to be a target owner to make some waves now. Like, you have to be able to find volume. - Fifth on low volume. - One thing you mentioned. - Volume off past offense. - On a low-voin past offense. You mentioned Debo. I'll say this, if they use a wider receiver in the run game any kind of way to replace some of Debo stuff, probably his pierce all. I don't think they're necessarily gonna do that. It seemed like Debo specific stuff, but I will say that. Like, I could see them seeing pierce all as the Debo replacement with some of that type of, you know, play calling. What's about all that I can really get super excited about other than just hope that he's better than what he was as a prospect than what he was in year one, which I mean, draft capital athleticism, you can hope some of that stuff, but you don't wanna take that too far. - Yeah, 100% aligned. If we're too light on pierce all, it's probably either discounting the Jennings holdout risk or the should we just completely bury Brandon IU coming back from injury. We both have IU for around 70 targets. We're assuming five to six miss games in that. - And that's a problem. - That is a problem. - Pierce all's column where there's an element of like, he's gonna get his chances early, and if he does well, maybe that sticks, and we're kinda doing it all at once in terms of our projections. And there might be, you know, some more positives for Pierce all with, you know, a lot of times with the younger breakout player, hoping he like earns a plane time by the end of the season. He's gonna get his chance early to kinda show what he can do because it's just to mark his Robinson, Jacob Palleyn behind him. But yeah, thoughts on like situations where you would draft IU. - I'm willing to take a decent amount of him because he's so cheap now that I think, it's like about sort of where the upside profile is kind of, for me at wide receiver, like a wide receiver window closes around round nine. Sometimes he goes after basically all the other meaningful upside profiles, or maybe there's a couple still hanging out, couple rookies or things like that, but this is a guy that was going on the second round last year. And I talked about how it's pretty tough to see him be even more efficient than he was coming off with three plus yards per hour run season the year prior. And I was a little out on him last year, but I fully acknowledge the reason he was going on the second round last year is because, at his peak, Brandon IU was viewed as a really, really good wide receiver, potentially more talented than Joanne Jennings and clearly Ricky Pierisal and every other receiver in this passing game by a lot. Like people were talking about him as a top 10 overall wide receiver one year ago. And then he held out and he had a slow start and then he tore his ACL, turns 27 in March, or he just turned 27 in March, he's right in his prime, just got paid last off season, still a big part of their future. People I think are way too confident that he can't get back to a level of play. And ACL tell was reasonably early. So this is a situation where I don't project full health because I don't expect him to be ready for week one. They're not talking about it like he's going to be ready for week one. If we know the guy's going to not be ready for week one, I do cut his target share in my projection. I cut him six games, like you said, you did as well. I assume just a 21% target share and then cut that down to 11 games worth. So for the full season it gives him like 13 1/2% of their targets. I do think, I think he's interesting and managed where you basically have your early season starting line upset and he's your bench receiver. He's going to be a little bit of a roster clogger in that scenario and you really like, you're going to have to hold him. And I do think there are discussion, and it's tougher and best ball I would say. But I do think there are discussions to be had about him in the late season being like just stepping all over Pearson, being meaningfully better than Pearson and probably being better than Jennings. And I don't think that's being discussed enough for what his price is. - Yeah, I'm always a little bit worried about any of the injury guys. I will say, even for best ball though, like you should be able to get through the first six weeks of the season at where his cost is. Like it's not that different than taking, you know, a rookie wide receiver that you're hoping it sends like the second half of the season. You know, it's not bad to have that archetype, you know, in a certain wide receiver room where you're like, I got a lot of vets on this team, even though I use the bat, he does feel like the, hey, I want a guy who's going to maybe smash the second half of the season type of role for your best ball team. Let's go to Kato. Projections for us always have a tough time with him. We actually, I actually made an added after I saw your projections before we went on here. We raised his yards per target to 10.2. You're at 10.6. Are you just so silly? What's insane is we were at, I think, 9.7. That was the highest we had on any player. And I raised them a half yard. And that puts us ahead of 80 P on him. It's just such an outlier efficiency that I think he's a salad pick. You know, it's in the, I'm trying to like middle, like I don't want to overly regress him. But also, I don't want to overly IK be the model. But he's at 10.1 yards per target for his career. And he just set back to back highs with 11.3 and 11.8. And last year in particular, had a huge spike in catch rate. I think I like 80% of his balls, which helps offset some of the lack of total volume, which is the one thing that keeps him behind being like a truly elite tie-down in a fantasy sense. It helps offset it. If there's a reason why he doesn't go up with McBride and Bowers, when we get to talk about McBride on this podcast. But I'm pretty in on Kittle at cost right now. Or at least I think he's a salad pick at cost. I maybe earlier in the off season was like, I think maybe we're trying to hard here. But just after looking closer at the efficiency, it's just like, yeah, this guy's kind of just on his own island here in terms of how we need to project him. You mentioned I haven't had a 10.6 yards per target. He's the only player I'm projecting over 10. You're previously you had him as your highest at 9.7. I don't have a single wide receiver over 10. As I dig into his numbers, I mean, he was at 11.8 last year, 11.3 the year prior. You just mentioned it too. Back to back career highs, a 10.1 for his career, his low seasons. And I think this is the point about why you can project him at a base level above 10. His rookie year was at 8.2. Since then, his lowest yards per target has been 8.9. He has a 9.7, a 9.8, a 10.1, a 10.1. I mean, every year, he's right around 10 yards per target, which is both the catch rate. It's the Yacht. He's an elite. I mean, we know that. And he was straightforwardly exceptional last year, probably the best here of his career. Turns 31 in October, he's still years behind Kelsey and Earth's types. Like he's not, people talk about him like he's getting old and he is getting old. But for tight end production, I mean, you still see production at age 31. There's, I think, some concern that, you know, an age cliff could eventually come, but I'm not that worried about it when he did what he did last year. 2.62 yards per out run. I mean, just absolutely elite. I think that the issue is, as you were saying, he was 15th in tight end routes. And CMC ran just 91 routes total last year. A U-Cran just 215. I think, you know, you're talking about the target competition being significantly stronger this year, even with Debo moving on. And so he needs the efficiency because the routes are not going to be elite in this offense. He has that efficiency. But I do think he's meaningfully behind those top two. I see some people talk about him being, is like one of the biggest underpriced guys because he's tight end three. And I don't see that either. I do think he's the clear tight end three. And he's meaningfully ahead of the rest of the tight end position, which I think it's weak fairly quickly this year. But, and so I do like him because I think there's kind of a drop off behind him. But I would never take him over, like you said, comparing him to McBride, I would never take him over McBride personally. Just because of the way the range of volume could go for those two guys. Let's go to Seattle. I'm at 61.9 plays per game. Gretches at 61. So we both have them below average taken to count. Gretches know about us being a little higher in plays systemically. Called pass rate, we're at 60.6%. So, I congratulate you for the $58.5. Don't have to worry. have a ton of confidence in that pass rate number or that discrepancy, to be honest, I do think this is a team that has signaled they want to run the ball a bit more. We probably are going to see some two tight-end sets out of Seattle. But there. Yeah, so I would just say they're margin of victory in terms of projected swing. They're projected to be a little bit worse than last year in terms of game script. That's right. They brought in Clint Kubiak. They hired Ryan Grubb, so I'm from the Seattle area and I hear a lot of the local scuttle butt here. So I have probably stronger opinions on this than most. They hired Ryan Grubb out of the University of Washington, my alma mater here, and also in Seattle last year, after McDonald took over as the head coach. And so you hire this coordinator in year one and then he does basically what he was expected to do, which is build a pretty past first offense. And their offense wasn't good, but it wasn't terrible. It wasn't the kind of year that you would expect the first year coordinator to get fired after, I think, in my opinion. And the big writing around here has been it was purely because of. Essentially that he called to me a past place. It was purely because of like. I can't think of a word, but the philosophical reasons. Philosophical reasons, exactly. That's what I'm looking for. The direction of the offense, they've pointed to the game in week five against the Giants, specifically that there was an article I think in the Seattle Times that wrote this up. That was the turning point. McDonald wanted Grubb to run more in the second half. They lost a home game against the Giants. They ended up going 10 and 7 and losing the division on a tiebreaker and missing the playoffs. They had started 3 and 0. That was during a stretch in their season where their season went really poor before the buy. They went into the buy four and five. They went one and five over six games. And they lost to the Giants at home. The Giants came in and ran all over. I'm Tyron Tracy at a big game. And the Siocs threw way too much for McDonald's liking. And it seemed like there was. From that point forward, a fracture. And Grubb was fired at the end of the year. They bring in Clint Kubiak, who is Shanahan system, run the ball. Outside zone. They run to set up the pass. All of those types of things. Kubiak worked under Shanahan. And Gary Kubiak worked under Mike Shanahan. These families are inextricably connected. I think they brought him in almost explicitly to run the ball more, to develop a better run game. The Saints last year were decently placed, but below average in place and they leaned to run heavy. Alvin Camaro had a much bigger rushing workload last year per game than he really ever had in his whole career. He was pacing, I think, to have. He ended up with his most touches of his career, pacing to have his most rush attempts. But I think he got hurt before he could hit that number. So I have these guys settling on a pretty big run lean. They also brought in Jalen Milro, all note. And I have him playing a little bit. Not like a ton, but I have him getting 22 rush attempts, which is one and a half per game or something. Similar to what the Ravens did with Lamar Jackson in his rookie year. There's been some comparisons of the athleticism of Milro. There was somebody who recently said Milro is maybe the only quarterback in the league faster than Lamar Jackson. I can't remember where I heard that quote recently, but they've talked about putting packages in specifically to utilize his athleticism. And I referenced that Lamar Jackson rookie year when he was coming in, when Flacco was the main quarterback and doing some run plays because Mike McDonald was on staff at that team. He wasn't the defensive coordinator yet. I think it was like the linebacker's coach. But he comes over to Seattle from the Ravens. And they've done that direct connection. So I think that's going to also push their run lean that they're going to be doing some actual packaged plays with Jalen Milro. So anyway, I shifted their run lean down an extra 0.5 to 1% I wrote toward the run because of the presence of Milro. But I do expect this team to be pretty run heavy. Yeah. And I want to circle back on the Milro stuff when we get to receiver. But let's skip over quarterback for the time being then and get to Kenneth Walker. We've got 241 Russia Tams. We're at 213. You've got 68 targets. We're at 50. It's curious if you've got a lean on Walker being like still like a pretty clear workhorse here or we kind of talk about how your projections run a little bit hotter to begin with if the difference is more attributed to that. So is this like a pro Walker lean or just kind of I think a little bit more of a starter. I, I, I, Sharper was good last year. Kenny Macintosh was even a good RB three. I think this is a good running back room. I think they think Kenneth Walker is like one of the very best running backs in the league. They talk about him really favorably. If you listen to the stuff the coaching staff saying his mistackle four stuff last year, by the way, was absolutely absurd. It was like 0.37 mistackles for touch, which like 0.3 is elite. He was pushing 0.4, which is like what Ash and Gen T did in college was the 0.4 stuff. Like you don't even see college guys pushing that number. Now why did that not show up in his production? He had the lowest yards before contact right in the league and some of that's on him. He runs laterally. He's breaking tackles, but he's not actually getting into space. That's not purely an online stat that he was getting such poor yards before contact because he does like to dance some. I think the whole reason they brought in Clint Kubak is a little bit more of a, you know, art than science take. So to answer your question directly, it's not that I have a strong lean that they could like Charbonne more than last year because he was good. And it's like kind of the tough thing I've toyed with as far as how high I am on Walker, but I'm very high on Walker. I think the Kubak outside run scheme is to get these explosive runners and I think Charbonne is more of a downhill runner to the edge. And I really think Walker could be sort of obviously not sake one, Barkley, but this year's version in the sense that you get those mistackle force numbers to the second level because you improve the yards before contact, which is basically what sake one got coming over from the giants of the Eagles. Great blocking. Get him onto the edge, get him to the second level. And now he's really tough for linebackers and safeties as opposed to, you know, when he was still in New York having to try to break tackles in the backfield. I think about Ken Walker's, he's breaking those tackles in the backfield all last year on the D line and stuff. But if the scheme can help him get into space, I think it's home run hitting ability and get him more downhill. I think it's home run hitting ability plays up and then you start to see the high rate of long touchdown runs come into play that we saw with sake one like that's what that's where the comparison would would be for me. And so I don't know. I think Ken Walker is a really big upside play in whatever it is round four for most people. I would take him as high as round three. Yeah. I really like Kenneth Walker as well. I there's like a mini H and comparison for me in terms of we talk about H and having like we have one year on the books within saying efficiency then we saw the workload. It just didn't happen together. We know Kenneth Walker has some special characteristics as a running back that just not a lot of running backs have like quite frankly there's the halves and have nots there and he's one of the halves. And now you've got an organization that going into last year people were very worried that they wouldn't give Kenneth Walker as much volume as they did and they just said they just seem to really like him. So I kind of echo those sentiments maybe slightly less bullish like I still like Charbon A2 honestly I kind of like if this team runs more and is more successful running I could see Charb having a touch of standalone value and I just like that we saw last year when Walker was out we got the full workload from from Charbon A. We're not guessing. I don't think McIntosh would cut into that. I think we'd see a heavy dose of Charb's which is nice. Now he's being priced kind of like as that but I still do like that you know I like him too. Yeah I think it's a good take. I will note also and this goes for both backs McDonald has talked this off season about the need to run in the red zone specifically and they talked about how I mean this is an analytics focus coach this is coming over from the Ravens who is a very you know analytics focused organization and one of the areas that even the analytics that for years were like team should throw more they've always kind of said that once the field gets condensed you get the red zone that's actually when teams should be running a lot and I think we've started to see some of that on some of these offenses where some of the rushing TVs are taking over like your bills that happened to them the last couple years. I think this is a low key team where you could see a lot more rush TVs than past TVs where they try to really use this scheme this clink clupiac scheme in the red zone specifically. So that's I think great for Ken Walker's I think it's great for Charb's as well and for the cases you're making. Okay let's go to wide receiver I mentioned like circling back on darn old versus Milro. I'm really struggling with Jackson Smith and Jigba where he's going right now where our projections really like him thing he has a lot of upside. I'm assuming he's got a play into two wide receiver sets I heard some rumblings that he might not that just seems crazy to me given what they have behind him and we know those two wide receiver sets like the target for out run stuff is better for the wide receivers than in other sets you know he was a prospect we liked a lot disappointing year one has the year to break out I really want to be in on him and then there's just part of me that's like JSN with Milro in the playoff weeks and what that could do to the team past volume for Seattle so I'm really curious to hear how you feel about JSN and how you're going approaching him in drafts. - No, I think that's a great point that I hadn't really considered as, 'cause I do think Milro playing late in the years, fairly possible. Sam Donald was very good for the Vikings last year and needs credit for it, but had been much worse for a long time in his career and then did look really bad in a must win week 18 and a must win playoff game in a way that Kevin O'Connell basically was like, we love Sam Donald, but like from his post game press conference after that loss in the playoffs, is basically starting the narrative that we were not gonna have him back and have a key be conversation in Minnesota. They basically didn't want him back. They wanted to move forward to the Gigi McCarthy, they felt like I think they felt like, or my read on it, 'cause Kevin O'Connell's a very motivational coach if you listen to him talk, but and so he still said very positive things, but you kind of have to read between the lines, at least the way that I was looking at it. And then I just think, I think the Ceeox hole off season and especially free agency was interesting, 'cause they took that piece from Donald that was maybe a piece that Minnesota didn't want back. They took Cooper Cup who was like in Sean McVeigh's wedding and is like breakfast buddies with Matthew Stafford and stuff and the Rams were like under no circumstances, are we gonna have Cooper Cup back? We just don't think he can play anymore. And so they're taking all these, I keep IKB bets. They are the I Know Better team this off season where they felt like they could find guys to fit to their scheme. So this is one of the things that they did wrong, sort of from a team building perspective, is they're trying to fit talent to scheme, instead of fitting scheme to the talent they have. They're trying to bring in guys that make sense in this McShanny system, Darnold Cup obviously having played with the Rams for years. But if those guys can't play anymore, that's a problem. They also brought an MVS who had like a couple plays last year with the Saints, but I think had 19 catches total. If you go look at Marcus Velt the Scantling's stats over the course of his career, just as raw stats, that guy has done a lot less than what I think most people who played fantasy football would expect, especially considering the offenses he's played for. But yeah, he had 19 catches last year, at 21 the year prior. These guys never had 700 yards receiving in a year. He's probably not a very, he played with Aaron Rogers and Patrick Mahomes. He's probably not very good. And they brought him into basically, potentially take routes from JS, as you were saying. So anyway, I'm a little bit concerned about the past game. I'm concerned about Donald's fit behind a tough offensive line. He's a pressure sensitive quarterback. A lot of the lot has been made about that. Geno probably covered up pressure issues last year. There was that Sunday night game against the Packers where Geno got hurt. Sam Howell came in. The defense played great and kept getting the ball back in a one score game. And Sam Howell was just getting pummeled back there, could not handle the pressure. And I think really reinforced for a lot of people who are watching that Geno was elevating the situation, playing well under pressure. His pressure numbers are good. Donald's are not as strong in terms of, you know, again, pressure being a pressure sensitive quarterback and those things. And so I'm concerned about the past game. I'm concerned about the way it was constructed and the way that it goes forward. And I do think the season could go a little bit awry for them in a way that you do have Milro late. And if Milro's playing late, I think you're right. With his mobility, that's not great for JS. I love JS and legit breakout. After DK Metcalf's week seven injury posted a 2.35 yards per hour on the rest of the way, the first six games, you ran a ton of routes. That's when they were throwing a crazy amount. So his overall number for the years, like 1.8 yards per hour, but if you just look at that stretch where he really became a part of the offense when Metcalf went down in week seven, missed a little bit of time, you really see the breakout. And you see that that maybe isn't there on the full season number because of the just sheer routes of volume. But I have a hard time with him for the reasons, you know, the reasons that I've said. On Cup, I'll note that his yak per reception cratered his mistakels force per touch cratered. His yards per target wasn't horrible, but he's just not the same guy after the catch. And I just don't know where the playmaking comes in this offense other than JSN, but I'm also pretty concerned about the offense as a whole, the passing offense. Yeah, it's so tricky on JS. And we get to Marvin Harrison for Arizona. I might ask you more of a direct comparison between those two because it's a point in the draft that's just tricky, where I'm like, if I like the guys better, I think I could much more easily say, like, I'm not going to take on this Mill Row risk with JSN, but just I don't-- And Devonte Adams, who we talk about with the Rams, goes on that range, too. So we'll just kind of keep that back in mind when we talk about those two wide receivers and do some comparisons. I'm with you in terms of the Cup concerns. You know, a lot of times changing situations on certainties is a good thing. I feel like the uncertainty works more against Cup than for them, like downgrading quarterback, downgrading in home stadium, another year older, another year dealing with injuries. You mentioned the after-the-catch stuff. So we are pretty below ADP on Cup, and I don't think that will likely change for us. At tight end, mentioned they can play more two tight end sets. They do have no offense as the incumbent here, drafted Elijah, a Royo. This is all bestball stuff here. I don't think there's anything here for redraft, but you're taking a tight end three late in bestballs. Do you prefer the vet or an upside swing with a Royo? I'm probably taking fan. They signed them-- so I've had some people mention to me that he might be cut. I've had a couple of people mention this. I don't get it. They would save about 9 million in unguaranteed salary, but it would also cost them about 4 1/2 million in debt money. On a contract they signed last year after McDonald was already on board, they signed them to do a two-year deal. I just don't think a team-- I think they see more out of what he does. Like a lot of tight ends that they're blocking in different things than what the fantasy community is seeing about what he is. I think they drafted a Royo to be kind of the guy who takes over in 2026 for this role. But it would be kind of odd to eat so much debt money on a two-year extension sign last offseason by the same head coach in GM, Combo. Just to make them thinner at a position, they drafted highly, which by the way, they have a lot of available cap room. It wouldn't save them-- they're like 10th and effective cap space right now. It would save them a bunch of money that they can't use at this point in the offseason. And they already have money that they can't use. So anyway, I think fans going to be there. I think he's going to be the tight end won this year. And I think a Royo then is taking over sort of the year after that. They're rookie last year. AJ Barner was pretty interesting. And from what I understand, kind of plays a slightly different tight end role than FANT. And a Royo is kind of in the FANT lane. And so Barner-- even though those two tight ends sets, it may be some FANT end Barner. And then maybe it's a Royo and Barner later in the year, or something like that. But the presence of a reasonable tight end three, I think also hurts a Royo's case to be meaningful in 2025. Yeah, I probably wouldn't take either of them, but I don't think I could take a Royo. Let's go to Arizona. In terms of play calling, we're at 63 right around League Average, Gretches at 61.8 for Arizona. They were at-- with a last year. We have it split out by real plays, which strips out some stuff. But they were in the low '60s last year. I don't know if you have the exact comparable number there, Gretches. But we get at 0.9. Yeah. 60.9. So about 61. We're closer to League Average. Again, we have the League Average bouncing back a little bit this year, which might not be correct. And so that's part of the reason to scrap and see. And we did have on their pay stuff then being a little bit more neutral than the plays run, kind of indicated, but no strong feeling there. In terms of called pass rate, we're identical. 60% called pass rate. They're going to be a negative PROE team, but not insanely so and puts them with a relatively neutral pass rate all set and done. When we go through-- I would just say real quick on that. Jack Miller had some great notes in his piece contextualizing some of that stuff from last year that they got a little more pass every down the stretch last year, but they were also less effective during that period. And it probably wasn't a reflection of what they want to be. And so at this pass rate, I was kind of seeing them as relatively run heavy and then also a little bit slower pace as a result. Yeah, that makes sense. We've got Kyler with 312 fantasy points here at 338. Pretty similar numbers. We have slightly more rush attempts, but less rushing efficiency, so it kind of offsets. So we're identical just over 500 yards rushing just under five rushing touchdowns. Passing stuff, you're a little bit higher on yards at 4,026 and a half touchdowns, but that's kind of the general bias with our stuff being a little bit less rosy on the efficiency standpoint. I think Kyler's a decent value, but it's not to the extent where I think there's a lot of quarterback opportunities. This year, it's hard for me to be like, yeah, get Kyler in your draft sort of thing. I think when Kyler was a top five quarterback in drafts, there was reason to believe he could be a really high end passer that's probably not what he's been able to become. I guess I probably at this point think that the height stuff has actually been somewhat of a limitation for him. And then the other note is that he was a really good rusher. 4.6 rush attempts per game last year, far below his previous low with 5.5. So this is a really key note in 2024 under a new coaching staff. The main culprit was the design run rate cratered for him. That came up in the offseason pressors that he ran last last year. And there were some questions asked and the response was they were not going to do anything different. I just think at this stage of Kylo's career and the way that they're designing their offense, they don't anticipate leaning on him as much as a runner as he was again earlier in his career in those first few years. So he's still going to have meaningful rushing upside to be clear. I'm projecting him for 512 rushing yards. You guys got him at 515. But I am projecting that to be a little bit lower than I was projecting for him last year. Yeah, and I think the point there is the pure ceiling just might not be there. Right. I'm both ends being tougher for that to happen. So I think solid value, but not someone you have to be in on. Last year James Conner was a tremendous value. I know early in the off season I was really on trade Benson. That kind of burns me. I got more Conner as the off season went along. This season you've got Conner with 220 carries, 53 targets, where are 192 carries and 40 targets. Part of that is just, I think we just have more kind of riff-raff projected. I always refer to it that way. In general behind Conner and Benson, like we have Day Mercado with a bit more work. And we have some unlisted running back work for Arizona as well. But I'm curious if Conner stays healthy, do you see him having that workhorse role again? Or do you think there's an opportunity for Benson to cut in without injury to Conner? I think he keeps it. Again, in the off season discussion, they talked about him that way. I think they think of him as a dude, their team captain. He's our workhorse, he's our heartbeat, he's our guy. I think Benson could still cut into some degree. But the other thing I'll note on him is that he wasn't just like, okay last year. He was given the stat a little bit ago, the Miss Tackle's Force per touch. He was over 0.3 Miss Tackle's Force per touch last year. For the first time in his career, the year prior in 2023, he was up to 0.28, which was a significant career high. I think his previous career high was in the lower 0.2s, which was still like, okay, it's usable. But he took up his game in 2023 in terms of the peripherals, forcing Miss Tackles. His yards after contact per attempt was meaningfully as high as it's been. I believe a career high as well. And then he did that again. He backed it up in 2024. He took the Miss Tackle's Force number to another level. The yards after contact came down a bit, but also was better than his previous career number. So he's getting up there in age, but he's playing arguably some of his best football. They run the ball in the red zone. So you have the touchdown thing. If Connor does miss, I mean he's 30 now. If he does miss time, I think some of the TV's maybe shift towards the pass a little. He's just been so good and close. And that's another reason that I like him to really still be that main heartbeat and to be their chief touchdown score as well. But yeah, I do like Benson a lot. I think there's no real threat at RB3. You have Emory Damar, Kato and DJ Dallas who are just basically third downbacks and special teams help. And they see Benson as their only other real running back. Michael Carter got a bunch of work. All 35 of his carries came at the very end of the year. He was not active until week 16 last year. He's still on the roster. But if you look at their season numbers and see, you know, Michael Carter getting significant work, he was inactive for 15 straight games to start this season. I don't think they see him as a part of their, you know, their future or anything at this point. So Benson is a fine handcuff. But I do think James Connor once again, probably a little undervalued. Okay, I'm going to ask you here as we go to wide receiver and talk Marvin Harrison, you're on the clock, middle of the third round. You got to pick between Jackson Smith and Jigbaugh, Marvin Harrison and Devon Te Adams, the three receivers in this division with similar ADPs. Who are you going with? That's, it's a super tough range, as you mentioned. I think Harrison would be the hardest one for me to pick. So I think it would be between Jays Center Adams. I guess I could see Jays Center really consolidating in Seattle in a way that I can't really with Harrison. I kind of describe both these teams similarly in terms of what I'm viewing. It's a defensive oriented head coach whose defense might actually be a little better this year. I think both teams want to run the ball. If they're good, I think they're good because they're trying to run the ball, at least to some degree. I think there's more upside for past volume in Arizona. But I also don't think Harrison has as clear of a path to being his number one target earner on his offense as Jays Center would. And so I guess I'm more on Jays Center from that perspective and then Adams, I mean, we'll get there. But the target volume can be so consolidated there that he's a tricky one that I I don't want to be out on because especially if Pukin and Corridor missed time, I just feel like he'd get so much volume. So it's probably either Adams or Jays Center. I probably go Jays Center first and then Adams second just from a health perspective. But as far as Harrison, as far as his projection goes, I think, sorry, were you going to say something? No, I was going to say that's basically how we have it right now with our rankings derived from our projections between the Basin ceiling cases, which is Jays Center and then Adams and Harrison. Yeah. And I think that's that's the way I'd plan. As far as the Harrison situation, I will say that like I do think there's a pretty strong floor. You still have a ton of draft capital last year. I think the work year went about as bad as you can expect. And he still had 21% targets per route at a 14.88 dot, which is really high, which also created a weighted targets per out that wasn't bad. But to me, like very clearly, the eight out just needs to come down. You're going to get the vertical stuff, but we need to see them use him in the short to intermediate range more so that he doesn't just look like a peer deep threat. Right? Like I heard someone compare him to some early career Mike Williams with the chargers. And one of the things the chargers eventually did with Mike Williams is started to use him a little lower. I was looking at his numbers. His targets per out jumped like 4 percentage points one year as his eight out came down multiple yards. And it basically was just he's now starting to get targets in the short and intermediate range that he wasn't getting before saying deep profile that he had before. But now adding some additional target short. Harrison needs that in your in year two. The eight out needs to come down. It will still be above average. And he'll still be getting the vertical stuff. We're not saying he shouldn't get the vertical stuff. But anyway, 7.8 yards per target's not bad last year. 1.63 yards per out run disappointing, but not disqualifying by any means. I think there's room for him to take a year to step forward. He was a good enough prospect that we should expect that. I also think he's in one of the worst situations probably for him because I do think it's a bad fit with Kyla Murray. I think we saw that throughout most of last year. And I do think Tramick Brides probably going to see a ton of targets again this year. And then so it's a high floor. But I struggle to see the real ceiling. I do think he should get more volume. They should make room for him in the short and intermediate range. They should kind of artificially inflate his target right in year two after a tough year one. And we'll probably see all that. And yet and especially I should know because there's no third target on this passing off. I mean, Michael Wilson's a rotational deep threat. And you're down to Greg Dorch and Zay Jones. Those are the other names. So Harrison's going to be right there with McBride. It's a one, two punch with no clear three. More than it's a hey, he's the number two. And there's number three and four are going to take targets from him. That's not going to happen in this offense. So anyway, it's a tricky one with Harrison. It's tricky. Pretty much aligned. If I was playing the optimistic side of things, it would just be Harrison was such a strong prospect that the ceiling just comes from maybe he's really good and just kind of struggled year one. And we get like a JSN type breakout year two. And if that happens, like you said, there's room for him and McBride probably. And hopefully the offense would just be playing very well. If McBride continued to play well in Harrison had that true breakout, I just thought we'd get more of a discount on him. I'm kind of surprised we're not. So I don't mind taking him after those other receivers you talked about. Like if I get him to slide a little, then I'm like, all right, I'll take a bet on this, you know. I don't think there's too much fantasy relevant behind that. Michael Wilson's a guy. Sometimes I'll take late correlated in basketball, because he probably is going to see routes do do. I mean, some of these teams in this division, there's like nothing at Y receiver three through five. It's kind of crazy. I don't think there's too much to talk about there. Definitely have to talk about trademark bride. We're pretty high on him with 128 targets. You're even higher at 144. The other discrepancies we have him for 4.2 touchdowns. You're at 6.8. The touchdown rate, I'll note. Our 4.2 is, I've looked closely at it. I feel good about the projection, but if we were to miss, there's only so much room to miss worse than that. There's a lot of room for him to have like he could have a 10 touchdown season. Like when you get this type of volume and you're a tight end, that's not on the realm of the possibility. I do think he'll be a low TD rate guy, but just in terms of the range of outcomes for him and his ceiling, like he's got, like there's just the floors like three touchdowns in core projecting 4.2. So We've got Nick Bride. And especially in the Titan premium stuff, we do have him, he's starting to come up a little bit, but we have him one, two term pick on FFPC. When you get into Draft King's basketball, we've got him decently ahead of ADP. The vine's just going to be so good when those counting stats like really ratchet up in the full PPR stuff. We're still even neutral on him on Underdog. So it's not like we're low on him. We just sometimes do have the market under valuing these really high volume tight ends as you get into full PPR and one and a half point premium scoring. Yeah, and there's just so that on the touchdown rate, it's definitely a little bit of a guess work, but I'm definitely very high on McBride. Like when we did the bucks and you were curious how I'd be on Buck Irving because I was so high on him last year and I was a little bit lower on him. This is a different one. I was tied in one on Tremac Bride last year over Laporta, and I don't have him tied in one this year, but I'm playing the hits again this year with this one. I think he's insanely good. He matched his high targets, Brow outrun from the late 2023 stretch that I thought might carry over, but he took the routes up. He also added some yards per target in addition to that, which pushed his yards per outrun to 2.14 second only to George Kittle in the league. He said a massive catch rate over all three of his years is a lower A dot, but he's got really good hands. He doesn't drop anything. This catch rates are meaningfully over 70%, which is tough to do with a little bit of depth through his target, but that's just he's very good. I did know here that touchdowns are the real issue. I liked seeing late last year. They knew he hadn't scored. He was really mad about it for people that were, you know, had a lot of McBride and were watching the sort of tracker of when was he going to catch his first touchdown late last year. They were running plays to McBride every week for a stretch there to the extent that like defenses were treating him like he had 15 touchdowns. They were like shading defenders to him and stuff, and they eventually got him a TD scored again the next year. As far as I'm concerned, I think for like four McBride and the Cardinals, this was at least a somewhat meaningful thing. A lot of these types of things are just so narrative based, but I guess that they come out this year and actually like meaningfully get him a couple touchdowns in the season's first month to get him on the board early so that they don't get in the same situation. Like I think you're right that he's going to probably be a lower touchdown right guy for most of his career, but I think 2025 he's going to have some early TDs and wind up. I bumped a TD right because of that. I think they're going to try to get him early touchdowns this year. That's the flag plan. Yeah, I would say they tried really hard to get him touchdowns last year and he's still going to do it. No, like I said, there's way more room to grow than to not, but every time I'm like, man, we must be too low. I'm like, oh, six touchdowns on 292 targets. It's just wild. It's not great. I mean, in some ways, it's a bonus where he's like, we have him at four touchdowns as a good pick, a solid pick. If you're a rod, it's like like Ben and you have more touchdowns and even a little bit more targets to begin with, then he's like very clearly a good pick. Let's go to tight and premium a very strong pick, right? Yeah. Let's go to the Rams. We're both a little bit below average or right around average in play calling just over 62 place per game. Gretches at 59.5% called pass rate were 58.8%. So very similar. We do kind of end up, you know, when dotting the eyes crossing the tease with us at one pass attempt per game lower than Gretchen, one Russia attempt per game higher than Gretchen. As far as that's concerned for Stafford, Gretchen a little bit higher on the YPA at 7.7, where at 7.3, generally Gretchen is about 0.2 to 0.3 higher than us. You're at 30 passing touchdowns where at 25, 4500 yards to 4,100 for us. So you're a little bit more optimistic on Stafford, which I don't mind. We might come up a little bear. I mentioned players like Kato that we have a tough time projecting. Stafford's been 1-2 because the play calling isn't that exciting and he doesn't run, but he is just so talented and they do have the addition with Devonte Adams last year. Obviously, Strywall's in terms of the wide receiver talent and depth. Yeah, I think I'm really high on Stafford from a projection standpoint because I'm projecting health and this is a very concentrated offense. And the efficiency is going to be there for the really good players. But I think when we did the last episode, we did the AFC West. I talked about the chargers and their team building and being a fan of the redundancy they'd built them into a lot of spots. The Rams for the last few years have been pretty thin in my mind. They haven't been able to hit on some rookies that have been like young players, draft picks, later round draft picks that have been meaningful contributors in a lot of places which has been helpful. But I think they're still dealing a little bit with the fact that for a stretch there, four or five years ago, they were trading their first round pick basically every year. And they don't have a ton of late rookie contract talent other than, you know, the first round pick talent. I guess they do have a later round pick talent. They have talent on this roster. It's a good team. My concern is, something happens to Stafford, I think you're in a problem. There are offensive line has some high end players but it has like poor grades at all the back up spots which could be a low floor. Here, receiving room, I think you lose Puka or you lose Adams or you have both missed some time. And I think that's a real problem for Stafford. And so the projection comes out rozier for me than how I feel. I think a lot of the contingent scenarios are tricky for the Rams. Let's go to Kyron Williams, RV1, holds off Lake Cormon, big way last year. You have met 260 new carries where it's 227. We're both in low 40s in terms of targets. We're both out with us having them just shy of 200 half PPR points per game. You're at 225. So pretty similar projections after adjusting for the bias. The question with Kyron is more like what type of bet is he? He's someone that on most of the full PPR sites where he's going, it's like kind of backwards. He's like going earlier on the full PPR sites where the markets there tend to like running backs a bit more. And I'm concerned there with the lack of pass catching volume, a lot of reliance on getting a ton of rush attempts and getting those rushing touchdowns in the offense being good. They've also dropped the running back each of the last two years. So in general, I'm underweight on Kyron and someone in redraft. I'm probably not going to end up on my teams. I will say he is that underdog basketball profile where the market does not like players like Kyron Williams. And though he fits the scoring system in the best ball structure a lot better, that when you give him to be in round four, I've been taking them. Yeah, I think that's a great point that on under, you know, in a half point PPR site like underdog and in best ball where I mean, the idea of guaranteed touches or, you know, that type of back can certainly matter more in best ball when you can't try to replace the production. And with you, I'm very out on Kyron from basically any other format. 55 running back targets last year as a team is very low. And it's what's crazy is no more than 76 and any of the last five years. They're not even approaching 100 targets for the running back position any season. And now they add to vaunt to Adams, right? They're going to be more vertical with their passing game. They're still talking about Kyron as a clear number one. I'm still projecting him to be the clear number one. It's tough to have the same thesis as last year though, where like they had he had a kind of a tough peripheral season and then they draft another back like for the second straight year, they've drafted a back on top of him. And I mean, last year I wasn't as concerned about quorum because I felt like the expectation should have been that they were going to draft the back because they needed to replace. The guy that they thought was going to be a big part of their running game going into the year prior, which was Camp Acres. And then it just became all Kyron's backfield in 2023 because Acres quickly got displaced. And then was like traded or cut or whatever it was at 2023 season. So they needed to draft someone they go get quorum. But to do it again, this off season, I do think it's tough to be like really confident that Kyron holds the work all year when he's mostly a product of the volume. They mentioned Jack West Hunter a lot in the off season program, not much about quorum. I do feel like Hunter is probably the probable number two and that quorum probably just didn't do what they were hoping for last year. And then also on Kyron's receiving his, when he does get targets, his yards per target was sub 4.5 for the second straight year. He's just not very good at it, which is part of the reason he hasn't seen targets. The running back average is about six. And so he's been 25% worse than that. But one of the things about this offense is the running back three running back four are traditionally used very sparingly. If you go look at their past few years, it's Kyron and it's maybe the RB2's gotten some work and the other guys like don't touch the ball throughout the season. That's kind of weird. So yeah, they are the whole year. He's going to get a lot of work. And you know, you mentioned quorum versus Jarkhaz. We've got Jarkhaz at 72 Kari. You've got him at 85. We've got Korm with more at 91, and you've got him with a lot less at 35. That might be a case of us maybe showing too much deference to the incumbent. I know JJ's, that reason likes Jartez as a prospect, good speed score. Kind of like one guy to take a stab on. He's a little bit smaller, but so is Kyron. I think they're like virtually the same size. It does sound like you watch prefer Hunter to Korm if you're taking a bench stash or late round upside gamble and best ball. That's right. I would prefer sort of the mystery box over the guy who had a tough first year. Even though he has a little bit less draft capital, we talked about the sense of some other shows. I'm not really not docking the guys in what was considered to be a deep class. And some of the GMs around the league have talked about knowing they could wait at RB in this class. I think Hunter's a guy that could have arguably been a day to pick last year. But in this class he ends up being a day three guy. But the fact that the timeline, the fact that Korm was a day to pick last year didn't do a lot. And then they drafted Hunter this year is why I pretty strongly prefer the mystery box of the rookie. Let's go to wide receiver. And this is a team that will concentrate targets. I don't have a lot of stands in the first round because I think it's so deep. I really like Puganikua. 2.9 yards per out run as a rookie. Then he follows it up last season with another really strong outing. 3.3 yards per out run. I'm surd 38% target per out run. And kind of like we mentioned with Joanne Jennings, like the yards per target is good here too. It's not like, you know, it's a lot of spam, but it's high quality spam. And Matt Stafford just has a history of making these types of wide receivers. I'm really in a Puganikua. I mean, just those two first years, the addition of Devonate Adams isn't scaring me off Pugan as a first round asset. How do you feel about him? I'm with you. The target's brought one number that you mentioned being so high. It's crazy. I thought that he would have a really hard time backing up his rookie year. He was arguably even better. Like I thought that the rookie year numbers were like a ceiling outcome for year two, but you would actually probably want to expect him to come down even though I know that's counterintuitive. But basically my point was he hits such a ceiling that it's hard for a guy to then grow from a huge number. I think kind of still did. I mean, he had the highest weighted targets per out in the entire NFL by, you know, my numbers, which is targets per out adding in some area. It's his targets per out. We're also the highest by a lot. His yards per out run 3.56. I mean, small sample, but still absurd. His two playoff games like he wasn't at the 37% targets per out, but he was at 29.2. I mean, he's still meaningfully dominant. His mistackle forced and like yards after contact stuff was improved. He got like more comfortable making plays with the ball at his hand, I think. They gave cup just 10 catches across the final five games. I mean, I think they really said we love Pukin' Akua. And then yeah, they went out got Adams, but one of the things on Adams, he had his lowest targets per out since 2018 last year, meaningfully lower than all the interim years. Still very good at 25.9%. But that was in a year where he was playing with Rogers for a lot of it. And obviously was getting some extra targets because of that. And as after the target efficiency was very weak too, he's had a couple years in a row now where the yards per target has been down. And that includes the fact that he did have a couple spike long touchdowns with the Jets late, including like one on a drag route where he was just completely uncovered and he had like a 50 something yard catch and run. He had a long, I think it was in that Jaguar's game where he also had the long TD up the slot and had the massive ceiling in that week. But it was like all in the second half and kind of a frantic game that I'm not saying it didn't happen. It did happen. He's a very talented player. But even with those plays, his yards per target was lower than some of his peak stuff from two to three years ago. And so I think that's at least relevant when you're talking about what he is now and the fact that he's a little bit older. I don't think he's a 30% target per out run guy anymore. I do think he's the secondary guy to Nakuha at the same time. Like Matthew Stafford has been great for every receiver that's ever played with him. A guy like Adams who's always been talking about as a great route runner should be able to get open. And I think he's meaningful in this passing game too. And especially if Nakuha's out at all. I think you get this contingent upside that's like, I mean, his numbers weren't so bad last year that I wouldn't bet on him being able to be a top 10 wide receiver in those contingent scenarios. So, I mean, the volume of this passing game can be so concentrated and from like, make various tendencies. And then also Stafford as a quarterback is just so good for his top wide receivers that it can just be, it's just, I have a hard time Adams. But I'm not letting Adams keep me off of Nakuha to answer your initial question. Yeah. And I'm saying page with Adams and we kind of covered this in the JS inverse Adams versus Marvin Harrison. But probably fine where he goes. Like when you need a receiver, I mean, not someone I'm thrilled about in the middle of the third round, but there's really no one I'm thrilled about. So I think he's, he's okay. And the contingent point is an important point because that's not true for every wide receiver that they'd step in and become, you know, a top 10 guy. It's not true for many of the receivers in round three, you know, Marvin Harrison and JSN are already their team's wide receiver ones. I guess Harrison, you could say is behind Mick Bride, but as far as positionally goes. Another team with like very weak wide receivers three through five, two to at-while Jordan Winnington are the most relevant of the two. And just to go through the targets real quick, two to Gretchen's at 55 targets, Winnington at 50, we're at 40 and 40, pretty similar. Puka Gretchen at 152, we're at 140. So very high target numbers from both of us. Devonate Gretchen at 128, we're at 124. I think two to is the guy I've been taking the late and best ball on stacks as like, hey, this guy is most likely to win the wide receiver three job. And like, being on the field, you could have some spike weeks. I know Winnington last year was sort of the upside guy. Do you have any hope for a Winnington breakout? I mean, I guess a little bit, you know, 117 routes sample, he did have a 23.9% targets per route, 2.5 yards per route. Two to at-walls numbers were very similar actually, but I guess I think at-walls probably still going to be route limited. They're talking about him running more routes this year, but just from a size perspective, Winnington to me, obviously a little bit bigger and maybe a little bit better fit for like- I guess I think of him as like the Nakuah handcuff in some some ways, but obviously we talked about Adams being the guy that would get a lot of volume in a Nakuah. It would make Winnington interesting, but not a star or anything in my mind, but I guess I think the routes of volume could get there for Winnington in a way that I'm more skeptical could for that one. So let's finish up with tight end. You've got the bet here in Tyler Higby versus the rookie in Terrence Ferguson. We've got a little bit of a tighter gap with Higby at 54 targets and Ferguson at 40, scratches at 67 and 29. So similar total pie going to the tight end position. I can't say I have a strong read on that. It looks like just gauging by your reaction that you don't have too much of a strong read either. Again, this is primarily a best ball tight end three late conversation. Yeah, the thing with Higby is he, you know, what was not a meaningful player in 2023 before is ACL, 109 yards per route on 475 routes, 14.1% targets per route. Those are not great. And last year he comes back and on 86 total routes into the postseason, he has a 29.1% targets per route, 2.07 yards per route. He had a good stretch run last year. He also had that huge outlier run in 2019 that did not stick the following year. They went out and addressed with Devonte Adams and they drafted Terrence Ferguson. I think probably why I'm higher than you guys on him is I was just looking at how much he did at the end of the season after he came back from his ACL last year. But I think Terrence Ferguson is a really interesting prospect. My other note on him is that I think they've talked about playing more 12 and more two tight end sets, more 12 personnel for years and they don't really actually ever do it. They stay and they're heavy 11 personnel. I'm a little curious of drafting Ferguson with Higby back is going to lead to that more where it's just Adams and Nakuha and you don't even get like 2-2 at well or winning to it on the field at all. But less need the GM referred to Ferguson directly as the heir apparent to Higby this offseason. I don't know what that really means. I guess I took it kind of like how I took the Elijah a rollo thing where we know that a lot of times rookie tight ends they need a little bit of seasoning and it seems like a couple of the teams in this division they drafted a tight end to eventually take over the position but maybe not have a huge fantasy relevant role in we in your one. But I do really like the Ferguson profile more than I like the rollo profile. I want to be in on him. I was drafted more in him in dynasty. So he's at least somebody to watch on the way where. Yeah, and just find out on the three wide receiver stuff they did slightly scale that back last year. They're 81% three wide receiver sets after being like virtually all three wide receiver sets. It's still you know off. high number, but some signal that maybe they're perhaps actually starting to trend towards that. And I know McVeigh made comments about just wanting to be a little bit more diverse in their personal usage. All right, that'll do it for us on the NFC West edition of the Offseason Projection Special myself and Ben Gretch. Make sure to check out all Ben's work at BenGretch.subst.com. You can find my stuff and my contributions to our rankings over at Establish the Ron. Appreciate everybody tuning in. Have a great week. [Music]