 All right, welcome into another FanDuel Hurry Up. I'm Joe Ranieri, joined alongside Jim Sonos of Number Fire. We had an opportunity yesterday to talk about some of the winners so far in the NFL free agency period. Today, we're going to tackle some of the losers. And Jim, the NFL is open for business, and thank goodness for that. But the deals, they just keep coming in hard. They keep coming in fast. Yeah, it really has. And it's been interesting to follow everything. It's kind of hard to keep up, because there's just so much happening right now. So a lot of winners, a lot of losers, we could have done a full another day, I think, of free agency winners based on the stuff that happened yesterday. But still, some guys who are definitely impacted in a negative way that will get to you for today. All right, Jim, let's start with the Minnesota Vikings and their quarterback, Curt Cousins, who just signed a two-year extension with the club. What are your thoughts about Curt Cousins and the Minnesota Vikings and that extension? I'm sure Curt Cousins feels good about it. Yeah, I think the extension is fine. My issue is that they traded Stefan Diggs, because from a fantasy perspective, the big reason Curt Cousins was relevant in fantasy was because he was efficient. He was in a really good system, in a really good situation, up in Minnesota. He doesn't run a whole lot. He doesn't throw a ton. That's what you need is to be efficient in fantasy if you're not going to run or have a lot of volume. And now, the expected efficiency for Curt Cousins should go down. Now that Stefan Diggs is elsewhere. The Vikings do have two first-round picks, 22 and 25, thanks to that trade via the Buffalo Bills, but that's not going to replace Stefan Diggs. Stefan Diggs is one of the best route runners in all of the NFL, and he is a true difference maker on the field. And now, it's Adam Thielen and then a massive cliff to the rest of the wide receivers on this Vikings team. There is still plenty of time for them to address that, but the free agency market is drying up. As mentioned, you can plug in a rookie, but it's hard to expect a rookie to replace a production lost by Stefan Diggs. So I'm a bit worried here about Curt Cousins from a fantasy perspective. I think the extension was fine by the Vikings, but it's kind of confusing to extend Cousins and then dish away one of his best assets in Stefan Diggs. I think that Adam Thielen was a winner as we discussed yesterday, but this does not help Curt Cousins. He is an efficiency-dependent quarterback in fantasy football. And his efficiency should go down with no Stefan Diggs. So I think if we're talking about one quarterback leagues, it's going to be pretty hard for me to get jazzed about Curt Cousins for 2020. Well, I got a couple of words there for Minnesota Viking fans and it's Dalvin Cook, who is going to be a key piece to this offense and to this team moving forward. As Dalvin Cook will go, this team will go. So it'll be very interesting to see his health this year as well as the upcoming draft for the Minnesota Vikings. All right, let's move on to the Houston Texans and their quarterback. How about the Sean Watson? I'm not sure there is maybe a more depressed quarterback in the league right now. As he watched DeAndre Hopkins walk out the door, going to be wearing a new uniform next year. Where do you stand right now into Sean Watson and the Houston Texans heading into this year? Yeah, at least with the Vikings, they have two first round picks try to fill that hole. The Houston Texans do not have a first round pick because they traded that way to get Larry B. Tunson over the off season. So the task of replacing DeAndre Hopkins is already immensely difficult and it gets a whole lot worse when you don't have a first round pick to do so. Now they do have two seconds thanks to this trade but asking a second round rookie to replace DeAndre Hopkins is a super major task. That's going to be a tough order for them there. Now the good thing that Sean Watson has that Kirk Cousins does not have is that he does have a couple of really talented wide receivers there with Will Fuller and with Kenny Stills. Those two guys are both really good. We also know that they are injury risks and that is going to be a perpetual concern for this Texans team. DeSean Watson is a really good quarterback. He does add value as a rusher which is great for fantasy as well but you have to question that efficiency will go down with DeAndre Hopkins being gone. Hopkins has been a staple in the lineup ever since DeSean Watson joined this team. He does not miss games. We don't know what to expect out of DeSean Watson with no DeAndre Hopkins but in the past when he's lost Will Fuller we've seen the efficiency go down for DeSean Watson and I would expect the same to happen here. Now this is not to say that DeSean Watson is not fantasy relevant. His outlook is still much better than that of a lot of quarterbacks in the league but it definitely does take him down a couple of pegs and with DeSean Watson going pretty high in fantasy drafts that's going to be a harder pill to swallow now than it was previously. In general we do want to wait on quarterback in fantasy football and I think that if you're going to take that plunge early I think that DeSean Watson should go down our list now. We should be less willing to make that leap to get him than we would have been previously. So I still like DeSean Watson. I think he is a tremendous football player but from a fantasy perspective and where he's currently going from a cost perspective it's a lot easier to get there now that he does not have one of the league's top wide receivers. Well let's face it right. The running game is going to be extremely important this year for the Houston Texans. Can they get those early returns on David Johnson? That is going to speak volumes I think as to the kind of year the Houston Texans are going to have. All right so let's talk about Julian Edelman now and the New England Patriots who, let's face it he's only known one quarterback and that quarterback is no longer there. Tom Brady on his way to the Tampa Bay Bucks and Julian Edelman has got to be sitting there going now what? And it's a great question Jim. Now what with the New England Patriots and Julian Edelman? I think the one good thing for Edelman is that there are still a lot of viable quarterbacks out there who could fill this void. So it's not as if I wouldn't expect Jared Sedum to start. If Jared Sedum did start for the Patriots Julian Edelman would be completely irrelevant for fantasy but we should see some viable replacement come in there at some point. The problem is that like Tom Brady himself wasn't that bad last year. I think the issue with Brady was that he had a really bad supporting cast so expecting good efficiency out of him was a pretty tall ask. And so you go from Tom Brady who was relatively good and decently efficient to now whatever the Patriots are gonna have it is going to be a quarterback downgrade for Edelman. As you mentioned too, he's built up this chemistry with Tom Brady for such a long time. Now that's gone. That chemistry is gone. He will have a new quarterback for the first time in his entire career. That is definitely a bad thing as well. The third thing that's a negative for Edelman is that they're going to improve the talent around him. You have to assume that even with Tom Brady being gone unless the Patriots go full tank which their moves thus far indicate that's not the plan you'd have to assume that it's going to be an improved supporting cast around Edelman this year. If that takes away targets from Edelman that takes away his one remaining really positive strength from a fantasy perspective was all that fantasy perspective was all that volume. Now that volume should go down the efficiency should go down the chemistry of the quarterback should go down there are a lot of negatives here for Edelman. Now, if they were to sign or trade for a relevant quarterback maybe this isn't as bad as it seems at first glance but as of right now I'm going to downgrade Edelman quite a bit. He is still viable for fantasy because I would still expect him to get a good number of targets but we have to expect a lot less than what we've seen from Edelman over the past couple of years. Two words to give an eye on in New England. Ham Newton. It would not be the first time that Bill Belichick and company went ahead got themselves a aging veteran and gave them new life would not surprise me at all but it is going to be very interesting to watch what Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniel decide to do with that quarterback position especially in the draft next month. So let's talk about one of the games truly greats both on and off the field. Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona Cardinals you'd be hard pressed to find anybody say a bad thing about Larry Fitzgerald the way he conducts his business is amazing and now all of a sudden Kyle Amuri's got Deandre Hopkins and he still has Larry Fitzgerald. Larry Fitzgerald should be really happy about this move should he not? I'm sure he's excited if you're talking about winning games because Deandre Hopkins will help this Cardinals team win football games to help Kyle Amuri get better but he's not going to help Larry Fitzgerald get volume and that's what we're looking at here in fantasy football is we want volume and Fitz is not going to get it with Deandre Hopkins being in town. I think that Christian Kirk is still a pretty viable wide receiver in fantasy even with Hopkins being there because he's young, he's very good. He had a rapport with Kyle Amuri last year. So I think Kirk is still okay and he may see softer coverage as well but as far as Larry Fitzgerald goes he is hyper volume dependent because he's not getting downfield he's not making these huge catches not expecting huge touchdown totals out of him. So kind of like Edelman what you need for Fitzgerald is a lot of targets. When you bring in a guy like Deandre Hopkins he's going to command a heavy target share within this offense and that's going to take away some targets and probably a lot of targets from Larry Fitzgerald. There also could address this position in the draft because they do still have that first round pick as well so we've already seen Fitzgerald get downgraded as of right now with Hopkins being in town but if they were to add more via the draft which they very well could given how good this draft class is he could become completely irrelevant. So he had 20% of the targets last year with Christian Kirk being healthy. I would not expect that number to be anywhere near that for this year. Fitzgerald is a tremendous football player. He is a Hall of Famer for sure but from a fantasy perspective for 2020 I don't see it given all the volume he is losing with Deandre Hopkins now in town. So let's be realistic though that is one heck of a security blanket to have if I'm Kyla Murray knowing that I get to dump it off and I get to find Larry Fitzgerald when all things aren't going my way. So to your point though probably great news for the team but maybe the addition of Deandre Hopkins not great news for Larry Fitzgerald for fantasy purpose. I wanna talk about recency bias too if I can for a second because it's a liability in the sports betting world and I do think it's also a liability in the fantasy world because I don't know anybody who fans are going to look at and just put them up on a pedestal like Raheem Mostert of the 49ers who had an amazing run at the end of the season right through the Super Bowl there. So I know fans are gonna get into this year and they're gonna be looking at Raheem Mostert and saying boy oh boy this guy's gonna be even better than he was last year. Is there some liability in thinking that way about Raheem Mostert moving into this year? Yeah I think we knew going into this year that Raheem Mostert was not going to be some bell cow back for the 49ers because they've always used this running back rotation whether it be Tevin Coleman, Matt Breda, Mostert all mixing in. So I think our expectations were pretty realistic in keeping them in check for Mostert but they kinda got the worst case scenario yesterday based on the news that went down. The first thing was that Matt Breda, they put a second round tender on Matt Breda. I don't think anyone's giving up a second round pick to get Matt Breda on their team so he should be back with them next year. Then they restructured the contract to Jerick McKinnon. We've kinda forgotten about Jerick McKinnon because he's missed the past two years but by restructuring that contract Jerick McKinnon basically ensures he will be with that team in 2020. So what we're seeing right now for the 49ers is they have four viable running backs between Rocky Mostert, Tevin Coleman, Matt Breda and Jerick McKinnon. That could always change because McKinnon, we'd seen them deal with injuries, Matt Breda always banged up, Tevin Coleman dealt with injuries last year too but there are a lot of bodies here and this is a team that likes to utilize all of those bodies. It's also not as if Rocky Mostert is super young, this is going to be his age 28 season so he's a little bit up there in age, doesn't have a ton of wear on those tires by any mean but still he's not a spring chicken. So there are four guys here on the San Francisco backfield. We know that they like to use a committee and Mostert is not exactly the youngest guy in the world. That all adds up to keep expectations in check. So I think that as a community of fantasy football world has done a good job of realizing the limitations around Rocky Mostert so far but given the return of McKinnon and that Breda will be there as well, I think this kind of wound up being a worst case scenario for Rocky Mostert. So if you were optimistic about him getting into 2020, you may want to lower those expectations because it's probably going to be a headache just as it was in 2019. Truth is I'm not sure it's that great a thing to be a running back on the San Francisco 49ers with Kyle Shanahan calling the plays. I don't know that that's ever going to change there. It does seem like three and four back stables are going to be the norm in San Francisco for quite a while. And finally, Jim, let's talk about another great NFC running back who has been absolutely fantastic but maybe due for a little regression. How about Aaron Jones in Green Bay? Rumors have maybe a cap casualty coming up. Some folks expecting maybe, I don't know, maybe a step back this year. What are your thoughts about Aaron Jones and the Green Bay Packers moving forward? Yeah, I like Aaron Jones. Aaron Jones is a tremendous football player as he showed last year, scoring a ton of touchdowns. I like this offense as well. So there are several good things that are still in Aaron Jones's favor. The issue I have with him is that there are changes on the offensive line. And Aaron Jones, his entire career in Green Bay has been running behind one of the best offensive lines in all football. But now Brian Belaga, their right tackle, is gone. He has signed with the Los Angeles Chargers. They did sign Ricky Wagner from the Lions to replace him but the Lions let Wagner go for a reason. That is a downgrade from Belaga to Ricky Wagner. We should expect Aaron Jones's efficiency due to decline as a result. But on top of that, they've already said that he's not gonna be a bell count next year. They have said they want to keep him fresh throughout the entire season, as they did last year, and Nixon, Jamal Williams. This is not a bad strategy by the Packers. Jamal Williams is good enough last year to justify getting usage. And we've seen how much running backs can wear down in the NFL. So if you are a NFL team, it is in your best interest to potentially mix in guys, keep guys fresh. So I don't think the Packers are dumb for what they're doing, but it definitely does not help Aaron Jones from a fantasy perspective. He was due for regression in 2020 regardless because he scored so many touchdowns last year. That was not going to sustain in 2020. But now you take away Brian Belaga, give them a downgrade at right tackle and you bake in that regression. And things are probably not gonna play out too well for Aaron Jones. Now Jones is still a very good fantasy piece because he is tied to Aaron Rodgers. He himself is quite good. And the rest of that offensive line is still good as well. There are still a lot of great things working in Aaron Jones' favor. But given the years coming off of, given that we should expect him to come back to earth a bit next year, I think this is a good time to potentially sell him if you own him in Dynasty Leagues. And from a redraft perspective, take a long look at the other guys going around him and see what the expectations for them should be because Aaron Jones, potentially due to take a step back in 2020. Yeah, I agree. Load management, not just in the NBA, but certainly might be playing a role with some of these running backs, especially Aaron Jones this year, might be a little regression in the future. So you're right. Another team that will be very interesting to see what they do in the draft in the running back position. So Jim, all in all, it has been an absolute crazy opening to the NFL free agency period. And you know, and I know, still plenty of big names on the board yet. Do you see this slowing down at all? Oh yeah, the NFL never sleeps. We've got a lot of quarterbacks could be on the move and quarterbacks are the drivers of everything in fantasy football with the efficiency they bring to the table. So we're gonna have plenty of more discussion about season long winners and losers as we progress through this all season. But it's hard to tell how things will shake because this league has been definitely interesting the past couple of weeks. It certainly has. And as usual, we've got you covered here on the Fan Duel Hurry Up. And as these deals come in, we'll go ahead and break them down for you. So on behalf of Jim Sonos of Number Fire, I'm Joe Ranieri. We'll be back again tomorrow with another edition of the Fan Duel Hurry Up.