Houston & Indianapolis Team Previews

♪ Round back will you wet ♪ (upbeat music) - Yeah, what's up? It's Tuesday. - Thank you. - Chauhai 28, is that right? - I'm Jeff, this is the rant. This is the time of year where everything starts to blend together because yes, today is July 28th, and yes, today is the day where every single NFL team is officially in camp. And that means we stop operating in the realm of the hypothetical, and we're in reality, which means players will get hurt or they're on PUP or NFI, or there's legal situations, there's all kinds of stuff I talked about the Josh Jacobs stuff yesterday on the podcast. Of course, if you're getting back into the full go back and listen to the team preview podcast, they're meant to still have some legs here as we get into the earlier part of camp. Obviously, as we get into the heart of camp a couple of weeks from now, things are gonna shift, things are gonna change, but we'll be here for you every step, the way. Of course, we're also here for you every step, the way of red F-T-N, fantasy.com. That's where you get my process, draft guide. Really excited about the response to that bad boy. A lot of people are saying it's just completely changed in how they're viewing fantasy drafts, and that was my idea. I think there's a better way to do it, man. I think there's a better way to do it, and I finally, I finally put it all together for you in one document. You get that, you get the rookie fantasy scouting guide, you get all the cheat sheets, including my ultimate draft board cheat sheet. So much more of the in season stuff, if you're an NFL pro subscriber, rankings, projections, galore, you know it. Just go and get it. Use the promo code, rat pack for 10% off, and yeah, draft boards too. I'm gonna keep mentioning this 'cause I definitely don't want people to miss out here. 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All right, so today you can see we're talking about the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts. We're gonna start with the Houston Texans here. A team that has a lightning rod player who if I only had done this podcast maybe three or four weeks ago, I think the reaction to what I'm about to say would be very different, but the market seems to have caught up to my position on David Montgomery. David Montgomery comes over in the off season lines. Basically, we're willing to let him go and they bring in Isaiah Pateco, which yikes. If that's your replacement right now, that doesn't really say that much about you. Of course, cheaper, but still he's older. He's not ancient, but he is older David Montgomery. This is age 29 season. He saw his role decrease. Now of course, you're playing with your mere Gibbs, but as efficiency also decreasing, he's never been a guy who catches a ton of balls out of the backfield. He kind of did early in his career, but that was so long ago with the Bears. So coming to this Houston offense, I think there was some optimism that he was gonna be a three down guy. I didn't see that coming. I know Woody Marx is still there. Woody Marx can be used in passing situations. And maybe if he learns a thing or two more about running between the tackles, he could be used a little bit there. I just don't think he's gonna do that much in that regard. But people saw this, saw huge workload. I don't care who the player is. I'm going to bang the drum for him. And there was always a lot of group thinking fantasy football, but this became one of those guys like, "Oh, you should go after David Montgomery." And then everybody started saying it. And I thought I was literally being trolled. I thought people were messing with me because I just didn't see the appeal to David Montgomery here. But now unfortunately, there is news out there that yeah, there is going to be more of a timeshare than a lot of people realized throughout. Of course, the offseason, the reporting says, "Woody Marx is gonna be used a good bit." So I don't think that as many people are on David Montgomery, but I know that the masses take a while longer to catch up than the people in the fantasy industry. So I still think we're gonna see David Montgomery being drafted as a top 24 running back, which means he's probably drafted in the fourth or fifth round, which feels very excessively, I don't like a player like him in that range because I just don't see him ever winning your league for you. And that's a pretty premium pick. So you need this dude to really put some points on the board. And to me, he's like the next version of Tony Pollard. Like if you drive him an RB24, guess where he's gonna finish, RB24. And he's probably not gonna have that many great weeks in between. So I'm avoiding him, just doesn't have the profile that I'm looking for out of a running back who is basically like at the fringe of the top 25. I think Woody Marx is fine to throw a dart on later in drafts, but just as long as your expectations are in the right place, I don't think there's really that much there to him. Although he is working on expanding his route tree, is working a passing game, but really just a late round upside guy at a notoriously tricky position to hit at late round upside. Now, wide receiver is pretty straightforward at the top. Nico Collins is a rock star. You know that he's so stinking good. He just has to stay healthy for a full season, but he's every bit a top 10 option. But what about beyond that? 'Cause really there's not much to be said at tight end, by the way. Dalton Schultz is a catch and fall down guy. Doesn't move the needle for me. So you have Jaden Higgins, you have Jalen Noel, you have Tankdale. Now out of those guys I'm gonna toss Tankdale. I'm rooting for him, but I just don't buy that he's gonna be a factor this year. I hope we were a year too early on Jaden Higgins because there's definitely talent there. I thought I really like what he did at Iowa State. I like the tape and then coming into the league. Sometimes it does take a year or so to develop. I think he's fine to be taking in that range of like wide receiver five territory, like a late round, I'd rather throw a late round dart on him than on Woody Marx. The definite dark horse here would be Jalen Noel. Jalen Noel is super athletic. He has basically the fast track to the slot job. And you know, maybe they do run a good bit of 11 personalities out there a lot. Maybe there's opportunities that open things up. He showed some explosive playmaking ability last year. I would say he's not a player on prioritizing, but he is a player that I'm just gonna keep an eye on. He wouldn't be a draftable player. He's draftable in Best Ball, but not in redraft leagues, but definitely a player to keep an eye on. Now the big question here is, can CJ Stroud continue that momentum? Like he definitely had some momentum last year. It wasn't a perfect season by any stretch when we know how it ended, but can he continue that momentum into this year and get himself back into every week fantasy viability? I'm not convinced we're there yet, but you know, and he's going just outside of the draftable territory in one QV leagues. I think he's fine in super flex. But if he's not drafted, he's definitely one of the players who I'm gonna keep an eye on. Like if he pops early, then you know, if you're a late round quarterback director like me and you don't hit on the late round quarterback guy, there has to be somebody go after who's available on waivers. Stroud will be available on waivers almost certainly and mostly is out there. Unless you got one of those crazy everybody drafts to quarterback leagues, and it's a 12 teamer, he should be out there. So keep that in mind with CJ Stroud. The team's pretty straightforward though. The big thing is, you know, I just don't see it with David Montgomery. I'm not gonna waste any draft capital on him. I don't think I might, I might only have one or two shares in basketball too, which even for guys that I don't love, basketball guys, I typically do have more, you know, I have exposure to pretty much everybody even if I don't like him in basketball and I barely have any exposure to him in there. Okay, so that is Houston. We now have Indianapolis and we do have a lot of injury moving pieces here with some of the most important, in fact, two of the most important guys on the team for fantasy purposes out of the top four, two of them injury news. That's 50% right there. So we'll get into that right after this. Okay, we're back and we're talking Indianapolis. The Colts are a very interesting team. A team that does look a little bit different from last year with Michael Pittman out of the way and that paved the way for Alec Pierce to now be anointed as the top receiver. They paid him some dough heading into this season and to thank them, he went and had ankle surgery and he's been out ever since. He opened camp here, they did open things up with him on the PUP. That's not a bad thing necessarily. He could come off of it at any point and all the reporting says that it's gonna be a week or two. Now sometimes the NFL, as we know, has a way of turning a week or two into a lot longer than that. But I don't think there's anything that would move. Like I'm not adjusting rankings on that. on July 28th, but I am going to keep an eye on it. If we're a week from now, he's still on PUP, okay. If we're two weeks from now, I'm not going to freak out or anything, but I am going to now start to take note. If it's three weeks from now, that's when we start to adjust and then it goes from there. Nothing dramatic. When I say adjust, I don't mean that I move this dude down 15 Y receiver spots. I might move him down two or three Y receiver spots, just to bake in a little bit more risk. You know, there's a little bit more risk there, but everything suggests he's going to be out there. So what did we see out of Alec Pierce last year? Well, we saw a guy go from being a nine rock guy, you know, like run down the field kid here, catch this, to a much more nuanced route runner who was doing way more things. And in fact, there were times, and I know I said it on my radio show or this podcast or wherever, said it to do to the urinal. I was like, yo, Alec Pierce, he's out producing Michael Pippen. And it was actually kind of eye opening in the process. And it's not, you know, there's never been a matter of like athleticism, like super athletic, but it was just like he did not have the route tree to produce at that level until last year. And, you know, honestly, they brought in Adonai Mitchell. I thought there was a point in time where Adonai Mitchell could replace Alec Pierce like he was disposable and Alec Pierce just closed the door. He showed up, he performed, he got the contract, he's the dude. And in that wide receiver room, like there isn't much there. You have Josh Downs who is a classic low ceiling. I have zero interest in guy, you know, like low ariards. I'm not drafting guy. Let somebody else draft guy. And then Nick Westbrook, a keen A, like that's about it because their number two pass catcher is Tyler Warren. So Alec Pierce is set up for a really nice year. I don't mind right now. Here we are at the end of July. I don't mind where he's going at all, but we will have to check back on his injury status. I'm not overly concerned though. And I just mentioned Tyler Warren, the dude is a monster. He's humongous, he can catch anything you throw at him. And he can handle work out of the backfield, like a gigantic running back. You know, it's awesome watching him. The problem that I'm going to run into, especially in homeligs as we move forward here, is you're going to have issues where, you know, he's going to go into fourth round or so. And that's pretty early to invest in a tie dance. So I do think we see that in homeligs. I love him. I have shares of him in basketball, but I'm probably not going to get anything of him because I'm just going to wait until the late rounds. Not going to get any of him in a redraft homeligs this year. So let's go to the other injured player. And then we can do the easy one last. The other injured player is Daniel Jones, but here's the good news. All reports, including from his own mouth, are saying he's ready to roll. Now, he had to kill his halfway through the year last year. That's a tough injury, but the challenge with any soft issue is you just never know how quickly or how slowly these guys will come back. Some guys come back rapidly. Another guy with the same exact injury takes much longer, right? So he is definitely on the short end of the table, but you did figure this was coming because money talks in the NFL. And once they paid this dude, it was like, yeah, he's probably going to be back. He's not back for a week one. He's back really early in the season. Now, he didn't pay him a long term deal. It's what two years on the contract, but still they paid him some dough. He's going to be out there. What did we see with him out there last year? We saw a dude who's surprised in a lot of ways. A dude who showed up and, you know, kind of all the best versions of himself, the versions that ended up getting him picked pretty darn highly in the draft, right? He was right up there. Top I pick all of that showed up. And he ended up producing really well. You know, if you look at the production from Daniel Jones last year, he had, you know, he started the season off with a second place fantasy finish in week one. He was top 12 the next two weeks. He did fall outside of that. He, it's not going to be a perfectly smooth ride, but then fifth place, ninth place, 12th place, 13th place. Like he's right there. And yet he's being drafted and ranked by a lot of folks as like QB 25. I ended up taking him this past weekend in the King's Classic draft. And I had him in both like the auction I got him for a dollar, which was easy, but I took him very, very late as my second quarterback and I don't take two quarterbacks outside of industry drafts. By the way, if you're looking for like, how do I adjust based on my league, like skill level? I wrote an article on that today at ftnfantasy.com. So it's a really cool article. A question I do get asked a lot. And I had to adjust because it was an industry league. It's also a 14 teamer and a lot of teams draft two quarterbacks. So I had basically no shot, had picking anybody up if I didn't draft a second one. So I got him for basically free. Well, if he's out there, he's going to definitely outplay QB 25. I mean, he has a very good chance. I don't want to speak indefinites. But regardless, I like the price point on him and all reports are good to go. Now, you're not driving him in a one QB league as of right now. And I think that's fine. But you may look at him in a super flex, a little risk there, but I don't think it's that huge of a deal. All right, I said I'd save the easy one for last. Easy one is Jonathan Taylor. You know, Rinssen repeat. He's awesome. He's one of the best of his generation. There was a little bit of a question as to whether or not he's going to hold in. I don't have an answer to that question just yet, but if he does great, I don't think it changes anything. Maybe they get a contract done, but I don't even know if he necessarily needs to, because if he goes out and puts another great season on the board, he's going to get paid regardless. So no worries there. High volume in the run game. Decent volume in the passing game, because there's nobody behind him. And I think that's the really the only question. Whether you view him as RB3 or RB4, I think that's fine. I haven't had RB4 right now, but if you said RB3, cool. But who's the cuff? As of right now, we really don't know. It could be DJ Giddens. It could be Seth McGallons. That's going to be something that we're going to have to come back to in a week or two from now as they really start to get things established and camp. But that's it. We'll just hit the pause button on that one and come back to it like we do. Ftnfantasy.com, make sure you go check it out. Use that promo code RATPAC to get yourself that 10% discount. And I appreciate everybody checking in on Twitter. I'm @JeffRatcliffe on Twitter. Keep rolling. Next up, Jacksonville, Kansas City. That pile will be coming to you soon. So I'll catch you on the flip. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)