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FFT Express - Daniel Jones Re-Signs With Colts! Fantasy Football Impact & 2026 Outlook! (03/11 Fantasy Football Podcast)
00:17:04
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- [00:02]
A
Hey, Sal.
- [00:02]
B
Hank.
- [00:03]
A
What's going on?
- [00:04]
B
We haven't worked a case in years.
- [00:05]
A
I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy.
- [00:08]
B
Too easy.
- [00:09]
C
Think something's up?
- [00:10]
A
You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day.
- [00:18]
B
It sounds like Carvana just makes it
- [00:20]
A
easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. Guys, by now you've heard me talk about collars. And company makers of the dress collar polo. They've already sold over a million of these amazing shirts. Well, collars and co just came out with the new Maverick performance blazer. This blazer is sharp and wrinkle resistant, so you can travel anywhere with it. Just throw it in your bag and it will remain wrinkle free. It even comes with security zip pockets, a sunglasses loop, and an optional pocket Square. So visit collarsandco.com and use code TIKI for 20% off@collarsandco.com all right, Daniel Jones back to the Colts. Two years, $88 million. We'll talk about it right now on Fantasy Football Today express. And welcome, everybody. Adam Azer, Jimmy Eisenberg, Dave Richard. So Daniel Jones has been in the league for seven years and you think it really hasn't been that good of a career. And you're, you're not necessarily wrong, but in three of those seven seasons, he's actually been a top 16 quarterback per game, fantasy relevant guy. You take out a couple of partial games there. Top 14 quarterback per game in three of seven seasons. Not too bad. And last year was certainly his best. Jamie, what's your reaction to the Colts bringing Daniel Jones back?
- [01:39]
C
I mean, we obviously kind of expected this when he got the transition tag, so. And then on top of that, you know, Alec Pierce seemed to make it clear that if he wanted to play with Daniel Jones. So when they gave Pierce this mega deal, it kind of, I think, spoke to the fact that they were going to work something out with Jones. They accomplished everything they wanted to this off season, you know, keeping both of their top two free agents. I think in the case of Daniel Jones, you're not going to draft him in one quarterback leagues. You'll certainly draft him in super flex and two quarterback leagues. You hope that he's ready to go. And Schefter reported that, you know, seems to be on track potentially for, for training camp, which is encouraging coming off the Achilles tear. So if he's ready for week one, maybe we get a repeat performance and maybe we get another situation where you're picking him up off waivers and you can start him at some point during the season. I wouldn't expect many rushing yards clearly coming off of this injury, but given the fact that he's got Pierce, he's got Tyler Warren for year two, he's got Josh Downs and a strong run game to support him, I think he can end up being in that low 20 point per game range, which is where he was for the first nine weeks of the season before that the fibula injury where he broke his leg. So there's a chance for him to be a decent fantasy quarterback. Just not what I would consider a superstar.
- [02:47]
A
And Dave, you kind of agree with that. I don't think anyone's going to be drafting Daniel Jones.
- [02:53]
B
Whenever I evaluate a quarterback from here until August, the first quarterback I'm going to compare him to is Malik Willis. And who would I rather have on my fantasy roster or in the fantasy draft? He'd go on my fantasy roster. I drafted him. Do I take the quarterback who we've barely seen but has huge rushing potential or do we take this other quarterback and in this case it's Daniel Jones? Not even near where I would take Malik Willis, especially since we assume that Willis will be the starter in Miami. The rushing upside is just too great. And Daniel Jones has rushing upside. I just, I wonder how much of it will be there with him coming back from the Achilles injury, how often he will run, how effective of a runner he will actually be. Did you know that 20% of his fantasy points last year came on runs? It's because he scored five touchdowns on the ground. That was a huge help for his numbers. It's why he averaged north of 20 fantasy points per game. I don't know how much of that he does in 2026 and it makes me nervous to look at him. I think Jamie said it best like a low end, number two type of quarterback that you're only going to draft in super flex and two qb.
- [04:02]
A
Yeah, but here.
- [04:03]
C
Right.
- [04:03]
A
I mean, I agree. But just to say this, you're right about the touchdowns. Right. He did have the rushing touchdowns, but he was actually having his worst rushing season. Lowest rushing season of his career. Career low in attempts per game. Even if you remove the Jacksonville game where he left in the second quarter. Career low in attempts per game. Career low in yards per carry. In fact, Daniel Jones was on pace for only 227 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns in his healthy games in his best seasons with the Giants two, but two seasons he was on pace for over 700 rushing yards. He had been on pace for more than 450 rushing yards in five straight years. Last year he stopped running, so he did have the touchdowns. But I do think that's a little bit encouraging because when he had the good year in 2022 with the Giants, he was on pace for over 700 rushing yards.
- [04:54]
C
Right.
- [04:55]
A
This past year, like I said, on pace for 227 rushing yards, seven rushing touchdowns in his healthy game. So he did it as a thrower with a 4,300 yard pace, 22 touchdowns to 10 interceptions. That was the 17 game pace for, for Daniel Jones. I've said the word pace a lot, but Dave, you know, when you think about that, he's coming off the 20 killers. It's, it's obviously a big deal whether you're a pocket passer or a mobile guy, but at least he showed that he could be a better passer. Last year, his, his passing numbers, completion percentage, yards per time, everything was through the roof, career high.
- [05:28]
B
Yeah, he was great. It's a great offensive scheme. He had a bunch of targets to throw to. He's still going to have most of those targets. The only guy he's lost is Pittman and they might even add somebody in the draft who knows. But between Pierce downs and, and I kind of feel like Downs is a guy we should dig into a little bit more as the off season rolls on. And of course, Tyler Warren, I think that those are all great options. I just. A lot of the touchdowns he had last year, they were from the goal line. I don't know how many times his number is going to be called from there, given his, his health from the knees down.
- [06:00]
A
All right, Jamie. Daniel Jones did lose his. His top touchdown catcher. He threw 19 touchdowns. Seven of them went to Michael Pittman. We'll talk about the rest of the Colts when we come back on Fantasy Football Express. Also, a huge mistake that I made a couple of days ago that I'm going to rectify shortly. We'll be right back. Look, taking care of your mental health shouldn't be harder than taking care of your physical health. If you pull a muscle, you go see a doctor. But finding the right therapist, it can be tough and it can be expensive. That's where Rula comes in. R U L A Rula makes therapy simple, affordable and fast. They work with most major insurance plans and the average session copay is just $15. And with Rula, you're not just matched and left to figure it out. They check in and make sure you're actually making progress. Every therapist on the platform is licensed, vetted, and picked for their expertise. So you know you're talking to someone legit, not just whoever happens to be available. I know so many people who have benefited and continue to benefit from therapy. It's a total game changer. And it's really important to take care of your mental health. Thousands of guys have already used Rula to finally get the care they needed. Don't keep putting it off. Go to rula.comfft and get started today. That's R U L A.comfft take the first step, get connected, and take control of your mental health. All right, welcome back to Fantasy Football Today Express, guys. I saw it on Twitter. I couldn't believe I didn't think of it. Sorry, I have to get something queued up. Michael Pittman going to the Steelers. He is literally Pitman now. I didn't even get that. All right, so that's a, that's a big issue for me. But Jamie, talk about this offense here. I, you know, one guy that he threw to a lot was Tyler Warren. And he threw Tyler Warren when Jones was healthy and I think for the full season, led the team in red zone targets, green zone targets. So maybe this has been a sneaky good off season so far for Warren. But what do you think about the Colts?
- [08:02]
C
Again, it comes down to how healthy Daniel Jones is. You know, you referenced that he's had three good seasons. And, you know, Thomas, if you're watching on, on YouTube, you know, put up the graphic of what his injuries have been. He's never had consecutive seasons of playing well, whether due to injury or performance. And so can he do it in back to back years and support his receiving core in back to back years? And I think part of that also speaks to, you know, you asked Dave about what he can do as a passer. It is following spending some time in Minnesota with Kevin o', Connell, and we've seen what this has been either in short stints for guys like Baker Mayfield with his brief time with Sean McVeigh, or Sam Darnold sitting for a season in San Francisco and getting coached by Kyle Shannon and that group. So it does, you know, hopefully continue through 2026. And I think for the, for the receiving core here, like Dave said, we got to look a little bit harder at Josh Downs and see can he take a step forward and maybe get back to what he was two years ago when he was a Pretty decent fantasy option down the stretch. Obviously Alec Pierce, we're all expecting to take a step forward because he should get, as we discussed on Monday, his at minimum target per game boost just from 5.6 to 6 plus, which is where Pittman was at. Pittman was 6.5, so hopefully that's the case. And, and Dave, you know, alluded to this yesterday that there was a report from ESPN that, you know, he may be looking at eight plus targets per game, which would be great. Obviously Tyler Warren was fantastic in the first nine games of the season when Daniel Jones was healthy. And so hopefully that's the case as well, that we have, you know, a healthy Daniel Jones, the two top target getters playing at a high level and the third guy now being downs also taking a huge step forward. So they're going to be very good fantasy options. Warren's going to be a top 5ish tight end on draft day. Pierce will be a borderline number two wide receiver on draft day downs, I think will start to get steamed up a little bit. Where he'll be borderline number three receiver would be my guess based on adp, if not a middle number three receiver, you know, if things just sort of fall in place for him. But it really all comes down to can Daniel Jones pick up where he left off, show that the broken leg was part of the reason for the start of the decline and then obviously the Achilles tear and that's why the whole offense fell apart. So I think there's a lot of good pieces. I think Shane Steichen's a good coach. I think the offensive line is very good. Obviously Jonathan Taylor's a stud, so everything sort of is there for the Colts to still be a very successful offense. Just a matter again, how healthy is Jones and where will he sort of be in year two in this offense?
- [10:25]
A
Yeah, Jones, do we know exactly when the broken fibula was it the game before the buy?
- [10:31]
C
That's what I, I mean, it was reported for week 10. Right. You know, he, he was going to play through it in week 10 and so then he played essentially three games with it. Right. If I'm not mistaken, 10 and then there was a buy in there and then.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah, then, then 12, 13 and then got hurt in week 14. So yeah, he didn't play that poorly. The fantasy numbers were good, but he basically stopped scrambling. You know, down in those games it wasn't, wasn't rolling out as much.
- [10:56]
C
When I, when I wrote the story about him getting the transition tag, I kind of just looked at the first nine games, because I think that's just the way you want to evaluate them, you know, if you want to azer static, you know, where was he in the healthy games? You know, and, and obviously it's not fair to take out the bad games, but, you know, again, playing through a broken leg, playing obviously, you know, at less than 100, you started to see where everything, you know, sort of went downhill. And now you could say, okay, there's nine games of tape on him. There's nine games of what, you know, the Colts are doing. Taylor was a monster through the, the early part of the season. Then he started to, you know, tail off a little bit as well as we know. So I think it's just maybe kind of a combination of injury offense sort of changing a little bit. You know, Daniel Jones may be, you know, the, the becoming a pumpkin, you know, if you want to use that analogy again and again and again. There's just, there's just. To me, that's the data point that I want to look at. What were they in the first nine games when he was healthy? And obviously their offense was much better.
- [11:51]
B
22.8 fantasy points per game in those first nine.
- [11:54]
C
Yeah, he was good.
- [11:55]
A
That's terrific.
- [11:56]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [11:57]
A
And they had the number one offense in the NFL before he got hurt. So, yeah, it was a great year for him. Let me, you know, Dave, just digging into some of the data, Let me tell you a few things that were different for Daniel Jones, because I come back to that quote from John Mara, the owner of the Giants from four years ago now, I guess, where he said, we've done everything we can to screw this kid up.
- [12:20]
C
Right.
- [12:20]
A
They never had a good offensive line. They never had a good receiving core. So he had his lowest sac rate, his second lowest pressure rate, and one thing that I that his highest explosive play rate by far, but his highest play action rate. Daniel Jones had the second highest play action rate in the NFL last year behind Matthew Stafford. And not only that, he averaged over nine yards per attempt, 9.2 yards per attempt on play action, which was sixth best in the NFL. He was never really that good on play action with the Giants except for as a rookie. So that I think is. Is kind of maybe a reason, like looking under the hood of why they had this great run game. They had a better offensive line. He was really good on play action.
- [13:10]
C
He obviously had a great run game with the Giants too, at one point.
- [13:12]
A
Yeah, I don't remember what year that was. Barkley came, was A year before Jones. Right. So I don't think he really had that great of a. I think Barkley. Right. Barkley had the 2018, I believe, great run game then wasn't ever really great after that. Had some injuries, so I don't know, I thought, I thought the play action thing really jumped out to me. Dave, we. It's something we really like to see in the NFL. And he executed great on it and did it a ton.
- [13:39]
B
You can look at other stats like ADOT and time to throw and off target rate and most of those stats are in line with what he did with the Giants too. So I, I think you found that type of thing that made him a little bit different in Indianapolis. And it goes back to what I said about the, the scheme and the play caller and the play calling and Shane Steichen just kind of had a good rhythm to put Daniel Jones into and it worked out and the blocking was better up front. I think it's as simple as that.
- [14:11]
A
Hey, Jamie, you know what, Looking at Saquon Barkley. So Jones came into the league in 2019. Barkley was 2018. So his best year with the Giants was before Daniel Jones, but his second best year was 2022. And that was the year where Daniel Jones was a, you know, rushed for 700 yards, was a top 12 quarterback and they went to the playoffs, they won a game. Right. So maybe there's something there. Maybe he needs a good run.
- [14:36]
B
Minnesota?
- [14:36]
A
Yeah. I mean, you know, bad defense. But I don't know, I just. Food for thought, Jamie, it's that the run game could really help Daniel Jones.
- [14:45]
C
He's definitely somebody that, you know, Dave's right. Like, you know, Malik Willis should definitely go ahead of Daniel Jones. I think it comes down to when you get to that tier of like Cam Ward and Bryce Young and those type of guys that, you know, tua, you know, now with Atlanta, those type of quarterbacks that either are going to be retreads or, you know, guys that haven't proven themselves yet and you start to just think about, okay, does everybody in your league take two quarterbacks? If the answer is yes, then, okay, do you want to prioritize too early, the second quarterback early, or are you going to be the, the quarter, the. The manager who waits. And I think if you get Daniel Jones with your last pick or second to last pick, whatever the case may be, third to last pick, you're looking at it as okay, if everything falls into place again, you got to steal if everything falls in what his career has been for the majority, then you're probably looking for somebody else at some point. So he's got upside. We saw it. It's. You can't ignore it. If he gets back to running, it's even more upside. But it's just hard to expect coming off an Achilles tear, losing a weapon, his, you know, totality of what he's been like. There's just not a lot, a lot to love going into the season. If he proves himself, you got another guy that we got. You got the guy that we got last year, and if he's over 20 points per game, it's. It's a huge addition off the waiver wire. You know, I don't think when we got to the end of the season, I don't even think we mentioned him as one of the best waiver wire ads. And he probably should have been in that discussion because for the first nine weeks of the season. 22.8, whatever it was. 20, 29. Yeah.
- [16:13]
A
No, 28.
- [16:14]
C
Yeah. Like, that's better than what Jacoby Brissette was. And we were making the case for him in the second half of the season because he helped a lot of people win fancy championships. That was.
- [16:21]
A
That made him 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 QB, 9 per game in the first nine weeks.
- [16:27]
B
Daniel Jones first nine games was equal to Jacoby Brissette's last 12.
- [16:32]
A
Oh, wow.
- [16:33]
B
22.8 on the dot for both of those guys. And Brissette would have been way higher if he didn't tank at the end of the season. His last three games weren't very good.
- [16:41]
A
All right, guys, thank you. That was 15 minutes on Daniel Jones. Pretty interesting player.
- [16:46]
C
Once upon a time. That was your dream.
- [16:48]
A
Yeah. How about that? Talking about Daniel Jones for 15 minutes. All right, well, good luck to him. Good luck to the Colts. Exciting offense last year. Hopefully they can keep it going because they were phenomenal for fantasy. And we will talk to you next time. There's news on fantasy football today.
- [17:09]
C
Paramount podcasts.