- 7 weeks ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00But they're taking Brock Bowers from us for week one and maybe longer
00:05because he had a knee injury last week?
00:12I don't know.
00:13I don't know.
00:14Thank God Evan is here because Evan will know.
00:17Evan Silva established the run.
00:20You know, you think, Evan, maybe this doesn't necessarily speak for you.
00:23You think you did enough work to, quote, work to get you to tonight.
00:30I mean, I spent – I was just telling Bulldog, like,
00:32my wife and kids are out of the house on Wednesdays.
00:34Perfect.
00:35Because this morning I'm just – you know, all the lineups and everything.
00:39And then five minutes ago, actually no Brock Bowers for at least a game.
00:44So we go right back to the drawing board, so to speak.
00:47It's never dull, is it?
00:50No, it's absolutely devastating.
00:52For somebody who had Brock Bowers – you know, Brock Bowers was set up to
00:55absolutely obliterate, I mean, the NFL record books this season from an on-paper
01:00standpoint, quarterback upgrade, huge offensive system upgrade,
01:06such little target competition.
01:07We know – even last year when he was banged up almost all season,
01:11he was still fourth among tight ends in fantasy points per game.
01:15And now we're not going to have him.
01:16I know that the reports say, what, a game or two?
01:19We'll see, man.
01:20You guys know about the PCL injuries, especially with your own tight end,
01:24Dalton Kincaid.
01:25I mean, I feel like that has ripped away a year and a half of his career.
01:29We saw it rip away a couple of years from Kyle Pitts, Ricky Pearsall,
01:36you know, Rashad Perryman.
01:38I think it contributed to his downfall in Baltimore.
01:41It's just – it can be really, a really, really bad injury that doesn't just linger
01:46for one season but lingers for multiple seasons.
01:49And it's almost like, God, I should have known.
01:54I'm not even sure what to say.
01:57Like, hopefully it's not all that, right?
02:00But what's interesting to me, and it's just been a few minutes here since we
02:03started talking that this came down, but that the injury was last week.
02:07And this is one of those, Evan, where, like, okay, well, couldn't we have known
02:11that, that he hurt his knee last week?
02:14And, you know, did they need to wait a week?
02:16Maybe they did for swelling or something.
02:17I'm not a doctor, obviously.
02:19But, yeah, well, you know, back to it.
02:22We'll see.
02:23Don't have to fix this by tonight.
02:25The good news is, if there's any silver lining, is that Michael Mayer was not
02:31drafted in a lot of leagues, and there's a decent chance that if you drafted
02:37Brock Bowers, you have a ready-made replacement for him potentially on the
02:40waiver wire.
02:41Michael Mayer was a record-setting tight end at Notre Dame, a second-round pick
02:45in the draft.
02:46You should be able to pick him up if you drafted Brock Bowers, and he'll be a
02:50good start until Bowers comes back.
02:52Was he a Mackey Award winner?
02:55It's your team.
02:57He was.
02:58Michael Mayer finished second in the Mackey Award voting behind Brock Bowers in
03:052023.
03:06Well, at least we weren't forced to swear here, which would have been bad for us
03:11had you done that.
03:12All right, Evan.
03:13Well, apart from this little bombshell today, I mean, most of the drafting
03:19season obviously is over.
03:21How do you think it went?
03:22How did it go for you personally?
03:26In light of the recency bias caused by this and how high I had Brock Bowers
03:31ranked, I mean, I'm not feeling great right now, but we will have a little bit
03:35better idea in week one.
03:38I mean, these are real games.
03:39This is not, you know, teams out here playing vanilla throughout the preseason.
03:43We will see how depth charts are set to begin the season.
03:49I mean, this is very, very real.
03:51All this stuff that's about to happen, we'll get 60 to 70 snaps from each team.
03:57So, I don't know.
03:59I mean, we're going to see about all that joke.
04:01Yeah.
04:03Well, how do you feel?
04:05You mentioned Kincaid here, and one of the things obviously we've been following this
04:09summer, you know, the year began, Evan, and I'm sure you're aware of this, with Brandon
04:14Bean and Joe Brady both talking about, you know, load management through the spring and
04:20even into the summer, and what we've had is him never really showing up on a, you know,
04:26DNP list all through summer.
04:28He's as healthy as maybe he's been since he was a rookie, and I don't even know how
04:32healthy he was as a rookie because he came in not having worked out at the combine or
04:36anything because of injury.
04:37So, that might be, I don't know, how good a bet do you think Dalton Kincaid is right
04:41now?
04:43I think he's a really good bet, and I've thought this for a few weeks.
04:47As you mentioned, he, knock on wood, stayed healthy seemingly every day throughout training
04:52camp.
04:52That's been the big thing for him.
04:55I don't think it's, some people go, oh, it's because he can't block, and I don't think
04:58that he's like some sort of sensational blocker.
05:00Neither was Colston Loveland as a rookie last year.
05:04I think it's been because of the injuries, and as you mentioned, the load management, and
05:08now that he's sort of shown that maybe he is past that PCL stuff, he made it through
05:13training camp 100%.
05:15We have Joe Biscaglia out here saying he believes that Dalton Kincaid can advance to becoming
05:21a 60% to 65% player on offense after last year being a 38% player.
05:27I'm optimistic.
05:28I mean, I think that there are scenarios where, you know, there's been a lot of talk about
05:31D.J. Moore, where Dalton Kincaid actually emerges as the Bills, you know, quote unquote
05:39number one receiver this year, takes a really big leap.
05:42There have been so many tight ends throughout recent history that have taken a little while
05:48to get to where they need to be to be a true breakout.
05:52I mean, the list is unending.
05:54It's really rare for a tight end like Brock Bowers to jump in as a rookie or even as a
05:59second-year player and be dominant right off the jump.
06:02And so it would fall really in line with historical norms for Dalton Kincaid to take a few extra
06:10years and this to be his breakout.
06:12I actually think it's going to be.
06:14That's McBride, for sure, who will now be tight end one, I would think, in whatever drafts
06:19are left.
06:19How ready to talk about how impactful that could be for the Bills are you, Evan?
06:25What, you mean a big step forward for Dalton Kincaid?
06:28Correct.
06:30I mean, to me, I think it's something that they need, you know, this defense.
06:34I don't know what their defense is going to be like this year because they still have,
06:38you know, so I think that they're going to need to compensate for that, you know, if there's
06:42any kind of a transition to the new defensive coordinator, Jim Leonard, and, you know, still
06:46using a lot of McDermott's players.
06:49I just, I don't know exactly how that's going to go, and I think that the Bills might need
06:53to score more points because of that and to have, you know, a truly dynamic, like Dalton
06:59Kincaid led all tight ends in yards per route run last year, which is a great measure of
07:05efficiency.
07:05He was third in the NFL regardless of position in yards per route run.
07:10I think that they need that.
07:11I think that D.J.
07:13Moore, based on the fact that one of the smartest offensive play cards in the league reduced
07:17D.J.
07:18Moore's role last season and then traded him away in Ben Johnson, I don't know that he
07:24is capable of being a true number one.
07:26I think the Bills need Dalton Kincaid to be their number one.
07:30I think that he's got a good chance to as long as he stays healthy.
07:33Well, you've kind of answered any D.J.
07:35Moore question here already, but, you know, what has it sounded like to you this summer
07:40with him?
07:41He's maybe obviously going to be somebody we ask everybody who comes on our show about,
07:46and he's always been kind of this polarizing guy, you know, like you want to like him,
07:51but you make excuses for who his quarterback is, yet there's always maybe a little bit
07:57left wanting.
07:58But it sounds like you're mostly out.
08:02Yeah, I'm just sort of on the fence.
08:05In terms of where I had him ranked in fantasy, I was maybe a little bit below his ADP.
08:10I drafted him a little bit, not that much.
08:12I mean, a little bit.
08:13I did like 70 drafts.
08:15I probably had him on like six teams.
08:18You know, so that's kind of where I was on D.J.
08:21Moore.
08:21I just, you know, he's, I think he's on the back nine of his career.
08:25You know, being a 29-year-old wide receiver, that's when the decline usually starts.
08:29And then what happened with him and Ben Johnson last year, and it's not because he's like a bad
08:34guy or anything, it's because I think that Ben Johnson didn't, you know, saw him as a declining
08:38player.
08:40I mean, I think he'll be okay.
08:42I don't think he's going to, you know, rip it up.
08:44I think that Dalton Kincaid is a player who could rip it up, again, if everything goes
08:48right health-wise.
08:49While we're on the Bills, Evan, James Cook leads the league in rushing last year on the
08:55heels of 16 rushing touchdowns the year before.
08:58The touchdowns didn't dip too badly, still had 12.
09:01We're wondering if whether or not maybe there's an uptick in receiving for him, remembering
09:07that he was originally drafted as a receiving back, and then just turned into this number
09:11one workhorse type guy.
09:14Ty Johnson is one of the Bills who is not practicing today.
09:17He's been their third down back.
09:18So maybe even this week in week one, there's more on Cook's plate.
09:23What are you doing with him?
09:26I mean, I love James Cook.
09:27And actually, if you look at the game last year that the Bills and the Texans played,
09:32you know, it was a bad one for the Bills' offense.
09:34But James Cook was the one, you know, the one offensive bright spot.
09:40So, yeah, James Cook is freaking awesome.
09:42This offense is built to run.
09:45It has been built to run since Joe Brady became the offensive coordinator, you know.
09:51And so, yeah, I think that James Cook is great.
09:54A great fantasy pick.
09:55I think he's going to have a great season, and if there was one player I would bet on
09:58this week to have at least a decent game against the best defense in the league on the road,
10:06it would, you know, among the Bills' skill position players, it would be James Cook.
10:09That's interesting, Evan.
10:10I mean, we've, of course, been focused on this game for months as it's the opener.
10:14And also, the Bills have lost there like six times in a row in Houston, and they don't
10:19have a lot of that kind of streak working right now in their recent history.
10:23And Houston, by the way, has won all those games without scoring more than 23 points
10:27in any of them.
10:28So, they're not all Josh Allen games, but you're pointing your finger at Cook.
10:33And, you know, last year is a good example.
10:3517 for 116 and a touchdown, as I look at it, in that game against Houston.
10:41Quite a matchup for Week 1 for them.
10:43For the Bills, with all the winning they've done, it might be the toughest matchup possible,
10:47I think, for them going to Houston.
10:51Dude, Chope, I just turned in my write-up for the game, and that's exactly what I wrote.
10:55Like, this could be the toughest matchup that the Bills face all season.
10:58I know that there has been some support among sharper bettors for the Texans to win the game
11:05straight up.
11:05You know, I think that I wound up picking the Texans to win, I think, 20 to 17 or something
11:13like that.
11:14I think it's going to be a low-scoring game.
11:16You know, the Texans have an incredible defense, a defense that got better since last season,
11:23and they were right there with the Seahawks in terms of being the best defense in the league
11:26last year.
11:27So, it's going to be a tough one.
11:28I think the Bills will have to grind out and win a close game.
11:33The Texans are going to want to play a close game, give the ball to David Montgomery relentlessly.
11:39You know, that has been one of the Bills' biggest weaknesses, the run defense.
11:42They're still light from the Sean McDermott era.
11:47And, yeah, I think that's what the Texans want to do.
11:49They're going to want to run the ball a ton with David Montgomery.
11:53Does that, as we focus on these two teams together, the week one matchup, does that slow
12:00you down relative to, you know, the market, as they say, on Nico Collins?
12:04Or is this maybe a particular kind of game where you might think it's more about Montgomery?
12:10I think that after the Texans lost Jaden Higgins to a torn ACL, you just kind of throw it out
12:17the window, and, like, Nico Collins could lead the NFL in target share, in air yard share.
12:23I mean, he's just going to get so much volume, and he's awesome.
12:26And, I mean, he's going to be a big problem.
12:28Those deep crossing routes that Nico Collins can run, that's going to be a big problem
12:32in the back end of the Bills' defense.
12:34Not that they don't have, you know, some pretty good personnel back there.
12:37I think Christian Benford could be a tough matchup for Nico Collins one-on-one.
12:41But he's going to be running those deep crossers, and he's really hard to defend on those.
12:48And then it's going to be Dalton Schultz underneath, I think.
12:52And that's going to be the – those guys are going to spearhead the Texans' passing offense.
12:57Evan Silva, our guest, established the run.
13:00Mike Schopen, the Bulldog here.
13:01I'm sure Mike Leone is listening, taking notes on all these comments that Evan is making,
13:06your colleague at Establish the Run.
13:08What do you think tonight?
13:10So, interesting, I think, that New England is only a three-point underdog in Seattle,
13:16given how the Super Bowl looked, without Henderson, if that matters.
13:19Does that reflect maybe a general skepticism about the Seahawks losing Clint Kubiak?
13:28I mean, do you think that that's in the air with this game or this season ahead?
13:33That's where I'd start, yeah.
13:36Yeah.
13:37Also, year to year, you know, I think that the Seahawks are going to have a great defense again.
13:43But maintaining being, you know, a top-two defense year over year,
13:47that's really more difficult than maintaining, you know, a top-two offense year to year.
13:53That can be a very volatile thing to rely on is defensive dominance year over year over year.
14:00And then, yeah, you add in the loss.
14:02Like, we don't know what the offense is necessarily going to look like under Brian Fleury.
14:06And we know that it was – it surpassed so many expectations last year under Clint Kubiak.
14:15I don't know if you remember, but last offseason, people were like,
14:19oh, this offense is going to be terrible.
14:21The offensive line is going to be horrible.
14:23Sam Darnold can't deal with pressure.
14:26You know, and it's differing now.
14:29The feeling is different now.
14:31But, yeah, there's – the offense could take – like, see a lot of regression this season.
14:36Also, they – it's not like they upgraded their pass catcher core very much.
14:40They only have one guy.
14:42They've got JSN.
14:43You know, maybe Rashid Sheehy can give them a little bit downfield, you know,
14:47after his in-season acquisition.
14:49But, yeah, and that's why I had JSN ranked a little bit lower than a lot of other people.
14:54That's why I wound up with Amon Ross St. Brown ahead of him.
14:57Just the bankability of the offense isn't there in Seattle.
15:00On the New England side of tonight's game, the two big skill position ads are obvious.
15:07A.J. Brown and, of course, Romeo Dobbs significantly behind that, but still maybe impactful.
15:13How about both of them and what they're going to do for New England?
15:21Tonight, you know, it's always hard playing against, you know, a Mike McDonald defense.
15:27So, I don't know.
15:29It's going to be really interesting.
15:31You know, A.J. Brown is a player that a bunch of his rate stats were among his career lows
15:36last year in Philadelphia.
15:37I know he's dealing with a hamstring injury.
15:39He had some sort of a fallout with the team.
15:41He's another 29-year-old receiver, but all the reports on him were glowing throughout training camp.
15:51And so, it'll be really interesting to see.
15:53It's going to be – I don't know – I don't have any bold predictions.
15:56I'm just – I'm ready to watch the game.
15:58Right.
15:58But as far as the season goes as well, you know, New England, a lot of the talk, especially here
16:05in Buffalo, Evan, about them,
16:07is they played such a soft schedule.
16:09Of course, the Bills played a pretty similar schedule last year, but that New England sort of got fat on
16:13that.
16:14The playoff path was pretty cakey.
16:16You know, they got C.J. Stroud in weather.
16:19They got Jerk Stidham in weather and made it to the Super Bowl.
16:23So, there's maybe a little bit of a paper tiger notion about them.
16:27Do you – I don't know.
16:28How do you feel about that?
16:31The Patriots, if they're going to be – I mean, I think that their trajectory for Drake May is going
16:38to continue to go upward.
16:39I think that, you know, in the Super Bowl, they had two of their rookie offensive linemen playing hurt, like
16:46clearly playing hurt.
16:47Those guys are healthy, and now in their second seasons, they acquired A.J. Brown.
16:54You know, so I think that for as much regression as people might expect for the Patriots, based on, oh,
17:00they played the easiest schedule, whatever, like they also got better.
17:05So, and, you know, and Mike Rabel always churns out a good team.
17:08It doesn't matter what personnel Mike Rabel has.
17:11He had the Titans under Ryan Tannehill as like the number one or two AFC seed one year.
17:18I mean, he's an awesome, awesome coach.
17:20Josh McDaniel is a great offensive coordinator.
17:24The Patriots are going to be really good.
17:26Two more for me, Evan, on a couple of players that have been interesting storylines in fantasy, recognizing that almost
17:33everybody's draft –
17:34I mean, it should be over by now with – you know, there's a game tonight.
17:37There is a game tonight, yeah.
17:38But the Green Bay backfield, it's hard to know how to play it.
17:43Jacob's status is up in the air.
17:45His court date gets moved up to, I think, tomorrow.
17:48Like, is there a strategy you've sort of relied on when it comes to the Packers, or has it just
17:56been too volatile to really trust anything?
17:59You're just talking about the backfield or the offense in general?
18:02You know, both, because their pass-catching group is, you know, it's like chef's choice almost.
18:09Yeah, well, you know, Matt LaFleur has been saying it consistently throughout the offseason.
18:14He reiterated again today that they are going to go with these three receivers.
18:20Because in recent years, like, they would play five receivers.
18:23They'd use a five-man receiver rotation on game days.
18:27And it was annoying to fantasy players because, you know, the starters would only be playing, like, 65% of
18:33the snaps, whereas, you know, guys on other teams are playing every single snap.
18:37And so that really limited the ceiling and lowered the floors for the players that were theoretically starters.
18:44Now they're going to go with Christian Watson, Matthew Golden, and Jaden Reed on almost every single snap.
18:50That's going to be really big for them, for those players' consistency in the box score.
18:56When we're talking about the running, it's going to be really touch-and-go with the running back situation.
19:00They're playing the Vikings in week one.
19:03So that's a really tough defense to play guys against.
19:08Chris Brooks is going to be used a lot because he's their pass protection back.
19:11He's not going to get the ball a lot, but they're going to need him because the Vikings blitz at
19:16one of the highest rates in the league.
19:17They're going to need their best pass protector.
19:19And I think they'll mix in Marshawn Lloyd.
19:21And Marshawn Lloyd is their most explosive guy with the ball in his hands, but they're just going to mix
19:26him in.
19:27So it's going to be really touch-and-go.
19:29So, you know, that's why nobody was using high draft picks on Packers players.
19:34Marshawn Lloyd wound up being like a 6th, 7th, 8th round, you know, sort of wild card lottery ticket.
19:42But it's going to be touch-and-go with a really tough matchup in week one.
19:45And lastly, Evan, how about San Francisco?
19:48I had a team I was looking at today with Mike Evans and Dijon Stribling.
19:53And, you know, you drafted Mike Evans, you start Mike Evans at this point if he's going to be healthy.
19:57But is Stribling interesting to you?
20:01Absolutely.
20:02It's going to be another touch-and-go situation.
20:05Stribling actually went around the same areas in drafts that Marshawn Lloyd did.
20:09We want Stribling to get to a point where we know that he's going to be on the field a
20:13ton,
20:14that he's not losing snaps to a guy like Demarcus Robinson or one of the younger sort of rotational receivers.
20:21I mean, Desjuan Stribling looked awesome in the preseason.
20:24That doesn't guarantee that in week one he's going to be out there, you know, enough to be relied on
20:32in fantasy.
20:32I think Mike Evans is a must-start in week one.
20:35If you're not going to use – I mean, if you're going to use Mike Evans, you use him at
20:38the – you know,
20:39the early in the season when he's healthy, you know, relatively.
20:45And, yeah, I mean, he's an old player.
20:47You want to bet on those players early in the season because they don't always hold up over the course
20:51of the season.
20:52Evan, I've had another great offseason listening to you all the time.
20:55I just really enjoy your work, and here's to a great season.
21:00Let's win big money.
21:01What do you think?
21:01Why not?
21:02Let's do it, guys.
21:03Let's do it, guys.
21:04Thank you so much for having me.
21:05You're welcome.
21:06Thanks, Evan.
21:06Evan Silva from Establish the Run.