Hurts was 22nd in the league in passing attempts, 21st in passing TDs, and 20th in passing yards. They dominated the league, went 14-3, and won the SB. Devonta Smith is still there and is one of the better WR2s in the league. Saquon Barkley is still there and one of, if not the, best RBs in the league (and he is predominantly the reason for the passing numbers changing from what they were in 22/23 to what they were in 24).
AJB a top 5 WR talent in the league, sure, I don't see much debate to be had there. Top 5 fantasy WR? I think you'd need a long term Barkley injury to get those results. We've seen 0 indication the team is changing their formula coming into this season, and why would they coming off a SB win. I'd say WR12 feels just about right for ADP. I wouldn't fight too hard maybe a couple spots higher, but top 5 fantasy finish seems like rose colored glasses to me. It's not a knock against AJB's talent; just an acknowledgement of his situation. I also don't want to be spending a second round pick on a player who likely needs a star teammate to get an injury to open up his ceiling.
The situation is this is the 4th year in a row with a new OC, and he missed 4 starts last year.
If he missed zero games last year, projected off last year's 13 game pace he would have had:
87/1411/9 - Looks top 5 to me or am I off here?
And that is with the offense being run the way last year as you describe it.
Word out of early reports are this run/pass ratio won't be this intense as last year, namely due simply to the fact that Saquon had like 500 total touches.
They know they need to tone that back a little and also, not be predictable and change things up some.
I'd expect nothing less than Top 10 floor for AJB this year.
You would def know the bolded better than me. Barely pay attention to this kinda stuff about the Steelers, let alone the other teams in the league. If that's the message the organization is openly putting out there in August, I can see some people wanting to bump AJ Brown up a bit.
The rest probably isn't worth debating because people will just be split on them, but I'll try to at least touch on my thoughts on them. I don't do projections and feel like most of them don't make sense to me, but if I took away one thing from them I do like, it's the places that project for 15 games. Because injuries happen, and as unpredictable as most of them are, I think it's safer to project everyone missing a couple. Especially players who've already had multiple seasons where they've missed time.
And I just have a hard time believing the Eagles aren't going to lean heavily on Barkley, even if that is what they are saying right now. We hear teams talk like this and it feels like it's almost as not likely to happen as it is to happen. You feed your best players. Especially when that blueprint just won you a championship.
I'll keep repeating my same disclaimer referencing ADP, it's so early a lot can and probably will change. Half my sources I usually pull from still aren't really updated. But FP right now has AJB WR10 and ADP 18 overall. I think that's fair and pretty much right on the money. But there is not one WR ranked ahead of him right now there that I would put behind him. That's just me so it's not really worth much haha; just where I'm at and not much right now is making me feel like I need to move off that. At the same time, I would not be betting money against AJB finishing top 5, or even be surprised if it happens. He's uber talented. I just like the odds of other guys in front of him better.
