🚨Aaron Rodgers to the Steelers! Is This Great for DK Metcalf? (06/05 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Summary

Fantasy Football Today: "🚨Aaron Rodgers to the Steelers! Is This Great for DK Metcalf?" (June 5, 2025)

Hosts: Adam Azer and Dave Richard
Release Date: June 5, 2025

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1. Introduction and Breaking News (00:00 - 00:45)

The episode kicks off with Adam Azer welcoming listeners to a bonus edition of Fantasy Football Today. He introduces Dave Richard, who is dressed in a sharp jacket, freshly arrived from CBS Sports HQ where he was briefed on the latest fantasy news.

• Adam Azer [00:00]: "Welcome to this bonus edition of Fantasy Football Today."

Dave humorously shares a light-hearted moment about J.K. Dobbins having dinner with the Broncos, setting a casual tone before delving into the main topic.

2. Major Announcement: Aaron Rodgers to the Steelers (00:45 - 01:31)

The hosts pivot to the headline news: Aaron Rodgers is reportedly set to sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers. While Adam expresses initial surprise, Dave notes that this move had been anticipated throughout the offseason.

• Adam Azer [00:45]: "Big news is Aaron Rodgers is reportedly going to sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers."

• Dave Richard [00:56]: "So now this isn't big news because we kind of figured that that was going to happen."

They discuss the implications of Rodgers joining the Steelers, particularly focusing on his role as a super flex quarterback and debating his ranking in fantasy drafts.

3. Impact on DK Metcalf and Steelers' Offense (01:31 - 06:44)

A significant portion of the discussion centers on how Aaron Rodgers' addition affects DK Metcalf's fantasy value. Adam argues that Rodgers' targeting tendencies will benefit Metcalf, potentially leading to a career-high target share.

• Adam Azer [04:14]: "Aaron Rodgers is going to throw the ball to DK Metcalf. I'm going to say DK Metcalf. I think he could have a career high in target share this year."

Dave concurs, highlighting Metcalf's consistent target volume over the past five seasons and projecting solid PPR points despite last year's injury setback.

• Dave Richard [05:19]: "I believe DK Metcalf has had more than 7 targets per game for 5 straight seasons and has been over 15 PPR points once."

They analyze Rodgers' efficiency compared to other quarterbacks and the Steelers' offensive strategy under Arthur Smith, anticipating a balanced approach between running and passing.

• Dave Richard [02:42]: "Rogers actually is gonna like not having to throw the ball 34, 35 times per game."

4. Player Rankings and Draft Strategies (06:44 - 10:22)

The conversation shifts to fantasy rankings, where Caleb Johnson is ranked 25th at running back, just after David Montgomery and Quinshawn Judkins.

• Adam Azer [08:58]: "In our consensus rankings we have Caleb Johnson 25th at running back just after David Montgomery and Quinshawn Judkins ahead of Aaron Jones."

Dave discusses drafting strategies, recommending targeting DK Metcalf in the late rounds due to his expected high target share, and compares him to other receivers like George Pickens and Travis Hunter.

• Dave Richard [07:00]: "Judy over Metcalf. I want to give you a couple of interesting stats."

5. Team and Player Insights (10:22 - 12:00)

The hosts provide additional insights on other players and team dynamics. They touch upon Pat Friarmuth as a streamer tight end and the potential of Roman Wilson if Aaron Rodgers favors him as a target.

• Dave Richard [10:22]: "Friarmouth was always in the streamer tight end category."

Adam shares an interesting statistic about Rodgers being top 10 in running back target rate in four of his last five seasons, highlighting his versatility.

• Adam Azer [08:56]: "Did you know that Aaron Rodgers has been top 10 in running back target rate in four of his last five seasons?"

They also discuss the Jets' defensive strategies and how the Steelers might balance their run and pass game under the new quarterback arrangement.

6. Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks (12:00 - 12:21)

As the episode wraps up, Adam summarizes the key takeaways and expresses anticipation for Week 1 performances.

• Adam Azer [12:00]: "All right, well, we get to see them in Action Week 1 on CBS."

Dave and Adam thank each other and the listeners, signing off until the next episode.

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Key Takeaways:

• Aaron Rodgers Joining the Steelers: While initially surprising, the move aligns with offseason expectations and is expected to have significant implications for both the quarterback and wide receiver DK Metcalf.

• DK Metcalf's Enhanced Fantasy Value: Rodgers' tendency to target top receivers like Metcalf is projected to boost his target share and PPR points, making him a valuable late-round pick in fantasy drafts.

• Steeler's Offensive Strategy: With Rodgers at the helm, the Steelers are likely to maintain a balanced attack, leveraging their strong running game while capitalizing on Rodgers' passing efficiency.

• Player Rankings and Draft Strategy: Caleb Johnson remains a solid pick at running back, and DK Metcalf should be considered a late-round high-reward option. Other receivers like George Pickens and Travis Hunter are also discussed as potential options depending on team needs.

• Team Dynamics and Future Moves: The possibility of the Steelers adding more receivers or tight ends could impact current player values like Pat Friarmuth and Roman Wilson.

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Notable Quotes:

• Adam Azer [04:14]: "Aaron Rodgers is going to throw the ball to DK Metcalf. I'm going to say DK Metcalf. I think he could have a career high in target share this year."

• Dave Richard [05:19]: "I believe DK Metcalf has had more than 7 targets per game for 5 straight seasons and has been over 15 PPR points once."

• Adam Azer [08:56]: "Did you know that Aaron Rodgers has been top 10 in running back target rate in four of his last five seasons?"

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This episode of Fantasy Football Today offers in-depth analysis of Aaron Rodgers' move to the Steelers and its positive ramifications for DK Metcalf's fantasy prospects. The hosts provide valuable insights into player rankings, draft strategies, and team dynamics, making it a must-listen for fantasy football enthusiasts aiming to optimize their teams for the upcoming season.

Transcript

[Adam Azer]

Welcome to this bonus edition of fantasy Football Today, Adam Mazer and Dave Richard breaking down the breaking news. Dave with a jacket today looks sharp.

[Dave Richard]

Just came from CBS Sports HQ where I was asked to give some fantasy analysis on the big news, which is.

[Adam Azer]

The J.K. dobbins had dinner with the Broncos.

[Dave Richard]

He had steak.

[Adam Azer]

Oh wow.

[Dave Richard]

And a Merlot to go with it.

[Adam Azer]

And Dave, how did he have that cooked? No. Okay, let's get to the real.

[Dave Richard]

Although this is where Jamie would make a joke about how if he was like me, he would have had it sent back. But of course you're going to send your steak back if it's garbage. No, the big news clearly the Colts. Michael Pittman limping off practice. Anthony Richardson with his shoulder. Is that the big news?

[Adam Azer]

No, big news is Aaron Rogers, big time Aaron Rodgers is reportedly going to sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers. I think we've been operating all off season as if that was going to happen.

[Dave Richard]

So now this isn't big news because we kind of figured that that was going to happen.

[Adam Azer]

It's not. But you know, we have, we have new audience members. Right. We're into June. Not everybody's been listening since February or March or whenever. So let's talk about it. Look, let's get this out of the way. He's a super flex quarterback and that's it for now, right?

[Dave Richard]

Yes. Okay, agreed. I think, I think there's 20 other quarterbacks I'd rather have.

[Adam Azer]

But he does, he does play at the jets in week one. Do you think he'll crack your top 20?

[Dave Richard]

I. There's going to be 24 other quarterbacks I'd rather start in week one than Aaron Rodgers.

[Adam Azer]

It is a poetic revenge game. He also plays the packers this year if he does in fact sign with the Steelers. That's not official yet, but. All right. So biggest impact with this Roger signing is for who?

[Dave Richard]

I would guess it's going to be DK Metcalf. But I mean because the targets would have been terrible if they were coming from Mason Rudolph or somebody else at Steelers picked up off the scrappy and he will probably be the first Steelers player taken in fantasy drafts followed closely by Caleb Johnson. I don't think there's going to be many other Steelers players that we're going to be real excited to take. There might be like one more, two more if you include the DST and a 1 QB draft that actually get picked.

[Adam Azer]

Rogers had the second most pass attempts in football last year. He played every game. But the jets were fourth or fifth in past Attempts overall. Do you think Arthur Smith gets away from his run heavy tendencies now that he has a more seasoned quarterback? He really, he did have Matt Ryan. I think they threw the ball a decent amount that year.

[Dave Richard]

I'll check 60.9% of the time, which is, I would agree, decent. Yeah, yeah, like that's not so bad. You'll take 60, especially from somebody like Arthur Sm. But that's the, the career high pass rate for Smith as a play caller. Six years into his NFL play calling career, I'm gonna guess that the Steelers fall under that mark. I'm gonna guess that Rogers actually is gonna like not having to throw the ball 34, 35 times per game. And that the Steelers with, with their rookie running back and improved offensive line, they try and win games, you know, the Steeler way, which has typically been running the ball, dominating defenses up front and then leaning on the pass when needed.

[Adam Azer]

I say this a lot. The thing I like the most about Aaron Rodgers. Do you see that?

[Dave Richard]

I didn't see anything. What happened?

[Adam Azer]

You notice anything about me about my shot?

[Dave Richard]

Your hair looks nice today.

[Adam Azer]

Yeah, my background fell off the wall again. So it's just a big time for a new background. You know what? It could be time for thumbtacks. I, maybe I should just stop with the tape.

[Dave Richard]

What have you been using? It's been a four year old draft board. What have you been using?

[Adam Azer]

Scotch tape. Just a lot of scotch tape.

[Dave Richard]

Oh God.

[Adam Azer]

I want to put holes in the wall.

[Dave Richard]

You know, I think professional here, look at this. This is, this is state of the art museum glass behind me right here.

[Adam Azer]

Well, yeah, you have a very good background. Anyway, Aaron Rodgers just, he, he's got, finds one target and he just goes there over and over and over again. First six games of the season, Garrett Wilson was on pace for 190 targets. Then they traded for Devonte Adams. Last 11 games of the season, Devonte Adams was on pace for 176 targets. He averaged 10 targets per game while sharing the field with Garrett Wilson. I even think if you look at Alan Lazard for half of the season and then Christian Watson got healthy and he started getting those targets. And they're not just targets, they're red zone, green zone, end zone targets. Aaron Rodgers is going to throw the ball to DK Mecca. I'm going to say DK Metcalf. I don't know his highest target share of his career. Target share. It's always tough to look at that because you miss a game, it hurts your target share. But I think he's going to have a. I think he could have a career high in target share this year. I don't know if it's going to be a career high in targets, but he's going to get a lot of them and he's going to get the most important ones. And I really like this for DK Metcalf. When I said this a few months ago, I don't think people were really on board. I don't know how you feel about it, but I think this is really good for him.

[Dave Richard]

I believe DK Metcalf has had more than 7 targets per game for 5 straight seasons and has been over 15 PPR points once.

[Adam Azer]

You know, look, usually before last year. Last year was a disappointing year, but usually he was always finishing around wide receiver 22 or something like that.

[Dave Richard]

Right.

[Adam Azer]

That.

[Dave Richard]

So. So I think you draft them. You try to draft them a little bit lower than that. Try and take them as like one of the best wide receiver threes in fantasy. Because I think you're right. The. The targets should be there for him. I don't think the Steelers will throw the ball a crazy amount of the time, but still you're going to see a large share going to DK Metcalf. And Metcalf was on his way. I think he averaged like 15.1 PPR points per game before he got hurt last year. Remember when he got hurt, he got carded.

[Adam Azer]

Yeah.

[Dave Richard]

And it looked like that was like the end of a season. He came back. He wasn't the same guy. I don't. I don't necessarily want to judge him for that. I. I think 14 PPR points is a real fair expectation for him. And that's right about what Garrett Wilson averaged playing with Aaron Rodgers all year last year, with most of that time being the number two target getter. And Garrett Wilson finishes inside the top 24. So I've got Metcalf 25th.

[Adam Azer]

Yeah.

[Dave Richard]

In my receiver rankings. And. And I think that that's a fair spot to put them at. And I think you're looking at like, round late round five, early round six. Somewhere in that range.

[Adam Azer]

Yeah. Okay, so would you like DK Metcalf or George Pickens?

[Dave Richard]

I believe I have Metcalf over Pickens.

[Adam Azer]

Travis Hunter or DK Metcalf?

[Dave Richard]

Believe I've Hunter over Metcalf.

[Adam Azer]

Okay. Jerry Judy or Metcalf?

[Dave Richard]

Judy over Metcalf. I want to give you a couple of interesting stats.

[Adam Azer]

Yeah, go for it. And then let's finish up. We'll just talk about Friarmouth and anyone else just to get it out of the way.

[Dave Richard]

Okay, so the first one is one you probably could have predicted. The last time Aaron Rodgers averaged over 20 fantasy points per game was 2021. And it's, it's only been two years because we, we shouldn't count 2023 against him. He didn't play that much. But it's been a while since he's been good for fantasy. Here's the one that surprised me. This is a team stat. The jets last year saw the fewest, the lowest rate rather of eight men in the box, 12.4% of their running back runs. That tells me that defense is still worry about getting beat by Aaron Rodgers and to a degree his best receivers. Jets had some good receivers last year, so it's not like the defenses were like I think that they were worried about getting beat by Aaron Rodgers but also the receivers played a role to it. I wonder if that's going to replicate this year and that teams playing the Steelers are still going to be concerned about Rogers beating them on longer throws and that could open things up for the run game. And you know that Arthur Smith loves to run the ball. They've got a fresh running back in Caleb Johnson. Johnson's going to be in that same range for me. Maybe a little bit later than DK Metcalf, at least in full ppr. But round six type pick with Aaron Rodgers under center and the team will still run the ball a lot. I'm kind of intrigued. I want to see where, where that could go. I still think Caleb Johnson's going to be the 1A and Jalen Warren will be the 1B. But Johnson might end up getting maybe one or two more touchdowns than we could have projected if certainly way more if it were Mason Rudolph. But I think he's, I think he could get to seven or eight as a rookie.

[Adam Azer]

Did you know that Aaron Rodgers has been top 10 in running back target rate in four of his last five seasons?

[Dave Richard]

That's great.

[Adam Azer]

That neato.

[Dave Richard]

Yeah.

[Adam Azer]

Yeah. So in our consensus rankings we have Caleb Johnson 25th at running back just after David Montgomery and Quinshawn Judkins ahead of Aaron Jones. And then Jalen Warren is 30th in our consensus PPR rankings. So got a question here from Mike Adam. Do you think I could use this to gaslight my league mates into letting Caleb Johnson fall to 202 in a 12 team league? So that would be in a dynasty draft? Well, I'm going to tell you this. I'm doing a super flex dynasty Drafts. Right now we're at 2001 and Caleb Johnson is still on the board. I do believe he's going to select it at 200 1. There's only been two quarterbacks taken, Ward and Dart, so that surprises me.

[Dave Richard]

I, I would have expected Caleb Johnson to be picked already.

[Adam Azer]

Yeah, Judkins went eighth and then after that it was Matthew Golden, Colson Loveland, a Mecca Abuka and Jackson Dart. So, I mean, when you, when you.

[Dave Richard]

Line up Judkins versus Johnson and you think about which, which team's going to score more points just in a vacuum, you'll lean toward the Steelers and you think about the play callers. Both of them love to run the football. I know Judkins is good. He's going to split just like Caleb Johnson will. I think you can make the case that Caleb Johnson's the better fantasy pick.

[Adam Azer]

Absolutely. You can make that case. So, all right, any other takeaways like Friarmouth or Roman Wilson, anything like that?

[Dave Richard]

Friarmouth was always in the streamer tight end category. I don't think anybody's drafting Firemuth as like a blue chip. Let's wait three or four weeks and see what happens. If you like the matchup against the jets. The jets are changing their safeties and obviously there's a big, you know, scheme change with their new coach coming in. Maybe that's an okay matchup for Pat Friarmuth. Obviously that's contingent on the Steelers not adding anybody else. Our NFL insider at CBS Sports, Jonathan Jones believes that they are trying to add somebody else and it could be Johnu. That would obviously change things quite a bit. It could be another receiver somewhere else that we're not thinking about. That would obviously hurt Pat Friarmuth. He's a late round pick. Roman Wilson's a good route runner and he's got good hands. So I wonder if Aaron Rodgers takes a liking to him. Provided that, you know, Roman is like able to run routes and he's healthy and all that. And I think he has been. Maybe put him on your radar with a late round pick in full ppr, but that's a. It's a big maybe. And again, it's contingent on the Steelers standing pat and not making any more moves.

[Adam Azer]

Well, it's interesting that the jets and Steelers traded quarterbacks basically, at least for, you know, it's the first six games for the Steelers.

[Dave Richard]

Yeah, and we talked about it, man. Like Roger's efficiency just overall wasn't as good as Fields was in six games last year. In fact, Rogers was closer to Fields in 2023 than Fields in 2024. The obvious difference being touchdown rate Rogers threw. He had 28 touchdowns last year. Seven of them came against the Dolphins and Jaguars late in the year.

[Adam Azer]

All right, well, we get to see them in Action Week 1 on CBS. All right. For Dave Richard, I am Adam Azer. Thanks so much for watching this bonus podcast and listening to this bonus podcast. We'll talk to you on Monday. Have a great weekend, everybody. See you.

[C]

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