Hello everybody, Welcome into the Fantasy Pros Football Podcast. I'm Ryan Wormley, joined by Pat fitz Morris and by Derek brown Fellas.
We're talking fantasy takeaways for.
The AFC North, always a very hard fought division. Ravens came away on top this year twelve or five. They are the third seed in the AFC playoffs. We will start at the top. We'll start with fits. What was your fantasy takeaway for the AFC North in twenty twenty four?
Worm this, We'll start with the Ravens. And I'm sorry I have to go negative on your favorite team, but it would make for a boring show if my takeaway for the Ravens was just that Lamar Jackson and Derek Henry are awesome. So I'm gonna say Za Flowers should not be regarded as a top twenty wide receiver for twenty twenty five. I think Flowers is terrific, really fun to watch, really talented. He is well worthy first round
pick the Ravens spent on him. But the way the Ravens offense works makes Flowers this inconsistent fantasy performer, and that inc resistancy he can kind of bite his stakeholders in the butt at times. There were eight games this season where Flowers had six or fewer targets. There were also eight games in which Flowers had forty or fewer receiving yards. That's almost half of his games. Under forty is obviously a day you're you're not pleased with if
you're a fantasy manager. The problem is that the Ravens ran the ball on fifty two point five percent of their offensive snaps this year. Only the Eagles were run heavier than the Ravens were in twenty twenty four. And do we really think that's going to change next year with Lamar Jackson a quarterback and Derek Henriet running back. That's just the mo It didn't change when Greg Roman left town. And like, this is just how the Ravens
are built. So I have Za Flowers ranked wide receiver twenty one, and I'm wondering if even that is a little too high, quite too high?
Yeah, you know, I will say on the run.
I don't know that the problem for Jay Flowers is how run heavy the Ravens were. I think the prom for Flowers is how run heavy they were at the goal line because there was just not the opportunity to get touchdowns unless they were coming from you know, very far. He only had four touchdowns this whole season. He had one in Week two, he had two in Week nine, and he had one in Week eleven.
That was it.
And to me, that is like by far the biggest problem. If that numbers doubled, you know, just up to not even some crazy number, if that number is eight to ten range, then I would be feeling a lot differently about Zay. And even with only four touchdowns, he was still wide receiver twenty two this season and half VPR scoring. Like I think watching the games, you know, obviously I watched very closely. I came away from the season feeling
like he took a step forward. He is maybe not a white fantasy wide receiver one or definitely not that, but he he is a very valid and capable wide receiver one for the Ravens offense in a way that no receiver really ever has kind of fully solidified since like ankuon Bold and like it's been a while, and he does it very differently stylistically. So I really like Zay Flowers, and I think there's a chance that if the touchdowns do start to.
Come, then maybe you are a little bit low fits.
But having said that, we've been given no reason to expect those touchdowns to come because even when they do throw, it goes to Mark Andrews or Isaiah Likely or whoever else. So de Ry, I know you were kind of nodding along and seeming to agree with that.
I agree with everything you just laid out their Worm, that was the points that I was gonna make. And it comes down to touchdowns. It's not a matter of talent. He got enough targets last year and he was efficient enough with him. It comes down all to touchdowns, say Flowers, to your point, Worm, you talked about the number of receiving touchdowns. His red zone role is not enough. It's
not nearly enough. So like I think he should be because he was the wide receiver thirty two and fantasy points per game, so looking at him as a wide receiver three is exactly where I think he should be. He had two stretches this season of at least five games,
five games without a single freaking red zone target. Like you're gonna have ebbs and flows of Zay Flowers considering the context of the offense, you're also gonna have those touchdowns are not going to be there to stabilize and also raise the ceiling and flour of him on a weekly basis, unless he's just breaking off massive plays downfield, which he could, but that's really tough and that's a lot to ask any player to do consistently week after week after week if the red zone role was not there.
So I love the talent, I love his role in this offense. He is taking a huge step forward regardless of whatever metric we pull up, but the red zone role unless that changes, He's not a wider super two. He's a water super three for me.
You know, Fitz, I wonder do you kind of ascribe anything to like His targets fell off a lot in the second half of the year. They didn't like entirely go off a cliff. He was still getting you know, six seven, eight targets a game. It's not as much as we would have liked to see. It wasn't like he was getting no targets. This is just in general, not specifics the red zone.
But to start the.
Season, you know, week one ten targets, Week two to eleven targets, Week five twelve targets, Week eight twelve targets, those were all in the first half of the season. Through Week nine, he was wide receiver ten. He was ranked right in between Brian Thomas Junior than Amed Ross Saint Brown like he was. He was a wide receiver one in the first half of the season, and then the second half it just it just wasn't there did
anything change in the second half of the season. Was it just we got to Derrick Henry season and you know they wanted to, you know, use him even more. He started, he starts scoring a few were touchdowns in the second half of the year. So I don't know if it's that, Is there anything that you would kind of put point towards as a reason for that.
It seemed like Lamar was more proactively targeting Rashad Bateman, and remember like how meager the target counts were for Mark Andrews early in the season. Like he got more involved too as the season went on. So I think it was basically greater involvement for those two maybe cost Flowers a few targets.
YEP, absolutely agree. It was Andrew's resurgence. It was Bateman taking a step forward, a deserved step forward in this passing attack.
Dee bro let's go to your takeaway for the ten and seven Pittsburgh Steelers, the sixth seed in the playoffs, they're going to be going to Baltimore for that fun rivalry matchup in January. But the Steelers ten and seven, what's your takeaway.
If Russell Wilson is back as the quarterback and Arthur Smith as back as the play caller for Pittsburgh in twenty twenty five, I'm fading this offense like is this was one of the most disappointing offenses, Like yes, okay, Like if you had n Agie Harris this year where you're like, oh, cool, he's a flex option, but then there's a lot of weeks where you're like, oh, geez, why did I start him? RB twenty five and Fantasy points per game? Jalen Warren RB thirty nine and Fantasy
points per game. Both of those guys. I understand that both of those guys were looking towards twenty twenty five are free agents, so maybe neither one of them are back. But the bigger point to how Arthur Smith. We've already seen this people. Do you remember Bjon Robinson getting his rookie season ruined because of Arthur Smith trying to be the smartest guy in the room and trying to not run.
This is just another situation of Arthur Smith not running his offense through his best players on a consistent basis. And this trickles down to George Pickens wide receiver thirty five. He had six games only six games this year where he was a wide receiver, two were better and weekly scoring, he had eight games where George Pickens was outside the
top forty wide receivers in weekly scoring. So while we hoped more consistency out of George Pickens because he's the only dude in that passing attack, we didn't get it. You got a revisiting of the previous year of George Pickens. The rapper changed, the substance was still the same, and Pratt friremuth because of this offense because touchdowns go everywhere except the best players. Again, Pat friarmth weeks one through seventeen when it actually freaking mattered tight end sixteen in
Fantasy points per game. Thank you, but no thank you Russell Wilson and Arthur Smith in this offense for fantasy for twenty twenty four, and if they're back again, they're gonna do it again in twenty twenty five.
Dobro, If I told you that we were going to get one of these two back exactly one, not zero, and not both, what would you rather see? Would you rather see Russ and a new offensive coordinator. Would you rather see Arthur Smith and a different quarterback?
Oh?
Good lord, Arthur Smith at a different quarterback, like Pittsburgh. If I was Pittsburgh. You keep justin fields like dude. The playbook of how to stop Russell Wilson. It limits so much of your effectiveness in what you can do. It is legit. Play too high, put two safeties over the top, you take away the go ball, bucket shots on on the perimeter. You make him beat you in the middle of the field. And Russell Wilson hasn't seen the middle of the field since maybe high school, so
that's not gonna happen. It's it's just so freaking predictable, man. It's so easy on a weekly basis to say, Oh, hey, they're playing a single high team, Well let's go George Pickens. Yeah, the bucket shots down the sideline. Oh, it's a jwo I coverage and he screwed. Okay, we're not starting anybody from this offense, maybe the running backs.
It's what do you think?
I kind of agree with half of Debro's take and half not. Like I don't as of now want to be too heavily invested in the Steelers offense for twenty twenty five, especially if it is the Russ and Arthur
Smith show. Again. I just don't think Arthur or uh Russell Wilson is the same guy he was in Seattle, Like that is kind of gone and he sort of swerved everyone, I think when he had some big games right away after taking over for Fields as the starter, but like that just wasn't sustainable, especially with a pretty poor group of pass catchers collectively and going to George Pickens deebro I just like I don't think he's a Ceedee Lamb guy who you can give one hundred and
fifty one hundred and sixty targets. He's just not that kind of player. I don't think he is a true alpha. I think he's more like a big play special. I mean, I don't think he's mature enough to be a true alpha. No, And honestly, yeah, I don't think either Nase or Jalen Warren deserve to be, you know, the lead back. I think it was wise to platoon those guys. The only guy of questions with the usage of would be Pat Fryarmouth, and I'm still not totally sure how good he is,
but that's just what Arthur Smith does. He wants to use multiple tight ends. So we were of course going to get some Darnell Washington and Michele Pruitt and that was going to be really frustrating. So I don't necessarily blame Arthur Smith for the way he deployed the limited skill position weaponry that he had, but I do agree that this is not looking like a very fruitful source of fantasy goodness for twenty twenty five as it now stands.
Last thought on the Steelers fits. Do you expect to be ahead of or below consensus on George Pickens next year?
Below?
Below? Big time below? Yeah. I mean, on a weekly basis, can we rule out George Pickens getting into a fight with any cornerback that's out that that decides to cover him and he just doesn't like it and he throws a fit and he's out by the halftime.
Nope, I mean, maybe I'll be in line. I've got him wide receiver twenty three right now. And I kind of started with him a little higher, and I just decided that that was a little too much, and I wanted to move him behind guys like Zay Flowers. Like I as many issues as I have with Zay Flowers in his usage, I think he's a better bet than George Pickens for twenty twenty.
I would actually much rather have Zay than Sam Debra what you would also, Pikett Dickens will be a wide receiver three for me.
I can't get it.
I was gonna say when you said wide receiver twenty three fits my I haven't actually sat down and done twenty twenty five, like early rankings or anything yet, but my initial gut reaction to hearing that was that's a little bit too high. It's not like insanely too high. But to me that I don't think I would have him as.
Well as that real fast FITSI George Pickens and Marvin Harrison Junior next year.
I've tentatively got Pickings ranked higher.
Okay, because I think I think I want Marv.
Yeah, that's not unreasonable.
I think I want Harrison too.
Man. I wish I had more faith in what their plans for using him. We're gonna be before I made that statement, but I think I would.
I would have Harrison there.
I have a feeling that's gonna come up in our NFC West.
Yeah, yeah, maybe if you If you guys want a chance to win a signed TJ. Hockinson Vikings helmet for free courtesy of our friends at Christineauction dot com, all you need to do is head to Fantasypros dot com slash contest, complete the form and either download the Fantasy Pros My Playbook app, leave a review for the podcast, or follow us on x slash, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok at Fantasy Pros on all of those platforms. The more actions you complete, the more entries you receive. We'll be
announcing a winner right here on the podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe and turn on those notifications so you can be alerted when new episodes are up and to claim your prize Debro. We're onto the Cincinnati Bengals nine to eight did not sneak into the playoffs thanks to their slow start to the season. What is your fantasy takeaway for Cincy?
I think when we're in draft season, and I think people are on the clock. They are very hesitant to make two draft picks and invest heavily in an offense in the sense of taking two wide receivers from the same offense. I think that we need to get past this.
I've stated this before, but I think that what we saw from the Bengals if we think an offense is going to pass a lot, which Cincinnati did, and there's other offenses that we can say that for looking into twenty twenty five, I have no issues and I don't think anybody should have any issues taking two wide receivers from the same team in fantasy in draft season. You look at what Chase and T Higgins did this year wide receiver one and wide receiver two in fantasy points per game.
That's it. That's a stet.
What do you think about this fits, Is this an example of you should the takeaway should be you can be comfortable when they're quality players taking two receivers from the sea offense. Or is this an example of the outlier, the exception kind of defining the rule, where like, yes, this is it is an exception to the rule where you can take T. Higgins and Jabar Chase, but you shouldn't apply that to other receiving cores.
Deeberrow. I'm sorry, but I think this is a freakish one tenth of one percentile exception to the rule, maybe one one hundredth of one percentile. Like I mean, I know I would get starting question starts hit questions in discord where some guy would lay out his wide receiver corps for me and he would have like DK Metcalf and Jackson Smith and Jigba And my response was, you know, part of it would be you should probably trade one
of those guys, Like I just don't. I think it limits your weekly upside if you start two receivers from the same team, unless you've got a quarterback who's averaging like three hundred and forty passing yards and three and a half touchdowns a game like Joe Burrow was. But how rare is that? So I think it can happen under the right circumstances. But in general practice, is it a good rule of thumb to draft two guys from the same team. I don't think it is, Like, no, I.
Don't think of general practice. Are there are reasons? And like, again, I've enveloped this in team, a team that is going to throw the ball and has good enough quarterback play to support two different guys. Because two other instances that I will bring up right now, AJ Brown at DeVonta Smith wide receiver twelve and wide receiver fifteen and Fantasy points per game, the Minnesota Vikings Justin Jefferson wide receiver
three and Jordan Addison wide receiver twenty one. Those are two other teams that we can point to that also fielded. These are three teams, three teams, six players that make up the top twenty four wide receivers in Fantasy.
But we also weren't getting smash games from Jefferson and Addison in the same week very often. We definitely weren't getting smash games from AJ Brown and DeVante's.
But it evens out right very often.
I Mean, that's interesting in.
A nutshell though, the volatility in the weekly roller coaster. No guys top five every single week, regardless even if we rank him as top five every week.
Yeah, but if you're getting eighteen PPR points from one guy and like nine PPR from the other guy in any given week, like I don't know if that's a win necessarily, Like I just want to aim higher every week, and you know, then there are weeks like what happens if the starting quarterback for that team gets garbage canned and all of a sudden the backups in and now you're really hosed. So I just I think it's a little there's not enough upside and a little bit of
volatility involved with that approach too. So I just generally just don't think it's good strategy.
Do you guys see a different in this strategy when they're both receivers versus drafting one receiver and a high level tight end from the same team, Like, for example, are you going to be willing to draft Marvin Harrison Junior and Trey McBride to the same fantasy team next year?
You know, Brock Bauers and Jacoby.
Myers, you know whatever company is they Flowers and Mark Andrews Debro Is that something you're willing to do?
In conversation you that din win two receivers.
Same conversation, I'm fine with it. Like, I mean, I think it's a great point that you brought up. There weren't because it tight ends the top end. Guys, we should view as wide receivers, not tight ends because they produced like wide receivers, the cross correlation between positional stuff. So, would we have had any problems drafting Marvin Errison Junior and Trey McBride on the same team.
No?
Do we have any problems drafting Xavier Worthy and Travis Kelcey or Rashia Rice and Travis Kelcey on the same team. No. So I think this all comes back to really just a point that I think that the bigger point here for me is I want to invest in one good offenses, but offenses they're gonna throw throw the ball a crap ton with good players in it.
So, Fitz, what do you.
Think about that framing of a receiver and a tight end on the same team.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's okay if you have situations like Bauers and Myers, or like McBride and Harrison where it's two guys commanding a massive share of the targets on a particular team. You know, is it something I'm aiming to do? Though, definitely not.
Let's wrap up the AFC North with the Cleveland Browns. They were terrible three and fourteen. I'm not even sure like how strong of a takeaway you can even have on the Browns, just given like what we saw from the quarterback position this year, the uncertainty of what we're gonna see next year, Like obviously they're someone beholding to Deshaun Watson financially, but they're already talking about how his achilles, you know, might not be ready for the start of
the twenty twenty five season. So like fits when you sit down to say, how do I even like come up with a takeaway for this Cleveland team in this Cleveland season, Like, how did you approach coming up with one?
Well, I think we've got to tie into Deshaun Watson, and in this case, like the guy to have in the Cleveland offense obviously this year was Jerry Judy. And my take is that Jerry Judy's twenty twenty four breakthrough is legit and I Am not going to fade him in twenty twenty five, even if the Browns say they're going to start Deshaun Watson as soon as he's ready. So Judy finished with ninety catches and twelve hundred yards. But let's parse this a little more carefully. Seven starts
for Deshaun Watson at the beginning of the season. In those games, Judy averaged three catches and thirty eight receiving yards. So then we got seven starts out of Jamis Winston, Judy averaged seven catches and one hundred and twelve point three receiving yards in those games. And then even down the stretch when we got three starts combined out of Dorian Thompson Robinson and Bailey Zappi, Judy averaged six points
catches in fifty nine yards in those games. Like he was still a legitimate fantasy starter even with those backup like third string quarterbacks playing. So I mean, like Judy did significantly better with Bailey Zappi and Dorian Thompson Robinson throwing him the all that he did with Deshaun Watson. The question is whether Judy's slow start I guess with Watson was just fully attributable to how bad Deshaun was.
Or is it that like the light hadn't fully switched on for Judy because we his career in general got off to a pretty slow start. I mean, he had a pretty promising rookie year, but then three very disappointing seasons in Denver. So I don't know, maybe Judy is gonna fare much better next season, even if it is Deshaun Watson at quarterback. But here's the thing, Like the Browns are not gonna let Watson make seven more starts next season if he plays as poorly as he did
in twenty twenty four. They are just not going to give him that much leash. So I have Judy ranked wide receiver twenty two, right behind Zay Flowers. I suspect that's going to put me a little ahead of consensus on him. Maybe not, but yeah, I just I want to be invested in this guy after his thoroughly impressive season this year because he was just lights out. I think he's one of the ten best route runners in the game.
Where do you expect him fits to be ranked in ECR next year?
Not where you will have him.
Where do you think he'll be I think around twenty five?
Yeah, de bro, What do you think about Jerry Judy as somebody to not fade even with the quarterback stuff going on?
I think you're not going to fade Jerry Judy because I think we're gonna have a different quarterback. I mean, welcome cam Ward or Shadura Sanders to Cleveland. They got the second overall pick in the NFL draft. So even having them move up to number one with changing hands with Tennessee, if Tennessee, you know, doesn't like however, they want to approach this draft to tell them what they do at quarterback. They signed Sam Darnold something like that,
then they don't have a quarterback issue. Look, you want to go out and get Travis Hunter, you want to pair him with Lugeria snead By, all means, go do it, But this all comes down to me the way that you mitigate the Deshaun Watson stuff. You say, DeShawn stay home. We're gonna obviously have to pay you, We're gonna cut you, We're gonna do something else. This team is ready to go, man like. You look at the defense, if they can get health out of them. You look at the offensive line,
you look at the skill players. You draft a running back in the middle rounds, you go draft your quarterback with the number two overall pick. Maybe you move up to one, and you roll into twenty twenty five, and we're all happy about Jerry Juditer because it's not fricking Deshaun Watson throwing the football to him.
We'll wrap up the AFC North there Please be sure to check out all of our division fantasy takeaways. We're doing every single division as their own little smaller episode for Debro and Fits.
I'm Ryan Warmly thanks for tuning in. We'll see you again next time.
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