Analysis Best Sports Picks Divisional Breakdown NFC North

NFC North Divisional Podcast Recap for 2024

July 23, 2024
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Kicking off the NFC deep dives on how the Ballers see the divisions playing out, the guys head to the young and exciting NFC North. There are a plethora of players in this division who are relevant to Fantasy on every team.

The Detroit Lions, the story of last year, took that next step and were a few plays away from making the Super Bowl. We saw the emergence of Jordan Love for the Packers. Minnesota endured injury nightmares with Justin Jefferson and Kirk Cousins missing significant time. Then Chicago had the number one pick in the draft, thanks to Carolina, so they moved on from Justin Fields and drafted Caleb Williams. Expectations for every team in the division are sky-high, making for a fun breakdown and an even more exciting fantasy season from the NFC North.

To watch the full episode on YouTube, check the link below:

If you want to go even deeper into the NFC North- check out the UDK, which is full of tools, articles, and videos to help you dominate your Fantasy Drafts.

Detroit Lions (12-5)

The Lions were the talk of the town last year. Detroit was the only team since 2000 to have a top-10 QB, 2 top-12 RBs, a top-5 WR, and a top-5 TE. They were up by 17 points in the NFC Championship game and watched the lead slip away to miss out on their first Super Bowl appearance. They spent the offseason getting critical parts of their team signed to new contracts and look prepared for a great season.

Andy is very high on the Lions and thinks they could have upper-echelon performances from Jared Goff and Jahmyr Gibbs, with a surprise performance from Jameson Williams. The Ballers have mentioned several times that the start for the Detroit Lions looks fantastic for Goff. Andy sees Detroit’s coaching staff as similar to how fantasy managers look at Kyle Shanahan. They will do what they do, and the machine will continue.

From an NFL perspective, Jason understands Andy’s point that the Lions as a team should be just as good or better than last year. Favored in 13 of their games, the Lions have the highest number of returning players and coaches from a successful team and a great offensive line. However, from a fantasy perspective, there could be a problem. The defense last year ranked dead last in Yards per Pass Attempt Allowed when Blitzing. They were 27th in passing yards allowed and in passing TDs allowed. That made them spend their first two draft picks on CBs to strengthen the defense’s back end.

Good defenses do not make for good fantasy outputs because you lose some of those shoot-out high-scoring games that help boost fantasy assets throughout the season.

The other bad news with this team is that you pay the premium price for the known commodities. Amon-Ra is going as the WR4, LaPorta is TE1, and Gibbs is RB4. That means you are not getting a discount on those key players. Goff is still a later-round target, especially when paired with a young upside quarterback. Montgomery is in the sixth round of most drafts despite seeing the 5th most red zone touches among RBs last year and having 90% of his fantasy points come from on the ground. Then there is Jameson Williams in the 10th round, who has done nothing for fantasy football but could be a player who steps up into a more significant role and becomes fantasy-relevant this year.

The LaPorta conversation is interesting because we have never seen a rookie TE do what he did. He had the most receptions, the most TD receptions, and the second most 1st-downs. But, according to his stats, he was way over-produced in the scoring department based on the number of yards he caught. 10 TDs on 889 yards sounds like a great season, but his expectation of TDs on that many yards was 6.5, so he outperformed expectation. That should be exciting, except that over the last decade, every TE that had 10+ touchdowns with less than 900 yards receiving regressed the following year in the TD receptions.

All of that negative goes against the fact that a rookie going into year two should be a player we think will progress and get better. Is LaPorta going to take that next step? The opportunity is there, and the offense should be good, so there should be a chance that he meets expectations.

As mentioned before, the beginning of the year looks very good for the Lions and Jared Goff specifically. For some context, we know now that Goff is a QB worth playing at home or in a dome. In the 17 games Goff has played in Detroit the last two years, he has thrown for 4,712 passing yards and 43 TDs. He had seven top-12 finishes last year. Six of those seven were indoors. Goff and the Lions start the year at home against the Rams. In week two, Detroit is at home against Tamp Bay. In week three, the Lions traveled to Arizona, a dome team with a not-great defense. Week four sees Detroit face off against Seattle, who were atrocious last year. That four-game stretch to start the season looks great for both the Lons as a team and Goff as a player.

Also, Goff has only three games scheduled at outdoor stadiums over the whole year. That schedule gives Goff the situations he likes best for producing good fantasy games pretty often this year.

Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery both were fantastic for Fantasy last year. They were the first pair of teammate RBs in NFL history to have at least 1,000 scrimmage yards and ten rushing touchdowns in the same season. They both missed time at points due to injury; when that happened, the other was an even more valuable RB. Gibbs, drafted in the first round, is coming into his second season, and he should see his workload increase, making him an exhilarating player going into the 2024 season. Montgomery is a sixth-round running back who produced many touchdowns last year. He may not get as many goal-line touches as the previous year, but he could still be a valuable fantasy piece behind the excellent Detroit offensive line. Add in that he would have tons of work if Gibbs did miss time, and there is little reason not to draft Montgomery, who is in the sixth round.

Before they moved on, the Ballers did want to mention that they think you should draft Amon-Ra St. Brown. He is fantastic, and there should be little doubt that he will continue to be great. He has the third most receptions ever for a player through his first three seasons. St. Brown is the offense’s focal point, and you should have no fear of taking him in your draft.

There is always a risk of injury that comes with football, and the biggest issue with the Lions is that they are all drafted so highly. Any injury could hurt your roster because of what you have to pay for the players.

Vegas Predicts 10.5 wins for the Lions this season. 

Green Bay Packers (9-8)

Last year’s story was that Jordan Love proved he deserved to be a first-round pick, and they let him be great in the offense. The team was 13th in points per game over the year, which could significantly improve this year.

The Packers are a team that looks great, and you have no idea what to do with the different pieces in fantasy football. The receiving game is full of possibilities, and no one you are comfortable with making a crucial part of your fantasy roster. Jayden Reed looked good last year when Christian Watson wasn’t on the field. Watson struggles to get on the field from health. Later in the draft, Romeo Doubs flashed at points but never fully delivered any consistency. Then the new hotness is Dontayvion Wicks, who played a decent amount last year and ranked first among Packers WRs and 17th among all WRs in 1st-downs-per-route-run.

So there is a bit of fear in drafting these players simply because there is no clarity on who the best option is for fantasy football. The team should be good, but for a team that should be good, the first WR drafted is in the late sixth round, which shows that everyone is unsure of what to do with these players. There will be players from Green Bay who produce and are upper-tier players for Fantasy, but with all the confusion and mouths to feed, it is hard to figure out who to trust.

Mike points out that Jayden Reed looks like an outstanding player but that his type of player, a primary slot guy who is a real efficiency monster, doesn’t typically have that top-15 ceiling. Meanwhile, Christian Watson has the physical ability to break fantasy football. He has 12 receiving TDs on only 69 total receptions. He is incredibly volatile because 29 percent of his targets over the last two years have been 20+ yards down the field, but that can make him a weak winner for Fantasy. These two guys are opposites of each other. Watson has a higher ceiling but is very risky. While Reed lacks that elite ceiling, it is much safer for your team with what you should expect.

Mike points out that as he goes into drafts, he has widdled it down to Watson or Wicks being the two Mike wants to take, but if his team build has some riskier options already, he pivots to Reed or Doubs as the safer quality depth pieces to target. Andy disagrees and believes that what he saw out of Reed last year as a rookie looked like the best WR they had on the team and he thinks the level-up could happen. Especially since he won’t have to do the injury dance with Reed like he would with Watson

All of that should tell us that Jordan Love is probably under-drafted because of the talent he has to throw the ball to. The WR core is deep and talented. The Packers had two TEs who both looked good last year. Musgrave missed significant time due to injury, and Kraft will start the offseason on the PUP, but they still offer quality pass-catching ability to the offense. Jordan Love can throw touchdowns to plenty of options, which he did well last year. Love had the 2nd most passing TDs last year with 32, the second most air yards, and the second most red zone pass attempts. The coaching staff trusted Love to make plays, and he did it. The offense, as a whole, tied for 2nd on most red zone passing touchdowns. Love through 18 passing touchdowns and no interceptions from inside the 10-yard line.

However, there is a possibility that this is his best year, and he digresses to more normal QB play. Over the last decade, 48 QBs have had a season with 30+ passing TDs and a 5.5+ percent touchdown rate. Love is one of that group, but only eight players increased their touchdown rate the following year. Tom Brady and Russell Wilson did it twice, and Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Josh Allen, and Patrick Mahomes have all improved. Everyone else saw a decrease of an average of 1.5 percent. So, can Love show he is one of the greats, or is he like many others who have had great seasons but gotten worse over time?

Love and Reed or Love and Watson could be an adorable stack to grab, mainly because you could get those stacks without having to invest high draft capital on any players to get that stack.

The big surprise of the offseason for the Packers was letting Aaron Jones leave and bringing in Josh Jacobs. It seems like a surprise, but the team only had four rushing touchdowns last year on 368 attempts. That is the fewest rushing touchdowns for a backfield with more than 350 attempts since 2016. So, the Packers decided to get younger with Josh Jacobs, and the Packers put faith that last year was an outlier of a bad year and that he could return to form under their coaching staff.

Chris Unger/Getty Images

There is a risk and reward to Josh Jacobs. If he returns to form, he could be an absolute steal in the third round of your draft. But, the risk is that head coach Matt LaFleur has repeatedly said that he prefers a committee approach to the backfield, which could mean less work for Jacobs. So it isn’t about who gets the ball first. It is about who is the most efficient with the carries. Jacobs had a dip last year in efficiency and has never been a very efficient runner earlier in his career. He found fantasy success when he had massive volume.

The Packers also drafted Marshawn Lloyd, who Daniel Jeremiah had ranked as his number-one RB in the scouting process. He is an explosive rookie with a good breakout age. The coaches say Lloyd is so fast and explosive in space that they want to get him plenty of work early in the year. If he can take advantage of those opportunities and solidify himself, he could be a steal in drafts. Lloyd is being drafted in the 13th round and could become one of the late-round players who is a league winner if Lloyd proves to be the best running back on this team. Andy wanted to point out that Lloyd had a bit of a fumbling problem in college and had the most petite hands as an RB at the combine, which could have created a stumbling block for him to stay on the field.

The Packers do have a decent schedule to start. The first game is on the road in Brazil against the Eagles, but after that, it is at home versus Indianapolis, at Tennessee, and home vs. Minnesota. Besides that first game, the season looks like a good start for the Packers.

Vegas Predicts 10.5 wins for the Packers this season. 

Minnesota Vikings (7-10)

Last year was a challenging year for the Vikings. Injuries plagued the team, losing Justin Jefferson for long stretches of the year, and Kirk Cousins lost for the season in Week 8. The team won seven games last year and now opens with a 6.5 win total, according to Vegas. They have the sixth most challenging schedule of the year and a brutal division to play against.

The team could struggle in the first year without Kirk Cousins after he left the team for Atlanta. The Quarterback question is looming over the team, with Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy both vying for the number one spot. When your quarterback is a question of this magnitude, it brings into question every player on the team.

Especially the running back position. The team brought Aaron Jones, who opted for him over Alexander Mattison. Jones came alive over the back half of the year and in the playoffs, where we went on a six-game run with 17, 24, 21, 27, 22, and 24 opportunities. He also produced five straight games with 100+ rushing yards in that time. So the last time we saw healthy Aaron Jones, he was great. Starting in 2023 as the RB1, He was injured and struggled to return, but when he returned, he was excellent again.

All of that is great, but we know that more often than not, running backs for Fantasy are from good teams. If this team struggles to score and make a QB change partway through the year, and then Ty Chandler can eat into the workload, there is a clear path for Aaron Jones to disappoint this year, even with his relatively affordable cost of RB18. Chandler did average 14 opportunities from Week 10 last year, and in Week 15, he had 157 total yards and finished as the RB4 on the week.

The only player that no one should question is Justin Jefferson. He is a different player level, and you should feel confident drafting him. Last year, he proved that he could succeed regardless of quarterback play. When Kirk Cousins started with Jefferson, he finished as the WR8, 12, 5, and 5. Then, at the end of the season, with Nick Mullens as the starter from Week 15-18, Jefferson went WR26, 6, 38, and 2. He wasn’t relatively as stable as he had been, but still proved that he could produce the high-end scores we expected.

Jefferson’s ceiling is probably lower than in the last few years due to QB play, but he is also one of the most likely players to be a top-10 WR for fantasy football. Last year, he had the most receiving yards in NFL history, 1,074, in a season with only ten games played. He is as reliable as they come, and you should enjoy getting that quality WR.

The other wide receiver is Jordan Addison, entering his second year in the NFL. Addison excelled down the field and intermediate routes last year, regardless of who his quarterback was. He has off-the-field trouble from his driving issue, which has overshadowed a player who could be very exciting this coming season.

The Vikings start the season with a brutal schedule, starting with going to the Giants, then at home for San Francisco, at home for Houston, to Green Bay, and back for the Jets. Then they have a bye week in Week 6.

This difficult start of the season right into an early bye week looks to all the outside observers as the perfect schedule for a Week 6 bye week QB change. Sam Darnold will most likely be the starter to go into the season. If he is winning and the team is good, then he might be a starter for longer, but against some of those defenses, if Darnold struggles, then the bye week is a perfect time for the team to pivot to rookie J.J. McCarthy.

The start could be even worse, with T.J. Hockenson most likely missing the beginning of the season recovering from his injury last year, and the before-mentioned issues for Addison could cause him to miss time as well.

There are a lot of reasons that fantasy managers should be worried about grabbing any of the Vikings players, even Jefferson, slightly. The good news is they have a head coach in Kevin O’Connell, who seems to have figured out how to get his offense to produce fantasy football. They have some exciting pieces, but it doesn’t look promising from a Birds Eye view in Minnesota.

Vegas Predicts 6.5 wins for the Vikings this season.

Chicago Bears (7-10)

The Bears went 2-6 in one-score games last year, which helped end the Justin Fields experiment. According to Warren Sharp, they have the third most manageable schedule and have started the new rookie quarterback, Caleb Williams.

You can’t look at much of what last season was like for this team because everything has changed. The only good news for the Bears last year was that they were the number one rush defense against the run, but they were also 31st in sacks. Regardless of how funny that sounds, that shows the kind of growth the team had on defense, and they should do so again under defensively-minded head coach Matt Eberflus. Who is currently the betting favorite to win Coach of the Year?

Chicago did everything they could to provide pass catchers for Williams. They brought in veteran WR Keenan Allen, D.J. Moore, who broke out last year, is still under contract, and they rafted Rome Odunze with their 9th overall pick in the draft. The Bears also gave him a reliable pass-catcher out of the backfield by bringing in D’Andre Swift. Cole Kmet, who is a monster in the red zone, is still with the team, and they signed Gerald Everett, who may be past the point of breaking out but is still very reliable.

Willams is entering as great of a situation as any number 1 draft pick.

The running back situation is probably muddier than people think. Swift looks to be the stand-out option, but fantasy managers shouldn’t forget about Khalil Herbert or Roschon Johnson. There is a fair debate over which back will end up as the number two RB for the team. According to drafters, it is clearly Herbert, but Johnson is the younger player who could be in line for a year two level up. It is also possible both backs see time in games, and the workload is split across all three players. The offensive scheme likely won’t result in many rushing attempts under the new OC, Shane Waldron. When he was in Seattle, the offense ranked in the bottom 10 in rush attempts every year.

The WR room is also exciting, as there is a lot of talent in the room, but they depend on a rookie QB to help get them into fantasy relevance. Rookie quarterbacks do not produce like your typical NFL quarterback, especially for wide receivers. Expectations need to shift, while number-one pick QBs have produced better WR stats in the first year, especially for their number-one WR. But this issue is compounded by the fact that there are three very talented WRs for the passing game. Caleb Williams could have one of the best rookie seasons of all time, yet it still may not produce a reliable fantasy pass catcher.

Williams is going as the QB11 in the eighth round of fantasy drafts, which is pretty fair for where he should be this season. Last year, CJ Stroud threw for 4,108 yards and 23 passing touchdowns. That helped him finish as the QB11, so the Ballers put Jason to the test on whether he thinks Williams can put up that kind of numbers, and he took the under despite being the most bullish of the trio on Williams’s outlook this season. The question on Willams is similar to Stroud, Burrow, or Herbert. They are not prolific runners, so a fantasy-producing mindset caps their ceiling due to the lack of rushing yards and touchdowns.

The other problem that the thought experiment brought to light is 4,100 yards, 23 touchdowns spread out among three elite WRs, a quality TE, and pass-catching backs that do not look like a perfect pie for the other players on the team. If it were one or two guys, the output would be better, but the three-wide offense that Waldron likes to run means the targets are spread out and hard to predict week-to-week.

The team could be much better on the NFL field, but it would be much worse for Fantasy than last year. Where you knew it was D.J. Moore, it was Justin Fields, and then everyone else was a break glass in case of injury candidate.

Some games could be massive and exciting, and the team could look unstoppable, and there could be other weeks where they struggle. That consistency struggle is where the rubber meets the road for the Bears as fantasy options this season.

The Ballers did have a quick discussion to wrap up on D’Andre Swift. The Ballers wanted to point out that Swift ran behind an incredible offensive line last year, and this year, he won’t have that same kind of opportunity. He won’t have to run against many stacked boxes, similar to last year, but the downgrade is enough that his RB21 draft price feels more likely to where he will finish. This draft area is fine for an RB2; if you want to draft him to fill that role on your team, don’t expect some massive step up from where you take him. He is a good RB, but not an RB that will suddenly break out and be one of the best in the game.

Vegas Predicts 8.5 wins for the Bears this season. 

NFC North Predictions:

https://www.thefantasyfootballers.com/analysis/nfc-north-divisional-podcast-recap-for-2024/

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