D'Andre Swift - Detroit Lions
Current ADP: 28.6 | RB16
Most of you guys will say "RB16, well that's his floor."
Well the whole point of me coming onto the mic is to shift your mindset. To be completely honest, I'm well aware it's a coin flip on whether or not I'm right or wrong on any of these players. I want you to think differently when it comes to drafting, fantasy football, life in mother fucking general. The best content creators are the ones that make you think differently at scale. Everyone can regurgitate the same shit, but how many times do you come into a podcast looking at something one way and come out saying, damn, my whole ass mindset was now shifted. I hope I can provide that to you every time I hit the record button, for real. That's why I show up everyday for you guys.
This is where I'm leading ... "well that's his floor". I mean one, that's not true, but two even if it were, that doesn't make him a good pick. The question you need to be asking isn't what his floor is, but how likely is he not to finish around that floor. If you say his floor is RB16-18, okay, out of a 100% chance, what % is it that he finishes in that range. Because if that rate is high, he's not a good 2nd or even 3rd round pick this year. RB16-18 does not move the needle in fantasy football.
WE ARE SOLELY LOOKING FOR NEEDLE MOVERS. WE draft two RBs out the rip, because hitting on high-end RBs in fantasy are the needle movers. At a very basic level, that's what I mean. I can't predict who those high-end RBs are going to be, but all else equal, we know that the data tells us those are the types of strategy that move the needle for us.
Last year, Kareem Hunt was the RB 18 in FPPG (half ppr), averaging 12.5 fppg. Rex Burkhead averaged 9.5 fppg down at like RB32.
The point here, very much like I made in the CEH video, with emphasizing things tHAT DONT MATTER like his 1100 YFS, is to... stop fucking doing that. Stop choosing arbitrary numbers like "his floor is RB17" and acting like that matters, because RB17 doesn't do shit for you.
My point here isn't to say his floor isn't RB17 or his ceiling isn't RB6, it's just these stupid fuckin buzz statements that people say that drive me FUCKING BONKERS. u know when i start using british terms im big mad.
But let's look at Swift.
We know, everyone loves Swift. Great prospect, great running back, went exactly along the Miles Sanders timeline.
Came in as a talented rookie, everyone drafted him in the 6th ish round of redraft, same as Sanders, we all wanted the talent to push him up the depth chart when it was clear that it wasn't going to happen. Just like we had Jordan Howard, etc in Philly, we had AP and Kerryon in Detroit.
The stage, however has been set for Year 2. And I made a video about Swift a few weeks byke, in my DO NOT DRAFT RBs for this year, since then his ADP has dropped dramatically. From like mid-end 2nd round to pick 29, halfway through the 3rd.
And that my friends, is where I feel as if the fade has gone too far. I'm going to make a film soon about 5 players whose fade has gone too far, and I'm starting to see Swift as one of them.
You're able to get him as your RB3 or flex and I'm fine with that. You could hypothetically start Saquon/Zeke, Gibson, Swift. That's crispy.
Swift will be the starter this year. But not every starter in the NFL is a workhorse. Swift won't be. Jamaal Williams will absolutely play on an ANNOYING number of snaps.
The positives are obvious here - the Lions are bad, they're going to have to throw a lot, and they have such little talent at WR that's it might not even be hyperbole to project Swift as the 2nd leading target guy on the team. I do think it's a stretch tbh, but it's not impossible. People throw around huge target share numbers left and right without actually looking at the numbers.
And this isn't even about this, but I tweeted this out last week and figure it's worth showing y'all. 
Just another farce buzz term people throw around that we need to debunk-bed breakdown.. skirt
Like what rate can we reasonably expect? Idk people want to start throwin around like 15-20%. Let's start with the fact that Alvin Kamara was the only RB in the NFL to clip 20% target share last year (and Michael Thomas was basically dead). 5 running backs went over 15% last year. I think 12-15% is reasonable for Swift.
65, 70, 80? I'm not sure, but it should be among the top-5-8 in the NFL for RBs. You wish they didn't bring in Jamaal Williams who is more multi-faceted than a guy like AP or Jordan Howard or whatever bc he's going to take 30-40 targets, but regardless Swift will be good in PPR leagues.
The question comes on the ground. Swift, like JK Dobbins was awesome on the GL and started seeing a lot of the teams GL carries. How many will Detroit see of those, I mean not a ton, but they also won 5 games last year and Swift saw enough to score 8 rushing touchdowns.
HOWEVER the big thing is Anthony Lynn coming over from the Chargers and this is what scares me. Im not scared of Williams as a talent, I'm not even really scared of him contributing on the 3rd downs, but he called Williams his A back, his grinder, his big back. I'm not sure just how aware people are of how little Austin Ekeler (who I think we can compare to Swift in Detroit) was used on the GL as their B-back.
Lynn like really, really for whatever reason actually thinks that this idea of an "A-Back" matters on the GL. And it's going to impact Swift.
His ceiling is capped. His floor is nice, but I don't take 2nd round picks for floors, I take them for ceilings, 3rd round pick, if he keeps dropping Swift is a guy I'll be taking who can go for 700-800 on the ground but also 400-500 through the air. The range of outcomes for his touchdowns will dictate his finish and more signs than not, point to the lower end of the spectrum.
I mean their line is good though, especially now after adding Sewell. The efficiency should be there, but volume, especially TD might not be.
Chase Claypool - Pittsburgh Steelers
ADP - 67 | WR30
It's going to be very hard for Claypool's production to match what people think of him as a talent.
If JuJu was out of the mix, he'd be much easier to invest in.
I do have a bit of a concern with Chase.
Unbelievable first year. 109-62-873-9 and he added two rushing scores, which isn't happening again.
My concern is this. Where does an increase in volume come from for him to be scoring more fantasy points.
They were number two already in pass plays/game 42... no shot they flirt with that number again, it's the reason they took 225lb Najee Harris in the first round. They want him to get 20 carries, it couldn't be more obvious.
Now everything points to Claypool being great, but how high is his ceiling if he scored 11 touchdowns last year.
Among 71 WRs that had at least 60 targets last year, Claypool was 3rd among them in terms of % of FPs that came from TDs (35.8%) only Mike Evans and Adam Thielen had a higher percentage.
Now you know I've been vocal about fading Thielen bc he ranked like 25th in targets, receptions, rec. yards all that stuff and he'll likely finish around there.
With Claypool, it's hard to see a volume increase when the offense as a whole is going downward. You might look at those 109 targets and be like holy shit, that's amazing. As a raw number yes. But when you look at the target share on the team, it was 16.7%, 58th among WRs last year. It ranked 7th among rookie WRs.
It feels like the TD numbers NEED to be there for Claypool to be a good ROI. I'd love Claypool if I was a Steelers fan but if it's not a bestball draft, where u dont have to decide when he's in your lineup I'm probably not going to be the guy drafting him in 2020. It's very possible I'm overthinking this, but all signs point to a much more run-oriented offense than last year, and 4 legit receiving options with the addition of Najee.