Here to break that down and help us with the fantasy implications of week one is our good friend Joe Dolan, Fantasy points dot Com. Joe, Welcome back to the show, Bud.
Hey guys, it's good to be with you. You mentioned that you don't want to throw your voice out talking about football. Well, I have some bad news I already have. Oh no, I don't know what. I don't know if the allergies or whatever, but very inopportune time for me to throw my voice out, although my wife is loving it because I'm trying to talk. I'm trying to talk very lightly to preserve my voice, and it's made me realize how loud I am. Yeah, in other walks of life.
So maybe maybe this will give me a little bit of perspective heading into the football team.
You sound great, and we'll keep it brief here so you can preserve those golden pipes for all the content you do there at Fantasy points dot Com. I just want to get your take real quick on what we're looking at tonight. I mean, this is a fascinating matchup. We saw what happened last year where the Chiefs look they did not like the world on fire. Offensively, in that title game, but they were efficient enough. And what
Spanks does on defense is so underrated. Let's handicap this game a little bit, not only just from a general perspective, but some of the fantasy implications of this kickoff game tonight between the Chiefs and Ravens.
Joe, Yeah, So, I mean the thing about Kansas City is, up until the playoffs last year, they didn't really have their offense operating at a full clip. You know, Travis Kelcey got hurt before the opener and that unfortunately led them to kind of playing from behind the sticks a little bit, and the receivers were terrible. And you know, Andy Reid, dating back to his time with Philadelphia, has always almost had a little bit of a blind spot
for the wide receiver position. You know, it took three straight NFC Championship losses to the for the Eagles to go out and get themselves a true number one receiver in which they got with Tarall Owens. And the difference between Andy Reid and Kansas City, and he did have Tyree Kelt for the first Super Bowl. I'm not trying to say that Hill wasn't there, but the difference with Andy Reid and Kansas City and Andy Reid in Philadelphia
is Donavan McNabb was merely great. Patrick Mahomes is next is potentially the greatest who's ever played, So there is a difference there. And Kansas City, though, is realizing Travis Kelce's a year older. I don't think he's going to be a full time player in the way that we've seen Travis Kelce be in the past. I think they're going to play him in smart situations. I said, I don't think he's going to be a part time player. I think he's going to be a smart time player.
I think they're going to use him effectively on obvious passive situations red zone, give him a couple of running game snaps off here and there to keep him fresh. But they bring in Xavier Worthy of the rookie they signed Hollywood Brown. Hollywood Brown's not going to play in this game. He's hurt. But they improve across the board, and now it looks like where she Rice isn't going to be suspended. People were drafting him all off season
as if his being suspended was inevitability. That hasn't been the case, so I actually expect Kansas City to rebound offensively, and the player I'm looking to make the biggest impact in this game is Rushie Rice.
Yeah, and it's interesting because Rice heads off the field issues and the league's going to let him play this thing out. So that's obviously big for Kansas City tomorrow night, a team that you know well, the Eagles is on the road right now, we're hearing that one of these teams, I guess the Packers has like a two and a half hour commute from the hotel. It's a bit messy right now down there, but the game will go on.
We presume it'll be the Packers, a team that really made a great playoff run last year down the stretch, and the Eagles, who made some additions in the offseason that I think are pretty interesting. But they lose Kelsey at center. What's your handicap on this game?
This is going to be a really, really fascinating watch because the Eagles are completely rebuilt offensively obviously with Kelsey, but not just without Kelsey, but also structurally. Kellen Morris the branding offensive coordinator. Here, they bring in sat Kwon Barkley, and the one thing I want to see from Eagles see here's the problem with what the Eagles did last year. The Eagles looked at their team and said, Noah, we have elite talent. That talent's just going to win.
Yeah, and.
That I don't know why you'd make it hard on your quarterback just because he has great receivers. The Eagles had no answers for Blitz, they had no motion. They they were stale, so teams knew what they were going to do. And you know, we actually saw it in Philadelphia number of years ago where Kansas where Chip Kelly was there, and Chip Kelly said, steam beats talent, and to an extent it does they need to help the talent that you have. You know, the Eagles went hard
the other way. Well they last year's Eagles were talent beat scheme. And there is very clearly a balance to be struck. And I think the Eagles think Kellen Moore is going to strike that with more motion, more usage of say Quon Barkley, things like that. On the foot side, Green Bay was hot at the end of last year. Jordan Love played great down the stretch. But the question is which of their receivers is actually going to be
the most productive fantasy player. And we don't know the answer to that, and I'm really excited to see their wide receiver rotation. I would really like to see Christian Watson take a step forward.
Yeah, it's a really fascinating team. They're so young and it's almost like a farm system that's coming up together. It's a rare approach right now with the Packers, and good on them to get another quarterback that appears to be poised to be heading places, as their prior to quarterbacks were quite good in their own right. Joe Dolan Fantasy Points dot Com is our guest here. So Brandon Ayuk, that saga's over. Thank god. I was tired of talking
about Brandon Ayuk. And that leaves one team of note in this studio, Trey Falco's Steelers, and an interesting spot because they thought, at least the fans did, that they were going to land Ayuk. See that did not happen. What's your outlook on Pittsburgh this year? As we hear now that Russell Wilson is limited in practice with a calf injury.
I don't want to put too fine a point on this, but their fives are horrendous with Pittsburgh. But Mike Tomlin always seems to steer that ship straight, and that is the one thing that's keeping me from diving over born here. Yeah, and I think the offensive line should be a little better, but of course, one of the best offensive linemen last year, Isaac Saamalo, he's gonna miss some time with an injury. And I do think they'll run the ball very well
with Najee Harrison Jalen Warren, but Warren's dinged up. I think Russell Wilson is completely toast, and I don't think I don't think Justin Fields has ever even bred, let alone toast. So it's going to be it's going to be a very difficult year under center, and they have to hide that talent.
Your voices is your voice is not in great shape, but the Zingers are better than ever. Joe Dolan, Fantasy Points dot Com. Hey, uh, walk us through this because I I don't want your voice to be gone for this weekend. So let's wrap this thing up and let us know what the new the grading metric is for Fantasy Points. Help us understand. Give us a little taste of that new score, my friend.
Okay, so I'm not gonna say are very cheeky.
Acronym there, they'll figure it out, but it's.
Called average separation score. You can figure out the acronym for yourself. And it's a new way of grading when and how a wide receiver wins their route. We have two years of data, which is an extremely small sample size. Uh so I want to I want to point that out that the two years of data have been very encouraging in terms of predicting breakouts, predicting which receivers are going to take a step forward during the season. And you can get it at Fantasy Points Data. It is
called average separation score. If you follow us on Twitter at Fantasy pts, you can see all of the marketing that we've been doing for We are really excited about this stat the old.
Ass that way.
Can I just throw one plug out there, please? Yes? One of the number two receiver and basically number one overall in average separation score over the last two seasons. It's a brand new Carolina pants job.
I knew it, but you talk about s last year it was pure ass on the field. I'm glad we got the good time this year In terms of separate.
Carolina had nobody who could separate all year. Nobody tell that the big gift of him.
Joe, you're the best man. Heal that voice and we'll talk to you soon, my friend. Thanks for making time.
Yeah, I'm my wife out getting halls for me right now, so I appreciate it all. The the cough drops out the steakhouse.
There you go. Well that's that's good to Joe. Be good man. Good to hear your voice.
All right, guys, take it.
Be good Joe Dolan